Cardinal Pietro Parolin has expressed to ZENIT his appreciation for the 35 years of relations between the Holy See and the United States and has reiterated their commitment together to help the persecuted.
The Vatican Secretary of State spoke to ZENIT’s Senior Vatican Correspondent at the ‘Pathways to Achieving Human Dignity: Partnering With Faith-Based Organization’ Symposium, Oct. 2, 2019, in the Vatican, sponsored by the US Embassy to the Holy See and held at the Vatican’s Old Synod Hall in the Apostolic Palace.
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ZENIT: This year marks the 35-year anniversary of the establishment of formal relations between the United States and Holy See. What is the importance of these 35 years that have passed? What fruits have they produced and in what ways do you wish to continue cultivating them together?
Cardinal Parolin: These 35 years are very important because it is period that is starting to be long, especially thinking of how many challenges there had been for establishing these relationships […] It was a great result that produced many fruits. Diplomatic relations and diplomacy as a whole are particularly useful instruments for keeping relationships open and collaboration between the involved parties. I believe that this was a great fruit of these 35 years. There was a possibility to speak together on so many issues and on how to establish initiatives, programs and collaborations on many themes that seem — at least to me it seems–always developing more over time.
ZENIT: How can this Symposium be useful in helping persecuted Christians, and what is needed to keep helping persecuted Christians? And not only the persecuted Christians but also the persecuted of other faiths or ethnicity…. How can faith-based organizations help?
Cardinal Parolin: I also recently at the United Nations, on various dossiers, and on various themes, always insisted in the name of the Holy See on the concept of partnership. It seems to me that this encounter and those that proceeded it, really in this prospect, [that is to say] have always reinforced and consolidated greater and greater collaboration. I am speaking about the partnership between different actors, different actors who can be state and non-state actors. Among the actors who are not of the state, it should not be forgotten that–or rather it should be particularly emphasized–the role of the faith-based organizations. This is especially the case because they have a great potential, a potential for action, a potential of giving their experience, a potential of recognizing current needs, projects, bringing enthusiasm, a potential for motivation that can be truly fundamental in confronting these themes and especially in helping these people who find themselves in situations of vulnerability.
