THE POPE ASKS FOR RELEASE OF KIDNAP VICTIMS IN COLOMBIA

VATICAN CITY, NOV 13, 2002 (VIS) - At the end of this Wednesday's general audience celebrated in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope made a new appeal for the release of Bishop Jorge Enrique Jimenez Carvajal and Fr. Desiderio Orjuela who were kidnapped in Colombia on November 11.

"This act, which increases the climate of the abuse of human rights and troubles the civil population as well as the Church, compels me to reject all violence and injury of human dignity, which is never a path to peace. While I fervently ask for the release of all those who have been kidnapped, and that these pastors will be able to once again exercise their service to the People of God, I raise my prayers so that God may grant the much longed-for peace to Colombia."

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PSALM 86: JERUSALEM, CITY OF PEACE AND UNIVERSAL MOTHER

VATICAN CITY, NOV 13, 2002 (VIS) - Psalm 86, "Jerusalem, the Mother of all peoples," was the focus of Pope John Paul's catechesis during today's weekly general audience held in the Paul VI Hall in the presence of 7,000 pilgrims.

"The hymn to Jerusalem, city of peace and universal mother, which we have just heard sung," began the Pope, "is unfortunately in contrast with the historical moment that the city is living. But the duty of prayer is that of sowing trust and generating hope."
He said that "the psalmist sees in Zion the origin of all peoples. After having declared the primacy of the holy city, not through historical or cultural merits but solely for the love that God shed on it, the Psalm opens precisely with a celebration of this universality that makes brothers of all peoples. Zion is sung as the mother of all mankind and not only of Israel. Such an affirmation is of an extraordinary audacity. The psalmist is aware of this. ... Zion is the mother of all mankind because it is 'the City of God': it is therefore at the heart of God's project."

"The four corners of the earth find themselves related to this mother," continued the Holy Father, who named Egypt in the west, Babylon in the east, Tyre "that personifies the commercial peoples of the north," and Ethiopia representing the deep south. "And Palestine, the central area, is also a daughter of Zion."

"It is evocative," he underlined, "to observe how even the nations considered enemies of Israel go to Jerusalem to be welcomed there, not as strangers but as 'relatives'. ... In Jerusalem, everyone must discover their spiritual roots, feel at home, see themselves as members of the same family, embrace each other as brothers who have returned home."

In conclusion, John Paul II spoke of "the mariological key" in which this Psalm can be read. "Jerusalem was for the psalmist a true 'metropolis', that is, a 'mother-city', in which the Lord Himself was present. In this light Christianity sings of Mary as the living Zion, in whose womb the Incarnate Word was generated and as a consequence the Children of God were regenerated."

Following today's audience, the Pope went to the Square of Roman Protomartyrs and blessed a statue of St. Maria Soledad Torres Acosta, foundress of the Servants of Mary, Help of the Sick.

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TELEGRAM AND DECLARATION ON KIDNAPPING OF BISHOP IN COLOMBIA

VATICAN CITY, NOV 13, 2002 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon a telegram in the Pope's name from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, secretary of State, was made public on the kidnapping of Bishop Enrique Jimenez Carvajal of Zipaquira and Fr. Desiderio Orjuela on November 11 in Colombia. The bishop is president of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM). The telegram was sent to Cardinal Pedro Rubiano Saenz, archbishop of Bogota and president of the Episcopal Conference of Colombia.

The Holy Father, says the telegram, "wishes to convey to the bishops of Colombia his intense participation in the pain that this act produces, together with an ardent message of encouragement to all the pastors and ministers of the Church, so that they continue their service to the Gospel and to the people of God in Colombia with generosity, despite difficulties and sorrows, working tirelessly to achieve peace, so longed-for, in the country.

"While he asks the Lord to make those responsible reconsider their actions and release the kidnapped and abandon all forms of violence, His Holiness expresses in these sad circumstances his special closeness to the Latin American episcopate, and especially to the pastors and faithful of Colombia, at the same time imparting the apostolic blessing upon them as a sign of grace and renewed hope."

In addition, the presidency of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America made public a declaration which condemns the kidnapping:

"While rejecting this inhuman act, in Christian solidarity, full communion of prayers and ecclesiastical sentiments with CELAM, with the episcopate and with the whole Church in Colombia, this Pontifical Commission makes an energetic appeal from the Vatican that those responsible for such an execrable act might respect life, liberty, human dignity and the ministry of the distinguished member of the Latin American hierarchy and of the priest, and free them immediately. This is what we wish for and implore, asking God that Colombia may achieve the peace and reconciliation that it so needs and longs for."

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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, NOV 13, 2002 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Elevated to the rank of diocese the territorial prelature of Coxim (area 45,998, population 124,999, Catholics 100,000, priests 17, religious 26), Brazil, with the same name and territorial configuration, making it suffragan of the metropolitan Church of Campo Grande.

- Appointed Bishop Antonino Migliore, bishop-prelate of Coxim, Brazil as first bishop of the same diocese.

- Appointed Fr. Guerrino Riccardo Brusati, fidei donum of the diocese of Paulo Afonso, Brazil, as bishop of Caetite (area 41,740, population 708,000, Catholics 637,000, priests 31, religious 50), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Bellanzago Novarese, Italy in 1945 and was ordained a priest in 1973. He succeeds Bishop Antonio Alberto Guimaraes Rezende, C.S.S., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted upon having reached the age limit.

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SERVANTS OF MARY: PRAY THE ROSARY AS YOU CARE FOR THE SICK

VATICAN CITY, NOV 13, 2002 (VIS) - A letter that the Pope addressed to the Servants of Mary, Ministers of the Sick, who participated in the work of their 23rd General Chapter, was made public today.

"The charism which characterizes you, attention to the sick in their homes," writes the Holy Father, "goes well with the creative strength of the charity that all ecclesiastical activity must have, which also means concretely conveying the exigency that each 'gesture of help be felt not as humiliating charity but as fraternal sharing'."

After emphasizing that in their chapter they highlighted the need to "know how to be with Mary and as Mary in the world of pain," John Paul II recalls that "last year ... I asked the Virgin Mary to enter homes with you to reveal Jesus, the true Savior and Redeemor of each human being. Now I repeat that, recommending that you do it while saying the Rosary frequently as you care for the sick. What better way to assimilate the 'same sentiments of Christ' than to implore his Mother to watch over her sick children or to participate more deeply in the meaning of suffering?"

At the end of the letter, the Pope invokes the intercession of St. Maria Soledad Torres Acosta, whose statue was blessed today after being moved to the exterior of St. Peter's Basilica, asking her to "make your Institute grow with new vocations."

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