Everyone joined in at priest's request

CATHOLIC and nonCatholic Christians in 17 lands have been praying for the small Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt — at the request of a Catholic priest.
Fr. Robert Clement. of the College of the Holy Family at Faggalah. Egypt. remembered that after Pope Pius XI died in 1939, he was very moved to hear that Protestant and Orthodox Christians were joining with Catholics in Prayer for the election of a new Pope.
So when A mba Youssab II, Patriarch of Egypt's Orthodox Coptic Church, died recently, Fr. Clement decided to write to Christians of many nations. " I think that the Egyptian Copts will he happy to feel a similar solidarity in Christ and that the Christian family carries in prayer the preoccupations and cares .
" in present circumstances, indeed, the Coptic Church of Egypt has a greater need than ever of a Father and I.eader capable of guiding and controlling it, and of directing that religious elan which the Holy Spirit sustains in it."
The response was widespread and sympathetic. Cardinal Gerlier, Archbishop of Lyons, sent his blessing. Catholic religious superiors promised that they and their communities would pray for the Copts.
Non-Catholics who promised their prayers included a Joint Secretary-General of the World Council of Churches, the Anglican Abbot of Nashdom, a minister of the Swedish Lutheran Church, the clergyman-editor of a French Protestant weekly, and a professor at the Russian Orthodox seminary in Paris. .