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Pope Francis visited in Lithuania

BC, Vilnius, 24.09.2018.Print version
Pope Francis has arrived in Lithuania on Saturday for a historic visit. The papal plane landed at Vilnius Airport several minutes after 11 a.m.

The Holy Father was greeted by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, Archbishop Gintaras Grusas, head of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, Seimas Speaker Viktoras Pranckietis, Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis, former Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, Vytautas Landsbergis, the first post-independence leader of Lithuania, diplomats and pilgrims, including many young people waving the Vatican flags. They burst in joy as the pope appeared.


Children wearing national costumes later gave flowers to the Holy Father, and the hymns of the Vatican and Lithuania then followed.


From the airport, the Holy Father travelled to the Presidential Palace for a courtesy meeting with the president. Later on, the pope met with representatives of the government, society, the diplomatic corps in Simonas Saukantas Square.


Pope Francis calls on Lithuania to become "bridge between Eastern and Western Europe"

Pope Francis, who arrived in Vilnius on Saturday, called on Lithuanians to be open and compassionate and become "a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe".


In his speech in Simonas Daukantas Square outside the Presidential Palace, the Holy Father addressed members of the government and the public.


The pope also said that Lithuania could become a counterbalance to voices that are sowing division and are not promoting unity.


"If we look at the whole scene in our time, more and more voices are sowing division and confrontation – often by exploiting insecurity or situation of conflict – proclaiming that the only way possible to guarantee security and the continued existence of a culture is to try to eliminate, cancel or expel other. Here you, Lithuanians, have a word of your own to contribute: "welcoming differences"," the pontiff said.


"Through dialogue, openness and understanding, you can become a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe," Pope Francis said.


In his words, " the fruit of a mature history, which you as a people can offer to the international community and to the European Community in particular" might help Lithuania to promote these characteristics.


The Holy Father also pointed to the fact Lithuania was able to shelter, receive and accept people of various ethnic groups and religions. All found a place to live in this land – Lithuanians, Tatars, Poles, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Armenians, German, Catholics, Orthodox, others.,


Congratulating Lithuania on the centenary of its independence, the pope called on Lithuanians to take "time to stop and revive the memory of all of those experiences".


In his words, it will allow to "find the key to assessing present challenges and looking to the future in a spirit of dialogue and unity with all those who dwell here, careful to ensure that no one remains excluded".


The pope also called on Lithuania to remember the soul of the Lithuanian people which helped it to turn "sorrow and injustice into opportunity, preserving alive and healthy the roots that nurtured the fruits we enjoy today".


"This is the prayer voiced in your national hymn: "May your sons draw strength and vigor from your past experience," so as to face the present with courage," the pope said in his speech.

The Holy Father also invited Lithuania to pay special attention to young people who, he said, are not only the future but also the present.


"A people in which young persons can find room for growth and for employment, will help them to feel that they have a leading role to play in building up the social and communitarian fabric. This will make it possible for all to lift their gaze with hope to the future," the pope underlined.


Pope, in Vilnius, calls on faithful to build bridges not walls

Pope Francis called on the faithful to build bridges rather than walls and not to give in to hatred and enmity that competition can bring as he visited the Gate of Dawn shrine in Vilnius on Saturday afternoon.  


The head of the Roman Catholic Church warned that people deprive themselves of "the Good News of Jesus" when they build walls and barricades. 


"In the past, we built all too many fortresses, but today we feel the need to look one another in the face and acknowledge one another as brothers and sisters, to walk side by side, and to discover and experience with joy and peace the value of fraternity," he said before the Rosary prayer. 


The Church had invited large families and families that provide foster care or have adopted children, as well as orphans and sick people to pray together with the Holy Father in the Gate of Dawn chapel.  


On his way to the chapel in the capital's Old Town, Pope Francis spent several minutes interacting with a crowd of thousands of people who had gathered to welcome him. 

The Holy Father noted that crows of people from numerous countries, both Catholic and Orthodox Christians, come to visit the Mother of Mercy painting at the Gates of Dawn each day.


He expressed his hope that this freedom of movement will encourage solidarity and called on the faithful not to give in to enmity that may be brought by competition in the open world.


"At times it might seem that opens to the world draws us into the ring of competition, where 'man is a world to man', and there is room only for conflict that divides us, tensions that exhaust us, hatred and enmity that get us nowhere", the pontiff said.    


"Dear brothers and sisters, in crossing this doorstep, may we experience the power that purifies our way of dealing with our neighbors. May Mary our Mother grant that we may regard their limits and faults with mercy and humility, thinking ourselves superior to no one".


The Holy Father urged the faithful to pray that "we can build a country capable of accepting everyone, of receiving from the Virgin Mother the gifts of dialog and patience, of closeness and welcome, (...) a country that chooses to build bridges not walls, that prefers mercy not judgement."  


Pope urges young Lithuanians 'to swim against current of individualism'

Pope Francis on Sunday called on young Lithuanians to have the courage "to swim against the current of individualism" and to reach out to those close to them.


The head of the Roman Catholic Church also underlined the importance of belonging to a people as he addressed several tens of thousands of young people in Vilnius' Cathedral Square.


"Let us swim against the current of that individualism which isolates us, makes us egocentric and vain, concerned only for our image and our own well-being," the pope said.  


"Life is ugly when you stand in front of the mirror. But life is beautiful when you are with others: in the family, with friends, when you fight together with your people," he said. 


The pontiff said that belonging to a people gives one the strength to fight, but, at the same time, it gives tenderness. 


"Who we really are has to do with our being part of a people. Identify is not the product of a laboratory; it is not concocted in a test tube. (...) We are not rootless," he said.


Francis encouraged young people to meet and speak with elderly people and draw on their knowledge and experience.


"It's not boring to talk to old people," the 81-year-old said half-jokingly.


Francis mentioned Lithuania's two leading basketball teams when he spoke about competition. 


"It makes no difference whether Zalgiris Kaunas or Vilnius Rytas are in first place," the pope said. " I'm asking you, 'Which is in first place?'"


"What matters is not the result, but the fact that the Lord is at our side," he answered as the crowd shouted.     


Some of the pope's remarks, such as the one that "following Jesus is a passionate adventure" met with cheers from the crowd.


The meeting with young people wrapped up the first day of the pope's two-day visit to Lithuania. 


Pope Francis invites Lithuanians to care for socially vulnerable, resist thirst for glory

 Pope Francis on Sunday called on the faithful in Lithuania to care for socially vulnerable groups and ethnic minorities and resist the thirst for glory.


Addressing more than 100,000 people in the Santara Park in Kaunas, Lithuania's second-largest city, the head of the Catholic Church called on people to not distance themselves from the society, believing that its "somebody else’s responsibility".


"Who will be the smallest, the poorest in our midst, whom we should welcome a hundred years after our independence?" the pope said.


"Perhaps it is the ethnic minorities of our city. Or the jobless who have to emigrate. May be it is the elderly and the lonely, or those young people who find no meaning in life because they have lost their roots," the Holy father asked.


He also called on the faithful to resist the thirst of glory.


"Brothers and sisters: the thirst for power and glory is the sign of those who fail to heal the memories of the past and, perhaps for that very reason, to take an active part in the tasks of the present. They would rather discuss who was better, who acted with greater integrity in the past, who has more right to privileges than others," Pope Francis said.


"In this way, we deny our own history, “which is glorious precisely because it is a history of sacrifice, of hopes and daily struggles, of lives spent in service and fidelity to work, tiring as it may be," the Holy Father said.


Pope Francis also paid homage to Lithuania's history, honoring Soviet and Nazi victims.


"Lithuania as a whole can testify to it, still shuddering at the mention of Siberia, or the ghettos of Vilnius and Kaunas, among others," he said.


Lithuania may be beacon of hope after Nazi, Soviet repressions

Lithuania might become a beacon of hope in fighting injustice following its painful history, Pope Francis said after honoring the memory of victims of the Nazi and Soviet regimes in Lithuania on Sunday.


"Lord, may Lithuania be a beacon of hope. May it be a land of memory and action, constantly committed to fighting all forms of injustice," the pope said at the Museum of Occupation and Freedom Fights in Vilnius.


Addressing a crowd of thousands, which included former political prisoners and deportees, the Holy Father prayed for Lithuania to promote "creative efforts to defend the rights of all persons, especially those most defenseless and vulnerable. And may Lithuania be for all a teacher in the way to reconcile and harmonize diversity".


He prayed for freedom from "the spiritual sickness that remains a constant temptation for us as a people: forgetfulness of the experiences and sufferings of those who have gone before us".


The pope honored the memory of Nazi victims with a silent prayer in the territory of the former Vilnius Ghetto, and the memory of victims of Soviet repressions was honored at the former KGB prison.


According to the pontiff, history and the ancestral call should "encourage us to not succumb to the fashions of the day, to simplistic slogans, or to efforts to diminish or take away from any person the dignity you have given them".






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