Customarily, recent popes, while flying to visit some distant country, give an interview to journalists who are with the pope on the flight. On Benedict XVI's flight to Mexico, five questions were directed to him by reporters. The questions concerned naturally the spirit and problems of Mexico and touched on general issues of Catholic thought and purpose. Benedict gave very thoughtful and indeed profound answers to what might seem, at first sight, ordinary questions.
Benedict made it clear that he considered himself to be following the footsteps of John Paul II’s earlier and historic visits to Mexico. He recalled that Mexico had recently changed its many anti-religious and anti-clerical laws so the Church was now much freer to pursue its own religious purposes without excessive governmental control. Benedict recalls that he himself had previously visited Mexico as a Cardinal. In May of 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger addressed the Latin American bishops in Guadalajara on the condition of the modern intellectual world. (For discussion, see Schall, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, October 1997).
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