UGCC head prayed with Pope Benedict XVI

On Sunday, October 16, Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and Bishop Taras (Senkiv), Chairman of the Patriarchal Commission for Evangelization, attended the Divine Liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica, led by Pope Benedict XVI, radio Vatican reports. In his homily the pope read Bible excerpts that were designed for this Eucharistic celebration, especially from the Gospel passage about the need to pay taxes to Caesar (“Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's”). The preacher drew particular attention to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who, provoking Jesus, asked whether or not to pay taxes to Caesar, and to the fact that for us, unlike the Pharisees and scribes in the Gospel passage, Jesus' words are of great value, because He is the Way that we should go, He leads us to truth and life, He is the criterion of our life actions. The pope pointed out that Caesar wished to have his imprint on every coin, but the Lord God is imprinted in every man that He created. The mission of the Church is to talk about God and remind all people, especially Christians, about God's right for them, their lives, which, as the pope recalled, is the task of evangelizers. We recall that an international symposium “New Evangelizers for the New Evangelization – The Word of God Grows and Spreads” was held on October 15-16 in the Vatican. The symposium was organized by the Pontifical Council to promote the new evangelization. On the first day participants discussed various areas of the new evangelization, the challenges it confronts in modern society, including secularization, which is particularly noticeable in Europe and North America. In the evening the participants of the international symposium met with Pope Benedict XVI, who addressed the audience with a word and shared his apostolic blessing. It should be noted that the meeting was attended by members of the community of St. Andrew School of Evangelization in Ukraine and Portugal, which operates under the Lisbon Community Church, with their spiritual leaders: Fr. Teodor Pylyavskyi, OSBM (Bryukhovychi-Lviv), Fr. Josaphat Moshchych, ZSA (Ivano-Frankivsk), Fr. Ivan Lubiv, OSBM, Fr. Mykola Yarema, OSBM (Lisbon Portugal), and Fr. Francisc Shydelko OSBM (Rome).

UGCC Information Department