THE PAPAL VISIT TO UKRAINE, JUNE 23-27, 2001

Quotable notes

"There is also another detail which should not be overlooked on this occasion. Blessed Archbishop Bilczewski was consecrated by Cardinal Jan Puzyna, bishop of Krakow. With him as co-consecrators were Blessed Józef Sebastian Pelczar, bishop of Przemysl (Peremyshl), and the Servant of God Andrey Sheptytsky, the Greek-Catholic archbishop. Was this not an amazing event? At that moment, the Holy Spirit brought together three great pastors, two of whom have been beatified and the third will be with God's help. Truly this land deserved to see them together at the solemn ordination of a successor of the Apostles. It deserved to see them united. Their union remains a sign and a call for the faithful of their respective flocks, summoned by their example to build the communion which remains threatened by the memory of past experiences and by the prejudices stirred up by nationalism."

- Pope John Paul II in his address at the mass celebrated on Tuesday, June 26, at the Hippodrome in Lviv, during which two Polish clerics, Archbishop Józef Bilczewski and Father Zygmunt Gorazdowski, were beatified.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 1, 2001, No. 26, Vol. LXIX

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