Pope Benedict urged Jordan's tiny Catholic community on Sunday to preserve their ancient faith and traditions amid the turbulence of the Middle East and work with other religions to enrich their daily lives.
Christians should show love and service for others to counter ideologies that justify taking innocent lives, he said in an Amman stadium attended by about 25,000, mostly Jordanian but some waving flags from Iraq and Lebanon.
"The Catholic community here is deeply touched by the difficulties and uncertainties which affect all the people of the Middle East," Benedict told the crowd.
Christian communities have dwindled dramatically in recent decades in the Middle East, the cradle of the world's largest religion, as wars, political instability and poverty have prompted many to leave for new lives abroad. Jordan's Christian minority numbers about 250,000 out of the mostly Muslim population of 5.6 million. Two-thirds Orthodox and one-third Catholic, it has shrunk to about 20 percent of its former size despite enjoying legal rights and official support.
"Fidelity to your Christian roots, fidelity to the Church's mission in the Holy Land, demands of each of you a particular kind of courage," said the pope on the third day of his May 8-15 pilgrimage to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The pope was due to visit a site on the River Jordan where Jesus is thought to have been baptised. Jordanian archaeologists have unearthed ruins of ancient churches that bolster claims that it is the true site rather than a rival one on the river's west bank.
On Monday, Benedict moves on to Israel and the Palestinian territories for the most delicate part of his trip, whose main theme so far has been Christian-Muslim relations.
In the main speech of his stay in Jordan on Saturday, he issued a call for Christian-Muslim understanding that was welcomed by his Muslim hosts. Benedict told the faithful Christians were called on to help "the victims of profound human tragedies" and "build new bridges to enable a fruitful encounter of people of different religions and cultures."
"It also means bearing witness to the love which inspires us to 'lay down' our lives in the service of others, and thus to counter ways of thinking which justify 'taking' innocent lives," he said.
Archbishop Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said almost 40,000 Iraqi Christians had taken refuge in Jordan since the 2003 US-led invasion. The Catholic church is praying for more vocations to the priesthood, whose ranks are also dwindling in many countries, Twal said his seminary also had problems.
"It's jam-packed" and has to be expanded, he told Benedict. While at the baptism site at Bethany beyond the Jordan, Benedict will lay cornerstones for two Catholic churches to be built for pilgrims visiting the area.
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