Speeches 1972
Wednesday, 16 February 1972
Dear Children, on this the first day of Lent, as we begin the liturgical season of sacrifice and self-denial in preparation for Easter, we ask each and every one of you to remember millions of needy, homeless and hungry children in other countries around the world. They depend so much for help upon your annual donations to the Catholic Relief Overseas Aid Fund.
Over the years, your offerings have made it possible for the American Bishops’ overseas Organization, Catholic Relief Services, to bring food, clothing and medicines to poor children in many countries. For many of these boys and girls, this is their only source of aid.
We are especially alarmed today with the situation in India and Pakistan. Millions of human beings have left their homes in East Pakistan and have gone in search of refuge in India. They have travelled long miles without food. They have arrived in refugee camps weak and sick, owning only what they could carry on their backs or in their arms.
Life in these refugee camps is harsh. There is little to eat. Disease and death are ever present. We fear that as this terrible situation continues, the hardships of the refugees will increase. There are so many hundreds of thousands, that further help must come from around the world. We are most fearful that many children will die from malnutrition.
Your own Catholic Relief Services and its staff have been working in the refugee camps since this crisis began last year. From the United States, your organization has sent vaccine, shelter, food, medicines, and other relief supplies. In India, millions of loaves of bread are being baked to feed young and old alike; clothing has been bought and distributed, as well as tents and medicines. Many of you have already helped to make this aid possible when you answered our appeal in October for a special day of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
Sadly, the suffering continues and there seems to be no early end to the problem. We are asking you, therefore, to continue to show Christian love.
At the same time, we cannot forget the poor of other lands in Asia, in Africa and Latin America. Your Catholic Relief Services is at work in all the deprived areas of the world. It gives the young the basic necessities of life and furnishes them schools for an education. It helps them learn a trade or develop better farms to grow more of their own food. It teaches mothers how to prevent disease and malnutrition in infants.
Your part has been most important in making Catholic Relief Services a vital and effective agency for the Church in her role to help abolish poverty and social injustices. As you begin to make your Lenten sacrifices, you should think of how each little donation may keep some child alive or make his future a better one.
Our Blessed Lord has asked us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, shelter the homeless and give drink to the thirsty. When you help the work of the Catholic Relief Overseas Aid Fund, you are doing God’s work. You are showing your love for your neighbor and for Christ himself.
In his name we thank you for your efforts and your generosity. To you and to your parents and brothers and sisters we affectionately impart our special Apostolic Blessing.
Wednesday, 16 February 1972
Dear Children, on this the first day of Lent, as we begin the liturgical season of sacrifice and self-denial in preparation for Easter, we ask each and every one of you to remember millions of needy, homeless and hungry children in other countries around the world. They depend so much for help upon your annual donations to the Catholic Relief Overseas Aid Fund.
Over the years, your offerings have made it possible for the American Bishops’ overseas Organization, Catholic Relief Services, to bring food, clothing and medicines to poor children in many countries. For many of these boys and girls, this is their only source of aid.
We are especially alarmed today with the situation in India and Pakistan. Millions of human beings have left their homes in East Pakistan and have gone in search of refuge in India. They have travelled long miles without food. They have arrived in refugee camps weak and sick, owning only what they could carry on their backs or in their arms.
Life in these refugee camps is harsh. There is little to eat. Disease and death are ever present. We fear that as this terrible situation continues, the hardships of the refugees will increase. There are so many hundreds of thousands, that further help must come from around the world. We are most fearful that many children will die from malnutrition.
Your own Catholic Relief Services and its staff have been working in the refugee camps since this crisis began last year. From the United States, your organization has sent vaccine, shelter, food, medicines, and other relief supplies. In India, millions of loaves of bread are being baked to feed young and old alike; clothing has been bought and distributed, as well as tents and medicines. Many of you have already helped to make this aid possible when you answered our appeal in October for a special day of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
Sadly, the suffering continues and there seems to be no early end to the problem. We are asking you, therefore, to continue to show Christian love.
At the same time, we cannot forget the poor of other lands in Asia, in Africa and Latin America. Your Catholic Relief Services is at work in all the deprived areas of the world. It gives the young the basic necessities of life and furnishes them schools for an education. It helps them learn a trade or develop better farms to grow more of their own food. It teaches mothers how to prevent disease and malnutrition in infants.
Your part has been most important in making Catholic Relief Services a vital and effective agency for the Church in her role to help abolish poverty and social injustices. As you begin to make your Lenten sacrifices, you should think of how each little donation may keep some child alive or make his future a better one.
Our Blessed Lord has asked us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, shelter the homeless and give drink to the thirsty. When you help the work of the Catholic Relief Overseas Aid Fund, you are doing God’s work. You are showing your love for your neighbor and for Christ himself.
In his name we thank you for your efforts and your generosity. To you and to your parents and brothers and sisters we affectionately impart our special Apostolic Blessing.
Monday, 20 March 1972
It is a great pleasure for us to receive this morning the newly ordained priests of the Pontifical College of Propaganda Fide and of the Pontifical Beda College. To all of you we extend our most sincere congratulations.
What we wish to say to you today is this: never doubt your priesthood. This we say for several reasons.
By your ordination you have been endowed with the sacramental mystery which has conferred upon you powers that liken you to Christ: the power to celebrate the Holy Eucharist, to administer the sacrament of Penance, and so on. Through the priestly ministry that is now yours you are likened to the Apostles, you have been made ministers of the Gospel. To you are now applied in a special way the words that Christ spoke to his disciples: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (Jn 20,21). Those words are addressed personally to each one of you.
Never doubt your priesthood. Your task is now to serve the Church and the world with all your strength. What a noble task, and how varied are the forms that it will take! How lofty too are the obligations that you have undertaken, that of holiness, of charity to all men, of sacrifice. It is the Cross that you have willingly accepted, the Cross which will give your lives a serious character, but which will make them strong.
Whatever difficulties and trials you may encounter, you are assured of never-failing help and support: the assistance of God’s grace, the communion of the Church, the esteem-and the good example-of the People of God.
Therefore we repeat: never doubt your priesthood. Go forward with confidence. The Lord be with you, and may the Mother of God ever assist you.
We wish also to extend a special greeting to the parents, relatives and friends of the new priests. We pray that God will reward you for the sacrifices you have made on their behalf, and for the support and encouragement you have given them during their years of training. Many of you have come a long distance to be present, and we are sure that the memory of these happy days will never fade. We greet also the staff of the two Colleges, and we thank them for all that they have done to prepare the new priests for their mission. And finally a greeting to the students, especially to those who will soon in their turn receive the great gift of the priesthood. Be sure that we shall remember you in our prayers.
To you all we cordially impart our special Apostolic Blessing.
Dear sons and daughters from Australia,
It is a joy for us today to receive your group and to welcome you to the Vatican.
We know that Cardinal Gilroy intended to be with you on your world tour and that regrettably he was unable to come. Through you we send him our greetings and our special blessing.
Your own presence here this morning makes us recall our visit to Australia and the many happy hours that we spent among your fellow-countrymen. We would like you to know that we pray often for the people of Australia, so that they may fulfil worthily their human and Christian mission of brotherliness and service to their neighbours in Oceania.
We ask the Lord to give you all his choicest graces in this paschal season and to enrich your pilgrimage with fruitful and lasting results. To each of you we impart our Apostolic Blessing.
We are indeed pleased to have this occasion to meet you the members of the Committee for the Pontifical North American College of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States, and to express to you our deep interest in your work of fostering the welfare of the college.
The importance of your work is undeniable. For over a hundred years the bishops of the United States have sent students to be trained in that college to serve their Churches as sharers in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Here they have had at hand many institutes of learning and science whose fame is worldwide. And we know that today’s students are availing themselves widely, in accordance with the judgement of their superiors, of the olpportunities offered to them for study at different universities and institutes in Rome.
But it is not academical advantages alone that have made the existence of the North American College in Rome so worthwhile. The years spent in the city of Saint Peter’s See cannot fail to leave a deep spiritual impression. The monuments and works of art, the very stones recall the history of the Church that Christ built on the foundation of the apostles. Rome is the center to which members of the universal Church come from all over the world, to meet each other here, and to carry back with them and share with their people the awareness that is acquired here more than anywhere else of the unity and catholicity of the Church of Christ.
We invoke every assisting grace upon your work for ensuring that thomse who come to study in Rome will benefit to the greatest possible degree, both academically and spiritually. May the college long continue to produce priests who will minister to the people of God with the knowledge to give them light, with the holiness to inspire them, and with the zeal to labor untiringly in their service.
With all our heart we give you and the students and staff of the Pontifical North American College our special Apostolic Blessing.
We are pleased to welcome the participants in the Open World Conference on the Role of Agricultural Co-operatives in Economic and Social Development. We know that this is the first international event of its kind and we are happy to express our solidarity with you. Your visit indeed gives us the opportunity to state the importance which we attribute to your work of promoting agricultural co-operatives.
This importance is based, first of all, on the remarkable way in which such co-operatives respond to basic demands of human dignity. Man has been called to active mastery of the world’s resources; we recall the awesome words of the Creator to the first man and woman : “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it” (Gn 1,28). It is man’s destiny to use not only his physical strength but also the genius of his mind and the determination of his will to bring forth from the earth all that he needs in order to live humanly. It is a part of man’s dignity to be, not a bystander, but an active participant in social and economic life. Agricultural co-operatives enable farmers to take an active part in making the decisions that affect their work and their lives.
But it is also a part of man’s dignity, indeed his right, to join freely with others in the formation of associations. Man is essentially social, and his development depends upon his co-operation and collaboration with others. Individual initiative must be complemented by communal enterprise. Agricultural co-operatives are in harmony with man’s right and need to form associations. It is our hope that a growing sense of solidarity will provide an ever stronger impetus towards the establishing and strengthening of cooperatives. Our predecessor John XXIII linked co-operatives with such an awareness; he wrote: “Rural workers should feel a sense of solidarity with one another, and should unite to form co-operatives and professional associations” (Mater et Magistra MM 35).
But there is yet another factor which leads us to attach great importance to the promotion of agricultural co-operatives. These associations facilitate the modernization of equipment and thus help to increase productivity for the service of man. Through encouraging the increase and development of co-operatives you are enabling farmers to take advantage of what scientific and technical progress can offer them. In this way they can make a greater contribution towards solving the immense problem of hunger that afflicts so many peoples. For the benefit of all, they can thus likewise help to promote balanced economic growth and hence social justice.
With these words we wish to assure you of our profound interest in your efforts. Rural workers must play an ever more vital role in social and economic development. Those who provide nourishment for the family of man deserve every assistance and support that will enable them to live and work in accordance with the demands of their human dignity. We wish therefore to encourage you in the promotion of co-operatives and in the search for a solution to the problems connected therewith. With this intention we invoke upon you abundant graces of wisdom and strength from Almighty God.
Ci è molto gradito rivolgere il nostro saluto anche agli esperti di lingua italiana, i quali partecipano, presso la sede romana della F.A.O., alla Conferenza mondiale sul «Ruolo delle Cooperative Agricole nello sviluppo economico e sociale». Voi applicate i vostri talenti e la vostra esperienza al problema rurale, che, insostituibile nel processo evolutivo di ogni Paese, sta attraversando un periodo di crisi nell’odierna società di carattere industriale.
Non abbiamo bisogno di dirvi quanto questo problema sia sentito dalla Chiesa, partecipe materna e sollecita delle ansie e delle speranze di tutti i suoi figli. Il sapervi perciò in consonanza di sensibilità e in fervore di progettazioni e di iniziative per la promozione umana del mondo rurale, e per l’avvaloramento delle sue possibilità enormi, ci procura vivo compiacimento; e mentre vi esortiamo a non lasciarvi scoraggiare dalle difficoltà, dalle remore che possono venire da mentalità e da abitudini, invochiamo sulle vostre persone e sulla vostra opera, tanto meritoria, la continua assistenza del Signore, e la ricchezza delle sue benedizioni.
Vous êtes les bienvenus, chers Messieurs. Vous savez avec quelle attention l’Eglise accueille vos soucis et vos espoirs, cependant qu’elle vous entourage sur la voie d’un effort concerté, dans le cadre des coopératives agricoles. Les méthodes que vous préconisez intéressent d’autant plus l’Eglise qu’elles mettent en oeuvre la collaboration nécessaire au développement, à une échelle qui nous semble humaine, c’est-à-dire qui n’étouffe pas l’initiative et les rapports personnels. Car il s’agit bien de mener de pair le progrès économique, le progrès social, le progrès spirituel de l’homme.
Puissent vos initiatives apporter au monde rural, avec ce sens d’un bien commun élargi, l’encouragement et l’espoir dont il a besoin! Pour notre part, Nous implorons de tout coeur, sur vos efforts et sur vos personnes, les bénédictions du Seigneur.
*Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, vol. X, p.558-560;
OR 26.5.1972, p.1;
ORa n.23 p.2.
Friday, 26 May 1972
Dear sons and daughters,
We are happy to extend a warm welcome to all those associated with Santa Susanna’s: the former parishioners who have come from the United States, the present members of the parish and a number of the dedicated Paulist Fathers to whose care this American parish in Rome was entrusted a half a century ago.
The anniversary which you celebrate is indeed a happy one for you. Moreover, your visit today gives us the opportunity to express our own joy. As pastor of the universal Church, we rejoice that the Catholics of your country are represented here in Rome through this parish of Santa Susanna. As Bishop of Rome, we rejoice that the pastoral needs of American Catholics resident in this city or visiting here have been and are being cared for through this parish.
We are confident that in these days you have offered prayers of thanksgiving to God for the zeal, the dedication, the generosity and the faithfulness of the priests and laity who during these fifty years have served Santa Susanna’s and helped it to fulfill worthily its mission of being the American parish in Rome. We too give thanks to the Lord for these five decades of devoted stewardship and service.
During this time the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been preached to you and to countless numbers of your fellow-citizens, and his grace abundantly given through the sacraments. Let us realize that throughout these years there has been one essential principle of continuity-it is Jesus Christ himself. He is the center and foundation of every parish and the reason for its existence. Through the parish his followers are strengthened in their faith, given light, encouragement and wisdom for their lives, and are perfected in the love of God and one another.
We pray that this same Lord Jesus Christ will continue to bless the entire parish of Santa Susanna. May it always be a community of faith in which parishioners and visitors, individuals and families receive God’s love and communicate it through their unselfish service of their brethren. May your lives be filled always with the joy, the hope and the consolation that come from the presence of Jesus Christ in your midst. With Saint Peter we pray that “Grace and peace be with you more and more” (1 Petr. 1, 2).
To all of you we cordially impart our Apostolic Blessing.
To all of you who make up the Institute for Continuing Theological Education at the North American College we extend a special and affectionate greeting of grace and peace in the Lord.
These months that you are spending in Rome are indeed important ones. They are important for you and for God’s people on behalf of whom, like Christ, you have dedicated your lives.
Through your study and fraternal exchanges, through your prayer and increased openness to God’s Word you are able to perceive more clearly the nature of Christ’s Church and his priesthood. And you are thus enabled to render an ever more committed and effective service in his name.
Our prayer for you today is that it may indeed be so. With the Apostle Peter we say to you: "Go on growing in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Petr. 3, 18). And with the Apostle Paul we pray that the Lord will give you much joy and make your hearts strong so that you will "never grow tired of doing what is right" (2Th 3,13). In the name of Jesus we bless you and invoke upon you the grace of living and communicating his surpassing love.
It is with great cordiality and esteem that we greet so distinguished a group of Buddhist leaders from Thailand.
In your country Buddhist thought has long devoted itself with seriousness and concentration to the search for an adequate understanding of the deepest mysteries that surround human existence. These mysteries stir the heart of man and, even when he cannot precisely formulate them, they confront him with questions whose solution is ultimately of greater value than would be any advance in knowledge about lesser things. “Who knows what is good for man in his lifetime, in those few days he lives so vainly, days that like a shadow he spends?” (Qo 6,12). These words of the Hebrew sage express a question that men pose today as yesterday. Buddhist teaching acknowledges that this shifting world is radically insufficient, and it sets out to show how men can be liberated from suffering by following a path of lofty asceticism.
We have a profound regard for the spiritual, moral and socio-cultural treasures that have been bestowed on you through your precious traditions. We recognize the values of which you are the custodians, and we share the desire that they should be preserved and fostered. We hope that there will be increasingly friendly dialogue and close collaboration between the traditions that you represent and the Catholic Church. Such contacts can be the means to a mutual enrichment, and assist in advancing the cause of justice and peace in a world that needs united effort by as many people as possible, if it is to overcome the grave problems which face it.
We therefore welcome you most warmly. We hope that your talks with our Secretariat will prove very profitable. And we invoke upon you and all your country abundant blessings from on high.
We cordially welcome the priests who have undertaken a visit to Rome as part of the celebration of their Silver Jubilee of Ordination. We assure you and all who have come with you that we too share your joy as you commemorate twentyfive years in the priestly ministry. An anniversary such as this is always a sourse of happiness, because it recalls the service you have given to the People of God. The fundamental achievement of your twenty-five years is that you have made it possible for Jesus Christ to live through faith and love in many hearts and in many communities.
In this regard we can recall the words of the recent Synod of Bishops giving assurance that “the priestly ministry . . . alone perpetuates the essential work of the Apostles: by effectively proclaiming the Gospel, by gathering together and leading the community, by remitting sins, and especially by celebrating the Eucharist, it makes Christ, the head of the community, present in the exercise of his work of redeeming mankind and glorifying God perfectly” (De sacerdotio ministeriali, 4). This has been your privileged task for twenty-five years. Who can put into words what the loving presence of Christ has meant for the many men and women whom you have served? Who can calculate the spiritual treasures of wisdom and love, of goodness and peace with which the lives of so many have been enriched through your ministry?
We rejoice with you today, and our joy leads us to assure you of our prayers. We pray especially that you will always maintain a close bond of unity in the fellowship of the priesthood We recall again the words of the Synod: “Let priests follow Christ’s example and cultivate with the bishop and with each other that brotherhood which is founded on their ordination and the oneness of their mission so that their priestly witness may be more credible” (De sacerdotio ministeriali, 6).
May the Lord sustain you in this unity and grant you joy always in your service of him and of his People.
Dear students,
We have mentioned on many occasions how happy we are to have visits from young people and to be with students. This audience today reminds us of the encounters we had with thousands of young people during our journey to the Far East and to Oceania. We recall with joy our meetings both with the University Students of Manila and with the youth of Australia.
On those occasions we spoke of the role of youth today and of their mission to help effectively to build a better world, a world of justice and peace, a world of brotherhood and love.
In this regard we pointed out the challenge that faces youth: to assist all mankind in coming to the fulness of truth and liberation which is found in the Gospel, is exemplified in the perfect man Jesus Christ, and alone satisfies the human heart.
On those occasions our concern was to show that the Church is with you and wants to help you reach your goals. As we told the young people of Australia: the Church “knows what values you possess: your enthusiasm for the future, your strength in numbers, your thirst for what is just and true and your aversion for hatred and its worst expression which is war, even your rejection of the out-of-date elements in present-day civilization. God placed these virtues in you so that you might meet a new situation with a new attitude” (AAS 63, 1971, p. 64).
We repeat to you today the interest that the Church has in you as well as our own deep affection for each of you and for your student colleagues everywhere.
May you be convinced witnesses to Christ’s Gospel of peace, with your hearts open wide to the needs and aspirations of all your brothers and sisters throughout the world.
May the Lord sustain you and bless your efforts. And may he fill you with his love and joy always
Mr Ambassador,
It is with pleasure that we accept your Letters of Credence and assure you of our gratitude for the greetings which you have conveyed to us on behalf of President Nimeiry and the Government and people of the Democratic Republic of the Sudan. We thank you also for your kind words concerning the work of the Church in developing nations and in your own country, especially in the Southern Region.
This is indeed a significant occasion because, as you have pointed out, you are the first Ambassador of the Sudan to present Credentials to the Holy See. We are confident that this event marks yet another stage in a new climate of mutual understanding. Furthermore, we hope that the exchange of diplomatic representatives will be beneficial for the good of your country and for the promotion of the well-being of all your people. In particular, we trust that it will benefit the Christian communities and that it will further the dialogue happily being carried on between Christians and Moslems.
We are indeed pleased to note the dispositions recently agreed upon, whereby your citizens are to be assured of religious liberty and freedom of education. We are convinced that these guarantees render honour to your country and are greatly advantageous also to the civil life of the Sudan.
We are happy that reconciliation has taken place in your country and it is our hope that your Government and your people will indeed succeed in establishing increasingly satisfactory conditions of life and security so that all the citizens can see in their nation the guardian of their well-being and of their tranquil future.
In this regard we willingly give assurance of the Church’s desire not only to work for the spiritual welfare of the people of the Sudan, but also to collaborate for the promotion of their full human dignity and material good. The Church will lend the full measure of her energy to further those initiatives that will help to make this world a place where discrimination and violence will be no more and where justice and peace will reign.
We would ask you, Mr Ambassador, kindly to convey this assurance, together with our cordial greetings, to the President and people of your beloved country. To you personally we express our good wishes for the successful fulfilment of the mission which you are now happily beginning. Upon all the Sudanese we invoke in abundance blessings from God.
*AAS 64 (1972), p.550-551;
Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, vol. X, p.804-805;
L’Attività della Santa Sede 1972, p.283-284;
OR 11.8.1972 p.1;
ORa n.34 p.2.
Saturday, 9 September 1972
Mr Ambassador,
It is our great pleasure to welcome you and to receive the Letters of Credence accrediting you as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the Holy See. We appreciate very much the friendly greetings you bring from the President and people of your country, as well as the good wishes you have yourself extended to us. These sentiments of respect and goodwill have a special significance for us because, since the foundation of the Republic of Pakistan, our relations have always been most cordial. It is this that has made it possible for us to take a special interest in the welfare of your country and, as you have so kindly said, to make some contribution to it. As our mission demands of us a spiritual commitment to meet in every way we can the needs of mankind, we assure you of our continued regard and concern.
You have spoken of the struggle in Pakistan to achieve a better way of life and of the desire of its people to be at peace. We would like to take this occasion to compliment your Government on the great efforts being made to build up your economy, especially through the harnessing of natural resources so as to increase the return from the land. We encourage too the efforts of Pakistan to establish lasting peace on the subcontinent and have learned with satisfaction of the recent agreements arrived at in this regard. Greater political stability can only facilitate the arduous task of bettering the conditions of life within the country. We would also like you to know that the Church recognises the riches of the Islamic faith -a faith that binds us to the one God. How could we be indifferent to the fact that the Islamic religion is tolerant of other religious communities in your country? It is indeed by virtue of that tolerance that the Catholic Church has been able to work there and that Catholics in Pakistan are numbered among those most dedicated to the life of the nation. Because of the same tradition of Islam, we believe that the people of Pakistan will retain their deep concern for the spiritual quality of human living.
May we ask you to accept the warmest reciprocation of the greetings from your President, Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and your Government. Upon them and the beloved people of Pakistan we invoke from Almighty God the favours of his providence, his guidance and peace.
To you, Mr Ambassador, we extend our very best wishes for the happy accomplishment of your mission.
*AAS 64 (1972), p.598-599;
Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, vol. X, p.866-867;
L’Attività della Santa Sede 1972, p.314-315;
OR 10.9.1872, p.1;
ORa n.38 p.2.
Speeches 1972