Speeches 2005-13 19161


TO MEMBERS OF THE "ASSEMBLY OF ORGANIZATIONS FOR AID TO THE EASTERN CHURCHES" (ROACO) Clementine Hall Friday, 24 June 2011

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Your Eminence,
Your Beatitude,
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Dear Members and Friends of ROACO,

I would like to express my most cordial welcome to each one of you and I gladly reciprocate with my very best wishes the courteous tribute addressed to me by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches and President of the Assembly of Organizations for Aid to the Eastern Churches, accompanied by the Archbishop Secretary, by the Undersecretary and by the ecclesiastical and lay collaborators of the Dicastery.

I address a brotherly greeting to the new Maronite Patriarch, H.B. Béchara Boutros Raï, and I also extend my thoughts to the other prelates, to the representatives of the international agencies and of the University of Bethlehem, as well as to the benefactors gathered here. I thank you all for your generous cooperation in the mandate of universal charity which the Lord Jesus never ceases to entrust to the Bishop of Rome as Successor of the Blessed Apostle Peter.

Yesterday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord. The Eucharistic Procession, which I led from the Lateran Cathedral to the Basilica of St Mary Major, is always an appeal to the beloved City of Rome and to the entire Catholic community to continue to walk on the difficult paths of history, among the great forms of poverty in the world, both spiritual and material, so as to offer the love of Christ and of the Church, which flows from the paschal mystery, a mystery of love, of the total self-giving that brings forth life.

Love “never ends” (
1Co 13,8), the Apostle Paul says, and is capable of changing hearts and the world with God’s power, sowing and reawakening solidarity, communion and peace everywhere. These gifts are entrusted to our frail hands, but their development is certain because God’s power works precisely through weakness, if we are able to open ourselves to his action, if we are true disciples who seek to be faithful to him (cf. 2Co 12,10).

Dear friends of ROACO, never forget the Eucharistic dimension of your purpose in order to keep pace constantly with ecclesial charity. The charity of the Church wishes to reach out in a particular way to the Holy Land but also to the whole of the Middle East, to sustain the Christian presence there. I ask you to do your utmost — including involving the public authorities with whom you are in touch at an international level — to enable the pastors and faithful of Christ, in the East where they were born, to be able to live there not as “strangers and sojourners” but as “fellow citizens” (Ep 2,19) who bear witness to Jesus Christ as did the saints of the past, also children of the Eastern Churches, before them.

The East is rightly their homeland on earth. It is there that still today they are called to foster the common good, through their faith, making no distinctions. Every person who professes this faith must be recognized as having equal dignity and true freedom, thereby permitting a more fruitful ecumenical and interreligious collaboration.

I thank you for your reflections on the changes that are taking place in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East, which are a source of anxiety throughout the world. Through the communications received at this time from the Coptic-Catholic Cardinal-Patriarch and from the Maronite Patriarch, as well as the Pontifical Representative in Jerusalem and the Franciscan Custos of the Holy Land, the Congregation and the agencies will be able to assess the situation on the ground for the Church and the peoples of that region, which is so important for world peace and stability.

The Pope wishes to express his closeness, also through you, to those who are suffering and to those who are trying desperately to escape, thereby increasing the flow of migration that often remains without hope. I pray that the necessary emergency assistance will be forthcoming, but above all I pray that every possible form of mediation will be explored, so that violence may cease and social harmony and peaceful coexistence may everywhere be restored, with respect for the rights of individuals as well as communities. Fervent prayer and reflection will help us at the same time to read the signs emerging from the present season of toil and tears: may the Lord of history always turn them to the common good.

The Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, celebrated last October in the Vatican and in which several of you took part, brought the brothers and sisters of the East even more decisively into the heart of the Church and introduced us to perceiving the signs of newness in our time. However, immediately after that meeting, senseless violence ferociously attacked defenceless people (cf. Angelus, 1 November 2010) in the Syrian-Catholic Cathedral of Baghdad, and in subsequent months in various other places. The suffering experienced because of Christ can help to sow the good seed of the Synod and produce an evermore fruitful harvest, God willing. I therefore present to the good will of ROACO members all that resulted from the Synod and, also, the precious spiritual heritage constituted by the cup of the passion of many Christians, as a reference for an intelligent and generous service which begins with the lowliest, which excludes no one and always measures its authenticity against the Eucharistic Mystery.

Dear friends, under the guidance of their generous Pastors and with your indispensable support, the Eastern Catholic Churches will always be able to strengthen communion with the Apostolic See, jealously guarded down the centuries, and to make an original contribution to the new evangelization, both in the homeland and in the growing diaspora.

I commend these hopes to the protection of the Most Holy Mother of God and of St John the Baptist, Precursor of Christ, on the liturgical Solemnity of his birth.

The Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul is also approaching. On that day I shall give thanks to the Good Shepherd, as Cardinal Sandri recalled, for the 60th anniversary of my Ordination to the priesthood. I am deeply grateful for the prayers and good wishes you have offered me as a pleasing gift. I ask you to share in my entreaty to the “Lord of the harvest” (Mt 9,38) that he grant the Church and the world numerous, fervent Gospel workers. And, as a pledge of my affection, I gladly impart to each one of you, to your loved ones and to all the communities entrusted to you, the comfort of the Apostolic Blessing.



TO THE SAINTS PETER AND PAUL ASSOCIATION Altar of the Chair, St Peter’s Basilica Saturday, 25 June 2011

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Dear Friends of the Association of Saints Peter and Paul,

I greet you all with joy and affection! I am glad to meet you while you are gathered together on the occasion of the Sodality’s 40th anniversary: a happy event, which is an invitation to give thanks to the Lord first of all and to the beloved Servant of God Paul vi, who did so much to renew the Vatican milieu in accordance with contemporary needs.

I greet in particular Dr Calvino Gasparini, the President, and I thank him for his courteous words; I greet Mons. Joseph Murphy, the Chaplain, the other people in charge and all the members, as well as the former chaplains, including Cardinal Coppa who has honoured us with his presence, and Cardinal Bertone who, as a young priest, helped with the formation of the then Palatine Guard.

At the Altar of the Lord and the Tomb of St Peter, let us remember especially at this moment all those who in the past 40 years have succeeded one another at the helm of the Association and were dedicated members. May the Lord grant those who have departed this world the peace and beatitude of his Kingdom.

In meeting you, the sentiment of gratitude is also uppermost in my mind and is addressed to you for the service you offer, and especially for the love and the spirit of faith in which you carry it out. You devote some of your time, combining it with your family commitments and often depriving yourselves of leisure time, to coming to the Vatican to help keep order at the celebrations. Moreover, you give life to numerous charitable projects, in collaboration with the Sisters Daughters of Charity and with the Missionaries of Charity.

These commitments demand a profound motivation which should always be renewed by an intense spiritual life. If you are to help others to pray, your own hearts must be oriented to God; to appeal to them to show respect for holy places and holy things, it is necessary to posses a Christian sense of sacredness; we must have a humble soul and a gaze of faith. Your attitude, often without words, is an indication, an example and an appeal, and as such has educational value.

Of course, your personal formation entails all this and I want to tell you that for this very reason, as well as for all that you do, I am particularly grateful. Like every authentic ecclesial association the Saints Peter and Paul Association aims first of all, never to form its members instead of or as an alternative to parishes but always in a complementary way.

I am therefore glad that you are well integrated in your parishes, and that you teach your children a sense of the parish. At the same time, I am pleased that the Association is properly demanding in providing specific formation periods for those who wish to become effective members, and that it offers appropriate moments to regularly sustain their perseverance.

I address a special thought to those who made their solemn promise of fidelity this morning. I hope that they will always have the joy of feeling like disciples of Christ in the Church and I urge them to give a good Gospel witness in every area of their life. In this perspective too, from the outset I supported the project of establishing a youth group. I greet the young people with special affection and I encourage them to follow the example of Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, loving God with all their heart, savouring the beauty of Christian friendship and serving Christ with great discretion in our poorest brothers and sisters.

Dear friends, I also thank you for your congratulations and, especially, for your prayers on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. The gift you have wished to offer me, a beautiful chasuble, reminds me that I am always primarily a priest of Christ, and at the same time it invites me to remember you when I celebrate the redeeming Sacrifice. I warmly thank you!

Lastly, I would like to entrust you all to the Virgin Mary. I know that in your Association she is venerated with the title Virgo Fidelis [faithful Virgin]. Today we are more in need of fidelity than ever! We live in a society that has lost this value. The attitude to change, “mobility”, “flexibility”, is lauded for economic and organizational reasons that are also legitimate.

Yet the quality of a human relationship can be measured by fidelity! Sacred Scripture shows us that God is faithful. With his grace and with Mary’s help may you therefore be faithful to Christ and to the Church, ready with humility and patience to pay the price that this entails.

May the Virgo Fidelis obtain for you peace in your families and also that authentic Christian vocations be born within them to marriage, to the priesthood, and to the consecrated life. For this I assure you of my special remembrance in prayer, while I cordially bless all of you and your loved ones.



TO A DELEGATION OF THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE ON THE OCCASION OF THE SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL Tuesday, 28 June 2011



Dear Brothers in Christ,

Welcome to Rome on the occasion of the feast of the Patrons of this Church, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. I am particularly pleased to greet you with the words that St Paul addressed to the Christians of this city: “The God of peace be with you all” (Rm 15,33). I thank with all my heart my Venerable Brother, the Ecumenical Patriarch, His Holiness Bartholomaios I, and the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate who have wished to send you, dear Brothers, as their representatives to take part here with us in this solemn celebration.

The Lord Jesus Christ, who appeared to his disciples after his Resurrection, gave them the mission of being witnesses of the Gospel of Salvation. The Apostles faithfully carried out this mission, witnessing to faith in Christ the Saviour and to love for God the Father until the supreme sacrifice of their lives. In this City of Rome, the Apostles Peter and Paul faced martyrdom and since then their tombs are the object of veneration. Your participation in our Feast, like the presence of our representatives in Constantinople for the Feast of the Apostle Andrew, expresses the friendship and authentic brotherhood that unites the Church of Rome and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, bonds that are solidly founded on this faith received from the witness of the Apostles. The profound spiritual closeness that we experience each time we meet is a cause of great joy and gratitude to God for me. At the same time, however, the incomplete communion which already unites us must grow until it achieves full and visible unity.

We follow with great attention the work of the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church in all its parts. From the purely human viewpoint one might have the impression that the theological dialogue is progressing with difficulty. In fact, the rhythm of the dialogue is linked to the complexity of the themes discussed, which demand an extraordinary effort of reciprocal study, reflection and openness. We are called to continue on this journey together in charity, invoking the Holy Spirit, light and inspiration, in the certainty that he wants to lead us to the full accomplishment of Christ’s will: that they may all be one (Jn 17,21). I am particularly grateful to all the members of the Joint Commission, and especially to the co-Presidents, His Eminence the Metropolitan Ioannis of Pergamon, and His Eminence Cardinal Kurt Koch, for their tireless devotion, patience and competence.

In a historical context of violence, indifference and egotism, many men and women of our time feel bewildered. It is precisely by the common witness of the truth of the Gospel that we can help the people of our time to rediscover the way that leads them to the truth. The search for the truth, in fact, is also a search for justice and peace and it is with great joy that I note the important commitment with which His Holiness Bartholomaios spends himself for his subjects. In our common intention and remembering the beautiful example of my Predecessor Bl. John Paul II, I have wished to invite our Christian brethren, the representatives of the other religious traditions of the world and of the important figures of the worlds of culture and of science to take part next 27 October, in the town of Assisi, in a Day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world, which will have as its theme: “Pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of faith”. This joint march through the streets of the town of St Francis will be the sign of the wish to continue on the way of dialogue and brotherhood.

Your Eminence, dear members of the Delegation, in thanking you once again for your presence in Rome in this solemn circumstance, I ask you to convey my fraternal greeting to my venerable Brother, Patriarch Bartholomaios I, to the Holy Synod, to the clergy and to all the faithful of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, assuring them of my affection and of the solidarity of the Church of Rome which today is celebrating her Holy Founders.

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CONFERRAL OF THE FIRST "RATZINGER PRIZE"

Clementine Hall Thursday, 30 June 2011
Your Eminences, Venerable Confreres,
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like first of all to express my joy and gratitude for the public recognition the award of this theological prize the Foundation called after me gives to the life work of two great theologians and for the sign of encouragement it offers to a theologian of the younger generation to continue on the way on which he has set out.

A common path has bound me to Professor González de Cardedal for many decades. We both began with St Bonaventure and we let him indicate our direction. In his long life as a scholar, Prof. González has treated all the great topics of theology and not merely in reflecting or speaking of them in theory, but always by confronting them with the drama of our time, living and also suffering in a very personal manner the great questions of faith and with them the questions of the men and women of today. Thus the word of faith is not something of the past; in his works it becomes truly contemporary.

Prof. Simonetti has approached the world of the Fathers in a new way, showing us with accuracy and care, what the Fathers say from the historical viewpoint; they become our contemporaries who speak to us.

Fr Maximilian Heim, recently elected Abbot of the Monastery of Heiligenkreuz near Vienna, a monastery with a rich tradition, has assumed with this office the task of bringing a great history up to date and of leading it towards the future. In this task, I hope that his work on my theology, which he has given us, may be useful to him. I also hope that the Abbey of Heiligenkreuz will further develop in our time the monastic theology that has always accompanied university theology, thereby forming Western theology as a whole.

However, it is not my duty here to present a laudatio of the prizewinners, which Cardinal Ruini has already done competently. Yet the conferral of the Prize can perhaps afford us an opportunity to concentrate for a moment on the fundamental question of what “theology” actually is. Tradition tells us that theology is the science of faith. Here however the question immediately arises: is this truly possible? Or is it not in itself a contradiction? Is not science perhaps the opposite of faith? Does not faith cease to be faith when it becomes science? And does not science cease to be science when it is ordered or even subordinated to faith?

These questions, which already posed a serious problem to medieval theology have become even more impelling with the modern concept of science and at first sight even seem to have no solution. We understand theology in this way because, in the modern epoch, it has withdrawn from vast sectors, primarily to the area of history, in order to demonstrate here its serious scientific character. It must be recognized with gratitude that this has led to the achievement of grandiose works and the Christian message has received a new light which is able to reveal its profound riches. Yet, if theology is totally relegated to the past, today it leaves faith in darkness.

Then, at a second stage, the focus was on practice, to show how theology, in connection with psychology and sociology, could be a useful branch of knowledge that provides concrete instructions for life. This is important too, but if faith, the foundation of theology, were not at the same time to become the object of thought, if praxis were to refer only to itself or to exist only by what it borrows from the human sciences, it would then be emptied and deprived of a foundation.

These approaches are therefore insufficient. However useful and important they may be, they would become an expedient if the true question were to remain unanswered. Briefly: is what we believe in true or not? The question about the truth is at stake in theology: its ultimate and essential foundation. Here a saying of Tertullian can help us take a step forward. He wrote: “Christ has surnamed himself Truth, not Custom” – non consuetudo sed veritas (On the Veiling of Virgins, 1, 1).

Christian Gnilka has shown that the concept of “custom” can mean the pagan religions which, in accordance with their nature, were not faith but rather “custom”: one does what one has always done. Traditional forms of worship are observed and it is hoped thereby to maintain the correct relationship with the mysterious environment of the divine. The revolutionary aspect of Christianity in antiquity was precisely its break with “custom” out of love for the truth. Here Tertullian was speaking above all on the basis of the Gospel according to St John, in which is found the other fundamental interpretation of the Christian faith which is expressed in the designation of Christ as Logos.

If Christ is the Logos, the truth, human beings must respond to him with their own logos, with their reason. To arrive at Christ they must be on the path of the truth. They must open themselves to the Logos, to creative Reason, from which their own reason derives and to which it refers them. From this it may be understood that Christian faith, by its very nature, must bring theology into being, must question itself on the reasonableness of faith – although of course the concept of reason and that of science embrace many dimensions — and in this way the concrete nature of the connection between faith and reason must be fathomed ever anew.

Although in Christianity the fundamental connection between Logos, truth and faith is clearly presented, the concrete form of this connection has given rise and is giving rise to ever new questions. It is clear that today, this question which occupied and will occupy every generation, can be addressed neither in detail nor broadly. I would like to try to make one small suggestion.

In the prologue to his Commentary on the Sentences St Bonaventure spoke of a double use of reason. He spoke of a use that is irreconcilable with the nature of faith and a use that instead belongs to the very nature of faith. Violentia rationis therefore exists, the despotism of reason which makes itself the supreme and ultimate judge of all things. This kind of use of reason is certainly impossible in the context of faith. What did Bonaventure mean by this?

A sentence of Psalm 95[94]:9 can reveal its meaning to us. Here God says to his people: “In the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work” (vv. 8-9). A reference is made here to a dual encounter with God: they have “seen”. Yet for them this did not suffice. They “tested” God. They wished to subject him to experimentation. He was, so to speak, subjected to an interrogatory and had to submit to an experimental procedure of testing. This use of reason in the modern age has reached the climax of its development in the context of the natural sciences.

Experimental reason largely appears today as the sole form of rationality that is declared scientific. What cannot be scientifically proven or disproven falls outside the scientific sphere. Within this framework great works have been achieved as we know; that this is right and necessary in the context of the knowledge of nature and of its laws no one would seriously question. Yet there is a limit to such a use of reason: God is not an object for human experimentation. He is the Subject and manifests himself solely in the relationship of person to person: this is part of the person’s essence.

In this perspective Bonaventure mentions a second use of reason that applies to the context of the “personal”, to the important questions implied by actually being human. Love desires to know better what it loves. Love, true love, does not make people blind but seeing. The thirst for knowledge, for a true knowledge of the other person, is part of love. For this reason the Fathers of the Church found the precursors and forerunners of Christianity — outside the world of the revelation of Israel — not in the context of formal religion, but on the contrary in human beings in search of God, in search of the truth, in the “philosophers”: in people who were thirsting for truth and were therefore on their way towards God.

When this type of reason is not used, the great questions of humanity fall outside the context of reason and are left to irrationality. This is why an authentic theology is so important. Right faith directs reason to open itself to the divine, so that, guided by love for the truth, it may know God more closely. The initiative for this journey is with God, who has placed in human hearts the desire to seek his Face. On the one hand humility, which lets itself be “touched” by God, and on the other, the discipline bound to the order of reason that keeps love from blindness and helps to develop its visual power, are both part of theology.

I am well aware that all this has not provided an answer to the question on the possibility and duty of right theology and that light has been shed only on the greatness of the challenge inherent in the nature of theology. Yet it is this very challenge that we human beings need, because it impels us to open our reason by questioning ourselves on the truth itself, on the Face of God. We are therefore grateful to the prizewinners who have shown in their work that reason, progressing on the path marked out by faith, is not an alienated reason but a reason that corresponds with its most exalted vocation. Many thanks.



TO THE NEW METROPOLITAN ARCHBISHOPS WHO HAD RECEIVED THE SACRED PALLIUM ON THE SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL Paul VI Audience Hall Thursday, 30 June 2011



Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Still alive in my mind and heart are all the sentiments and emotions we experienced yesterday in the Vatican Basilica on the occasion of the celebration of the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in which I had the joy of conferring the Pallium upon you, Metropolitan Archbishops appointed in the past year. Our simple, family meeting today gives me the opportunity to prolong the atmosphere of ecclesial communion and to renew my cordial greeting to you, dear brothers in the episcopate, as well as to your relatives and those figures who have wished to take part in this happy event. I extend my affectionate thoughts to your particular Churches, which I remember in prayer so that they may be enlivened with a constant apostolic drive.

I address you first of all, dear Pastors of two Italian dioceses. I greet you, Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia of Turin, and you, Archbishop Vincenzo Bertolone of Catanzaro-Squillace. May the Lord bless you and help you always, in your daily episcopal ministry, to make the united and missionary communities entrusted to you grow, harmonious in charity, steadfast in hope and rich in the dynamism of faith.

On this feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, I am happy to welcome the French-speaking pilgrims who have come to Rome on the occasion of the conferral of the Pallium on the new Metropolitan Archbishops. I address my warm greetings to Archbishop Antoine Ganyé of Cotonou, Benin; to Archbishop Paul Ouédraogo of Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso; to Archbishop Jean-Pierre Tafunga Mbayo of Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo; to Archbishop Gérard Lacroix of Quebec, Canada; and to Archbishop Pierre-Marie Carré of Montpellier, France. Please convey my greetings and the assurance of my spiritual closeness to the bishops, priests and all the faithful of your countries. May you, who have received the Pallium, a liturgical sign that expresses the bond of communion which unites you in a special way to the Successor of Peter, be joyful and faithful witnesses of the love of the Lord who seeks to gather his children in the unity of one and the same family! May God bless you!

I extend warm greetings to the English-speaking Metropolitan Archbishops upon whom I conferred the Pallium yesterday: Archbishop James Peter Sartain of Seattle, United States; Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller of San Antonio, United States; Archbishop Jose Serofia Palma of Cebu, the Philippines; Archbishop Thaddeus Cho Hwan-kil of Daegu, Korea; Archbishop Jude Ruwa’ichi of Mwanza, Tanzania; Archbishop William Slattery of Pretoria, South Africa; Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, United States; Archbishop Rémi Joseph Gustave Sainte-Marie of Lilongwe, Malawi; Archbishop José Horacio Gómez of Los Angeles, United States; Archbishop Thumma Bala of Hyderabad, India; Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City, Nigeria; Archbishop Charles Henry Dufour of Kingston in Jamaica; Archbishop George Stack of Cardiff, Wales and Archbishop Sergio Lasam Utleg of Tuguegarao, the Philippines. I also welcome their family members, their relatives, friends and the faithful of their respective Archdioceses who have come to Rome to pray with them and to share their joy. The Pallium is received from the hands of the Successor of Peter and worn by the Archbishops as a sign of communion in faith and love and in the governance of God’s People. It also reminds Pastors of their responsibilities as shepherds after the Heart of Jesus. To all of you I affectionately impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of peace and joy in the Lord.

I greet with affection the Spanish-speaking Archbishops and those who have accompanied them on the important ceremony of the conferral of the Pallium which distinguishes them as Metropolitans. I greet in particular Archbishop Rubén Salazar Gómez of Bogotá, Archbishop Fausto Gabriel Trávez Trávez of Quito, Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian Morales of Guatemala, Archbishop Gonzalo Restrepo Restrepo of Manizales, Archbishop Juan Alberto Puiggari of Paraná, Archbishop Jairo Jaramillo Monsalve of Barranquilla, Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati Andrello of Santiago de Chile, Archbishop Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib of Concepción, and Archbishop Darío de Jesús Monsalve Mejía of Cali. If the Pallium reminds you of your special responsibility for the suffragan Churches and your special bond with the See of Peter, it entails for you who guide them greater closeness in prayer and collaboration in the ministry entrusted to them. As I invoke the protection of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, I warmly impart to you the Apostolic Blessing which I extend with pleasure to all the pastors and faithful of these particular Churches in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Argentina and Chile.

I greet with deep affection the Metropolitans of Angola and Brazil, who yesterday received the Pallium, the liturgical emblem that expresses a special union of your archdioceses with the See of Peter: Archbishop Luis María Pérez de Onraita of Malanje, Archbishop José Manuel Imbamba of Saurimo, Archbishop Murilo Sebastião Ramos Krieger of São Salvador da Bahia, Archbishop Pedro Brito Guimarães of Palmas, Archbishop Jacinto Bergmann of Pelotas, Archbishop Hélio Adelar Rubert of Santa Maria, Archbishop Pedro Ercílio Simon of Passo Fundo, Archbishop Dimas Lara Barbosa of Campo Grande, and Archbishop Sérgio da Rocha of Brasília. May the Lord Jesus who has chosen you as pastors of his flock protect you in your daily ministry and make you faithful heralds of the Gospel with the power of the Holy Spirit. I also welcome your relatives, friends and the faithful of your particular churches who have accompanied you to Rome. I assure all of you and your archdiocesan communities of my daily remembrance in prayer and I impart to you from the depths of my heart the Apostolic Blessing

I address my cordial greeting to Archbishop Zbignev Stankevics of Riga and to all those who have accompanied him, as I express my best wishes for a fruitful ministry.

I address a cordial greeting to Archbishop Marjan Turnšek of Maribor and to the Slovenes who have accompanied him, as I wish them a fruitful ministry and impart to everyone the Apostolic Blessing.

Dear friends, let us thank the Lord who in his infinite goodness does not fail to give pastors to his Church. I assure you, dear Metropolitan Archbishops, of my spiritual closeness and of my prayerful support for your service, whose essential prerequisite is love for Christ, to whom you must prefer nothing.

St Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage stated in his Treatise on the Our Father Cartagine: “to prefer nothing whatever to Christ, because he did not prefer anything to us; to remain steadfast in his love; to stand by his cross bravely and faithfully” and “to show in words constancy in confessing our faith in him”.

May Christ always watch over you, dear brothers and may the Virgin Mary, Regina Apostolorum support you and may my Blessing be with you, which I warmly renew to each one of you, to your loved ones and to all those entrusted to your episcopal care.

July 2011



TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE 37th CONFERENCE OF FAO Clementine Hall Friday, 1st July 2011



Mr President,
Mr Ministers,
Mr Director-General,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am particularly glad to welcome you who are attending the 37th Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. You are perpetuating a long and happy tradition, inaugurated 60 years ago at the time the FAO was established in Rome.

Mr President, through you I would like to thank the many government delegations that have wished to be present at this meeting, thereby witnessing to the effective universality of the FAO. I would also like to renew the Holy See’s support for the Organization’s praiseworthy and indispensable work and to confirm that the Catholic Church is committed to collaborating with your endeavour to respond to the real needs of numerous brothers and sisters in humanity.

I take this opportunity to greet Mr Jacques Diouf, the Director-General who, with competence and devotion, has enabled the FAO to face the problems and crises brought about by the changing global situations which are affecting, even dramatically, its specific field of action.

I extend my most sincere good wishes to Mr José Graziano da Silva, recently elected Director-General, for the success of his future activity, while I express the hope that the FAO may respond increasingly and ever better to the expectations of the member States and contribute practical solutions for people suffering from hunger and malnutrition.

Your work has identified the policies and strategies that can contribute to the important revitalizing of the agricultural sector, the level of food production and the more general development of rural areas. The present crisis that is now affecting all aspects of the economic and social situation requires, in fact, that no effort be spared to eradicate poverty, the first step to save millions of men, women and children from starvation who have no daily bread.

However, a complete reflection requires a search into the causes of this situation that is not limited to levels of production, to the increasing demand for food or the fluctuation of prices: factors which, although important, risk causing the drama to be read exclusively in technical terms.

Poverty, underdevelopment and consequently hunger are often caused by selfish attitudes which, read in the human heart, emerge in the social activity of human beings, in their arising trade, in market conditions and in the lack of access to food, resulting in the denial of the primary right of every person to be nourished, hence free of hunger.

How can we gloss over the fact that food itself has become an object of speculation or indeed is linked to the development of a financial market which, with no set rules and practically no moral principles seems attached to the single goal of profit?

Adequate food concerns the fundamental right to life. To guarantee it also means intervening directly on those factors in the agricultural sector which negatively affect productivity on the mechanisms of distribution and on the international market. And all this when a global food production, according to FAO and authorized experts, is able to feed the world population.

The international framework and frequent anxiety engendered by instability and rising prices demands practical and necessarily unitary responses in order to obtain better results that States cannot guarantee individually. This means making solidarity an essential criterion for every political action and every strategy, so as to make international activity and its legislation as many instruments of effective service to the human family in its entirety, and, in particular, to the neediest people.

It is therefore urgently necessary to have a developmental model which does not only consider the economic importance of needs or the technical viability of the strategies to be pursued, but also the human dimension of all initiatives. It must also be capable of achieving authentic brotherhood (cf. Caritas in Veritate, ), relying on the ethical recommendation of “giving food to the hungry” which is part of the sentiment of compassion and humanity engraved in every person's heart and which the Church numbers among the works of mercy.

In this perspective, the institutions of the international community are called to work consistently, following their mandate in order to support the values proper to human dignity by eliminating closed attitudes and without leaving room for private concerns to be passed off as in the general interest.

The FAO is also called to renew its structure, throwing off the obstacles that hinder the realization of the purpose stated in its Constitution: raising levels of nutrition, securing improvements in the efficiency of the production and distribution of all food and agricultural products and bettering the condition of rural populations so as to free humanity from hunger (cf. FAO, Constitution, Preamble).

To this end, full harmony of the Organization and Governments becomes essential in order to guide and support projects, especially in the present situation when available economic and financial resources are diminishing, while the number of hungry people in the world is not falling in accordance with the hoped-for goals.

I am thinking of the situation of millions of children who, as the principal victims of this tragedy, are condemned to a premature death and to a delay in their physical and psychological growth or who are forced into forms of exploitation to receive even a minimal quantity of food.

Attention to the young generations can be a way of countering the abandonment of rural zones and farm work, to permit entire communities whose survival is threatened by hunger to envisage their future with greater confidence.

We are, in fact, obliged to note that, in spite of the commitments made and the consequent obligations, help and concrete aid is frequently limited to emergencies, forgetting that a consistent conception of development must be able to outline a future for every person, family and community, favouring long terms goals.

Thus the chosen projects must also be supported by the international community as a whole, in order to rediscover the value of the rural family business and to support its central role in order to achieve stable food security. Indeed, in the rural world the traditional family nucleus is endeavouring to promote agricultural production through the wise transmission by parents to their children not only of systems of cultivation or of the preservation and distribution of food, but also of lifestyles, principles of education, culture, the religious sense, and the conception of the sacredness of the person in all the stages of his or her existence. The rural family is not only a work model, but a model of living and a concrete expression of solidarity, in which the essential role of women is confirmed.

Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, the aim of food security is an authentically human requirement, as we are aware. To guarantee it to the present generations and to those that are to come also means protecting natural resources from frenzied exploitation, since the consumer race and consequent waste appear to pay no attention at all to the genetic patrimony and biological differences that are so important for agricultural activities. Moreover, the idea of an exclusive appropriation of these resources is opposed to the call that God addresses to men and women, so that by tilling the earth and preserving it (cf. Gn Gn 2,8-17) they may encourage participation in the use of the goods of Creation, an aim that international multilateral activity and legislation can certainly contribute to achieve.

In our era when, in addition to the numerous problems that besiege agricultural work there are new opportunities to contribute to resolving the drama of famine, you can an strive to ensure that by guaranteeing the food that corresponds to their needs, each and every one may develop in accordance with their true dimension as creatures made in the likeness of God.

This is the wish I would like to express, as I invoke upon you and upon your work an abundance of divine blessings.





Speeches 2005-13 19161