POPE URGES TURKISH CHRISTIANS TO MEET ‘MANY CHALLENGES’
by Malcolm Moore in Ephesus

The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
November 30, 2006 Thursday

THE Pope drew attention to the plight of Turkey’s tiny Christian
community yesterday and paid tribute to a Catholic priest who was
shot dead earlier this year.

On the second day of his four-day trip, the Pope visited a shrine in
Ephesus where the Virgin is said to have spent her final days. The
small stone house, which has been converted into a church, is close
to Turkey’s only significant Catholic community, at Izmir. A few
hundred locals were invited to pray with the Pope.

During the outdoor mass, under a canopy of flowers in the Vatican’s
colours of yellow and white, the Pope appeared to be nursing a cold,
coughing often and wiping his nose.

"Let us sing joyfully, even when we’re tested by difficulties and
dangers, as we have learned from the fine witness given by the Rev
Andrea Santoro, whom I am pleased to recall in this celebration,"
he said.

Fr Santoro was shot in February by a teenager as he knelt in prayer at
his church in Trabzon on the Black Sea. The Pope encouraged Turkey’s
"little flock" of Christians to stand firm in the face of "many
challenges and daily difficulties".

Out of Turkey’s 70 million people, who are mostly Muslims, only 20,000
are Roman Catholic. Another 65,000 are Armenian Orthodox Christians,
3,500 are Protestant and 2,000 are Greek Orthodox.

The Christian minority has faced a series of persecutions. A Catholic
priest in Izmir was harassed during the Danish cartoon controversy
and bulldozers arrived to level his church. In July, a priest was
stabbed in Samsun.

The Pope appealed again for understanding between Muslims and
Christians, citing Mary as a figure that united the two faiths.

Turkish security forces cordoned off the hill on which the shrine
stands. Snipers patrolled the surrounding forest and trees were
whitewashed to remove possible cover for assassins.

The trip has been dogged by controversy since September, when the
Pope made comments in which he appeared to link Islam with violence.