In Macedonia, Pope urges Balkans to embrace diversity
SKOPJE: Pope Francis urged the Balkans to embrace its patchwork of faiths and ethnicities during a visit to North Macedonia yesterday, where he held an open-air mass in the capital Skopje, the proud birthplace of Mother Teresa. The pontiff was welcomed with yellow billboards and buses bearing his smiling face after he touched down in the mainly Orthodox Christian country. Catholics make up a small sliver - less than one percent - of the 2.1 million population, which also includes a large Muslim minority that is ethnic Albanian.
In an address before the country’s political leaders, Francis praised the “crucible of cultures and ethnic and religious identities” in “your land, a bridge between East and West”. North Macedonia’s diversity, which reflects the mix of communities in wider Balkan region, forms a “mosaic in which every piece is essential for the uniqueness and beauty of the whole”, he added. Mutual respect between groups was “highly significant for increased integration with the nations of Europe,” he told leaders of a government trying to open accession talks with the European Union.
“It is my hope that this integration will develop in a
way that is beneficial for the entire region of the Western Balkans, with unfailing respect for diversity”, Francis added. All of the Western Balkan countries are trying to join the EU, a dream that, if realized, would soften the hard borders drawn between them during Yugoslavia’s bloody collapse into inter-ethnic war in the 1990s.
‘Great woman’ Yesterday, people of all faiths filled Skopje’s main square for the mass led by the pope, who is wrapping up a three-day tour that began in Bulgaria. Believers from neighboring countries, such as mainly Catholic Croatia, were also among the thousands-strong crowd, waving their country’s flags under sunny skies. “For me this is a historic visit, not only for Catholics but also for us Orthodox, Muslims and all others living in North Macedonia,” said 18-year-old Filip Etmisovski, who arrived early for a spot in the square. Dragi Bojadziski, a 46-year-old Catholic from the south, also made the pilgrimage for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “It means a lot to us, the Catholic faithful here,” he told AFP.
Bishop Kiro Stojanov of Skopje thanked the Pope for coming to meet “the small Catholic community that lives in the diaspora.” In his homily, the Pope drew on the inspiration of Mother Teresa, who was born in Skopje in 1910 when it was part of the Ottoman empire. Earlier, Francis blessed the poor and delivered a prayer at a memorial dedicated to the nun, who he canonized as a saint in 2016. “She became the prayerful cry of the poor and of all those who hunger and thirst for justice,” he said before an audience of leaders from Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish and Methodist faiths.
Mother Teresa was born to an Albanian family in Skopje. Though she spent most of her life devoted to the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, her legacy is visible in her birthplace in the form of statues, memorials and a highway in her name. “You are rightly proud of this great woman,” Francis said in an earlier speech to political leaders. —AFP