Speeches 1986 - Melbourne (Australia), 28 November 1986
Good morning, Children. As I fly above you on my way to Darwin, I am happy to speak with you and to all the young people of the outback. You are all very close to my heart.
Question 1: Very soon I will be making my first Holy Communion. Please, Holy Father, could you suggest something I could tell or ask Jesus on that day?
1. On the day of your First Holy Communion, I suggest that you speak to Jesus as to your best friend, for that is what he really is. He is the greatest friend you will ever have, and he wishes to be your special companion every day of your life. So talk to him as a friend who knows your name and loves you dearly. Tell him your secrets. Tell him your joys and the things that make you sad.
Tell him about the people whom you love, especially your parents and your brothers and sisters. Ask him to bless your families and all the families of the world. Above all tell him how much you love him. Speaking about her First Communion Day, Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus said that she felt loved by Jesus. It was then that she said to Jesus: "I love you, I give myself to you for ever". You can tell Jesus that too.
Question 2: Please, Holy Father, you know many children in the world. Which ones would you like us to pray for today?
2. All children are special to me because all children are special to Jesus. Jesus told his disciples: "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs". Jesus welcomes all children into his Kingdom. But he has a particular concerne for children who suffer or who are lonely, because they could more easily become discouraged and sad) and perhaps forget God’s love. So I would suggest that, when you pray for others, you pray especially for children who are lonely and suffering.
Question 3: Holy Father, I would like to know what is the hardest thing about being a Pope?
3. The hardest thing about being Pope is to see that many people do not accept the love of Jesus, do not know who he really is and how much he loves them. Jesus came into the world and he offered his life on the Cross because he wanted everyone to be happy with him for ever in heaven. He is the Saviour of everyone in the whole world. But he does not force people to accept his love. He offers it to them and leaves them free to say yes or no. It fills me with joy to see how many people know and love our Lord, how many say yes to him. But it saddens me to see that some people say no. This is the hardest thing.
Question 4: Please, Holy Father, what would be the best prayer for children to say?
4. Do you remember that the Apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray? And he told them to pray the "Our Father", the prayer that I am sure you already pray every day. This is the best prayer for children to pray; it is the best prayer for any of us to pray. And remember when you say this prayer that God really is your loving Father. He knows each person by name and wants you to be happy with him for ever. So now I invite all of you who are listening to join me as we say this prayer together:
Our Father who art in heaven;
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of this City of Adelaide,
Dear Friends,
1. With friendship and esteem, I greet you, the people of Adelaide and South Australia. You have welcomed me with candles and lights. I thank you for this most cordial reception.
The lighted candles which you hold and the candles of the Advent wreath are symbols of Jesus Christ, who is for ever the Light of the world. In the Advent season which we begin this evening, the Church recalls the great mystery of the Incarnation. The beloved Son of the Father, the eternal Word of God, became man in the womb of the Virgin Mary. God has taken on our humanity. The Eternal Light of Truth has entered the darkness of our world, conquering sin and death. This is the mystery we celebrate in Advent as we look forward in hope to the final coming of Christ in glory.
2. But looking forward to Christ’s final coming does not make us close our eyes to the violence, injustice and divisions that are part of our modern world. In the light of truth, we see them clearly. Indeed the closer we draw to Christ and the better we come to know his goodness and love, the more sensitive we become to what is not good and not true, to what belongs to the kingdom of darkness, to the realm of "the father of lies", as Jesus calls the devil, and the more we are repelled by this evil.
Our hope that we shall overcome the darkness of evil is renewed in the Advent season when we listen again to God’s promise to redeem the world from sin. The word of God sustains our faith and gives us courage to seek the causes of violence and injustice, to identify the roots of evil and to find appropriate remedies. God’s word helps us not to despair, no matter what obstacles we meet. No, in the preaching of John the Baptist, in the consent of the Virgin Mary, and above all in the Child born in a stable, our Advent faith is enkindled, our trust in God is confirmed.
3. May we always have in our hearts the burning light of faith, faith in Christ as the Light of the world and the Prince of Peace. Let the lights of this night, especially this Advent Candle, prove to the whole of Australia and to the entire world how much we love Christ and how much we desire peace.
In the warmth and splendour of this light, we find the strength to work for peace. We hear the invitation of Jesus to be peacemakers in our homes and schools, in our workplaces, neighbourhoods and districts. The light of Christ has come into the world and it shall never be put out. This is the foundation of our hope. This is why we firmly believe that peace is possible.
May the light of Christ ever shine brightly in your hearts!
God bless all the people of Adelaide and South Australia!
May God bless the world with his peace!
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It is a great joy for me to be here today in Alice Springs and to meet so many of you, the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders of Australia. I want to tell you right away how much the Church esteems and loves you, and how much she wishes to assist you in your spiritual and material needs.
1. At the beginning of time, as God’s Spirit moved over the waters, he began to communicate something of his goodness and beauty to all creation. When God then created man and woman, he gave them the good things of the earth for their use and benefit; and he put into their hearts abilities and powers, which were his gifts. And to all human beings throughout the ages God has given a desire for himself, a desire which different cultures have tried to express in their own ways.
2. As the human family spread over the face of the earth, your people settled and lived in this big country that stood apart from all the others. Other people did not even know this land was here; they only knew that somewhere in the southern oceans of the world there was "The Great South Land of the Holy Spirit".
But for thousands of years you have lived in this land and fashioned a culture that endures to this day. And during all this time, the Spirit of God has been with you. Your "Dreaming", which influences your lives so strongly that, no matter what happens, you rema,in for ever people of your culture, is your only way of touching the mystery of God’s Spirit in you and in creation. You must keep your striving for God and hold on to it in your lives.
3. The rock paintings and the discovered evidence of your ancient tools and implements indicate the presence of your age-old culture and prove your ancient occupancy of this land.
Your culture, which shows the lasting genius and dignity of your race, must not be allowed to disappear. Do not think that your gifts are worth so little that you should no longer bother to maintain them. Share them with each other and teach them to your children. Your songs, your stories, your paintings, your dances, your languages, must never be lost. Do you perhaps remember those words that Paul VI spoke to the aboriginal people during his visit to them in 1970? On that occasion he said: "We know that you have a life style proper to your own ethnic genius or culture – a culture which the Church respects and which she does not in any way ask you to renounce... Society itself is enriched by the presence of different cultural and ethnic elements. For us you and the values you represent are precious. We deeply respect your dignity and reiterate our deep affection for you".
4. For thousands of years this culture of yours was free to grow without interference by people from other places. You lived your lives in spiritual closeness to the land, with its animals, birds, fishes, waterholes, rivers, hills and mountains. Through your closeness to the land you touched the sacredness of man’s relationship with God, for the land was the proof of a power in life greater than yourselves.
You did not spoil the land, use it up, exhaust it. and then walk away from it. You realized that your land was related to the source of life.
The silence of the Bush taught you a quietness of soul that put you in touch with another world, the world of God’s Spirit. Your careful attention to the details of kinship spoke of your reverence for birth, life and human generation. You knew that children need to be loved, to be full of joy. They need a time to grow in laughter and to play, secure in the knowledge that they belong to their people.
You had a great respect for the need which people have for law, as a guide to living fairly with each other. So you created a legal system – very strict it is true – but closely adapted to the country in which you lived your lives. It made your society orderly. It was one of the reasons why you survived in this land.
You marked the growth of your young men and women with ceremonies of discipline that taught them responsibility as they came to maturity.
These achievements are indications of human strivings. And in these strivings you showed a dignity open to the message of God’s revealed wisdom to all men and women, which is the great truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
5. Some of the stories from your Dreamtime legends speak powerfully of the great mysteries of human life, its frailty, its need for help, its closeness to spiritual powers and the value of the human person. They are not unlike some of the great inspired lessons from the people among whom Jesus himself was born. It: is wonderful to see how people, as they accept the Gospei of Jesus, find points of agreement between their own traditions and those of Jesus and his people.
6. The culture which this long and careful growth produced was not prepared for the sudden meeting with another people, with different customs and traditions, who came to your country nearly 200 years ago. They were different from Aboriginal people. Their traditions, the organization of their lives, and their attitudes to the land were quite strange to you. Their law too was quite different. These people had knowledge, money and power; and they brought with them some patterns of behaviour from which the Aboriginal people were unable to protect themselves.
7. The effects of some of those forces are still active among you today. Many of you have been dispossessed of your traditional lands, and separated from your tribal ways, though some of you still have your traditional culture. Some of you are establishing Aboriginal communities in the towns and cities. For others there is still no real place for camp-fires and kinship observances except on the fringes of country towns. There, work is hard to find, and education in a different cultural background is difficult. The discrimination caused by racism is a daily experience.
You have learned how to survive, whether on your own lands, or scattered among the towns and cities. Though your difficulties are not yet over, you must learn to draw on the endurance which your ancient ceremonies have taught you. Endurance brings with it patience; patience helps you to find the way ahead, and gives you courage for your journey.
8. Take heart from the fact that many of your languages are still spoken and that you still possess your ancient culture. You have kept your sense of brotherhood. If you stay closely united, you are like a tree standing in the middle of a bush-fire sweeping through the timber. The leaves are scorched and the tough bark is scarred and burned; but inside the tree the sap is still flowing, and under the ground the roots are still strong. Like that tree you have endured the flames, and you still have the power to be reborn. The time for this rebirth is now!
9. We know that during the last two hundred years certain people tried to understand you, to learn about you, to respect your ways and to honour you as persons. These men and women, as you soon realized, were different from others of their race. They loved and cared for the indigenous people. They began to share with you their stories of God, helped you cope with sickness, tried to protect you from ill-treatment. They were honest with you, and showed you by their lives how they tried to avoid the bad things in their own culture. These people were not always successful, and there were times when they did not fully understand you. But they showed you good will and friendship. They came from many different walks of life. Some were teachers and doctors and other professional people; some were simple folk. History will remember the good example of their charity and fraternal solidarity.
Among those who have loved and cared for the indigenous people, we especially recall with profound gratitude all the missionaries of the Christian faith. With immense generosity they gave their lives in service to you and to your forebears. They helped to educate the Aboriginal people and offered health and social services. Whatever their human frailty, and whatever mistakes they may have made, nothing can ever minimize the depht of their charity. Nothing can ever cancel out their greatest contribution, which was to proclaim to you Jesus Christ and to establish his Church in your midst.
10. From the earliest times men like Archbishop Polding of Sydney opposed the legal fiction adopted by European settlers that this land was terra nullius – nobody’s country. He strongly pleaded for the rights of the Aboriginal inhabitants to keep the traditional lands on which their whole society depended. The Church still supports you today.
Let it not be said that the fair and equitable recognition of Aboriginal rights to land is discrimination. To call for the acknowledgment of the land rights of people who have never surrendered those rights is not discrimination. Certainly, what has been done cannot be undone. But what can now be done to remedy the deeds of yesterday must not be put off till tomorrow.
Christian people of good will are saddened to realize – many of them only recently – for how long a time Aboriginal people were transported from their homelands into small areas or reserves where families were broken up, tribes split apart, children orphaned and people forced to live like exiles in a foreign country.
The reserves still exist today, and require a just and proper settlement that still lies unachieved. The urban problems resulting from the transportation and separation of people still have to be addressed, so that these people may make a new start in life with each other once again.
11. The establishment of a new society for Aboriginal people cannot go forward without just and mutually recognized agreements with regard to these human problems, even though their causes lie in the past. The greatest value to be achieved by such agreements, which must be implemented without causing new injustices, is respect for the dignity and growth of the human person. And you, the Aboriginal people of this country and its cities, must show that you are actively working for your own dignity of life. On your part, you must show that you too can walk tall and command the respect which every human being expects to receive from the rest of the human family.
12. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ speaks all languages. It esteems and embraces all cultures. It supports them in everything human and, when necessary, it purifies them. Always and everywhere the Gospel uplifts and enriches cultures with the revealed message of a loving and merciful God.
That Gospel now invites you to become, through and through, Aboriginal Christians. It meets your deepest desires. You do not have to be people divided into two parts, as though an Aboriginal had to borrow the faith and life of Christianity, like a hat or a pair of shoes, from someone else who owns them. Jesus calls you to accept his words and his values into your own culture. To develop in this way will make you more than ever truly Aboriginal.
The old ways can draw new life and strength from the Gospel. The message of Jesus Christ can lift up your lives to new heights, reinforce all your positive values and add many others, which only the Gospel in its originality proposes. Take this Gospel into your own language and way of speaking; let its spirit penetrate your communities and determine your behaviour towards each other, let it bring new strength to your stories and your ceremonies. Let the Gospel come into your hearts and renew your personal lives. The Church invites you to express the living word of Jesus in ways that speak to your Aboriginal minds and hearts. All over the world people worship God and read his word in their own language, and colour the great signs and symbols of religion with touches of their own traditions. Why should you be different from them in this regard, why should you not be allowed the happiness of being with God and each other in Aboriginal fashion?
13. As you listen to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, seek out the best things of your traditional ways. If you do, you will come to realize more and more your great human and Christian dignity. Let your minds and hearts be strengthened to begin a new life now. Past hurts cannot be healed by violence, nor are present injustices removed by resentment. Your Christian faith calls you to become the best kind of Aboriginal people you can be. This is possible only if reconciliation and forgiveness are part of your lives. Only then will you find happiness. Only then will you make your best contribution to all your brothers and sisters in this great nation. You are part of Australia and Australia is part of you. And the Church herself in Australia will not be fully the Church that Jesus wants her to be until you have made your contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others.
In the new world that is emerging for you, you are being called to live fully human and Christian lives, not to die of shame and sorrow. But you know that to fulfil your role you need a new heart. You will already feel courage rise up inside you when you listen to God speaking to you in these words of the Prophets:
"Do not be afraid for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are mine. Do not be afraid, for I am with you".
And again:
"I am going to... gather you together... and bring you home to your own land... I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you... You shall be my people and I will be your God".
14. With you I rejoice in the hope of God’s gift of salvation, which has its beginnings here and now, and which also depends on how we behave towards each other, on what we put up with, on what we do, on how we honour God and love all people.
Dear Aboriginal people: the hour has come for you to take on new courage and new hope. You are called to remember the past, to be faithful to your worthy traditions, and to adapt your living culture whenever this is required by your own needs and those of your fellowman. Above all you are called to open your hearts ever more to the consoling, purifying and uplifting message of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died so that we might all have life, and have it to the full.
Good morning to all my listeners in outback Australia, and especially to those who make use of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Dear Friends,
1. I am pleased to have this opportunity to address a brief but most cordial greeting to the staff of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia and to those who benefit from this extraordinary endeavour.
It is a remarkable programme which provides professional medical assistance to the people of inland Australia. I stand in admiration of all the Flying Doctors, Flying Sisters and Flying Dentists who have served their brothers and sisters so generously in the vast central region of this country, beginning with the Reverend Robert Mitchell, the Presbyterian minister whose Christian vision gave rise to this charitable initiative. I recall, too, the creative contribution of Alf Traeger, who invented the pedal-radio; and the courage of the Reverend John Flynn, now more popularly known as "Flynn of the Inland", whose dream was to spread "a mantle of safety" over the people who live far from hospitals and medical help.
2. The whole story of the Royal Flying Doctor Service reflects some of the finest qualities of the Australian character. I am thinking of your courageous determination to face up to difficulties and to find ingenious ways of solving them. I am thinking for your great generosity in responding to people in need, no matter who they are, no matter where they live.
Over the years, the service you offer has been greatly improved. The aircraft are far safer and more advanced. Modern electronic equipment has replaced the old pedal-radio. Yet the fundamental values with which you began have re-sustained you through the years: a faith-filled vision, a compassionate concern and a professional excellence. I congratulate all of you who are engaged in this great work. It is truly a mission of faith, hope and love.
3. Jesus told his disciples: "You are the light of the world... Your light must shine in the sight of men, so that, seeing your good works, they may give the praise to your Father in heaven". Certainly, this noble enterprise is a beacon of love and hope for the people of our day. It gives much praise and glory to our heavenly Father.
I offer you my warmest encouragement and assure you of my prayers. May God sustain you day by day. And may he bless you abundantly with his gifts of peace and joy.
Dear Friends,
1. It is a great joy for me to meet in prayer with representatives of rural Australia. The people involved in farming and grazing, fishing, forestry and all forms of cultivation constitute a vital part of Australian life. Indeed it is true to say that all your fellow citizens depend on you for food and for many other products of water, sun and soil. And in fact, many beyond this continent rely upon your generous efforts for the basic necessities of life. That is why my journey to your country would have been incomplete without this meeting with you, the men and women who, by daily toil, make this land fertile and productive.
My cordial greetings go to you who are present and to all your friends and neighbours in rural Australia.
It is fitting that we should gather in prayer. Rural life places you close to nature, which is the creation of God. In your daily labour, you touch the works of the Creator. You experience his providence. You admire his greatness. And, with the passing of the seasons and the years, you become increasingly aware that creation is a mystery far beyond human understanding.
For you who live close to the land and sea, then, it seems so natural and right to pray to God, to seek his help in time of need, to offer him praise and thanksgiving. Your special calling helps you to accept with gratitude the word of God and his guiding providence.
It is dear from the Gospel that Jesus also lived in close contact with nature. His teaching is filled with references to nature and human life. He spoke of the shepherd and his flock, the net cast into the sea, the mustard seed, the lilies of the field and so on. He even described his own mission in the world as that of "the Good Shepherd", and he compared his preaching to the work of a farmer going out to sow his seed.
For many reasons, then, the Church holds rural life in high esteem. This is why I have looked forward to meeting you and praying with you. My pastoral concern includes all the people of Australia, and I have already visited some of your country’s largest industrial and residential centres. And I am pleased that this morning I can be with you.
2. In recent decades, Australia has become a major trading nation. At the centre of this development stands your country’s agriculture. What began nearly two hundred years ago as a humble enterprise for supplying food and clothing to convicts, soldiers, administrators and other has developed into a major industry. In the past two centuries, you have not only supplied your own basic necessities, but you have clothed and fed millions of people around the world.
Your agricultural industry today is well diversified. Although you are best known for your production of grain, wool and meat, you can also rightly boast of forestry and fishing, and of horticultural and vegetable enterprises of major significance.
However, I know that I am meeting you at a time when there are serious difficulties on the horizon. In fact, they have already begun to have an impact on you and your families. Like a number of your overseas counterparts, many of you who are engaged in farming are facing serious financial and social stresses, some of which are completely beyond your control.
There is the problem of inflation, and the even more complex problems arising from the policies of other nations, government tariffs, quotas on imports and subsidized agricultural production. Such problems, which are being felt worldwide, require a patient and persistent commitment to multilateral trade negotiations and international agreements. In all of these initiatives, I assure you of the Church’s deep interest and concern.
3. These problems and uncertainties in the world market-place are not the first that Australian farmers have had to face. A great part of your land is subject to a frequently harsh and unpredictable climate. From the beginning, you have had to adapt and to experiment; you have frequently known hardship and sacrifice; but through perseverance and prayer you have gone on. The obstacles and challenges have not broken your spirit. On the contrary, among other achievements, they have led to the development of new agricultural technology which is benefitting people in countries far beyond your shores. And you are now among the most efficient dry land farmers in the world.
More importantly, you have learned the crucial value of stable family life and of solidarity between neighbours. Your literature and your poetry speak of the spirit of fraternal cooperation and creativity which you enjoy. Indeed it has been said that adversity, droughts and floods have never kept an "Aussie" down for long!
In country towns and villages you experience community life in a way that people in the large metropolitan centres are hardly able to do. Your strong sense of common life makes you and your children aware of your unique value as persons, and at the same time it involves everyone in a shared goal and purpose. Your precious rural traditions deserve to be preserved and protected. They are also a cause for gratitude to God and for generous openness to others.
4. In the Gospel we have listened to this morning, the Apostles suggest to Jesus that he should send the crowd away so that they can find food and lodging. But Jesus does not follow their advice. Instead he says: "Give them something to eat yourselves". This reply takes the Apostles by surprise, for they feel completely inadequate to the task of feeding so many. Yet they heed his words and immediately follow the instructions that he gives.
In our modern world where hunger still remains a daily reality for millions of people, these words of our Lord retain their impact. For in faith we know that he is repeating today the charge he gave to the Apostles: "Give them something to eat yourselves".
I am sure that, as people who have such a primary role in the production of food, you are moved by these words. At the same time, it is clear that the problem of feeding the world today, for the most part, does not rest in the hands of farmers. In fact, farmers are already producing enough food to supply the whole world’s population. And it is well known that even more could be produced. Yet millions of our brothers and sisters in the world are still suffering from hunger. Why? This is the complex problem that must be solved.
In the Gospel story, Jesus took the loaves and fish, blessed them and "handed them to his disciples to distribute among the crowd". The disciples’ task was distribution. In our own day, farmers collaborating with their Creator can produce enough food for everyone on earth. The fact that the food already available is still not reaching the starving millions is one of the greatest scandals of our age. Such a grave imbalance calls for serious adjustments in the international economic order and greater worldwide cooperation in the production and distribution of food.
As I said in my message for the Third World Food Day: "Obviously, the urgency of such international solidarity calls first upon all the countries that are most advanced in their development and their Governments... The Christian people, for its part, would be unfaithful to the example and teaching of its Founder were it not to fulfil its duties of solidarity with those who suffer from undernourishment ".
5. The problems associated with hunger in the modern world are ones which we must all face together. At the same time, they reaffirm the vital role of agriculture today. As I stated in my Encyclical on Human Work: "The world of agriculture, which provides society with the goods it needs for its daily sustenance, is of fundamental importance" .
This is why I want you to know that the Pope is close to you in your work and in all your anxieties and hopes. I assure you of my esteem for rural life and for the values that you hold dear. Indeed the entire Church turns to the agricultural world with pastoral concern and prayerful encouragement, and she especially desires to help you maintain the sound family traditions which have always been the great blessing of rural life.
Dear brothers and sisters: the Church gives thanks to God for you, for what you offer to the rest of society, for the priority you give to family and community life, for the witness you bear to the sacredness of life, for the trust you manifest in the loving providence of God, our Creator and our Father.
Rural Australia!
You must always stand firm in these fundamental values. And if you do so, your very lives will echo the message of this morning’s hymn:
"Let all things their Creator bless,
and worship him in humbleness;
O praise him, alleluia"!
Speeches 1986 - Melbourne (Australia), 28 November 1986