Editorial: A pilgrim’s progress

Sydney
9 June 2002

Madonna in Prayer

No ‘hush money’ paid – Dr Pell

$46m grant for embryo research: PM attacked

Don’t be seduced by funds, Catholic Health warns Govt

Changes urged to asylum seeker policy

Call to abandon ‘Pacific Solution’

Under fire from Amnesty

... with grace by His Grace?

Rich experience came at Rite time for Caringbah parishioner

Charity uncorks a real winner: I’ll drink to that

‘Team effort’ needed on social justice proposals

Editorial: A pilgrim’s progress

Letters: Open challenge to moral teachings

Conversation: After Rome 2000, a ‘leap of faith’ - Nicole Hellyer, parish youth minister

Reflections: Mary – Our Lady of Social Justice

Rain falls on their parade but can’t dampen schoolkids’ spirit at Mass

Liverpool club helps duo on way to uni

Inspirations: Painting and poetry – therapy and art

Editorial: A pilgrim’s progress

Pope John Paul II continues to take giant steps in his mission of peace and brotherhood. He continues to venture into territory where lesser men may fear to tread.

And he continues to emerge triumphant from these sojourns. Such is the case with his latest ecumenical and interreligious visits to Azerbaijan and Bulgaria.

He nudged dialogue with Muslims and Orthodox Christians a few steps further, by travelling as a respectful pilgrim to countries where tiny Catholic communities are not really seen as a threat.

He has now visited 15 former Soviet republics or satellites since the fall of European communism; on this trip he proclaimed three new martyrs of 20th-century totalitarianism and brought spiritual solace to populations still recovering from the communist experience.

And with his eye on Moscow and a meeting with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II, the Pope clearly identified himself as a friend of the East – quoting its saints, praising its spiritual traditions and reviewing some of the more glorious pages of its history.

Is Moscow any closer for the ageing pontiff?

Apart from the Pope’s fading health, the biggest stumbling block is Patriarch Alexei’s staunch opposition.

In Bulgaria, where 80 per cent of the people count themselves as Orthodox Christians, the Pope showed that Orthodox opposition to his travelling ministry is not monolithic – especially among Orthodox churches that are tied to Moscow but do not operate under its authority.

He gave the Orthodox a relic of St Dasius, a Roman soldier martyred in what is now Bulgaria; he has designated a church for worship by the Bulgarian Orthodox community in Rome; he beatified three Assumptionist priests who were shot dead by Bulgaria’s communist regime in 1952.

In Azerbaijan, a Shi’ite Muslim nation whose people are generally respectful of Christians, he preached religious tolerance and called for an end to fundamentalism and violence in the name of God, shrewdly supporting his call with quotes from one of their favourite traditional poets.

No Pope has ever put his fading health on display for such a global audience. His struggles with the symptoms of his disease, including shaking arms, slurred speech and a lack of mobility, evoked sympathy, respect and concern.

Orthodox Archbishop Simeon said: “I think the people around him, they must tell him he has to stop.”

Will he? Can he?