AMMAN - Pope Benedict XVI hailed the courage of Christians in the Holy Land and urged them to be faithful to their roots in the troubled Middle East where decades of conflict have forced many to emigrate.
"I have long awaited this opportunity to stand before you as a witness to the Risen Saviour, and to encourage you to persevere in faith, hope and love," the pontiff said at an open-air mass in Jordan.
"The Catholic community here is deeply touched by the difficulties and uncertainties which affect all the people of the Middle East," he said to around 50,000 worshippers from across the region, including Syria and Iraq.
"May you never forget the great dignity which derives from your Christian heritage, or fail to sense the loving solidarity of all your brothers and sisters in the Church throughout the world," he added.
"Fidelity to your Christian roots, fidelity to the Church’s mission in the Holy Land, demands of each of you a particular kind of courage: the courage of conviction, born of personal faith, not mere social convention or family tradition."
The papal visit to Jordan, part of a Holy Land tour that will take him to Israel and the Palestinian territories from Monday, is largely seen as an effort to stem a Christian exodus from the region.
On Saturday, the pope noted that while Christian communities now formed minorities across the Middle East, they traced their origins to one of the strongholds of the early church.
Decades of violence across the Middle East's have taken their toll on Christian communities, particularly in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
The pope also urged young people to help "build" the church by entering the priesthood or through marriage. "Jesus needs you to make his voice heard and to work for the growth of his Kingdom," he said.
He also paid tribute to the "dignity, vocation and mission of women in God’s plan."
"How much the Church in these lands owes to the patient, loving and faithful witness of countless Christian mothers, religious Sisters, teachers, doctors and nurses," the pope said.
Already a small minority, Christians have been steadily leaving Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories since the second intifada in 2000, fleeing the violence and plummeting living standards.
Church officials estimate that since 2000 some 4,000 Christians, most of them educated professionals, have left the occupied West Bank, where the Christian community is about 40,000-strong.
On Saturday the pope urged the world to protect the Christian minority in Iraq where there are as few as 400,000 Christians, nearly half those present in the country at the time of the US-led invasion of 2003.
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