I bless the Lord, the God of our Fathers, and I thank all of you for this meeting, at which I have been given an opportunity to share with you my hope for peace. In offering my cordial greetings to you here present, I wish to address all your brothers and sisters in faith living in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The great spiritual patrimony which unites us in the divine word proclaimed in the Law and the Prophets is for all of us a constant and sure guide on the path of peace, harmony and mutual respect. In fact, it is God who proclaims peace to his people and who guarantees the good things which come from it. He evokes in us a powerful commitment to bring it about, for peace is his design for the People of the Covenant.
Peace is a gift of the Most High, but it is also a task given to man.
We must therefore invoke peace and, at the same time, commit ourselves to making the divine initiative bear fruit through concrete choices, attitudes filled with respect, fraternal undertakings. This is a commitment that requires of every individual conversion of heart. Let us therefore go forward courageously as true brothers and heirs of the promises, on the path of reconciliation and mutual forgiveness. It is on this path that we wish to walk, supported by God's help, in order to build a society in which sorrow and tears are no longer caused by the evil actions of man. A society in which all will contribute to the construction of a new civilization, the foundations of which should be none other than those established by true love of others.