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JOURNEY TO INDIA
ADDRESS OF PAUL VI TO THE MEMBERS OF THE PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION
OF BOMBAY Thursday, 3 December 1964
Mister Governor,
Be assured of Our sincere gratitude for the honour Your Excellency renders Us by
your visit, together with the high officials of the provincial and municipal
administration of Bombay. We are highly appreciative of all that Your Excellency
and your collaborators have done to facilitate the celebration of the
Eucharistic Congress, and indeed of your numerous kind favours to the Catholic
community of Bombay at all times. We thank you with all Our heart in the name of
Our faithful people; and also, in Our own name, for the countless services
rendered on the occasion of Our visit to your great City.
We intend to see as much as possible, during Our brief sojourn, of this vast
metropolis and its surroundings. What We have already viewed impresses Us
deeply, and We felicitate the authorities for their many achievements in the
development of urban facilities and services. Every effort made to improve
living conditions and enhance the dignity of the human person meets with Our
cordial approval and encouragement. It is the constant teaching of the Catholic
Church that every individual human being possesses an immortal soul, of equal
value in the sight of God, and that all men are brothers under the Divine
Fatherhood. We pray that this fraternal relationship may be acknowledged by all,
that brotherly love may induce men to love their neighbours as themselves, that
all may do unto others as they would have others do unto them. With this prayer,
We invoke upon you and your loved ones the choicest and richest graces of
heaven.
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