ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER PAUL VI
TO THE NEW AMBASSADOR OF THAILAND
TO THE HOLY SEE*

Thursday, 15 December 1977

Mr Ambassador,
In accepting with pleasure your Letters of Credence, we would ask Your Excellency to convey to His Majesty the King of Thailand our sincere gratitude for his kind greetings and good wishes and to assure him of our prayers that God may guard and guide him and give true prosperity and peace to him and his people.

Man’s striving for the attainment of the goals of peace and prosperity is not considered by the Church to be extraneous to her mission. You have described how people inspired by her message have in Thailand played an important part in the fields of medicine and education and have been instruments for the transmission of ideas helpful for the further development of your country. The message that the Church has the honour to serve is addressed to real men and women in the midst of their real needs of material goods and of the conditions necessary for their intellectual, moral and spiritual development; and Christian charity, which is an essential part of that message, compels committed members of the Church to respond as generously as they can to the call of those needs.

We are happy that you have emphasized, in full accord with the noble traditions of Thailand, material values. Many factors enter into the proper development of human beings and none of them can safely be ignored in fostering their development. But it would be a complete inversion of the natural order of things if the true scale of values were undermined. Rather the material values are sought in order to provide a secure basis for the building of the spiritual, and the spiritual values serve to give meaning to the material.

We are pleased too that you have reaffirmed the importance of seeking economic and social justice at all levels of national and international society, and we ask God to bless the praiseworthy efforts being made in this direction by the people of Thailand, whom we greatly esteem and in whose endeavours for the promotion of this cause we have much trust.

We look forward to continued cordial cooperation between Thailand and the Holy See for the welfare of all, and we invoke upon you abundant divine favours, that your mission may be fruitful in much good.

*AAS 70 (1978), p.128-129;

Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, vol. XV, p.1204-1205;

L’Attività della Santa Sede 1977, p.403;

OR 16.12.1977, p.1, 2;

ORa n.52 p.6.