June 12, 2002
Honorable and beloved friends,
We are sincerely grateful that, after honoring our Modesty with the Sophie Prize, you now further honor us with this splendid banquet, which offers us the opportunity to come to know you better and more personally.
Such interpersonal relationships are among the more significant capacities of human nature. Indeed, we could say that human communication – especially with God and one’s fellow human beings – constitutes the primary element of human existence. For, it is not possible for us to conceive of humanity without personal relationships; just as God is inconceivable as an impersonal Being, but only as Trinity.
A human being exists as a human person, namely in relation to other human beings. Therefore, apart from the natural environment, we should also speak of a human environment. The latter is no less significant than the former. The present banquet reminds us of the warmth and joy of this human environment. Unfortunately, in contemporary societies, this human environment is no less problematic than the natural environment.
It is our duty to improve both environments, introducing elements of love, understanding, reconciliation, tolerance, communion, dialogue, and respect for one another, in order to render human life more personal.
We express our profound joy that, during this dinner, we encounter such a genuine communion of love, and raise this cup in the hope that this love and respect may spread among all people, and with the prayer that our care and concern will also reach the natural environment, to the degree that this depends on us. Amen.
