BRATISLAVA (CNS): Hundreds of men, women and children gathered on the tarmac of Bratislava Airport [Letisko M. R. Štefánika] on September 12 to welcome Pope Francis for his less than 72 hour visit to the country, immediately following his trip to Budapest, Hungary, for the closing Mass of the International Eucharistic Congress. The crowd, some of whom were dressed in traditional Slovak clothing, waved yellow and white flags and cheered.
The pope was greeted by Slovak president, Zuzana Caputová, and two children presented him with bread and salt, a traditional gift presented to honoured guests.
Pope Francis was brought to the apostolic nunciature where he met with ecumenical leaders and reflected on the freedom shared in the country “after years of atheistic persecution, when religious freedom was stifled or harshly repressed.”
The pope warned them against “the temptation to return to bondage, not that of a regime, but one even worse: an interior bondage.”
He explained that often, when one feels that “things have quieted down” and settled into the hope “of a peaceful and tranquil life,” the goal is no longer freedom but instead in “the staking out of spaces and privileges which, as far as the gospel is concerned, are bread and little else.”
Pope Francis said, “Let us not be concerned only with the things that can benefit our individual communities. The freedom of our brothers and sisters is also our freedom, since our freedom is not complete without theirs.”
Drawing from the example of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, the ninth-century missionary brothers who evangelised Central and Eastern Europe before the division of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, the pope said the evangelisation of Slovakia ‘began with brotherhood’
Drawing from the example of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, the ninth-century missionary brothers who evangelised Central and Eastern Europe before the division of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, the pope said the evangelisation of Slovakia “began with brotherhood.”
Pope Francis prayed that the saintly brothers would intercede for all religious faiths in the country so that “they help us to persevere on our journey by fostering our fraternal communion.”
The pope asked: “How can we hope that Europe will rediscover its Christian roots when we ourselves are not rooted in full communion? How can we dream of a Europe free of ideologies if we lack the courage to put the freedom of Christ before the needs of individual groups of believers?”
He said, “It is hard to expect Europe to be increasingly influenced and enriched by the gospel if we are untroubled by the fact that on this continent we are not yet fully united and are unconcerned for one another.”
Among those present at the meeting were Metropolitan Rastislav, head of the Orthodox Church in the Czech and Slovak Republics; Lutheran Bishop Ivan Elko, president of the Ecumenical Council of Churches in Slovakia; and Richard Duda, president of the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities.
Afterward, Pope Francis met privately with members of the Jesuits in Slovakia.
With the Jewish community
Meeting with representatives of the Slovakia’s Jewish community on September 13, in Rybné námestie Square, site of a memorial tribute to the 105,000 Slovak Jews who were killed in the Holocaust, Pope remembered the victims and said it was “the worst form of blasphemy” that violated the second Commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”
He said, “Here, in this place, the name of God was dishonoured, for the worst form of blasphemy is to exploit it for our own purposes, refusing to respect and love others.”
Pope Francis recognised the importance of the Neolog synagogue that once stood alongside the Cathedral of St. Martin before it was destroyed by communist authorities in 1969 to make way for a bridge. The presence of both spiritual edifices, he said, was “an expression of the peaceful coexistence of the two communities, an unusual and evocative symbol, and a striking sign of unity in the name of the God of our fathers.”
The pope also heard several testimonies, including from Holocaust survivor Tomáš Lang, who recalled the anti-Jewish persecution in his country and the death of his parents.
Lang noted that one of the few to openly speak out against anti-Semitism was the late Archbishop Giuseppe Burzio, who served as chargé d’affaires at the apostolic nunciature from 1940 to 1945.
Archbishop Burzio, Lang said, “tirelessly sought to end the anti-Semitism of the deadly regime of that time. No Slovak politician at the time opposed that regime.”
Pope Francis said that the memory of the horrors of the Holocaust “must not give way to forgetfulness,” indifference and “forms of manipulation that would exploit religion in the service of power or else reduce it to irrelevance.”
The pope said, “I repeat: let us unite in condemning all violence and every form of anti-Semitism, and in working to ensure that God’s image, present in the humanity he created, will never be profaned.”
The pope was to travel to Košice and Prešov the day after for meetings with the Roma community and young people, and a meeting and Divine Liturgy with Byzantine Catholics. Before returning to Rome on September 15, he was scheduled to celebrate Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Sorrows in Šaštín-Stráže.
The government mandated that anyone attending a papal event must have a Covid-19 vaccine.
