Addresses and homilies given in Brazil / Translation by National Catholic News Service.


A»,

Chid

Addresses and Homilies
given in

BRAZIL
Translation by

National Catholic News Service

PHN

PAUL

II





JOHN

PAUL

il



Copyright 1980. Publications Office, United States Catholic Conference, 1312 Massachusetts Avenue
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005. Translations of Pope John Paul II’s addresses, speeches, homilies used
by arrangement with National Catholic News Service.



'^ru /..

‘ 7 come because this country with its immense majority of
Catholics evidently bears within it a special calling in the

contemporary world and in the concert ofthe nations.

REMARKS ON ARRIVAL IN BRAZIL
Brazilia. June 30, 1980

Your excellency, Mr. President of the Republic,
your eminences, your excellencies, archbishops
and bishops, most dear friends,

1 . It was not without great and profound emotion
that I just now kissed the good and generous soil
of Brazil. This gesture has been repeated 1 3 times,
for that is the number of countries that I have had
the pleasure of visiting as pope. I kissed this soil
with the fervor and spontaneity that enters into
something that is being done for the first time,
hence my emotion is that of an act performed for
the first time. It is meant to show early, silent
gratitude for the welcome that this country is
giving me. A thousand more and less evident signs
make me feel that this welcome is charged with
warmth and affection.

I wouid once again express in words my
gratitude for this welcome. Its quality is reflected
wonderfully in the words that you, Mr. President,
have just addressed to me, in your own name but
also in the name of the whole of the noble Brazilian
people. My gratitude goes out to all those here who
in various ways represent this nation and its
people.

1



2.

This visit to Brazii now beginning has been a
iong pondered dream, i desired to get to know this
land for many different reasons. It pleased Divine
Providence to permit me to make this visit, in
response to the fraternal invitation extended to me
by the Brazilian episcopate, as well as to the
respectful invitation made by the president of the
Republic of Brazil, and this invitation was warmly
seconded by all the Brazilian people. Innumerable
letters reaching me over recent months well
showed this. May the Lord of history be blessed
and thanked for the joy that he is granting me. I
trust that the joy may be yours as well.

3.

I am here on a purely pastoral and religious
mission. God’s mysterious and loving designs
appointed me to be bishop of Rome, successor of
the Apostle Peter, and so vicar of Christ and visible
head of his church. I feel as addressed to myself
that tremendous yet comforting command to
strengthen my brother bishops in their mission (cf
Lk 22,32), and, like them, to strengthen the
children of the Catholic Church in intrepid and
radiant faith. That is, faith as shall lead them to
give witness to the world of the reasons for their
hope in Christ (cf.1 Pt.3,15), and to communicate
the unfathomable riches of Christ’s love to the
world ( cf. Ef. 2,7). This is the purpose in the visits
that I am making to various countries and
continents. Because of it these visits may be
called pastoral visits or missionary pilgrimages.

4.

Why Brazil today? You, Mr. President, have
already mentioned a number of reasons in your

2



delicate remarks. Above all because your land
came to birth in the shadow of the cross, it was
baptized with the name of True and Holy Cross.
Then it was nourished with the first Eucharist,
celebrated at Porto Seguro, and it became the
nation with the largest number of Catholics in ali
the worid. The church grew and gained strength
here so much as to be today a reason for joy and
hopefuiness throughout the Catholic worid. My
visit is intended as an act of homage to this church
and to encourage it to be evermore the sacrament
of salvation, performing its mission within the
framework of the universal church. To whom God
gives much, much shali be asked (cf.Lk 12,48).

in the second place, I come because this
country with its immense majority of Cathoiics
evidentiy bears within it a speciai cailing in the
contemporary world and in the concert of the
nations. In the midst of the anxieties and
uncertainties, and — why not say so? — of the
sufferings and bitterness of the present, Brazil will
be able to show itself a country that will have much
to offer tomorrow to the grand community of the
nations.

Please God that this prospect may spur Brazii to
buiid up an exempiary form of sociai co-existence,
by overcoming imbaiances and inequaiities, in
justice and concord, with iight and courage,
without shocks and ruptures. Such wiii certainly
constitute an outstanding contribution to
internationai peace, and thereby to mankind.

It is not too much if he whose mission inciudes
an important aspect of construction of peace
should offer encouragement in this matter, i rejoice

3



that a series of events has served as the mold for
this visit. I rejoice together with you at the honor of
the altar that has been conferred upon a pioneer of
evangelization of your people, Blessed Joseph de
Anchieta.
Together with you I adore the most blessed

Eucharist in connection with the tenth National
Eucharistic Congress, which I shall inaugurate at
Fortaleza in a few days. Together with you I
express my filial devotion to the mother of God in
her majestic shrine of Aparecida. Together with
you I give thanks for the existence of the Latin
American Episcopal Conference, founded 25 years
ago in Rio de Janeiro.

5. Your religious history — and often your
history as a nation — was written by heroic,
dynamic and virtuous missionaries. It has been
continued by the dedication of devoted servants of
God and men, God’s brethren. All have left deep
traces in the Brazilian soul and civilization.
Through this rapid mention the pope desires to
render a homage of gratitude to all of them, in the
church’s name.
The history of the church in Brazil is so

intimately bound up with the history of the country
that your nation is seen to be marked above all by
fidelity to Christ and to his church.

6. I hope, desire, and pray to God that my visit
may serve as stimulus to increasing consolidation
of the church, the community of salvation among
you, to the benefit of all Brazilians and the
universal church!

4



My journey of faith is meant to be as weii a
piigrimage towards meeting with man, human
persons. I therefore at this moment embrace — at
least in the spirit — every person iiving in this
Braziiian fatheriand. I wouid iike to be abie to talk
with each and every one of you ali, beioved
chiidren of Brazil. I would like to visit each famiiy,
to get to know ail the states and territories, to go to
see ail ecclesial communities of this great and
beioved nation. How many insistentiy invited me to
do so!

You will certainly understand that this wiil not be
possibie. So, as i tread this Braziiian soii for the
first time, my thoughts and my amity go out,
through those that stand here, to those that are not
here but who wish that they were here. My
thoughts go to aii those that are prevented from
participating at meetings with the pope by famiiy
duties, by work, by ministries or the apostoiate, by
reasons of poverty, iiiness or age. The pope is
thinking of each one. He ioves all and to all he
sends a very Brazilian greeting: “urn abraco!” (an
embrace).

Together with this gesture of friendship may you
receive my prayers for your happiness: May God
bless your Brazil. God bless you all, Brazilians,
with peace and his prosperity, and serene concord
in comprehension and fraternity. Under the
maternai gaze and the protection of Our Lady of
Aparecida, patron of Brazii!

5



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/addresseshomilie01cath



‘

'The trips that I am taking. . . have a specific apostolic
character and strictly pastoral objective, but in addition to
this religious character, they carry also a message specifical-

ly about man, his values, his dignity and his social life.
’

'

ADDRESS TO BRAZIUAN PRESIDENT
JOAO BAPTISTA DE FIGUEREDO
Brazilia. June 30, 1980

Mr. President,

May my first word to you be to express my
profound gratitude to your exceiiency. And i want
to express this gratitude using one of the first
expressions that I iearned in my recent study of
the Portuguese language and which has for me a
special meaning: “Muito obrigado” (many thanks).

Many thanks for the generous welcome affirmed
and demonstrated since your excellency became
aware of my intention to accede to the wishes of
my brother bishops of Brazil that I visit this
country.

Many thanks for the kind presence of your
excellency at the airport at the moment in which I
stepped on Brazilian soil and for the kind words
you have just spoken to me. I ask that you
consider them directed not just to me, but to the
mission which has been invested to me and to the
universal church, of which I am pastor.

The trips that I am taking, following the initiative
of my predecessors, above all Paul VI, constitute a

7



very important aspect to me of my pontifical
ministry and of the pastoral governance of the
church.

They have a specific apostolic character and
strictly pastoral objective, but in addition to this

religious character, they carry also a message
specifically about man, his values, his dignity and
his social life.

I come, therefore, to meet with the church of
Brazil, with the Catholic community that
constitutes the great majority of the population of
this vast and populous nation. But I also come
wishing to meet with all the beloved people of
Brazil.

Thus, this meeting is with almost half a
millenium of human and religious history. In this
history there is certainly the inevitable lightness-
darkness that is found in the history of every
people. May God give his help so that light prevails
always over the shadows. In the historical profile
of this illustrious nation, I want to emphasize three
points:

— The well-known Brazilian ecumenism, which
has been capable of integrating peoples and
values of diverse ethnic backgrounds, which
surely contributed to the characteristics of
openness and universality of the culture of this
country.

— Evangelization, which was done in such a way
and with such continuance that it left profound
marks on the lives of this people, providing without
doubt, to the degree to which this fits in the
mission of the church, principles, norms and moral
and spiritual energies which shaped the human
and national community.

8



— The youthful energy of the population, with its
respective traditions and diverse qualities, surely
guarantees that the nation will overcome the
obstacles that will be found in its historic course,
leading to a better tomorrow.

Evangelized since the beginning, the Brazilian
people have lived the faith and the message of
Christ, certainly not without problems, but with a
sincerity and simplicity clearly attested to by its
traditions, in which can be seen glimpses of
options, interior attitudes and behavior in fact
Christian.

In addition to this, as your excellency had the
kindness to mention, there are many ties that link
Brazil to the Apostolic See in Rome, distinguishing
a century and a half of friendly official relations,
uninterrupted and ever more solid with the passing
of time.

They have a guarantee of authenticity in the love
and devotion of the Brazilians to the vicar of Christ.
The warmth of the reception which is given me
here is an expression of this.

Mr. President, honorable members of the
Congress, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the
ministers of state, ladies and gentlemen:

With your honorable presence here on my arrival
and now in this meeting you wanted to honor the
pastor of the universal church, an honor for which
he is extremely appreciative; “Muito obrigado”
once again to each one of you personally.

I want to take this opportunity to express the
highest esteem for the noble mission you carry out.
The mandate you have received, confers on you
the privilege — that is also an obligation — to

9



serve the common good of the whole nation,
serving the Brazilian people. May God help you
always to fulfill this mandate.

In my apostolic pilgrimages throughout the world
I also want, with the help of God, to be the bearer
of a message and collaborate in the humble but
indispensable way which is my part so that an
authentic meaning of man prevails in the world, not
confined in strict anthropocentrism, but open to
God.

I have a vision of man that has no fear in saying;
Man cannot abdicate from himself, nor from the
place to which he belongs in the visible world. Man
cannot become a slave to things, to materiai
riches, to consumerism, to economic systems or to
that which he himself produces. Man cannot be
made a slave to anyone or to anything.

Man cannot eliminate the transcendental — in
the last analysis, God — without cutting himself off
from his total being. Man in the end wiil only be
able to find light for his own “mystery” in the
mystery of Christ.

How beneficial would it be for the world if there
were an understanding of man from this truth, as
the only one capable of giving a human dimension
to the diverse initiatives of daily life —political,
economic, social, cultural, etc. Rapidly this would
become a base for programs of the “true
civilization,” which can only be a “civilization of
love.”

Attending to its proper mission and with clear
respect for the legitimate institutions of the
temporai order, the church can only be pleased
with ali that is honest, just and valid which exists

10



in those institutions for the service of man. It can
oniy see with satisfaction the efforts to save and
promote the fundamentai rights and liberties of all
human persons and ensure these responsible
participation in the social and community life.

For this very reason the church does not cease
to proclaim the reforms needed for the safety and
promotion of those values without which no society
worthy of the name can prosper, that is, reforms
that have in view a more just society and are in
accordance with the dignity of the human being.

Thus, it urges those responsible for the common
good, above all those who call themselves
Christians, to undertake in a timely way those
reforms, with decision and courage, with prudence
and efficiency, which are based on Christian
criteria and principles, objective justice and an
authentic social ethic.

Thus, promoting such reforms is also a way of
avoiding their being looked upon as only impulsive,
in which no hesitation is made in using violence
and the direct or indirect suppression of the rights
and fundamental, inseparable liberties of the
dignity of man.

Wishing the dear Brazilian people an always
growing fraternity based on an authentic sense of
man, with liberty, equality, respect, generosity and
love among all its members, and with a lucid and
solid opening for humanity and for the world, I wish
you a safe and secure peace, based on mutal work
and the striving of all for progress and well being.

I wish you also the sufficient and indispensable
goods for the development of the human person. I
ask God that each Brazilian of birth or adoption

11



respect and always see respected the fundamental
rights of all peoples. To proclaim and defend these
rights, without setting them before the rights of
God or silencing the obligations that correspond to
them, is a constant of the life of the church in
virtue of the Gospels which are entrusted to it.

Thus, do not cease to invite all men of good will
and encourage their children to the respect and
cultivation of these rights — the right to life, to
security, to work, to a home, to health, to
education, to religious expression, both private
and public, to participation, etc.

Among these rights it is impossible not to
mention as a priority the right of parents to have
children as they wish, receiving at the same time
what is needed to educate them in dignity, and the
right of bearing life.

We know how many of these rights are being
threatened in our days in the whole world.

I heartily bless what is done here in communion
with universal efforts, which can only be for the
benefit of the poorest and most marginalized
pesons afflicted by the undeserved frustrations of
which they are wictims.

In this sense, it is never too late to remember
that never has a transformation of political, social
or economic structures been consolidated, if not
followed, by a sincere “conversion” of the mind,
the will and the heart of man, with ail its truth.

This has to happen, taking into account, on the
one hand, the avoidance of pernicious confusions
between liberty and instinct, of self-interest, of
fighting or of domination, and, on the other hand.

12



the creation of solidarity and fraternal love which
are immune to any false autonomy in relation to

In this line of thinking, all of society is
coresponsible. But initiatives and the human
direction and logic of the processes depend in
large part on those who are invested with positions
of government and of leadership.

It depends on its original task of renewing and
forming attitudes with adequate, constant and
patient processes of education and of utilizing
good will, always enlightened py the “certainty that
it is’’ man, the final beneficiary of his
responsibilities and worries, as you wrote to me a
while ago, your excellency.

The particular qualities of the Brazilian people,
united with your long Christian tradition, will bring
you to respond with certainty to the call and the
challenge of the third millenium which approaches
and the communion of minds and hearts in the
search for the common good.

Clarified, proposed and generated by the
leaders, and with corresponding free, educated
and joint participation of all, you must continue to
serve man and the supreme good of peace in this
great nation, in this continent and in the world.

Reiterating my gratitude to your excellencies for
the reception and all the attention, I ardently wish
for God’s abundant blessings on Brazil through the
intercession of Our Lady of Aparecida, your patron
saint.

13



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"The diplomatic way is a way ofwisdom in the sense that

it is based on the ability ofpeople ofgood will to listen to
one another, to understand one another, to find

negotiated solutions, to progress together instead ofcom-

ing to confrontations. ”

ADDRESS TO DIPLOMATIC CORPS
Brazilia. June 30, 1980

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

On this first day spent in the Brazilian capital I
am very happy to meet with the heads and
members of dipiomatic missions accredited to the
government of this country. I heartily thank you for
coming this evening for this appointment with the
pope, who himself has representatives in most of
your countries.

In expressing to each and every one of you my
cordiai greetings, i think also of all the nations of
which you are sons and daughters and which you
represent in Brazil. And to all the people dispersed
throughout the American continent and in the other
continents I express my esteem and the sincere
best wishes of the church which cails itself
Catholic, that is to say universal, open to all human
societies for whom it wishes the original
blossoming, thanks to the development of that
which is best in their countries, in their culture, in
human beings themselves.

15



Your task as diplomats takes place through the
noble means which lead to reconciliation of
peoples, to their reciprocal esteem and
understanding, to their exchanges, to their cultural
or economic collaboration, in a word to peace.

The diplomatic way is a way of wisdom in the
sense that it is based on the ability of people of
good will to listen to one another, to understand
one another, to find negotiated solutions, to
progress together instead of coming to
confrontations. Today more than ever the problems
of peace, security and development are not limited
to bilateral relations: there is a compex whole in
which every country must make its contribution to
the betterment of international relations, not only
to avert conflicts or diminish tensions but to
present a united front before the great problems of
the future of humanity which concern us all.

And here one hopes that every man or woman,
particularly the leaders of nations and then their
representatives, may aid the convictions, the
principles, likely to promote the true good of
persons, of peoples, within the international
community. It is to this which the Holy See wishes
to witness in bringing to the level of consciences
its own specific contribution.

In the limits of this brief meeting I am able only to
evoke the principles of peace within and peace
outside a country. It may seem banal to emphasize
that each country has the duty to preserve its
peace and security within. But it must in any case
“deserve” that peace by assuring the common
good of all and the respect of rights. The common
good of a society requires that it be just. Wherever
justice is lacking, the society is threatened from

16



within. This does not mean that the
transformations necessary to bring about a great
justice must be based on vioience, revoiution or

bioodshed, because vioience prepares a society of
vioience and we Christians cannot agree to that.
But it does mean that there are sociai
transformations, sometimes profound, to be
reaiized constantiy, progressiveiy, with
effectiveness and reaiism, through peacefui
reforms.

Aii citizens take part in this duty, but obviousiy it
is a particuiar responsibiiity of those who exercise
power, because theirs is a service of sociai justice.
Power has the right to demonstrate itseif strong
vis-a-vis those who cuitivate an egoism of one
group to the detriment of the whole. It must in any
case demonstrate itself to be at the service of men
and women, of each man and woman and
especially those who need sustenance. The
church, on its part, will work without rest to bring
to mind its concern for ‘the poor,” for those who
are disadvantaged in any way. In any case power
must not be permitted to violate the fundamental
rights of man, and I do not need to enumerate here
those which I have often mentioned, particularly in
my speech of Oct. 2 of last year before the United
Nations.

Vis-a-vis the other countries, one must grant to
every nation the right to live in peace and security
on its own soil without being subjected to unjust
external threats, which may be of a military,
ecnomic or ideological order. On this most
important point all men of good will must achieve
unanimity and, I dare say, especially the
diplomats. But non-interference is not enough.

17



because it would mean indifference to the type of
peopie whom nature or historicai circumstances
have disadvantaged to the point that today a great
number of their sons and daughters iack the
minimum necessary for a worthy human iife in the
matter of bread, health or education. There is an
internationai soiidarity of promotion. It is taiked
about a iot, but the realization is too restricted or
aggravated by conditions from which the weight of
new threats come. Peace, here, cails for a joint
deveiopment, and not for the accumuiation of
weapons of fear nor the push for revoit, as I said
recentiy at UNESCO.

We must constantiy set out before this world
duty of peace in justice and deveiopment to find
the words and gestures which, iittie by iittie, may
buiid a worid worthy of the human being, that world
which God wants for men and women, and of
which he has given them responsibility,
eniightening their consciences, it is the faith that I
have in you, dear dipiomats, which moved me to
share with you this ideal. May God inspire you and
biess you. May he bless your families. May he
biess and protect your homeiands. May he guide
the internationai community on the road to peace
and brotherhood.

18



"...the church assumes a commitment ofcontinuously an-
nouncing to the youth a message oftotal liberation and a
message ofsalvation that she has heardfrom the mouth of
the Savior himself... ”

HOMILY TO YOUTH
Belo Horizonte. July 1, 1980

Dear youth and my friends,

You will not be surprised that the pope begins
this homily with a confession. I had already read
many times that half of your country’s population is
less than 25 years of age.
Contemplating since my arrival in Brasilia and

wherever I went an infinity of youthful faces, upon
arrival in this city, passing between thousands of
young people, seeing you young people so
numerous around this altar, I confess that I
understand better, from this specific point,
something which I had understood only in an
abstract way.

I believe I understand better also because the
bishops at Puebla spoke of a preferential, but not
exclusive, option, a priority for youth.

This option signifies that the church assumes a
commitment of continuously announcing to the
youth a message of total liberation and a message
of salvation that she has heard from the mouth of
the Savior himself, which should be spread with
total fidelity.

2. At this Mass I have the happiness of
celebrating in your midst and for your intentions.

19



this message appears with its essentiai meaning in
the readings that we hear.
“Observe what is right, do what is just” (Is. 56,

1 ).

The prophet Isaiah exhorts us with a force that
never tires from a distance of 2,500 years. And he
adds that it is important above ail to be strong in
the aiiiance that God seaied with man. It is an
invitation to coherence and fidelity, an invitation
that touches the young very ciosely.

In the letter of Paul to the Corinthians is a fine
and convincing word, as was the habit of the great
apostie, “No one can lay a foundation other than
the one that has been laid, nameiy Jesus Christ (of
1. Cor. 3, 11).

He knew weii what he was saying, this Paul, who
when young had persecuted his church. But on the
road to Damascus one beautifui day there was the
unexpected meeting with this same Jesus. And it
was the witness of his own iife that made him say,
“There is no other foundation possibie. It is urgent
to piace Jesus as the foundation of existence.”

And in the Gospel of St. Matthew is the page that
no one rereads without emotion. “Who do peopie
say that the Son of Man is?” (Mt. 16, 13) asked
Jesus of the aposties and, after they had given him
severai repiies, the deeper question, ‘ Who do you
say that I am?” (Mt. 16, 15).

We ail know it is not sufficent to speak of Jesus,
repeating what others say. it is necessary to say
what you think, it is no ionger sufficient to recite
an opinion. It is necessary to give witness, feei
committed by the witness given and often to the
extreme of this witness.

20



The best friends, followers and apostles of
Christ always were those who perceived one day
within themselves the final irrefutable question,
before which all the others became secondary and
derivative: “Who do you say that I am?”
The life, destiny, history and future of the young

depend on the clear and sincere answer, without
rhetoric or subterfuge, that they can give to this
question. It has already transformed the lives of
many youths.

3. And it is from the message offered from the
word of God that I would like you to take this
simple message that I leave you at this encounter,
that will allow me to feel the seriousness with
which you face your existence.

You are the great richness of this immensely
rich country. The real future of this country is
present in you. Thus, this country, and with it the
church, looks to you with an expectant and hopeful
eye.

Open to the social dimensions of man, you will
not hide your will to transform radically the
structures that present injustices in society.

You rightly say that it is impossible to be happy
whike seeing the multitude of brothers who lack
the minimum opportunities for a human existence.
You also say it is indecent for some to have in
excess what is missing on the table of the rest.

You are committed to constructing a just society,
free and prosperous, where each and every one
can use the benefits of progress.

4. I lived in my youth with these same
convictions. I proclaimed them as a young student

21



through the voice of literature, the voice of art. God
willed that they received their coloring in the fire of
a war whose atrocitities did not spare my home.

Many times I saw these convictions trampled
upon. I feared for them, seeing theo exposed to the
tempest. One day I decided to confront them with
Jesus Christ. I thought I was the only one to rebel
against their real content and value, protecting
them against I don’t know what inevitable erosion.

All this, this tremendous and valuable
experience, taught me that social justice is only
true if based on the rights of the individual. And
these rights to be really recognized must be
recognized for the transcendental dimension of
man, created in the image and likeness of God,
called to be his son and the brother of other men
and destined to eternal life.

To negate this transcedence is to reduce man to
being an instrument of domination whose fate is
subject to the egoism and ambition of other men or
to the omnipotence of a totalitarian state created
as the supreme value.

In my inward self that led me to the discovery of
Jesus Christ that carried me unrestricted to him. I
perceived what the Second Vatican Council stated
clearly.

I understood that “the Gospel announces and
proclaims the freedom of the sons of God and
rejects all bondage resulting from sin, it
scrupulously respects the dignity of conscience
and its freedom of choice, it never ceases to
encourage the employment of human talents in the
service of God and the well being of man and.

22



finally, it commends everyone to charity for aii.
This is nothing other than the basic law of the
Christian scheme of things” (“Gaudium et Spes,”
n. 41).

5. i iearned that a Christian youth ceases to be
young, and there are many who are not Christian,
when they are seduced by doctrines or ideoiogies
that preach vioience and hate.

One does not buiid a just society on injustice.
You do not buiid a society that deserves the titie of
human by not respecting or, worse yet, destroying
human iiberty, denying to the individuais the most
fundamentai iiberties.

Sharing as a priest, bishop and cardinai the iives
of many young peopie in universities, in youth
groups, in excursions to the mountains, in prayer
circies and refiexions, I learned that the young
dangerously begin to age when they are fooied by
the adage, “The end justifies the means,” when
they beiieve that the oniy hope of bettering society
is by promoting fighting and hatred between sociai
groups in the utopia of a society without ciasses
that soon ieads to the creation of new ciasses.

I convinced myself that only loves approaches
that which is realiy different and reaches together
in diversity the word of Christ, “This is my
commandment; iove one another as I have ioved
you” (Jn. 15, 12).

it came to me then, besides its unparaiied
theoiogicai profoundness, as the seed and
principie of the oniy radicai transformation to be
appreciated by a young person, as the seed and
principie for the oniy revolution that does not
betray man. Only true love builds.

23



6. If the youth that 1 was, called to live my youth
in a crucial moment in history, can say anything to
the youth that you are, I think I can say, “Don’t
become an instrument. Search out, being
conscious of what you want and what you do. But I
see that this same thing was said by the bishops of
Latin America, meeting in Puebla last year;

“We will inculcate in young people a critical-
minded attitude toward. ..the cultural counter-
values that various ideologies try to impart...”
(Puebla document, n. 1197), especially the
ideology of a materialistic character, so that they
are are not manipulated.

And Vatican II says, “The social order requires
constant improvement: it must be founded in truth,
built on justice and enlivened by love: It should
grow in freedom towards a more humane
equilibrium” (“Gaudium et Spes,” 26).

A great predecessor of mine. Pope Pius XII,
adopted as his motto, “Build Peace in Justice.” I
think that is a motto and above all a commitment
worthy of you, Brazilian youth.

7. I fear that many good intentions for building a
just society swim in inauthenticity and are emptied
like a soap bubble lacking the support of a serious
attempt at austerity and frugality.

In other words it is indispensabie to know how to
win against the temptation of the so-called
consumer society, the ambition of having more in
place of trying to be more, the ambition of having
more while others have less.

I think in this respect the beatitude which
speaks of the poor in spirit has a definite force and
reievance in the life of each youth; the weaithy

24



young man will then learn what is superfluous and
what is almost always lacking for others so that he
will not leave (the Lord) in sadness (Mt. 19, 22)
when he realizes in the innermost part of his
conscience that the Lord is asking for fuller
renanciation.

May the youth who lives in rough contingency
and uncertainty regarding tomorrow, perhaps even
in hunger, and who is looking for the legitimate
improvement in conditions for himself and others
be attracted by dignity but not by ambition or
fascination with the superfluous.

My friends, you are also responsible for the
conservation of those values which have always
honored the Brazilian people. Do not be carried
away by the exaggeration of sex that violates the
authenticity of human love and leads to the
deterioration of the family.

“Are you not aware that you are the temple of
God and that the Spirit of God dwells In you?” (1
Cor. 3, 16) wrote St. Paul In the text we heard.

The young woman should look to find true
feminism, the authentic realization of woman as a
human person, an integral part of the family and
society in a conscious participation, following her
nature.

8. I reread, finishing the key words that we took
from the reading for this Mass:
— Observe what is right and do what is just.
— Do not build on any foundation except Jesus

Christ.

— Have an answer to give our Lord when he
asked, “For you, who am I/”

25



This is my sincere and confident message as a
friend. My wish would be to shake the hands of
each one of you and talk to each of you. In any
case and to each one, I say to all, youth of Belo
Horizonte and of all Brazil, the pope wishes you
well, the pope will never forget you. The pope
leaves here with a wonderful memory of you.

Receive my dear friends, the apostolic blessing
that I am going to give you at the end of the Mass
as a sign of my friendship and confidence in you
and to all the youth of this country.

26



“I pray that this spirit of family shall never come to be
weakened or perish. That it may prevail over any seed of
discord or division whatever, over any threat of mpture or

separation.
’ ’

HOMILY AT MASS FOR FAMILIES
Rio de Janeiro. July 1, 1980

My very dear brother, archbishop of Sao
Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro and your auxiliary
bishops.
Dear children living in this wonderful city, dear

children come from other parts of Brazil for this
meeting:

1 . Many of those who are at this hour partaking
in this Eucharist will be going in their hearts’
memories back to other Masses celebrated in this
same place, in July 1955. The 35th International
Eucharistic Congress was going on. Upon a strip of
land regained from the sea, the hands of artists
had raised an altar-monument. There the papal
legate opened and concluded the great event. The
voice of my immortal predecessor, Pius XII,
resounded here with a father’s message for a
million persons gathered in this place. It is not
possible for me indeed to fail to recall this 25th
anniversary. I am glad to recall it together with you
and among you, at the time when you are
preparing for the imminent 10th national
Eucharistic congress at Fortaleza. May it please
God that these events, those remembered, those

27



being lived, those looked forward to, will mean
renewal of your thanksgiving to God. May it please
him that you will be able to utter your thanksgiving
through what is thanksgiving by definition and by
excellence, the Eucharist. May he cause you to
grow in devotion to it.

The gift of the Eucharist

2. A priest — be he pope, bishop, or an inland
parish priest — who celebrates the Eucharist, and
a Christian who takes part in the Mass and
receives the body and blood of Christ, cannot fail
to go deep into the marvels of this sacrament.
Many dimensions may be considered within it. It is
the sacrifice of Christ, being mysteriously
renewed. The bread and the wine are transformed,
transubstantiated into the body and blood of the
Lord. It is grace that is communicated to the
Christian’s soul through this spiritual food... On
this present occasion I would dwell upon a not less
significant aspect; the Eucharist is a family
reunion, a gathering of the big family of Christians.

The Lord Jesus willed to institute this great
sacrament on the occasion of an important family
event. That event was the paschal meal. On that
occasion his family was the 12, who had been
together with him for three years. For a long time in
the church’s early days families met in the houses
of other families for “breaking of bread.” Every
altar will always be a table, about which a more
and less numerous family of brethren will gather.
At the same time the Eucharist brings that family
together, and shows to the eyes of all how close
are the ties binding its members to each other. St.

28



Augustine was thinking of aii this when he caiied
the Eucharist "sacramentum pietatis, signum
unitatis, vinculum caritatis”(sacrament of piety,
sign of unity, bond of charity) (In Joannis Evang.
Tract. XXVI, cap.6, N.13., PI 35,1613).

As I celebrate this Eucharist I turn my eyes
spiritually to all quarters of this immense country. I
seek to embrace in one sole glance the 120
millions of Brazilians. I pray for the immense family
constituted by all the children of this fatherland
and for those here who have found a new
homeland.

3. May I tell you something in confidence? When
they first spoke to me of Brazil I knew very little of
the country. They did not speak to sing its natural
beauties, which are marvellous, nor to extol the
wealth of its soil and subsoil, which are
inexhaustible. Nor to bring out the deeds of one or
another notable Brazilian. He who spoke to me —
and he had great knowledge of Brazil — told me
only that it was a great nation, in spite of all its
eventual problems, because all races have met
there: people from all over the world have gathered
there into one people, without prejudices and
without discrimination or segregation. They have
met in a bright fusion of spirits and hearts. “It is a
family,” my informant told me, enchanted.

I pray that this spirit of family shall never come
to be weakened or perish.That it may prevail over
any seed of discord or division whatever, over any
threat of rupture or separation. I pray that, as
differences grow less among Brazilians in regard
to progress and wellbeing, opportunities in respect

29



of cultural goods and civilization, and possibilities
to find worthy work, to have heaith and education,
and to bring up children, this “great family” of
Brazilians of which my first Instructor about Brazil
spoke, may become an ever truer reality. I further
pray that Brazil may give an essential lesson of
true Integration In a world frequently dominated by
strife among peoples and races, and that she may
do so without ostentation, but rather with the
spontaneity and naturalness that mark her people.

May she show how persons coming from the
most diverse corners of the world can live together
as a single family in a country that is also a
continent. And I pray, finally, for the members of
this “great family” who lie below this monument.
Their sacrifice is a permanent appeal for unity
among the peoples.

4. This Eucharist, family gathering, brings my
thoughts once again to Brazilian families.

The most authoritative investigations into Latin
America teach us that the family is of extraordinary
importance for you, Latin Americans, i am thinking
of the documents produced at Medeliin and at
Puebla, and of reports coming to me from bishops
and episcopal conferences In this quasl-continent;
but I am thinking as well of sociological studies of
great seriousness. The place that the family
occupies in the peoples that go to make up the
roots of your nations and the influence that It
exerts in formation of your culture, are further
reasons for this importance. Far from being an
exception, Brazil exemplifies this truth in a notable
degree. It is not to be wondered at that here family

30



feeling is manifested with special vigor, the
essential dimensions of family reality are
confirmed. That is, respect imbued with iove and
tenderness, generosity and spirit of solidarity,

appreciation for a certain intimacy of the home,
tempered by desire to be outgoing. Nor may I fail to
exalt two fundamental family dimensions among
the others. They are specially important among
you, and over the centuries it has been the great
transmitter of cultural, ethical, and spiritual values,
from one generation to another. On the level of the
Christian religion, when other channels were
lacking or were extremely precarious. It has often
been the sole, or at least the principal channel
through which the faith was conveyed from
parents to children in the various generations.

5. In view of this, how shall we look upon the
grave situations in which numerous families are
concretely involved among you, how shall we look
upon the serious threats that weigh on the family
in general?

Some of these threats are of a social kind. They
arise from subhuman conditions, in dwellings,
hygiene, health, education. Millions of families are
in these conditions, in the interior of the country
and on the outskirts of the big cities, by force of
unemployment or insufficient wages.

Other threats belong to the moral order. They are
connected with generalized disintegration of the
family, through ignorance, depreciation, or
disrespect of human and Christian norms
regarding the family in various levels of the
population. Others again belong to the civic order.

31



They are linked with legislation referring to the
family. Such legislation is becoming more and
more permissive throughout the world. It Is thus
less encouraging for those who try to follow the
principles of a more elevated ethic in the matter of
the family. Please God that It shall never be so In
your country. May it please him that, in
accordance with the Christian principles that
Inspire your culture, those who have responsibility
to make and proclaim laws shall do so in respect
for the irreplaceable values of a Christian ethic.
Outstanding among these is the value of human
life, the undeclinable right of parents to transmit
life. Other threats, finally are In the religious order.
They derive from scarce knowledge of the
sacramental dimensions of matrimony in God’s
plan.

6. The considerations that I am uttering seem to
me to bring out sufficiently clearly the Importance
and necessity of intelligent, courageous, and
persevering famiiy pastoral care. When I spoke to
the people of the city of Puebla, In the homily of
the unforgettable Mass that I celebrated there, I
recalled that numerous Latin American bishops do
not hesitate to acknowledge that the church still
has much to do In this field. For this reason, when I
opened the conference at Puebla, I chose to
recommend family pastoral care as an Important
priority in all your countries. The Puebla document
devoted an Important chapter to the family: May
God will that attention to other themes and
concerns in that document — and they are
undoubtedly important, yet not exclusively so —
will not mean giving less attention to the pastoral

32



care of the family. Such an error is something that
we should have reason to regret later.

This family pastoral care has many fields and
complex requirements. Your pastors are aware of
this. Many laity engaged in diverse, valuable and
worthy family movements show how attentive they
are to these fields and requirements. You certainly
do not expect the pope to go into them here. This
is not the moment for that. However, how can I not
recall or at least mention a few among the more
important points of this form of pastoral care?

I am thinking of all that has to be done in the
field of preparation for marriage. Certainly in the
period before the wedding, but why not also from
the years of adolescence on — in the family, in the
church, in the school? In the form of serious,
ample, deep education for true love, something
much more demanding than generalized sexual
education. I am thinking of a generous and
courageous effort to create a propitious
environment in society for realizing a Christian
family ideal, based on the values of unity, fidelity,
indissolubility,and responsible fecundity. I am
thinking of the attention to be given to marriages
that for various reasons and circumstances are
passing through moments of crisis. They might
overcome these crises if they received help, but
sometimes they break up if they are not aided. I am
thinking of the contribution that Christians,
especially laity, can offer, towards obtaining social
policy that shall be sensitive to family needs and
values, and towards avoiding legislation harmful to
family stability or equilibrium.

I am thinking, finally, of the measureless value of
a family spirituality, which needs to be constantly

33



perfected, promoted, and propagated. Nor can I not
utter a word, here again, of stimulus and
encouragement to family movements that devote
themselves to this particularly important work.

7. The church’s components and magisterium
are not without most valuable elements for lucid,
comprehensive, and intrepid pastoral attention to
families. My predecessors left us valuable
documents. Many pastors and theologians have
offered us the fruit of their experience and their
reflections. Before long the synod of bishops will
make a study of “The Functions of the Christian
Family” in the contemporary world. It will certainly
show ways and give guidelines in this delicate
matter. It is from this fount — and not from beside
it, even less in contrast with it — that true family
pastoral care must drink.

Innumerable families, Christian couples
especially, desire and ask for such criteria as shall
aid them to live their Christian ideal in regard to
fidelity, fecundity, and rearing of children, even in
the midst of uncommon difficulties and with efforts
that are sometimes heroic. No one has the right to
betray this expectation or to disappoint this
request, by concealing the true criteria because of
timidity, insecurity or false respect, or by offering
doubtful criteria, not to say criteria openly straying
from the teaching of Jesus Christ transmitted by
the church.

8. Dearest brethren and children, at the end of
our reflections, let us give our attention to the texts
of the New Testament that we have the joy of
hearing in this liturgy.

34



One of them is from the Gospel of St.John. It
recounts Jesus’ teaching in the synagogue at
Capharnaum on the bread of life: as the Lord
assures us, this bread is his own flesh, made food
for his disciples. It gives them a life that begins
here on earth and leads into eternity. The promise
given at Capharnaum has been fully kept in the
Last Supper and in the mystery of the Eucharist.
This is the bread that becomes the body of Christ
so as to give life to men.

The pope’s deepest and liveliest desire at this
moment would be to work a kind of miracle and
enter every home in Brazil, to be the guest of every
Brazilian family, to share In the happiness of happy
families and give thanks to the Lord together with
them. To be with families that weep, for some
hidden or visible suffering, so as to give them
some comfort, if possible. To speak to families
where nothing is lacking so as to invite them to
distribute what they have in excess; it belongs to
those who have nothing. To sit at the table of poor
families, where bread is scarce, so as to aid them,
not to become rich in the sense that the Gospel
condemns riches, but to win what is necessary for
a decent life.

If this be an impossible desire, I nonetheless
desire to make a vow and form a prayer, as I
shortly take Jesus’ body and his precious blood In
my hands: that this Eucharist, celebrated in this
boundless temple, under the cupola of this sky of
Rio de Janeiro — much vaster and grander than
Michelangelo’s — may become the source of true
life for the Brazilian people. In order that the
Brazilian people shall be a true family, and for
each Brazilian family, in order that it shall be a
formative cell of this people.

35



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36
m -

. . A .-S, I



‘

‘What I thought how I shouldpresent myselfto the in-
habitants ofthis country which I visit for the first time, I

felt it my duty to present myselfbefore anything else with
the teaching ofthe eight beatitudes.

REMARKS AT FAVELA VIDIGAL
Favela Vidgal. July 2, 1980

1 . When Jesus climbed the mountain and started
to proclaim his teachings that we all know as the
Sermon on the Mount to all the people about him,
before anything else the beatitudes flowed from
his lips. The first of them proclaims; “Blessed are
the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of
God” (Mt.5, 3).
There is only one mountain in Galilee where

Christ uttered his beatitudes. However there are so
many places all over the world where the same are
announced and heard.

Many are the hearts that do not cease from
reflecting on the meaning of those words said once
for all. They do not cease from meditating on them.
Their only wish is to practice them with all their
heart. They try to live these beatitudes in their
truth.

On Brazilian soil there are certainly many places
like that. And here there were and are many, many
of these hearts.

When I thought how I should present myself to
the inhabitants of this country which I visit for the
first time, I felt it my duty to present myself before

37



anything else with the teaching of the eight
beatitudes. I felt the wish to talk about these to
you, people of Vidigal.

Through you I also would like to talk to all who in
Brazil live in the same conditions. Blessed are the
poor in spirit.

2. Among you are many poor. The church in the
Brazilian land wants to be the church of the poor.
She wishes that in this great country the first
beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount may be
fulfilled.

The poor in spirit are the ones who are more
open to God and to “God’s wonders” (Acts 2, 11).
They are poor because they are always ready to
accept this gift from heaven which comes from
God. They are poor in spirit, those who live
knowing that they have received all from God’s
hands as a free gift and who appreciate everything
they receive.

They are constantly thankful, they unceasingly
repeat: “All is grace, thank our Lord God.” Of them
at the same time Jesus says they are “pure in their
hearts,” “meek.”

They are those who “hunger and thirst for
justice.” They are frequently “the afflicted.” They
are those who are “peacemakers” and
“persecuted for justice’s sake.”

They are, finally, the “merciful” (cf Mt. 5, 3-10).
In fact the poor, the poor in spirit, are more
mercifui. For that reason hearts open to God are
more open to men. They are ready to help and to
be useful. They are ready to share what they own.

38



They are ready to welcome a widow or an
abandoned orphan.

They always find one more place in the midst of
the restrictions they live in. And even so they
always find some food, a piece of bread on their
poor table.

Poor, but generous. Poor, but magnanimous. I
know there are a lot of people like that among you
here, to whom I am addressing my words, and in
other parts of Brazil as well.

3. Do Christ’s words about the poor in spirit
perhaps make one forget about injustices? Do they
allow us to leave without solution the different
problems raised by the whole of the so-called
social problem?

Problems that remain in human history assume
different forms at different moments of history and
their intensity depends on the dimension of each
society in particular as well as the proportion of
continents, the whole world in a word. It is natural
that these problems assume their own dimension
in this land, a Brazilian dimension.

Christ’s words calling the “poor in spirit’’ happy
do not claim to suppress all these problems. On
the contrary, they make them more evident,
focusing them upon this most essential point, man,
the human heart, every man without exception,
man in regard to God and at the same time in
regard to other men.

Does not being poor in spirit precisely make a
man more open toward others, that is, toward God
and his fellow man?

39



Is it not true that this beatitude of the “poor in
spirit” also contains a warning and an accusation?

Is it not true that it tells the ones who are not
“poor in spirit” that they are out of God’s kingdom
and that the kingdom of God is not and never will
be shared by them? Thinking of these “rich” men
who are closed to God and to mankind, without
mercy, was not Christ to say in another passage,
“Woe to you” (Luke 6, 24)?
“Woe to you.” These words sound severe and

threatening, especialy in the mouth of Christ who
always spoke kindly and gently and who used to
repeat, “May God bless you.” However, he will also
say, “Woe to you.”

4. All over the world the church wants to be the
church of the poor. The church in Brazil also wants
to be the church of the poor, that is, she wants to
draw out all the truth in Christ’s beatitudes and
especially this first one: “Blessed are the poor in
spirit...” She wants to teach this truth and practice
it, as Christ came to do and to teach.
The church also wants to draw out all that in the

teaching of the eight beatitudes refers to each
man: the poor, the one who lives in penury, the one
who lives in abundance and well being and, finally
the one who has an excess and has more than he
needs. The same truths of the first beatitude refer
to each one in a different way.

She tells the poor, the ones who live in misery,
that they are particularly close to God and his
kingdom, but at the same time she tells them that it
is not permissible for them and their families —for
anyone — to arbitrarily be reduced to misery.

40



It is necessary to do everything licit to assure
oneself and one’s family whatever is necessary for
life and maintenance. In poverty it is above all
necessary to keep human dignity and also that
magnamity, that openness of heart toward others,
that readiness which exactly distinguishes the
poor, the poor in spirit.

To those who live in abundance or at least with a
certain well being, for which they have the
necessities (even though they may not save), the
church who wishes to be the church of the poor
says: “Enjoy the results of your work and of
rightful industry, but in the name of Christ’s words,
in the name of human brotherhood and of social
solidarity, do not stay closed in yourselves.

“Think about the poor. Think about the ones who
have not what is needed, the ones who live in
chronic want, who suffer hunger. Share with them.
Share in an organized and methodical way.”

May abundance never deprive you of the
spiritual fruits of the Sermon on the Mount or
separate you from the beatitudes of the poor in
spirit.

And the church of the poor says the same, with
greater force, to those who have an excess, who
live in abundance, who live in luxury. She tells
them: “Look around you a bit. Does it not hurt your
heart? Do you not feel the stings of your
conscience for your surplus and abundance? If
not, if you only want to ‘get’ more and more, if your
model is profit and pleasure, remember that man’s
value is not measured by what he owns but by
what he ‘is.’”

So someone who has saved much and thinks
that everything in life is reduced to that should

41



remember that he might be worth much less than
some of those poor people, that in his soul and
under God’s eyes maybe he is “much less of a
man” than they.
The measure of wealth, money and luxury is not

the same as the measure of the real dignity of men.
So those who have a superabundance should

avoid closing in on themselves in attachment to
their riches, a spiritual blindness. May they avoid
this with all their strength. May all the Gospel truth
be with them, especially the meaning of these
words; “Blessed are the poor in spirit because
theirs is the kingdom of heaven...” (Mt.5, 3).

May this truth upset them.

May it be a continuous warning and challenge to
them.

May it never allow them to become blinded by
selfishness and the satisfaction of their own
desires, not for one minute.

If you have a lot, if you have a great deal,
remember that you must give a lot, that there is
much to give. And you should think how to give,
how to organize all social-economic life and each
of its sectors so that this life would tend toward
equality among men and not toward an abyss
among them.

If you know much and you are of high social
rank, do not even for one minute forget that the
higher you are, the more you should serve. Serve
others.

Otherwise you will find yourselves in danger of
keeping yourselves and your lives from the field of
the beatitudes and in particular from the first one:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

42



The “rich” who, by means of their wealth, do not
stop from “giving themselves” and “serving
others” are “poor in spirit” as well.

So the church of the poor speaks first and above
all of man. To each man and so to all men. She is
the universal church, the church of the incarnation
mystery, not the church of one single class or one
single race.

She speaks in the name of her own truth. This
truth is realistic. We should take into consideration
each human reality, each injustice, each tension,
each conflict. The church of the poor will not serve
anything that causes tensions and makes strife
among men explode.

The only fight, the only one that the church will
serve is the noble one for truth and justice, the one
for the real good, the one where the church is at
one with each man.

On this road the church fights with the “sword of
truth” without abstaining from encouraging, as well
as warning, sometimes in a very severe way (as
Christ did). Very often she even threatens and
shows the consequences of hypocrisy and evil.

In this evangelical fight the church of the poor
will not serve immediate political purposes, power
struggles. She tries at the same time with great
care to ensure that her words and actions not be
used for that purpose, that is, “instrumentalized.”

The church of the poor speaks to “mankind,” to
each and to all men. At the same time she speaks
to society as a whole and to different social levels,
to different groups and professions. She speaks to
systems and to social structures, both socio-
economic and socio-political.

43



She speaks the Gospel’s language, explaining it
in light of human knowledge but without
introducing strange, heterodox elements contrary
to her spirit. She speaks to everybody in the name
of Christ, as weil as in the name of man,
particularly to those for whom Christ’s name is not
everything, does not express all the truth about
man that this name contains.

So the church of the poor speaks like this: You,
particulariy the ones who in decision-making have
power, you, on whom the world situation depends,
do everything so that the life of each man in your
country may become “more human,’’ more worthy
of man.

Do everything so that at least gradually the
abyss that divides the few “excessively rich’’ from
the great multitudes of poor, those who live in
want, may disappear.

Do everything so that this abyss will not grow but
shrink and tend toward social equality, so that the
unjust distribution of goods will give way to a more
just distribution.

Do it out of consideration for each man who is
your fellow man and your fellow citizen. Do it out of
consideration for the common good of all. Do it for
yourself. Only a socially just society, one that
strives to be ever more just, has a reason to exist.
Only such a society has a future ahead of it.

A society that socially is not just and that does
not try to become so has its future in danger.
Think, then, about the past and look at it nowadays
and plan a better future for your whole society.

All this is included in what Christ said in his
Sermon on the Mount, in the context od this single

44



sentence: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, because
their is the kingdom of heaven.”

Dear brothers and sisters, with this message I
renew my feelings of deep affection, and as a
pledge of God’s blessing for you and your families,
I give you my apostoiic biessing.

45



46



‘

‘Culture should not suffer any coercion on the part of
power, whether economic or political, but ought to be

aided by the one and the other in allforms ofpublic and
private initiative, in accordance with true humanism, with

the tradition and with the authentic spirit ofeach
people.

’ ’

ADDRESS AT RIO CATHEDRAL
Rio de Janeiro. July 2, 1980

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ,

During this piigrimage through Brazii i have
aiready had the pieasure of seeing much of your
beautifui country and of the goodness and nobie
sentiments and spirit of faith of its peopie, and
here i see the same things. May God be praised! i
thank my beioved brother, Cardinai Eugenio de
Araujo Saies, and ali, through him, for this good
welcome that is being given to me now and which i
have had here in the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro
from the preparation committee and aii
organizations and persons that have taken part.

Together with the cardinai-archbishop i wish to
greet his auxiiiary bishops and aii diocesan and
reiigious priests who make up the iocai body of
priests (presbytery). They share in a particuiar and
intimate fashion with the diocesan pastor the
responsibilities inherent in being messengers and
distributors of the goods of saivation. Behoid! As
“sait of the earth” and “iight of the world” you are
striving to buiid up the church here according to

47



well worked out pastoral plans. Be always the
visible presence of the sacred in this great
metropoiis by iiving and acting, each of you, as
what in the truth you are: an “aiter Christus” who
goes about doing good.

i likewise greet women Reiigious here present
and here represented, i know that you are weli
organized here in Rio. i count on your support for
pastorai labor and in addition on the ever essentiai
support of your life of prayer. Live your
consecration with generous commitment and
adherence to and readiness for the Lord. Live it in
the church and in service to the church’s mission.
Strong in faith, be joyful in hope.

RiO DE JANEiRO, Brazii (NC) — Here is an NC
News Service transiation of Pope John Paul ll’s
remarks to cultural leaders at the residence of
Cardinal Eugenio de Araujo Sales July 1.

1 . I feel happy at being able to meet with you,
eminent cultural personalities of the Brazilian
nation. I wish to greet each one of you heartily and
show my sinere appreciation and my deep respect.
You well know how much and for what reasons the
church values and promotes, inasmuch as be her
concern, every authentic form of culture and seeks
to maintain communication and dialogue with
culture.

The meeting place between the church and
culture is the world. In it man, who is a “being-in-
world,” is subject to development through one or
the other thing, church and culture, through God’s
word and grace on the part of the church and
through man himself, with all his spiritual and
material resources, on the part of culture.

48



True culture is humanization inasmuch as non-
culture and false cultures are dehumanizing. By
this same token man commits himself to his
destiny in the school of culture.

Humanization, that is to say the development of
man, is effected in all fields of the reality in which
man is situated and situates himself: in his
spirituality and corporality, in the universe, in
human and divine society. It is a matter of
harmonious development. In this, all sectors of
which the being man forms a part are linked with
each other: culture does not regard solely the
spirit or solely the body, nor, likewise, solely
individualities or sociality or universality.
Reduction “ad unum” always gives rise to
dehumanizing cultures in which man is either
spiritualized or is materialized, is dissociated or is
depersonaiized. Culture ought to cultivate man and
each man and woman within the compass of an
integral and full humanism. In this every man and
all men are developed in the plenitude of each
human dimension. Culture has the essential aim of
promoting the being of man and of providing him
with the goods necessary to the development of
his individual and social being.

2. All the various forms of cultural promotion are
rooted in “culture animi,” according to Cicero’s
saying. It means cultivation of thinking and loving.
Through that man raises himself to his supreme
dignity, which is that of thought, he exteriorizes his
self in the sublimest of his gifts, that of loving.

Authentic “culture animi” is cultivation of liberty,
that which emanates from the depths of the spirit,
from lucidity of thought and from generous

49



disinterest in regard to love. There can be no
culture outside of liberty. A people’s true culture,
its fuli humanization, cannot develop in a regime of
coercion. “Culture” says the council’s constitution
“Gaudium et Spes” (No. 59) “since it flows from
man’s rational and social nature, has continual
need of rightful freedom of development and a
legitimate possibility of autonomy according to its
own principles.”

Culture should not suffer any coercion on the
part of power, whether economic or political, but
ought to be aided by the one and the other in all
forms of public and private initiative, in
accordance with true humanism, with the tradition
and with the authentic spirit of each people.
Culture that is born free ought also be able to
spread in a regime of liberty. A man of culture has
the duty to propose his culture to others, but not to
impose it. Imposition contradicts culture, because
it contradicts that process of free personal
assimilation on the part of thought and love which
is peculiar to the culture of the spirit. An imposed
culture not only contrasts with man’s liberty, but
can hold up the formative process of his own
culture. This, in its complexity, from science to
forms of dress, arises from collaboration among all
men and women.

The church claims for culture, hence for man, a
liberty analogous to that which it claims for
religious liberty in the council’s declaration,
“Dignitatis Humanae.” The claim regards both the
process of cultural development and the act of
cultural propagation. That liberty is founded
essentially on the dignity of the human person and
is made known both by means of God’s word and

50



through reason (Cf n.2). Culture ought to promote
liberty at the same time as it respects it. That is, it
ought to seek to garb it with the virtues and habits
that go to make what St. Augustine caiied “iibertas
maior.” This means iiberty in its fuii development,
liberty in a moraily aduit state, capabie of
autonomous options in the face of temptations
coming from whatever form of disordered self-iove.
Fuli cuiture comprehends morai formation,
education in the virtues of individuai iife, sociai iife
and reiigious iife. “There is no doubt,” i said in my
recent discourse to UNESCO, “that the prime and
fundamentai cuitural fact is spirituaiiy matured
man, that is, the fuily educated man, man capabie
of educating himself and educating others. Nor is
there any doubt that the prime and fundamentai
dimension of cuiture is sound moraiity: morai
culture” (n.12).

3. Culture, cultivation of man in ail his facuities
and expressions, is not soieiy promotion of
thinking and acting, but it is aiso formation of
conscience. Because of imperfect or no education
of conscience, pure knowledge may give rise to
proud humanism that is pureiy earthiy. Action and
pleasure may give rise to pseudo-cuitures of
unchecked productivism for the benefit of nationai
power or private consumerism, with the unhappy
consequences of danger of war and most grave
economic crises.

Promotion of knowiedge is indispensabie, but it
is insufficient when not accompanied by morai
cuiture.

“Cuitura animi” ought to promote instruction and
education together. It ought to instruct man in

51



knowledge of reality. At the same time it ought to
educate him to be a man in the totality of his being
and his reiationships. Now man cannot be fully
what he is, he cannot realize his humanity fully,
unless he lives the transcendence of his own
being over the world and his relationship with God.
Elevation of man is not only a matter of promoting
his humanity, but it is also a matter of opening his
humanity up to God. Making culture means giving
man, and every man and woman, and the
community of mankind, a human and divine
dimension, to offer and communicate to man that
humanity and that divinity that emanate from
perfect man, the redeemer of man, Jesus Christ.

In the work of culture God makes an alliance
with man, he himself becomes a cultural worker for
the development of man. “Dei agricultra estis,’’ St.
Paul exclaims: “You are God’s cultivation” (1 Cor
3,9). Have no fear, gentlemen, open the gates of
your minds, of your society, of your cultural
institutions to God’s action. He is man’s friend and
works in man and for man, so that man may grow
in his humanity and in his divinity, in his being and
in his reality over the world.

In the alliance which is established between God
and man through human culture, man ought to
imitate God in his infinite love. Cultural work is
work of love, work that proceeds from that social
love, the necessity for which I pointed out in my
first encyclical letter, “Redemptor Hominis” (cf
n.16). Where there is a lack of social love, through
lack of esteem for others, the plurality of legitimate
cultures is not respected. Rather there is a will to
impose one’s own culture —which is neither
unique nor exclusive — upon economically and
52



politically weaker populations. Let us remember
what the council said: “Many nations, poorer as far
as material goods are concerned yet richer as
regards wisdom, can be of the greatest advantage
to others” (“Gaudium et Spes,” n.15).

4. The cultural unity of a country as vast as
yours, where numerous traditions and various
historical processes are amalgamating, does not
arise from uniformity of culture. It arises from a
plurality unified through mutual respect,
recognition of cultural peculiarities, enriching

dialogue, enrichment with the values and
experiences of others.

5. I think that I am doing an elementary duty of
justice if at this point I evoke the unpretentious yet
exemplary cultural work that has been the
church’s in this country.
We meet in this work all those aspects of culture

that we have recalled so far. From the early years
the church began to convey knowledge of things to
the aboriginals, together with the revelation of the
Gospel, through her missionaries. That knowledge
undoubtedly consisted in instruction and in the
alphabet. But there was no less an effort to perfect
the basic elements of the indigenous culture,
without deforming or adulterating them. The
church continued down the centuries to make a
valid contribution to the cultural task through her
missions among the Indies and settlers, through
schools and unversities, through hospitals and
hospices, through her means of social
communication. I judge it important to emphasize
in this domain that the church’s message was not
alien to the harmony and equilibrium with which
the process of amalgamation of the most diverse
races has gone on.

53



Taking culture in its widest sense, we have to
say of Brazil what the Puebla document says of
Latin America: The church is historically at the
root of this country’s culture.

6. A work that respects the people’s original
culture, permitting its development and spread and
facilitating dialogue with other cultures, is the work
called alphabetization.

We read in “Populorum Progressio”: “An
illiterate person is an undernourished spirit.
Knowing how to read and write, to gain trainig for
work means gaining confidence in oneself and
discovering that one can make progress together
with others” (n. 35).

Besides this and other forms of
undernourishment of mind we have to consider the
grave state of depression in which entire
populations exist because of their economic
conditions. The economically richer and
industrially more developed countries organize
consumerism. In this is to be found the origin of
ever more emphatic imbalances between rich and
poor peoples and between populations within
single states. I made mention of this in my
encyclical letter “Redemptor Hominis” (cf. n.16).

Social love enlivened by charity must bring a
remedy to these situations. Build together,
gentlemen, a civilization of truth and love, create a
culture that will promote man more and more and
facilitate his evangelization. Help him to grow in
his human and divine dimensions, to recognize the
vaiue of his own being, the meaning of his
existence, to know and love Christ, in whom God
fully reveals himself to each man and woman and
to each people.

54



‘

‘The common good ofsociety will ever be the new name
ofjustice. It cannot be obtained through violence,

because violence destroys what it seeks to create.
’ ’

TALK TO WORKERS IN MORUMBI STADIUM
Sao Paula. July 3, 1980

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

1 . i feei happy and honored to be here among
you today in Sao Paulo, i am happy to discover
your city, this immense metropoiis of incredible
industrial development. Incredible industrial
growth goes hand in hand here with accelerating
urbanization, which is at once fascinating and
worrying. I am happy chiefly because I am
discovering this city through persons, through you,
men and women, who work, suffer and hope here.
You came here from all corners of this immense
country and from the whole world. You came so as
to earn your living and to collaborate in a great
common task which is vital for the whole nation:
the construction of a city worthy of human beings.
Yes, because Sao Paulo is you. Sao Paulo is not
mainly these material achievements. They are not
always guided by a just and full sense of man and
society, nor are they always suitable for organizing
an environment where it may be possible to live
lives worthy of human beings. Sao Paulo is also
the very numerous people on the fringes of
society, the unemployed, the underemployed or
the ill employed, who do not find ways of using

55



their hands and developing their generous
resources of mind and heart properly. Sao Paulo is
you. You are gathered here to ceiebrate your
dignity as workers and manifest your readiness to
work together so as to buiid up a city to the
measure of your hopes as humans. Sao Paulo is
you, assembied here to seek in the Gospei of
Jesus Christ the iight and energy necessary for
achieving the task that awaits you, that of turning
Sao Pauio into a fuiiy human city.

2. Yes, Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe
and of history, brings us together here today. The
pope visits you in his name today. Workers, my
brothers and sisters, i give thanks to God for
having ailowed me to be among you. I thank you for
the deep joy that this meeting is causing to this
minister of Jesus Christ, in the days of his youth,
in his native Poland, he knew the condition of
being a manuai worker directiy. He knew its
greatness and harshness, its hours of joyfulness
and its moments of anguish, the accomplishments
and frustrations that go with this condition of life.
From the bottom of my heart I say to you what the
apostie St. Paui said to the Romans, “i iong to see
you and to share with you some spiritual gift to
strengthen you; rather, what i wish is that we may
be mutuaiiy encouraged by our common faith”
(Rom.1 ,1 1 -1 2). Therefore, I invite you, Christian
workers, my brothers and sisters, to begin to
ceiebrate in joyfulness and friendship what Jesus
offers to one and aii of us: the faith, hope and
charity with which Jesus eniivens our hearts when
we meet in his name, in his church, which he
established for gathering up his gifts and
distributing them to ail. Christian festivity gives joy.

56



It is not a luxury reserved for the rich. The whole
world is invited to take part. Last year those on the
fringes of society in another big metropoiis, New
York, sang the “Alleluia" of resurrection with me.
And not iong ago Africa, the Africa of poverty, gave
the pope and the worid the spectacle of an
unforgettable festivity.

And this festivity arises from the conviction that
we are loved by God and that God is with us. God
is visiting us. The kingdom of God is among us.
This is the inexhaustibie source of our joyfuiness:
we know how God loves us and recognizes us, we
know that we are free from sin, that we have been
raised to the insuperable dignity of being God’s
chiidren, rich in faith, hope and iove, which the
Hoiy Spirit pours out into our hearts. So let us
celebrate our God and our Father, Jesus Christ our
Lord and our brother, who brings us together.

The assembiy of bishops at Puebia wiiied to
commit the church in Latin America to an option
for the poor. That option is essentiaiiy this: that the
poor have the Gospei preached to them, that the
church once again set aii her energies to work so
that Jesus Christ may be announced to ali, chiefiy
the poor, and that aii have access to this living
fount, the table of the word and of bread, the
sacraments, the community of the baptized. Here
is the meaning of our meeting today, of our
Christian feast. We shaii go away from here to our
task as citizens and workers with fresh
enthusiasm. We shaii go with a ciearer
consciousness of our dignity, of our rights, of our
responsibilities. We shaii go with renewed faith in
the prodigious resources with which, by creating
us in his image and likeness, he enriches us for

57



being able to face the challenges of our time, the
challenges of this metropolis that is Sao Paulo.

3. I speak to you in the name of Christ, in the
name of the church, the entire church. It is Christ
that sends his church to all men and all societies
with a message of salvation. This mission of the
church’s is carried out in view of two perspectives
at once. There is the eschatalogical perspective.
This regards man as a being whose final
destination is God. There is the historical
perspective. This looks at this same man in his
concrete situation as incarnated in the world of
today. This message of salvation is brought by the
church in virtue of her mission to every man, to the
family, to the various social environments, to
nations and to the whole of mankind. It is a
message of love and fraternity, a message of
justice and solidarity. It is in the first place meant
for the most needy. In a word, it is a message of
peace and a just social order.

I will repeat here before you what I said to the
workers of Saint-Denis, a workers’ quarter in
another big city, Paris. I began with those most
profound words of the Magnificat. I chose to
consider together with them that “the world loved
by God is a world of justice: that the the order
which ought to regulate relations among men is
based on justice; that this order ought to be
continually being implanted in the world, always
afresh, in the measure in which situations and
social systems increase and develop, in the
measure in which fresh economic conditions and
possibilities, fresh technical and productive

58



possibilities, and at the same time fresh
possibilities and needs in distributing goods arise"
(Homiiy at Saint-Denis, May 31, 1980, n.5).
When the church proclaims the Gospel, it aiso

tries, without abandoning its specific role of
evangelization, to obtain that all aspects of social
life wherein justice is manifested may undergo a
transformation toward justice. The common good
of society demands as a fundamental requirement
that society be just. Persisting injustice, lack of
justice threaten society’s existence both from
inside and outside in the same way as everything
that represents an attack upon its sovereignty or
seeks to impose ideologies or models upon it, and
all economic and political blackmail, all use of the
force of arms can threaten society from outside
and inside.

This threat from the interior really exists when
trust is placed solely in the economic laws of
growth and greater profit for regulating the domain
of the distribution of goods, when the results of
progress touch vast sectors of the population only
marginally or not at all.

The danger exists also inasmuch as a deep
abyss exists between a very large minority of rich
on the one side and on the other side a majority of
people living in want and penury.

4. The common good of society will ever be the
new name of justice. It cannot be obtained through
violence, because violence destroys what it seeks
to create, it does this both when it is used to
maintain the privileges of some andw when it is
used in an attempt to impose necessary

59



transformations. The changes demanded for there
to be a just social order ought to be achieved
through constant action along the path of peaceful
reforms. Such action should always be effective,
although often gradual and progressive.

This is the duty of all. It Is particularly the duty of
those who hold power in society, whether
economic power or political power. All power finds
its justification only in the common good, in
achieving a just social order. Consequently, power
should never serve to protect the interests of one
group to the detriment of the others. The class
struggle is not the path leading to a just social
order, because it bears in it the risk of raising the
unfavored up to becoming the privileged, thereby
creating a fresh situation of injustice against those
who have so far had advantages. One cannot build
with hatred or the destruction of others. Rejecting
the class struggle means opting resolutely for a
noble struggle in favor of social justice. The
various power centers and the various
representatives of society ought to be able to meet,
to coordinate their efforts and come to agreement
on clear and efficacious programs. This is what the
Christian formula for creating a just society
consists in. The whole of society ought to be at
one with all people and in the first place with those
who need help, the poor. The option for the poor is
a Christian option; it is also the option of a society
that is concerned with the true common good.

5. Let us listen to what Christ himself said in this
regard. He was talking to the multitude that had
come from all over the region and from beyond the
frontiers to see him. He was seated among his

60



disciples. He began his discourse with these
words, “How blessed are the poor in spirit; the
kingdom of God is theirs” (Matt. 5,3,). He
addressed those words to others besides those
who were listening, he addressed them to us too,
gathered here in Sao Paulo in Brazil. Twenty
centuries have taken nothing from the impelling
importance, the gravity and the hope contained in
those words of the Lord’s. “How blessed are the
poor in spirit!” These words are valid for each of
us. This invitation is a call to each of us. What
Christ asks from all Is that they acquire the spirit
of being poor.

Those that have possessions ought to acquire
the spirit of being poor. They ought to open their
hearts to the poor, for if they did not do so
situations of injustice would not change. The
political structure or social system can be
changed, but a just and stable social order will not
be achieved without change of heart and
conscience. Those who have no possessions,
those who are in need, should also acquire “the
spirit of being poor”; they should not permit
material poverty to take their own human dignity
from them, for this dignity is more important than
all goods.

It is in this connection that the Christian doctrine
on man gives singular valueto human labor. This
teaching has been nourished on the Gospel, on the
Bible and by centuries of experience. The dignity
of labor. The nobility of labor. You know the dignity
and nobility of your labor as you work in order to
live, in order to live better, so as to win your
families’ daily bread. You feel wounded in your
affections as fathers and mothers at seeing your

61



children ill nourished, you who are so content and
proud when you can offer them a loaded table,
when you can clothe them well, give them a
decent, cozy home, give them school and
education in hopes of a better future. Your labor is
a service, a service to your families and to the
whole city. It is a service in which man himself
grows to the degree that he gives himself for
others. Work is a discipline wherein the
personality is strengthened.

Your prime and fundamental aspiration is
therefore to be able to work. What sufferings, what
anxieties and miseries are caused by
unemployment! Therefore, the prime and
fundamental preoccupation of all, of those in
government, politicians, labor union leaders and
owners of enterprises, ought to be to give work to
all. It is not realistic, hence it is not admissible, to
expect to find a solution to the crucial problem of
employment as a more or less automatic result of
an order of things and economic development, of
whatever kind, where employment is seen as only
a secondary effect. Both the theory and practice of
economics ought to have the courage to consider
employment and its modern possibilities as a
central element in its objectives.

6. It is a matter of justice that working conditions
be as worthy as possible, that social insurance be
perfected so as to permit all to face social risks,
hardships and burdens on the basis of increasing
social solidarity. It is legitimate to demand that
wages be adjusted in their diverse and
complementary forms to the point where it will be

62



possible to say that the worker really and equitably
shares in the wealth that he has contributed to
creating through his solidarity and his integral
participation in the enterprise, the profession and
the national economy concerned. The church has
never stopped developing a very rich doctrine on
all these points, mainly since the first great social
encyclical, “Rerum Novarum.” I call upon you all,
workers, and those with responsible positions in
politics, the professions and labor unions, to give
fresh attention to this teaching. No one is going to
find ready-made solutions, but clarification and
stimuli for thought and practice may be found
there. The task is delicate.. This complex mass of
problems contains many factors — employment,
investment, wages — that react with each other. It
cannot be settled through demagogy, through
ideological enchantments or through cold and
theoretical scientism, which, contrary to the true
scientific spirit, would leave verification of its
suppositions to an uncertain future. I will once
more repeat here what I said in regard to
employment: to expect that the solution to the
problems of pay, social insurance and work
conditions will flow naturally from a kind of
automatic extension of a certain economic order is
not realistic, therefore is not admissible. The
economy will be viable only if it is human, for man
and through man.

7. For this same reason it is very important for all
actors in economic lifeto have the practical
possibility of taking part freely and actively in
working out and supervising decisions regarding

63



themselves at all levels. Pope Leo XIII already
affirmed in “Rerum Novarum” the right of workers
to meet in free associations for the purpose of
making their voice heard, defending their interests
and contributing in a responsible manner to the
common good. The demands and the discipline
required by the common good apply to all within
the framework of laws and contracts that can
always be improved.

The church proclaims and sustains these
various rights of the workers because men and
their dignity are at stake, it does this in the deep
and ardent conviction that a man who works
becomes a cooperator with God. He is made in
God’s image. He has received the mission of
administering the universe so as to deveiop its
riches and assure them a universal destination, to
unite men in mutuai service and in common
creation of a worthy and beautiful way of living for
the glory of the Creator.

Workers, never forget the great nobility which,
as men and women and as Christians, you ought to
imprint upon your work, even the most humbie and
insignificant. Never iet yourseives be degraded by
work. Rather seek to live thoroughiy that true
dignity of labor which God’s word and the church’s
teaching put in evidence. Work reaiiy makes you
above ail collaborators with God in carrying
forward the work of his creation. Go on with that
dynamism which is contained in the command
given to the first man to popuiate the earth and ruie
it (Cf. Gen. 1 ,28). Go on, with sweat on your brows,
yes, but above all with just pride in being created
in the image of God himself.

64



Work associates you more closely with the
redemption that Christ accomplished through the
cross. It does so when it leads you to accept
everything that is painful, fatiguing, mortifying and
crucifying in the daily monotony; when it leads you
even to unite your sufferings with the Savior’s
sufferings so as to fill up “what is lacking in the
sufferings of Christ, for the sake of his body, the
church” (Col. 1,24). Therefore, work leads you in
the end to feel at one with all your brethren here in
Brazil and in the whole world. It makes you
builders of the great human family and of the
whole church as well in the bond of charity, for
each is called to aid the other (Cf.Gal. 6,2) in ever
recurrent need for mutual collaboration and in that
interpersonal aid whereby we men and women are
necessary to each other, without excluding
anyone.

This is the Christian concept of labor. It sets out
from faith in God the Creator and, through Christ
the redeemer, arrives at the edification of human
society, oneness with man. Without this vision any
effort is lacking and wasted, however tenacious it
may be. It is fated to disappoint, to fail. Build on
this foundation. And if they tell you that in order to
defend labor’s gains it is necessary to put this
Christian vision of existence aside or even to
cancel it out, do not believe them. Without God and
without Christ man builds on sand. He betrays his
own origin and his nobility. In the end he comes to
do harm to man, to offend his brother.

8. You work in the situation of a big city that
continues to grow rapidly. It is a reflection of the

65



incredible possibilities of the human race, which is
capable of admirable achievements but is also
capable of tearing and grinding man down when
spiritual motivation and moral orientation are
absent.

An exclusivist economic logic often invades all
fields of existence, spoiling the environment,
threatening families and destroying all respect for
the human person. Such logic is even more
depraved by crass materialism. Factories
discharge their waste, deform and pollute the en-
vironment; the air becomes unbreathable. Waves
of migrants pile up in indecent shacks, many lose
hope there and end in misery. Children,
y'xjngsters, adolescents find no living space for
developing their physical and mental energies
fully. They are often restricted to unhealthy quar-
ters or must wander in the streets and live in the
flow of traffic between cement walls and the
faceless multitude that wears them down and
never becomes individually known to them. There
are districts where life is lived with all modern
comforts. Beside them are others where the most
elementary things are not to be found. Some
peripheral areas are growing in disorder. Develop-
ment is often a gigantic version of the parable of
the rich man and Lazarus. The proximity between
luxury and penury heightens the feeling of
frustration in the unfortunate. A fundamental
question therefore becomes imperative: how is the
city to be transformed into a truly human city in its
natural environment, its constructions and its in-
stitutions?

An essential condition is that of giving the
economy human meaning and logic. What I said

66



about work holds good here too. It is necessary to
liberate the various fields of existence from the
dominion of subjugating economism. It is
necessary to put economic demands in their
proper place and create a multiform social texture
such as will avoid massification. No one is dispen-
sed from cooperating in this task. We can all do
something in ourselves and around ourselves. Is it
not true that the most neglected districts are often
the places where solidarity arouses gestures of the
greatest self-detachment and generosity?
Christians, wherever you may be, take your share
of responsibility in this immense effort for bringing
human restructuring to the city. Faith makes this a
duty. Faith and experience together will give you
light and energy to start moving.

9. Christians have the right and the duty to con-
tribute so far as they are able to building up
society. And they do so through associations! and
instutional frameworks that a free society operates
with participation by all. The church as such does
not claim to run society or to take the place of
lawful organs of deliberation and action. It only
claims to serve all those who at any level take on
responsibilities for the common good, its service is
essentially in the ethical and religious order. But,
in accordance with its mission and in order to
guarantee such service, the church demands with
full right a space for the indispensable liberty to
seek to maintain its specific religious nature.

So all communities of Christians, both basic
communities and parishes, diocesan communities
or the whole national church community ought to
make their specific contributions to buiiding up

67



society. All man’s concerns must be taken into
consideration. This is so because evangelization,
the church’s reason for being, any ecclesial com-
munity’s reason for being, would not be complete
unless it took into account the relations existing
between the Gospel message and man’s personal
and social living, between the commandment to
love one’s suffering and needy neighbor and con-
crete situations where injustice must be com-
batted, and justice and peace be installed.

May this meeting of ours today around Jesus
Christ bring with it the certainty that the church
wills to be present with all its Gospel message in
the heart of the city, in the heart of the poorest
people of the city, in the heart of each one of you.
You are loved by God, workers of Sao Paulo and
Brazil. And you ought to love God. This is the
secret of your joy, of a joy that will flow from your
hearts and shine in your faces and on the city’s
face as a sign that it is a human city.

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‘ 7 wouldabove all answer a number ofquestions that
must have more and less consciously come to the surface
in your hearts: Why has the pope come from so far to us?
What motives have brought him?”

HOMILY AT MASS
Porto Alegre. July 5, 1980

Venerable brothers, most beloved children,

1. Laudetur Jesus Chrlstus! (Praised be Jesus
Christ)

It Is with these words of Christian greeting that i
would address you at this meeting which
providence has set in the schedule of my journey
through Brazil in this hour of spiritual plenitude.

I thank you for the comfort that this so
affectionate and cordial welcome brings me. Do
not be concerned, however, with my humble
person. Rather raise your hearts to him whom that
person represents and serves, the Lord Jesus
Christ. I come to you in his name. He wiil soon
come down upon this altar. All honor and glory to
him, particulariy on this day which is iit by the mild
and peaceful triumph of the Eucharist in Brazilian
lands.

I would now meet a desire of yours, one that
perhaps has not even been expressed, i wouid
above ali answer a number of questions that must
have more and less consciously come to the

69



surface in your hearts: Why has the pope come
from so far to us? What motives have brought
him?

Well, most beloved sons and daughters, the
reason is this: I come so as to get to know you
better, to listen to you, to get into dialogue with
you, to show you that the church is close to you
and shares your problems, your difficulties and
sufferings, your hopes. I am the first pope to come
to this most beautiful country. I come, then, in
order to thank the Lord together with you for the
invaluable gift that has been made to you, the gift
of the Catholic faith. Your marvelous country,
where nature pours out immense riches, is a young
country. It is open to the future and shows
impressive vigor in all sectors of human life. But
your greatest wealth is the religious and moral
heritage of your Christian tradition. This heritage
deserves to be preserved at all costs. But, even
more, it ought also to enter into the nation’s
ascending course, to be the nation’s soul. This
should be so in order that, just as the subsoil of
your history yesterday was Catholic, so also the
spirit of your society may be alive and active in the
Christian way today.

I come to carry out the mission received by Peter
and his successors. I come to confirm you in the
faith. We heard in the second reading that Paul
went about cities already evangelized, exhorted
Christians to observe the apostolic teaching and
confirmed them in the faith that they had received.
(Cf. Acts 16,4-5). I pray to God that this apostolic
journey of mine may have the same meaning for
you and obtain the same result.

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Therefore, most beloved sons and daughters,
here is the best wish that I can give you, the
guidance that I desire to leave with you as
remembrance of my journey. It is the words of St.
Peter to the communities of the eariy church;
“Remain firm in the faith” (1 Pt. 5,9), firm in
interior, fuli and sincere adherence to the Gospei,
firm in exterior prociamation of it. Your
prociamation of it ought to be free of ail
immoderation or disrespect for the opinions of
others, but it ought to be frank, courageous,
coherent, persevering and worthy of the faith of
your fathers.

2. You are a nation that is today at a stage of
feverish transformation. This is bringing no iittie
changes about, as you weil know, not oniy in the
iook of the country, but even more in inner life and
the peopie’s way of iiving as weli.

Will the Christians of Brazil be ready to face the
shock caused by this transition from oid to new
economic and sociai structures? Wili their faith be
in a condition to remain unshakeable?

In other times it was enough for many to have a
modest mastery of elementary Instruction and that
sincere popuiar reiigiousness which is so
profoundiy rooted, with its various expressions, in

the sociai and cuitural texture of your nation.

Today it is no ionger so. The spread of cuiture,
the criticai spirit, the publicity given to ali

questions and debates require fuiier and deeper
knowiedge of the faith. Popular religion itseif ought
to be nourished with ever more extensive
expianations of reveaied truth, and it ought to be

71



freed from elements that make it seem inauthentic.
It has need of that solid food of which St. Paui
speaks, in other words, a serious and systematic
effort at catechesis is imperativeiy necessary. This
is the probiem before you today with ali its gravity
and urgency.

Providentiaiiy this effort is already being made in
your country. That effort corresponds to the
church’s fundamental task, to her prime and
specific mission. Your bishops said at Puebla, “We
have been evangelized by the Lord in his spirit, we
have been sent to bring the good news to aii the
brethren, especiaily to the poor and forgotten’’
(n.164).

This is a grandiose duty and all of us are called
to make our contribution. A building consists of
many stones. Its construction is the resuit of the
joint effort of him who formed the idea and him who
put the pians into practice.

3. So it is with the church, as we see today. The
great constructor of the church is God. He formed
the idea and continues to give it iife. But the
stones are those who serve as dociie and ready
instruments for the Hoiy Spirit’s action and who
transmit this marvelious inheritance of faith. Now it
is for you to extend it, so that the coming of God’s
reign may be a reaiity.

What service can be more beautifui than that of
the catechist who announces the divine word and
joins in iove, confidence and respect with his
brother so as to heip him to discover and realize
God’s providential designs in this regard?

72



Yet at the same time it is an extremeiy hard and
deiicate task. This is so because catechesis is not
simpiy teaching, but is the transmission of a
message of iife, the iike of which it wiii never be
possible to find in other expressions of human
thought, however sublime.

When we say “message” we mean something
more than a doctrine. How many doctrines after all
never succeed in becoming messages.

A message is not limited to putting out ideas. It
demands a response, since it is an interpellation, a
query from one person to another, he who gives
the message and he who answers it.

A message is life. Christ announced the good
news, salvation and happiness: “How blest are the
poor in spirit, blest the meek, blest the
persecuted...” (Cf. Mt 5, 3-1 1); and again, “I leave
you my peace, I give you my joy” (cf. Jn 14, 27;
5,11).

The multitudes listened to him because they saw
hope and fullness of life in him (cf. Jn. 10, 10).

In addition to that, it is necessary to respect this
divine message, for man is not the judge of God’s
word and work (cf. “Catechesi Tradendae,” nn.
17,29,30,49,52,58,59). Man ought to respect it by
keeping himself faithful, to Christ above all, to his
truth, to his commandment — otherwise there will
be alteration, betrayal — and faithful to man, for
whom the Lord’s word and message are intended
— not man in the abstract, imaginary man, but
concrete man who lives in time, with his dramas,
his hopes. It is to this man that the Gospel ought to
be announced, so that in it and through it he may
receive strength from the Holy Spirit to realize

73



himself fully in the integrity of his being and his
vaiues.

Consequentiy, the effectiveness of catechesis
wiii iargely depend on this capacity to give a
meaning, a Christian meaning, to everything that
makes up man’s iife in his time, as man among
men, citizen among citizens.

4. As for the theme of catechesis, you know that
the church’s thought on the matter was ampiy
expressed in the recent apostolic exhortation
“Catechesi Tradendae.” I wiil not try to repeat
what is said in that document. However, i would
call your attention to a few points as they touch
more neariy on the needs of the church in Brazii.

Catechesis in the family: Nothing can come
before this. It lays the basis in the child’s early
years of life of what his future may be. Therefore
his parents ought to understand the importance of
their mission in this regard. By virtue of their
baptism and matrimony they are their children’s
first catechists. Educating the young is actually
really a continuation of the act of begetting them.
In our age God comes particularly “through the
part played by the family’’ (“General Catechetical
Directory,’’ 79).

Children need to know and to see that their
parents love each other, that they respect God,
that they know how to explain the first truths of the
faith (cf. “Catechesi Tradendae,” n. 36), that they
know how to present “the Christian content”
through testimony and perseverance in “daily life
lived according to the Gospel.” (ibid. n. 68)

74



Testimony is fundamentai. God’s word is
efficacious in itseif, but it takes on concrete
meaning when it becomes reaiity in the person
announcing it. To a chiid there is no distinction
between a praying mother and prayer. More, such
prayer has special value because it is the mother’s
prayer.

Beloved parents listening to me, do not permit
your children to come to individual, social and
professional maturity while remaining children in
matters of religion. It is not true to say that faith is
an option for adult age. True option presupposes
knowledge. There can never be choice among
things that have not been wisely and adequately
expounded.

Catechist parents, the church has confidence in
you, she hopes much from you.

In addition, I would strongly recommend parish
catechesis. The parish is where catechesis can
deploy all its richness. There, associated with the
hearing of the word, prayer, celebration of the
Eucharist and the other sacraments, fraternal
communion and the exercise of charity, the
Christian mystery is announced and lived. There is
pressing need for each parish to become a place
where catechesis will take up most attention and
the parish rediscover its “own vocation. This
vocation is that of being a family house, a fraternal
and welcoming home where the baptized and the
confirmed may gain awareness of being people of
God ’’ (ibid. n. 67)
Then there is religious instruction in schools. A

citizen is trained at school through cultural and
professional education. Education of religious
conscience is a right of the human person. The

75



young demand to be set on the path of all
dimensions of culture. They also wish to be able to
find possibilities at school for getting to know the
fundamental problems of existence. First place
among these is taken by the problem of the
response that they ought to give to God. It is
impossible to arrive at auttentic life choices when
there is a will to disregard the religion that has so
much to say in that regard. It is likewise impossible
when there is a will to restrict religious instruction
to vague and neutral teaching. This is useless, for
it is without relation to concrete models coherent
with a people’s tradition and culture.

The church defends this duty to be in the school.
She has not thought nor does she think of
privileges. She strives for integral and ample
education and for the rights of families and
persons.

5. Finally, I would recall the great contribution
that comes to us from the means of social
communication.

We cannot fail to admire how enormously they
are developed. Culture reaches all points through
them; there are no longer barriers of space and
time. These means penetrate homes and reach the
humblest and farthest of places.

They offer many advantages. They inform
rapidly, they instruct, entertain, make men
brothers. They join rational expression with image,
with symbol, with personal contact. The word is
linked with esthetic and artistic expression.

76



Their power is such that they add power to what
they mention and take it away from what they do
not mention.

They entail a number of dangers: leveling of
culture, consequently reducing of culture,
passivity and emotivity in hearers and viewers,
impoverishment of critical sense, manipulation of
minds, hence of the impulse for evasion and
hedonism.

These defects, however, are not the fault of
technology and its means, but of man, who makes
use of them. Catechesis was until lately above all
expressed in writing. Now it is called upon more
and more to find expression through these new
instruments. The task is a big and a very
responsible one. We need to act through the
communications media and at the same time
educate in use of them (cf. “Inter Mirifica,” 3). We
shall build up the church to the degree that we
know how to work in this field.

6. Most beloved children, however substantial
and certain, catechesis would have little value if it
were not conveyed with efficient expression and
the support of these didactical aids that are today
offered in ever richer and promising forms.
Catechesis requires “ars docendi” of a special
kind, a pedagogy of its own. Ordinary information
is not enough for having that art. Often it is partial
and empirical, as may be that of any priest or
Religious or any layman or laywoman with religious
instruction.

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Many cultural, didactic and, above all, moral
elements are necessary for giving the catechist
that prestige and effectiveness which ought to
mark him. Does not a danger perhaps exist here
that through lack of such requirements
catechetical teaching may be not only fruitless but
sometimes even harmful as well? For this reason it
is with great satisfaction that we learn that
catechesis training schools are appearing and
multiplying among you, so as to give catechists the
chance to be properly prepared in doctrine and
didactics and spirituaiity through progressive
training. So you can understand how I am full of
hope, to which i add insistent prayer, and so form
my warmest good wishes for fruitful results from all
these sensible initiatives.

Today’s Gospel speaks to us through symbols of
life and growth, which is sometimes slow, but is
constant: The seed that is cast upon the soli and
develops into an ear of corn, the grain of mustard
that grows into a bush where the birds of the air
find sheiter (cf.Mk.4,1-2; 26-32). May each and ali
of you meditate well upon the meaning of these
words of the Lord’s, and, as each lives his and her
specific vocation and mission in the church, may
you keep this iife within you and share in its
growth, so as to aid others to grow in firm and
mature faith too.

Most beioved chiidren, i speak to you with
profound affection. I give you some guidelines, but
above ali I would encourage you. May the Lord
bless you on the path that you have taken,
laudably and with joy. I recommend all of you to
Mary most holy, “mother and model of catechists’’
(“Catechesis Tradendae,” 73).

78



“What course is the world on? Where is it going? 1 am
not speaking to you here as an economist or sociologist,

but by virtue ofthe mandate and mission as universal
pastor ofthat church. . . described as ‘expert in

humanity
’

'

ADDRESS TO BUILDERS
OF A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY
Salvador. July 6, 1980

Dearest brothers and sisters,

1 . Here I am in your city, which hangs,
magnificent, over the Bay of Aii Saints, it is with
immense joy that I contempiate you gathered in
this numerous assembly at this stadium.

I greet your cardinai, Aveiar Brandao Vileia, his
coadjutor archbishop, his auxiiiary bishop, and his
ciosest coliaborators. I greet the state and city
authorities, i greet the priests, and men and
women Reiigious here present. I greet this
muititude, in which I see very dear sons and
daughters, i search your faces one by one, I grasp
your hands and offer you an embrace, in the
church we are not a shapeless and faceless mass,
we are not impersonal and unknown one to the
other. We are the people of God. We are loved, one
by one, by the Father, in the Son, through the Hoiy
Spirit. We are persons capable of responding to
the appeal of this God’s everiasting love. He has
known us always and predestined us to conformity

79



with the image of his Son. He caiied us, he justified
us, and he giorified us (Cf.Rom.8,30). So, we are
brethren, we love each other and form one sole
body.

I salute you, people of God who are in Sao
Salvador da Bahia. I greet this church, which is
eternally loved by the Lord, I greet it with words
used by St. Paul which the liturgy makes its own:
“The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of
the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be
with you all” (Cf.2 Cor. 13,13)

2. This meeting is dedicated to: “Builders of a
Pluralistic Society Today.” They have come here
especially, as a sign of the extraordinarily rich
reality of human, intellectual and social powers
which Brazil represents in the world. I therefore
greet you in a particular fashion, brothers and
sisters. You make construction of society your
ideal, your honor, your daily work. Every man is a
builder of the society in which he lives. The
Second Vatican Council brought out this truth:
“The laity” it said, “must take on renewal of the
temporal order as their own special obligation. Led
by the light of the Gospel and the mind of the
church, and motivated by Christian love, let them
act directly and definitively in the temporal sphere.
As citizens they must cooperate with other
citizens, using their own particular skills and ac-
ting on their own responsibility. Everywhere and in
all things they must seek the justice characteristic
of God’s kingdom” (“Decree on the Apostolate of
the Laity,” 7).

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In you all I see builders of the Brazil of today and
tomorrow. If Brazil has arrived within sight of the
21st century as a nation full of promise, this is
thanks to the efforts of individuals who have con-
tributed towards building up their own community,
their city and their nation by seeking their own im-
provement and the well-being due to them, their
families, and their fellow citizens. You are likewise
called to construct the future of your country, a
future of peace, prosperity and concord. That
future will be guaranteed only when all citizens, in
accordance with their responsibilities and with a
single common concern, will be able to create and
keep up social relations based on respect for the
common good that puts man, God’s creation, in the
center of all things.

i wouid vigorously emphasize this reality. I ad-
dress one and ail of you, those present and those
absent: workers and industrialists, professional
men and women and students, economists and ar-
tists, men of science and technology, artisans,
craftsmen, journalists, politicians and people on
the land, dwellers in big and small cities. All of you
in some way and to some degree are builders of
the pluralist society of today.

The word pluralist itself already tells of the com-
plexity and richness of the modern world, its
dynamism, its vitality, its continuous ascent
towards higher levels. Congratulations, men and
women who are building the world of today and of
tomorrow

3. What course is the world on? Where is it
going? I am not speaking to you here as an

81



economist or sociologist, but by virtue of the man-
date and mission as universal pastor of that
church which my unforgettable predecessor Paul
VI described as “expert in humanity.”

The grand spectacle of power and creative and
constructive capacity in man which modern
society displays arouses amazement and ad-
miration in us. No less frightening is the spectacle
of alienation to which society has very often been
reduced. On my first coming to your continent I felt
the need to say to the bishops of Latin America
assembled at Puebla, “One of the most notable
weaknesses of present civilization lies in an
inadequate vision of man. Ours is doubtless the
epoch in which there has been most writing and
talking about man, it is the epoch of humanisms
and anthropocentrisms. Yet, paradoxically, it is
also the epoch of profound anxieties in man about
his identity and destiny, and of abasement of man
to levels once unimaginable: it is the epoch when
human values are trampled down as never before”
(Opening Discourse, i,9).

There is no need to tell you, for you all know very
well, of the harm done to man by a self-sufficient
culture and technology closed to the transcendent,
man reduced to being a sheer instrument of
production, the victim of preconceived ideologies
or the cold logic of economic laws, manipulated for
utilitarian ends or group interests, that disregarded
or disregard man’s true good.

The very word “pluralism” bears a danger within
it. In a society that likes to call itself “pluralist”
there is actually a diversity of beliefs, of
ideologies, of philosophical ideas. However,
acknowledgement of this reality, this plurality.

82



does not exempt me —nor any Christian adhering
to the Qospei — from affirming what is the
necessary base, the unquestionable principle that
ought to support all activity directed toward con-
structing a society that ought to meet man’s
requirements, both on the level of material goods
and on the levelof spiritual and religious goods, a
society founded on a system of values which can
defend it from individual or collective egoism.

4.Conscious as I am of the universal mission
that has brought me among you in these days, I
have the duty to proclaim God’s word loudly:
“Unless the Lord build the house they labor in vain
who build it” (Ps.126, 1).

This is the reply that the church must give, today
above all: society may not be built without God,
without God’s help. That would be a contradiction.
God is the guarantee of a society made to man’s
measure: first because he imprinted the supreme
nobility of his image and likeness within man
(Cf.Gen. 1,26 Sqq.); then, because Jesus Christ
came to restore that image that had been stained
by sin. As “redeemer of man,” he gave it back its
the unrenounceable dignity of its origin. External
structures, international communities, states,
cities, each man’s activity, ought to lay stress upon
this reality, and give it the space it needs. Other-
wise they fall to pieces or become a facade without
a soul.

The church founded by Christ shows man of
today the path to follow for building up the earthly
city, which is the prelude to the heavenly city,
although it is not free of antipathies and con-

83



tradictions. The church shows the way to building
society to function in terms of man, in respect for
man. Its task is to bring the leaven of the Gospel
into all fields of human activity. It is in Christ that
the church is “an expert in man.”

Perusing the history of your fatherland, I could
not fail to notice that, as it carried out its mission in
other centuries, the church contributed to making
that same history, to determining the values that
constitute the cultural history of the Brazilian
people. The church is linked to your people in
such a way that to eliminate it would mean
mutilating the people’s social and cultural
patrimony. Therefore the church must go on
collaborating in construction of your society, by
discerning and nourishing aspirations for justice
and peace that it finds in individuals and in the
people, with its wisdom and its effort to promote
such aspirations. The church will respect the com-
petence of public men in these matters. It will not
claim to intervene in politics, it will not aspire to
share in managing temporal affairs. Its specific
contribution will be to fortify the spiritual and moral
bases of society, by doing what is possible for all
or any activity in the field of the common good to
go on in harmony and coherence with the direc-
tives and demands of a human and Christian ethic.

5. Still with concrete reality as the object, the
concrete task performed in common, this service is
above all a service of formation of consciences. It
means proclaiming the moral law and its demands,
denouncing errors and attacks against the moral
law and man’s dignity, upon which that law is
based; it means clarifying, convincing.

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This is what I observed in the speech at Puebia
already mentioned: “Particuiar care must be given
to forming a sociai conscience at ail levels and in
aii sectors. When injustices increase and when the
distance between rich and poor painfuiiy in-
creases too, social doctrine ought to be a vaiuable
instrument for training and action, in a creative
form, open to wide fieids of the church’s action”
(Opening Speech, 3,7).

The church does not propose a concrete
politicai or economic modei in its sociai doctrine;
but it shows the way, presents principles. And it
does so by reason of its evangeiizing mission, by
reason of the evangeiicai message, which has man
as its objective, in his eschatoiogicai dimension,
but aiso in the concrete context of his historicai
situation, today; it does so because it beiieves in
man’s dignity, as being created in God’s image, in
the dignity that is intrinsic to every man and every
woman, and every chiid, whatever be the piace
that he occupies in society.

Every man has the right to expect that society
wiii respect his human dignity and aiiow him to
maintain a life in accord with that dignity, in the
speech which i deiivered before the Organization
of American States (OAS) on Oct.7 iast year, i set
forth man as the sole criterion giving meaning and
direction to aii commitment by those responsibie
for the common good, whether simpie citizens or
vested with power.

I proposed the concrete man as the criterion, in
these words: “When there is taik of the right to iife,
to physical and moral integrity, to nourishment, to
shelter, to education, to heaith, to work, to respon-
sibie participation in the nation’s iife, the taik is of

85



the human person. And this human person often
happens to be in danger, famished, without a
decent house and work, without access to the
culturai heritage of his peopie or of mankind, and
without voice enough to make his troubles be
heard, it is necessary to give fresh life to the great
cause of ail-round development. This ought to be
done precisely by those who already enjoy those
goods in one way or another. They ought to put
themseives at the service of aii those —so
numerous on your continent — who are deprived of
these same goods to a degree which is at times
dramatic” (Speech to the OAS, Oct.6, 1979, n.5).

6. Putting man in the center of ail social activity
therefore means feeling concern at every injustice
because it offends man’s dignity. Taking man as
the criterion means committing oneseif to tran-
sformation of every unjust situation and reality, so
as to turn them into eiements for a just society.

That was the message which I directed to the
authorities of this country; this is the message that
I presented to the workers of Sao Paulo. This is
aiso the message that i bring to you today, buiiders
of society who are listening to me here, in Sao
Saivador da Bahia.

Every society ought to estabiish a just sociai or-
der uniess it wishes to be destroyed from within.
This appeal is not a justification of the ciass
struggie — for the ciass struggle is destined to
steriiity and destruction — but it is an appeai to a
nobie struggie for the sake of sociai justice
throughout society.

86



You all, who have taken the name of builders of
society, have a certain power in your hands,
because of your positions, your situations, or your
activities. Use that power in the service of sociai
justice. Reject that kind of reasoning which is in-
spired by the coliective egoism of a group or of a
ciass or is based on the motivation of one-sided
material profit. Reject violence as means of
resolving the problems of society, since vioience is
contrary to life, it destroys man. Appiy your power,
be it political, economic or culturai, to the service
of soiidarity embracing the whole of man, in the
first place men and women who are most in need,
whose rights are most frequently violated. Put
yourselves on the side of the poor, in consistency
with the church’s teaching, on the side of all who
in some way are the most deprived of spirituai or
materiai goods, to which they have a right.

“How blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt. 5,3).
Blessed are they who know how to save their
human dignity in the midst of want. But biessed
aiso are they who do not iet themseives be
possessed by their possessions, who do not ailow
their sense of social justice to be stifled by at-
tachment to their goods. Truiy blessed are the poor
in spirit!

7. in presenting this message of justice and iove
to you the church is true to its mission and aware
of serving the good of society, it does not consider
that it is its task to enter into political activities, but
it knows that it is at the service of the good of
mankind. The church does not combat power, but
proclaims that power is for the good of society and

87



the safeguarding of society’s sovereignty, that
power is necessary. And that oniy this justifies
it.The church is convinced that it is its right and its
duty to promote a sociai pastorate, that is, to exert
an influence, through the means proper to it, so
that society may become more just, thanks to joint,
decided, but always peaceful action on the part of
all citizens.

So I will speak to all who in some sector of
society are builders of this society and to whom
my word reaches, with the church’s word, here in
Salvador or any other part of Brazil.

To you chiefly who have special responsibilities
because of your position and power as Christians.
To you political leaders or militants I would

remind you that the political act par excellence is
that of being coherent with a moral calling and true
to an ethical conscience which, above and beyond
personal or group interests, has the common good
of all citizens in view.

I speak to you, educators, who have the task of
explaining to the young and holding a dialogue
with them about the values through which they in
their turn will become builders of society. I ask you
to base your work on solid foundations and in-
culcate a sense of the dignity of the human person
in our youth.

Entrepreneurs, traders and industrialists, I
exhort you to put man first in your plans and
projects, that man who is a builder of society,
through his labor and the produce of his hands and
his wits. He is first a builder of his own family, then
of broader communities. Do not forget that every
man has a right to work, not only in cities and in

88



great industrial concentrations but in the coun-
tryside as well.

Men of science, technicians, I have the right to
remind you: that the ethical always takes first
place over the technical and man over things.

To you, workers, I have to say: construction of
society is not the task only of those who control
the economy, industry and agriculture. You build
society also with your sweat, for your children and
for the future. If you have the right to say your say
about economic and industrial activity, you also
have the duty to shape what you say according to
the demands of the moral law, which is justice,
dignity, and love.

For you, specialists in communications, I have a
request: do not shackle the soul of the masses
with the power that you hold, by sifting information
and by exclusively promoting the consumer
society, where abundance is accessible only to a
minority. Be above all spokesmen for man, his
rightful demands and his dignity. Be instruments of
justice, of truth, and of love. Defend what is human
and give man access to full truth.

8.Yes, brothers and sisters, building society is
first of all a matter of acquiring a conscience; not
in the exclusive sense of gaining knowledge of the
results of a certain situation analysis or survey of
the evils of society, but in the full meaning of the
word, that is forming one’s consciousness ac-
cording to the demands of God’s law, of Christ’s
message about man, of the ethical dimension of all
human enterprise.

Building up society means committing oneself,
taking the side of conscience,of the principles of

89



justice, of brotherhood, of love, against the in-
tentions of egoism, vt/hich spoils brotherhood, and
hatred, which destroys.

Building society means going beyond barriers,
divisions, oppositions, so as to work together. Man
has the capacity to open to others. Christ asks us
in a stunning way, “Who is my brother?” No lasting
and truly human work is possible unless it be
made for all, through collaboration by all vital for-
ces in society,through interchange among all men
and women, without distinction of social position
or economic situation.

Finally, building society means continual con-
version of self, revision of one’s attitudes, so as to
detect sterile prejudices and discover one’s own
errors, in order to open up to the imperatives of a
conscience formed in the light of the dignity of
every human person, as was revealed and con-
firmed by Jesus Christ. It means opening heart and
spirit so that justice, love and respect for man’s
dignity and destinies may penetrate thought and
inspire action.

9. The church, that “expert in mankind,” offers
its collaboration for building up a world to man’s
measure. But it also calls for your full, sincere,
generous collaboration, without ulterior intentions.

It depends on each and every one of you
whether the future of Brazil is to be a future of
peace, whether Brazilian society is to be life
together in justice. I believe that the time has come
for every man and every woman in this immense
country to resolve to use the wealth of their talents

90



and consciences decidedly for giving life to the
nation on a basis that shall guarantee development
of social realities and structures in justice. Anyone
who reflects on the reality of Latin America, as it
presents itself at this moment, is led to agree with
the statement that the realization of justice on this
continent faces a clear dilemma: either it will come
through profound and courageous reforms, ac-
cording to principles that express the supremacy
of the diginity of man, or itwill come — but without
lasting result and without benefit for man, of this I
am convinced —through the forces of violence.
Each one of you must feel that he is being
challenged by this dilemma. Each one of you must
make his choice at this historic hour.

Brothers and sisters, my friends be not afraid to
look ahead, to go forward,to set off for the year
2000. A new world must arise. In God’s name and
man’s, do not refuse. The church expects much
from you. “Will you, together with me, build the
world, raise it, make it better and more worthy of
you and your brethren, who are my brethren?” Do
not frustrate Christ’s expectation. Do not disap-
point the hopes of man, your contemporary.

In this immense but stupendous effort, know that
the pope is with you, prays for you, has you in his
heart, and, in Christ’s name, blesses you.

91



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“It is not enough effectively to have land in abundance,

as happens here in your beloved Brazil. One needs ajust
legislation in agrarian matters in order to be able to say

he has a society corresponding to the will of God, as

much as regards the land as the requirements ofthe
dignity ofthe human person, ofall human persons who
live on it.

' ’

HOMILY AT MASS IN RECIFE
Recife. July 7, 1980

Dear brothers and sisters, especially you,
peasants of the Northeast, and, through you, the
peasants of all Brazil:

1 . My first word is very simple but it arises from
an impulse of the heart. It is a word of very cordial
greeting to you. I greet you who are here, at the
cost of I know not what sacrifices. You certainly
came drawn by faith and with a desire to hear the
vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ. This gesture does
not surprise me, for I have long known of the great
religious spirit that is in you.

I greet you who could not be here in spite of your
great desire. I hope that my voice will be able to
reach you at least by radio.

For my part I would gladly greet you one by one,
but you will understand how that is totally im-
possible. But be certain, at least, as if I were telling
each of you singly, that the pope feels great con-
cern for you, he knows and values what you are

93



doing, he loves you as true children and he is
happy to be able to have this meeting.

It is not enough effectively to have land in abun-
dance, as happens here in your beioved Brazii.
One needs a just legisiation in agrarian matters in
order to be able to say he has a society correspon-
ding to the will of God, as much as regards the
land as the requirements of the dignity of the
human person, of ali human persons who live on it.
One needs legislation which may carry out and
serve the good of ali men and not oniy the interests
of minorities or individuais.

In addition to the abundance of iand and an
adequate iegislation one must achieve, above ali,
good wili and a sincere conversion of many to man
in his transcendent fullness.

The man of the fields Identifies himseif with his
work, with the land, from which fiows the
sustenance of so many, even in the great cities. He
piants deep roots there, which indelibly mark his
being. To tear him away from his native land, to
shove him toward an uncertain exodus in the
direction of the great metropolis or not to guaran-
tee his rights to the iegitimate possession of iand
means to violate his rights as a man and as a son
of God.

It means to introduce a dangerous
disequilibrium into society. In addition, measured
and human integrai development means to guaran-
tee always in balanced conditions both the
technologicai and industriai progress of a nation
and the priority of attention to agriculturai
questions, so indispensabie in our times in the am-
biance of an independent, harmonious and just
society. In this aspect I limit myself to calling at-

94



tention to the directives of my predecessor, John
XXlii, in the encyciicai, “Mater Et Magistra.”

“Where are you going?” I asked this question
on various stops of my apostoiic visit to Brazii. I
want to repeat it here for you and with you, for aii
those who in whatever measure are part of the
responsibiiity for the rurai worid and for the com-
mon good. “Where are you going?” May the repiy
be a courageous, firm, inspiring attitude of
Christian vaiues in defense of the promotion of the
rights of man, of the men of the fieid as weli as
those associated with them every day in life and in
the construction of a society more just and
therefore more human.

2. And why this meeting with the peasants of the
Northeast? First of aii because they play a role of
enormous importance in Braziiian society today
and deserve a word of stimuius and en-
couragement from him who has received the
mission of being universai pastor of the church.
Then, because you have to face particuiariy pain-
fui situations of living on the margins of society:
penury, undernourishment, unheaithy conditions,
iliiteracy, insecurity.

You therefore have the right to a word of comfort,
hope and guidance, such as a father owes in a
particuiar way to his more abandoned sons and
those most tried by iife. He cannot go through
Brazii without addressing his words to you.

3. It is a secret to no one that the worid is today
passing through a difficult hour in its history.
Grave probiems weigh upon aii sectors of the lives

95



of peoples and nations, on the agricultural sector
particularly. I had occasion to say on my visit to
the headquarters of the United Nations Food and
Agricultural Organization that agriculture is a sec-
tor that has “been maintained too long on the
margin of progress in living standards. It is a sec-
tor touched in a particularly painful manner by the
rapid and profound social and cultural changes of
our time. They bring out the injustices inherited
from the past, they disestablish people, families
and societies, they pile up frustrations and oblige
massive and chaotic migrations to take place”
(Nov. 12, 1979, No. 2).

I follow with endless interest the convergent ef-
forts of all good wills. I never let an occasion go
without taking care to support them with prayer,
with words, with my personal commitment. I do so
in hope that these efforts in the domain of
agriculture will arrive at the best solutions with a
view to the personal well-being of every man and
woman in respect for the requirements of the com-
mon good.

The considerations that I now go on to express
at our gathering here are dictated by one sole pur-
pose; On the basis of the church’s own mission
and the role proper to her, as far as possible
reflect them in the light of the church’s
magisterium in the social field and so try to
“establish the human community according to the
divine law” (cf. “Gaudium Et Spes,” No. 42). In this
way, with the power of the Spirit, which is the only
power that the church has, and with full respect for
the autonomy of temporal power, but with con-
sciousness of her responsibilities, the church will
not be lacking in an effort “to make human life ever

96



more human,” to arouse consciences and “make
every element of his life correspond to man’s true
dignity” (“Redemptor Hominis,” No. 14).

4. When we reflect seriously and calmly about
man and human life together in society,
enlightened and strengthened by God’s word and
the church’s teaching since the beginning, such
reflection tells us that the earth, the land, is a gift
from God. It is a gift that he makes to all human
beings, both men and women, that he wills all
human beings to be fathered in one sole family and
that they should relate with one another in the
spirit of fraternity (cf. “Gaudium Et Spes,” No. 24).

Therefore it is not licit, because it is not in ac-
cord with God’s design, to use this gift in such a
way that its benefits are to the advantage of only a
few, while others, the immense majority, remain
excluded. The imbalance is graver, and the in-
justice inherent therein cries louder, when that im-
mense majority is condemned by that same state
of affairs to a situation of want, poverty and life on
the margins of society.

The very right to property is legitimate in itself,
but in a Christian view of the world it must perform
its function and respect its social end (cf. Speech
to the Indian peasants at Cuilapan, Mexico, Jan.
28, 1979). So, in the use of goods possessed, the
general destination given them by God and the
requirements of the common good prevail over the
advantage, sometimes even over what are not
primary necessities, of private origin. This is true
as well — as I have already had the opportunity to

97



say -- when it is a question of the rurai world and
cultivation of the land, because the land was put at
man’s disposal by God.

We have just been listening to a reading from
the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. In it God
says, “Fill the earth and subdue it...

I
give you every

seed-bearing plant.. .and every tree that has seed-
bearing fruit on it to be your food” (Gen. 1 ,28-30).

The earth is man’s because God entrusted it to
him, and man masters it through his labor (cf. Gen.
1,28). So it is not admissible that in the general
development of a society men and women who live
in a rural area should be excluded from the true
progress worthy of man. They are those exactly
who are ready to make the earth productive
through the toil of their hands and are much in
need of land for feeding their families.

The Second Vatican Council of 15 years ago
was the church taking account of herself and of
the world. The council made reference exactly to
the question with which we are concerned. It
proclaimed: “In many areas, too, farmers ex-
perience special difficulties in raising products or
in selling them. ..Country people must be
helped...Otherwise. ..they will remain in the con-
dition of lower-class citizens” (“Gaudium Et Spes,”
No. 66). It is not unthinkable that they may be
reduced to even poorer circumstances.

A fundamental principle of the church’s thought
is that social organization is for service to man and
not the contrary. This principle holds good for all
and always. It applies chiefly to those who have
received a mandate from society to guarantee the
good of all.

98



The initiatives that they take ought to be
initiatives for man’s sake when they concern the
agricultural sector. They ought to be so at the
lawmaking ievel and on the level of the judiciary as
well as on the level of safeguarding citizen’s rights.
A situation where the popuiation — that of the rurai
area, too -- sees its human dignity being
disrespected is a situation that leads to ruin
because it ieaves the field open to other initiatives
inspired by hatred and by vioience.

5. Workers on the land like workers in any other
branch of production are above aii human persons.
They ought always to remain such in their own and
others’ eyes on the level of ideas and in the prac-
tical order. They must have possibilities for
reaiizing the potentials contained in their being,
possibiiities for “being more’’ and at the same time
being treated in accordance with their human
dignity. Since “work is for man and not man for
work,” a fundamental requirement whoiiy respect-
ful of his dignity is that he should be able to draw
necessary and sufficient means from his iabor for
meeting his famiiy and social responsibilities
decently. Man is never a mere “instrument” of
production.

Thus, in a weil-ordered politicai community
justice and humanity do not go together with, and
cannot be reconciied with, a certain abuse of
iiberty on the part of some. This abuse is linked
exactiy with a consumerist manner of behavior. It
is not controlied by ethics, since it simuitaneousiy
limits others’ liberty, that is, the liberty of those
who suffer notorious want and find themseives

99



being pushed down into conditions of further
misery and need (of. “Redemptor Hominis," 16) in
a gigantic version of the bibiical parabie of the rich
man and the poor man Lazarus (of. Lk. 16,19-31).

in that parabie Christ does not condemn the rich
man because he is rich or because he garbs him-
self luxuriously. He strongly condemns the rich
man who had no consideration for poor Lazarus’
state of penury, when Lazarus desired only to feed
on crumbs falling from the festive table. Christ
does not condemn simple possession of material
goods. But his harshest words are for those who
use their wealth in a egotistical way, without
bothering about their neighbor who lacks what is
necessary for him.

With those words Christ puts himself on the side
of human dignity, on the side of those whose
dignity is not respected, on the side of the poor.
“How blessed are the poor in spirit, the reign of
God is theirs” (Mt. 5,3). Yes, blessed are the poor,
the poor in material goods who yet keep their
dignity as men and women. Blessed are the poor,
those who for Christ’s sake have a special feeling
for the brother or sister who suffers need, for the
neighbor who suffers so many privations, including
hunger, through lack of work, through the im-
possibility of bringing bring up his children in a
worthy fashion.

Blessed are the poor, who know how to detach
themselves from their possessions and their power
so as to put them at the service of the needy, to
commit themselves to the search for a just social
order, to promote those changes of attitudes that
are necessary for those on society’s margins to
find a place at the human family’s table.

100



It is imperatively necessary that there be no
privileged social strata in respect to goods of
prime necessity: food, ciothing, sheiter, medicai
and sociai assistance, basic education,
professionai training, transportation, information,
entertainment possibiiities, reiigious iife. it is
iikewise necessary for there to be no outstanding
inequaiities between urban and rurai enrivonments
and that, where such are created, adequate
measures shaii be rapidiy applied to eiiminate or
reduce them wherever possibie. One and aii must
feel committed to this, individuais, sociai groups
and public authorities at ali ieveis.

6. Workerson the iand, and other workers as
weli, may not under any pretext be deprived of the
right to participate and communicate responsibiy
in the life of undertakings and organizations in-
tended for defining and safeguarding their in-
terests, iikewise in the hard and dangerous march
toward indispensabie transformation of the struc-
tures of economic iife, aiways for man’s sake.

Such active presence on the part of workers at
these various sociai ieveis to which their activities
are linked aiways presupposes an economy in ser-
vice of man with aii the truth of his being a per-
sonai being. But ciashes occur whenever iiberty is
confused with the instinct of individuai or coiiec-
tive interests or with the instinct of strife and
dominion. So, in order to overcome these ciashes,
whatever the ideoiogical coiors be that mark them
out, and for such workers’ participation to be ef-
fective and constructive, there is imperative need
for previous conversion of minds, wiiis and hearts.

101



There is need for the conversion of man to the
truth about man. Knowledge and acceptance of the
truth are the basic condition for liberty. “ Then you
wiii know the truth and the truth wiil set you free”
(Jn. 8,32).

7. God’s thought regarding the relationship of
man to earth is expressed in biblical language in
these terms: “The Lord then took the man and set-
tied him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and
care for it” (Gen. 2,15). We read in another
passage that he spoke as foiiows to the first
human couple: “Fill the earth and subdue it” have
dominion over creation (cf. Gen. 1,28).

Now “to rule” and “cultivate” the earth is the
principie that ought to be aiways observed by
mankind in administering this gift of God. This
principle lays down an absolutely obligatory line of
action for all who are responsible for and con-
cerned with the iand question: persons vested with
public powers, technicians, enterprisers and
workers.

It happens, however, that “man often seems to
see no other meaning in his naturai environment
than what serves for immediate use and con-
sumption. Yet it was the Creator’s wiil that man
should communicate with nature as an intelligent
and nobie ‘master’ and ‘guardian,’ and not as a
heedless ‘exploiter’ and ‘destroyer’” (“Redemptor
Hominis,” No. 15).

At the sight of the immense resources and mar-
velous beauties of this great nation a cry springs
from the soui: Cultivate and have care for your
beioved Brazil. Use and master its resources.

102



cause them to render more for man’s sake, the
man of today and tomorrow. Here, as regards em-
ployment of that gift of God’s which is the earth,
much thought must be given to coming
generations. A tribute must be paid, that of
austerity, so as not to weaken, reduce or, even
worse, make iiving conditions for future
generations unbearable. Justice and humanity
demand this.

8. One last word, especially for those who have
the happiness of waiking in Christ’s iight as they
work. Labor is production, the source of economic
goods, the means of gaining a iiving and so on. But
it shouid aiso be understood and lived as duty, as
iove, as a source of honor, as prayer.

This appiies to aii workers, naturaiiy, but it ap-
plies to you land workers in a special way. You are
called to render a service to men, your brethren, in
contact with nature. You work directiy with God,
the Creator and Father, in order that our planet —
Earth — may be more and more in conformity with
his designs, be the environment desired for ail
kinds of iife: of plants, of beasts, of men above all.

See, the “Lord’s are the earth and its fuilness,
the worid and those who dwell in it” (Ps. 24,1). Let
us do aii in our power as “knowing and nobie
guards” that, as it serves man, “ail on earth (may)
worship and sing praise to you, sing praise to your
name” aiways (Ps. 66,4).

I have spoken to you with an open heart for I am
aware that the church in fideiity to her Lord knows
that she must be open to human realities, must in-

103



terpret them in the light of the Gospel and cultivate
in those realities the good news. In this way she
tries to get men, when the case arises, to change
their criteria for judging, their favorite values, the
centers of their interest, their lines of thought, the
sources of their inspiration and their life models,
when these are in contrast with God’s designs (cf.
“Evangelii Nuntiandi,” 19).

9. It is known that initiatives on a vast scale are
being planned and put into practice in this country
for agriculture. May it please God that a Christian
humanism will always enlighten them, a true sense
of man. Man is one and all of you and every one of
those whom you represent here with your dignity
as persons and children of God. There is an im-
posing necessity for promptness and profundity in
facing a situation of which your silence tells with
great eloquence. Do not let your moral and
religious dignity ever be abased by acceptance of
feelings such as hatred or desire for violence.
Amen and peace!

Raise your eyes to your Father and Lord of all. It
is he that will give each the reward of what he
does.

I pray for those other brothers of ours, I pray for
you and with you, dear land worker brothers and
sisters, in your name and in God’s name, that there
will be efforts at collaboration and concord, that all
who have responsibility and are interested in the
well-being of every man will seek and apply real,
fitting and effective measures for satisfying the
rights of the man on the land, so as to aid him. I

104



refer to public authorities at national, state and
local levels, to groups, organizations and aii men of
good wiil, with the church’s specific contribution in
carrying out her mission, in this matter, whoever
has more must feel more obliged to cooperate.

We are the famiiy of the children of God. As your
brother, I would say this to you, beloved peasants
of Brazil: You are worth much. Preserve your
human and religious weaith: love for the family,
your sense of friendship and loyalty, your oneness
with the most needy among you, your respect for
the laws and for all that is rightful in social living,
your love for good harmony and peace, your trust
in God and your openeness to the supernatural,
your devotion to Our Lady, and more besides.
Here, before a church dedicated to her under a
title most dear to me -- that of Our Lady of Mount
Carmel -- I pray to God through Our Lady that he
may assist, comfort and help us all.
With my apostolic blessing.

105



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"The spread of culture, the critical spirit, the publicity
given to all questions and debates require fuller and
deeper knowledge of the faith. Popular religion itself
ought to be nourished with ever more extensive explan-
ation of revealed truth, and it ought to be freed from
elements that make it seem inauthentic.

' ’