CARDINAL SODANO IS LEGATE TO CHURCH CENTENARY IN BRAZIL

VATICAN CITY, APR 27, 2000 (VIS) - Cardinal Angelo Sodano, secretary of state, was Pope John Paul's legate to the celebrations yesterday in Porto Seguro, Brazil, for the fifth centenary of the evangelization of that country. He presided at a concelebrated Mass on the beach of Santa Cruz de Cabralia where, on April 26, 1500, Brother Henrique de Coimbra, chaplain of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Alvares Cabral, planted the first cross on Brazilian territory and celebrated the first Mass.

Cardinal Sodano noted in his homily that 16 replicas of that first cross were made and, during the past year, were erected in Brazil's 16 ecclesiastical circumscriptions "to show communion in the same faith" which was brought to this land 500 years ago and has been passed down through the generations.

"We give thanks to God," he said, "for the profound evangelizing work which the Church of Portugal has providentially realized in this land. If we could paraphrase the Holy Father we would say that God is renewing his alliance with Brazil through the work of his valiant missionaries."

As "we praise the Lord by singing the 'Te deum' for the good realized in Brazil during these 500 years of her history," affirmed the secretary of state, "we feel the need to ask pardon for all the human meanness which obscured or sullied the Christian witness of the disciples of Christ. ... As we gather to thank God for the gift of faith, we wish at the same time to ask pardon if we have obscured the beauty of this gift transmitted to our brothers."

Cardinal Sodano told the faithful that Pope John Paul had wished to be present at this centennial celebration but was unable to do so because of Jubilee events in Rome. He expressed the Holy Father's hopes for "a revitalization of the faith and ecclesial unity" for the entire Church on the American continent.

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