The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI spent the month of August his Summer Residence in Castel Gandolfo. Here, after three weeks in the mountains in northern Italy at Lorenzago di Cadore, for a period of rest, he resumed his usual engagements. Every Wednesday he flew by helicopter to Rome to give the General Audience, during which he resumed his teaching on the figures of some of the Church Fathers: Basil, Gregory Nazianzo, Gregory of Nissa. On August 9 the Holy Father received a group of young Catholics from the archdiocese of Madrid in Spain.
In his homily during Mass celebrated at Castel Gandolfo's parish church on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pope Benedict dwelt on two historical and multidimensional figures treated by St John in the Book of Revelation: First of all, there is the immensely strong, red dragon with a striking and disturbing manifestation of power without grace, without love, of absolute selfishness, terror and violence”, and “the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, surrounded by 12 stars ”, image of the Blessed Virgin Mother and Holy Mother Church. The Pope traced their realisation in the history of humanity and acknowledge their present day expression. The Dragon “exists in the form of materialistic ideologies that tell us it is absurd to think of God; it is absurd to observe God's commandments: they are a leftover from a time past. Life is only worth living for its own sake. Take everything we can get in this brief moment of life. Consumerism, selfishness and entertainment alone are worthwhile. This is life. This is how we must live”. “ it seems absurd, impossible, to oppose this dominant mindset with all its media and propagandist power […].it seems impossible to imagine a God who created man and made himself a Child and who was to be the true ruler of the world. […]it is still true today that God is stronger than the dragon”. Of considerable importance, within the Holy Father's rich Magisterium, was his Angelus reflection on 19 August, when he treated once again the theme of peace: “Christ's words mean that the peace he came to bring us is not synonymous with the mere absence of conflicts. On the contrary […]Jesus' peace is the result of a constant battle against evil. The fight that Jesus is determined to support […] is […]against Satan, the enemy of God and man”.