THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary (Denver, Colorado) ______________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release August 12, 1993 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AND HIS HOLINESS, JOHN PAUL II UPON ARRIVAL Stapleton International Airport Denver, Colorado 2:45 P.M. MDT THE PRESIDENT: Your Holiness, I think you can see from the wonderful reception you have received that the United States is honored to have you in Denver. (Applause.) I thank you for coming to Denver -- (applause) -- to this historic gathering of young people from across the world. (Applause.) I want to extend a special thanks to the co-sponsors of National World Youth Day, Archbiship Keeler and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Pontifical Council for the Laity. I'm especially gratified that so many leading Catholic Americans could join us today. (Applause.) And I'd like to pay special tribute to one, my good friend, the former Mayor of Boston and our Ambassador to the Vatican, Ray Flynn. (Applause.) I also thanks my friends, Governor Roy Romer, Mayor Willington Webb, the members of the City Council, and Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, in whose district we now stand -- or sit, as the case may be. (Applause.) I want to thank the people of Denver who have opened their hearts and their homes to these young people, and say a few words of appreciation, Holy Father, to American Catholics especially. As the Catholic Church prepares to enter its third millennium, our nation prepares to enter its third century. It is altogether fitting that such a young country would host World Youth Day. America has maintained its youth by always being able to change while holding fast to its fundamental values: A determination to support family and work; to the proposition that all children matter and we don't have a one to waste; to the proposition that in every corner of the world, race or creed should not deter any young boy or girl from growing up to the fullest of their God-given capacities. (Applause.) Your Holiness, even though I am not myself a Roman Catholic, I was educated as a young boy by nuns and, as a young man, by Jesuit priests. (Applause.) And I might add since we're in the business of paying compliments, I appointed a man born in Poland to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday. (Applause and laughter.) But all Americans without regard to their religious affiliation are grateful to the Catholics of this country for the standards they have set for citizenship and service, for supporting their families and working well at their assigned tasks, and for caring about the less fortunate. (Applause.) And all Americans without regard to their religious faith are grateful to you, Your Holiness, for your moral leadership. (Applause.) For we know that you were the force to light the spark of freedom over communism in your native Poland and throughout Eastern Europe -- (applause) -- that you have been an advocate for peace and justice among nations and peoples, a strong voice calling for an end to hatred and to hunger everywhere and reminding people blessed with abundance that they must offer special comfort to the poor and the dispossessed. Your presence here is welcome. America is a better, stronger, more just nation because of the influence that you have had on our world in recent years and because of the influence that American Catholics have had on our nation from the very beginning of our birth. (Applause.) If we were to find one sentence that would sum up the Catholic social mission, the work that Catholics have done as citizens, it would be the great line from our only Catholic President's inaugural speech when President Kennedy said, "We must always remember that here on Earth God's work must be our own." (Applause.) In 1987, Your Holiness, when you came to Detroit, you said that each of us must be instrumental in promoting a social order that respects the dignity of persons and serves the common good. That is what we must all be about. America today is striving to achieve that goal. We have many problems here, and we are trying to address many problems abroad. We dare not turn away from our obligations to one another. Your presence here today will remind us all of those obligations, of the values by which you have lived, of the causes for which you have worked. I ask you now to come to this platform to welcome a grateful and many tens of thousands of young people from all across the world who are privileged to be in your presence here today. (Applause.) HIS HOLINESS: Mr. President, dear friends, dear people of America, dear young people. (Applause.) You have really strong voices. (Applause.) Mr. President, I greatly appreciate your generous words of welcome. The World Youth Day being celebrated this year in Denver gives me the opportunity to meet you and, through you, to express once again to the American people my sentiments of deep esteem and friendship. I thank you and Mrs. Clinton for your kind gesture in coming here personally to welcome me, and coming together with your daughter. (Applause.) I take this opportunity to greet the other representatives of the federal government of the State of Colorado and of the City of Denver who are present here, and to thank all those who have contributed in any way to preparing this visit. I am grateful to the bishops of the United States for their part in organizing the eighth World Youth Day and, in particular, to Archbishop Stafford of Denver, and the Catholic Church in Colorado for serving as the local hosts for this important international event. (Applause.) I am aware that the United States is suffering greatly from the recent flooding in the Midwest. I have felt close to the American people in their tragedy and have prayed for the victims. I envoke Almighty God's strength and comfort upon all who have been affected by this calamity. There is a special joy in coming to America for the celebration of this World Youth Day -- a nation which is itself still young, still young. (Laughter and applause.) What is 200 years for a nation? (Laughter and applause.) A nation which is itself still young, according to historical standards is hosting young people gathered from all over the world for a serious reflection on the theme of life. A human life which is God's marvelous gift to each one of us and the transcendent live which Jesus Christ, our Savior, offers to us who believe in His name. (Applause.) I come to Denver to listen to the young people gathered here, to experience their inexhaustible quest for life. Each successive World Youth Day has been a confirmation of young people's openness to the meaning of life as a gift received, a gift to which they are eager to respond by striving for a better world for themselves and their fellow human beings. (Applause.) I believe that we would correctly interpret their deepest aspirations by saying that what they ask is that society, especially the leaders of nations and all who control the destinies of peoples, accept them as true partners in the construction of a more human, more just, more compassionate world. They ask to be able to contribute their specific ideas and energies to this task. The well-being of the world's children and young people must be an immense concern to all who have public responsibilities. In my pastoral visits to the Church in every part of the world, I have been deeply moved by the almost universal conditions of difficulty in which young people grow up and live. Too many sufferings are visited upon them by natural calamities, famines, epidemics, by economic and political crisis, by the atrocities of wars. And where material conditions are at least adequate, other obstacles arise not the least of which is the breakdown of family values and stability. (Applause.) In developed countries a serious moral crisis is already affecting the lives of many young people, leaving them adrift, often without hope and conditioned to look only for instant gratification. Yet everywhere there are young men and women deeply concerned about the world around them, ready to give the best of themselves in service to others, and particularly sensitive to life's transcendent meaning. (Applause.) But how do we help them? How do we help them? Only by instilling a high morale vision can a society ensure that its young people are given the possibility to mature as free and intelligent human beings endowed with the robust sense of responsibility to the common good, capable of working with others to create a community and a nation with a strong morale fiber. America was built on such a vision. And the American people possess the intelligence and will to meet the challenge of rededicating themselves with renewed vigor to fostering the truth on which this country was founded and by which it grew. (Applause.) Those truths are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. And they still today receive a broad consensus among Americans. Those truths sustained values which have left people all over the world to look to America with hope and respect. To all Americans without exception I present this invitation: Let us pose and reason together. To educate without a value system based on truth is to abandon young people to moral confusion, personal insecurity and easy manipulation. No country, not even the most powerful, can endure if it deprives its own children of this essential good, respect. (Applause.) You are crying for what the Pope says or against? (Laughter.) AUDIENCE: For. (Applause.) HIS HOLINESS: Respect for the dignity and worth of every person, integrity and responsibility as well as understanding, compassion and solidarity towards others survive only if they are passed on in families, in schools and through the communications media. (Applause.) America has a strong tradition of respect for the individual, for human dignity and human rights. I gladly acknowledged this during my previous visit to the United States in 1987, and I would like to repeat today the hope I expressed on that occasion. America, you are beautiful. (Applause.) Beautiful and blessed in so many ways, but your best beauty, your richest blessing is found in the human person. (Applause.) In each man, woman, and child, in every immigrant, in every native-born son and daughter, the ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless ones. (Applause.) The best traditions of your love presume respect for those who cannot defend themselves. (Applause.) If you want equal justice for all and true freedom and lasting peace, then, America, defend life. (Applause.) All the great causes that are yours today will have meaning only to the extent that you guarantee the right to life and protect the human person. (Applause.) It has been said in Detroit, September 19, 1987. Mr. President, my reference to the morale truth which sustains the life and the nation is not without relevance to the privileged position which the United States holds in the international community in the face of tensions and conflicts that too many peoples have endured for so long. I am thinking particular of the Middle East region, some African countries, and in the new situation emerging from the events of 1989, especially in view of the tragic conflicts now going on in the Balkans and in the Caucauses. The international community ought to establish more effective structures for maintaining and promoting justice and peace. (Applause.) This implies that a concept of strategic interest should evolve which is based on the full development of peoples out of poverty and towards a more dignified existence; out of injustice and exploitation towards fuller respect for the human person and the defense of universal and human rights. (Applause.) If the United Nations and other international agencies, through the wise and honest cooperation of the member nations, succeed in effectively defending stricken populations, whether victims of underdevelopment or conflicts or the -- of human rights, then there is indeed hope for the future. (Applause.) For peace is the work of justice. (Applause.) Providence of God have laid an enormous responsibility on the people and government of the United States. But the burden is also the opportunity for true greatness. Together with millions of people around the globe I share the profound hope that in the present international situations, the United States will spare no effort in advancing authentic freedom and in fostering human rights and solidarity. (Applause.) May God guide this nation and keep alive in it for endless generations to come the flame of liberty and justice for all. May God bless you all. God bless America. (Applause.) America, America, I express my gratitude to you for this receiving me with rain. (Laughter and applause.) END3:10 P.M. MDT