ADDRESS OF PAUL VI
ON THE OCCASION OF THE BLESSING
OF CARDINAL STRITCH INSTITUTE

Saturday, 29 June 1968

We are happy to visit this new residence, bearing the name of a distinguished, exemplary and worthy man of the Church, Cardinal Samuel Alphonsus Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago, who died in Rome where Pope Pius XII had called him to be the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith; it pleases Us to see him so remembered and so honored.

We are also pleased because of the purpose this residence will serve: hospitality to priests and prelates from the United States, those who work in Rome and those who come to visit. This service of hospitality is in itself a merit, because of the comfort it offers, because of the community life it will provide priests from the same nation, and for the religious and ecclesiastical spirit which marks it. It is a beautiful work, worthy of the Catholic clergy of America, whom we know even under the aspect of personal home life, and of whose virtues we are aware: simplicity, brotherliness and piety.

This house further creates a new bond, sympathetic and worthy of praise, between the Church in the United States and the Church of Rome; it confirms their fraternal ties; and it makes it easier for the priests, housed here, to appreciate their stay in Rome, the center of the Catholic Church. It also offers an occasion for the Roman clergy, for the Roman Curia and for Catholics, who reside here or who pass through this city, to know better and to appreciate more the spirit, the life and the work of American Catholicism.

We express Our praise to all those who merit it for the completion of this residence: to Cardinal Cody, Archbishop of Chicago, first of all, as a promoter of this new house, and to the American Hierarchy through him, and to Monsignor Marcinkus, our dear and able collaborator in the Secretariat of State, who directed the execution of this work. We pray that a good ecclesiastical spirit will always form the atmosphere of this lodging, to which We give from Our heart Our blessing, which naturally extends itself to all those present, to the guests here now and those of tomorrow.