MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER PAUL VI
TO THE REPRESENTATIVES OF
THE WORLD EXPOSITION AT OSAKA

Friday, 31 July 1970

Your visit as Our special Representative to the World Exposition at Osaka offers Us the welcome occasion to express Our warm good wishes and heartfelt greetings to the beloved people of Japan.
The Japanese Nation presents to the world the admirable spectacle of a people preserving its traditional heritage as well as looking for means of ever greater advance in all sectors. Surely this would not be possible without the atmosphere of freedom prevailing in the country. At the same time, Japan has ever since the end of the tragic Pacific War remained firmly dedicated to the principle of peacefulness in international relations.

The spirit of freedom and peace, so essential to all authentic Christianity, together with the proverbial industriousness of the Japanese people, may explain to a great extent the economic prosperity of the country and its technological progress, of which the present World Exposition presents such overwhelming evidence.

We heartily wish that the well-being of this nation may continue and increase and that the moral principles of its people may be strengthened ever more in their hearts. We pray for them to have in abundance divine enlightenment, that the national wealth may be shared in the name of social justice by as many of the people as possible, and that the great nation may wisely and generously use its skill and resources to assist in the name of international justice many less fortunate countries in the world.

With this hope in Our heart We invoke upon the noble people of Japan the choicest blessings of the Most High.

From the Vatican, June 8, 1970

PAULUS PP. VI