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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TRAVELER OF PEACE & HOPE 1

Homily given at Evening Outdoor Mass in Independence

Plaza, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic—
January 25, 1979

A CALL TO FIDELITY 4

Homily given during Eucharistic celebration in Cathedral

of the Assumption, Mexico City—January 26, 1979

A VISION OF THE PRIEST'S ROLE 7

Address to group of Priests in Basilica of the Virgin of

Guadalupe in Mexico City—January 27, 1979

MEDELLIN: AFTER TEN YEARS 10

Homily given at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

in Mexico City during opening Eucharistic celebration

for the Third General Assembly of Latin American

Bishops—January 27, 1979

THE CONSECRATED LIFE OF RELIGIOUS WOMEN 16

Address to group of Nuns at Michelangelo Institute in

Mexico City, Mexico—January 27, 1979

THE FAMILY: HOPE OF LATIN AMERICA 18

Homily given during Mass celebrated in Puebla, Mexico

on first day of the Third Assembly of Latin American

Bishops—January 28, 1979

POPE JOHN'S ADDRESS AT PUEBLA 22

Address given at Opening of Third General Assembly

of the Latin American Bishops in Puebla, Mexico—
January 28, 1979

RIGHTS OF THE RURAL POOR 39

Address to Indian Peasant Farmers in mountain village

of Cuilapan, Oaxaca, Mexico—January 29, 1979

THE RIGHTS OF MIGRANT WORKERS 43

Address given in Monterrey during last stop in Mexico—
January 31, 1979



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Traveler of Peace & Hope

Homily given at Evening Outdoor Mass

in Independence Plaza, Santo Domingo,

Dominican Republic

January 25, 1979

1. At this eucharist where we share the same faith in Christ, the

bishop of Rome and the universal church, present among you, gives you

his salutation of peace: “Grace and peace be with you on behalf of God

the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:3).

I have come to these American lands as the traveler of peace and

hope, to participate in an ecclesiastical event of evangelization, inspired

by the words of the apostle Paul: “Yet preaching the Gospel is not the

subject of a boast; I am under compulsion and have no choice. I am

ruined if I do not preach it!” (1 Cor. 9:16).

This present period of the history of humanity requires a renewed

transmission of faith in order to communicate to men today the peren-

nial message of Christ, adapted to the realistic conditions of life.

This evangelization is a constant and essential requirement of ecclesi-

astical dynamics. Paul VI in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi

affirmed that “evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to

the church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize” (n.

14.)

And the same pope specified that “as an evangelizer, Christ first of

all proclaims a kingdom, the kingdom of God. ... As the kernel and cen-

ter of his good news, Christ proclaims salvation, this great gift of God

which is liberation from everything that oppresses man but which is

above all liberation from sin and the evil one” (n. 8-9).

2. The church, true to its mission, continues to present to men from

all times, with the help of the Holy Spirit and guided by the pope, its

divine founder’s message of salvation.

This Dominican land was once the first consignee, and then the pro-

pellant, of a great undertaking of evangelization, which deserves much

admiration and gratitude.

Since the end of the 15th century this beloved nation has welcomed

the faith of Jesus Christ to which it has remained faithful to this day.

The Holy See, for its part, created the first episcopal sees in America

here on this island and later, in Santo Domingo, the first primate arch-

bishopric.

1



In a relatively short period the paths of faith were cut into the Domin-

ican and continental geography, placing the foundation for the living

legacy which today we contemplate in what was called the New World.

From the first moments of discovery, the church's preoccupation is

manifested: to make God’s reign present in the heart of new countries,

races and cultures and placed first among your forefathers.

If we wish to pay tribute to those who transplanted the seeds of faith,

homage should be given first to the religious orders, who were notable,

even at the cost of contributing martyrs, in the task of evangelization.

Prominent above all were the Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians,

Mercedarians and then the Jesuits, who created a full tree from delicate

roots. America’s soil was prepared by its own spiritual currents to re-

ceive the Christian seed.

It was more than a matter of spreading the faith, dissatisfied with its

consignee’s life. For this reason the church on this island was the first

to revindicate justice and promote the defense of human rights in the

lands which were opening to evangelization.

The lessons of humanism, spiritualism and the need to dignify man.

are what we are taught by Antonio Montesinos, Cordoba, Bartolome de

las Casas, who were echoed in other places by Juan de Zumarraga,

Motolinia, Vasco de Quiroga, Jose de Anchieta, Toribio de Mogrovejo,

Nobrega and others. These are men in whom preoccupation with the

weak, the undefended, the indigenous is inherent, people who are

worthy of respect as persons and as carriers of God’s image. From there

the first international right was born with Francisco de Vitoria.

3. This great lesson is still valid today for the church. It cannot be

dissociated, confused or exhausted. It would mean closing off Infinite

spaces to man which had been opened to them by God. And it would

mean falsifying the profound and complete significance of evangeliza-

tion, which is above all the announcement of the good word of Christ

the savior.

The church, an expert on humanity, faithful to the signs of the times

and expert on obedience to the urgent invitation of the last council,

today wants to continue its mission of faith and defense of human

rights. She invites Christians to commit themselves to constructing a

more just, humane and habitable world which does not close itself in,

but rather, opens itself to God.

Making this world more just means, among other things, to make the

effort, to strive to have a world in which no more children lack sufficient

nutrition, education. Instruction; that there be no more children without

proper formation; that there be no more poor peasants without land so

that they can live and develop with dignity; that there be no more work-

2



ers mistreated nor whose rights are lessened; that there be no more

systems which permit the exploitation of man by man or by the state:

that there be no more corruption; that there be no more who have too

much while others are lacking everything through no fault of their own;

that there not be so many families who are broken, disunited, insuf-

ficently attended; that there be no injustice or inequality in administer-

ing justice; that there be no one who is not supported by the law and

that the law support everyone equally; that force not prevail over truth

and rights, but rather truth and rights over force; and that the economic

and political never prevail over the human.

4. But do not be content with a more human world. Make an explicitly

more divine world, more according to God, governed by faith and that

which faith inspires—the moral, religious and social progress of man.
Do not lose sight of the vertical orientation of evangelization. It can

liberate man, because it is the revelation of love. The love of the Father

for men, for all and each man, love revealed by Jesus Christ. “Yes,

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes

in him may not die, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16).

Jesus Christ has shown this love throughout all his hidden life
—

“He

has done everything well!’’ (Mk. 7:37)—and by announcing the Gospel,
then, with his death and resurrection, the paschal mystery in which

man finds his definite vocation to eternal life, to union with God. This

is the eschatological dimension of love.

Beloved children: I’ll finish by exhorting you always to be worthy of

the faith you have received. Love Christ, love man for him and live the

devotion to our dear mother in heaven, whom you invoke with the lovely

name of Our Lady of Altagracia, whom the pope wishes to leave with a

diadem as a hcmage of devotion. This will help you to walk to Christ,

conserving and developing fully the seed planted by your first evan-

gelizers. It is what the pope expects of all of you—of you, children of
Cuba present here, of Jamaica, of Curacao and the Antilles, of Haiti, of

Venezuela and of the United States and, above all, of you, children of

the Dominican land. So be it.

3



A Call To Fidelity

Homily given during Eucharistic celebration

in Cathedral of the Assumption, Mexico City

January 26, 1979

Dear brothers in the episcopate and beloved sons:

Just a few hours ago I stepped on this blessed earth for the first time,

with great emotion. Now I meet you, the church and Mexican people, on

this day destined to be the day of Mexico.

It is a meeting which started with my arrival in this beautiful city. It

continued during my travel through the streets and sites and grew In

intensity as we entered this cathedral. But it is here, in this Mass, that it

comes to Its climax.

Let us place our gathering under the protection of the Mother of God,

the Virgin of Guadalupe, whom the Mexican people love with such deep

devotion.

We address ourselves to you, bishops of the church, to you priests,

religious and seminarians, members of lay institutes, laymen of apostolic

movements. To you children, young men and women, adults, the aged.

To you all, the Mexican people, who have such a splendid tradition of

love for Christ, even during trials. To you who carry in the bottom of

your hearts your devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. To you the pope

speaks about something that should be the essence of your Christian

and Marian devotion: fidelity to the church.

Among all the titles given to the Virgin through the centuries for her

motherly love for Christians, there is one that stands out: v/rgo fidelis

(faithful virgin). But what does this fidelity of Mary mean? What are the

dimensions of this fidelity?

The first dimension Is searching. Mary was faithful when she searched

for the profound meaning of the will of God in her life. Quomodo fiat?

(How might this be?) she asked the angel of the annunciation. In the

Old Testament this searching is already translated into an expression of

rare beauty, of profound spiritual meaning: to seek the face of the Lord.

There can be no fidelity if there is not this deep-seated searching, if we

cannot find In the heart of man the question to which only God is the

answer.

The second dimension of this fidelity is called acceptance, to accept.

The quomodo fiat is transformed on the lips of Mary as a fiat (let it be).

Let it be, I am willing, I accept. This is the moment of truth for fidelity,

the moment in which man comes to realize that he can never fully under-

4



stand the why, that there are in God’s design more areas of mystery

than explanations, that no matter how hard he tries, he will never be

able to accept everything.

Then the person is ready to accept this mystery and gives a place in

his heart, as Mary kept all these things in her heart (Lk. 2:19; cf. Lk.

3:15). It is the moment in which man opens himself to this mystery, not

in the way someone gives up facing an enigma or the absurd, but rather

with the openness of someone letting himself be possessed by some-

thing—someone—bigger than his heart. This acceptance is fulfilled
through faith which is the union of our being with the mystery that is

revealed.

Coherence Is the third dimension of fidelity. To live in accordance

with what one believes. To adjust one’s life to what one adheres to. To

accept misunderstanding, persecutions, before we break with what we

believe in, before there is a break between life and convictions: that is

coherence. Here we find perhaps the most intimate nucleus of fidelity.

But fidelity must stand the most difficult test: perseverance. That is

the fourth dimension of fidelity, perseverance. It is easy to be coherent

for a day or even a few days. It is difficult, however important, to be

coherent through an entire life of faith. It is easy to be coherent at the

hour of elation, but difficult in the hour of tribulation. And we can call it

fidelity when it lasts a lifetime.

The fiat of Mary at the annunciation finds its fulfillment in the fiat

at the foot of the cross. To be faithful is to remain faithful in private to

what we proclaimed in public.

Of all the lessons Our Lady teaches to her Mexican children, perhaps

the most important is this lesson in fidelity, that fidelity which the pope

is pleased to find here and expects from the Mexican people.

It is often said of my homeland: “Polonia semper fidelis.” I would

like to be able to say also: “Mexico semper fidelis, Mexico, always faith-

ful.”

In fact the religious history of this nation is a history of fidelity.

Fidelity to the seeds of the faith sown by the first missionaries.

Fidelity to a simple but profound faith, ready in its sincerity to stand

sacrifice. Fidelity in devotion to Mary. Fidelity to the pope. I did not

have to come to Mexico to learn of this fidelity to the vicar of Christ. I

knew it. But I thank the Lord that I can see it first hand in the fervor of

your welcome.

In this solemn hour I invite you to grow in that fidelity. I invite you to

translate it into a strong and intelligent fidelity to the church of today.

Are not those the same as the characteristics of Mary’s fidelity.

5



The pope who visits you expects a noble and generous effort on your

part to always know better your church. The Second Vatican Council

wanted to be a council about the church. Take the documents of the

council, especially Lumen Gentium, and study It with loving attention.

Then you will discover that there is not a “new church!” The council has

revealed with more clarity the one church of Christ, one having new

dimensions but the same essence.

The pope expects from you a loyal acceptance of the church. You

cannot be faithful and remain attached to secondary things, valid in the

past but already outdated. You will not be faithful either if you try to

build the so-called church of the future, unrelated to the present.

We must be faithful to the church born once and for all from the plan

of God: at the cross, the empty tomb and at Pentecost, which is born

not of the people or from reason, but from God. She is born today to

build among all men a people willing to grow in faith, hope and fraternal

love.

The pope expects from you a coherence between your own lives and

the life of the church. This coherence implies an awareness of your

identity as Catholics, it means giving public witness to it. The church to-

day needs laymen who will give witness to their faith and share her mis-

sion in the world, being the ferment of faith, justice and human dignity,

in order to build a more human and fraternal world from which we can

look up to God.

The pope desires that your coherence in the faith not be short-

lived but that it continue and deepen. To belong to the church, to live

in the church, to be the church places great demands today. Perhaps

it will lead to direct and open persecution, but it could Involve the duress

of indifference, neglect and discrimination. Then it is easy to fall prey

to fear and insecurity. Do not allow these temptations to overcome you.

Do not lose your enthusiasm for “being the church,” for you must begin

everyday anew with greater fervor and strength.

Dear brothers and children: In this eucharist we seal the encounter

of the servant of servants of God with the soul and the conscience of the

Mexican people. The new pope would like to receive from your lips and

hands and lives a commitment to the Lord—a commitment from those
under religious vows, of children and youth, of adults and the aged, from

everyone, to Christ and his church. Let us place this intention on the

altar.

The faithful Virgin, the Mother of Guadalupe, from whom we learn the

design of God, may help us in this commitment until the end of our

lives, so we can (one day) hear the word of the Lord saying to us:

“Come, good and faithful servant, enter the joy of your Lord.” (Mt.

25, 21-23). Amen.

6



A Vision of the Priest’s Role

Address to group of Priests

in Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe

in Mexico City

January 27, 1979

Very dear priests, both secular and religious;

I have just met with representatives of the Mexican nuns. Another of

the meetings that I have been looking forward to with great hope during

my visit to Mexico is the one that I am having with you here at the

sanctuary of our revered and beloved Mother of Guadalupe.

See in this meeting a sign of the affection and interest of the pope.

He, as bishop of the universal church. Is conscious of your irreplaceable

role and he feels very close to you who are the central pieces in the

ecclesiastical task as principal collaborators of the bishops, as partici-

pants in the saving powers of Christ, as witnesses, as announcers of his

Gospel, and as promoters of the faith and the apostolic vocation of the

people of God. And I do not want to forget here so many other conse-

crated souls, valued collaborators, even without priestly character, in

many important sectors of the work of the church.

Not only do you have a qualified presence in the apostolic work of

the church, but your love of man, inspired in God, is particularly nota-

ble among students, among the sick and needy, among intellectuals,

among the poor who clamor for understanding and help, and among so

many people who come to you in search of advice and encouragement.

Because of your gift of yourself to God and the church, of your

closeness to man, receive my gratitude in the name of Christ.

Servants of a sublime cause, the fate of the church in those sectors

entrusted to your pastoral care depends largely upon you. This imposes

upon you a profound awareness of the greatness of the mission received

and the necessity of preparing yourselves continually for it.

It means, in effect, dear brothers and sons, that it is the church of

Christ—what respect and love this should inspire in us—which you
should serve joyously in holiness of life.

This high and exacting service could not be given without a clear

and deep-rooted conviction of your identity as priests of Christ, as keep-

ers and administrators of the mysteries of God, instruments of salvation

for mankind, witnesses of a kingdom which begins in this world but

which is fulfilled in the hereafter. Confronted by these truths of the

faith, why do you doubt your own identity? Why vacillate in regard to

7



the value of your own life? Why hesitate before the road taken?

To conserve and reaffirm this firm and persevering conviction, look

to the model, Christ; reawaken the supernatural values in your life; ask

for the needed help from on high in constant and confident prayer.

Today, as yesterday, this is of absolute necessity. And also be faithful

to the frequent practice of the sacrament of reconciliation, daily medita-

tion, to devotion to the Blessed Virgin by means of the rosary. In a word,

cultivate union with God by means of a profound interior life. Let this be

your first task. Do not be afraid that the time consecrated to the Lord

will take something away from your apostolic work. On the contrary, it

will be a source of fruitfulness in your ministry.

You are people who have made the Gospel your life’s profession. From

the Gospel you should take the essential criteria of the faith—not merely
psychological and sociological criteria—which produce a harmonious
synthesis betwen spirituality and ministry. Do not allow a “profession-

alization" of your calling, do not lower the esteem which you owe your

consecrated celibacy or chastity, accepted for love of the kingdom in an

unlimited spiritual paternity (1 Cor. 4:15). To them (the priests) we owe

our merciful rebirth, says St. John Chrysostom, and knowledge of true

liberty (“In Regard to Priests," 4-6).

You are participants in the ministry of Christ for the service of the

unity of the community, a service which is realized by virtue of the posi-

tion (you) received to direct the people of God, forgive sins and offer the

eucharistic sacrifice (cf. Lumen Gentium, 10; Presbyterorum Ordinis, 2);

a specific priestly service that cannot be replaced in the Christian com-

munity by the common priesthood of the faithful, (which is) essentially

different (Lumen Gentium, 10).

You are members of a particular church whose center of unity is the

bishop (Christus Dominus, 28), with whom every priest should observe

an attitude of unity and obedience. For your part, members of religious

communities in reference to pastoral activities you cannot deny your

loyal collaboration and obedience to the local hierarchy, claiming an

exclusive dependence in respect to the universal church (cf. Christus

Dominus, 34). Much less would It be admissible for priests or religious

to have a practice of parallel authority with respect to the bishops

—

authentic and only teachers of the faith—or the conference of bishops.
You are servants of the people of God, servants of the faith, and

administrators and witnesses of the love of Christ for mankind, a love

for all that excludes no one, even though it is directed more particularly

to the poorest. In this respect, I want to remind you of what I said a

short time ago to the general superiors of the religious orders in Rome:

“The soul that lives in habitual contact with God and moves within the

ardent light of his love knows how to defend itself easily against the

8



temptations of individualism and its antithesis, which create the risk

of painful divisions; it knows how to interpret in the just light of the

Gospel the options for the poorest and for each and every victim of

human selfishness, without giving in to radical socio-political doctrines

that in the long run become inopportune and counterproductive.” (Nov.

24, 1978)

You are spiritual guides who must endeavor to orient and better the

hearts of the faithful so that, converted, they may live the love of God

and neighbor and commit themselves to the welfare and dignity of man.

You are priests and members of religious orders. You are not social

directors, political leaders or functionaries of a temporal power. So I

repeat to you: Let us not pretend to serve the Gospel if we try to “dilute”

our charism through an exaggerated interest in the broad field of tem-

poral problems (speech to the clergy of Rome). Do not forget that tem-

poral leadership can easily become a source of division, while the

priest should be a sign and factor of unity, of brotherhood. The secular

functions are the proper field of action of the laity, who ought to perfect

temporal matters with a Christian spirit. (Apostolicam Actuositatem, 4).

Beloved priests and members of religious orders, I could tell you

many other things, but I do not want to make this encounter too long.

I will express some other ideas in another place so that you can refer

to them.

I end by repeating my great confidence in you. I expect so much from

your great love for Christ and for mankind. There is much to do. Let us

take to the road with new enthusiasm, united to Christ, below the

maternal gaze of the Virgin, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the sweet mother

of priests and members of religious orders. With the affectionate bless-

ing of the pope, for you and for all the priests and members of the

religious orders of Mexico.

9



Medellin: After Ten Years

Homily given at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

in Mexico City during opening Eucharistic celebration

for the Third General Assembly of Latin American Bishops

January 27, 1979

1. Hail Mary!

Dear brothers in the episcopate and dear sons and daughters. How

deep is my joy that the first steps on my pilgrimage, as successor of

Paul VI and John Paul I, bring me precisely here. They bring me to you,

Mary, in this shrine of the people of Mexico and of the whole of Latin

America, the shrine in which for so many centuries your motherhood

has been manifested.

Hail Mary!

It is with immense love and reverence that I utter these words, words

so simple and at the same time so marvelous. No one will ever be able

to greet you in a more wonderful way than the way in which the arch-

angel once greeted you at the moment of the annunciation. Hail Mary,

full of grace, the Lord is with thee. I repeat these words, words that so

many hearts ponder upon and so many lips utter throughout the world.

We here present utter them together and we are aware that these are

the words with which God himself, through his messenger, greeted

you, the woman promised in the Garden of Eden, chosen from eternity

as the mother of the word, the mother of divine wisdom, the mother

of the Son of God.

Hail, Mother of God!

2. Your Son Jesus Christ is our redeemer and Lord. He is our

teacher. All of us gathered here are his disciples. We are the successors

of the apostles, of those to whom the Lord said: “Go therefore and

make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name ‘of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Teach them to carry out

everything I have commanded you. And know that I am with you

always, until the end of the world!” (Mt. 28:19-20)

Gathered here together, the successor of Peter and the successors

of the apostles, we ponder on how admirably these words have been

fulfilled in this land.

In fact, scarcely 20 years after the work of evangelization was begun

in the New World in 1492, the faith reached Mexico. Soon afterward

the first archiepiscopal see was established, presided over by Juan de

Zumarraga, supported by other great evangelizers who were to extend

Christianity over very wide areas.

10



No less glorious religious epics were to be written in the southern

hemisphere by men such as St. Toribio de Mogrovejo and a long list

of others who would deserve to be mentioned here at length. The paths

of the faith steadily stretched further until at the end of the first

century of evangelization the episcopal sees numbered more than 70,

with some 4 million Christians. This singular undertaking was to con-

tinue for a long time, until today, after five centuries of evangelization,

it embraces almost a half of the entire Catholic Church, which has

taken root in the culture of the people of Latin America and forms

part of their own identity.

And with the achievement in these lands of Christ’s mandate, with

the multiplication everywhere of the children of divine adoption through

the grace of baptism, the mother appeared too.

In fact, the Son of God, and your Son, from the cross indicated a

man to you, Mary, and said: “Woman, there is your son’’ (Jn. 19:26).

And in that man he entrusted to you every person, he entrusted every-

one to you. And you, who at the moment of the annunciation, con-

centrated the whole program of your life in those simple words: “I am

the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say’’ (Lk. 1:38),

embrace everyone, draw close to everyone, seek everyone out with

motherly care. Thus is accomplished what the last council said about

your presence in the mystery of Christ and the church. In a wonderful

way you are always found in the mystery of Christ, your only Son,

because you are present wherever men and women, his brothers and

sisters, are present, wherever the church is present.

In fact, when the first missionaries who reached America from lands

of eminent Marian tradition taught the rudiments of Christian faith,

they also taught love for you, the mother of Jesus and of all people.

And ever since the time that the Indian Juan Diego spoke of the sweet

Lady of Tepeyac, you, Mother of Guadalupe, have entered decisively into

the Christian life of the people of Mexico. No less has been your pres-

ence in other places where your children invoke you with tender names,

as our Lady of Altagracia, of the Aparecida, of Lujan, and with many

other no less affectionate names, not to give an unending list—names
by which in each nation and even in each region the peoples of Latin

America express their most profound devotion to you, and under which

you protect them in their pilgrimage of faith.

The pope—who comes from a country in which your images, espe-
cially one, that of Jasna Gora, are also a sign of your presence in the

nation’s life and its hazardous history— is particularly sensitive to this
sign of your presence here, in the people of God in Mexico, in its his-

tory, a history which has also not been easy, and at times even dramatic.

But you are also equally present in the life of the many other peoples

11



of Latin America, presiding over and guiding not only their past, whether

remote or recent, but also the present moment, with its uncertainties

and shadows. The pope perceives in the depths of his heart the special

bonds that link you with this people and this people with you, this

people that gives you the affectionate name of La Morenita. This people,

and indirectly the whole of this vast continent, derives its spiritual unity

thanks to the fact that your are its mother, a mother who, through her

love, creates, preserves and increases a closeness between her children.

Hail, Mother of Mexico! Mother of Latin America!

3. We meet here at this exceptional and wonderful hour in the history

of the world. We have come to this place, conscious that we are at a

crucial moment. With this meeting of bishops we wish to link ourselves

with the previous conference of the Latin American bishops that took

place 10 years ago at Medellin, together with the eucharistic congress

at Bogota in which Pope Paul VI of Indelible memory took part. We

have come here not so much to examine again, 10 years later, the same

problem, but rather to review it In a new way, at a new place and at a

new moment of history.

We wish to take as our point of departure what is contained in the

documents and resolutions of that conference. And at the same time we

wish, on the basis of the experiences of the last 10 years and the

development of thought and in the light of the experiences of the whole

church, to take a correct and necessary step forward.

The Medellin conference took place shortly after the close of Vatican

II, the council of our century, and Its objective was to take up again the

council’s essential plans and content, in order to apply them and make

them a directing force in the concrete situation of the church in Latin

America.

Without the council, the Medellin meeting would not have been possi-

ble. That meeting was meant to be an impulse of spiritual renewal, a new

“spirit” in the face of the future. In full ecclesial fidelity in interpreting

the signs of the time in Latin America. The evangelizing Intention was

quite clear. It is obvious in the 16 themes dealt with, grouped about

three great mutually complementary topics, namely human advance-

ment, evangelization and growth in faith, and the visible church and

her structures.

By opting for the man of Latin America seen in his entirety, by show-

ing preferential yet not exclusive love for the poor and by encouraging

integral liberation of individuals and peoples, Medellin, the church

present in that place, was a call of hope toward more Christian and

more human goals.

12



But more than 10 years have passed. And interpretations have been

given that have been at times contradictory, not always correct, not

always beneficial for the church. The church is therefore looking for

ways that will enable her to understand more deeply and fulfill more

zealously the mission she has been given by Christ Jesus.

Much importance in this regard is found in the sessions of the

International Synod of Bishops held in the years since then, especially

the session of 1974 which concentrated on evangelization. Its con-

clusions were put together later, in a lively and encouraging manner, in

Paul Vi’s apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi. This is the theme

that we are today placing before us for study by proposing to consider

“evangelization in Latin America’s present and future.’’

As we meet in this sacred place to begin our work, we see before our

eyes the upper room in Jerusalem, where the eucharist was instituted.

After the Lord’s ascension the apostles returned to the same upper

room in order to devote themselves to prayer, together with Mary the

mother of Christ, and so prepare their hearts to receive the Holy Spirit

at the moment of the Church’s birth.

That is also why we have come here. We also are awaiting the descent

of the Holy Spirit, who will make us see the paths of evangelization by

which the church must continue and must be reborn in this great con-

tinent of ours. We also wish today and in the days ahead to devote our-

selves to prayer with Mary, the mother of our Lord and master—with
you. Mother of Hope, Mother of Guadalupe.

4. Let me, John Paul II, bishop of Rome and pope, together with my

brothers in the episcopate representing the church in Mexico and the

whole of Latin America, at this solemn moment entrust and offer to you,

the handmaid of the Lord, the whole heritage of the Gospel, the cross

and the resurrection, of which we are all witnesses, apostles, teachers

and bishops.

0 Mother, help us to be faithful stewards of the great mysteries of

God. Help us to teach the truth proclaimed by your Son and to spread

love, which is the chief commandment and the first fruit of the Holy

Spirit. Help us to strengthen our brethren in faith, help us to awaken

hope in eternal life. Help us to guard the great treasures stored in the

souls of the people of God entrusted to us.

We offer you the whole of this people of God. We offer you the church

in Mexico and in the whole continent. We offer it to you as your own.

You have entered so deeply into the hearts of the faithful through that

sign of your presence constituted by your image in the Shrine of

Guadalupe. Be at home in these hearts for the future also. Be at home

in our families, our parishes, missions, dioceses and in all the people.

13



Do this through the holy church for she, in imitation of you, Mother,

wishes in her turn to be a good mother and to care for souls in all their

needs, by proclaiming the Gospel, administering the sacraments, safe-

guarding family life with the sacrament of matrimony, gathering all into

the eucharistic community by means of the holy sacrament of the altar,

and by being lovingly with them from the cradle until they enter eternity.

0 Mother, awaken in the younger generation readiness for the exclu-

sive service of God. Implore for us abundant local vocations to the

priesthood and the consecrated life.

0 Mother, strengthen the faith of our brothers and sisters in the laity

so that in every field of social, professional, cultural and political life

they may act in accordance with the truth and the law brought by your

Son to mankind, in order to lead everyone to eternal salvation and, at

the same time, to make life on earth more human, more worthy of man.

The church that is carrying out her task among the American nations,

the church in Mexico, wishes to serve this sublime cause with all her

strength and with renewed missionary spirit. Mother, enable us to

serve the church in truth and justice. Make us follow this way ourselves

and lead others, without ever straying along twisted paths, dragging

others with us.

We offer and entrust to you everybody and everything for which we

have pastoral responsibility, confident that you will be with us and will

help us carry out what your Son has told us to do (cf. Jn. 2:5). We

bring you this unlimited trust. With this trust I, John Paul II, with all

my brothers in the episcopate of Mexico and Latin America, wish to

bring you still more strongly to our ministry, to the church and to the

life of our nations. We wish to place in your hands the whole of our

future, the future of evangelization in Latin America.

Queen of the Apostles, accept our readiness to serve unreservedly

the cause of your Son, the cause of the Gospel and the cause of peace

based on justice and love between individuals and peoples.

Queen of Peace, save the nations and peoples of the whole con-

tinent—they have so much trust in you—from wars, hatred and sub-
version. Make everybody, whether they are rulers or subjects, learn to

live in peace, educate themselves for peace, and do what is demanded

by justice and respect for the rights of every person, so that peace may

be firmly established.

0 Handmaid of the Lord, accept our trustful offering. May your

maternal presence in the mystery of Christ and of the church become a

source of joy and freedom for each and every one, a source of that

freedom through which “Christ has set us free’’ (Gal. 5:1), and in the

14



end, a source of that peace that the world cannot give but which is

only given by Christ (cf. Jn. 14:27).

Finally, 0 Mother, recalling and confirming the gesture of my pre-

decessors Benedict XIV and Pius X, who proclaimed you patroness of

Mexico and of the whole of Latin America, I present to you a diadem in

the name of all your Mexican and Latin American children, that you may

keep them under your protection, preserve their harmony in faith and

their fidelity to Christ, your Son. Amen.

15



The Consecrated Life of

Religious Women

Address to Group of Nuns

at Michelangelo Institute

in Mexico City, Mexico

January 27, 1979

My dear daughters:

It would have been impossible to find a better place for the meeting

of the pope with the nuns of Mexico than this shrine, where the Virgin of

Guadalupe, the mother, is so devoutly revered. She is the perfect model

of womanhood, the best example of a life entirely consecrated to her

Son the savior, in an everlasting internal attitude of faith, hope and

loving dedication to a supernatural mission.

In this privileged place and before this image of the Virgin, the pope

wants to share a few moments with you, who represent the more than

20,000 nuns scattered all over Mexico as well as outside the homeland.

You are a very important force within the church and in society itself,

spread in countless sectors, such as schools, hospitals welfare and

social work, parish duties, catechesis and many other works. You belong

to different religious institutions, but you all share the same ideal, with

different charisms: to follow Christ, to bear a living testimony of the

perpetuity of his message.

Yours is a vocation which deserves the highest praise from the pope

and the church, yesterday as today. Therefore, I want to express my

joyful confidence in you and encourage you not to grow faint in the

path you have chosen, that it is worth continuing with renewed spirit-

uality and enthusiasm. Know the pope accompanies you with his prayer

and is pleased by your fidelity to your vocation, to Christ and to the

church.

At the same time, however, you will allow me to add some reflections

that I offer for your consideration and examination.

It is true that in most nuns, there prevails a worthy spirit of fidelity

to their own commitment and that certain aspects of great vitality in

religious life may be perceived, together with a return to a more evan-

gelical vision, an increasing solidarity among the religious institutions

and a more profound closeness to the poor, the object of a just priority

in our attention. These cause profound joy and optimism.

But there are also examples of confusion about the essence of con-

secrated life and its own charism. Sometimes prayer is left aside and

16



substituted by action; vows are interpreted according to a secularizing

mentality that dims the religious motivations of the chosen state; com-

munity life is abandoned with a certain ease; socio-political stands are

adopted as the real goals, even with clearly defined ideological

radicalizations.

And when at times the certainties of faith become darkened, reasons

are found to look for new horizons and experiences, perhaps on the

pretext of being closer to man, even very concrete groups chosen on

criteria that are not always evangelical.

Dear nuns: Never forget that to keep a clear concept of your con-

secrated life you will need a more profound vision of faith, one that is

fed and supported by prayer (Perfectae Caritatis, 6). This will make you

overcome every uncertainty about your own identity, which will keep

you faithful to that vertical dimension that is essential in order to

Identify yourselves with Christ and be authentic witnesses of the king-

dom of God for the men of the world today.

Only through this solicitude for the interests of Christ will you be able

to give the charism of prophecy its adequate dimension of witnessing

the Lord. Avoid options on behalf of the poor and needy which do not

arise from the criteria of the Gospel but are inspired by socio-political

motivations which, as I said recently to the general superiors In Rome,

in the long run will be proved inopportune and counterproductive.

You have chosen as a way of life the following of certain values that

are not merely human, although these have to be considered in their

true measure. You have chosen to serve others for the love of God.

Never forget that the human being is not trained in the mere earthly

dimension. You, as professionals of the faith and experts in the sublime

knowledge of Christ (cf. Phil. 3:18), open them to the calling and

dimension of eternity, in which you yourselves must live.

I could tell you many other things. Take, as if I had said it to you,

everything I expressed to the general superiors in Rome in my speech

of last Nov. 16. How much you can do for the church and for humanity!

They await your generous giving of yourselves, the dedication of your

free heart that will increase unsuspectingly its potentialities of love in a

world that is losing its capacity for altruism, for self-sacrificing and

disinterested love. Remember, in effect, that you are mystical spouses

of Christ and of Christ crucified (cf. 2 Cor. 4:5).

The church repeats today its trust in you: Be living testimonies of

this new civilization of love that my predecessor Paul VI so correctly

proclaimed.

So that you will be strengthened in this magnificent and hopeful task

by the force from on high and be kept in a renewed spiritual youth and

fidelity to these purposes, I give you a special blessing that I extend to

all the nuns of Mexico.

17



The Family: Hope of Latin America

Homily given during Mass

celebrated in Puebla, Mexico

on first day of the Third Assembly

of Latin American Bishops

January 28, 1979

Dearest sons and daughters:

Puebla de los Angeles (City of the Angels)! The sonorous and expres-

sive name of your city today is on the lips of millions throughout Latin

America and the whole world. Your city becomes the symbol and sign

of the Latin American church. It is here, in fact, starting today, that

the bishops of the whole continent, convened by the successor of Peter,

meet to reflect on the mission of the pastors in this part of the world

in this singular hour of history.

The pope wanted to climb this height from where all Latin America

appears to unfold. From this altar raised among the mountains, con-

templating the outline of each of the nations, the pope wanted to cele-

brate this eucharistic sacrifice in order to invoke on this conference, its

participants and its work, the light, the warmth and all the gifts of the

Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Nothing is more natural or necessary than to invoke the Spirit under

this circumstance. The great assembly which is now beginning is, in

effect, in its deepest essence, an ecclesiastical gathering. It is ecclesias-

tical because those who are gathered here are the pastors of the church

of God in Latin America. It is ecclesiastical because of the theme that

is being studied; “The Mission of the Church in the Continent." It is

ecclesiastical because of its objectives of making more alive and effec-

tive the unique contribution that the church has to offer the well-being,

the harmony, the justice and peace of these nations. Now then, there is

no ecclesiastical assembly if the Spirit of God is not there in the fullness

of his mysterious action.

The pope invokes the Spirit with all the fervor of his heart. Let the

place where the bishops gather be a new Cenacle, much larger than the

one in Jerusalem, where there were only 11 apostles on that morning,

but, like the one in Jerusalem, open to the flames of the Paraclete and

the strength of a renewed Pentecost.

May the Spirit accomplish in you bishops who are gathered here the

multiform mission he was given by the Lord Jesus. Interpreter of God,

make understandable his plan and his word, inaccessible to simple

human reason (cf. Jn. 14, 26), opening the minds of these pastors and

18



guiding them to the truth (cf. 16, 13). Witness of God, testify in their

consciences and hearts and make them consistent, credible and effec-

tive witnesses during their work (cf. Jn. 15, 26). Mediator and Com-

forter, give them courage against the sins of the world (cf. Jn. 16, 8)

and place on their lips that which must be said, especially in those

moments when this testimony will mean suffering and fatigue.

I entreat you, therefore, dear sons and daughters, to join me in this

eucharist, in this invocation to the Spirit. It is not for themselves or

their personal interests that the bishops, who have come from all the

environments of the continent, are gathered here. It is for you, the

people of God in these lands, and for your well-being. Participate,

therefore, in this third general assembly by praying each day that each

and every one of them will receive the abundance of the Holy Spirit.

It has been said, in a beautiful and profound way, that our God in

his innermost mystery is not a solitary being, but a family, because he

bears within himself fatherhood, sonship and the essence of the family,

which is love. This love in the Holy Family is the Holy Spirit. The subject

of the family is not, therefore, foreign to the subject of the Holy Spirit.

Permit the pope to say to you some words on this theme of the family

—

which will certainly occupy the bishops during these days.

You know the profound and compelling terms in which the Confer-

ence of Medellin spoke of the family. The bishops, in that year 1968,

saw in your great sense of the family a fundamental part of your Latin

American culture. They clearly saw that for the good of your countries

Latin American families should always have three roles: education in

the faith, formation of persons and promotion of development. They

also underlined the grave obstacles that families must combat in order

to achieve this triple task.

They recommended, therefore, pastoral attention to families as one

of the highest priorities of the church in the continent.

The church in Latin America is pleased with what it has been able to

achieve in respect to the family in the past 10 years. But it recognizes

with humility all that remains to be done and it sees that, far from

having lost its priority, the pastoral plan for the family appears today

even more urgent as a most important element of the teaching of the

Gospel.

The church is aware, in effect, that in these days the family confronts

serious problems in Latin America. Recently, some countries have intro-

duced divorce legislation which conveys a new menace to the integrity

of the family. In the majority of your countries one grieves that an

alarming number of children, hope of the future of these nations, are

born in unstable homes, or as it is sometimes expressed, in “incomplete

19



families." Furthermore, in certain places of the "Continent of Hope"

this same hope runs the risk of being lost because it grows in the womb

of many families who cannot live normally because they must bear the

most negative effects of development; depressing rates of disease, pov-

erty and misery, ignorance and illiteracy, inhuman housing conditions,

chronic undernourishment and so many other sorrowful realities.

In defense of the family, against all these evils, the church commits

itself to give its help. And it invites governments to make a key point of

their activities an intelligent, daring and persevering policy directed

toward the family, in the recognition that in this, undoubtedly, is found

the future—the hope—of the continent.

It should be added that such a family policy should not be understood

as an indiscriminate effort to reduce the birth rate at whatever cost

—

what my predecessor, Paul VI, called "reducing the number of those

invited to the banquet of life"—when it is generally known that even
for "development" a balanced population rate is indispensable. The

Intention must be to combine efforts in order to create conditions

favorable to the existence of healthy, balanced families—to "increase
the food on the table," in the words of Paul VI.

Besides the defense of the family, we also ought to talk about family

promotion. Many organizations must contribute to such promotion:

governments and governmental organization, schools, trade unions,

mass media, neighborhood groups, the different voluntary or spontane-

ous associations which flourish everywhere nowadays.

The church should also offer its contribution in line with its spiritual

mission to preach the Gospel and lead mankind to salvation, which also

has a great impact on the well-being of the family.

What can the church do by uniting its efforts with the others? I am

sure that your bishops will make a great effort in order to give their

best, just and true responses to this question.

Let me tell you how important for the family is the work the church

is doing in Latin America. For example, it is preparing couples for

marriage, helping families when they experience the normal crises

which, If properly understood, can be fruitful and enriching, so that

each Christian family becomes a true "domestic church" with all the

rich meaning of this expression, preparing great numbers of families to

evangelize others, enhancing all the values of family life, helping the

incomplete families and stimulating governments to promote in their

countries that family policy to which we referred earlier.

My beloved sons and daughters; From this altar St. Peter’s successor

now feels very united to the families of Latin America. It is as if each

20



home has opened and the pope could enter it: homes where it is not

material possessions that are lacking but perhaps unity and happiness;

homes where families live rather modestly and with the uncertainty of

tomorrow, helping each other bear a difficult but dignified existence;

poor lodgings on the outskirts of your cities where there is much hidden

suffering amidst the simple happiness of the poor; humble huts of the

rural workers, of the Indians, of the migrants. To each family in par-

ticular, the pope would like to say a word of hope and support.

For you, the families that are able to enjoy material comfort, don’t

be selfish with your happiness. Be open to the others and share with

them what you have and they lack. Families oppressed by poverty, don’t

get discouraged. Without making luxury your objective or making wealth

the principle of happiness, search with the help of all to overcome the

difficult times in the hope of better days. Families tried by any physical

or moral sorrow, such as sickness or misery, do not add bitterness or

desperation to such sufferings, but defeat sorrow with hope. Families of

Latin America, be certain that the pope knows you and wants to know

you better because he loves you with the sweetness of a father.

This, in the context of the peope’s visit to Mexico, is the journey of

the family. Latin American families here around the altar or present

through the mass media, receive the visit that the pope wants to make

to each one of you. Give the pope the joy of seeing you grow in the

Christian values that are your values in order that Latin America may

find, in her millions of families, reasons to trust, to hope, to fight and

to build.

21



Pope John Paul’s Address at Puebla

Address given at Opening of Third General Assembly

of the Latin American Bishops in Puebla, Mexico

January 28, 1979

Beloved brothers in the episcopate:

This hour that I have the happiness to experience with you is cer-

tainly a historic one for the church in Latin America. World opinion Is

aware of this, as are the faithful members of your local churches, and

especially you yourselves are aware of it, you who will be the protago-

nists and leaders of this hour.

It is also an hour of grace, marked by the drawing near of the Lord,

by a very special presence and action of the Spirit of God. For this

reason we have confidently invoked that Spirit at the beginning of our

work. For this reason also I now wish to implore you, as a brother to

very beloved brothers: All the days of this conference and in every one

of its acts, let yourselves be led by the Spirit, open yourselves to his

inspiration and his impulse; let it be he and no other Spirit that guides

and strengthens you.

Under the guidance of this Spirit, for the third time in the last 25

years you, the bishops of all the countries representing the episcopate

of the continent of Latin America, have gathered together to study more

deeply together the meaning of your mission in the face of the new

demands of your peoples.

The conference that is now opening, convoked by the revered Paul VI,

confirmed by my unforgettable predecessor John Paul I and reconfirmed

by myself as one of the first acts of my pontificate, is linked with the

conference now long past, held in Rio de Janeiro, which had as its most

notable result the birth of the Latin American Bishops Council (CELAM).

But it is linked even more closely with the second conference of Medellin,

of which it marks the 10th anniversary.

In these last 10 years, how much progress humanity has made and

with humanity and at its service, how much progress the church has

made. This third conference cannot disregard that reality. It will there-

fore have to take as its point of departure the conclusions of Medellin,

with all the positive elements that they contained, but without ignoring

the incorrect interpretations made at times and which call for calm

discernment, opportune criticism and clear choices of position.

You will be guided in your debates by the working document, pre-

pared with such care so as to constitute the constant point of reference.

22



But you will also have at hand Paul Vi’s apostolic exhortation

Evangelii Nuntiandi. With what care the great pontiff approved as the

conference’s theme: "The present and the future of evangelization in

Latin America." Those who were close to him during the months when

the assembly was being prepared can tell you this. They can also bear

witness to the gratitude with which he learned that the basic material of

the whole conference would be this text, into which he put his whole

pastoral soul, as his life drew to a close. Now that he has "closed his

eyes to this world’s scene” (Testament of Paul VI), this document

becomes a spiritual testament that the conference will have to scrutinize

with love and diligence, in order to make it the other obligatory point of

reference, and in order to see how to put it into practice. The whole

church is grateful to you for the example that you are giving, for what

you are doing and what other local churches will perhaps do in their

turn.

The pope wishes to be with you at the beginning of your labors, and

he is thankful to the Father of Lights from whom comes down every

perfect gift (cf. Js. 1:17), for having been able to be with you at yester-

day’s solemn Mass, under the maternal gaze of the Virgin of Guadalupe,

as also at the Mass this morning. I would very much like to stay with

you in prayer, reflection and work. Be sure that I shall stay with you in

spirit, while the "anxiety for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:28) calls me

elsewhere. I wish at least, before continuing my pastoral visit through

Mexico and before my return to Rome, to leave you as a pledge of my

spiritual presence a few words, uttered with the solicitous care of a

father, words which are the echo of my main preoccupations regarding

the theme you have to deal with and regarding the life of the church in

these beloved countries.

I. TEACHERS OF THE TRUTH

It is a great consolation for the universal Father to note that you

come together here not as a symposium of experts, not as a parliament

of politicians, not as a congress of scientists or technologists, however

important such assemblies may be, but as a fraternal encounter of

pastors of the church. And as pastors you have a vivid awareness that

your principal duty is to be teachers of the truth. Not a human and

rational truth, but the truth that comes from God, the truth that brings

with it the principle of the authentic liberation of man: "You will know

the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn. 8:32); that truth which

is the only one that offers a solid basis for an adequate "praxis.”

1.1. To be watchful for purity of doctrine, the basis for building up

the Christian community, is therefore, together with the proclamation of

the Gospel, the primary and irreplaceable duty of the pastor, of the

teacher of the faith. How often St. Paul emphasized this, convinced as

23



he was of the seriousness of the accomplishment of this duty (cf. 1 Tm.

1:3-7, 18-20 4:11,16; 2 Tm. 1:4-14). Over and above unity in love,

unity in truth is always urgent for us. The beloved Pope Paul VI, in the

apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, said: “The Gospel entrusted to

us is also the word of truth. A truth which liberates and which alone

gives peace of heart is what people are looking for when we proclaim

the good news to them. The truth about God, about man and his

mysterious destiny, about the world. . . . The preacher of the Gospel

will therefore be a person who even at the price of personal renunciation

and suffering always seeks the truth that he must transmit to others.

He never betrays or hides truth out of a desire to please men, in order

to astonish or to shock, nor for the sake of originality or a desire to

make an impression. ... We are pastors of the faithful people, and

our pastoral service impels us to preserve, defend and to communicate

the truth regardless of the sacrifices that this involves” (n. 78).

Truth Concerning Jesus Christ

1.2. From you, pastors, the faithful of your countries expect and

demand above all a careful and zealous transmission of the truth con-

cerning Jesus Christ. This truth is at the center of evangelization and

constitutes Its essential content: “There is no true evangelization if the

name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery

of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed” (EN, 22).

The vigor of the faith of millions of people will depend on the living

knowledge of this truth. The strength of their support for the church

and of their active presence as Christians in the world will also depend

on it. Choices, values, attitudes and modes of behavior capable of

orienting and defining our Christian life and of creating new people and

hence a new humanity for the conversion of the individual and social

conscience will also derive from this knowledge (cf. EN, 18).

Light on so many doctrinal and pastoral themes and questions that

you intend to study in these coming days must come from a solid

Christology.

1.3. And then we have to confess Christ before history and the world

with conviction that is profound, deeply felt and lived, just as Peter

confessed him: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”

(Mt. 16:16).

This is the good news, in a certain sense unique: The church lives

by it and for it, just as she draws from it everything that she has to

offer to people, without any distinction of nation, culture, race, time,

age or condition. For this reason “from that confession of faith

(Peter’s) the sacred history of salvation and of the people of God could

not fail to take on a new dimension” (Homily of Pope John Paul II at

the solemn inauguration of his pontificate, Oct. 22, 1978.)

24



This is the one Gospel, and “even if we, or an angel from heaven,

should preach to you a Gospel contrary to that which we preached to

you, let him be accursed,” as the apostle wrote in very clear terms

(Gal. 1:8).

1 .4 . In fact, today there occur in many places—the phenomenon is
not a new one

—
“re-readings” of the Gospel, the result of theoretical

speculations rather than authentic meditation on the word of God and

a true commitment to the Gospel. They cause confusion by diverging

from the central criteria of the faith of the church, and some people

have the effrontery to pass them on, under the guise of catechesis, to

the Christian communities.

In some cases either Christ’s divinity is passed over in silence, or

some people in fact fall into forms of interpretation at variance with

the church’s faith. Christ is said to be merely a “prophet,” one who

proclaimed God’s kingdom and love but not the true Son of God, and

therefore not the center and object of the very gospel message.

In other cases people claim to show Jesus as politically committed,

as one who fought against Roman oppression and the authorities, and

also as one involved in the class struggle. This idea of Christ as a

political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive man from Nazareth,

does not tally with the church's catechesis. By confusing the insidious

pretexts of Jesus’ accusers with the—very different—attitude of Jesus
himself, some people adduce as the cause of his death the outcome

of a political conflict, and nothing is said of the Lord’s will to deliver

himself and of his consciousness of his redemptive mission. The

Gospels clearly show that for Jesus anything that would alter his

mission as the servant of Yahweh was a temptation (Lk. 4:5). He does

not accept the position of those who mixed the things of God with

merely political attitudes (cf. Mt. 22:21; Mk. 12:17; Jn. 18:36). He

unequivocally rejects recourse to violence. He opens his message of

conversion to everybody without excluding the very publicans. The

perspective of his mission is much deeper. It consists in complete

salvation through a transforming, peacemaking, pardoning and recon-

ciling love.

There is no doubt, moreover, that all this is very demanding for the

attitude of the Christian who wishes truly to serve his least brethren,

the poor, the needy, those on the margin of society, in a word, all those

who in their lives reflect the sorrowing face of the Lord (Lumen Gentium,

8).

1 .5 . Against such “re-readings,” therefore, and against the perhaps

brilliant but fragile and inconsistent hypotheses flowing from them,

“evangelization in the present and future of Latin America” cannot

cease to affirm the church’s faith: Jesus Christ, the word and the Son

25



of God, becomes man in order to come close to man and to offer him,

through the power of his mystery, salvation, the great gift of God

(EN, 19 and 27).

This is the faith that has permeated your history and has formed

the best values of your peoples, and must go on animating, with every

energy, the dynamism of your future.

This is the faith that reveals the vocation to harmony and unity

that must drive away the dangers of war in this continent of hope, in

which the church has been such a powerful factor of integration. This

is the faith, finally, which the faithful people of Latin America through

their religious practices and popular piety express with such vitality

and in such varied ways.

From this faith in Christ, from the bosom of the church, we are able

to serve men and women, our peoples, and to penetrate their culture

with the Gospel, to transform hearts, and to make systems and struc-

tures more human.

Any form of silence, disregard, mutilation or inadequate emphasis

regarding the total mystery of Jesus Christ that diverges from the

church's faith cannot be the valid content of evangelization. “Today,

under the pretext of a piety that is false, under the deceptive appearance

of a preaching of the Gospel, some people are trying to deny the Lord

Jesus,’’ wrote a great bishop in the midst of the hard crises of the

fourth century. And he added: “I speak the truth, so that the cause of

the confusion that we are suffering may be known to all. I cannot keep

silent.’’ (St. Hilary of Poitiers, Ad Ausentium 1-4). Nor can you, the

bishops of today, keep silent when this confusion occurs.

This is what Pope Paul VI recommended in his opening discourse at

the Medellin conference: “Talk, speak out, preach, write. Unite in pur-

pose and in program, defend and explain the truths of faith by taking a

position on the present validity of the Gospel, on questions dealing with

the life of the faithful and the defense of Christian conduct . . .’’ (Pope

Paul’s discourse, I).

I too will not grow weary of repeating, as my duty of evangelizing the

whole of mankind obliges me to do: “Do not be afraid. Open wide the

doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of states,

economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization

and development.’’ (Homily of Pope John Paul II at the solemn inaugura-

tion of his pontificate Oct. 22, 1978).

The Truth Concerning the Church’s Mission

1.6. You are teachers of the truth, and you are expected to proclaim

unceasingly, but with special vigor at this moment, the truth concerning

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the mission of the church, object of the creed that we profess, and an

indispensable and fundamental area for our fidelity. The church was

established by the Lord as a fellowship of life, love and truth (Lumen

Gentium, 9) and as the body and the sacrament of Christ, in whom the

whole fullness of the Godhead dwells (LG, 7).

The church is born of our response in faith to Christ. In fact, it is by

sincere acceptance of the good news that we believers gather together

in Jesus' name in order to seek together the kingdom, build it up and

live it (cf. EN, 13). The church is “the assembly of those who in faith

look to Jesus as the cause of salvation and the source of unity and

peace" (LG, 9).

But on the other hand we are born of the church. She communicates

to us the riches of life and grace entrusted to her. She brings us into

existence by baptism, feeds us with the sacraments and the word of

God, prepares us for mission, leads us to God's plan, the reason for our

existence as Christians. We are her children. With just pride we call her

our mother, repeating a title coming down the centuries from the earliest

times (cf. Henri de Lubac, Meditation Sur L'Eglise).

She must therefore be called upon, respected and served, for “one

cannot have God for his Father, if he does not have the church for his

mother" (St. Cyprian, De Unitate 6,8), one cannot love Christ without

loving the church which Christ loves (EN, 16), and “to the extent that

one loves the church of Christ, he possesses the Holy Spirit" (St.

Augustine, Tract In Johannem, 32:8).

Love for the church must be composed of fidelity and trust. Stressing,

in the first discourse of my pontificate, my resolve to be faithful to the

Second Vatican Council and my desire to dedicate my greatest care to

the ecclesiological area, I called on people to take once again into their

hands the dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium in order to “meditate

with renewed and invigorating zeal on the nature and function of the

church, her way of being and acting ... not merely in order that the

vital communion in Christ of all who believe and hope in him should be

accomplished, but also in order to contribute to bringing about a fuller

and closer unity of the whole human family" (First message of John

Paul II to the church and the world, Oct. 17, 1978).

Now at this surpassing moment in the evangelization of Latin America,

I repeat the call: “Assent to this document of the council, seen in the

light of tradition and embodying the dogmatic formulas issued a century

ago by the First Vatican Council, will be for us, pastors and faithful, a

clear signpost and urgent incentive for walking—let us repeat—the
paths of life and history" (Ibid.).

1.7. There is no guarantee of serious and vigorous evangelizing activity

without a well-founded ecclesiology.

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The first reason is that evangelization is the essential mission, the

distinctive vocation and the deepest identity of the church, which has in

turn been evangelized (EN, 14-15; LG, 5). She has been sent by the

Lord and in her turn sends evangelizers to preach “not their own selves

or their personal ideas, but a Gospel of which neither she nor they are

the absolute masters and owners, to dispose of it as they wish” (EN,

15). A second reason is that “evangelization is for no one an individual

and Isolated act; it is one that is deeply ecclesial” (EN, 60), which Is not

subject to the discretionary power of Individualistic criteria and perspec-

tives but to that of communion with the church and her pastors (cf.

Ibid.).

How could there be authentic evangelizing, if there were no ready and

sincere reverence for the sacred magistnrium, in clear awareness that

by submitting to it the people of God are not accepting the word of men

but the true word of God? (cf. I Thes. 2:13; LG, 12). “The ‘objective’

importance of this magisterium must always be kept in mind and also

safeguarded, because of the attacks being leveled nowadays in various

quarters against some certain truths of the Catholic faith” (First mes-

sage of John Paul II to the church and the world, Oct. 17, 1978).

I well know your attachment and availability to the See of Peter and

the love that you have always shown It. From my heart I thank you in

the Lord’s name for the deeply ecclesial attitude implied in this and I

wish you yourselves the consolation of counting on the loyal attachment

of your faithful.

1 .8 . In the abundant documentation with which you have prepared

this conference, especially in the contributions of many churches, a

certain uneasiness is at times noticed with regard to the very Interpreta-

tion of the nature and mission of the church. Allusion is made, for

instance, to the separation that some set up between the church and

the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God Is emptied of its full content

and is understood in a rather secularist sense: It is interpreted as being

reached not by faith and membership in the church but by the mere

changing of structures and social and political involvement, and as

being present wherever there is a certain type of involvement and

activity for justice. This is to forget that “the church receives the

mission to proclaim and to establish among all peoples the kingdom

of Christ and of God. She becomes on earth the seed and beginning of

that kingdom” (LG, 5).

In one of his beautiful catechetical instructions Pope John Paul I,

speaking of the virtue of hope, warned that “it is wrong to state that

political, economic and social liberation coincides with salvation in Jesus

Christ, that the regnum dei (kingdom of God) is identified with the

regnum hominis (kingdom of man).”

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In some cases an attitude of mistrust is produced with regard to the

“institutional” or “official” church, which is considered as alienating,

as opposed to another church of the people, one “springing from the

people” and taking concrete form in the poor.

These positions could contain different, not always easily measured,

degrees of familiar ideological forms of conditioning. The council re-

minded us of the nature and mission of the church. It reminded us how

her profound unity and permanent construction are aided by those

responsible for the ministry of the community, who count on the col-

laboration of the whole people of God. In fact, “If the Gospel that we

proclaim is seen to be rent by doctrinal disputes, ideological polariza-

tions or mutual condemnations among Christians, at the mercy of the

letters’ differing views on Christ and the church and even because of

their different concepts of society and human institutions, how can

those to whom we address our preaching fall to be disturbed, dis-

oriented, even scandalized?” (EN, 77).

The Truth Concerning Man

1.9. The truth that we owe to man is, first and foremost, a truth

about man. As witnesses of Jesus Christ we are heralds, spokesmen and

servants of this truth. We cannot reduce it to the principles of a system

of philosophy or to pure political activity. We cannot forget it or betray it.

Perhaps one of the most obvious weaknesses of present-day civiliza-

tion lies in an inadequate view of man. Without doubt, our age is the

one in which man has been most written and spoken of, the age of the

forms of humanism and the age of anthropocentrism. Nevertheless it is,

paradoxically, also the age of man’s deepest anxiety about his identity

and his destiny, the age of man’s abasement to previously unsuspected

levels, the age of human values trampled on as never before.

How is this paradox explained? We can say that it is the inexorable

paradox of atheistic humanism; it is the drama of man being deprived

of an essential dimension of his being, namely his search for the infinite,

and thus faced with having his being reduced in the worst way. The

pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes plumbs the depths of the prob-

lem when it says: “Only in the mystery of the incarnate word does the

mystery of man take on light” (GS, 22).

Thanks to the Gospel, the church has the truth about man. This truth

Is found in an anthropology that the church never ceases to fathom

more thoroughly and to communicate to others. The primordial affirma-

tion of this anthropology is that man is God’s image and cannot be

reduced to a mere portion of nature or a nameless element in the human

city (cf. GS, 12, 14). This is the meaning of what St. Irenaeus wrote:

“Man’s glory is God, but the recipient of God’s every action, of his

29



wisdom and of his power is man” (St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, Ml,

20, 2-3).

I made particular reference to this irreplaceable foundation of the

Christian concept of man in my Christmas message: “Christmas is the

feast of man. . . . Man is an object to be counted, something considered

under the aspect of quantity. ... Yet at the same time he is a single

being, unique and unrepeatable . . . somebody thought of and chosen

from eternity, someone called and identified by his own name” (Christ-

mas Message, 1).

Faced with so many other forms of humanism that are often restricted

by a strictly economic, biological or psychological view of man, the

church has the right and the duty to proclaim the truth about man that

she received from her teacher Jesus Christ. God grant that no external

compulsion may prevent her from doing so. God grant, above all, that

she may not cease to do so through fear or doubt, through having let

herself be contaminated by other forms of humanism or through lack

of confidence in her original message.

When a pastor of the church proclaims clearly and unambiguously

the truth about man that was revealed by him who “knew what was in

man” (Jn. 2:25), he must therefore be encouraged by the certainty of

doing the best service to the human being.

This complete truth about the human being constitutes the founda-

tion of the church’s social teaching and the basis also of true liberation.

In the light of this truth, man is not a being subjected to economic or

political processes; these processes are instead directed to man and

are subjected to him.

Without doubt, this truth about man that the church teaches will

emerge strengthened from this meeting of pastors.

M. SIGNS AND BUILDERS OF UNITY

Your pastoral service of truth is completed by a like service of unity.

II. 1. Unity Among Bishops

Unity will be, first of all, unity among yourselves, the bishops. “We

must guard and keep this unity,” the bishop St. Cyprian wrote in a

moment of grave threats to communion between the bishops of his

country, “especially we bishops who preside over the church, in order

to give witness that the episcopate is one and indivisible. Let no one

mislead the faithful or alter the truth. The episcopate is one” (De

Ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate, 6-8).

This unity of bishops comes not from human calculations and strategy

but from on high: from serving one Lord, from being animated by one

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spirit, and from loving one and the same church. It is unity resulting

from the mission that Christ has entrusted to us, the mission that has

been evolving on the Latin American continent for almost half a millen-

nium and that you are carrying forward with stout hearts in times of

profound changes as we approach the close of the second millennium

of redemption and of the church’s activity. It is unity around the Gospel,

the body and blood of the Lamb, and Peter living in his successors, all

of which are different signs, but all of them highly important signs, of

the presence of Jesus among us.

What an occasion you have, dear brothers, for living this unity of

pastors in this conference. In itself it is a sign and result of an already

existing unity, but it is also an anticipation and beginning of a unity

that must be more and more close and solid. Begin your work in a

climate of brotherly unity. Even now let this unity be a component of

evangelization.

11.2. Unity with Priests, Religious and Faithful

Let unity among the bishops be extended by unity with priests, reli-

gious and faithful. Priests are the immediate collaborators of the bishops

in their pastoral mission, and their mission would be compromised if

close unity did not reign between priests and bishops.

Men and women religious are also especially important subjects of

that unity. I well know the importance of their contribution to evangeliza-

tion in Latin America in the past and in the present. They came here

at the dawn of the discovery and the first steps of almost all the coun-

tries. They worked continuously here together with the diocesan clergy.

In some countries more than half, in other countries the great majority

of the body of priests are religious. This would be enough to show how

important it is here more than in other parts of the world for religious

not only to accept but to seek loyally an unbreakable unity of aim and

action with their bishops. To the bishops the Lord entrusted the mission

of feeding the flock. To the religious it belongs to blaze the trails for

evangelization. It cannot be, it ought not to be, that the bishops should

lack the responsible and active, yet at the same time, docile and trust-

ing collaboration of the religious, whose charism makes them ever more

ready agents at the service of the Gospel.

In this matter everybody in the ecclesial community has the duty of

avoiding magisteria other than the church’s magisterium, for they are

ecclesially unacceptable and pastorally sterile.

The laity also are subjects of that unity, whether involved individually

or joined in apostolic associations for the spreading of the kingdom of

God. It is they who have to consecrate the world to Christ in the midst

of their daily duties and in their various family and professional tasks,

in close union with and obedience to the lawful pastors.

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In line with Lumen Gentium, we must safeguard the precious gift of

ecclesial unity between all those who form part of the pilgrim people of

God.

III. DEFENDERS AND PROMOTERS OF HUMAN DIGNITY

111.1. Those familiar with the church’s history know that in all periods

there have been admirable bishops deeply involved in advancing and

valiantly defending the human dignity of those entrusted to them by

the Lord. They have always been impelled to do so by their episcopal

mission, because they considered human dignity a gospel value that

cannot be despised without greatly offending the creator.

This dignity is infringed on the individual level when due regard is

lacking for values such as freedom, the right to profess one’s religion,

physical and mental integrity, the right to essential goods, to life. . . .

It is infringed on the social and political level when man cannot exercise

his right of participation, or when he is subjected to unjust and unlawful

coercion, or submitted to physical or mental torture, etc.

I am not unaware of how many questions are being posed in this

sphere today in Latin America. As bishops, you cannot fail to concern

yourselves with them. I know that you propose to carry out a serious

reflection on the relationships and implications between evangelization

and human advancement or liberation, taking into consideration, in such

a vast and important field, what is specific about the church’s presence.

Here is where we find, brought concretely into practice, the themes

we have touched upon in speaking of the truth concerning Christ, the

church and man.

111. 2. If the church makes herself present In the defense of or in the

advancement of man, she does so in line with her mission, which

although it is religious and not social or political, cannot fail to consider

man in the entirety of his being. The Lord outlined in the parable of the

Good Samaritan the model of attention to all human needs (cf. Lk.

10:29ff.), and he said that in the final analysis he will identify himself

with the disinherited—the sick, the imprisoned, the hungry, the lonely

—

who have been given a helping hand (Mt. 25:31ff).

The church has learned in these and other pages of the Gospel (cf.

Mk. 6:35-44) that her evangelizing mission has as an essential part

action for justice and the tasks of the advancement of man (cf. Final

Document of the Synod of Bishops, Oct. 1971), and that between

evangelization and human advancement there are very strong links of

the orders of anthropology, theology and love (cf. EN, 31), so that

“evangelization would not be complete if it did not take into account the

unceasing interplay of the Gospel and of man’s concrete life, both per-

sonal and social’’ (EN, 29).

32



Let us also keep in mind that the church's action in earthly matters

such as human advancement, development, justice, the rights of the

individual, is always Intended to be at the service of man, and of man

as she sees him In the Christian vision of the anthropology that she

adopts.

She therefore does not need to have recourse to ideological systems

in order to love, defend and collaborate in the liberation of man. At the

center of the message of which she is the depositary and herald she

finds Inspiration for acting in favor of brotherhood, justice and peace,

against all forms of domination, slavery, discrimination, violence, attacks

on religious liberty and aggression against man, and whatever attacks

life (cf. GS, 26, 27 and 29).

111.3. It is therefore not through opportunism nor thirst for novelty

that the church, “the expert in humanity" (Paul VI, address to the

United Nations, Oct. 4, 1965), defends human rights. It is through a

true evangelical commitment, which, as happened with Christ, is a

commitment to the most needy. In fidelity to this commitment, the

church wishes to stay free with regard to the competing systems, in

order to opt only for man.

Whatever the miseries or sufferings that afflict man, it is not through

violence, the interplay of power and political systems, but through the

truth concerning man that he journeys toward a better future.

111.4. Hence the church’s constant preoccupation with the delicate

question of property. A proof of this are the writings of the fathers of

the church through the first thousand years of Christianity (cf. St.

Ambrose, De Nabuthae c. 12, N. 53: PI. 14, 747). It is clearly shown

by the vigorous teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, repeated so many

times. In our own times, the church has appealed to the same principles

In such far-reaching documents as the social encyclicals of the recent

popes. With special force and profundity. Pope Paul VI spoke of this

subject in his encyclical Populorum Progressio (cf. Nos. 23-24; cf. also

Mater et Magistra, 106).

This voice of the church, echoing the voice of human conscience, and

which did not cease to make itself heard down through the centuries in

the midst of the most varied social and cultural systems and conditions,

deserves and needs to be heard in our time also, when the growing

wealth of a few runs parallel to the growing poverty of the masses.

It is then that the church’s teaching, according to which all private

property involves a social obligation, acquires an urgent character.

With respect to this teaching, the church has a mission to carry out;

she must preach, educate individuals and collectivities, form public

opinion, and offer orientations to the leaders of the peoples. In this way

she will be working in favor of society, within which this Christian and

33



evangelical principle will finally bear the fruit of a more just and equi-

table distribution of goods, not only within each nation but also in the

world in general, ensuring that the stronger countries do not use their

power to the detriment of the weaker ones.

Those who bear responsibility for the public life of the states and

nations will have to understand that internal peace and international

peace can only be ensured if a social and economic system based on

justice flourishes.

Christ did not remain indifferent in the face of this vast and demand-

ing imperative of social morality. Nor could the church. In the spirit of

the church, which is the spirit of Christ, and relying upon her ample and

solid doctrine, let us return to work in this field.

It must be emphasized here once more that the church’s solicitude

looks to the whole man.

For this reason, for an economic system to be just it is an indispens-

able condition that it should favor the development and diffusion of

public education and culture. The more just the economy, the deeper

will be the conscience of culture.

This is very much in line with what the council stated; That to attain

a life worthy of man, it is not possible to limit oneself to having more;

one must aspire to being more (cf. GS, 35).

Therefore, brothers, drink at these authentic fountains. Speak with

the language of the council, of John XXIII, of Paul VI: It is the language

of the experience, of the suffering, of the hope of modern humanity.

When Paul VI declared that development is “the new name of peace’’

(Populorum Progress io, 76), he had in mind all the links of inter-

dependence that exist not only within the nations but also those outside

them, on the world level. He took into consideration the mechanisms

that, because they happen to be imbued not with authentic humanism

but with materialism, produce on the international level rich people ever

more rich at the expense of poor peoples ever more poor.

There is no economic rule capable of changing these mechanisms by

itself. It is necessary, in international life, to call upon ethical principles,

the demands of justice, the primary commandment which is that of love.

Primacy must be given to what is moral, to what is spiritual, to what

springs from the full truth concerning man.

I have wished to manifest these reflections to you, which I consider

important, although they must not distract you from the central theme

of the conference: We shall reach man, we shall reach justice, through

evangelization.

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111. 5. In the face of what has been said hitherto, the church sees

with deep sorrow “the sometimes massive increase of human rights

violations in all parts of society and of the world. . , . Who can deny

that today individual persons and civil powers violate basic rights of

the human person with impunity: rights such as the right to be born,

the right to life, the right to responsible procreation, to work, to peace,

to freedom and social justice, the right to participate in the decisions

that affect people and nations? And what can be said when we face the

various forms of collective violence like discrimination against individ-

uals and groups, the use of physical and psychological torture perpe-

trated against prisoners or political dissenters? The list grows when we

turn to the instances of the abduction of persons for political reasons

and look at the acts of kidnapping for material gain which attack so

dramatically family life and the social fabric” (Message of John Paul II

to the secretary-general of the United Nations organization on Dec. 2,

1978: 30th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights). We cry out

once more: Respect man. He is the image of God.

Evangelize, so that this may become a reality; so that the Lord may

transform hearts and humanize the political and economic systems,

with man's responsible commitment as the starting point.

111. 6. Pastoral commitments in this field must be encouraged through

a correct Christian idea of liberation. The church feels the duty to pro-

claim the liberation of millions of human beings, the duty to help this

liberation become firmly established (cf. EN, 30); but she also feels the

corresponding duty to proclaim liberation in its integral and profound

meaning, as Jesus proclaimed and realized it (cf. EN, 31). “Liberation

from everything that oppresses man but which is above all liberation

from sin and the evil one, in the job of knowing God and being known

by him” (EN, 9). Liberation made up of reconciliation and forgiveness.

Liberation springing from the reality of being children of God, whom

we are able to call Abba, Father (Rom. 8:15), a reality which makes us

recognize in every man a brother of ours, capable of being transformed

in his heart through God’s mercy. Liberation that, with the energy of

love, urges us toward fellowship, the summit and fullness of which we

find in the Lord. Liberation as the overcoming of the various forms of

slavery and man-made idols, and as the growth of the new man.

Liberation that in the framework of the church’s proper mission is not

reduced to the simple and narrow economic, political, social or cultural

dimension, and is not sacrificed to the demands of any strategy, practice

or short-term solution (cf. EN, 33).

To safeguard the originality of Christian liberation and the energies

that it is capable of releasing, one must at all costs avoid any form of

curtailment or ambiguity, as Pope Paul VI asked: “The church would

lose her fundamental meaning. Her message of liberation would no

35



longer have any originality and would easily be open to monopolization

and manipulation by ideological systems and political parties” (EN, 32).

There are many signs that help to distinguish when the liberation in

question is Christian and when on the other hand it is based rather on

ideologies that rob it of consistency with an evangelical view of man, of

things and of events (cf. EN, 35). They are signs drawn from the con-

tent of what the evangelizers proclaim or form the concrete attitudes

that they adopt. At the level of content, one must see what is their

fidelity to the word of God, to the church’s living tradition and to her

magisterium.

As for attitudes, one must consider what sense of communion they

have with the bishops, in the first place, and with the other sectors of

the people of God; what contribution they make to the real building up

of the community, and in what form they lovingly care for the poor, the

sick, the dispossessed, the neglected and the oppressed, and in what

way they find in them the image of the poor and suffering Jesus, and

strive to relieve their need and serve Christ in them (cf. LG, 8). Let us

not deceive ourselves. The humble and simple faithful, as though by an

evangelical instinct, spontaneously sense when the Gospel is served in

the church and when it is emptied of its content and is stifled with

other interests.

As you see, the series of observations made by Evangelii Nuntiandi

on the theme of liberation retains all its validity.

III.7. What we have already recalled constitutes a rich and complex

heritage, which Evangelii Nuntiandi calls the social doctrine or social

teaching of the church (cf. n. 38). This teaching comes into being, in

the light of the word of God and the authentic magisterium from the

presence of Christians in the midst of the changing situations of the

world, in contact with the challenges that result from those situations.

This social doctrine involves therefore both principles for reflection and

also norms for judgment and guidelines for action (cf. Octogesima

Adveniens, 4).

Placing responsible confidence in this social doctrine, even though

some people seek to sow doubts and lack of confidence in it, to give it

serious study, to try to apply it, to be faithful to it—all this is the
guarantee, in a member of the church, of his commitment in the deli-

cate and demanding social tasks and of his efforts in favor of the

liberation or advancement of his brothers and sisters.

Allow me therefore to recommend to your special pastoral attention

the urgent need to make your faithful people aware of this social doc-

trine of the church.

Particular care must be given to forming a social conscience at all

36



levels and in all sectors. When injustices worsen and the distance

between rich and poor increases distressingly, the social doctrine, in a

form which is creative and open to the broad fields of the church’s

presence, must be a valuable instrument for formation and action. This

holds good particularly for the laity: “It is to the laity, though not exclu-

sively to them, that secular duties and activity properly belong’’ (GS,

43). It Is necessary to avoid supplanting the laity and to study seriously

just when certain forms of assistance to them retain their reason for

existence.

Is it not the laity who are called, by reason of their vocation in the

church, to make their contribution in the political and economic dimen-

sions, and to be effectively present in the safeguarding and advance-

ment of human rights?

IV. SOME PRIORITY TASKS

You are going to consider many pastoral themes of great signifi-

cance. Time prevents me from mentioning them. Some I have referred

to or will do so in the meetings with the priests, religious, seminarians

and lay people.

IV. 1. The themes that I indicate here have, for different reasons,

great importance. You will not fail to consider them, among the many

others that your pastoral farsightedness will indicate to you.

A) The family: Make every effort to ensure that there is pastoral care

for the family. Attend to this field of such primary importance in the

certainty that evangelization in the future depends largely on the

“domestic church.’’ It is the school of love, of the knowledge of God,

of respect for life and for human dignity. The importance of this pastoral

care is in proportion to the threats aimed at the family. Think of the

campaigns in favor of divorce, of the use of contraceptive practices, and

of abortion, which destroy society.

B) Priestly and religious vocations: In the majority of your countries,

in spite of an encouraging awakening of vocations, the lack of vocations

is a grave and chronic problem; there is a huge disproportion between

the growing population and the number of agents of evangelization. This

is of great importance to the Christian community. Every community has

to obtain its vocations, as a sign of its vitality and maturity.

Intense pastoral activity must be reactivated, starting with the Chris-

tian vocation in general and from enthusiastic pastoral care for youth,

so as to give the church the ministers she needs. Lay vocations,

although they are so indispensable, cannot compensate for them.

Furthermore, one of the proofs of the laity’s commitment is an abun-

dance of vocations to the consecrated life.

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C) Youth: How much hope the church places in youth! How much

energy needed by the church abounds in youth in Latin America! How

close we pastors must be to the young, so that Christ and the church

and love of the brethren may penetrate deeply into their hearts,

CONCLUSION

At the end of this message I cannot fail to invoke once again the

protection of the mother of God upon your persons and your work

during these days. The fact that this meeting of ours is taking place in

the spiritual presence of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who Is venerated in

Mexico and in all the other countries as the mother of the church in

Latin America, is for me a cause for joy and a source of hope. May

she, the “star of evangelization,’’ be your guide In your future reflec-

tions and decisions. May she obtain for you from her divine son:

—The boldness of prophets and the evangelical prudence of pastors.
—The clearsightedness of teachers and the reliability of guides and

directors.

—Courage as witnesses, and the calmness, patience and gentleness
of fathers.

May the Lord bless your labors.

You are accompanied by select representatives: priests, deacons, men

and women religious, lay people, experts and observers, whose col-

laboration will be very useful to you. The whole church has it eyes on

you, with confidence and hope. You intend to respond to these expecta-

tions with full fidelity to Christ, the church and humanity. The future is

in God’s hands, but in a certain way God places that future with new

evangelizing momentum in your hands, too. “Go therefore and make

disciples of all nations’’ (Mt. 28:19).

38



Rights of the Rural Poor

Address to Indian Peasant Farmers

in mountain village of Cuilapan, Oaxaca, Mexico

January 29, 1979

Dear beloved brothers,

I greet you with joy and I am grateful for your enthusiastic presence

and the words of welcome that you have directed to me. I do not find a

better way of expressing the feelings that fill my heart than the words

of St. Peter, the first pope of the church; “Peace to you who are in

Christ.” Peace to you who form such a numerous group.

Also you, residents of Oaxaca, of Chiapas, of Cuilapan and all those

who come from so many other parts, heirs of the blood and the culture

of your noble ancestors—in particular the Mixtecs and Zapotecs—you
were “called to be saints, with all those who invoke the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:2).

The Son of God “has come among us to make sons of God those

who believe in his name” (Jn. 1:11). And he entrusted to the church

the continuation of his mission of salvation wherever there are men. It

should not seem strange, then, that one day in the distant 16th century,

there arrived here, because of their fidelity to the church, courageous

missionaries, eager to assimilate your customs and way of life to better

reveal and give living expression of the image of Christ. Our grateful

memory goes to the first bishop of Oaxaca—Juan Jose Lopez de Zarate
and so many other missionaries—Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians
and Jesuits—admirable men for their faith and their human generosity.

They knew very well the importance of culture as a vehicle to trans-

mit the faith, so that men may progress in their knowledge of God. In

this there can be no distinctions of races nor of cultures. “There is no

Greek nor Jew, nor slave nor free man, there is only Christ in all” (cf.

Col. 3:9-11).

This constitutes a challenge and a stimulus for the church, because,

being faithful to the genuine and total message of the Lord, it is neces-

sary for the church to open and to interpret all human reality in order

to impregnate it with the strength of the Gospel, (cf. Evangelii Nuntiandi,

nn. 20,40).

Dearly beloved brothers: My presence among you is intended to be

a living and authentic sign of this universal concern of the church. The

pope and the church are with you and love you; love yourselves, your

39



culture, your traditions; admire your marvelous past, encourage you in

the present and expect much of you in the future.

But not only of this do I wish to speak to you.

Through you, farmers and Indians, there appears before my eyes this

immense crowd of the world of agriculture, still the prevalent part of

the Latin American continent and a very large part, still, of our planet.

Before this impressive spectacle that is reflected in my eyes, I cannot

help but think of the same picture which 10 years ago my predecessor,

Paul VI, contemplated in his memorable visit to Colombia and most

particularly in his meeting with rural workers.

With him, I want to repeat—and If it is possible, in an even stronger
voice—that the current pope wants to be "linked to your cause, the
cause of the poor countries, of the poor people" (Speech to farm

workers, Aug. 23, 1968); that the pope is with this mass of the popula-

tion, "almost always abandoned in an ignoble level of life and at times

treated and exploited harshly" (Ibidem).

Taking the line of my predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI, as well as

the council (cf. Mater et Magistra, Populorum Progressio, Gaudium et

Spes, 9, 71, etc.) and in view of a situation which continues to be

alarming, not often better and sometimes worse, the pope wants to be

your voice, the voice of those who cannot speak or who are silenced, to

be the conscience of the consciences,- the invitation to action in order

to make up for lost time, a time that is frequently one of prolonged

suffering and of unfulfilled hopes.

In the deprived world of the rural areas the worker, who by the sweat

of his brow waters his affliction, cannot hope for more than that his

dignity, which Is not inferior to any other social class, is recognized fully

and effectively.

He has the right to be respected, not to be deprived—through manip-
ulations that at times amount to real thefts—of the little that he has;
the right for his aspirations to play a part in his own promotion and

not be blocked.

He has the right for the barriers of exploitation to be destroyed,

barriers which frequently are made of intolerable selfishness, against

which the best efforts of self-improvement usually clash. He has the

right to effective help—which is neither charity nor the crumbs of jus-
tice—so that he may have access to the development to which his
human dignity and status as a son of God give him a right.

Therefore, it is necessary to act quickly and with Intensity. It is neces-

sary to effect bold transformations, which are profoundly Innovative. It is

40



necessary to initiate, without delay, urgent agricultural reforms (Popu-

larum Progress io, 32).

It cannot be forgotten that adequate means must be used. The church

does defend the legitimate right to private property, but it teaches with

no less clarity that, above all, private property always carries with it a

social obligation, so that material possessions may serve the general

goal that God intended. And if the common good requires it, there must

be no doubt about expropriation itself, carried out in the proper manner

(Populorum Progressio, 24).

The agricultural world has great importance and great dignity; it is

that which offers society the products necessary for its nourishment. It

is work that deserves the appreciation and grateful esteem of all, a rec-

ognition of the dignity of those who work the land.

It is a dignity that can and must be increased in the contemplation of

a God who is found in contact with nature, in reflection of the divine

action, who takes care of the grass of the field, makes it grow, nourishes

it, nurtures the land, sending the rain and the wind, so that it gives

food, too, to animals who help man, as we read in the opening chapters

of Genesis.

The work of the land involves no small hardship because of the effort

it requires, because of the disparagement with which at times it is

viewed, or because of the obstacles that are encountered and which only

long-range action can resolve. Without this, the flight from the rural

areas to the cities will continue, frequently creating problems of ex-

tended and painful unemployment and overcrowding of people in hous-

ing unworthy of human habitation, etc.

One bad thing, which is fairly widespread, is the tendency among the

rural workers to be individualistic when it would be more helpful to act

in a more coordinated and cooperative way. Think about this, dear sons.

In spite of all that, the rural world possesses enviable human and

religious richness: a deep love of family, a sense of friendship, help to

the needy, deep humanism, love of peace and community, religious

awareness, confidence and openness with God, cultivation of the love

of the Virgin Mary and many other virtues.

It is a deserving tribute of recognition that the pope wishes to express

to you and which society owes you. Thank you, farmers, for your valuable

contribution to the welfare of society. Humanity owes you much. You

can feel proud of your contributions to the common good.

For those of you who are responsible for the welfare of nations,

powerful classes which at times keep the land unproductive and hide the

bread which so many families lack: Human conscience, the conscience

41



of the nations, the cry of the deprived and above all the voice of God,

the voice of the church, repeats with me: It is not just, it is not human,

it is not Christian for certain clearly unjust situations to continue. It is

necessary to put into practice methods which are realistic and effective

at the local, national and international levels, in the broad line set forth

in the encyclical Mater et Magistra. And it is clear that those who should

collaborate most in this area are those who are most able.

Beloved brothers and sons: Work to improve your human life. But

don’t stop there. Make yourselves ever more worthy morally and reli-

giously. Do not harbor feelings of hate or of violence, but rather gaze

toward the Lord of all, who to each one gives the reward which his acts

deserve. The church is with you and encourages you to live as sons of

God, united to Christ, under the gaze of our Blessed Mother.

The pope asks your prayers and offers you his. And as he blesses you

and your families, he takes leave of you with the words of the apostle

St. Paul: “Take a greeting to all your brothers with a sacred kiss.” May

this be a call of hope. So be it.

42



The Rights of Migrant Workers

Address given in Monterrey

during last stop in Mexico

January 31, 1979

Dear brothers, sisters, peasants, employees and especially workers of

Monterrey,

Thanks for all the things I see and hear, many thanks to each and

every one of you.

I appreciate this warm and cordial welcome in your industrial city of

Monterrey. It is the center of your existence, of your work to earn the

daily bread for your children and for yourselves. This is a witness to

your sufferings and aspirations. It is the result of your work, the work

of your mind and hands and in that sense, the city is a symbol of your

pride as workers and a sign of hope for renewed progress and an

increasingly more human life.

I am happy to be among you as your brother and your friend, as a

co-worker in this city of Monterrey which is to Mexico what Nova Huta is

to my dear and far away Cracow. I cannot forget the difficult moments

during the world war when I had the direct experience of physical work,

as you do, of the fatigue, the dependence it imposes, the stress and

monotony of it.

I have shared the needs of the working men and women, their just

demands and legitimate aspirations. I know very well the need for work

that suits the lofty dignity of man and is not a cause for alienation and

frustration. I can testify to one thing: In their moments of harsh trial,

my people in Poland found in their faith in God, their trust in the Virgin

Mary, and in the church community united with its pastors, a light

stronger than the surrounding darkness and an unconquerable hope.

I well know that I am talking to workers who are aware of their pro-

fession as Christians, who therefore want to live according to this pro-

fession with all their dedication, all the consequences. For this reason

the pope wishes to bring to you some points for reflection concerning

your dignity as people, as children of God. From such a noble fountain

springs forth the enlightenment you need to guide your personal and

social life.

Truly, if the spirit of Christ lives within us, we must feel a funda-

mental concern for those who have no adequate food, clothing, housing,

schooling or the benefits of culture.

Because work is the source of sustenance, it means cooperation with

43



God in perfecting created nature, and is as well a service to our neigh-

bors that enhances man.

Christians cannot ignore the problem of unemployment of so many

women and men, particularly the young and the heads of families,

subject by their lack of employment to discouragement and despair.

The fortunate ones who have work aspire to more human conditions,

to greater security, to a fairer participation in the fruits of their com-

mon labor regarding wages, social security and opportunities for cul-

tural and spiritual growth. They want to be treated as free and respon-

sible men and women, able to participate in the decisions which affect

their life and their future.

It is a fundamental right of workers to freely establish organizations

to defend and promote their interests and to contribute in a responsible

manner to the common good.

This task, in itself immense and complex, is further complicated by

the world economic crisis, by the (international) disorder brought about

by unjust trade and financial practices, by the exhaustion of some

natural resources and by the risks of irreversible pollution of the

environment.

In order to truly participate in the efforts toward solidarity by human-

kind, Latin America is demanding with good reason that responsible

control over the resources that nature gave this area, be returned to its

people. Latin Americans also demand those general conditions which

will allow them to carry out their development according to their own

spirit (or self-determination), in which all the human groups within their

society will have a share.

There is urgent need to take bold and renewing measures to correct

the injustices inherited from the past and to meet the challenge of the

amazing transformation in humankind—measures to be taken at all
levels, national and international, and involving all social groups in all

(political) systems.

New realities demand new attitudes. Mere unilateral denunciation of

injustices seems ever more an easy pretext of alien ideologies, whatever

they are.

If humankind wants to get hold of a revolution which is getting out

of hand, if humankind wants to overcome the temptation of the wave of

materialism which gains ground as if in flight; if it wants to ensure true

development of individuals and peoples, then it must revise In a radical

form the concept of progress which under various names has left spirit-

ual values behind.

The church offers its help. On the one hand, she is not afraid to

44



vigorously denounce all attacks against human dignity. But it rather

saves its essential energies to help develop among individuals and

groups—employers, workers—an awareness of the great resources of
goodness they carry within, a goodness that already yielded fruit in the

past and must yield new fruit now.

The workers’ movement, to which the church and Christian leaders

have contributed in diverse and original ways, especially on this con-

tinent, claims its fair responsibility in building a new world order.

This movement has gathered the common aspirations to freedom and

dignity, and has fostered the values of solidarity, brotherhood and

friendship through sharing experiences.

Again, the movement has fostered original means of organization and

has improved substantially the lot of the worker. It has left the imprint

of a valued contribution, although this is seldom recognized, in the

industrial world.

Drawing from this past, it must commit this experience to the search

for new approaches, it must effect self-renewal, and it must decisively

contribute to building the future of Latin America.

Some 10 years ago my predecessor Pope Paul VI came to Colombia.

He wanted to bring to the people of Latin America the comfort of the

common father. He also wanted to open the richness of the church in

this continent to the universal church.

Some years later, when celebrating the 80th anniversary of the social

encyclical Rerum Novarum, he wrote:

“It is with all its dynamism that the social teaching of the church

accompanies men in their search. If it does not intervene to authenticate

a given structure or to propose a ready-made model, it does not thereby

limit itself to recalling general principles. It develops through reflection

applied to the changing situations of this world, under the driving force

of the Gospel as the source of renewal when its message is accepted in

its totality and with all its demands. It also develops with the sensitivity

proper to the church which is characterized by a disinterested will to

serve and by attention to the poorest.

“Finally, it draws upon its rich experience of many centuries which

enables it, while continuing its permanent preoccupations, to undertake

the daring and creative innovations which the present state of the

world requires.’’

Dear friends: In fidelity to these principles the church wants to call

attention to a very grave, current situation: the problem of emigrants.

We cannot ignore the condition of millions of people who, in search of

work and their own bread, must leave their homeland, often their family.

45



to face the hardships of new surroundings which are not always pleasant

or welcoming—to face an unfamiliar language and general conditions
which bring loneliness and discrimination to them, to their wives and

their families.

It happens that some people take advantage of them by offering

lower wages, cutting social security benefits and other social aid, and

by providing housing unsuited to human dignity. Again, it is often felt

that first the greatest yield must be wrested from the migrant worker

without regard for the human person in him.

The church continues to teach that the approach to take in this and

similar fields, is that economic, social and political interests not be

placed above man. Rather the dignity of the human person must prevail

above all other things, which in turn must be subservient to man.

We would regard the world as rather inhospitable if it only sought to

have more, leaving aside the consideration that the worker as a person,

a human being, a child of God, and therefore one called to eternal

vocation, must be helped to be more.

On the other hand, certainly the worker has obligations to fulfill in all

loyalty for without this there cannot be a right social order.

I am addressing public powers, industrialists, workers, to invite them

with all my might to study and mediate on these principles and draw

from them the proper lines of action. There are examples—we recog-
nize this fact—which show that the principles of the church's social
doctrine are being implemented. I am pleased and I have words of praise

for those responsible. I also wish to encourage others to imitate their

good example, for the cause of coexistence and brotherhood among

social groups as well as among nations will gain. Even the economy will

profit, although the human cause is our main concern.

Let us not remain on the purely human level, however. The pope

brings to you another message, a message for you, workers of Mexico

and Latin America: Open your hearts to God, for God loves you, Jesus

Christ loves you. The mother of God, the Virgin Mary, loves you. The

church, the pope loves you, the pope who invites you to join the engulfing

force of love that overcomes all and builds all. When some 2,000 years

ago God sent his Son, he did not wait for human efforts to eliminate all

kinds of injustice. Jesus came and began to share our human condi-

tion, its sufferings and difficulties, even death, before transforming the

daily life of the people. He talked to the masses of the poor, to liberate

them from sin, to open their eyes to a horizon of enlightenment and fill

them with joy and hope.

He does the same today. Christ is present in your church, in your

homes, in your hearts, in your life. Open the doors to him, let us cele-

46



brate together on this joyful occasion, the love of Jesus and the love

of his mother! Nobody must feel excluded, particularly those who suffer

the most, because this is a joy that comes from Jesus Christ, that

cannot be insulting for any adversity, because it has the feeling and

the warmth of friendship, offered by he who suffered more than anyone

else, who died on the cross for us, who is preparing for us a place in

his eternal abode next to him, and who in this life proclaims and

reaffirms our dignity as human beings.

I am among friends, workers. I would stay longer, but I must end.

To you present here, to all the workers of Mexico, to all your country-

men who work beyond the borders of the fatherland, to all the workers

of Latin America I give my greetings as a friend, my blessing, my

memories. To all, your children and families, my friendly embrace.

47



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