MERGED: Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Malta

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Abba said:
Pope Benedict arrived in the Mediterranean island of Malta Saturday to commemorate the 1,950th anniversary of the shipwreck of Saint Paul. He received a warm welcome in this strongly Catholic nation and encouraged missionaries to continue in “their challenging and often heroic vocation.”

www1.voanews.com/english/news/religion/Pope-Makes-First-Foreign-Trip-Since-New-Sex-Abuse-Claims-91248494.html
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Thankyou for sharing this.I am so excited about The Holy Fathers visit to the UK I do hope i get to a Mass!!
 
We should all pray for the security of the Pope during his travels. These are dangerous times for him. The lunatic fringe has been whipped into a frenzy by the incendiary headlines.
 
It was wonderful to see the welcome Pope Benedict received in Malta. It was also refreshing to hear these words come from the leader of a nation:
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"Holy Father,** we are proud as a nation to have inherited a Christian heritage which is at the core of our historical identity**, even though we are not a confessional state. We too are experiencing, like all the rest of Europe, the phenomenon of multiculturalism, but **this does not mean that we have to renounce to the beliefs which are our own. ****We still cherish a code of values, nourished by our Faith, such as the cardinal value of marriage and the family. ** We acknowledge that our Maltese family is undergoing rapid social changes and challenges, greatly influenced by current Western-world lifestyles and the ever-increasing secularization of the Maltese society. But the majority of our people still believe in monogamous marriage, based on the relationship between a man and a woman, open to the procreation of children, and consequently to the formation of a family as the bedrock of our nation.

We treasure the inviolability of the human person and affirm our full respect for human rights and uphold the principles of social justice by providing equal opportunities for all and ensuring that everybody has access to one’s basic needs. We are against human trafficking and cherish the sanctity of human life from its conception to its natural end. We believe in the values of freedom, equality and solidarity, the fundamental principles of democracy and of the rule of law." *
president.gov.mt/newsdetails?nid=589

I do pray for the safety of the Pope. It seemed like security was high.
 
One of the alleged abuse victims in Malta later said the meeting with the Pope - which lasted about 45 minutes - had given him huge spiritual courage.
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Speaking on local television, Lawrence Grech sobbed and was very emotional.
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He said he was now a lapsed Catholic, after his childhood experiences. But he added that he thought the Pope should not carry on his shoulders the guilt of others in the paedophile priest scandals.
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news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8628244.stm
 
NCR:
Victim in Malta: Pope had 'tears in his eyes’
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Valletta, Malta – One of the eight victims of sexual abuse who met Pope Benedict XVI today in Malta described the encounter as “very emotional,” saying most of those present were crying, and even the pope had “tears in his eyes.”
“I made peace with the church,” said Joseph Magro, one of the victims who met the pope.
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Magro has been among the most outspoken of ten Maltese men who recently came forward to say they were abused by Catholic priests at a church-run orphanage in the 1980s and 1990s. The revelations shocked this tiny island nation, in part because another of the victims linked his abuse in the orphanage to a horrific murder he committed in 1991, in which he killed a homosexual man with a hammer and then cut his body into pieces with a broken bottle.
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Another victim who met the pope, who asked to be described as “Immanuel,” said that the victims “will continue the fight for justice,” and insisted that they do not want money from the Catholic church.
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This was Pope Benedict’s third meeting with victims, after previous encounters in the United States in April 2008 and Australia later that same year.
In a briefing today for reporters, the Vatican spokesperson, Fr. Federico Lombardi, described the meeting as “intense” but “serene.” The eight victims in the meeting were all male, he said.
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