PENITENTIAL CELEBRATIONS LEAD TO CHRIST

VATICAN CITY, SEP 9, 2000 (VIS) - In the Vatican Basilica at 11 a.m., John Paul II received 2,500 Italian pilgrims from two dioceses and several parishes, as well as former students of the French seminary in Rome and faithful from the diocese of Saint Catherines in Canada.

The Pope recalled that today is the feast day of St. Peter Claver, "Jesuit priest, apostle to deported black people and model for those who still today make prodigious efforts to alleviate the conditions of the suffering. In the spirit of the Jubilee, his example helps us to comprehend one of the duties that arises from this fundamental event: attention to those who, constrained by circumstance, abandon their countries and suffer torment at the hands of those who take advantage of the poverty of others."

"Through individual confession and the special penitential celebrations of the Jubilee, as well as through the celebration of other Sacraments, the believer undertakes a journey that leads to Christ."

Addressing priests and bishops who were former students of Rome's French seminary, the Holy Father encouraged the directors of the seminary to "carry out their mission, so important for the life of the Church, in the hope that the French seminary may continue to be, especially for the Francophone world, a special place for the flowering of numerous generations of priests, called to be 'heralds of the Gospel' for the new millennium."

The Pope expressed the wish that their stay in Rome would give pilgrims from the diocese of Saint Catherines in Canada, "a new and deeper experience of God's mercy, so that when you return to Canada you will bear more powerful witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world."

AC;JUBILEE PILGRIMAGES;...;...;VIS;20000911;Word: 300;