LETTER FOR THE OCCASION OF THE RETURN OF MACAO TO CHINA

VATICAN CITY, DEC 9, 1999 (VIS) - Made public today was a letter from the Holy Father to Bishop Domingos Lam Ka Tseung of Macao in which he expresses his spiritual closeness to the Catholic community and all those who will live the historical moment of the return of the territory to China on December 20.

In the letter, which is dated December 3, feast of St. Francis Xavier, patron of missions, the Pope writes that "the function of gateway of the Church towards China, assigned by divine Providence to the diocese of Macao and fulfilled during four centuries with alternating vicissitudes, will assume new forms" starting from December 20. This diocesan community "must strengthen its missionary vocation in the midst of the Chinese world, so as to become a point of reference and of spiritual support also for the numerous brothers and sisters in the faith who live dispersed in the vast reaches of China."

"At the vigil of the new century, and in the context of the Holy Year, now imminent," John Paul II adds, "may (the Church that is in Macao) know how to give impetus to its evangelical commitment, renewing with generosity and with audacity the methods and the forms both of the religious witness and of the valuable service which it provides in the educational, scholastic and assistential sectors."

Furthermore, the Pope requested that "it be a Church faithful to the significance of the name with which the city is adorned: 'Macao, City of the Name of God'." He concluded by exhorting the Church in Macao to "maintain in full its communion with the Universal Church, and, as in the past, may it always cherish its communion with the Church of all of China, to which it is now bound by a special civil link."

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