Basque Priests' Letter to the Pope

You're about to read a rather unique and remarkable document, this is a letter that 530 Basque priests sent to Karol Wojtyla, the Polish who today heads the Catholic Church. When you read it take into consideration that Wojtyla is a true fascist, a backwards minded individual that has been harping to the most sinister characters in modern history.

Here you have it:

LETTER ADDRESSED BY 530 PRIESTS FROM THE BASQUE COUNTRY (Basque dioceses of Bayonne, Bilbao, Pamplona/Tudela and Vitoria) TO THE POPE JOHN PAUL II
___________________

The Basque Country
April, 2003
To His Holiness, Pope John Paul II
VATICAN CITY

Holy Father,

Your forthcoming visit to the Spanish State has prompted us priests of the Church in the Basque Country to write to you. The Church of the Basque Country consists of the dioceses of Bayonne, Bilbao, Pamplona/Tudela, San Sebastian and Vitoria, and it is where our pastoral ministry takes place to make God's kingdom of justice, love and peace present amid the conflicts that we as a People endure.

Fulfilling your wish to listen to and maintain contact with the Peoples where the Church you preside over in Christian love is present, we should like to bring to your attention the concerns that we have felt as priests in the Basque Country. We are particularly concerned about the fact that reports and interpretations, on occasions biased, from different political as well as ecclesiastical authorities will reach you in connection with the reality of our situation and will contribute towards creating moral confusion. As the principal representative of a Church which desires to be close to the poor and to those who suffer, we trust in your pastoral understanding.

Our People feel and know that the deepest roots of its political problems and the serious, painful, violent expressions of them lie in a conflict caused by the lack of recognition of our collective rights. As you yourself affirmed on the occasion of the World Peace Conference in 1999, "One of the most dramatic forms of discrimination is to deny ethnic groups and national minorities their basic right to exist as such. This happens when an attempt is made to suppress or exile them and when attempts are made to water down their ethnic identities to the point of rendering them unrecognisable. Is it possible to remain silent before such serious crimes against humanity? No effort should be spared when it comes to putting an end to these aberrations, which are unworthy of human beings."

Nevertheless, we believe that this situation can be resolved in a humane and evangelical way -as our Bishops have called for on numerous occasions- along the paths of dialogue and negotiation, respect, and the unfettered expression of all options in the absence of any kind of threat, and above all, through the exercise of the free decision of this People with neither impositions nor antidemocratic curbs. As your predecessor Pope Paul VI warned when he spoke to the Cardinals during the Christmas of 1974, "there can be no true and lasting peace until the rights of all Peoples, including the right to self-determination and independence, are properly recognised and honoured." From our own pastoral experience we believe that a necessary and decisive step towards reconciliation and peace lies in our People's right to existence in democratically expressed political ways.

We were deeply distressed -and a large group of us priests expressed this in two documents- that the latest Pastoral Statement of the Spanish Bishops' Conference, with a significant number of votes against, should refer to the demands of a Basque majority who, regarding themselves as a people, are crying out for individual and collective human rights, as totalitarian nationalism that aims to impose itself by means of terrorism, and absolutist ideology. Holy Father, we condemn any kind of terrorism and in particular that which is exerted from a position of power and directed by States. In order to be true to history we feel bound to point out that the origin of the current terrorist violence among us lies in the military uprising, the fratricidal war- blessed as a Crusade by the Church- and the Franco dictatorship.

We regret that the Statement neither mentioned nor ethically discredited the heightened Spanish nationalism and the repression of the Basque language and culture, which are so relevant today. The secular tradition, the current awareness and the ethical conduct of our People desire and seek peace in the coexistence of a pluralist society and in the inalienable respect of the right to freedom of all persons and Peoples. Holy Father, you yourself, who as a citizen and pastor endured the serious, distressing difficulties that for years prevented Poland, your homeland, from being free and in control of her destiny, will be able to understand our feelings, desires and aspirations.

Our pastoral responsibility and love for the Basque Country and all the other Peoples of the world have prompted us to support so many people of different ideologies who suffer and are victims of political conflict, which has been maintained on purpose but which can be resolved through the democratic channels of respect for all human rights, as you have repeatedly emphasised and called for.

We are aware of the difficulties involved in such recognition and in the exercise of democracy in view of the complexity of the situation in which we live, and which has been aggravated over the years by violations of basic human rights with deaths, torture, attacks, repression, threats, curbs on democratic liberties including the appalling situation of the prisoners who are far away from their homeland. As Cardinal Roger Etchegaray said in a statement during a visit to his native Basque Country, ". the Basque People have suffered enough already, dialogue must replace violence and the politicians must demonstrate lucidity and courage." Holy Father, it is our hope that during your visit to the Spanish State you may promote the political will so that all these situations of suffering may be overcome.

Our service of pastoral care in the Church of the Basque Country is today intimately involved in and committed to the building of peace, as our Bishops continually stress, and it is the general Christian endeavour. We are aware that it is not easy to find the right means to achieve this peace based on justice, bearing in mind the serious conflicts that divide us. For this reason, we hope, Holy Father, that your presence in the Spanish State and your visit to the Christian communities may be a sign of and a driving force for reconciliation.

We share your deep sensitivity for all the persons and Peoples who have suffered and who continue to suffer the consequences of different kinds of violence and terrorism, an expression in the last analysis of the absence of dialogue. We join your continual calls -that unfortunately go all too often unheeded- to avoid all wars and violence. We support your untiring work in the interests of peace and the achievement of fraternal, reconciling relations among all Peoples, in particular the poorest and most deprived. We admire your evangelical testimony in asking for forgiveness for the grave injustices for which the Church has been guilty, and if you were to invite the Spanish Church to seek forgiveness for its historical complicity in the civil confrontation and in the subsequent regime that oppressed human rights, such a gesture would be greatly valued.

It is our evangelising responsibility that has prompted us to express these concerns, feelings and wishes. We do so in communion within our church in the Basque Country and in solidarity with all the other Peoples on earth. We should also like to take this opportunity to point out once again that we are and feel divided ecclesiastically. We believe that the pastoral union of our local churches into a single Basque Ecclesiastical Province with Iruñea/Pamplona as the archbishopric has been backed by the views and wishes expressed over many years by Christian people and the majority of the Basque bishops and would be an important ecclesiastical sign of reconciliation and of pastoral service to this People.

We trust and hope that your visit will be an evangelical sign of good news for the poor, of freedom for prisoners, of fraternity and of the drawing closer to those who suffer most, and of a just peace for all Peoples in the recognition of all the rights that belong to human dignity and of their condition as God's children.

From the ecclesiastical communion in Christ we send you our most respectful and fraternal regards.

THE LETTER IS SIGNED BY 530 PRIESTS FROM ALL THE DIOCESES OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY

I love the basic principle behind their statement that they write from all the dioceses of Euskal Herria... it would make of them a true Basque institution like Udalbiltza. And that is two of them now.

Its my belief that each one of these 530 priests put their lives in danger when they signed this letter, all what Wojtyla needs to do is to contact Joseph Ratzinger to have them punished. After all, he is visiting Spain at the very time when this country is taking part in the invasion of Iraq.

.... ... .