VATICAN CITY, MAY 3, 2002 (VIS) - Made public today was a Message from the Pope to Archbishop Giuseppe Verucchi of Ravenna-Cervia, Italy to mark the millennium of the construction of the first church in Ravenna dedicated to St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague, and the dispatch to Poland of the monks John of Classe and Benedict of Benevento.
In the Message, which is dated April 23, the Holy Father writes that the plans of Pope Sylvester II and Emperor Otto III to evangelize represent "a stimulus for believers today to become ever more aware of the fact that the great mosaic of the social and religious identity of Europe has, in the Christian faith, one of the main factors of its most profound unity."
"On this jubilee anniversary, may the memory of Adalbert, Romuald, John and Benedict prompt this diocesan community and each individual Christian to safeguard the spiritual and moral dimension of Europe, giving the project for the unity of European peoples a 'transcendental anchor-point' through explicit recognition for the 'rights of God.' This is the only truly indisputable guarantee for the dignity of man and the freedom of peoples."
John Paul II continues: "Going beyond those technical, administrative, economic and monetary norms, which are nonetheless necessary, we must recover that authentic identity and that legacy of civilization of which Christianity is the fundamental component, the inspiration for the universalist European dream that has been maintained over so many generations."
Just as, thanks to their faith, Adalbert, Romuald, John and Benedict overcame "the temptations of petty existential and political concepts," now too "full adherence to basic Christian values such as spirituality, solidarity, subsidiarity and the central importance of the individual (will) enable Europe to develop harmoniously and to play an important role in the gathering of nations."
MESS;CHURCH MILLENNIUM;...;RAVENNA; VERUCCHI;VIS;20020503;Word: 310;
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