VATICAN CITY: Rome was key for Saints Peter and Paul in their respective missions, affirmed Benedict XVI on the apostles' feast day (June 29, 2008). In a Vatican Mass celebrated in the company of the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, the Pope focused in the homily for Sunday's feast of Peter and Paul on the importance of Rome for both the "great princes" of the Church.

The Mass, held in St. Peter's Square, formed part of the celebrations for the inauguration of the Pauline Jubilee Year. Benedict inaugurated the Pauline year at Saturday's vespers in the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls. The jubilee runs through to June 29, 2009.

Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I was in Rome for the occasion, and also gave a homily at Sunday's Mass. "By their martyrdom, Peter and Paul are now part of Rome," the Pontiff said. "Through martyrdom, even Peter became a Roman citizen forever. […] By virtue of their martyrdom, Peter and Paul are in reciprocal relationship forever. They died for the one Christ and, in the witness for which they give their lives, they are one."

The Pauline Jubilee (2000)-Year is an opportunity to make progress toward full Christian unity, says a Vatican spokesman. Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi. The priest, a director of the Vatican Press Office, said, "the solemn opening of the Pauline year, with the participation of several representatives of Christian Churches and communities and, in particular, of [Orthodox] Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, were new intense moments of ecumenical encounter."

He likened it to the proclamation of the Gospel and the liturgical celebration that the degree of ecumenism among Christians can be measured, “because therein is the contact with the original community and only from there can the path toward unity begin." Bartholomew I also proclaimed the year of St. Paul for the Orthodox Church.

According to Lombardi, St. Paul, author of the most ancient and ample writings of the New Testament, impassioned and conquered by Christ, missionary of universal horizons, has shown us how to see the Church concretely as the Body of Christ. Recalling how the Apostle asked, "How could you lacerate my body?" Father Lombardi noted how the Pope asks himself and the faithful the same question.

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