ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI
TO THE AMABASSADOR OF PERU*

Thursday, 30 May 1974

Mr. Ambassador.

On this solemn occasion on which Your Excellency has presented to us the Letters that accredit you as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Peru to the Holy See, we are happy to be able to bid you a cordial and sincere welcome.

Your presence drives home to us more keenly the deep adherence of a people so dear to us because of its pure and recognized virtues, which have germinated and shone forth in that splendid group of Saints who have honoured the Church with the testimony of exemplary charity and service.

We are well aware, too – and Your Excellency has made a point of reminding us –that Peru has undertaken, with renewed commitment, a carefully planned stage of cultural and social improvement.

To attain these aims, a fairer distribution of the many natural resources, with which Providence has enriched your country, and of their fruits, is certainly necessary, as also the creation of new and more perfect structures, capable of weaving a flexible woof of means and methods. But all this would not guarantee in itself an effective convergence of minds towards resolute and fruitful mutual collaboration in an atmosphere of just and peaceful coexistence.

In this context, the Church, Mother and Teacher of Peoples – within her specific mission of service – has a task of prime importance to carry out. Starting, in fact, from a basic conception of the complete values of the human being, she is attentive to the deepest aspirations of the latter. She promotes and encourages all that derives from man's innate dignity and urges him to foster, as an individual and as a member of society, all that helps in the real fulfilment of the person. A great contribution for this purpose is also made by the Church's appeal to all consciences to raise their thought and action in the real awareness that they are sons of the common Father.

Formulating the best wishes for the success of your high mission, in which you can rely on our goodwill, we request you, Mr. Ambassador, to transmit our respectful greetings to H.E. the President, and our regards to all our beloved sons of the Peruvian nation, on which we invoke abundant blessings from heaven.