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Yesterday …yesterday morning, I went to the
Sistine to vote quietly. I would never have imagined what was going to happen...
As soon as the danger began for me, the two colleagues, who were close to me,
whispered me words of encouragement. One told me: 'Courage! If the Lord gives a
weight, He also gives help to carry it' and the other colleague: 'Don’t be
afraid, there are many people throughout the world who are praying for the new
Pope'. When the moment arrived, I have accepted.
Later it was the name, because they also ask
what name oneself wants to choose, and I had thought a little about it. I have
made this reasoning: Pope John himself wanted to consecrate me with his hands
here, in St. Peter’s Basilica. Later, although unworthily, in Venice, I have
succeeded him in St. Mark’s See, in that Venice that is still full of Pope
John. He is remembered by gondolieri, by Nuns, by everybody. But Pope Paul, not
only has made me Cardinal, but some months before, on the footbridge of St. Mark’s
Square, made me turn fully red before twenty thousand people, because he took
out the stole and put it on my shoulders. I have never turned so red! On the
other hand, in fifteen years of pontificate, this Pope has demonstrated, not
only to me, but to everybody, how it is possible to love, to serve and to work
and to suffer for the Church of Christ. For these reasons, I said: 'I will be
called John Paul'.
I do not have neither the sapíentia
cordis of Pope John, nor the preparation and the culture of Pope Paul, but I
am in their place. I must try to serve the Church. I hope you will help me with
your prayers.
There in Veneto, I used to hear: 'Every good
thief has his devotion'. The Pope has several devotions; among them, to Saint
Gregory the Great, whose feast is celebrated today.
In Belluno, the seminary is called 'Gregorian'
in honour to Saint Gregory the Great. I have spent seven years there as student
and twenty as professor.
Today, indeed, September 3rd,
he was elected as Pope and I officially begin my service to the universal Church.
He was Roman and became the first Magistrate
of the city. Later, he gave everything to the poor, he became a monk and was
appointed as the Pope' s secretary.
When the Pope died, he was elected and he did
not want to accept. The Emperor and the town took part. Finally, he accepted and
wrote to his friend Leandro, Bishop of Seville: 'I feel the desire of crying,
more than to speak'.
To the Emperor' s sister: 'the Emperor has
wanted that a monkey became a lion'. It is seen that already in those times it
was difficult to be a Pope.
He was so good with the poor. He had
converted England. And he mainly wrote very beautiful books; one of them is Regula
pastoralis: there he teaches to the bishops their mission, and in the
last part, he says: 'I have described the good shepherd but I am not; I have
shown the beach of perfection where to arrive, but personally I am still on the
waves of my defects and my faults; and then, please – he told – throw me a
table of salvation with your prayers so that I have not to be sunk'. I say the
same; but not only the Pope is needy of prayers, the world, too.
A Spanish writer has said: 'the world works
bad because there are more battles than prayers'.
Let us try that there can be more prayers and
less battles.
At Camp David, America, Presidents Carter and
Sadat and Prime Minister Begin are working for the peace in the Middle East.
All the men are hungry and thirsty of peace;
mainly the poor who are those that lose and suffer more in conflicts and wars;
that’ s why they watch with interest and great hope the meeting of Camp David.
Even the Pope has prayed, he exhorted to pray and continues praying so that the
Lord deigns to attend the efforts of these politicians.
I was very well impressed due to the fact
that the three Presidents have wanted to show in public their hope in the Lord
through the prayer. President Sadat’ s brothers in religion usually say: 'in a
black night, there is a black stone and, on the stone, an insignificant ant; but
God sees it, He does not forget it'. He, President Carter, who is a fervent
Christian, reads in the Gospel: 'Call and you will be opened, ask and you will
be given. Even a hair of your head will fall without your Father' s Will who is
in Heaven' and Premier Begin remembers that Hebrews once went through
difficult moments and went to the Lord regretting and saying: 'You have left us,
You have forgotten us'. 'No, I haven’ t', God answered by means of the prophet
Isaiah: 'Can a mother ever forget her son? But if this happened, God will never
forget His people'.
Those who are here we have the same feelings;
we are an object of an endless love of God. We know that He always has His eyes
fixed on us, also when it seems to us that it is at night. God is Father, even
more, is mother. He does not want our evil; He only wants to make us the good,
to all. And children, if they are ill, they have more reason so that the mother
loves them.
We, in the same way, in case we are ill of
malice, outside the way, we have a title more to be loved by the Lord.
With these feelings, I invite you to pray
together with the Pope for each one of us, for the Middle East, for Iran, for
the whole world.
Next Tuesday, almost twelve million of
children and young people return to the training centres. The Pope thinks that
he does not supplant Minister Pedini with illegal interferences, if he sends a
very warm greeting to professors and students.
Italian professors have, in their history,
classic cases of exemplary love and dedication to education. Giosuè Carducci
was an university professor in Bologna. He went to Florence to some
commemorative acts. One day, in the afternoon, he went to say good-bye to the
Minister of Public Instruction. 'No, no - said the Minister –, stay also until
tomorrow'. 'Excellence, it is not possible for me. Tomorrow, I have a class in
the university and the boys will be waiting for me'. 'I exempt you'. 'You can
exempt me, but I do not exempt myself'. Professor Carducci really had a concept
as high about education as about students. He belonged to the class of those who
say: 'to teach Latin to John, it is not enough to know Latin, it is also
necessary to know John and love him'. And also: 'As much is worth the lesson as
the training'.
To students of elementary education, I wanted
to make them remember their friend Pinocchio: not the one who one day did not go
to school to go and see the marionettes, but the other one, the Pinocchio who
took a liking to school until the point to be the first in entering and the last
one in leaving the classroom every day throughout the scholastic year.
But my more affectionate greeting goes to the
secondary education students, mainly to those of high courses. These ones do not
have only the immediate problems of the study, but also in the future; those
that appear once finished the studies. In Italy, as in other nations of the
world, nowadays, the doors are opened widely for those who want to enter the
secondary and university training centres; but once they have got the diploma or
the doctorate and left the training centres, there are only few, very few
possibilities; they do not find a job and they cannot marry. They are problems
that the society of today must study seriously and try to solve.
Also the Pope has been student of these
centres: primary, secondary school and university. But I only thought about the
youth and the parish. Nobody came to tell me: 'You will become a Pope'. Oh, if they had told it to me! If they had told it to me, I would
have studied more, I would be prepared better. Instead, I am old, now; there is
no more time.
But you, my dear young people, who study, you
are really young, you have time for it; you have youth, health, memory,
intelligence: work hard to have benefit from all these things. The future
leaders will come from your training centres; many of you will become ministers,
deputies, senators, mayors, advisers, or engineers, doctors; you will occupy
positions in society. And today, who occupies a position must have the necessary
competition, it is necessary to be prepared. General Wellington, who defeated
Napoleon, wanted to return to England and see the military school where he had
studied, where he had been prepared; and he told the cadets: 'Look, the battle
of Waterloo was won here'. I tell you the same, dear young people: battles will
appear in the life at 30, 40, 50 years old, but if you want to overcome them,
you will have to begin now; you will have to be prepared since now and now you
will have to be constant in your studies and your classes.
Let us pray to the Lord to help professors,
students and families who look at education with the same interest and equal
preoccupation than the Pope.
Yesterday late, I have gone to St. John of
Lateran. Thanks to the Romans, to the kindness of the Mayor and to some
authorities of the Italian Government, it has been a pleasant event for me.
However, it was not pleasant for me, but very painful, to have known, a few days
ago, by the newspapers, that a Roman student has been killed coldly, by a
trivial reason. One of so many cases of violence that continuously disturb this
our poor and troubled society.
The case of Luca Locci, a seven years old
boy, kidnapped three months ago, has also become a topical subject again. People,
sometimes, say: 'we are in a society totally rotten, totally dishonest'. This is
not true. There are still many good people, many honest people. It would rather
be necessary to ask oneself: what should we do to improve the society? I would
say: 'may each one try to be good and to transmit the others with a goodness
entirely plenty of meekness and love taught by Christ'. Christ' gold rule is:
'Do not do to others what you do not want they do to you. Do to others what you
want they do to you. Learn from Me that I am meek and humble of heart' and He
always gave example of this. Put on the Cross, He, not only forgave who
crucified Him, but He excused them, saying: 'Father, forgive them because they
do not know what they do'. This is Christianity; these would be the feelings
that, put in practice, would help society very much.
This year it is the 30th
anniversary of Georges Bernanos' death, a great Catholic writer. One of his best
known works is 'Carmelites' dialogues'. It was published a year after his death.
He had prepared it working on a novel of the German writer, Gertrud van le Fort.
He had prepared it for the theatre. And it has been played. Music has also been
included and then it has been projected in the cinematographic screens of the
whole world. It is very known. However, the fact was historical. Pius X, in
1906, just here in Rome, had beatified the
16 Carmelites of Compiègne, martyrs during the French Revolution.
In the process, it was made hear the sentence:
'until death for fanaticism'. And one of the Nuns, with a great simplicity,
asked: 'Mister Judge, please, what does it means fanaticism?'. And the judge
replied: 'It is your stupid membership to religion'. She, speaking to the other
Nuns, said: 'Sisters! Have you heard? They condemn us for our adhesion to the
faith. What a happiness to die for Jesus Christ'. They were made them leave the
Conciergerie prison, forced them to get on the fatal cart; along the way, they
intoned religious hymns. When arriving at the place of the guillotine, one after
another knelt down before the Prioress and renewed the obedience vow. Later,
they intoned the 'Veni Creator'. But the hymn was becoming weaker and weaker, as
the poor sisters' heads fell, one after another under the guillotine. The last
one was the Prioress, Sister Theresa of St. Augustine. And her last words were
these: 'Love will be always victorious, love can everything'. Here it is the
right word: it is not violence that can everything, but love.
Let us pray the Lord the grace of a new wave
of love towards the others can surround this poor world.
