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

Friday, 15 February 1974  

Mr. Ambassador,

We listened carefully to the respectful expressions that Your Excellency has just uttered on presenting the Letters that accredit you as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Spain to the Holy See. Receive above all, Mr Ambassador, our cordial welcome, together with our best wishes for the carrying out of the high and delicate mission you take up today.

This solemn occasion brings to out mind similar moments, not long ago, when we had the honour to receive Your Excellency’s late and illustrious predecessor, Don Juan Pablo de Lojendio. Today we wish to pay him the tribute of our remembrance, which transcends time to reach, on the wings of faith, the peace of the after-life.

Your presence and your words, Mr Ambassador, bring particularly near to us a noble nation, Spain, whose sons constantly give us proof of their devotion and affection, as we were able to see once more at the recent canonization of St Teresa of Jesus Jornet lbars.

Your Excellency referred to social initiatives taken in your country. We wish to see in this the firm resolution of a people endeavouring to attain more and more every day the development to which its present and its past call it, promoting for this purpose, simultaneously and above all, those spiritual and moral values which have been the bests of its history, and without forgetting, – as Your Excellency has rightly recalled – that the final aim is man and not mere material riches. We wish to assure you, Mr Ambassador, that in everything that serves the complete promotion of man in truth, justice and concord, the Church – in accordance with her conception of the transcendent value of the human person and with the concern she has always had for the respect due to the inalienable rights of the latter – will not fail to offer her disinterested contribution to the consolidation of the individual and the welfare of all the members of the community are always harmoniously united.

The Church always aims at enhancing and enriching the individual, family and civic-professional life in society, within the field and the task which are her own, and which aim first and foremost at maintaining and fostering the Christian conception of human existence.

Expressing our benevolence to you, Mr. Ambassador, we ask you to transmit our respectful greeting to the Head of State, while we invoke special divine blessings on the high authorities of the nation, on Your Excellency and on all our beloved Spanish children.