Argentinean bishop: “Benedict XVI was sent by God”

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Apr 28, 2005 / 22:00 pm

Bishop Agustin Radrizzani of Lomas de Zamora, Argentina, said this week Pope Benedict XVI was “sent by God” and he noted that “the announcement of his election brought us joy because orphanhood disappeared as the Lord gave us a new Vicar who would represent Him.”

During a thanksgiving Mass at the local Cathedral, the bishop said it was “very necessary that we learn to love the Holy Father because as of that glorious day of April 19, God has entrusted the leadership of the Church to him.”

“One perceives that love in the people because he was an intimate collaborator of John Paul II, because he is a man capable of understanding the problems of the world, because he understands the hopes and sorrows of our time,” the bishop said.

Bishop Radrizzani explained that the reason for this love is that “he has been given to us by God, and He knows what we need more than we do.”

“To love him means to see things differently than the world does, it means to constantly pray for him, that in his feelings of frailty before the mission God has given him, he might trust in the Lord and in our prayers,” said Bishop Radrizzani.

“We are all the Church and just as we all suffer the problems from problems in our family, so also we suffer from the problems in the Church, and we make the anguishes and sufferings of our beloved Pope our own,” he added.

Lastly, Bishop Radrizzani noted that God wishes to tell us something through the Pope.  “We heard him when, after invoking the intercession of the saints, he said he did not feel alone, and when he told us that his true plan of governing is not to do his own will, nor follow his own ideas, but rather to do the will of God.”