ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER PAUL VI
TO THE PRESIDENT OF ZAMBIA
MR KENNETH D. KAUNDA*

Friday, 17 June 1977

Mr President,

Your visit to the Holy See gives us a special opportunity to express our esteem for Your Excellency and for the beloved country of Zambia. It is with pleasure that we welcome you as the highest representative of your people and as a distinguished African statesman.

You are no stranger to the Vatican: your visits and communications, as well as your representatives, have always been received with deep respect. Today we wish to reiterate the importance we attach to so many of your interventions in the making of African history, with repercussions on the destiny of the entire world.

We are sure that our thoughts are well known to you, in particular our constant proclamation of the dignity of the human person, the brotherhood of all men and the equality of their fundamental rights. In this regard we do not hesitate to repeat what we said before the Parliament in Uganda: "We deplore the fact that, in certain parts of the world, there persist social situations based upon racial discrimination and often willed and sustained by systems of thought; such situations constitute a manifest and inadmissible affront to the fundamental rights of the human person . . " (AAS 61 (1969) 585).

We render honour to your own activity in this important field and invoke upon you the strength to continue to lend wise counsels to those who will listen to you. Our own advice has always been: “. . . the temptation to violent means . . . may become very strong. But violence as a solution is illusory” (AAS 64 (1972) 312-313).

Our welcome to you and to your fellow-citizens constitutes a new appeal for peace, in a world where brothers and sisters of all continents must work together. And we know that, in this noble plan, Zambia must play a privileged role. As we place our confidence in your continuing leadership, we pray that your nation will indeed fulfil its lofty destiny.

God bless Zambia!

*AAS 69 (1977), p.479.

Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, vol. XV p.608-609.

L’Osservatore Romano, 18.6.1977, p.1.

ORa n°25 p.12.