Pope Receives an ‘Arms’ Chair

WWW.NEWS24.COM (South Africa), Oct. 2 — Artists from the African nation of Mozambique gave Pope John Paul II an armchair crafted out of dismantled weapons left over from that country's decades-long civil war, which was resolved with the help of the Catholic lay apostolate, the Community of Sant'Egidio.

News24.com, an Internet news source for South Africa, reported the artists presented the Holy Father with the chair during his weekly audience on Oct. 2 with some 15,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square. The artists are exhibiting other works in Rome.

After the audience, sculptor Fiel Dos Santos told News24.com, “The Pope expressed his wish that our country will live in peace after so many terrible years.”

The artists also gave John Paul a symbolic pickaxe in honor of the peacemaking campaign begun in 1996 when the ecumenical Christian Council offered people pickaxes in return for turning in their weapons. Two years later, sculptors associated with the group “Nucleo de Arte” volunteered to turn the weapons into artworks that celebrated peace.

The Holy Father also offered greetings to the people of Mozambique, who celebrated “10 years of peace without weapons in their hands.”

Orthodox Patriarch Welcomed by Pope

VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, Oct. 7 — After meeting pilgrims who came for the canonization of Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá, Pope John Paul II welcomed a visit from Teoctist, the Orthodox patriarch of Romania, according to the Vatican Information Service.

“Beatitude and dear brother,” said the Pope in Romanian. “You are making this visit animated by the sentiments and the hopes that I myself feel. Your current visit is a purifying act of our memories of division, of often-strong confrontation, of acts and words that have led to painful separations. The future, in any case, is not a dark and unknown tunnel. It is lit by God's grace: on it the invigorating light of the Spirit shines in a consoling way. This certainty prevails not only over every human discouragement or fatigue that at times hinders our steps; it convinces us above all that nothing is impossible for God, and that, therefore, if we will be worthy of it, he will grant us the gift of full unity.”

Princess Invites Pope to Visit Sweden Next Year

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 4 — Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden brought greetings to Pope John Paul II and once again invited him to visit that Lutheran country in honor of the famous St. Brigid of Sweden.

Princess Victoria, 25, met with the Holy Father briefly as she visited Rome. According to Associated Press, she invited the Pope to attend celebrations from May 31 to June 1, 2003, at Vadstena, site of the convent St. Brigid founded, to mark the 700th anniversary of St. Brigid's birth.

“He's a fantastic man,” the princess concluded about the Pope. Papal spokesmen made no statement about whether the Pope would be able to make the trip.

Associated Press noted that although John Paul has trouble standing, he insisted on getting up from his chair for a group photo with the princess and her associates.