GREETING OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO A BUDDHIST DELEGATION FROM THAILAND

Room adjacent to Paul VI Audience Hall
Wednesday, 16 May 2018

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I offer you a warm welcome and I thank you for the precious gift of your Sacred Book translated into today’s language by the monks of Wat Pho Temple. It is a tangible sign of your generosity and of the friendship that we have shared for so many years, a journey made of many small steps. I think in particular of the meeting in the Vatican between Blessed Pope Paul VI and the Venerable Somdej Phra Wanaratana, whose portrait can be seen in the entrance of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, which you have visited in these days.

It is my heartfelt wish that Buddhists and Catholics will grow increasingly closer, advance in knowledge of one another and in esteem for their respective spiritual traditions, and offer the world a witness to the values of justice, peace, and the defense of human dignity.

With renewed gratitude for this meeting, I invoke upon on all of you the divine blessings of joy and peace.