Welcome Ceremony, Togo

On Thursday, 8 August 1985, the Holy Father addressed the President, Bishops, and people who had come to welcome him at the Lomé-Tokoin International Airport (Togo).

Mr. President, 
Dear Brothers in the Episcopate, 
Dear brothers and sisters, dear friends.

1. My joy is great and I thank the Lord for finding me, today, welcomed into Togo! Warmly welcomed, as this hospitable people can do! I know that you have a certain impatience to see the Pope from you, after his visit to the two neighboring countries of Ghana and Benin, and to several other African communities. I was also looking forward to meeting you.

Today, you are the first country I visit during this my third trip to Africa. It will lead me to six other African nations and in particular to Kenya where I will associate - with Catholic brothers and sisters of the whole world - to the worship that we give to Christ, present in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist. He is the invisible head of the Church. It is he whom we worship, whom we follow, whom we serve in all our human brothers.

The stage in Togo inaugurates this great missionary survey. And I'm glad to spend two days with you.

2. I owe it to the converging invitations of his excellence the President of the Republic and the Episcopal Conference. Yes, Mr President, you have expressed your willingness to receive me from the moment you met the first Apostolic Proud at Togo in January 1983. I thank you for this lovely invitation, which you have renewed several times, and I am moved for the welcome you have prepared for me today, of the trust that shows me, and all the dispositions made to ensure the good performance of this trip to several places in your country, from south to north.

The bishops, on several occasions, especially through Monsignor Robert Casimir Dosseh Anyron, had expressed to me the desire for this pastoral visit on the occasion of their coming to Rome.

3. Your country achieved civil independence twenty-five years ago. It was an important stage, challenging but necessary, to assume its destiny and to play its role on the international level. But I do not forget that it is the heir of remarkably structured prestigious dynasties, dating back at least four or five centuries. Your past is woven of glory and also of suffering. You do not want to lose the benefit of the wisdom of your ancestral culture and, on the other hand, you do not want to miss even the possibilities of development that the modern world offers you.

The city of Lomé has rightly become famous by hosting numerous regional and international meetings. Its name has become the symbol of the North-South meeting, between the industrialized countries of the European Community and African countries. I know that I am visiting a people with very spontaneous religiosity, a people made up of many young people who are eager to learn, a people of people who often work with poor means.

As it happens to the Apostle Peter, who had been chosen by Jesus among the fishermen of Galilee to be the Shepherd of his Church, I am pleased to be among you.

4. My pastoral visit is addressed first of all to those who fully share my Catholic faith. I kissed the land of your country. The whole earth is of God, and the whole earth is beautiful, because it is populated by men created in the image of God, and in some way it is holy, for God established his holy covenant with these men.

Today I make a pilgrimage to this land that has received the Gospel. I make, in easy and easy conditions, the humble and courageous attempt of the first five missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word, sent by Blessed Arnold Janssen, their founder, on August 27, 1892. Starting from them and from many other disciples of Christ, men and women, the word of God has spread here, has been accepted, has produced its fruits. And today, less than a hundred years later, I come to admire the fruits of this evangelization. I find an African Catholic community, strong in number and vitality. God be praised!

5. It was Pope Leo XIII who, in 1887, asked the Society of the Divine Word to initiate this evangelization, and it was the Holy See that, five years later, established the Apostolic Prefecture of Togo. The successor of Peter cannot remain indifferent when an entire country has not had the grace to listen to the novel of Jesus, in order to be able to adhere freely.

Today, the Bishop of Rome pays visitors, as Peter and Paul visited the first Christian communities, where at times they had neither sown nor watered. Dear brothers and sisters, I come to receive the witness of your Church, to pray with you, to strengthen your faith and to strengthen your bonds with the universal Church. According to the theme of your preparatory meetings, I offer you the opportunity to “make Church with Peter”.

The Churches in Africa, particularly young people, arrive at a stage where their faith must mature and bear authentically African fruits and authentically Christian. We will deepen this problem.

6. In this country, I also meet the Protestant brothers who have also given their faith in Christ the Saviour. Meeting of the worshipers of the Almighty and merciful, according to the Muslim religion. I meet a large number of people who express their religious sentiment in the context of traditional religions. I greet them all of my heart. Dear friends, the Pope comes to you first of all as a religious man, a servant of Jesus Christ; he comes to you with wishes for peace, hoping to promote in this country the dedication to the living God and the fraternal love that is his law.

God bless my ministry among you! Bless each of you, according to your needs. That bless this dear country of Togo!

Dicastery for Communication - Libreria Editrice Vaticana