Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Naples (Agenzia Fides) - Before leading the recitation of the midday Angelus prayer on Sunday 21 October at the end of Mass celebrated in Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples, Pope Benedict XVI thanked those present, “dear Neapolitan friends”, for the warm welcome. He then greeted delegations from all over the world in Naples to take part in an International Meeting for Peace promoted by the S. Egidio Community on the theme: "For a world without violence - Religions and Cultures in Dialogue ". “May this important cultural and religious initiative help consolidate peace in the world” said the Pope and then, mentioning that it was World Mission Sunday he continued: “Today we pray in a special way for missionaries. We celebrate World Mission Sunday which has a most significant motto this year: ‘All the Churches for all the world". Each particular Church is c-responsible for the evangelisation of all humanity and this cooperation among the Churches was intensified by Pope Pius XII with the Encyclical Fidei donum, 50 years ago. May we never fail to offer spiritual and material help to those working on the frontiers of mission: priests, religious and lay men and women who not rarely encounter in their work serious difficulties and even persecution.”
Lastly the Pope entrusted these intentions to the Blessed Virgin Mary, “whom we love to invoke in this month of October with the title with which she is venerated at the nearby Shrine of Pompei: Our Lady, Queen of the Rosary”. To Mary Pope Benedict XVI entrusted numerous migrants who had come on pilgrimage to Naples from Caserta, and all those who in different ways, “work to promote the common good and a just social order, as it was rightly underlined at the 45th Social Week for Italian Catholics, held in the past week in Pistoia and Pisa”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 22/10/2007; righe 21, parole 290)
