Arrival in Paris, France (30 May 1980)

On Friday, 30 May 1980, the Holy Father arrived in Paris, where he addressed the President, who welcomed him in the name of all the French people. The Pope described his visit as “a pastoral trip above all, to visit and encourage the Catholics of France.”

Mister President,

I am particularly touched by the words you have just addressed to me, upon my arrival on French soil. Thank you very much. You did it in your personal name, you did it in the name of the French people to whom, in your person, I would like to address my first message.

1. Praise be to Jesus Christ! Yes, it is indeed thus, with these words filled with fervor and thanksgiving, that I wanted, from the evening of my election as Bishop of Rome and Universal Pastor, to inaugurate my ministry of preaching the Gospel. This greeting, I took it first to my diocesans on the banks of the Tiber, who had just been entrusted to me to guide them according to the designs of divine Providence. I then took it to other peoples, to other local Churches, with all the content of esteem, of pastoral solicitude, of hope also with which it is charged.

This same greeting, I come to bring it now to France, with all my heart, with all my affection, saying: I am deeply happy to visit you in these days, and to show you my desire to serve you in each of your Children. The message I want to deliver to you is a message of peace, trust, love and faith. Of faith in God, of course, but also, if I can put it that way, of faith in man, of faith in the marvelous possibilities which have been given to him, so that he may use them wisely and with concern for the common good, for the glory of the Creator.

To all the Sons and to all the Daughters of this great Nation, to all the Pope offers his most cordial good wishes, in the name of the Lord. France symbolizes for the world a country with a very old, very dense history. A country with an incomparable artistic and cultural heritage, whose influence is beyond description. How many peoples have benefited from the French genius, which marked their own roots, and still constitutes for them a source of pride at the same time, we can affirm it, as a kind of reference!

France continues to play its role in the international community, at its own level, but with a spirit of openness and a desire to contribute both to the main international problems and to situations in less favored countries. During my previous trips, I was able to see the place it holds under other skies. But more than to the extent of the means implemented, necessarily limited, it is to its People that it owes its place, to men and women heirs of its civilization.

2. It is these men and women, the soul of France, that I will meet during these days.

How not to be touched by the welcome you give me here, in your capital? Many of you wrote to me before this visit, and many of you this evening welcome me. Unfortunately, I cannot thank each one in particular, nor shake all the hands that you would like to extend to me. But before you, to the representatives of national sovereignty, I would like to express my deep gratitude.

Mr. President, you whom your compatriots have appointed to assume the highest responsibility of the State, therefore deign to accept the grateful homage that I address to the entire French people. I would add feelings of satisfaction for the extreme availability shown personally by Your Excellency, and also by the Prime Minister and the Government, as soon as my project became known to them.

You immediately understood the nature of this trip: a pastoral trip above all, to visit and encourage the Catholics of France; a trip that also wants to express my esteem and my friendship for the whole population, and I am thinking here in particular of the members of the other Christian denominations, of the Judaic community and of the Islamic religion. My wish was that this trip could be accomplished in simplicity and dignity, also sparing, whenever possible, contacts and meetings. You lent all your assistance to the realization of the program, and I am all the more sensitive to it as it required a meticulous preparation. Finally, I am thinking of the people for whom these events cause extra work. It's all part of hospitality, a virtue which France can rightly pride itself on. Really, I express a cordial thank you to all.

3. I especially greet you, dear Catholics of France, my Brothers and my Sisters in Christ, my friends. You invited me to observe, fifteen hundred years or so after the baptism of your Nation, that the faith is still alive there, young, dynamic, that generosity is not lacking in you. It even translates into a bubbling of initiatives, research, reflections. You have to face often new problems, or at least new problems. The context in which you live is changing rapidly, depending on cultural and social changes which are not without progressively influencing mores and mentalities.

It is a multitude of questions that arise for you. What to do? How to respond to the fundamental needs of contemporary man, which ultimately reveal an immense need for God?

In union with your bishops, and in particular with the dear Cardinal Archbishop of Paris and the President of the French Episcopal Conference, I have come to encourage you on the path of the Gospel, a narrow path to be sure, but the royal path, sure, tested by generations of Christians, taught by the saints and the blessed with whom your country is honored, the path on which, just like you, your brothers in the universal Church strive to walk.

This path does not go through resignation, renunciation or abandonment. It does not bring itself to the weakening of the moral sense, and it wishes that the civil law itself would help to elevate man. It does not seek to bury itself, to remain unnoticed, but on the contrary it requires the joyful audacity of the Apostles. She therefore banishes pusillanimity, while showing herself to be perfectly respectful towards those who do not share the same ideal. If the Church does indeed claim religious freedom for itself, and if it has many reasons to congratulate itself on enjoying it in France, it is normal that it also respects the convictions of others. She asks, for her part, that she be allowed to live, to testify publicly and to address consciences.

“Recognize, O Christian, your dignity”, said the great Pope Saint Leo. And I, his unworthy successor, say to you, my Catholic Brothers and Sisters of France: Recognize your dignity! Be proud of your faith, of the gift of the Spirit that the Father has given you! I come among you as a poor person, with the only wealth of faith, a pilgrim of the Gospel. Give the Church and the world the example of your unfailing fidelity and your missionary zeal. My visit to you is intended to be, at the same time as a testimony of solidarity with regard to your pastors, a call for a new impetus in the face of the numerous tasks which are offered to you.

I feel that, in the depths of your hearts, you will hear this exhortation. I address it, as soon as I arrive on the soil of France, to all those who listen to me, and I will then have the opportunity to take it up again these days by talking to bishops, priests, men and women religious, lay people engaged in the apostolate, by meeting the world of work and that of young people, men of thought and science. A very special moment will be reserved for UNESCO, which has its headquarters in your capital: it seemed to me very important, in fact, to respond to its courteous invitation, to greet an exceptional assembly of witnesses of the culture of our time, and to bear witness to the Church's own.

We must now complete this first contact. I will go to the Basilica of Our Lady, the Mother of the Churches of this Diocese, and one of the most venerable religious buildings of this Nation. I want to entrust to the Lord and to the Most Holy Virgin the wishes that I form for the entire French people. May God bless France!

© Copyright 1980 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

 Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana