EUROPE/ITALY - National PMS Director says : “faith helps us believe the death of Fr Andrea will bear the fruit of more missionary vocations and service”. Archbishop of Trent says: “may inter-religious contact develop in full religious freedom, mutual respect, constructive dialogue and collaboration all over the world”

Wednesday, 8 February 2006

Rome (Fides Service) - “I am still in Brazil where I took part in the meeting of Italian ‘Fidei Donum’ in Latin America who all expressed the unanimous desire to continue their service to other Churches after the sad news of the murder of Fr Andrea in Turkey” said Mgr Giuseppe Andreozzi, director of the Italian Bishops office for Missionary Cooperation among Churches who is also national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies with regard to Fr Andrea Santoro, Fidei Donum priest of the Diocese of Rome, killed on 5 February in Trabzon. “He leaves a testimony of profound missionary ardour and desire to work on the difficult frontier of evangelisation of peoples that the Gospel may build brotherhood among individuals and peoples, cultures and religions. While human insanity appears to make this objective ever further away, faith helps us believe the death of Fr Andrea a grain of wheat which has fallen to the ground, will bear the fruit of more missionary vocations and service.”
Among many messages of sympathy received from Fidei donum priests, other missionaries and local Churches Mgr Andreozzi mentions that of Archbishop Luigi Bressan of Trent, president of the Italian Bishops’ Commission for evangelisation and cooperation among Churches addressed to Cardinal Camillo Ruini and the diocese of Rome. Archbishop Bressan expresses his sympathy for the, “loss of such a generous who offered himself as a "Fidei Donum" to serve a very small community and to promote inter-religious dialogue and cooperation”. “I pray he may be admitted to the fullness of light in Christ to whom he witnessed in pastoral ministry in Rome and in distant Turkey with a generous missionary spirit”. Archbishop Bressan says he hopes Fr Andrea, “a martyr for love of Christ and his Church”, will intercede for all parishes “that they may be truly missionary and that inter-religious contact may develop in full religious freedom, mutual respect, constructive dialogue and collaboration all over the world”.
Diocesan Fidei donum priests take their name from the Fidei donum Encyclical by Pope Pius XII, on 21 April 1957, in which the Pope called on the Bishops of the oldest dioceses to send priests and lay people to serve the young Churches of Africa as “gifts of faith” . The appeal was then extended to other continents. In view of the 50th anniversary of the publication next year we are planning a series of initiatives to promote reflection and give new impulse to this important missionary service. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 8/2/2006, righe 32, parole 455)


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