AMERICA/UNITED STATES - “We have lost our great missionary, a Holy Father who embodied so completely the vocation given to us in baptism” said National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States

Washington (Fides Service) - “We have lost our great missionary, a Holy Father who embodied so completely the vocation given to us in baptism and who encouraged everyone in the world to do the same. His personal example, reaching out to all the world through his travels, was a visible sign of people’s importance to Christ and a call to us to follow that example. We are a better mission Church because of Pope John II. Pentecost has been very much alive in his Pontificate”. Mgr John Kozar National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States said this in a message sent to Fides on the occasion of the death of Pope John Paul II.
The National Director continued: “As the mission directors of the United States gathered this week in Philadelphia as ‘one family in mission’ for our annual meeting we devote our day together above all in prayerful remembrance of our Holy Father, our great missionary pope In meeting we also recommit ourselves wholeheartedly to the Church’s mission ‘to the nations’ - the missionary work of the Church that was so close to the mind and heart of Pope John Paul II”. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 4/4/2005 righe 17 parole 178)