Pope Francis begins today in Vilnius a tour of the Baltic countries, greatly changed since the fall of communism. In four days he will travel through Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, countries that still bear the scars of German and Soviet occupation. This visit reflects the Pope's idea of visiting the peripheries rather than the centers. It will also take him very close to Russia, whose capital he has wanted to visit for years. Lately, the Moscow Patriarchate has been confronted with the claims of autocephaly of the Orthodox Churches of Ukraine and Belarus.

Francis visit the three Baltic countries on the centenary of their independence, gained after the First World War. The Catholic Church, with hundreds of Christians arrested and deported to the Soviet-era gulags, played an important role in the peaceful resistance to the Stalinist regime. In Lithuania, the Catholic character of the country is grade in the crosses and chapels that fill the countryside. But after communism has come consumerism.

In the other countries Catholics are a minority. Latvia and Estonia will be two particular stages, because they are few and the Bishop of Rome will meet with Protestants and Orthodox. The 6,000 Estonian Catholics hope to have their first saint, the German Jesuit Eduard Profittlich, bishop and victim of communism. It would probably be the smallest community in the world to have its own saint. It is important because God acts through them.