ADDRESS OF PAUL VI
TO THE FIRST AMBASSADOR OF THE
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE SUDAN
TO THE HOLY SEE*

Thursday, 10 August 1972

Mr Ambassador,

It is with pleasure that we accept your Letters of Credence and assure you of our gratitude for the greetings which you have conveyed to us on behalf of President Nimeiry and the Government and people of the Democratic Republic of the Sudan. We thank you also for your kind words concerning the work of the Church in developing nations and in your own country, especially in the Southern Region.

This is indeed a significant occasion because, as you have pointed out, you are the first Ambassador of the Sudan to present Credentials to the Holy See. We are confident that this event marks yet another stage in a new climate of mutual understanding. Furthermore, we hope that the exchange of diplomatic representatives will be beneficial for the good of your country and for the promotion of the well-being of all your people. In particular, we trust that it will benefit the Christian communities and that it will further the dialogue happily being carried on between Christians and Moslems.

We are indeed pleased to note the dispositions recently agreed upon, whereby your citizens are to be assured of religious liberty and freedom of education. We are convinced that these guarantees render honour to your country and are greatly advantageous also to the civil life of the Sudan.

We are happy that reconciliation has taken place in your country and it is our hope that your Government and your people will indeed succeed in establishing increasingly satisfactory conditions of life and security so that all the citizens can see in their nation the guardian of their well-being and of their tranquil future.

In this regard we willingly give assurance of the Church’s desire not only to work for the spiritual welfare of the people of the Sudan, but also to collaborate for the promotion of their full human dignity and material good. The Church will lend the full measure of her energy to further those initiatives that will help to make this world a place where discrimination and violence will be no more and where justice and peace will reign.

We would ask you, Mr Ambassador, kindly to convey this assurance, together with our cordial greetings, to the President and people of your beloved country. To you personally we express our good wishes for the successful fulfilment of the mission which you are now happily beginning. Upon all the Sudanese we invoke in abundance blessings from God.

*AAS 64 (1972), p.550-551;

Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, vol. X, p.804-805;

L’Attività della Santa Sede 1972, p.283-284;

OR 11.8.1972 p.1;

ORa n.34 p.2.