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ADDRESS OF CONDOLENCE Wednesady, 13 April 2005
Your Eminences, On the occasion of the death of His Holiness John Paul II, an extraordinary Pope who marked religious, moral and social history across the world, I present to you with deep emotion the most sincere condolences of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See. The loss of this great Pope has made a deep impression on the minds and hearts of all the Ambassadors charged to represent their countries to the Holy See during his long Pontificate. In fact, John Paul II was a constant reference point for all humanity: shortly alter his election, he asked all Catholics not to be afraid and to open their doors to Christ with filial trust. At the same time he initiated a constructive and fruitful dialogue for Christian unity with the Sister Churches and with all the other religions, and we all met twice in Assisi to pray. With great intellectual honesty, he did not hesitate to review the history of the Church once again, and at the same time he raised streams of martyrs of the Catholic Church to the honours of the altar. Through his Magisterium, he deeply marked the history of the last quarter of the 20th century and the beginning of the new one. He adamantly opposed the atheist and totalitarian ideologies, but also reminded the most developed countries on several occasions not to opt for selfish consumerism as the religion of their life, stressing with incredible vehemence, in a perspective of reciprocal solidarity, the central character of human beings, their dignity and their right to be able to satisfy their basic needs. John Paul II was not content with making exhortations in his Encyclicals, Pastoral Letters, Homilies and other Papal Documents; he wanted personally to be beside each person. He therefore made himself a pilgrim in the world and took his teaching to the farthest corners of the earth as a Pastor who loved all men and women, created in the image and likeness of God. Throughout his Pontificate, he observed human beings in all their dimensions, in both their temporal and transcendent aspects, in order to establish a new civilization that would be more realistic and enduring: the civilization of love. To build this civilization, he reached out to the world's young people, «dawn watchmen» and our hope tor the future, and bubbling over with their spontaneous, irresistible enthusiasm, the young people entrusted their future and their energy to him. Today, we are all mourning this Pope, this great man, with sincere grief, for we have lost the true friend of our human journey, and the sentiment we all feel in these days is profound loneliness. However, the words of Mark the Evangelist are a great comfort to believers as they face the sorrow of death. «The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how. The earth produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come» (Mk 4.26-28). It is conforting for us to think that John Paul II, reaped by the sickle of death, is henceforth the grain ripe tor the glory of Heaven. As for us, his powerful Magisterium lives on illuminated by the heroic courage with which he faced his suffering and offered it to God for humanity's salvation. His teaching strengthened us and made us more determined to act with greater equity and justice tor a better world. These are the sentiments with which we will follow the activity of the next Successor of Peter, whom you yourselves, Your Eminences, with your wisdom and with the intercession of the Holy Spirit, will be called upon to elect in the upcoming Conclave. On behalf of the Diplomatic Corps, I renew to you my most heartfelt condolences, and at the same time express the hope that the Church may have a new Pastor as soon as possible. *L'Osservatore Romano. Weekly Edition in English n°16 p.4.
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