This year, wrote the archbishop, "we’ll go to venerate the image of the Madonna invoked with the title of helper, retracing the route of a big crowd of pilgrims, following the tracks of Pope John Paul II, who stopped there praying on 17th May 1996, during his first visit to the Slovenian people". The subject proposed, said Msgr. Brollo, "leads us back to the generous account of Apostle Paul, whose second millenary from his birth we are celebrating. The Apostle, capable of confronting the old and stiff world of presumptions, not ready to abandon the old paths of mistakes and to let itself be hugged by Christ, interprets well the stories of disquietedness, uneasiness, search for present days, as introduction to follow the path towards Truth". So, here is the invitation by the archbishop "to pray for our Church to be the one announced by Paul: the Church of everybody, open and welcoming, faithful to God and paying attention to men. The Church gathers humanity beyond any frontiers (we are lucky to have overcome and demolished the barriers of old times!). And right in the middle of world’s division, the Church brings God’s peace to everybody". ” “The "pilgrimage of the three peoples" is an initiative, born twenty-six years ago from an idea of the archbishop of Udine of the time, Msgr. Alfredo Battisti, as a sign for reconciliation of the peoples (from Friuli, Carinthia and Slovenia), divided by the iron curtain. ” “
