“Friend of the young, apostle of peace, defender of life and messenger of justice, the Pope does not leave us indifferent. Even if not all our fellow-citizens share his ethical teaching, very few fail to recognise that he has a spiritual stature quite out of the ordinary”: so write the bishops of Belgium in a message addressed to John Paul II, and issued on 15 October to mark the 25th anniversary of his pontificate. For this anniversary the bishops invite “Catholics to pray to the Lord to give strength to the Pope to enable him to continue his mission and continue to put into practice the message he addressed to the world at the beginning of his pontificate, ‘do not be afraid'”. The celebrations to mark the ‘silver jubilee’ of the Pope include a mass in the cathedral of Brussels on Saturday, 25 October.
