Pope Benedict made it back across The Pond in one piece and, evidently, he's feeling energized rather than exhausted by his U.S. visit. Earlier today he presided at a sad but glorious event — the funeral Mass in St. Peter's for the heroically pro-life Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, who died at 72 while the Holy Father was in the United States.
"At this moment how can we not emphasize the zeal and the passion with which he worked during these 18 years, with his untiring action for the defense and promotion of the family and Christian matrimony?" the Pope said at the Mass. "How can we not thank him for the courage with which he defended the nonnegotiable values of human life?"
And how can we not thank the Holy Father for utterly spending himself on behalf of the Body of Christ, undaunted by dumb headlines and provocative press, in the days of his life he expected to while away — a priest forever but a retiree for a time — in his beloved Bavarian homeland?
(David Pearson, http://pope2008.typepad.com/weblog/2008/04/home-in-rome.html)
