Pope Benedict says he'll focus on assimilating JPII's teachings

 

ATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI said he does not plan to issue many new documents in his papacy, but instead will focus on assimilating the teachings of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

The pope also said he hopes to visit Poland, the late pontiff's homeland, sometime next June.

He made the comments in an interview broadcast by Polish television Oct. 16, the 27th anniversary of Pope John Paul's election. Vatican Radio made a transcript of the interview available online.

Pope Benedict spoke movingly of his continued affection for the late pope and said he was engaged in a "permanent dialogue" with him.

"A man who goes to the Lord doesn't disappear. I believe that someone who goes to the Lord comes even closer to us," the pope said.

"The pope is always close to me through his writings. I hear him and I see him speaking, so I can keep up a continuous dialogue with him," he said.

Pope Benedict noted that his predecessor wrote 14 encyclicals and countless other letters and documents, many of them aimed at helping the church understand "what the (Second Vatican) Council wanted and what it didn't want."

"All this is a rich patrimony that has not yet been assimilated by the church," the pope said.

"My personal mission is not to issue many new documents, but to ensure that his documents are assimilated, because they are a rich treasure. They are the authentic interpretation of Vatican II," he said.

Pope Benedict recalled his two last encounters with Pope John Paul. In early February, he visited the pope in the hospital because he needed his decision on some matters. Though unable to speak much, the ailing pontiff followed the briefing attentively and communicated his decision in a few words, he said.

He saw Pope John Paul again the day before he died and found him "visibly in great pain," but very lucid.

"The patience he showed at this time of suffering was a great lesson to me: to see how he believed he was in the hands of God and how he abandoned himself to the will of God," he said.

Pope Benedict said his predecessor had left his mark on the world and on the church. In addition to his contribution to the collapse of European communism, he said, Pope John Paul created a new sensitivity for moral and religious values and raised the profile of the papacy.

He earned recognition as the spokesman of Christianity and as the spokesman of the great values of humanity shared by non-Christians, too, he said.

Inside the church, Pope John Paul used his personality and charisma to "infuse enthusiasm for Christ in young people," Pope Benedict said. At the same time, the late pope guided Catholics toward an "internalizing of the faith" by highlighting the Eucharist, divine mercy and devotion to Mary, he said.

Pope Benedict said he already had held talks with the pope's former secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow -- Pope John Paul's former archdiocese -- about a possible trip to Poland next June. The pope said he has every intention of making the trip "if God wills it and if my schedule allows for it."

Earlier in the day, the pope addressed tens of thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter's Square and praised his predecessor as "a contemplative and a missionary" who found spiritual strength in long hours of prayer.

"Near his tomb in the Vatican grottoes there is a continual pilgrimage of a great many faithful, and this, too, constitutes an eloquent sign of how much the beloved John Paul II has entered into people's hearts, above all for his witness of love and devotion in suffering," he said.

Pope Benedict said the late pope's attachment to Mary was exemplary for the whole church. He encouraged the praying of the rosary, which Pope John Paul promoted, saying it was an ideal complement to Scripture and the Mass.

The pope thanked God for having given the church and the world "such a worthy successor to the apostle Peter."