20,000 CURSILLOS CELEBRATE THEIR JUBILEE IN ROME

VATICAN CITY, JUL 29, 2000 (VIS) - This evening at 7 in St. Peter's Square, 20,000 members of the Cursillo Movement were welcomed by the Holy Father, who had come in for this event from Castelgandolfo. The meeting with the Pope followed Mass which was presided over by Cardinal James Francis Stafford, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

John Paul II, in his speech to them in six languages, observed that the members of the Cursillo Movement, present on all continents, are in Rome to celebrate their Jubilee, and to celebrate the movement's founding in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, by Msgr. Juan Hervas.

He stated that "the theme of this world Ultreya is 'Evangelizing milieux in the third Christian millennium: a challenge for the Cursillos of Christianity'." Ultreya, according to the Cursillo manual, is "a counter-environment of Christian friendship realized in a concrete manner once a week to combat the environment of the world." Cursillos means "little lessons."

The Holy Father, quoting the Apostolic Exhortation "Christifideles Laici," said this challenge "becomes ever more urgent since 'entire countries and nations, where religion and Christian life were once flowering and capable of giving rise to active and working communities of faith, are now sorely tried by the continual spreading of indifference, secularism and atheism'." He underscored the Cursillo approach of inserting "'new' men and women, made so through their encounter with Christ," into all milieux where people live and work.

"In the face of a culture which frequently denies the very existence of an objective Truth of universal value and which often gets lost in the 'quicksands' of nihilism, the faithful must know how to clearly indicate that Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life."

"As you are reminded daily in a prayer often used by the Cursillo Movement," he pointed out, "Christ has no hands, He has only our hands to change the world today. Christ has no feet, He has only our feet to lead this world to Himself. Christ has no lips, He has only our lips to speak to the people."

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