Pope sets Goals for Ukraine Visit

VATICAN, Jun 20, 01 (CWNews.com) - During his regular weekly public audience on Wednesday, Pope John Paul II said that the two main purposes of his trip to Ukraine next week will be to confirm the faith of the Byzantine- rite Ukrainian Catholics and to promote dialogue with the Ukrainian Orthodox.

The Pope will visit Ukraine June 23- 27. He told the 12,000 people who gathered in St. Peter's Square for his audience that he has "high hopes" for the success of the trip, adding that had long cherished the hope of visiting Ukraine. He also remarked that he wanted to pay tribute to the martyrs, of Eastern and Western churches, who have given their lives for the faith in Ukraine.

In an interview published on the same day in the Italian daily La Stampa, Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, the former prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, said that the most important moment of the papal trip would come with the beatification of 30 Ukrainian martyrs in two separate ceremonies on June 26 and 27. Of those martyrs, 2 were Roman Catholics and the remaining 28 were members of the Ukrainian Catholic Church who died during the ferocious persecutions of the 20th century.

Cardinal Silvestrini told La Stampa that he is optimistic about the prospects for ecumenical progress in Ukraine. While the Russian Orthodox Church has been extremely critical of the plans for the papal visit, the cardinal said that he hoped that would be a "temporary" response. "I don't think they're really worried about an 'invasion' by Catholics," he said.

CWN - Catholic World News
20. juni 2001