(20 Mar 09 - RV) After a two hour flight from Cameroon, Pope Benedict arrived in
Luanda, Angola. It is the final stop on Pope Benedict's Apostolic Voyage to Africa....
Full
Text of Pope's Remarks at the airport in Luanda
March 20, 2009 4
de Fevereiro Airport Luanda, Angola
Mr President, Distinguished Civil
and Military Authorities, Dear Brother Bishops, Dear Angolan Friends,
With
sincere sentiments of respect and friendship, I set foot on the soil of this noble
and young nation in the course of a pastoral visit in which I intend to reach out
to the entire African continent, even if it has been necessary to restrict the itinerary
to Yaoundé and to Luanda. I would like everyone to know, however, that I keep very
much in my heart and in my prayers Africa in general and the people of Angola in particular,
whom I warmly encourage to continue along the path of peace-building and reconstruction
of the country and its institutions.
Mr President, I begin by thanking you
for your kind invitation to visit Angola and for the warm words of welcome that you
have just addressed to me. Please accept my respectful greetings and my very best
wishes, which I also extend to the other Authorities who have kindly come here to
receive me. I greet the whole of the Catholic Church in Angola in the persons of
the Bishops here present, and I thank all my Angolan friends for the affectionate
welcome they have given me. To those who are listening on radio and television, I
offer a further cordial greeting, certain of Heaven’s blessing on the common mission
that has been entrusted to us: that of building together a freer and more peaceful
society, marked by greater solidarity.
How can I fail to recall the famous
visitor who blessed Angola in June 1992: my beloved Predecessor John Paul II? A
tireless missionary of Jesus Christ to the furthest ends of the earth, he pointed
out the way towards God, inviting all people of good will to listen to their own rightly
formed consciences and to build a society of justice, of peace and of solidarity,
in mutual charity and forgiveness. For my part, I remind you that I come from a country
where peace and fraternity are dear to the hearts of all its people, in particular
those, like myself, who have known war and division between family members from the
same nation as a result of inhuman and destructive ideologies, which, under the false
appearance of dreams and illusions, caused the yoke of oppression to weigh down upon
the people. You can therefore understand how keenly aware I am of dialogue as a way
of overcoming every form of conflict and tension and making every nation – including
your own – into a house of peace and fraternity. With this in view, you must take
from your spiritual and cultural heritage the best values that Angola possesses, and
go out to meet one another fearlessly, agreeing to share personal resources, both
spiritual and material, for the good of all.
Dear Angolans, your land is abundant
and your nation is mighty. Make use of these advantages to build peace and understanding
between peoples, based upon loyalty and equality that can promote for Africa the peaceful
future in solidarity that everyone longs for and to which everyone is entitled. To
this end, I ask you: do not yield to the law of the strongest! God has enabled human
beings to fly, over and above their natural tendencies, on the wings of reason and
faith. If you let these wings bear you aloft, you will easily recognize your neighbour
as a brother or sister, born with the same fundamental human rights. Unfortunately,
within the borders of Angola, there are still many poor people demanding that their
rights be respected. The multitude of Angolans who live below the threshold of absolute
poverty must not be forgotten. Do not disappoint their expectations!
This
is a huge task, requiring greater civic participation on everyone’s part. It is necessary
to involve the whole of Angolan civil society in this effort; but society needs to
grow stronger and more articulated, both among its constitutive elements and in its
dialogue with the Government, before it can take up the challenge. Before there can
be a society that is truly solicitous for the common good, there have to be common
values, shared by all. I am convinced that modern Angola will be able to find such
values in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as happened long ago, at the time of your illustrious
forebear, Dom Alphonsus I Mbemba-a-Nzinga. Through his efforts, five hundred years
ago, a Christian kingdom emerged in Mbanza Congo which survived until the eighteenth
century. From its ashes, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a
renewed Church could arise which has continued to grow right up to our own days; may
God be thanked for it! This is the immediate occasion for my visit to Angola: to
be together with one of the oldest Catholic communities in sub-equatorial Africa,
to strengthen it in its faith in the risen Jesus and to join its sons and daughters
in praying that this time of peace in Angola, in justice and fraternity, may prove
lasting, allowing the community to carry out the mission that God has entrusted to
it for the good of its people within the family of Nations. May God bless Angola!