Vatican City, 11 June 2015 (VIS) –
ROACO (Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches) will hold
its 88th annual plenary assembly in the Vatican from 15 to 17 June.
The assembly will begin on Monday
morning with an audience granted by Pope Francis to the
representatives of the various aid projects to the Oriental Catholic
Churches. As in previous years, it will be a session dedicated to the
situation in Syria with attention also given to Iraq in view of the
recent tragic developments in that region which also affect the
faithful of the Eastern Churches. The results of the recent visit to
Iraq made by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation
for the Oriental Churches, during which he and a delegation from
ROACO met with refugees, bishops, priests, and religious in Baghdad,
Erbil, and Dohuk, will be presented.
On Tuesday, 16 June, the cardinal will
celebrate Holy Mass at St. Stephen of the Abyssinians, a historical
presence of the Oriental Church within the Vatican walls, to pray for
peace in the Middle East as well as the Ukraine where the
Greek-Catholic Church has a presence, and to pray for the
benefactors, living and deceased, of the Oriental Catholic Churches.
On the occasion of the centenary
memorial of the Medz Yeghern suffered by the Armenian people, a
session will be dedicated to the Armenian Catholic Church in Eastern
Europe, which is present in Georgia and Russia as well as Armenia.
Another session will study the Church of Ethiopia and the Church of
Eritrea, which was recently elevated by Pope Frances to a
metropolitan church (metropolitana sui iuris). As customary, during
the assembly the situation of the Church in the Holy Land will be
examined, with verifications of the projects undertaken thanks to the
proceeds of the Good Friday collection.
The objective of the proceedings,
which will conclude on Thursday 17 June, is to identify priorities
for the work of evangelization and charitable interventions in order
that they be coordinated by ROACO as a gesture of the solidarity of
the universal Church.
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