ADDRESS OF PAUL VI
TO THE NEW AMBASSADOR OF ZAMBIA
TO THE HOLY SEE*

Thursday, 22 April 1971

Mr. Ambassador,

We are very happy indeed to receive Your Excellency as you present the Letters of Credence by which you are accredited to the Holy See as the Representative of Zambia, and We welcome the kind message of greetings from your President, Dr. Kenneth David Kaunda, and your people.

We follow with interest, and much appreciate, the good intentions and noble efforts of Zambia in the many projects being sponsored and undertaken throughout the Country for betterment and social development.

May peace, understanding and toleration continue to be the aims of the Zambian people. These aims are foundations for human advancement and the basis of full and complete respect for the rights of man and his obligations-for there cannot be rights without obligations.

Only in the context of the rights and obligations of man is contented and ordered society attainable. In the correct balance between the exercise of his rights and the fulfillment of his obligations before other men and his Maker, man finds the secret of fundamental happiness.

It gives Us great consolation to know that these principles are recognised in Zambia where the Church receives such wholehearted understanding from the civil authorities.

We give assurance that the Catholic Church will always be at hand to help, with its experience and its religious and cultural resources, in the progress to that ideal human society which is based on the aspirations of social justice, peace and fraternal charity, animated by the presence of the spirit of God.

To your President and to the people of Zambia, for all of whom We have a very special affection, please convey Our sincere gratitude for their kind good wishes, give to them Our warm greetings, and tell them that they are constantly in Our mind and prayers. May your beloved Country ever be graced with rich and abundant blessing from the Almighty.

We assure Your Excellency that you will have the full cooperation of the Holy See in the consolidation and strengthening of those happy relationships which already exist between it and the Republic of Zambia, and We offer to you Our very best wishes for the successful accomplishment of your mission.

*AAS 63 (1971), p.369-370;

Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, vol. IX, p.326-327;

L’Attività della Santa Sede 1971, p.165;

OR 23.4.1971 p.1;

ORa n.17 p.9.