ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI
TO THE AMBASSADOR OF COLOMBIA*

Thursday, 10 January 1974

Mr Ambassador,

We listened attentively to the respectful expressions that Your Excellency wished to address to us at the moment of presenting the Letters that accredit you as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Colombia to the Holy See.

Thanking you for the devoted sentiments expressed, we wish to bid you our most cordial welcome and to manifest our satisfaction at receiving you as the worthy representative of a country which is so dear to us for so many masons

We still have in our mind the pleasant memory of our stay in Bogota, during the International Eucharistic Congress. This fact, to which Your Excellency referred in your address, gave us the opportunity to witness personally the human, cultural and religious values that animate the life of the Colombian nation.

It is a motive of particular satisfaction for us to see the deep-rooted Catholic sentiment of the people of Colombia and its efforts to reach a human and spiritual development that will make it more and more faithful to its historical identity, protected towards the future.

We are well aware that the Church in Colombia is collaborating sincerely and effectively in an effort for the advancement of the whole national community. This gives us pleasure and, following the guidelines we have laid down on repeated occasions, we will continue to exhort Pastors and faithful to become solicitous promoters of the common good, giving their generous support to the work of complete development of the communities in which they live and driving it home to the Church more and more that while as a pilgrim she looks to the eternal City, she should not forget the building of the earthly City.

Mr. Ambassador, assuring you of our benevolence for the accomplishment of your high mission, we invoke the abundance of heavenly blessings on Your Excellency, on the President of Colombia, the Government and our beloved Colombian sons.