MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pope invited to celebrate 30 years of peace in Patagonia

The Chilean Senate reiterated an invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to travel to Chile for the commemoration of a crucial papal mediation in avoiding a war between Chile and Argentina in 1978.

The idea is for the Pope to preside over a great bi-national celebration next December when thirty years ago tanks were rumblings and bomber jets ready to take off to fight over disputed insular territory in the extreme south of Tierra del Fuego. An official Chilean Senate delegation recently visited the Vatican where they met with Cardinal Angelo Sodano who acts as Secretary of State. Monsignor Sodano also happened to be the Pope Representative in Chile from 1978 to 1991, precisely during the most difficult moments of the conflict which for minutes did not erupt into a full fledged war. "Besides the official invitation extended to his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, with Cardinal Sodano we talked about a grand fraternal celebration between two peoples on the edge of war, but that with the support and mediation from the Catholic Church it was avoided", said Senator Carlos Bianchi from Magallanes Region. "The idea is to get Argentine and Chilean members of Parliament together both in Patagonia and Antarctica to commemorate thirty years of peace", added Bianchi. The official Chilean parliament delegation is headed by the president of the Senate, Adolfo Zaldívar.