20 July 1969: Pope Paul VI
sends blessings to first men on the moon
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| Pope Paul VI watches the moonlanding on television on July 20, 1969 |
Marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 historic moon landing,
Vatican Radio brings you the voice of Pope Paul VI sending his blessings to the
astronauts who "conquered the moon."
By Veronica Scarisbrick and Linda Bordoni
As millions of men, women and children did across the world
on the night of 20 July 1969, Pope Paul VI spent
his time glued to the television to watch Neil Armstrong as he became the first
man ever to land, and then to walk, on the moon.
50 years after that historic event, scientists agree
humanity will have to take another giant step forward to try to equal the
achievement and legacy of Apollo 11 and its crew.
The powerful significance of the event was not lost on the
Pope of the time who became the first Roman Pontiff to send a message hurtling
through space in which he blessed the three astronauts who had just landed on
the moon, before sending a congratulatory telegramme to then US President,
Richard Nixon.
But as Veronica Scarisbrick notes in this
picture in sound, for Pope Paul VI, the moonwalk was a recognition of the
“greatness of God's handiwork”, and the moon “the poetic pale lamp of our
nights and dreams”.
“Pope Paul VI is speaking to you astronauts: Honor,
greetings and blessings to you, conquerors of the moon.”
For Pope Paul VI,the moonwalk was a recognition of the
greatness of God’s handiwork.
The moon itself, he personified poetically as the pale lamp
of our nights:
“Pale lamp of our nights and our dreams bring to her with
your living presence the voice of the Spirit”.
As the tiny lunar module neared the surface of the moon,
scouring the landscape for a safe stretch to touch down on, all over the world
people scoured the fuzzy images from space on their television screens, anxious
to see what would happen.
Pope Paul was no exception. He too watched the landing from
his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo which housed the Vatican Observatory.
And as Neil Armstrong stepped down on the powdery surface of
the moon, Pope Paul VI clapped his hands and said: “We are close to you with
our good wishes and with our prayers, together the whole Catholic Church”.
Often caught peering at lunar landscapes through the
telescope at the Vatican Observatory, Paul VI had always shown a special
interest in space travel.
In the very first speech of his pontificate, he said that
with the blessing of God, it had opened up new era for humanity, and on a later
occasion he had given an astronaut a specially engraved bronze plaque to be
laid on the surface of the moon, with the words from a Psalm: “O Lord our God,
how great your name throughout the earth”.
In return, he got a piece of the moon, which today is still
kept at Castel Gandolfo.
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