VATICAN - Benedict XVI honors the memory of Paul VI: “...the missionary ardor that animated him and encouraged him to make demanding apostolic journeys, even to distant countries, and to perform acts of great ecclesial, missionary and ecumenical significance.”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – “I am personally grateful to the Servant of God Paul VI for the trust he showed me in appointing me as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, in March 1977, numbering me among the College of Cardinals.” This was what the Holy Father Benedict XVI wrote in a Letter sent to Bishop Luciano Monari of Brescia, Italy, for the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the death of Pope Paul VI on August 6.
Recalling especially the missionary spirit of Pope Paul VI, the Pope wrote: “Remembering his years as Pontiff, it is especially noteworthy the missionary ardor that animated him and encouraged him to make demanding apostolic journeys, even to distant countries, and to perform acts of great ecclesial, missionary and ecumenical significance.”
“This Pontiff's name remains linked above all to Vatican Council II. The Lord has wished that a son of Brescia become the helmsman of Peter’s boat, right in the midst of the council and in the early years of its implementation. With the passage of the years the importance of his pontificate for the Church and for the world is becoming ever clearer, as is the priceless heritage of teaching and virtue which he left to believers and to all humanity.”
Benedict XVI concludes his Letter thanks to God “for having granted the Church a pastor who was a faithful witness of Christ the Lord, so sincerely and profoundly enamored of the Church and so close to the hopes and expectations of the men and women of his time” and expressed his desire that “each member of the people of God may know how to honor his memory through commitment to a sincere and constant search for the truth.” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 9/9/2008)