Pope Francis to Civil Authorities says "let the spark of reconciliation strike, the dream of building tomorrow come true with yesterday's enemy , to initiate paths of dialogue...developing a diplomacy of peace..." in Portugal - FULL TEXT
.png)
APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS FRANCIS TO PORTUGAL
ON THE OCCASION OF XXXVII WORLD YOUTH DAY
[2 - 6 AUGUST 2023] MEETING WITH THE AUTHORITIES, WITH CIVIL SOCIETY AND WITH THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS
SPEECH OF THE HOLY FATHER
Belém Cultural Center (Lisbon)
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Mr President of the Republic, Mr President of the Assembly of the Republic, Mr Prime Minister, Members of the Government and the Diplomatic Corps, Authorities, representatives of civil society and the world of culture, Ladies and gentlemen!
I cordially greet you and thank the Mr President for the welcome and for the courteous words he addressed to me – the President is very welcoming, thank you! I am happy to be in Lisbon, a city of encounter which embraces various peoples and cultures and which is becoming even more universal these days; in a certain sense, it becomes the capital of the world, the capital of the future, because young people are the future. This is well suited to its multiethnic and multicultural character - I am thinking of the Mouraria district, where people from more than sixty countries live in harmony - and reveals the cosmopolitan trait of Portugal, which is rooted in the desire to open up to the world and to explore it, sailing towards new and wider horizons.
(Speeches begin at the 25:00 Mark on the Video)
Not far from here, in Cabo da Roca, the sentence of a great poet of this city is carved: «Aqui… waves a terra se acaba e o mar começa» (L. Vaz de Camões, Os Lusíadas, VIII). For centuries it was believed that there was the edge of the world, and in a certain sense it is true: we are at the edge of the world because this country borders the ocean, which borders the continents.
Lisbon brings its embrace and its perfume. I like to associate myself with how much the Portuguese love to sing: «Lisboa tem cheiro de flores e de mar» (A. Rodrigues, Cheira bem, cheira a Lisboa, 1972). A sea that is much more than a landscape element, is a call imprinted on the soul of every Portuguese: «mar sonoro, mar sem fundo, mar sem fin» as a local poetess called it (S. de Mello Breyner Andresen, Mar sound). In front of the ocean, the Portuguese reflect on the immense spaces of the soul and on the meaning of life in the world. And I too, being carried away by the image of the ocean, would like to share some thoughts.
According to classical mythology, Oceanus is the son of heaven (Uranus): his vastness leads mortals to look up and rise towards infinity. But, at the same time, Oceanus is the son of the earth (Gea) which he embraces, thus inviting him to wrap the entire inhabited world in tenderness. Indeed, the ocean connects not only peoples and countries, but also lands and continents; therefore Lisbon, city of the ocean, recalls the importance of the whole, to think of borders as areas of contact, not as borders that separate. We know that today the big questions are global, yet we often experience ineffectiveness in responding to them precisely because faced with common problems the world is divided, or at least not cohesive enough, unable to face united what puts everyone in crisis. It seems that planetary injustices, wars, climate and migration crises run faster than the ability, and often the will, to face these challenges together.
Lisbon can suggest a change of pace. Here in 2007 the homonymous reform treaty of the European Union was signed. It states that «the Union's aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples» (Lisbon Treaty amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, art. 1,4 /2.1); but goes further, asserting that "in relations with the rest of the world [...] it contributes to peace, security, sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect between peoples, free and fair trade, the elimination of poverty and the protection of human rights" (art. 1,4/2.5). They are not just words, but milestones for the journey of the European community, engraved in the memory of this city. Here is the spirit of the whole, animated by the European dream of a wider multilateralism than just the Western context.
According to a disputed etymology, the name Europe derives from a word that indicates the direction of the west. However, it is certain that Lisbon is the westernmost capital of continental Europe. It therefore recalls the need to open wider ways of meeting, as Portugal already does, especially with countries of other continents sharing the same language. I hope that World Youth Day will be, for the "old continent" - we can say the "old" continent - an impulse of universal openness, that is, an impulse of openness that makes it younger. Because the world needs Europe, true Europe: it needs its role as bridge and peacemaker in its eastern part, in the Mediterranean, in Africa and in the Middle East. Thus Europe will be able to bring its specific originality to the international scene, which emerged in the last century when, from the crucible of world conflicts, it let the spark of reconciliation strike, making the dream of building tomorrow come true with yesterday's enemy , to initiate paths of dialogue, paths of inclusion, developing a diplomacy of peace that extinguishes conflicts and eases tensions, capable of grasping the faintest signs of relaxation and of reading between the most crooked lines.
In the ocean of history, we are sailing in a stormy juncture and there is a lack of courageous routes to peace. Looking with heartfelt affection to Europe, in the spirit of dialogue that characterizes it, one might ask: where are you sailing towards, if you do not offer peace paths, creative ways to put an end to the war in Ukraine and the many conflicts that are bloodying the world? And again, widening the field: which route do you follow, West? Your technology, which has marked progress and globalized the world, is not enough on its own; much less the most sophisticated weapons are enough, which do not represent investments for the future, but impoverishments of true human capital, that of education, health care, the welfare state. It is worrying when one reads that in many places funds are continually invested in weapons rather than in the future of their children. And this is true. The treasurer told me a few days ago that the best investment income is in the manufacture of weapons. We invest more in weapons than in the future of our children. I dream of a Europe, the heart of the West, which puts its ingenuity to good use in extinguishing outbreaks of war and lighting lights of hope; a Europe that knows how to rediscover its youthful soul, dreaming of the greatness of the whole and going beyond the needs of the immediate; a Europe that includes peoples and people with their own culture, without chasing ideological theories and colonizations. And this will help us think about the dreams of the founding fathers of the European Union: they dreamed big!
The ocean, an immense expanse of water, recalls the origins of life. In today's developed world it has paradoxically become a priority to defend human life, put at risk by utilitarian drifts, which use it and discard it: the culture of the waste of life. I think of so many unborn children and the elderly left to their own devices, of the difficulty of welcoming, protecting, promoting and integrating those who come from afar and knocking on doors, of the loneliness of many families in difficulty in giving birth and raising children. Here too one would have to say: where are you sailing towards, Europe and the West, with the waste of the old, the walls with barbed wire, the massacres at sea and empty cradles? Where do you sail to? Where do you go if, faced with the evil of living, you offer hasty and wrong remedies, such as easy access to death, a convenient solution that appears sweet, but is actually more bitter than the waters of the sea? And I think of many sophisticated laws on euthanasia.
However, Lisbon, embraced by the ocean, gives us reason to hope, it is a city of hope. An ocean of young people is pouring into this welcoming city; and I would like to thank Portugal for the great work and generous commitment made to host such a complex event to manage, but full of hope. As they say in these parts: «Next to the young, one does not age». Young people from all over the world who cultivate the desire for unity, peace and fraternity, young people who dream and challenge us to make their dreams of good come true. They are not in the streets shouting anger, but sharing the hope of the Gospel, the hope of life. And if today there is a climate of protest and dissatisfaction in many parts, fertile ground for populism and conspiracy theories, World Youth Day is an opportunity to build together. It revives the desire to create novelties, to put out to sea and sail together towards the future. Some bold words of Pessoa come to mind: «Navigating is necessary, living is not necessary [...]; what is needed is to create» (Navegar is precise). So let's get busy with creativity to build together! I imagine three construction sites of hope in which we can all work together: the environment, the future, fraternity.
The environment. Portugal shares with Europe many exemplary efforts for the protection of creation. But the global problem remains extremely serious: the oceans are overheating and their depths bring to light the ugliness with which we have polluted our common home. We are turning vast reserves of life into plastic landfills. The ocean reminds us that human life is called to harmonize with an environment greater than us, which must be guarded, which must be guarded with care, thinking of the younger generations. How can we say we believe in young people if we don't give them a healthy space to build their future?
The future is the second construction site. And the future is young people. But many factors discourage them, such as the lack of work, the frenetic pace in which they are immersed, the increase in the cost of living, the difficulty in finding a home and, even more worrying, the fear of starting families and giving birth to of the children. In Europe and, more generally, in the West, we are witnessing a downward phase of the demographic curve: progress seems to be a question concerning the development of technology and the comforts of individuals, while the future calls for counteracting the declining birth rate and the decline of the desire to live. Good politics can do a lot in this, it can generate hope. In fact, it is not called to hold power, but to give people the power to hope. It is called, today more than ever, to correct the economic imbalances of a market that produces wealth but does not distribute it, impoverishing souls with resources and certainties. It is called to rediscover itself as a generator of life and care, to invest with farsightedness in the future, in families and in children, to promote intergenerational alliances, where the past is not erased with a swipe in the sponge, but bonds between young people and elderly people. We must take this up again: the dialogue between young and old. The feeling of Portuguese saudade recalls this, which expresses a nostalgia, a desire for an absent good, which is reborn only in contact with one's roots. Young people must find their roots in the elderly. In this sense, education is important, which can not only impart technical notions to progress economically, but is destined to introduce a story, to hand over a tradition, to value man's religious need and to foster social friendship.
The last building site of hope is that of fraternity, which we Christians learn from the Lord Jesus Christ. In many parts of Portugal, the sense of neighborliness and solidarity are very much alive. However, in the general context of a globalization that brings us closer but does not give us fraternal proximity, we are all called to cultivate a sense of community, starting from the search for those who live next to us. Because, as Saramago noted, «what gives true meaning to the encounter is research, and one has to go a long way to reach what is nearby» (Todos os nomes, 1997). How beautiful it is to rediscover ourselves as brothers and sisters, to work for the common good, leaving behind contrasts and differences of views! Here too we find an example of the young people who, with their cry for peace and their desire for life, lead us to tear down the rigid fences of belonging erected in the name of different opinions and beliefs. I have known of many young people who cultivate the desire to be neighbors here; I am thinking of the Missão País initiative, which leads thousands of young people to live experiences of missionary solidarity in the spirit of the Gospel in peripheral areas, especially in villages within the country, going to visit many lonely elderly people, and this is an "anointing" for youth. I would like to thank and encourage, alongside the many who care for others in Portuguese society, the local Church, which does so much good, away from the spotlight.
Brothers and sisters, let us all feel called together, fraternally, to give hope to the world in which we live and to this magnificent country. Deus abençoe Portugal!a
Lisbon brings its embrace and its perfume. I like to associate myself with how much the Portuguese love to sing: «Lisboa tem cheiro de flores e de mar» (A. Rodrigues, Cheira bem, cheira a Lisboa, 1972). A sea that is much more than a landscape element, is a call imprinted on the soul of every Portuguese: «mar sonoro, mar sem fundo, mar sem fin» as a local poetess called it (S. de Mello Breyner Andresen, Mar sound). In front of the ocean, the Portuguese reflect on the immense spaces of the soul and on the meaning of life in the world. And I too, being carried away by the image of the ocean, would like to share some thoughts.
According to classical mythology, Oceanus is the son of heaven (Uranus): his vastness leads mortals to look up and rise towards infinity. But, at the same time, Oceanus is the son of the earth (Gea) which he embraces, thus inviting him to wrap the entire inhabited world in tenderness. Indeed, the ocean connects not only peoples and countries, but also lands and continents; therefore Lisbon, city of the ocean, recalls the importance of the whole, to think of borders as areas of contact, not as borders that separate. We know that today the big questions are global, yet we often experience ineffectiveness in responding to them precisely because faced with common problems the world is divided, or at least not cohesive enough, unable to face united what puts everyone in crisis. It seems that planetary injustices, wars, climate and migration crises run faster than the ability, and often the will, to face these challenges together.
Lisbon can suggest a change of pace. Here in 2007 the homonymous reform treaty of the European Union was signed. It states that «the Union's aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples» (Lisbon Treaty amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, art. 1,4 /2.1); but goes further, asserting that "in relations with the rest of the world [...] it contributes to peace, security, sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect between peoples, free and fair trade, the elimination of poverty and the protection of human rights" (art. 1,4/2.5). They are not just words, but milestones for the journey of the European community, engraved in the memory of this city. Here is the spirit of the whole, animated by the European dream of a wider multilateralism than just the Western context.
According to a disputed etymology, the name Europe derives from a word that indicates the direction of the west. However, it is certain that Lisbon is the westernmost capital of continental Europe. It therefore recalls the need to open wider ways of meeting, as Portugal already does, especially with countries of other continents sharing the same language. I hope that World Youth Day will be, for the "old continent" - we can say the "old" continent - an impulse of universal openness, that is, an impulse of openness that makes it younger. Because the world needs Europe, true Europe: it needs its role as bridge and peacemaker in its eastern part, in the Mediterranean, in Africa and in the Middle East. Thus Europe will be able to bring its specific originality to the international scene, which emerged in the last century when, from the crucible of world conflicts, it let the spark of reconciliation strike, making the dream of building tomorrow come true with yesterday's enemy , to initiate paths of dialogue, paths of inclusion, developing a diplomacy of peace that extinguishes conflicts and eases tensions, capable of grasping the faintest signs of relaxation and of reading between the most crooked lines.
In the ocean of history, we are sailing in a stormy juncture and there is a lack of courageous routes to peace. Looking with heartfelt affection to Europe, in the spirit of dialogue that characterizes it, one might ask: where are you sailing towards, if you do not offer peace paths, creative ways to put an end to the war in Ukraine and the many conflicts that are bloodying the world? And again, widening the field: which route do you follow, West? Your technology, which has marked progress and globalized the world, is not enough on its own; much less the most sophisticated weapons are enough, which do not represent investments for the future, but impoverishments of true human capital, that of education, health care, the welfare state. It is worrying when one reads that in many places funds are continually invested in weapons rather than in the future of their children. And this is true. The treasurer told me a few days ago that the best investment income is in the manufacture of weapons. We invest more in weapons than in the future of our children. I dream of a Europe, the heart of the West, which puts its ingenuity to good use in extinguishing outbreaks of war and lighting lights of hope; a Europe that knows how to rediscover its youthful soul, dreaming of the greatness of the whole and going beyond the needs of the immediate; a Europe that includes peoples and people with their own culture, without chasing ideological theories and colonizations. And this will help us think about the dreams of the founding fathers of the European Union: they dreamed big!
The ocean, an immense expanse of water, recalls the origins of life. In today's developed world it has paradoxically become a priority to defend human life, put at risk by utilitarian drifts, which use it and discard it: the culture of the waste of life. I think of so many unborn children and the elderly left to their own devices, of the difficulty of welcoming, protecting, promoting and integrating those who come from afar and knocking on doors, of the loneliness of many families in difficulty in giving birth and raising children. Here too one would have to say: where are you sailing towards, Europe and the West, with the waste of the old, the walls with barbed wire, the massacres at sea and empty cradles? Where do you sail to? Where do you go if, faced with the evil of living, you offer hasty and wrong remedies, such as easy access to death, a convenient solution that appears sweet, but is actually more bitter than the waters of the sea? And I think of many sophisticated laws on euthanasia.
However, Lisbon, embraced by the ocean, gives us reason to hope, it is a city of hope. An ocean of young people is pouring into this welcoming city; and I would like to thank Portugal for the great work and generous commitment made to host such a complex event to manage, but full of hope. As they say in these parts: «Next to the young, one does not age». Young people from all over the world who cultivate the desire for unity, peace and fraternity, young people who dream and challenge us to make their dreams of good come true. They are not in the streets shouting anger, but sharing the hope of the Gospel, the hope of life. And if today there is a climate of protest and dissatisfaction in many parts, fertile ground for populism and conspiracy theories, World Youth Day is an opportunity to build together. It revives the desire to create novelties, to put out to sea and sail together towards the future. Some bold words of Pessoa come to mind: «Navigating is necessary, living is not necessary [...]; what is needed is to create» (Navegar is precise). So let's get busy with creativity to build together! I imagine three construction sites of hope in which we can all work together: the environment, the future, fraternity.
The environment. Portugal shares with Europe many exemplary efforts for the protection of creation. But the global problem remains extremely serious: the oceans are overheating and their depths bring to light the ugliness with which we have polluted our common home. We are turning vast reserves of life into plastic landfills. The ocean reminds us that human life is called to harmonize with an environment greater than us, which must be guarded, which must be guarded with care, thinking of the younger generations. How can we say we believe in young people if we don't give them a healthy space to build their future?
The future is the second construction site. And the future is young people. But many factors discourage them, such as the lack of work, the frenetic pace in which they are immersed, the increase in the cost of living, the difficulty in finding a home and, even more worrying, the fear of starting families and giving birth to of the children. In Europe and, more generally, in the West, we are witnessing a downward phase of the demographic curve: progress seems to be a question concerning the development of technology and the comforts of individuals, while the future calls for counteracting the declining birth rate and the decline of the desire to live. Good politics can do a lot in this, it can generate hope. In fact, it is not called to hold power, but to give people the power to hope. It is called, today more than ever, to correct the economic imbalances of a market that produces wealth but does not distribute it, impoverishing souls with resources and certainties. It is called to rediscover itself as a generator of life and care, to invest with farsightedness in the future, in families and in children, to promote intergenerational alliances, where the past is not erased with a swipe in the sponge, but bonds between young people and elderly people. We must take this up again: the dialogue between young and old. The feeling of Portuguese saudade recalls this, which expresses a nostalgia, a desire for an absent good, which is reborn only in contact with one's roots. Young people must find their roots in the elderly. In this sense, education is important, which can not only impart technical notions to progress economically, but is destined to introduce a story, to hand over a tradition, to value man's religious need and to foster social friendship.
The last building site of hope is that of fraternity, which we Christians learn from the Lord Jesus Christ. In many parts of Portugal, the sense of neighborliness and solidarity are very much alive. However, in the general context of a globalization that brings us closer but does not give us fraternal proximity, we are all called to cultivate a sense of community, starting from the search for those who live next to us. Because, as Saramago noted, «what gives true meaning to the encounter is research, and one has to go a long way to reach what is nearby» (Todos os nomes, 1997). How beautiful it is to rediscover ourselves as brothers and sisters, to work for the common good, leaving behind contrasts and differences of views! Here too we find an example of the young people who, with their cry for peace and their desire for life, lead us to tear down the rigid fences of belonging erected in the name of different opinions and beliefs. I have known of many young people who cultivate the desire to be neighbors here; I am thinking of the Missão País initiative, which leads thousands of young people to live experiences of missionary solidarity in the spirit of the Gospel in peripheral areas, especially in villages within the country, going to visit many lonely elderly people, and this is an "anointing" for youth. I would like to thank and encourage, alongside the many who care for others in Portuguese society, the local Church, which does so much good, away from the spotlight.
Brothers and sisters, let us all feel called together, fraternally, to give hope to the world in which we live and to this magnificent country. Deus abençoe Portugal!a
Comments