Pope Benedict speaks after the Mozart concert. (Momentary relief from the SSPX matter)

Yes, I suppose I must comment about the SSPX matter, so that my position is on record, but I am determined to do something that has been pushed out of priority all week. Leutgeb and Clare A, sorry this was delayed.

After the concert in the Sistine Chapel Benedict gave a little speech. From it we learned that he and his brother first heard the Mozart Mass in C Minor together when he was fourteen years old. "I understood that we experienced something other than a simple concert, that it was music at prayer, the divine office, in which we almost could touch something of the magnificence and beauty of God himself, and WE were touched." After the War the brothers often heard the Mass together, "and for this reason it is deeply inscribed in our interior biography."

Benedict continued that this music "is not a superficial gratitude given lightly" to God by Mozart, but shows forth the composer's "interior struggle, his search for forgiveness, the mercy of God and, then, from these depths, his joy in God shines more brightly than ever."

In front of the small assembly (which according to Vatican Radio included about 25 friends from Germany) the Pope addressed his brother: "The 85 years of your life were not always easy," he said to him, before revealing that their parents lost all their saved money in the 1930s. "Hope and joy" had returned for both Georg and Joseph when they returned to the seminary and were eventually ordained together. In the face of everything that has happened since then, "we always perceived the goodness of God who called us and guided us." Then Pope Benedict recalled that Georg had discerned almost from the outset that the exercise of his calling as a priest would include the use of his musical gift. He concluded his address with a prayer:

that God "would give you, dear Georg, more good years to continue to live in the joy of God and the joy of music and to continue serving people as a priest. ......And we pray that he will allow all of us one day to enter the heavenly concert to experience completely the joy of God."

Sources: CNS; Joan Lewis Vatican Radio