ROME (CNS) Pope Benedict XVI said he felt a great sense of family and respect for the sacred during his weeklong trip to Africa. Speaking to reporters aboard his plane back to Rome March 23, the pope thanked everyone involved in the visit, including the journalists who covered it.
"I was particularly struck by two things: on one hand, an impression of this friendliness, of almost exuberant joy, Africa in celebration. And it seemed to me that in the pope they saw the personification of the fact that we are a family of God," he said.
"On the other hand, I was impressed by the spirit of concentration in the liturgy and a strong sense of the sacred," he said. There was no "self-presentation and self-animation" by participating groups at Mass, but a focus on the divine presence, he said.
The pope again expressed his sadness at the deaths of two girls trampled before the start of a papal youth rally in Angola and noted that one of the girls still had not been identified.
"Let us pray for them and hope that in the future things are organized so that this will no longer happen," he said.
The pope said that in Cameroon he had enjoyed a good conversation with members of a council planning the Synod of Bishops for Africa. He said he learned that some African church communities that have suffered are now in a position to help others on the continent.
For example, he said, the church in South Africa aided the country’s difficult but eventually successful reconciliation process. Today, South African Catholics are helping Burundi do the same and are "trying to do something similar even with the very great difficulties in Zimbabwe," he said.
The pope took no questions in his brief appearance in the journalists’ section of the Alitalia charter flight. The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, who accompanied the pope, wished the pontiff well as he turns his attention to his next trip: to the Holy Land in May.
