Pentecost address : on establishing a secretariat for non-Christians, May 17, 1964 / by Pope Paul VI


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by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI

ON ESTABLISHING A SECRETARIAT

May 17, 1964

Venerable brothers and beloved sons;

We have invited you to this most holy rite to celebrate together
the feast of Pentecost which is the source of every other Christian

feast, to re-evaluate together the coming in fullness of the Holy

Ghost and to render to this divine Person a most high and lively

act of worship (love for Love), to enjoy in unanimous song and

unanimous silence together with the absorbing presence of the

divine invisible Guest a moment of genuine spiritual rapture.

We have invited you to seize with a glance, as if in a flash of
lightning, the visible, historical, human effect of the coming of the
Paraclete into the world. We, the Church, this is to say, hu-
manity raised to the true and operating flow of redemption, the

living, wandering Church which from that day to this and in the
future has been set on the road of its eschatological destinies. We
have invited you to know and to feel that we are caught in the
current of grace—light, strength, sweetness, prophecy and hope,
flowing from Christ and leading back to Christ, the supernatural

charism and virile virtue so as to actuate in us an incredible

phenomena of sanctity and to find in ourselves the simplicity and
audacity to become ourselves the witnesses of Christ in the formi-
dable reality of our century—to meditate, pray and enjoy together
a day, among the many in our weary and prosaic life, that is full
and blessed.

Yes, it is to you especially, most beloved among beloved per-
sons, you the sons and faithful that you are, the students and guests

in our seminaries and ecclesiastical colleges, students of our insti-

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tutes of higher studies, of education and ecclesiastic instruction, of
religious novitiates and of training centers, you ecclesiastic scholars
and students of this Catholic Rome of ours, which is, therefore,
eternal and prophetic, it is to you that our invitation is addressed
that we may celebrate, all of us together, as “one heart and one
soul” the holy feast of Pentecost.

And while we are glad to see present here in this basilica, the
cenacle of peoples, many other brothers and sons, pilgrims and
travelers from all parts of the world and while we wholeheartedly
receive, greet and bless them, it is to you especially, candidates of
the priesthood of Christ and those of you on whom this dignity and
authority have already been bestowed through sacramental ordi-

nation, that my words are addressed, simple and brief, but alas
reticent on the central point of the mystery which we are com-
memorating (which would demand too great study and poetry);
words unequal to expressing worthily anything of that light which

streams out from that central point, yet fully pervaded, dearest

sons, with the affectionate anxiety to impress themselves on your
souls as a living and working reminder.

We want to speak to you for a moment of the Church; yes, of
that Mystical Body which had its period of time in the womb of
evangelical history and was born—alive with the Holy Ghost, just
as it is today—in the Upper Room at Jerusalem, precisely there
where we ourselves a few months ago knelt, trembling with emotion,
bending as it were over the cradle of the Church of God. You all
know of her we believe and therefore, leaving all this to your pious
meditation, we propose to you that now you turn your glance to
that native property of the Church, which has blazed forth ever

since the first days as a wonderful, characteristic mark which we
call catholicity, that is to say, universality, which means the desti-
nation of all peoples, the welcoming of all souls, offered to all

languages, extended to all civilizations, present in all parts of the

earth and addressed to the whole of history.

We are led to this consideration, as always on this blessed
day, by the memory of the first wonder which was worked by virtue
of the event of Pentecost itself, even more than through the intent

and authority of those in whom the event took place; that is to
say, the wonderful gift of tongues.

^ Acts 4, 32.

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The account of the Acts of the Apostles becomes precise with
a prolix enumeration of peoples which seems to us intentionally

ecumenical: “Now there were staying at Jerusalem devout Jews
from every nation under heaven. And when this sound was heard,
the multitude gathered and were bewildered in mind because each
heard them speaking in his own language. But they were all
amazed and marvelled, saying: Behold, are not all these that are
speaking Galileans? And how is it that we have heard each his
own language in which he was born? Parthians and Medes and
Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,

Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of

Libya about Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, Jews also and
proselytes, Cretans and Arabs . . . ” that is to say, representatives

of the then known world.

And how magnificently alike to this list of peoples would be
the list of nationalities to which you listeners belong today. The
name catholic continues its affirmation, its celebration.

The ordinary use of words often detracts from the vigor and
wonder of their significance. We use this term “catholicity” with
extreme ease, practically without realizing the fullness to which it

refers, the dynamism which emanates from it, the beauty which it
implies and the effort which it imposes. In ordinary language it

often becomes a term which defines, and therefore, which tries to
circumscribe and limit the one and true Church, which is precisely

the Catholic Church, to distinguish it from other fractions, respect-

able and still gifted with immense Christian treasures but still
separated from Catholic fullness.

And sometimes we prefer to the term of Catholic that of
Christian, almost forgetting that, in concept and in reality, the first

is intended to encompass all of the second and not always vice
versa.

This name of Catholic must be dear and clear to us. It ex-
presses the transcendence of that kingdom of God which Christ
came to inaugurate on earth and which the Church is establishing
in the world and which, while penetrating like a fermenting prin-

ciple, like a supernatural energy every soul and every culture which

receives it, it does not take for itself anything of the earthly kingdom

^ Acts 2, 5-11.

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and it rises about the temporal plane, not in order to dominate it
but to enlighten it and to bring it into a panorama of renascent
and universal harmony.

In it we must listen to the undying echo of that mysterious
and loving vocation of God which calls everyone, all men, to the
meeting with His mercy, and with this call forms the new people.
His people, the assembled people, the congregatio fidelium, the

Church. To take from the Church its qualification of catholic is to
alter its countenance, willed by and loved by the Lord; it means
offending the ineffable intention of God who wanted to make of the
Church the expressing of His unlimited love of mankind.

And it is necessary to understand the psychological and moral
innovation which is implied in such a name: yes, deep in the hearts

of men the name of Catholic finds there a natural capacity for
expansion, a profound but vague instinct for universal expansion:

“I am a man and nothing human is alien to me.”

But it finds there above all a terrible penury, a narrowness

which prevents it from entering. The heart of man is small, it is
selfish, it has no room but for himself and a few people, those of
his own family and of his own caste. And when, after noble, long
and tiresome efforts, it widens a little, when it achieves understand-
ing of its own fatherland and its own social class, yet always does
it look for barriers and boundaries within which to measure itself

and seek refuge. Even today the heart of modern man finds it
difficult to surmount these inner frontiers and when social progress
urges him to widen his capacity for love toward the world, he re-
plies uncertainly and makes the selfish condition that it should
result to his benefit.

Utility, prestige, if not the unbridled desire to dominate and

enslave others to oneself, govern the heart of man. But if the

name of Catholic is truly there forever, every selfishness is over-
come, every class difference is raised to full social solidarity, every

form of nationalism is merged in the good of the world community,

every form of racialism is condemned, every form of totalitarianism

stands revealed in its inhumanity. The small heart breaks apart,
or rather, it acquires an unknown capacity for expansion.

In the words of St. Augustine: ‘'Dilatentur spatia caritatis,”

the Catholic heart means a heart of universal dimensions. A heart

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which has overcome selfishness, the radical narrowness which ex-

cludes man from the vocation of supreme love. It means a
magnanimous heart, an ecumenical heart, a heart capable of receiv-
ing the whole world within itself. This does not mean that it will
be a heart indifferent to the truth of things and to the sincerity of

words. It will not mistake weakness for goodness; it will not place

peace above cowardice and apathy. But it will beat in the admir-

able synthesis of St. Paul: “Rather are we to practice the truth in
love”.^

Beloved sons, do you understand what it means to be
Catholic? Do you understand to what instruction, to what efforts
of love this name subjects you? Do you understand that no one
better than you can meet the aspirations to universalism of the

modern world and that no one better than you can offer to it the
example and secret of love for man because he is a man? Because
he is the son of God?

Do you understand, as well, another aspect of education to
the name of Catholic, which is well known to you too, but which
deserves to be proclaimed today? The note of catholicity is already
operative in the intrinsic structure of the Church; it is one of its

inborn rights. The Church is born catholic, it is born Queen of the
salvation of all. But in extrinsic reality, this quality is far from

equalling in extension its possible boundaries. It is always in

fieri, always in stages of its concrete and historic development.

Indeed, in concrete reality, the catholicity of the Church is still
enormously lacking.

Innumerable peoples, whole continents, are still outside the

Christian evangelization. Catholicity is insufficient and suffering.

The greater pan of mankind has not yet received the message of
Pentecost. The world is not yet Catholic.

How many of you, not to say all of you, experience the strange
sorrow that such a condition of our world inflicts on a truly
Catholic heart! And is it not true that one of the most decisive
impulses which directed your decision to become apostles of Christ
and priests of His Church, came from the discovery of the need of
the world to be evangelized in the name of Christ?

® Ephesians 4, 15.

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The missionary dynamism stems from the potential yet still
not effective catholicity of the Church. It stems from the investiture
of Pentecost given to the little Church to become universal. From
the apostolicity of the Church springs its vocation to catholicity.
The missionary receives on his shoulders the mandate as apostle
which urges him forward along the roads which will make the world
Catholic.

Do you, beloved sons, feel this impulse? Do you see before
you the interminable ways which will lead you to every part of the
world to carry there the message which Catholic Rome hands on
to you?

What a wonderful spectacle, what a tremendous adventure,
what a perennial Pentecost? We shall say to you that the urgency
of responding to this duty of catholicity blows impetuously in the

sails of the Church. Look at the apostolate of the clergy and of the
laity today. Look at the missions. Look at the ecumenical council.
Look at the concern which leads the Church to come to loyal and
political expressions which accept it on a plane of absolute sincerity
and true humanity. Look at the efforts the Church is making to
draw closer once more to the Christian brothers who are still
separated from us. Look at the effort the Church is making to
bring closer together, even by means of simple human contacts,
those belonging to other religions.

Regarding this, we shall announce to you, so that it may have
the tone and significance of Pentecost, a statement. It is this: as

we announced some time ago, we shall institute here in Rome, and
precisely in these days, the “Secretariat for non-Christians,” an

organ which will have very different functions but the same struc-

ture as that for separated Christians. We shall entrust it to the
Cardinal Archpriest of this basilica (Paolo Cardinal Marella), who
adds to the wisdom and virtue which makes him dear and vener-
ated to the Roman Church, a rare competence in the field of
religious ethnography.

No pilgrim, however far geographically or religiously may be
the country from which he comes, will any longer feel wholly a

foreigner in this Rome which is still today faithful to the historic
role which the Catholic Faith assigns to it of patria communis.

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Therefore, most beloved sons, it will be easy and solemn for

us to draw two conclusions from this sacred celebration of ours:

two obvious discoveries, which we shall translate into purposes
worthy of memory and faithfulness.

They are these: first, there can be no true catholicity if not
linked to the unity of the Church, to the unicity of the Church.

Second, likewise there cannot be an operating and edifying

catholicity that does not spring from the interior existence of a

spiritual life nourished by silence, by prayer, by love, by grace.
Think and you will see that this is so.

Oh, let then the Holy Ghost come and instruct us on these
truths, to infuse in us these virtues, to give us the joy of its vivifying

presence. To this does the Mass aspire which we now celebrate and
may our apostolic blessing obtain it for you in the end.

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