POPE RECEIVES 4,000 PILGRIMS FROM HUNGARY

VATICAN CITY, OCT 9, 2000 (VIS) - In St. Peter's Basilica at midday today, John Paul II received 4,000 participants in a national pilgrimage from Hungary, led by Cardinal Laszlo Paskai O.F.M., archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest.

The Pope recalled that the two motives for the pilgrimage were the celebrations for the Great Jubilee of Christendom and for Hungary's own millennium. These represent "a precious occasion for conversion and for commitment to building a future worthy of your faith and of your glorious past - of which the family is one of the most fundamental elements."

"The complex problems facing the institution of the family," he went on, "must bring believers to rediscover and live the values of matrimony and of the family as they are proposed by the Church, in order to give new drive to the construction of the civilization of love."

Care for the family "will lead you to promote, at all levels, the culture of life that calls for defense of the human being from conception to natural death, promotion of the value of paternity and maternity and recognition for the fundamental role of women in domestic work and the education of children."

In closing, the Holy Father referred to the presence of a large number of Hungarian young people in Rome in August for World Youth Day. "The witness of these young people," he concluded, "their enthusiasm and their joyful faith, represent a sign of hope for all, one that instills courage and exhorts us not to be afraid of the future."

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