NEW AMBASSADOR OF URUGUAY PRESENTS LETTERS OF CREDENCE

VATICAN CITY, SEP 25, 2000 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received the Letters of Credence from the new ambassador of the Republic of Uruguay, Julio Cesar Lupinacci, and highlighted in his address the "Uruguayan people's peaceful and pacifying vocation."

The Church, said the Pope, "never forgets that true peace, like the common good, is intimately linked to the cause of justice, both in the field of the internal relations of a local or national community and in that of the human family as a whole, which is daily more inclined to construct a common history, one shared by all."

He continued: "For this reason it is important that, also in the international arena, agreement exist between your country and the Holy See to defend with vigor and promote with constancy those values that dignify human existence." He added that the defense of human rights, solidarity, the promotion of a culture of life "is an inescapable ethical duty, both for people and for institutions."

John Paul II said that the family and education are "special fields in which understanding and collaboration must be closest, in scrupulous respect of their respective roles and in the firm conviction that any initiative in these fields must be subordinate to the fundamental and primary right of the family. (The family) must be recognized and supported by effective measures, both to maintain its natural configuration and to exercise its right to educate children."

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