ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER PAUL VI
TO THE AMBASSADOR OF BOLIVIA*

Monday, 5 April 1976

Mr. Ambassador,

We are happy to receive Your Excellency today on this solemn occasion on which you present to us the Letters that accredit you as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Bolivia to the Holy See, and at the same time we are glad to bid you a hearty welcome.

What Your Excellency has just said, echoing the common feeling of Bolivians, has inspired in us deep satisfaction and appreciation. Through your words we were able to appreciate, once more, one of the features that mark the spirit of your people most profoundly and clearly, that is, the spiritual figure that the Church "Mother and Teacher" has formed with her centuries-old presence in the Bolivian people and their institutions.

If, looking at the past, the patrimony of faith, which the Church dispenses, has been an inexhaustible source of creative dynamism, it is no less true that in the present also – as Your Excellency pointed out – she continues to be extraordinarily effective in interpreting and fulfilling the deepest aspirations of human existence and of peoples.

Certainly, the desire for progress, so deeply rooted and so ardent in the conscience of modern man, particularly the young, takes on multiple expressions and it sometimes has to overcome different factors of an individual and social nature. Hence the necessity of being united in attachment to the spiritual heritage, which is always open to the questions and hopes of the new generations. We have just heard to our great satisfaction that Bolivia sees in this a fundamental aspect of development, since this dialogue, animated by history, is a sign of cultural maturity, and to attain it, it engages all human possibilities, guiding them to promote the complete perfection of the person and the good of society.

In this sense, the Church of Bolivia, faithful to her mission, claims nothing else but to make available, as she has done hitherto, her centuries-old experience, the moral and spiritual incentives of the Gospel, for the purpose of causing to prevail always, beyond all temporal calculation, the values inherent in the dignity of the person, and his freedom on the individual, family and social planes.

Mr. Ambassador: we wish to assure you, lastly, that you can rely on our continual benevolence in the accomplishment of your high mission. With our greeting to H E. the President of Bolivia, we request Your Excellency to convey our best wishes to all the beloved sons of your noble country, upon which we invoke divine blessings.

*ORa n.17 p.2.