Pilgrims from the Italian dioceses of Udine and Gorizia, those of Ljubljana, Maribor and Capodistria in Slovenia, and those of Klagenfurt and Graz in Austria went on pilgrimage with their bishops and priests to the Marian sanctuary of the Holy Mount, Sveta Gora, just inside Slovenia’s frontier with Italy, and in the hinterland of Gorizia and Nova Gorica, on 3 September. They prayed together (in Friulan and Latin, as well as in Italian, Slovene and German), to invoke new relations between the peoples of the region. Sveta Gora is at the centre of a huge area that was devastated by the fighting of the First World War (the sanctuary itself was also destroyed) and was also the theatre of bloody combat in the Second World War. “On this hill where 90 years ago our brothers fought and died said Archbishop Dino De Antoni of Gorizia we wish to ask God the Father to remit the debts of past and present and to give us the strength to forgive each other”. “Over the centuries said Archbishop Uran of Ljubljana political and national interests, in this point of encounter between three ethnic groups and four languages, have caused tensions and even wars. The consequence was a tremendous division, both exterior and in people’s hearts, as well as the tragic end of thousands of lives. The Church too suffered together with the people”. “We are still diverse from each other added Archbishop Alojzij Uran (Ljubljana) , perhaps even more so than in the past, but we would like this diversity to mean a source of richness among us”. The archbishop of Udine, Msgr. Pietro Brollo, emphasized that “contemporary history reminds us of the need to forge ever deeper relations of brotherhood among our peoples in the construction of a Europe that may truly claim to be united”. Bishop Alois Schwarz of Klagenfurt, in Carinthia, recommended participation in the Sunday Eucharist.
