PAPAL LETTER TO FOURTH MEETING OF CHURCHES OF SICILY

VATICAN CITY, MAR 23, 2001 (VIS) - Published today was Pope John Paul's Letter to Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, archbishop of Palermo and president of the Sicilian Episcopal Conference, on the occasion of the Fourth Meeting of the Churches of Sicily, which is currently underway in Acireale. The meeting, whose motto is "In History, Leaven for the Kingdom," and whose theme is "Laity for the Mission of the Church in Sicily in the Third Millennium," ends tomorrow. The first such gathering took place in 1985.

The Pope thanked Sicilian Catholics for "the fidelity with which you are committed to adhering to the directives of the Magisterium in the many pastoral initiatives you have promoted."

He returned to the theme of his post-Jubilee Letter, "Novo Millennio Ineunte," that is, Christ's invitation, "Duc in Altum! Put out into the deep!" He invited the Church in Sicily to reflect on how to realize this call by Christ in order to "be heralds of the Gospel in our times." He then reiterated words he spoke at the 1995 meeting in Palermo: "Our time ... is not a time simply to preserve the existing, but rather a time of mission."

John Paul II underscored the laity's mission to holiness: "The lay faithful, disciples of Christ, become holy 'in the world' and 'for the world': they are inserted into temporal realities, into earthly activities, into the ordinary professional and social life, ... thus becoming in history and in time leaven for the Kingdom and for eternity."

Two duties of the lay faithful, he noted, are keeping the faith alive and a permanent part of one's existence, and spreading the faith. "As 'salt' and 'light', they are called to work prophetically in the family and school, in the spheres of culture and social communications, the economy and world of work, in politics and art, in the fields of health and where there is sickness and suffering, in sport and tourism, close to the marginalized and the many immigrants."

The Pope warned against "the temptation to reduce Christian communities to social agencies" and to take care not to practice a spirituality which is interiorized in an exaggerated manner, that is, it should be other-centered, not egocentric.

He dedicated closing remarks to communion: communion within parishes, among parishes and among dioceses. In particular he emphasized the need for "full and visible communion among Christians." In this regard, the Holy Father said: "Very meaningful in this sense, will be the prayer encounter, towards the end of your meeting, with Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople."

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