Pope
Francis
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Heartfelt thanks to your Dean, Ambassador
Jean-Claude Michel, for the kind words that he has addressed to me in the name
of everyone present. It gives me joy to welcome you for this exchange of
greetings: a simple yet deeply felt ceremony, that somehow seeks to express the
Pope’s embrace of the world. Through you, indeed, I encounter your peoples, and
thus in a sense I can reach out to every one of your fellow citizens, with
their joys, their troubles, their expectations, their desires.
Your presence here in such numbers is a
sign that the relations between your countries and the Holy See are fruitful,
that they are truly a source of benefit to mankind. That, indeed, is what
matters to the Holy See: the good of every person upon this earth!
And it is with this understanding that the
Bishop of Rome embarks upon his ministry, in the knowledge that he can count on
the friendship and affection of the countries you represent, and in the
certainty that you share this objective.
At the same time, I hope that it will also
be an opportunity to begin a journey with those few countries that do not yet
have diplomatic relations with the Holy See, some of which were present at the
Mass for the beginning of my ministry, or sent messages as a sign of their
closeness – for which I am truly grateful.
As you know, there are various reasons why
I chose the name of Francis of Assisi, a familiar figure far beyond the borders
of Italy and Europe, even among those who do not profess the Catholic faith.
One of the first reasons was Francis’ love
for the poor. How many poor people there still are in the world! And what great
suffering they have to endure!
After the example of Francis of Assisi, the
Church in every corner of the globe has always tried to care for and look after
those who suffer from want, and I think that in many of your countries you can
attest to the generous activity of Christians who dedicate themselves to
helping the sick, orphans, the homeless and all the marginalized, thus striving
to make society more humane and more just.
But there is another form of poverty! It is
the spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer
countries particularly seriously.
It is what my much-loved predecessor,
Benedict XVI, called the “tyranny of relativism,” which makes everyone his own
criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples.
And that brings me to a second reason for
my name. Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace. But there is
no true peace without truth!
There cannot be true peace if everyone is
his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights,
without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the
basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth.
One of the titles of the Bishop of Rome is
Pontiff, that is, a builder of bridges with God and between people.
My wish is that the dialogue between us
should help to build bridges connecting all people, in such a way that everyone
can see in the other not an enemy, not a rival, but a brother or sister to be
welcomed and embraced!
My own origins impel me to work for the
building of bridges.
As you know, my family is of Italian
origin; and so this dialogue between places and cultures a great distance apart
matters greatly to me, this dialogue between one end of the world and the
other, which today are growing ever closer, more interdependent, more in need
of opportunities to meet and to create real spaces of authentic fraternity.
In this work, the role of religion is
fundamental. It is not possible to build bridges between people while
forgetting God. But the converse is also true: it is not possible to establish
true links with God, while ignoring other people.
Hence it is important to intensify dialogue
among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with
Islam.
At the Mass marking the beginning of my
ministry, I greatly appreciated the presence of so many civil and religious
leaders from the Islamic world.
And it is also important to intensify
outreach to non-believers, so that the differences which divide and hurt us may
never prevail, but rather the desire to build true links of friendship between
all peoples, despite their diversity.
Fighting poverty, both material and
spiritual, building peace and constructing bridges: these, as it were, are the
reference points for a journey that I want to invite each of the countries here
represented to take up.
But it is a difficult journey, if we do not
learn to grow in love for this world of ours.
Here too, it helps me to think of the name
of Francis, who teaches us profound respect for the whole of creation and the
protection of our environment, which all too often, instead of using for the
good, we exploit greedily, to one another’s detriment.
Dear Ambassadors, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you again for all the work that you
do, alongside the Secretariat of State, to build peace and construct bridges of
friendship and fraternity. Through you, I would like to renew to your
Governments my thanks for their participation in the celebrations on the
occasion of my election, and my heartfelt desire for a fruitful common
endeavor. May Almighty God pour out his gifts on each one of you, on your
families and on the peoples that you represent. Thank you!
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