VATICAN CITY
Asia News
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The suffering of Nigeria’s Christians, victims of bloody attacks, was at the centre of today’s Synod proceedings, which ended in a luncheon during which the pope met Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Primate of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, as well as the Council Fathers who are in Rome to mark the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.
In addition to expressing participants’ solidarity towards Nigeria, the Synod addressed yesterday afternoon and this morning the issue of evangelising among sex abuse victims, the need to inform Church members about the “open opposition” of the mass media to Christianity, the need to adopt an approach based on pastoral charity towards divorced people who have remarried, and the new for a simplified enunciation of the principles of Christianity.
Today’s assembly opened with a meditation by Mgr John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, archbishop of Abuja. This gave Mgr Nikola Eterovic an opportunity to show “closeness, sympathy and concern for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria’s desire to find a path towards dialogue and promote peace in justice with regards to the disturbances that have caused violence in their country, especially in the north.” In Mgr Eterovic’s words, let us “pray that religions not be used and manipulated for the aims of groups and parties but act as the basis of understanding, cooperation and peace.”
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