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July 4, 2001
Pope pays homage to pain of Ukrainian people
Holy Father: visit to `bear witness to Christ' not proselytize
KIEV, Ukraine (CNS) — With respect for Ukraine's Orthodox majority and tributes to the nation's people who endured decades of war and repression, Pope John Paul II began his June 23-27 trip to the East European nation.
The 81-year-old pope assured the Orthodox he did not want to steal their faithful, but to overcome animosity and move forward together to transform the society.
"I have not come here with the intention of proselytizing, but to bear witness to Christ together with all Christians,'' the pope said in his arrival speech.
In his speeches and in his visits to the mass graves of the victims of the Soviets and the Nazis, the pope paid homage to the suffering of the Ukrainian people.
Pope John Paul told the people, "I have long awaited this visit and have prayed fervently that it might take place.''
Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the pope's spokesman, told reporters June 24: "The pope is living a dream. He has dreamed of this for many years, and now he is living it.''
"This man who has traveled all over the world,'' he said, has longed to visit the world's main Orthodox nations, and over the past three years he has been able to visit Romania, Georgia, Greece and now Ukraine.
The pope congratulated Ukrainians on the 10 years of independence they will celebrate in August, an independence won from the Soviet Union without bloodshed.
He also urged the nation's politicians, business leaders and economists to work together to promote the common good, to improve Ukraine's economic situation and to care for the poor, who have not benefited from the nation's transition to a market economy.
But it was the tension between Catholics and Orthodox that captured newspaper headlines before the papal visit and that were the subject of Pope John Paul's strongest words.
The pope said Catholics and Orthodox have hurt each other at various times throughout Ukraine's history.
"Bowing down before our one Lord, let us recognize our faults,'' he said at the arrival ceremony. "As we ask forgiveness for the errors committed in both the distant and recent past, let us in turn offer forgiveness for the wrongs endured.''
Members of Ukraine's largest Orthodox Church, and the Russia Orthodox Church to which it is allied, objected to the pope's visit and refused to participate in his June 24 meeting with leaders of Ukraine's churches and religious communities.
They claimed the Catholic Church was trying to steal believers and that Catholics had used violence to take over thousands of church buildings in Western Ukraine.
Ukrainian Catholic and Vatican officials have said the charges are not true.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said, "We want the Orthodox to remain Orthodox, to become better Orthodox. We want to help them, we don't want to convert them — not at all.''
In his arrival speech, Pope John Paul told the Orthodox, "The most fervent wish that rises from my heart is that the errors of times past will not be repeated in the future. May their memory not be a hindrance on the way to mutual knowledge, the source of brotherhood and cooperation.''
Only small groups of people lined the routes of the papal motorcades in Kiev, but the crowd of 50,000 people at the pope's June 24 Mass at Chayka airport enthusiastically rushed toward his popemobile, waving banners and chanting, "Ukraine greets the pope; Ukraine greets Peter.''
Liudmyla Shuliak, who described herself as an Orthodox who attends a Catholic parish, said she hoped the papal visit "will help unite all Christians. There should not be Catholics and Orthodox, just Christians.''
The crowd at the Mass also included 11 busloads of people from Minsk, Belarus. One of their banners read, "Holy Father, Belarus greets you and awaits you.''
Genrikh Golub, 27, was holding the sign. He said: "It is a big event in any country when the pope comes. It is a sign of blessing.''
Presiding over a Divine Liturgy June 25 at Chayka airport, the pope praised the dynamism of Ukrainian faith and the amazing speed with which the nation's Eastern Catholics were able to rebuild their church after more than four decades of being forced to live their faith underground.
The pope sat to the right of the altar near a huge icon of Christ, as Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of Lviv, head of the Eastern-rite Ukrainian Catholic Church, led the liturgical celebration.
Pope John Paul said the liturgy, so different from the Latin-rite Mass he celebrated the day before, is just one sign of the diversity found within the Catholic Church.
The peace and cooperation of the two rites, he said, "should become a model of a unity that exists within a legitimate pluralism and has its guarantee in the bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter.''
He said Catholics' prayer for Christian unity "rises from hearts that are humble and ready to feel, think and work generously'' so that Christ's desire for the unity of his disciples would be fulfilled.
Meeting religious leaders June 24 in Kiev, the pope did not dwell on tensions, but on the importance of the leaders working together to restore the traditional place of faith in Ukrainian culture and society.
"The religious element is an essential part of the personal identity of everyone, no matter the race, people or culture to which they belong,'' he said.
"Religion, when practiced with a humble and sincere heart, makes a specific and irreplaceable contribution to the promotion of a just and fraternal society,'' the pope said.
In addition to honoring Christians who suffered for their faith under the Nazis and the communists, Pope John Paul also paid homage to Ukrainian Jews and Muslims who were persecuted, murdered or exiled under the totalitarian regimes.
Speaking of the Nazi shooting of tens of thousands of Jews at Babi Yar, near Kiev, in the early days of World War II, the pope said, "May the memory of this episode of murderous frenzy be a salutary warning to all.
"What atrocities is man capable of when he fools himself into thinking that he can do without God'' or that he does not have to answer to God for his actions, the pope told the religious leaders.
The pope visited Babi Yar June 25; the previous evening he had prayed at Bukovnya, a forest on the edge of Kiev where the bodies of 120,000 victims of Joseph Stalin's 1937-41 purges were dumped.
On several occasions, Pope John Paul said the horrors of the past offer important lessons on the values that must provide the foundations of Ukraine's future democracy.
Respect for human dignity and religious freedom, tolerance, solidarity with the poor and a commitment to the common good are the pillars of a healthy and prosperous society, Pope John Paul told politicians, business and cultural leaders June 23.
Meeting the nation's Catholic bishops June 24, the pope said the changes in Ukraine's political and economic life have placed many families in a precarious situation that requires the attention of the Church.
"In Ukraine, as elsewhere, the family has been passing through a severe crisis, as we see in the large number of divorces and the widespread practice of abortion,'' the pope said.
He urged the bishops to help Catholic couples discover God's plan for marriage and family life "so that renewing the spiritual fabric of their life together, they can help improve the quality of society as a whole.''
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