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ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI
TO THE AMBASSADOR OF LUXEMBOURG
TO THE HOLY SEE*

Thursday, 20 November 1975

 

Mr. Ambassador,

It is with joy that we welcome you to the Vatican, and thank you heartily for the kind words and good wishes you addressed to us on behalf of His Royal Highness the Grand Duke and of the Government of Luxembourg, whom you now officially represent here. Kindly convey to them our gratitude and the fervent wishes we willingly express for the happiness and prosperity of your country.

In terms that held all our attention, Your Excellency recalled the great problems of our times, and the most important one of all, peace. This must, in fact, be the aim of all peoples, particularly of those who assign to spiritual values their rightful place, and, with all the more reason, of those whose Christian tradition allows them to attribute to human brotherhood its deepest significance. We know that Luxembourg considers itself in honour bound to make its contribution to enterprises aimed at promoting peace among the nations.

It would be vain, however, to try to quell conflicts and ensure a general atmosphere of security if the material interests of each people continued to determine future prospects selfishly. It is necessary to create, on the contrary, a concern for greater justice for everyone, and therefore to appeal constantly to the appreciation of the person present in every human being, in order to promote a civilization that respects the freedom of each one and that is anxious to guarantee to each one the conditions of life that permit his physical, moral and religious development.

These are the perspectives that Your Excellency has happily stressed and which guide, in actual fact, the international action that the Holy See is perseveringly pursuing. How could we fail to appreciate the efforts made by Luxembourg to cope with the problems of our time and thus contribute to their international solution? The Church, for her part, is working at this according to her spiritual mission by forming the conscience and recalling its indefeasible demands. She addresses her faithful in the first place, but willingly extends her dialogue to all men of goodwill.

On this solemn occasion, Mr. Ambassador, we greet affectionately all our sons in Luxembourg. Remembering the kind visit he paid us in the company of Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess, we express our sentiments of esteem to His Royal Highness the Grand Duke, to the whole people of Luxembourg and its rulers. We implore the blessings of the Lord on them, and we add, Mr. Ambassador, our cordial good wishes for your mission to the Holy See.


*ORa n.49 p.4.

 



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