THE ECUMENISM OF MARTYRS IS THE MOST CONVINCING

VATICAN CITY, MAY 7, 2000 (VIS) - In Rome's Colosseum at 6 p.m. today, the Pope presided at an ecumenical celebration for witnesses to the faith in the twentieth century. Five thousand people braved the rain to attend the event, in which nineteen representatives of Orthodox, Protestant and Anglican Churches and ecclesial communities took part.

The event began with a 'statio' inside the Colosseum. Then the Book of the Gospel was carried in a procession, led by the Pope and representatives of other Churches, to the place of commemoration, outside the amphitheater.

After the Liturgy of the Word, during which the Gospel of the Beatitudes was read, the Holy Father pronounced his homily.
The Pope confirmed that the number of Christians who gave their lives for Christ in the twentieth century was, perhaps, greater than that of the early Christian period, and that all Churches had been affected.

"The generation to which I belong experienced the horror of war, the concentration camps, persecution. In my homeland, during the Second World War, priests and Christians were deported to extermination camps. In Dachau alone some three thousand priests were interned. ... I myself am a witness of much pain and many trials, having seen these in the years of my youth. My priesthood, from its very beginning, was marked 'by the great sacrifice of countless men and women of my generation'."

The memory of those who experienced persecution, violence and death "must not be forgotten, rather they must be remembered and their lives documented. The names of many are unknown; the names of some have been denigrated by their persecutors, who tried to add disgrace to martyrdom; the names of others have been concealed by their executioners."

John Paul II added: "Countless numbers refused to yield to the cult of the false gods of the twentieth century and were sacrificed by communism, nazism, by the idolatry of State or race. Many others fell in the course of ethnic or tribal wars, because they had rejected a way of thinking foreign to the Gospel of Christ. Some went to their death because, like the Good Shepherd, they decided to remain with their people, despite intimidation."

The Holy Father indicated that "the ecumenism of the martyrs and the witnesses to the faith is the most convincing of all; to the Christians of the twenty-first century it shows the path to unity."

"If we glory in this heritage it is not because of any partisan spirit and still less because of any desire for vengeance upon the persecutors, but in order to make manifest the extraordinary power of God, who has not ceased to act in every time and place. We do this as we ourselves offer pardon, faithful to the example of the countless witnesses killed even as they prayed for their persecutors."

After the homily the commemoration of the witnesses took place. The list of the 12,600 witnesses to the faith of the 20th century grouped them into eight categories covering the memory of Christian faithful from all continents and from different Churches and Christian communities: Christians who witnessed the faith under Soviet totalitarianism; witnesses to the faith who fell victim of Communism in other European countries; confessors of the faith who fell victim of Nazism and Fascism; followers of Christ who gave their lives for announcing the Gospel in Asia and Oceania; Christ's faithful persecuted for hatred of the Catholic faith; witnesses of evangelization in Africa and Madagascar; Christians who gave their lives for love of Christ and their fellows in America and witnesses of the faith in various parts of the world.
At the end of the ceremony, which lasted two and a half hours, the Pope expressed his special thanks for the presence of representatives from other Churches and ecclesial communities and made a call "to keep the memory of our brothers and sisters alive, and to imitate their example."

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