ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS ACCREDITED TO THE HOLY SEE

Benediction Hall

Monday, 8 February 2021

Your Excellencies

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I thank the Dean, His Excellency Mr George Poulides, Ambassador of Cyprus, for the kind words and good wishes he has expressed in your name, and I beg your pardon for any inconvenience caused by the cancellation of our meeting originally planned for 25 January last. I am grateful for your patience and understanding, and for accepting the invitation to be here this morning, despite the difficulties, for our traditional encounter.

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.