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Catholic World News News Feature

Pope encourages tiny Turkish congregation November 29, 2006

Pope Benedict XVI traveled to Ephesus on November 29, the 2nd day of his visit to Turkey, to celebrate Mass for a small Catholic congregation at a revered Marian shrine.

After an airplane flight from Ankara to Izmir, the Holy Father continued by car to Ephesus: the ancient city where St. Paul preached and St. John the Evangelist lived out his final days, and where an ecumenical council was held in 431. There he stopped at the shrine of Meryem Ana Evi-- the House of Mother Mary. The shrine was built on what is said to be the site of the Dormition, and regularly visited not only by Christians but also by Muslims on pilgrimage to the nearby mosque of Isa Bey.

After visiting the Capuchin friars who administer the shrine, the Pope celebrated Mass for a congregation of about 250 people. In his homily— delivered in English, but then read in Turkish— the Pope paid tribute to his predecessors, Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, who had each visited the same shrine. He also mentioned Pope John XXIII, who was papal delegate in Turkey from 1935 to 1944, and "left to the Church and the world the legacy of his Christian optimism, rooted in deep faith and constant union with God."

The main focus of the Pope's homily was the role of the Virgin Mary in the economy of salvation. Recalling how Jesus, on the Cross, commended his mother to the care of St. John, the Pontiff said that "the dying Christ recognized the first fruits of the family which He had come to form in the world." He added: "Mary’s divine motherhood and her ecclesial motherhood are thus inseparably united."

Referring to the Virgin as the "mother of unity," the Holy Father encouraged the faithful to pray for unity and understanding among all the world's peoples. He said: "Strengthened by God’s word, from here in Ephesus, a city blessed by the presence of Mary Most Holy – who we know is loved and venerated also by Muslims – let us lift up to the Lord a special prayer for peace between peoples."

Then, alluding to the fundamental goal of his visit to Turkey, the Pope said that as the faithful pray for peace in the world, "the yearning for full communion and concord between all Christians becomes even more profound and intense."

Recognizing that Christians in Turkey form "a small minority which faces many challenges and difficulties daily," the Pope encouraged his small congregation to be guided by "the fine witness given by the Roman priest Don Andrea Santoro"-- the Catholic missionary who was killed in his parish church in Trabzon, Turkey, in February.

At the conclusion of the Eucharistic celebration, the Pope had lunch with the Capuchins at Ephesus, before boarding a flight for Istanbul, where he will meet with the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I.