Santiago, Chile, Feb 7, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Archbishop Cristian Caro of Puerto Montt, Chile, expressed his admiration for the witness of strength of Pope John Paul II in the face of illness, and he said the Pope is “an extraordinary example of faithfulness to the mission God entrusted to him.”
The archbishop said the Holy Father is an amazing model of offering up one’s suffering to Christ, adding that, “Recently I have been participating in Confirmations and we have prayed for the Pope. We have prayed for him, because you can see that he is suffering. We can see that he wants to carry out his mission in the Church until the end.”
“He wants to be faithful to the end, with much personal sacrifice,” Archbishop Caro stated. “You can see how he gets weaker every day. Some days he has difficulty breathing and speaking, but on other days he is better,” he added.
“He is an amazing example, especially today when Euthanasia has been approved in some European countries,” the archbishop continued. The Pope shows us that suffering is difficult but has meaning, “because with those sufferings he is united to Christ, and that helps bring salvation to the world, and that is the meaning of the Cross.”