PILGRIMS AT BEATIFICATIONS RECEIVED BY POPE

VATICAN CITY, MAR 24, 2003 (VIS) - Today at noon, the Holy Father received participants in the beatifications of the following Servants of God which took place yesterday: Pierre Bonhomme, Maria Dolores Rodriguez Sopena, Maria Caridad Brader, Juana Maria Condesa Lluch and Laszlo Batthyany-Strattman.

The Pope asked the sisters of Our Lady of Calvary, the spiritual daughters of the French priest Pierre Bonhomme, to remain "faithful to the spirit of service" that characterized their founder who was "totally dedicated to the poor."

John Paul II then spoke to the pastors, religious and lay people who attended the beatification of Blesseds Maria Dolores Rodriguez Sopena and Juana Maria Condesa Lluch, both from Spain, and the Swiss blessed who had a "Latin-American and universal soul," Mother Maria Caridad Brader: "The three lived during the same time, they fed their life of faith consistently with prayer, intimacy with the Eucharist and loving devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary."

The Holy Father said that Blessed Laszlo Batthyany-Strattman, a lay person from Hungary, "worked during his life for peace and for the building of a new common European home. For this reason, this new blessed can be considered a protector" of Europe.

At the end of the audience, Archbishop Agustin Garcia-Gasco of Valencia, Spain was presented with the "Icon of the Holy Family," a symbol of the world days with families, since the next gathering will take place in this Spanish city in 2006. The Pope asked that contemplation of this image, in the years leading up to the encounter, "may serve as an inspiration to continue working for the defense and promotion of the institution of the family ... and that the family may be 'gaudium et spes', the joy and hope, of humanity, a school of transmission of the genuine values that man needs and a place of welcome for life."

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