ADDRESS OF POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO MEMBERS
OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF KOREA

Thursday, 19 May 1983

Dear Friends,

I gives me great pleasure today to welcome your group to the Vatican. You have expressed a desire to meet the Pope, and I am happy that this has been possible.

As members of the National Assembly of Korea, you are active participants in the complex institutional processes by which the citizens of your country exercise their civil liberties in the achievements of the common good. Yours is a vocation of service to the social and political life of your fellow-citizens. This is a noble task which undoubtedly makes great demands upon your gifts and talents. It is your attitude of service to the common good that makes you promoters of order and peace. It is your intelligent and competent commitment to the promotion and safeguarding of the conditions required for the protection of the fundamental rights of the human person in public life which ennobles your parliamentary activity.

On the other hand, your faith in Christ and your Catholic understanding of the meaning of life can in no way detract from the effectiveness of your political service. Rather, the Gospel of the Shepherd of Peace which you profess constitutes a singular contribution to the common task of ‘furthering a just and lasting brotherhood among individuals and among nations.

As Parliamentarians you are qualified representatives of the beloved Korean people. I therefore wish to avail myself of your visit here today to ask you to take my personal greetings to President Chun Doo Hwan and the other authorities of the Republic, and to all its citizens. I pray to God that he may bless the Korean nation with peace and abundant progress in every field of life.