Arrival in Cotonou, Benin (17 February 1982)

On Wednesday, 17 February 1982, the Holy Father, on arriving in Cotonou, Benin, greeted the President, Bishops and people, and spoke of the first Catholic missionaries to Benin and how their communities are united to the Catholic Church throughout the world.

Mr. President,
Dear Brothers in the Episcopate,
and all of you, sons and daughters of Benin,

I greet you with great joy.

Thank you for welcoming me so warmly among you. My stay will be brief, but it will be, thanks to you, very full. It was right that I stopped at your place, because your desire was so impatient, your merits so great and the fame of your faith so well known in Rome!

I have just embraced this land of Benin, because it is precious to God. Yes, God wants him well. He wants good for all his inhabitants, that is to say he blesses them. He wants to make this earth also the place of salvation brought about by the Gospel.

I come, as a friend of peace and concerned with everything that is truly human, to meet all the citizens of this country and their leaders. With them, I hope that their nation develops all its possibilities in the best conditions of justice, peace, fraternity. I also know that most Beninese people love God and pray to Him with a sincere heart. I feel particularly close to those who share the Christian faith and who maintain good relationships with each other. I come to especially encourage the Catholic faithful who, with their brothers from all over the world, form the same family, the same Body, around our beloved Savior Jesus Christ.

One hundred and twenty years ago, Benin had not yet had the opportunity to know this faith. But on April 18, 1861, two missionaries from the African Missions of Lyon landed for the first time not far from here, in Ouidah. They did not come to colonize in the name of their homeland; moreover, one was Spanish, the other Italian, and a third, a Frenchman, had died before arriving. They came in the name of Jesus Christ, who directs his light and his love to each people, and who brings together brothers in all races.

The goal of these missionaries was to raise up here sons and daughters of the Church, in their own right, fulfilling their ancestral values ​​compatible with the Gospel, and destined to be organized into a Church with their priest, their nuns, their bishops. Less than a hundred years later, it was done, with the episcopal appointment of Monseigneur Bernardin Gantin. And even if there is still a long work of evangelization to be carried out, the Church of Benin is a firmly established tree, a tree of the country.

But in the Catholic Church, Christian communities are never alone. They must remain united with those of the entire universe, in the same faith and the same love, and face together the great spiritual problems. They must also help each other, as evidenced by the fact that priests, religious and lay people from other countries continue to provide very useful assistance here, as also evidenced, in the opposite direction, by the appreciated collaboration provided to me by Cardinal Gantin, in Rome or from Rome, in favor of the universal Church. And communion is formed around the Successor of Peter.

It is to strengthen these mutual bonds that the Pope comes among you today. This is the first time in the history of Benin. I am the Bishop of Rome, of this Church founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul. The Lord Jesus entrusted to Peter and his Successor, in this Vicar of Christ, the task of presiding over the unity of the entire Church in faith and charity. He gives him the authority of Chief for this service of his brothers. I will therefore be in your midst the sign and the foundation of this unity.

Also like Paul, I like to visit the Churches that I did not found, to rejoice in their progress and strengthen their walk in faith, in conjunction with the Pastors who are here.

God bless everyone who welcomes me like this today! May he bless all those I will now meet on my journey and in our prayer meeting! May he bless all of Benin!
 

© Copyright 1982 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

 Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana