I encourage the Pontifical Council for Culture and institutions such as the Polish Institute of Christian Culture to organize further meetings like this, in which men and women will realize that the destiny of Europe as a concrete human community depends on the strength it manages to breathe into its culture. You, men and women of culture, have enormous power over human minds and souls. Be conscious and convinced witnesses of the Christian memory of this continent, using every modern means, constantly showing the younger generations the constantly regenerating power of the Good News of Jesus Christ. May your faith, your hope and your charity, drawing from the living sources of the Gospel, make you and all those who work for the same purpose in various projects privileged instruments for this urgent work which is the new evangelization of your countries and of the whole of Europe, which must rediscover its soul and its creative spiritual powers.
The prosperity, peace and real development of Europe depend on it. I express this wish with you before the presence of our Lord, whom I invoke upon each one of you.
(Speech to the participants in the Vatican Symposium, April 21, 1986)
“Do not cease in this good work. Papal Speeches to the John Paul II Foundation”
John Paul II Foundation & Centre for Documentation and Study of the Pontificate of John Paul II, Rome 2012
