Pope to new Ambassadors to Holy
See: ‘help build a better world’
Pope Francis addresses a group of Ambassadors in the Vatican
to present their Credentials, saying that the path to peace begins with
openness and reconciliation.
By Linda Bordoni
The new Ambassadors to the Holy See whom Pope Francis
received in the Vatican on Thursday hail from Seychelles, Mali, Andorra, Kenya,
Latvia and Niger.
They are part of a corps representing some 183 States that
currently have diplomatic relations with the Holy See.
In his discourse, Pope Francis noted that the meeting today
takes place “as Christians throughout the world prepare to celebrate the birth
of the one whom we address as the Prince of Peace.”
Peace: a journey of hope and dialogue
And quoting from his Message for the 2020 World Day of Peace
which will be marked on 1 January, he said that “peace is the aspiration of the
entire human family. It is a journey of hope, encompassing dialogue,
reconciliation and ecological conversion.”
Referring to the Message, he reiterated the Catholic
Church’s commitment to cooperate with every responsible partner “in promoting
the good of each person and of all peoples.”
He told the diplomats that he hopes their mission “will
contribute not only to the consolidation of the good relations existing between
your nations and the Holy See, but also to the building of a more just and
peaceful world in which human life, dignity and rights are respected and
enhanced.”
Noting that the path to peace begins with openness to
reconciliation, the Pope said it is a path “which entails renouncing our desire
to dominate others and learning to see one another as persons, sons and
daughters of God, brothers and sisters.”
“Only when we set aside indifference and fear can a genuine
climate of mutual respect grow and flourish,” he said.
The Pope called for the will to develop a culture of
inclusion, a more just economic system and various opportunities for the
participation of all in social and political life.
Ambassadors represent the international community
He said the presence of the diplomats in the Vatican is a
sign of the resolution of the nations they represent, and of the international
community as a whole, “to address the situations of injustice, discrimination,
poverty and inequality that afflict our world and threaten the hopes and
aspirations of coming generations.”
The Pope decried the fact that increasingly the “path to
peace is blocked also by a lack of respect for our common home and particularly
by the abusive exploitation of natural resources viewed only as a source of
immediate profit, without consideration of the cost to local communities or to
nature itself.”
Common good and common home
He said our world is facing a series of complex challenges
to the sustainability of the environment, not only for the present but also for
the immediate future and recalled the recent Amazon Synod that “called for a
renewed appreciation of the relationship between communities and the land,
between present and past, and between experience and hope.”
“A commitment to responsible stewardship of the earth and
its resources is urgently demanded at every level, from family education, to
social and civic life, and to political and economic decision-making,” he said.
The Pope concluded reminding the ambassadors that the
common good and our common home demand cooperative efforts to promote the
integral development of every member of our human family, and he assured them
of the “constant readiness of the various offices of the Roman Curia” to
assist in the fulfillment of their responsibilities.
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