[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 12 (Monday, March 26, 2001)]
[Pages 490-491]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Dedication of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center

March 22, 2001

    Your Excellency, thank you very much. You will be pleased to hear, 
my mother is still telling me what to do. [Laughter] And I'm listening 
most of the time.
    Cardinal Maida, thank you for your vision, and thank you for your 
smile. What a great smile. Cardinal Szocka, thank you very much for your 
hospitality. And Cardinal McCarrick, let me congratulate you on becoming 
a cardinal last month. Though we're both new to our jobs, I'm the only 
one who is term limited. [Laughter] I may be just passing through, and I 
may not be a parishioner, but I'm proud to live in your archdiocese. I'm 
pleased to join with all the church leaders and special guests here 
today to dedicate the cultural center. It is my high honor to be here.
    When Cardinal Wojtyla spoke here at Catholic University in 1976, few 
imagined the course his life would take or the history his life would 
shape. In 1978 most of the world knew him only as the Polish Pope. There 
were signs of something different and deeper.
    One journalist, after hearing the new Pope's first blessing in St. 
Peter's Square, wired back to his editors: ``This is not a Pope from 
Poland; this is a Pope from Galilee.'' From that day to this, the Pope's 
life has written one of the great inspiring stories of our time.
    We remember the Pope's first visit to Poland in 1979, when faith 
turned into resistance and began the swift collapse of imperial 
communism. The gentle, young priest, once ordered into forced labor by 
Nazis, became the foe of tyranny and a witness to hope.
    The last leader of the Soviet Union would call him ``the highest 
moral authority on Earth.'' We remember his visit to a prison, 
comforting the man who shot him. By answering violence with forgiveness, 
the Pope became a symbol of reconciliation.
    We remember the Pope's visit to Manila in 1995, speaking to one of 
the largest crowds in history, more than 5 million men and women and 
children. We remember that as a priest 50 years ago, he traveled by 
horse-cart to teach the children of small villages. Now he's kissed the 
ground of 123 countries and leads a flock of one billion into the third 
millennium.
    We remember the Pope's visit to Israel and his mission of 
reconciliation and mutual respect between Christians and Jews. He is the 
first modern Pope to enter a synagogue or visit an Islamic country. He 
has always combined the practice of tolerance with a passion for truth.
    John Paul, himself, has often said, ``In the designs of Providence, 
there are no mere coincidences.'' And maybe the reason this man became 
Pope is that he bears the message our world needs to hear. To the poor, 
sick, and dying, he carries a message of dignity and solidarity with 
their suffering. Even when they are forgotten by men, he reminds them 
they are never forgotten by God. ``Do not give in to despair,'' he said, 
in the South Bronx, ``God has your lives, and His care, goes with you, 
calls you to better things, calls you to overcome.''
    To the wealthy, this Pope carries the message that wealth alone is a 
false comfort. The goods of the world, he teaches, are nothing without 
goodness. We are called, each and every one of us, not only to make our 
own way but to ease the path of others.
    To those with power, the Pope carries a message of justice and human 
rights. And that message has caused dictators to fear and to fall. His 
is not the power of armies or technology or wealth; it is the unexpected 
power of a baby in a stable, of a man on a cross, of a simple fisherman 
who carried a message of hope to Rome. Pope John Paul II brings that 
message of liberation to every corner of the world. When he arrived in 
Cuba in 1998, he was greeted by signs that read, ``Fidel is the 
Revolution!'' But as the Pope's biographer put it, ``In the next 4 days 
Cuba belonged to another revolutionary.''
    We are confident that the revolution of hope the Pope began in that 
nation will bear fruit in our time. And we're responsible to stand for 
human dignity and religious freedom wherever they are denied, from Cuba 
to China to southern Sudan. And we, in our country, must not ignore the 
words the Pope addresses to us. On his four pilgrimages to America he 
has spoken with wisdom and

[[Page 491]]

feeling about our strengths and our flaws, our successes and our needs.
    The Pope reminds us that while freedom defines our Nation, 
responsibility must define our lives. He challenges us to live up to our 
aspirations, to be a fair and just society where all are welcomed, all 
are valued, and all are protected. And he is never more eloquent than 
when he speaks for a culture of life.
    The culture of life is a welcoming culture, never excluding, never 
dividing, never despairing, and always affirming the goodness of life in 
all its seasons. In the culture of life we must make room for the 
stranger. We must comfort the sick. We must care for the aged. We must 
welcome the immigrant. We must teach our children to be gentle with one 
another. We must defend in love the innocent child waiting to be born.
    The center we dedicate today celebrates the Pope's message, its 
comfort, and its challenge. This place stands for the dignity of the 
human person, the value of every life, and the splendor of truth. And 
above all, it stands, in the Pope's words, for the ``joy of faith in a 
troubled world.''
    I'm grateful that Pope John Paul II chose Washington as the site of 
this center. It brings honor, and it fills a need. We are thankful for 
the message. We are also thankful for the messenger, for his personal 
warmth and prophetic strength, for his good humor and his bracing 
honesty, for his spiritual and intellectual gifts, for his moral 
courage, tested against tyranny and against our own complacency.
    Always, the Pope points us to the things that last and the love that 
saves. We thank God for this rare man, a servant of God and a hero of 
history. And I thank all of you for building this center of conscience 
and reflection in our Nation's Capital.
    God bless.

Note: The President spoke at 1:39 p.m. on the Catholic University 
campus. In his remarks, he referred to his mother, Barbara Bush; Adam 
Cardinal Maida, archbishop of Detroit; Edmund Cardinal Szocka, 
president, Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State; and Theodore 
Cardinal McCarrick, archbishop of Washington.