The message which Cardinal Angelo Sodano sent, in the name of the Pope, to the Bishop of Rimini on the occasion of the 2001 Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples.

Your Excellency:
His Holiness, responding to the request of the organizers, sends his thoughts and best wishes to the promoters and participants in the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples, now in its twenty-second year. He begs Your Excellency to be the bearer of his sentiments and his vivid appreciation for this timely cultural and religious initiative.

“All of life asks for eternity.” This phrase, chosen as the title for the very interesting gathering, evocatively unites the themes offered for attention. The idea captures and expresses a central aspect of man’s nature, which is the thirst for fullness of life that dwells in him. The human being, when he stops to reflect, cannot help feeling that his existence is too brief, marked by suffering and limitations, experiences that remind him of his inability to fulfill himself and to obtain by his own strength that for which he feels he was made. Thus rises this cry, to which the keenest spirits have given voice with dramatic intensity in all the epochs of history: thus man implores eternity, a cry that springs forth from the most intimate part of our experience as human wayfarers on our way to eternity.

“All of life asks for eternity.” While it stimulates man’s heart in its depths, the theme of this year’s Meeting efficaciously interrogates today’s mentality, summoning up the crucial topics currently being debated. These are matters that, through the mass media and the legislative activity of many countries, are destined to engage public opinion more and more. One only has to think of the expectations aroused by the progress of scientific discoveries in the field of genetic engineering and the unsolved problems that come with these developments. Passionate debate is going on at all levels concerning these questions, with the prospect of soon being able to have the tools necessary for prolonging life, eliminating pain, illness, and physical imperfection.

We could, in this regard, observe that a paradox has arisen: the paradox of life that denies eternity. On one hand, in effect, when science is used as an instrument that tends not to recognize any limitations except those placed by science itself, man is led to act as though he were the absolute master of reality. The search for a “complete” life–that is to say, one without the limitations which characterize it–ends up being accompanied in reality, whether implicitly or openly declared, by a refusal of transcendence.

This paradox has its roots in a vision which excludes all divine intervention in nature and history. This is a world view very different from the Judeo-Christian one. According to the latter, God is not separated from the world, He is not confined to an “eternity” of aloof indifference, but intervenes in the events of the universe. He takes an interest in what man is living, enters into dialogue with him, takes care of him. All this is witnessed by the history of Israel, a long journey of bringing this relationship to maturity, and reaches its complete fulfillment in Jesus, “born of a woman” (cf. Gal 2:20), so as to lead every man and the whole of man to salvation.

Eternity, then, is not merely atemporality, describable in purely negative terms as what has opposite characteristics to those of temporal reality. The human spirit does not ask that the present instant be prolonged indefinitely, but aspires to a love in which there is no room for fear of losing the Beloved. If the limit to earthly life cannot be eliminated, despite the still great contribution which science can offer to the alleviation of human suffering and pain, then the human creature has a need, within this limit, to have a real experience of the companionship of the Eternal.

Those who encountered Christ on the roads of Palestine found in Him the answer to these existential questions. This is why the disciples of the Nazarene went throughout the world proclaiming, guided by the Holy Spirit, that only Christ had the words of eternal life. Their announcement has traversed the centuries to reach us, continuing to fascinate men and women of every condition. In the disciple’s announcement, Christ Himself offers to those who open their hearts to Him the possibility to penetrate the meaning of fleeting existence and to fathom the mystery of eternity.

It is the Holy Father’s fervent wish that the upcoming Meeting, with its manifold activities, may help to highlight an important aspect of human existence, beautifully synthesized in the phrase, “All of life asks for eternity.” He also hopes that the days of the symposium may be a propitious occasion for deepening Christian faith and a profitable arena for dialogue with contemporary culture. To this end, His Holiness assures you of his particular remembrance in prayer and extends to Your Excellency, the promoters, organizers, and all the participants a special Apostolic Blessing.

May I add to this my own best wishes for the complete success of the Meeting, and take this opportunity to reassure you of my distinguished regards.
Angelo Cardinal Sodano
Secretary of State