ANGELUS: PRAY FOR PEACE IN YUGOSLAVIA, INDIA AND PAKISTAN

VATICAN CITY, JUN 20, 1999 (VIS) - Pope John Paul, before praying the angelus today with the faithful gathered in a rain-soaked St. Peter's Square, reflected on his just-concluded apostolic trip to his native Poland and, thanking the Lord "for this great occasion," said that "memories and emotions of great intensity come back to me."

"I still have engraved in my mind and heart the images of the places I visited and, above all, of the crowds of my fellow countrymen and the faithful who came from other countries, giving me a truly moving welcome wherever I went." The Pope recalled that "'God is love' was the theme of every stage of this pilgrimage: The Gospel of love, the Gospel of the Beatitudes, is the only one able to bring peace to hearts and to make social relationships serene and beneficial. Solidarity and peaceful understanding among individuals and peoples are born from the love of God and from peace with Him."

"As I say these words," the Holy Father added, "my thoughts go in a particular way to Europe, which bears the still bloody wounds of the recent conflict in Yugoslavia; it also goes to two countries in Asia, India and Pakistan, where peace is seriously compromised."

"Let us pray together," he concluded, "so that the peace process in Europe will be strengthened, and so that India and Pakistan will know how to undertake once again the path of dialogue, endeavoring to put an immediate end to the fighting and the violence and death that it brings."

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