Enthusiasm and high costs
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The days were memorable: in September 2011, Pope Benedict XVI. guest in Breisgau. What traces did the head of the Catholic Church leave? What memories are left?
“The enthusiasm already shows how many people in our archdiocese and our neighborhood are looking forward to this unique event”, exulted Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg on November 19, 2010 when he announced the first papal visit to Freiburg in a press release. The unofficial scale of expectations opens up high, in the ordinariate as well as in the town hall. It is assumed that 300,000 visitors come from the archbishopric alone. Will as many as 500,000 people make a pilgrimage to Freiburg on the weekend of September 24th and 25th 2011 to experience this visit live after 200 years of diocesan and 2000 years of church history without a papal visit? Is the biggest day in its 890-year history about to begin for the small city?
Joseph Ratzinger prayed as early as 1978 at the Catholic Day in Freiburg Cathedral (at the side of Mother Teresa), but at that time he was “only” Archbishop of Munich, albeit a cardinal. But now comes …
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