Pope Francis Address to Dipomatic Corps, 8 Feb 2021

8 February 2021

Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Excerpt:

Our meeting this morning takes place in the more spacious Hall of Blessings, in order to respect the need for greater personal distancing demanded by the pandemic. Yet this distancing is merely physical. Today’s meeting speaks of something very different: it is a sign of the closeness and mutual support to which the family of nations should aspire. In this time of pandemic, the need for such closeness is all the more important, for it is clear that the virus knows no barriers nor can it easily be isolated. Overcoming it is thus a duty incumbent on each of us, as well as our countries.

I am most grateful for your daily efforts to foster relations between the countries or international organizations that you represent and the Holy See. We have been able to exchange many signs of our closeness to one another in the course of these past months, thanks also to the deployment of new technologies that have enabled us to surmount the limitations imposed by the pandemic.

All of us certainly look forward to resuming personal contacts as quickly as possible, and our gathering here today is meant to be a sign of hope in this regard.  I myself wish to resume my Apostolic Visits, beginning with that to Iraq scheduled for this coming March. These Visits are an important sign of the solicitude of the Successor of Peter for God’s People spread throughout the world and the dialogue of the Holy See with states. They also frequently provide an opportunity to promote, in a spirit of sharing and dialogue, good relations between the different religions. In our time, interreligious dialogue is an important component of the encounter between peoples and cultures. When it is viewed not in terms of compromising our own identity but as an occasion of mutual understanding and enrichment, dialogue can become an opportunity for religious leaders and the followers of different confessions, and can support the responsible efforts of political leaders to promote the common good.

Equally important are international agreements that foster mutual trust and enable the Church to cooperate more effectively in the spiritual and social well-being of your countries. In this regard, I would mention the exchange of instruments of ratification of the Framework Agreement between the Holy See and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Agreement on the legal status of the Catholic Church in Burkina Faso, as well as the signing of the Seventh Additional Agreement of the 23 June 1960 Convention Regulating Patrimonial Relations between the Holy See and the Republic of Austria. Additionally, on 22 October 2020, the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China agreed to extend for another two years the Provisional Agreement regarding the Appointment of Bishops in China, signed in Beijing in 2018. The agreement is essentially pastoral in nature, and the Holy See is confident that the process now begun can be pursued in a spirit of mutual respect and trust, and thus further contribute to the resolution of questions of common interest.

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