Benedict XVI We have received the good news of a new Pope. The Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is the leader of the Catholic Church. The whole world was waiting for a new Peope, after having wept for the death of the irreplaceable John Paul II. God has his designs. We accept God's Will. I hope that the Spirit of God will help him to be at the service of the most needy. Dialogue with other religions and cultures is the need of the hour. As a theologian, the new Pope --I hope--will be open to pluralism, to the needs of the people who enjoy their faith, as well as to the needs and challenges of those who are 'atheists' or 'agnostics'. In the modern world of scientific and technological progress-- I hope--, he will be open to the challenges of science, thus developing further the dialogue between Faith and Science, Religion and Reason. As several analysts of modernity and post-modernity have already suggested, the new Pope will have to cater to the spiritual poverty of Europe, to the material poverty of Africa and Asia, and to the crisis of conflict and wars. We need Peace. It is not only fruit of human efforts--which are undoubtedly needed--, but God's gift in the human hearts... I hope that Benedict XVI will work, like the late John Paul II, with sound optimism, for "globalization of solidarity". Let us rejoice and pray for him!
Fr. Ivo da C.Souza
