POPE PROMULGATES AND TRANSMITS APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION

VATICAN CITY, NOV 22, 2001 (VIS) - During a special ceremony celebrated this morning in the Vatican, the Holy Father promulgated and transmitted by e-mail the Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation "Ecclesia in Oceania." Participating in the ceremony were various cardinals, bishops, priests, and religious invited by the Synod of Bishops.

After a brief introduction by Cardinal Jan P. Schotte, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, and remarks by Cardinal Thomas Stafford Williams, archbishop of Wellington, New Zealand, John Paul II signed the exhortation and gave a discourse.

"I would have wished," the Pope said, "to visit Oceania once again, in order to present the fruits of the Synod's work. ... But it was not to be! ... In you I see the boundless ocean glimmering in the sun, ... the islands great and small. ... But most of all I see in you the peoples who are the true wealth of Oceania: the Melanesian, Polynesian and Micronesian peoples in their wonderful array; the Aborigines of Australia; the Maoris of New Zealand; the many immigrant peoples who have made Oceania their home."

During the Synod, which was held at the Vatican in 1998, he said, "we looked back upon the story of evangelization in Oceania, and gave thanks to the Father of all mercies for the magnificent work of the early missionaries. ... We heard the story of the remarkable development of the Church in your lands. ... The Synod rejoiced at the countless signs of holiness and justice present among the peoples of Oceania, a pledge of the springtime of faith for which we yearn and work.

"But," he continued, "we recognized too that the many challenges facing the peoples of Oceania at this time are summoning the Church to engage the Pacific peoples and their cultures with renewed vigor and conviction. The Synod heard of the economic crises, political instability, corruption, ethnic conflicts, ... of a genuinely spiritual crisis of meaning. ... Yet the bishops were in no way daunted by all of this. On the contrary, it became clearer ... that the Holy Spirit is calling the Church in Oceania to embark upon the great task of a new evangelization."

After highlighting that spirituality and the experience of communion flow forth "from the profundity of contemplation," as the bishops also recalled, John Paul II concluded with the hope that the Church in Oceania "give proof of ingenuity and an ever greater courage while setting out anew into the depths of the Pacific."

Following his discourse, the Pope distributed the document to those present and for the first time transmitted it by e-mail, in English and French, to all of the dioceses of Oceania. After a song by the choir and the concluding prayer, the Holy Father imparted the apostolic blessing.

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