Thanks words of Benedict XVI on the occasion of receiving the honorary doctorate from the Pontifical University of John Paul II. and the Music Academy of Krakow (Poland), Castel Gandolfo, July 4 2015, a year after he had received the first edition of Sacred phones (Cellulari Sacri).

Eminence! magnificences! Dear professors! Ladies and gentlemen! In this hour I can only say a big word of heartfelt thanks for the honor you have bestowed on me with the Doctoratus honoris causa. My thanks go especially to the Grand Chancellor, Dear Eminence Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, and to the academic authorities of the two Academic Institutions. I rejoice above all that in this way my connection with Poland, with Cracow, with the homeland of our great Saint John Paul II, has deepened. Because without him my spiritual and theological path is unthinkable. He also showed us through his living example how the joy of great sacred music and the call to participate in the sacred liturgy together, how the festive joy and the simplicity of the humble celebration of the faith can go together.

At this point an age-old contradiction had broken out with new passion in the years after the Council. I myself grew up in the traditional region of Salzburg. The festive masses with choir and orchestra were a natural part of our faithful experience of the liturgy. I will never forget how, for example, with the first sounds of Mozart's coronation mass, the sky somehow rose and the presence of the Lord could be experienced very deeply. But at the same time the new world of the liturgical movement was already present, especially through one of our chaplains, who later became subregens and regens in Freising. During my studies in Munich, I grew into the liturgical movement through the lectures of Professor Pascher, one of the most important experts on the Council, and above all through the liturgical life in the seminary community. In this way, the tension between the participatio actuosa appropriate to the liturgy and the festive music overarching the sacred act became palpable, even if I hadn't yet felt it too strongly. In the liturgical constitution of the Second Vatican Council the sentence is quite clear: "The treasure of sacred music must be preserved and promoted with the greatest care" (114). On the other hand, there is the emphasis in the text on the participatio actuosa of all believers in the sacred event as a basic liturgical category. What is still peacefully coexisting in the constitution then entered into an often dramatic tension with one another in the reception of the council. Influential circles of the liturgical movement were of the opinion that in the future the great choral works and even the orchestral masses would only have a place in the concert halls, not in the liturgy. There can only be room for all believers to sing and pray together. On the other hand, there was the horror of the cultural impoverishment of the church that must have been associated with it. How can both be brought together? How is the Council to be realized in its entirety - these were the questions that came to mind for me and many other believers, both simple people and theologically educated.

Perhaps it is right to ask the basic question at this point: What is music anyway? What is their where from and what is their why? I think you can identify three places of origin of the music. - A first origin is the experience of love. When people were seized by love, another dimension of being opened up, a new size and breadth of reality. And it also pushed for a new way of expressing yourself. Poetry, song and music in general came into being through being touched, through being opened up to a new dimension of life. - A second origin of music is the experience of mourning, being touched by death, suffering and the abysses of existence. Here, too, new dimensions of reality open up on the other side, which can no longer be answered by talking alone. - Finally, the third source of music is the encounter with the divine, which is part of being human from the beginning. Here, all the more, there is something completely different and great, which evokes new ways of expressing oneself in people. Perhaps one can say that in reality the divine mystery also touches us in the other two areas – love and death – and in this sense being touched by God is the origin of music. I find it moving to see how, for example, in the Psalms even singing is no longer enough for people, but all instruments are called up - the hidden music of creation, its mysterious language is awakened. With the Psaltery, in which the two motifs of love and death are always active, we stand directly at the origin of the music of God's Church.

One can say that the quality of the music stands in the purity and greatness of the encounter with the divine, with the experience of love and pain. The purer and truer that experience is, the purer and greater will be the music that grows out of it. At this point I would like to put forward an idea that has been on my mind more and more lately, the more the different cultures and religions are related to each other. There is great literature, great architecture, great painting, great sculpture in the most diverse cultural and religious spaces. There is music everywhere too. But there is no other cultural area with music of the magnitude that emerged in the area of Christian faith - from Palestrina, Bach, Handel to Mozart, Beethoven and Bruckner. Western music is something unique, with no equivalent in other cultures. This must give us food for thought.

Of course, Western music extends far beyond the realm of the church and religion. But it has its inner source in the liturgy. This is very clear with Bach, for whom the glory of God was ultimately the goal of all music. In the encounter with the God who meets us in Jesus Christ in the liturgy, the great and pure answer of Western music has grown. For me it is proof of the truth of Christianity. Where such an answer grows, there has been an encounter with the truth, with the true creator of the world. That is why great sacred music is a reality of theological importance and of everlasting importance for the faith of all Christianity, even if it by no means has to be performed everywhere and always. But on the other hand it is also clear that she must not disappear from the liturgy and that her presence can be a very special way of sharing in the sacred celebration, in the mystery of the faith. When we think of the liturgy celebrated by St. John Paul II on all continents, we see the whole breadth of the possibility of expressing faith in liturgical events, and we also see how the great music of the Western tradition is not alien to the liturgy, but has grown out of it and thus always co-creating. We don't know how our culture and church music will continue. But one thing is clear: where there really is an encounter with the living God who approaches us in Christ, there is always an answer, the beauty of which comes from the truth itself. The work of the two universities that award me this doctorate honoris causa is an essential contribution that the great gift of music, which comes from the tradition of faith, remains alive and will help that the creative power of faith will not continue in the future expires. So I thank you all from the bottom of my heart, not only for the honor you have given me, but for all the work you do at the service of the beauty of the faith. The Lord bless you all. (rv)