DADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI
TO THE AMABASSADOR OF BOLIVIA*

Thirsday, 20 June 1974

Mr. Ambassador.

It is a great pleasure for us to welcome Your Excellency at this presentation of the Letters that accredit you as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Bolivia to the Holy See.

We listened attentively to Your Excellency's respectful words, in which you also emphasized the adherence of Bolivians to this Apostolic See. We wish to see in this the expression of religious loyalty to the fruitful presence of the Church in your noble country. The Church, in fact, has always endeavoured to ensure that Christian principles should be for everyone, but especially for those who profess faith in Christ, a certain source of inspiration to peace and ethical dynamism. This is so in order that the peoples might arrive in a satisfactory way at the complete development desired, within a harmonious union of real spiritual and human values.

In this task, the Church will not fail to make, within the sphere of her competence and of what is possible, her own contribution to the common good, putting at the service of her sons the immeasurable spiritual and moral heritage which her divine Founder entrusted to her.

This and no other is the spirit that has animated our own task as universal Pastor. It makes peace the subject of reflection and the programme of renewal. This is the irresistible way to be able to leave behind all kinds of obstacles to true individual and collective progress

Nor, in carrying out this mission, can we forget what the last Council recalls. The Church "focuses its attention on the world of men, on the whole human family along with the sum of those realities in the midst of which that family lives. It gazes upon that world which is the theatre of man's history, and carries the marks of his energies, his tragedies, and his triumphs" (Gaudium et spes, n. 2).

Mr. Ambassador, in expressing our best wishes for the successful accomplishment of your high mission, we assure you that you will always be able to rely on our goodwill.

Requesting you to transmit to His Excellency the President of the Republic our thanks for his respectful greeting, we send our regards to all the sons of the beloved Bolivian Nation, on which we invoke abundant gifts from heaven.