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ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI
TO THE AMBASSADOR OF THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI
TO THE HOLY SEE*

Thursday, 23 March 1972

 

Mr. Ambassador,

We thank Your Excellency for your kind words and we accept with pleasure the fervent wishes you have just expressed for the flourishing development of the Catholic Church and for our person. We entrust to you the care of transmitting our respectful greeting and our gratitude to H.E. the President of the Republic of Haiti, whose interpreter you have been.

At the moment when you are taking up the duty of representing your noble country here as Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, we form our best wishes for the accomplishment of your high mission, in order that you may help to tighten the bonds between the bonds between the Repub1ic of Haiti and the Holy See, and to smooth away, if need one, difficulties that might arise.

The Catholic Church, it is a fact, has been rapidly and solidity implanted in Haiti. Her message of salvation has been welcomed by most of the populations, her faith has marked their religious sensibility and given rise, not only to appreciable cultural manifestations, but to a commitment to walk along Christ’s way, which is trust, Justice and Love. Catholics ask nothing else, as you know, but to benefit from the religious freedom that allows them to develop this faith and live out this commitment, helped by their pastors, whether they are fellow countrymen or missionaries.

Under these conditions, they can contribute greatly, it is our conviction, to developing in their own country these, goods of vital importance that Your Excellency recalled: the atmosphere of distension, harmony, peace; concern with honesty and social justice, in an active and loyal collaboration with all the living forces of society; the pursuit of development in all fields; respect for the indefeasible rights of the human person; brotherly openness to the other partners of the world community; high esteem and assiduous practice and spiritual values that give a people its reasons for living, its dynamism and its hope, in conformity with the plan of God the Creator.

These are the wishes we formulate unceasingly, not only for our Catholic sons, but also for men of goodwill all over the world. It is along this way, we have no doubt, that the dear Haitian people will find the happiness, progress and rightful place in the concert of nations that we wholeheartedly wish for them. We are happy to express to them, through your person, the esteem and affection we bear them, and we implore the abundance of divine Blessing on them, on Your Excellency and on all those responsible for the common good of your country.


*ORa n.14 p.2.

 



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