Papal Visit Colombia Tomb St Peter Claver 1986

ADDRESS OF POPE JOHN PAUL II
BEFORE THE TOMB OF SAINT PETER CLAVER
Cartagena, Sunday July 6, 1986
Dear brothers and sisters:
At the end of my pastoral visit to Colombia, I thank God who has allowed this prayer meeting with you, dear priests, men and women religious, and laity of the province of Cartagena, before the tomb of Saint Peter Claver.

The sanctuary that welcomes us tonight, dedicated to his name, transports our spirit to the time when the saint lived, and moves us with the thought of true Christian freedom. Indeed, “to be free we were freed by Christ ” (cf. Ga 5, 1).

This city of Cartagena, illustrious by so many titles, has one that ennobles it in a particular way: having housed for almost forty years Pedro Claver, the Apostle who dedicated his entire life to defending the victims of that degrading exploitation that constituted the slave trade .

Among the inviolable rights of man as a person is the right to a dignified existence and in harmony with his condition of being intelligent and free. Looked at in the light of revelation, this right acquires an unsuspected dimension, because Christ with his death and resurrection freed us from the radical slavery of sin so that we would be fully free, with the freedom of the children of God.

The walls of your city were silent witnesses to the apostolic work of Pedro Claver and his collaborators, determined to alleviate the situation of men of color and to elevate their spirits to the certainty that, despite their sad condition as slaves, God He loved them as Father and he, Pedro Claver, was his brother, his slave to death.

When your bishops at the III General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate pointed out evangelization and service to the poor as a priority task of the Church, they were in line with that countless pleiad of men and women of all times who, moved by the Spirit, they have consecrated their lives to mitigate pain, to satisfy hunger, to remedy the harshest miseries of his brothers and to show them, through his service, the love and providence of the Father and the identification of his people with that of Christ, who wanted to be recognized in the hungry, naked and abandoned (cf. Mt 25, 36 ss.).

This line extends uninterrupted from the first Christian community to our Church, today, in which priests, men and women religious, and laity, in increasing numbers, give their lives to Christ in service to the sick, the incurable, abandoned elders, foundling children, the miserable discarded by society and all kinds of new poor and new marginalized.

Pedro Claver shines with special clarity in the firmament of Christian charity of all time. Slavery, which was an occasion for the heroic exercise of its virtues, has been abolished throughout the world. But, at the same time, new and more subtle forms of slavery emerge because “the mystery of iniquity ” continues to act in man and in the world. Today, as in the 17th century in which Pedro Claver lived, the ambition of money lords over the hearts of many people and turns them, through the drug trade, into traffickers of the freedom of their brothers whom they enslave with slavery more sometimes fearsome than that of black slaves. Slave traffickers prevented their victims from exercising freedom. Drug traffickers lead theirs to the very destruction of personality.As free men whom Christ has called to live in freedom, we must decisively fight against this new form of slavery that subdues so many in so many parts of the world, especially among youth, which must be prevented at all costs, and help drug victims to get rid of it.

The testimony of boundless charity that Saint Peter Claver represents, be an example and stimulus for today's Christians in Colombia and Latin America, so that, overcoming selfishness and insolidarities, they are determinedly committed to building a more just, fraternal and welcoming for all.

Before concluding our meeting, I wish to express my gratitude to all the people who, with enthusiasm and generosity, have collaborated in the preparation of this pastoral visit to Cartagena.

To you, priests, religious men and women and women committed lay people, I encourage you in your tasks of apostolate and I urge you to renew your fidelity to your vocation, which translates into total dedication to Christ, the only source of happiness, in whom all our best are satisfied. aspirations.

To all those present here, to all those who listen to me, particularly the sick, those who suffer, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing.