JOURNEY TO INDIA

ADDRESS OF PAUL VI
TO THE MEMBERS
OF THE PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL
ADMINISTRATION OF BOMBAY

Thursday, 3 December 1964

Mister Governor,

Be assured of Our sincere gratitude for the honour Your Excellency renders Us by your visit, together with the high officials of the provincial and municipal administration of Bombay. We are highly appreciative of all that Your Excellency and your collaborators have done to facilitate the celebration of the Eucharistic Congress, and indeed of your numerous kind favours to the Catholic community of Bombay at all times. We thank you with all Our heart in the name of Our faithful people; and also, in Our own name, for the countless services rendered on the occasion of Our visit to your great City.

We intend to see as much as possible, during Our brief sojourn, of this vast metropolis and its surroundings. What We have already viewed impresses Us deeply, and We felicitate the authorities for their many achievements in the development of urban facilities and services. Every effort made to improve living conditions and enhance the dignity of the human person meets with Our cordial approval and encouragement. It is the constant teaching of the Catholic Church that every individual human being possesses an immortal soul, of equal value in the sight of God, and that all men are brothers under the Divine Fatherhood. We pray that this fraternal relationship may be acknowledged by all, that brotherly love may induce men to love their neighbours as themselves, that all may do unto others as they would have others do unto them. With this prayer, We invoke upon you and your loved ones the choicest and richest graces of heaven.