POPE PROCLAIMS THREE CO-PATRONESSES OF EUROPE AT SYNOD MASS

VATICAN CITY, OCT 1, 1999 (VIS) - At today's opening Mass in St. Peter's Basilica for the Second Special Assembly for Europe, Pope John Paul announced, to applause, that he had "the joy today of proclaiming three new co-patronesses of the European continent: St. Edith Stein, St. Bridget of Sweden and St. Catherine of Siena."

Noting that Europe was already under the "heavenly protection of three great saints: Benedict of Norcia, father of Western monasticism, and the two brothers Cyril and Methodius, apostles of the Slavs," he added: "I wished to include the same number of feminine saints in order to highlight the important role that women had and still have in the ecclesiastical and lay history of the continent up to our day." The Pope pointed out that the three co-patronesses "are linked in a special way to the history of the continent." He also underlined that "all three of them admirably express the synthesis between contemplation and action."

The synod for Europe, which ends October 23, has as its theme: "Jesus Christ, Alive in His Church, Source of Hope for Europe."

"In Christ and in His Church," said the Pope in his homily, "God never ceases listening to the joys and the hopes, the sadness and the anguish of humanity, whom he tries to reach with His loving solicitude even today. ... With the synodal assembly that begins today, the Lord wishes to issue a strong invitation to hope to the Christian people, pilgrims in the countries comprised between the Atlantic and the Urals."

"He, the Emmanuel, the God-with-us, was crucified in lagers and gulags. He has known suffering under the bombings, in the trenches. He has endured wherever man, every human being, has been humiliated, oppressed and violated in his inalienable dignity. Christ endured the passion of the many innocent victims of wars and conflicts which have bloodied the regions of Europe. He knows the serious temptations of the generations, readying to cross the threshold of the third millennium: the enthusiasm aroused by the fall of the ideological barriers and the peaceful revolutions of 1989, unfortunately, seems to have rapidly diminished with its impact with political and economic egotism."

The Holy Father them emphasized that "in this particular social and cultural context, the Church feels the duty to renew with vigor the message of hope entrusted to her by God."

"His invitation of hope," Pope John Paul told the synod fathers and guests present at today's Mass, "is not based on a utopistic ideology, like the ones during the last two centuries that have ended up by undermining human rights, and especially the weakest. It is, on the other hand, the unceasing message of salvation proclaimed by Christ: The Kingdom of God is among you, convert and believe in the Gospel!"

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