Pope
Francis: Message to 69th General Assembly of the UN
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a Message to the
participants in the 69th General Assembly of the United Nations, which convened
on September 16th. The Pope's Message was delivered on Wednesday, September
24th - the first day of the General Debate of the Assembly - by the new
Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York,
Archbishop Bernardito Auza, at the end of his first address to the Assembly.
Please find the full text of the Pope's Message, which is to be found at the
end of the text of Archbishop Auza's address, below.
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REMARKS
of H.E.
Archbishop Bernardito Auza,
Permanent
Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations
Prayer Service
on the occasion of the
Opening of the
Sixty-Ninth Session of the United Nations General Assembly
Your
Excellency Mr. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Mrs. Ban Soon-taek,
Your Excellencies the Presidents of the 68th and the 69th Sessions of the United
Nations General Assembly,
Your
Excellencies,
Friends and
supporters of the United Nations:
It gives me great pleasure to begin my mission as Permanent
Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations with this evening’s Prayer
Service, to invoke the Almighty’s blessings upon all the Nations of the world,
as the Sixty-Ninth Session of the United Nations General Assembly is about to
begin.
In behalf of the His Holiness Pope Francis, I am delighted to
greet all of you. In particular, I extend a cordial welcome to His Excellency
the Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-moon and Mrs. Ban Soon-taek, as well as to His
Excellency the President of the just concluded Sixty-eighth UN General
Assembly, Mr. John Ashe and Mrs. Ashe, and to His Excellency the President of
the Sixty-ninth UN General Assembly, Mr. Sam Kutesa and Mrs. Kutesa. I am
delighted as well to acknowledge the gracious presence of many Permanent
Representatives and Mission Staff, as well as high-ranking officials of the UN
System and Agencies. I express profound gratitude for your presence and your
prayers for peace in the world.
Excellencies,
dear friends, let us all work towards an ever-greater realization of the
founding ideals of the United Nations, first among which is to “save succeeding
generations from the scourge of war”. Let us then heed the call for peace, by
beating our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks, so that
no nation may ever lift up a sword against another nation, and that we may
never train for war any more (cfr. Is. 2:4), nor any group may ever use
violence to impose its ideology upon others. Because war is madness, and
senseless is violence.
Alas, the
current situation of violence and war in many parts of the world reminds us
that lasting peace has remained elusive to many. Right at this very
moment, death, destruction and tragic loss of lives are happening in several
areas of the world. It would seem that we have yet to learn the lesson from the
madness of war and the senselessness of violence.
We cannot construct a world more genuinely human unless each
one of us devotes himself or herself to the cause of peace with ever-renewed
vigor, and make the pursuit of peace a constant rule of life. For, indeed,
peace is never achieved once and for all; it is the fruit of our daily quest
for greater justice and respect for one another. Let it, therefore, be our
daily aim to be an instrument and a channel of peace.
Moreover, for
believers, peace is not merely a result of our human efforts, but also a gift
from the Almighty. That is why we come together this evening, to pray for peace
and to commend the important work of the United Nations to God, as the Sixty-ninth
Session of the General Assembly is about to open. We pray that all the
stakeholders may reach agreements on difficult questions that affect us all,
not only on issues of war and peace, but also on the respect of fundamental
human rights and on improving the quality of life for all, which are key to
consolidating peace and security throughout the world.
I would like to end by conveying to you the message that Pope
Francis has for this evening’s Prayer Service, signed by the Secretary of
State, Pietro Cardinal Parolin:
“HIS HOLINESS
POPE FRANCIS SENDS CORDIAL GREETINGS TO ALL GATHERED IN PRAYER IN ANTICIPATION
OF THE SIXTY-NINTH SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY. AS THE
ASSEMBLY PREPARES TO DISCUSS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPROVED QUALITY OF
LIFE AS MEANS TO FURTHER PEACE, PROSPERITY AND SECURITY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD,
HIS HOLINESS ENCOURAGES ALL NATIONS TO KEEP THE DIGNITY OF EVERY HUMAN PERSON
FOREMOST IN THEIR DELIBERATIONS. IN THIS WAY, HE HOPES THAT SOLUTIONS MAY BE
SOUGHT WHICH PROMOTE PEACE AMONG PEOPLES AND WHICH CONFRONT POVERTY THROUGH THE
“VALUING OF FRATERNAL RELATIONSHIPS IN THE HEART OF FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES,
THROUGH THE SHARING OF JOYS AND SORROWS, OF HARDSHIPS AND TRIUMPHS THAT ARE
PART OF HUMAN LIFE.” POPE FRANCIS ASSURES THOSE PRESENT OF HIS SPIRITUAL
CLOSENESS IN PRAYING THAT THE NEW SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY MAY BE AN
OCCASION OF GREATER UNDERSTANDING AND COOPERATION BETWEEN DELEGATION MEMBERS
FOR THE GOOD OF THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY AND IN SERVICE OF LASTING PEACE AND
PROSPERITY FOR ALL PEOPLE. HIS HOLINESS WILLINGLY INVOKES THE DIVINE BLESSINGS
OF STRENGTH AND WISDOM UPON ALL ENGAGED IN THE MISSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS.”
God bless the United Nations and all Nations of the world!
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