In the Fortaleza Stadium (9 July 1980)

On 9 July 1980, the Holy Father spoke in the Fortaleza Stadium, anticipating the tenth national Eucharistic Congress to be held in their city. 

Your Eminence Cardinal Aloisio Lorscheider, Archbishop of Fortaleza,
my dear brothers in the Episcopate,
beloved sons and daughters in the Lord.

1. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who has gathered you here in the love of his Spirit, to revive and confirm your faith and your hope in this meeting with the Pope, head visible part of the great family of the People of God, the Church, to which we all belong.

Touching the soil of Fortaleza and the State of Cearà, already blessed, at the dawn of its evangelization, by the martyrdom of the Jesuit father Francesco Pinto and by the work of father Luigi Figueira, my thoughts go back, with profound gratitude to the Lord, the four centuries of your Christianity. He then dwells, open to a joyful trust, on the living and throbbing reality of this Church and of this city of Fortaleza, capital of the State of Ceará and seat of the northeastern regional secretariat of the national conference of Bishops of Brazil.

I am very happy about this meeting with your city. Thanking you for your fraternal words of welcome, I first of all address my cordial greeting to Cardinal Archbishop Aloisio Lorscheider, who represents the unity of the Church of Fortaleza, which has its solid foundation in Christ Jesus. only from neighboring states, but from the whole of Brazil, on the occasion of the tenth national Eucharistic Congress.

My thoughts then turn with deference and gratitude to the authorities, for the consideration and concern with which they have welcomed me. I wish them a fruitful service for the good of the whole city community and of the State of Cearà.

I greet with particular affection the priests, men and women religious of so many congregations, who share with dedication and generosity the work of evangelization, assistance and human promotion of this Church. I greet the dear sick people, the suffering, the poor. I greet the young people and, with very special affection, the hundred seminarians of the re-established regional seminary. They represent the happy hope of a believing, paschal, dynamic community committed to serving the poorest.

I greet and welcome each and every one of you in a big embrace, that is, those who form the pilgrim Church in this strip of Brazilian land.

2. And now my heart, brotherly and friendly, like Jesus's did before the crowds, opens to this immense and festive assembly gathered here to bring me the warm welcome of Fortaleza.

Dearest brothers and sisters, I embrace you with deep friendship and I tell you right away that, just as I know the glory of your past, committed to independence and the abolition of slavery, so I know the qualities of your heart: the welcoming hospitality; simplicity of mind: the intrepid attitude in the face of the struggles for survival, exasperated by the inclemency of nature and by the harshness of the climate, which, however, have not managed to weaken, but rather have tempered your patience, the your long-suffering, your proverbial courage.

Courage, brothers and sisters, courage always, keeping faith with the spirit of the origins of your city, which developed around the fortress and the chapel of Our Lady of the Assumption, which has maternally protected your families, your work, your projects. Today, the eyes of all Brazilians are turned to your city, because within its walls a grandiose event of faith is about to be inaugurated, which involves all the believers of the "Terra de Vera Cruz": the tenth national Eucharistic Congress.

3. The Eucharistic Congress is above all a great and communal act of faith in the presence and action of Jesus the Eucharist, who remains sacramentally with us, to travel our paths with us, so that we can face, with his strength, our problems, our efforts, our sufferings. Nourished by the body of the Lord, we possess life within us (cf. Jn 6:53) and we can thus confidently work, in his Spirit and with his Spirit, to make our coexistence on this earth more human, more dignified, more Christian . Our ways must be his ways, our methods his methods, our thoughts his thoughts.

From this moment on, let us unite around the consecrated host, the divine pilgrim among pilgrims, eager to draw from him the inspiration and strength to make our own the needs and aspirations of our emigrant brothers, with that efficacious love which animated the first Bishop of Fortaleza, Monsignor Luigi Antonio dos Santos, worthy founder of the seminary and tireless apostle of charity during the great drought of 1877-1879.

Dear brothers and sisters, in the sign of the bread of life, which is Christ, and in anticipation of the opening Mass of the Eucharistic Congress, I address you my cordial and friendly greeting, together with my blessing: in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

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