You think it's hard getting the Bishop to come to your parish?

BAKU, Azerbaijan, MAY 20, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Catholics of Azerbaijan received the sacrament of confirmation on Pentecost, a grace some of them had to wait seven decades for.

Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, the apostolic nuncio to Azerbaijan, visited the former Soviet Republic -- where Catholicism was swept away by Stalin's persecutions -- and found a group of elderly believers who had kept the faith alive for more than 70 years without the sacraments.

"It was an indescribable emotion," said the archbishop to the Italian newspaper Avvenire, "to see the elderly ladies, with the traditional veil on their heads and the elderly men full of wrinkles come forward and again pronounce their baptismal name -- Teresa, Anselm, Francis -- after decades of using other names of Azerbaijani roots, and then ask for confirmation."

Full story from Zenit.

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