Christ! Christ of so much human suffering, humiliation, and destruction. Christ, crucified and risen. In this place – one of many that cannot be omitted from the history of our century – I ask you, Roman bishop and successor of your apostle Peter: Stay! Stay and dwell in our future. Stay and be with us! To whom shall we go? For you have the words of life, which neither death has overshadowed nor destroyed. “You have the words of eternal life.”
Blessed Marcelo Callo, martyr from Mauthausen, blessed sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein, and Saint Father Maximilian Kolbe, renowned and revered martyrs from Auschwitz, intercede for all those tortured and murdered in these places. Pray for all the victims of unjust violence of yesterday and today, and pray even for their executioners! Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, have mercy on them – have mercy on us!
(John Paul II, prayer in Mauthausen, April 24, 1988)
