ADDRESS OF PAUL VI
WITH REFERENCE TO THE TRAGIC DEATH
OF PRESIDENT JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY 

Saturday 23 November 1963

Your Excellencies and Gentlemen,

While we welcome you here today, We cannot commence Our discourse without a reference to the tragic death of the President of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. We wish to reiterate here the sentiments to which We have already given public expression: of deploration of the criminal action; of admiration for the man and the statesman; of prayers for his eternal repose, for his country, and for the world, which recognized in him a great leader; and finally of prayerful wishes that his death may not hinder the cause of peace, but serve as a sacrifice and an example for the good of all mankind.  

We take this occasion to send Our greetings to all the nations represented at this Audience, especially to those who have recently become members and associates of the Food and Agriculture Organization.

We pray that God may grant each country prosperity and peace, in international cooperation, and in well-organized modernized work-for work was not cursed by God, when He said: «In the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread» (Gen. 3, 19); that is, the honest sweat of good labour, according to the example of Christ, Who was Himself a workman. 

To solve the grave problem of the life of human kind, this, then, is the right road: to increase the supply of bread, of food; and not to mortify and destroy the fecundity of life, for the Creator ordered His first creatures to «Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth» (Gen. 9, 1).

We congratulate you on your notable accomplishments in this regard, We pray that your efforts to help the human race by incre-menting its food supply may be ever more successful, and to you, your collaborators and your families, We gladly impart a special Apostolic Blessing.