{"id":4963,"date":"2006-10-27T00:27:19","date_gmt":"2006-10-27T00:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/preparing-for-turkey.html"},"modified":"2006-10-27T00:27:19","modified_gmt":"2006-10-27T00:27:19","slug":"preparing-for-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/preparing-for-turkey.html","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of November, as we all know, Pope Benedict will travel to Turkey. The primary purpose of the visit is meetings with Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew and other religious leaders, but interest in the reaction of the Muslim population to the Pope’s presence will, of course, be high.<\/p>\n

Aid to the Church in Need is seeing a small moment for evangelization, and calling on Turkey to expand ireligious freedom<\/a><\/p>\n

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In the context Benedict\u2019s XVI visit to Turkey and of the EU- entry talks, Aid to the Church in Need asks for \u201creligious liberty of European standard\u201d, including the legal recognition of the Christian Churches, with the questions of property and priests formation. The Catholic Church has no right to build churches and other constructions since the restrictive law of 1923. The residence permit for foreign priests depends on the goodwill of the authorities. The killing of Don Andrea Santoro, last February, testifies to the open or hidden attacks on priests. Furthermore, future priests have no seminary in the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Apostolic Vicariate in Anatolia serves half of the territory of Turkey, with officially only 5.000 Catholics.  Today out of a population of 63,5 million, there are 200,000 Christians in the country. 1914 there were some 30% of Christians.<\/span><\/p>\n

To honour the Pope\u2019s visit in Turkey, Aid to the Church in Need is preparing a Turkish edition of the \u201cLittle Catechism\u201d of the Catholic Church. After being published as a book in 2004, the Child\u2019s Bible in Turkish is now available on line.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Links to all of ACIN’s children’s Bibles online.<\/a><\/p>\n

Many are very worried about the Pope’s safety on this visit. <\/p>\n

The Knights of Columbus are asking people to accompany the Pope spiritually on his journey:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Knights of Columbus announced today that it will sponsor a \u201cspiritual pilgrimage\u201d with Pope Benedict XVI as he travels to Turkey in late November. Knights, their families, and all Catholics are being asked to pray daily for the Pontiff during the trip, which begins on Tuesday, November 28 and concludes on Friday, December 1. <\/p>\n

Knights will pray for the pope\u2019s intentions beginning on November 26, the Sunday before the pope departs (the Solemnity of Christ the King). In addition, the Knights of Columbus will print and distribute cards with a special prayer written by the Order\u2019s Supreme Chaplain, Bishop William E. Lori. Knights and others joining in the Spiritual Pilgrimage will say the prayer each day during the pope\u2019s trip. <\/p>\n

The prayer asks that the pope\u2019s visit will bring about \u201cdeeper ties of understanding, cooperation, and peace among Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, and those who profess Islam.\u201d And it asks that \u201cPope Benedict be kept safe from all harm as he prays, bears witness to the Gospel, and invites all peoples to a dialogue of faith, reason, and love.\u201d The full text of the prayer appears below. A PDF file of the prayer card can be found at www.kofc.org<\/span><\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnly a few Catholics can physically travel with the Holy Father to Turkey,\u201d Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson said, \u201cbut millions of us can be united with him in prayer during his pilgrimage for peace.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Patriarch Bartholomew has hopes for the outcome:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Orthodox church has pinned most of its hopes for religious rights on the possible entry of Turkey into the European Union, which it believes will help give minority religions some political leverage.<\/p>\n

"Regarding the problems for our community and for other religious minorities in Turkey, we nurture the hope that Turkey’s ‘European process’ will resolve them one after another," Patriarch Bartholomew said.<\/p>\n

"The members of the European Union are asking our country to respect these (religious) principles and rights, and I think a lay, democratic state like Turkey should respect and apply them," the patriarch said.<\/p>\n

But so far, the Turkish government has shown little response to European pressure on the Orthodox church issues. And, in a development that worries the country’s Christians, support for EU entry has plummeted in recent months among the Turkish population.<\/p>\n

While the Orthodox expect Pope Benedict to defend religious freedom, the pope’s own views on Turkish admission to the European Union complicate the issue. As a cardinal, he spoke out against Turkish entry, saying it did not make historical sense; since his election as pope, however, the Vatican has been careful to emphasize its neutrality on the question.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of November, as we all know, Pope Benedict will travel to Turkey. The primary purpose of the visit is meetings with Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew and other religious leaders, but interest in the reaction of the Muslim population to the Pope’s presence will, of course, be high. Aid to the Church in Need…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nPreparing for Turkey - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/preparing-for-turkey.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Preparing for Turkey - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At the end of November, as we all know, Pope Benedict will travel to Turkey. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}