[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
[August 12, 1993]
[Pages 1370-1371]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Welcoming Pope John Paul II in Denver, Colorado
August 12, 1993

    Your Holiness, I think you can see from the wonderful reception you 
have received that the United States is honored to have you in Denver. I 
thank you for coming to Denver, to this historic gathering of young 
people from across the world.
    I want to extend a special thanks to the cosponsors of World Youth 
Day, Archbishop Keeler and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops 
and the Pontifical Council for the Laity. I'm especially gratified that 
so many leading Catholic Americans could join us today. And I'd like to 
pay special tribute to one, my good friend, the former Mayor of Boston 
and our Ambassador to the Vatican, Ray Flynn. I also thank my friends 
Governor Roy Romer, Mayor Willington Webb, the members of the city 
council, and Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, in whose district we now 
stand--or sit, as the case may be.
    I want to thank the people of Denver who have opened their hearts 
and their homes to these young people and say a few words of 
appreciation, Holy Father, to American Catholics especially.
    As the Catholic Church prepares to enter its third millennium, our 
Nation prepares to enter its third century. It is altogether fitting 
that such a young country would host World Youth Day. America has 
maintained its youth by always being able to change while holding fast 
to its fundamental values: a determination to support family and work; 
to the proposition that all children matter and we don't have a one to 
waste; to the proposition that in every corner of the world, race or 
creed should not deter any young

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boy or girl from growing up to the fullest of their God-given 
capacities.
    Your Holiness, even though I am not myself a Roman Catholic, I was 
educated as a young boy by nuns and as a young man by Jesuit priests. 
And I might add, since we're in the business of paying compliments, I 
appointed a man born in Poland to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff yesterday. But all Americans without regard to their religious 
affiliation are grateful to the Catholics of this country for the 
standards they have set for citizenship and service, for supporting 
their families and working well at their assigned tasks, and for caring 
about the less fortunate.
    And all Americans without regard to their religious faith are 
grateful to you, Your Holiness, for your moral leadership. For we know 
that you were the force to light the spark of freedom over communism in 
your native Poland and throughout Eastern Europe, that you have been an 
advocate for peace and justice among nations and peoples, a strong voice 
calling for an end to hatred and to hunger everywhere and reminding 
people blessed with abundance that they must offer special comfort to 
the poor and the dispossessed. Your presence here is welcome. America is 
a better, stronger, more just nation because of the influence that you 
have had on our world in recent years and because of the influence that 
American Catholics have had on our Nation from the very beginning of our 
birth.
    If we were to find one sentence that would sum up the Catholic 
social mission, the work that Catholics have done as citizens, it would 
be the great line from our only Catholic President's inaugural speech 
when President Kennedy said, ``We must always remember that here on 
Earth God's work must be our own.''
    In 1987, Your Holiness, when you came to Detroit, you said that each 
of us must be instrumental in promoting a social order that respects the 
dignity of persons and serves the common good. That is what we must all 
be about. America today is striving to achieve that goal. We have many 
problems here, and we are trying to address many problems abroad. We 
dare not turn away from our obligations to one another. Your presence 
here today will remind us all of those obligations, of the values by 
which you have lived, of the causes for which you have worked.
    I ask you now to come to this platform to welcome a grateful nation 
and many tens of thousands of young people from all across the world who 
are privileged to be in your presence here today.

Note: The President spoke at 2:45 p.m. at Stapleton International 
Airport. In his remarks, he referred to Archbishop William H. Keeler of 
Baltimore, president, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.