I am particularly pleased that a research place of this Institute in Lublin has been established, the aim of which is to focus on the problems of Central and Eastern Europe and specific cultural assistance by providing scholarships to Catholic youth from the former Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia wishing to study at the Catholic University of Lublin. Of the utmost importance is this effort to lay the foundations of the future Catholic intelligentsia where the Church is reviving after years of persecution and forced silence.
I cannot fail to mention the Foundation’s great concern for the development and preservation of the Christian heritage of Polish culture among compatriots scattered around the world. One of the concrete manifestations of this concern is the Summer University of Polish Culture. It is good that this river of Poland, Polish culture and Polish Christianity flows further, reviving new generations. This culture is also served by the Pontifical Documentation Center, which with admirable precision records the events of recent years, as well as collects religious and national memorabilia. Through its library, archival and museum collections, this Centre writes history, and at the same time teaches patriotic thinking and serves to consolidate indestructible national and Christian values.
Let me quote the words of one of the members of the Administrative Council of the Foundation placed in the Memorial Book: “We have done a tremendous work. Now it is no less incumbent upon us to preserve this work for future generations.” Yes, this ten-year legacy demands that we all continue this work in a spirit of responsibility for what has already been done. Through the Foundation, may Polish culture be strengthened and developed wherever people who admit to their Polish origin live. Let it be Christian culture. May this joint effort unite and integrate Poles living outside Poland – in the West and in the East.
(10th anniversary of the John Paul II Foundation Vatican City, September 26, 1991)
Do not stop in this good work. Papal Speeches to the John Paul II Foundation
John Paul II Foundation & Center for Documentation and Study of the Pontificate of John Paul II, Rome 2012
