St Bernards High School - Bernardian Yearbook (Fitchburg, MA)

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GC) Oe = a Gee AOT TOF At 9:30 a.m., Monday, October 4, 1965, an Italian jet settled gently on a runway of the John F. Kennedy Airport. A ramp was rolled and out stepped Pope Paul VI. It was a bright day, crystal and cold, and the events which followed made it a day without parallel. Soon Pope Paul was seated in a large black automobile and the chilly 24-mile ride ahead into the heart of Man- hattan began, through Harlem and Central Park to St. Patrick’s cathedral and on to a meeting with President Johnson and then to the United Nations. His Holiness was the first reigning Pope ever to visit the New World and he came primarily to address a message of peace to the United Nations. He called himself a pilgrim, a simple mes- senger of the gospel of peace. Without rest for a day and a night, his was a true pilgrimage which entailed sacrifice and devotion to the cause of peace. His presence at the United Nations reminded men of all nations that they are members of the same human family. His appeal was to the hearts of men urging them to turn away from pride and power and see all men as brothers and as friends. “If you wish to be brothers, let the arms fall from your hands,” he said; “one cannot love while holding offensive arms.” At Yankee Stadium, Pope Paul said Mass with great dignity in this great ball park, at which a hundred thousand were present. He called upon all present to serve the cause of peace which must be built up every day by works of peace—first of all, social order; then, aid to the poor, to the needy, the weak, the sick, the ignorant. And if this peace was to be sincere and stable it had to be based on moral and religious principles and have its roots anchored in wis- dom which must draw nourishment from the true concept of life—the Christian concept. At 11:00 o'clock that night he was back in the jet again, which in a little more than seven hours would bring him back to Rome. As he boarded his aircraft, it was to the whole nation he spoke: “God bless America,” he cried, “God bless you all.” In spite of his frail body simply robed in white, this pilgrim, who had made this exhausting journey to persuade temporal rulers that the human race is begging for peace on this earth, was a forceful figure with the power to move men by his humility, simplicity, sincerity, gen- tle firmness of his bearing, and the quiet warmness of his countenance. If Pope John was the Pope of aggiornamento, updating of the Church, Pope Paul has been called the Pope of avvicinamento, which means neighborliness with other creeds and faiths. In his visit to Bombay, he quoted with respect from the pre-Christian sacred writings of India. Just four days before he was to bring the Second Vatican Council to a solemn close, Pope Paul took part in a prayer service for Christian unity with a group of Protestant and Orthodox ob- servers at the Vatican Council. Memorable also was the effort which he made through the Council to repair the damage to Christian unity which has existed for over nine hundred years between East and West, when in both Rome and Constantinople, a declaration was read lifting the excommunications which had been hurled at one another in 1054 and which brought about the great schism.

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ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX The Light of the 12th Century

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