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Most
Holy Father,
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! You are blessed, most
Holy Father, and the name you have chosen is blessed: Benedictus,
Benedict.
Most
joyfully we receive Your Holiness in this Melkite Greek Catholic
Cathedral of Saint George in
Amman
. You are Father, Friend, elder Brother and you can rightfully say, with
the Prophet, "Behold, I and the children whom God has given me."
Most
Holy Father,
The
great Jordanian consecrated family welcomes you today in this cathedral,
beginning with my brothers, Their Beatitudes the Eastern Catholic
Patriarchs and my brothers Their Excellencies the Bishops of different
Churches in
Jordan
and other Arab countries. We welcome you especially in the name of the
Melkite Greek Catholic Church. With a great number of Hierarchs of our
Holy Synod and faithful lay-people, we had the happiness, just one year
ago, on 8 May 2008, of meeting Your Holiness in
Rome
. We are happy, today, to welcome you to bless this cathedral.
Most
Holy Father,
You
have before you consecrated men and women, whom I can genuinely call the
successors of the many collaborators who accompanied the Holy Apostle
Paul (whose jubilee year we are celebrating) sharing with him in the
spreading of the Gospel. The consecrated people here present are
themselves, in their turn, bearers of the Good News in this third
millennium. They are, as the inter-eparchial Synod, held by the Assembly
of the Catholic Ordinaries of the
Holy Land
in the year 2000, declared, "believers in Christ, participants in the
Church and witnesses in society."
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Most
Holy Father,
To
you, who are the Father of Fathers, Shepherd of Shepherds and Chief of
Chiefs, as we say in the Liturgy, we set out, with trust and hope, the
principal problems relating to our Christian presence in the Kingdom of
Jordan in particular and in the Arab world in general.
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1.
We are
an integral part of this Arab world with its Muslim majority, where, two
thousand years ago, were born Christ in
Palestine
and Christianity in various Arab countries.
2.
We
are the Church of martyrs and witnesses, of witness, Church of the Cross
and Resurrection, suffering and hope, Church of history, today and
tomorrow. We shall not emigrate!
We shall
remain here, to affirm, as did Peter, whose successor you are, "Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the Living God."
3.
We
are a Church in daily, vital dialogue, Church of meeting, of perfect
solidarity with our Arab peoples, with our different Christian
communities in their diversity and richness, and also with all Muslim
communities. We are and will remain the Church of mankind, created in
the image and likeness of God. As
Saint Paul
said, in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond
nor free...: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)
4.
Our
Churches in the Arab world form together the Church of that important
and difficult living together, and we have before us the imperative duty
of working, not only to live with others (our fellow citizens) but above
all to work together with them for a better future for young people,
knowing that they form sixty per cent of Arab society.
5.
Our
Churches, in their pluralism, preserve the one, holy faith. In our
diversity, we are the proof of what the Blessed Pope John XXIII used to
say, "What unites us is so much more than what separates us."
6.
Those
values of faith and dialogue are threatened by the fact of the
Israeli-Arab conflict, which has caused and continues to cause wars,
crises, calamities, fundamentalist currents, growth of violence and
response to violence by violence, whose victims number thousands among
our sons and daughters of the Middle East, in all Christian, Muslim and
Jewish communities.
7.
Moreover,
this conflict underlies emigration, especially Christian emigration. If
emigration were to continue, it would mean that the mainly Muslim Arab
society of the Middle East would be deprived, for its future, of its
ambient, historical characteristics and of that Christian presence which
has been for the last fourteen hundred years a fundamental element of
symbiosis of civilizations and Christian and Islamic cultures.
8.
From
all that, most Holy Father, you may conclude the importance of realizing
just, durable, comprehensive peace in our region, especially in
Palestine
, but also in
Syria
,
Lebanon
and
Iraq
. The responsibility for peace certainly lies with Arab countries and
their governments, but also with other states, especially those of
Europe and
America
.
9.
We
should like here to thank Your Holiness and his predecessors of happy
memory for their clear, firm and just stances on the matter of the
Palestinian question, the right of Palestinians to have a homeland and
their rights with regard to Jerusalem, which is the holy city of faith
for us all, Christians, Muslims and Jews.
10.
Your
visit, Most Holy Father, is, for
Jordan
, the Holy Land and our entire
Middle East
, a factor for hope and opens for us radiant new horizons, since we all
aspire to peace, safety, daily bread, a worthy life and a glowing future
for youth.
11.
Indeed,
we express before Your Holiness a wish that the Patriarchs who surround
you today may be able to meet from time to time around the Pope to
inform him about our circumstances, our role, our hopes and our trials,
for we know that you have a great affection for the Middle East, which
is the cradle of Christianity and a meeting-place of civilizations.
Most Holy Father,
With
the Church, we pray for you, remembering this text from the antiphon of
the Hypakoe of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, on 29 June,
"O Peter, rock of faith and thou, Paul, glory of the whole
world, come forth together from
Rome
and strengthen us."
Most Holy Father,
We
entrust to you this country, dear
Jordan
, guided by His Majesty King Abdullah II; we entrust to you the citizens
of this beautiful country. We entrust to you also the Holy Land,
Lebanon
,
Syria
and
Iraq
, so that we may be always present in your prayer and that we may have
the benefit of your blessing. All these persons here present,
consecrated to the Lord's service say to you, "We love you!"
Thank
you, Most Holy Father, for your visit to Jordan
!
+ Gregorios III,
Patriarch
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