RELATIONS BETWEEN HOLY SEE AND COMMUNIST STATES (1963 - 1989)

VATICAN CITY, JUN 27, 2000 (VIS) - Today in the Holy See Press Office, Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano and Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches, presented the memoirs of the late Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, former secretary of State. The volume is entitled "The Martyrdom of Patience" and deals with relations between the Holy See and Communist States between 1963 and 1989.

Also taking part in the event were Mikhail Gorbachev, former Russian president; Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission and Lamberto Dini, Italian foreign minister.

Cardinal Sodano explained that he the then met Msgr. Casaroli in 1960 and that, between 1968 and 1978, had occasion to assist him on a number of diplomatic missions. The book, he added, "reveals to us the great passion of his life: supporting Catholics in the Communist States and thus also contributing to bringing a new breath of liberty to their countries. Not for nothing did Pope John XXIII recall in those years that freedom is one of the four mainstays on which human co-existence is founded. In reality, such co-existence can be organized and fruitful only when founded on the columns of truth, justice, love and the equally important pillar of liberty."

The prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches observed that "The Martyrdom of Patience" is the fruit of the considerations to which Cardinal Casaroli dedicated the last years of his life. The book is "a narrative of relations between the Holy See and the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. It is a placid, attentive and judicious account; faithful to the facts and honest in documenting them while not seeking to hide difficulties and objections."

Former Russian President Gorbachev recalled that John Paul II's view that Europe must breathe with both lungs "is an idea that has not lost its strength, indeed, it continues to have great meaning." He affirmed that the words of the present Pope, when he said that the new European Order must be founded on greater stability and justice and on a more human world, "give rise to great emotion when I reiterate them in my journeys around the world."

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