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ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER PAUL VI
TO THE NEW AMBASSADOR OF THE ECUADOR
TO THE HOLY SEE
*

Monday, 9 December 1974

 

Mr Ambassador,

We are nappy to bid you a warm welcome at this presentation of the Letters that accredit you as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ecuador to the Holy See. We wish to assure you at once of our benevolence and our support for the carrying out of your lofty mission.

The words we have just heard revive in us the memory of our beloved Ecuadorian sons, whose human virtues and deep faith we know and may appreciate. And we accept with particular gratitude the testimony of respect and affection that Your Excellency, expressing the sentiments of your people, has wished to bear to us.

Your Excellency referred to our task in favour of the development of peoples and to our concern to awaken in the conscience of men a responsible sense of solidarity, which will make it possible for everyone to participate in prosperity. Our repeated appeals are but the echo of the Church's sincere desire to advance together with mankind and act as ferment and as the soul of society, which must be renewed in Christ and be transformed into God's family (cf Gaudium et spes).

It is a programme of complete salvation, which encourages us to continue to propose the aims of real development, which ranges from satisfying in a suitable way individual and social needs to the possession of those cultural, moral and spiritual values that give man's life real meaning and depth (cf. Populorum progressio, 21).

Continuing our mission as universal Pastor of souls; we will never fail to invite all men of goodwill, and Christians in particular, to undertake a united action, free of selfishness, that will make it possible to create the necessary conditions so that all men without distinction will be able to attain the prosperity to which they are entitled, the indispensable premise for peace. A peace that must be constructed day by day, by means of the establishment of an order desired by God, which involves a more perfect justice among men (cf. Populorum progressio, 76).

Under the guidance of its Pastors, the Church in Ecuador will continue its effort in the service, of these ideals: And we hope that the evangelical dynamism of so many priests and religious men and women, dedicating their lives to others in works of welfare, promotion and apostolate will continue to be appreciated and supported by all in order to give an increasingly human and Christian sense to the people and the history of the country.

Mr Ambassador, wishing you success in the mission entrusted to you by H.E. the President of Ecuador – for whose greeting we are grateful – we ask you to transmit ours to the authorities and to all our beloved sons of Ecuador, on whom we invoke abundant divine blessings.


*ORa 1975 n°1 p.9.

 



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