ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE YOUNG LEADERSHIP SECTION
OF THE "INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS"

Friday, 2 July 1993

Dear Friends,

I extend a cordial welcome to the members of the Young Leadership Section of the "International Council of Christians and Jews", and I thank your Chairman for his kind words on your behalf. You have set yourselves a worthy aim: to contribute to the creation of a world of greater understanding, by promoting and encouraging Jewish–Christian dialogue, by bringing together young people of monotheistic faiths, and by confronting the challenges of racism, prejudice, intolerance and all forms of xenophobia. I offer you my prayerful good wishes that your pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem will strengthen you for this work.

It is very fitting that young Christians and Jews should be united in such a great task. Our "common spiritual patrimony" spoken of by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council (Nostra Aetate, 4) includes two fundamental principles which should guile your activities. The first is the knowledge that the order according to which God created the world and its inhabitants is the sure and secure basis for peace among individuals and nations. The law of the Lord of Hosts is the law of peace (Cf. Ps. 37(36): 37), and it is through obedience to the Lord’s will that mankind will achieve that harmony which all peoples long for. The second principle is the conviction that the ultimate source of violence is the corruption of the human heart. It follows that the way to achieve lasting victory over discord is through a change of heart (Cf. Jer. 32: 39), through moral conversion. These truths, preached by the Prophets of old and proclaimed in the Church and the Synagogue, are the heritage entrusted to you young people by your forebears. They are the wisdom which you can offer to the world through your united efforts.

Together you are going up to Jerusalem, the "City of Peace", a "symbol of coming together, of union and of universal peace for the human family" (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Redemptionis Anno, 20 April 1984). Your pilgrimage is one more hopeful sign of the cooperation which the world of today needs so desperately from believers (Cf. John Paul II, Message for the World Day of Peace 1992, 1, 8 December 1991). Through such deeds of solidarity may the power of the Lord of all righteousness triumph over the antagonisms of the past and the strife of the present, so that in the days to come all men and women will live together in mutual concord and respect.

© Copyright 1993 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana