DEBBIE ELLIOTT, host:
Pope Benedict XVI has been receiving a rousing reception in his native Bavaria, where he's on a six day visit. It's a trip down memory lane, but the pope also wants to spur a revival of Christianity in what was once a bastion of Catholicism.
NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Munich.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI: With subway lines shut down due to tight security, pilgrims had to walk at least an hour to reach the open air mass site on the outskirts of the city. Some of them wore traditional Bavarian folk dress, lederhosen for the men, dirndls for the women. Once the smiling Benedict arrived at the alter, the German crown broke into a by-now-familiar chant, the pope's name in Italian.
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POGGLIOLI: Wearing white and green vestments, the Pope was flanked on the raised platform by 10 cardinals and 50 bishops from all over the world. But the mass was conducted almost exclusively in German. In his homily, the Pope tackled the issue that is of most concerned to him, the decline of Christianity in Europe and the growth of secularism. He said that in Western societies many people have become hard of hearing about religion.
POPE BENEDICT XVI:(Through Translator): Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God. There are too many different frequencies filling our ears. What is said about God strikes us as pre-scientific, no longer suited to our age. So we end up losing a decisive capacity for perception.
POGGLIOLI: Without making a reference to their specific religion, Benedict praised the people of the Third World for their strong spirituality.
POPE BENEDICT XVI: (Through translator): People in Africa and Asia admire our scientific and technical prowess, but at the same time they are frighten by a form of rationality which totally excludes God from man's vision.
POGGLIOLI: The message the pope is giving is dear to traditionalists in this Catholic heartland.
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POGGLIOLI: This small band of teenage boys, members of a conservative lay movement, Ajentis(ph), were waiting for the pope. Sixteen-year-old Lou Capinterish(ph) said he's not sure the pope along can invigorate the German Catholic church.
Mr. LOU CAPINTERISH (Catholic): German bishops don't like the pope very much. I think they are too liberal. They don't have the same interests like the pope has. For example, the Christian families, their children.
POGGLIOLI: Only 14% of German Catholics go to mass regularly and the church acknowledges losing 100,000 registered faithful every year. Tobias Rashke(ph), a young Catholic dissident, says it's not true that Germans have abandoned spirituality, but they're not looking for it in the church.
Mr. TOBIAS RASHKE (Catholic): When the Catholic Church talks, nobody listens, nobody cares, because people know we have our own conscience, we developed ourselves, and let the church do what they want. That's a nice (unintelligible) event, this visit of the pope, and that's it.
POGGLIOLI: The pope's schedule includes a visit to his birthplace and to Regensburg, where he taught theology and where his brother George still lives. Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Munich. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
