From the Website of Manila Bulletin
links: http://mb.com.ph/pope-pushes-interfaith-peace-message-on-sarajevo-visit/
links: http://mb.com.ph/pope-pushes-interfaith-peace-message-on-sarajevo-visit/
Pope pushes interfaith peace message on Sarajevo visit
Sarajevo – Pope Francis makes a one-day visit to Bosnia on Saturday aimed at bolstering reconciliation between Serb, Croat and Muslim communities. The trip to Sarajevo comes 20 years after the end of a 1992-95 war that ripped the Balkan state apart and left it permanently divided along ethnic lines.
Adding
to security jitters, Islamists claiming to be members of the Islamic
State (IS) group called for jihad in the Balkans in a video widely
reported Friday by local media, although there appeared to be no
explicit link to the visit.
More
than a third of Bosnia’s mostly Catholic Croats have left Bosnia since
the war and the country of 3.8 million people is divided in two between a
Bosnian Serb republic and a Croat-Muslim federation.
Against
that backdrop, Vatican officials believe Francis can have a positive
impact by promoting the kind of interfaith dialogue he holds dear.
In
a message to the residents of Sarajevo earlier this week, he wrote: “I
come amongst you… to express my support for ecumenical and interfaith
dialogue, and above all to encourage peaceful cohabitation in your
country.’’
Pietro
Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State who heads up the Holy See’s
diplomacy, said Francis would visit in the spirit of a pilgrim,
promoting dialogue and peace and hoping to raise spirits among
Catholics.
“The
consequences of war have been felt particularly by the Catholic
community. In some parishes there are very few families left, many of
them elderly,’’ he said.
“In December the 20th anniversary of the war will be remembered but the traces and the wounds of war are still there.’’
The
highlights of Francis’s 10 hours in Sarajevo will be an open air mass
for 65,000 people in the Olympic stadium and a meeting between the
pontiff and representatives of the Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim
communities, as well as the small Jewish community.
Around
40 percent of the population of Bosnia is of Islamic heritage, just
over 30 percent are from the Serbian Orthodox tradition and around one
in ten, almost uniquely Croats, describe themselves as Catholics.
The pope will also hear personal testimony from some of those who suffered during the war, including two priests and a nun.
Security
will be high in a country that has become fertile ground for homegrown
jihadists and the video will heighten concerns, although the Vatican has
been insisting they do not see the trip as high-risk.
At
least 5,000 police will be on duty and a total of 100,000 people are
expected to turn out to get a glimpse of the Argentinian pontiff. The
visit comes a month after a Bosnian Islamist shot one policeman dead and
injured two others in an attack in the northeast.
The
incident led Security Minister Dragan Mektic to describe the terror
threat in Bosnia as serious and growing, partly as a legacy of jihadists
having come to the country to help Bosnian Muslim forces during the
war.
Francis
is the second pope to visit Sarajevo. Jean-Paul II famously visited
during a severe snowstorm in 1997 and six years later the Polish pope
returned to Bosnia for a visit to the Bosnian Serb capital Banja Luka.
Read more at http://www.mb.com.ph/pope-pushes-interfaith-peace-message-on-sarajevo-visit/#DpaFPyS62QVd4Aie.99
links:
http://mb.com.ph/pope-pushes-interfaith-peace-message-on-sarajevo-visit/
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