The Golden Rule

Dearest “Young for Unity” and all the boys and girls here today from many other groups, you have come here to the city of Rome, a city resplendent with sunshine, brimming with history, the centre of the Catholic Church. You are here from 92 nations of the world and you represent many cultures and many faiths: Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, traditional African religions and Christians from different 14 Churches. You are here outside the Coliseum, where many Christians of the early centuries paid for their faith in Jesus with martyrdom. You are here to celebrate and to speak out in favour of a very great ideal: peace.

(…) However, peace is so precious that all of us, adults and young people, leaders and ordinary citizens, must be actively involved in safeguarding it. You boys and girls too. …. You know as well as we do that justice does not prevail in the world, that there are rich countries and poor countries, whereas God’s plan for humanity is for everyone to be brothers and sisters, in one big family with one Father. This imbalance is one of the factors, perhaps the most decisive, that generates resentment, revenge and terrorism.

Well then, how can we create greater equality, how can we bring about a type of communion of goods? It’s obvious that we can’t move goods unless we move hearts. Therefore, we need to spread love, that reciprocal love which generates brotherhood. We need to invade the world with love! And we need to begin with ourselves. Also with you, boys and girls.

But, someone here might ask me: “Is love, loving one another, compatible with the lifestyle that our cultures have handed down to us? Yes, it is: look in your sacred Books and you will find – in almost all of them – the so-called “Golden Rule.” Christians know it in this form: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Lk 6:31). Israel says: “Do to no one what you yourself dislike” (Tobit 4:15). Islam: “None of you is a true believer if you do not desire for your brother what you desire for yourself” (Hadith 13, Al Bukhari). And Hinduism: “Do not do to others what would make you suffer if it were done to you” (Mahabharata 5: 1517). All these phrases mean: respect and love your neighbour.

And if you, a Muslim boy or girl, love, and you, a Christian, love, and you, a Jew, love, and you, a Hindu, love, you will certainly reach the point of loving one another. And the same among all. This would already be a portion of the world with universal fraternity. (Applause)

Then we need to love other neighbours, and you, in particular, should love the boys and girls you meet in life: because if it is true that “birds of a feather flock together,” boys and girls are more easily convinced and persuaded to embrace great ideals by other boys and girls.

Loving then is one of the great secrets of this moment. But it is a special kind of love. It is certainly not a love which is directed only towards our relatives and friends. Rather, this love is directed towards everyone, be they pleasant or unpleasant, rich or poor, children or adults, fellow countrymen or foreigners, friends or enemies… Towards everyone.

We should be the first to love, by taking the initiative, without waiting to be loved. We should love not only with words, but concretely, with deeds. And we should love one another.

My dear boys and girls, if you do this, if we all do this, universal brotherhood will spread, solidarity will blossom, goods will be distributed more justly, and the rainbow of peace will shine over the world, the world which, in a few years, will be in your hands. (Applause)