APPEAL FOR PEACE IN THE MOLUCCAS

VATICAN CITY, JAN 5, 2000 (VIS) - At the end of today's general audience, which was held in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope made the following appeal for peace in the Moluccas:

"May Bethlehem's message of peace which, over the last few days, the Church has again proposed to the world, forcefully resound in those places tried by misfortune and war. (May it resound) especially in the Moluccas, where the ethnic and religious conflict which has been affecting those Indonesian islands for some time has recently flared up in the bloody conflicts of previous weeks.

"'Peace on earth to those whom God loves!' May this message, fixed in everyone's hearts, break the chain of reprisals, heal the wounds of hate and, distancing once and for all the temptation to violence, encourage Christians and Muslims to see themselves as members of the one human family and to reconstruct mutual harmonious relations, in justice and forgiveness."

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