Papal tribute to Mother Teresa | Francisco spoke …

Pope Francis urged the Balkans yesterday to embark on the path of concord during a visit to northern Macedonia. The former Yugoslav Republic avoided the wars of the Balkans in the 1990s, but it was close to an inter-ethnic conflict in 2001. It is a small country, but a mosaic of nationalities and denominations.

Before local officials, Francisco praised the heritage and the multiethnic and multi-religious composition of this state of 2.1 million inhabitants, fruit, according to the pope, of a rich and complex history of relationships intertwined over centuries. Northern Macedonia is predominantly Orthodox (two-thirds of the population), while one-third of its population profess Islam. As for the nationalities that coexist, the inhabitants of this country are Slavic majority, while the Albanians represent between 20 and 25% of the population. From this mixture, characteristic common to the whole of the Balkans, the pope invited to refer to the serene and fraternal cohabitation.

Catholics, on the other hand, are a small community represented by less than 1% of the population, but they have the strength of Mother Teresa's heritage. "She has become a courageous missionary of Christ's charity in the world, bringing comfort and dignity to the poor," said the pope about Mother Teresa, born in 1910 in the city of Skopje, then under the tutelage of the Empire Ottoman Francisco dedicated a prayer to him in his memorial, located in the most visited museum in the country, in the presence of Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish and Methodist representatives.

Thousands of people of all religions attended the Pope's Mbad yesterday in the central square, near the birthplace of Mother Teresa, before finally leaving the country in the late 1920s. The faithful came from almost all The Balkan Peninsula: Albania, Bosnia, Greece, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia.

Although in his homily, the bishop of Rome quoted the religious canonized by Francisco, he allowed himself to appeal against the false news. As North Macedonia, one of the poorest countries in Europe, was for a while one of the centers of production of fake news sites, it chose to warn against erroneous information in a qualified company full of connections.

The Pope's message of unity came just months after the country had agreed to rename North Macedonia, leaving Macedonia alone, ending an old conflict with Greece (calling Macedonia in a region of its own countries) and opening the way for negotiations with a view to joining the European Union. Prime Minister Zoran Zaev saw in the papal visit a message to leaders that they continue to build bridges.