POPE PRAISES ROACO'S AID TO ORIENTAL CHURCHES

VATICAN CITY, JUN 19, 2000 (VIS) - The Pope this morning welcomed the members of ROACO, the Italian acronym for the Assembly of Works of Assistance to the Oriental Churches, an organism within the Congregation for Oriental Churches, on the occasion of their second annual plenary session. He praised their work which, in recent years, has "responded in a more careful and attentive way to the demands and urgent needs of the Catholic Oriental Churches."

John Paul II recalled his recent pilgrimages to Mount Sinai and to Mount Nebo and the Holy Land where he met with the hierarchy and the faithful of the Oriental Churches. "What the Lord allowed me to experience in those days," he said, "prompts me to recommend to you and to all the Catholic faithful to always take to heart the Christian communities of the Holy Land and to support them in their needs."

He remarked that the Jubilee has been marked by the presence in Rome of a "significant number of representatives of Oriental Catholic Churches. ... In this way Rome makes visible the universality of the Church in the variety of rites and traditions."

"On this particular occasion," stated the Holy Father, "I repeat my invitation to all of you to make every effort possible to come to the aid of populations divided by fraternal conflicts or those of the Middle East still searching for stable paths of justice and freedom. The Jubilee invites us to concrete signs of fraternal charity which will open 'our eyes to the needs of all who live in poverty and marginalization'."

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