Your Eminence, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I thank you for your presence at our customary meeting, which this year we would like to be a call for peace in a world that is witnessing heightened divisions and wars.
I am grateful in particular to the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, His Excellency Mr George Poulides, for the good wishes that he extended to me in the name of all. My own greeting goes to each of you, to your families, your co-workers and to the peoples and governments of the countries that you represent. To all of you, and to the authorities of your countries, I am likewise grateful for the messages of condolence sent for the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and for the closeness shown during his funeral.
We have just ended the Christmas season, in which Christians commemorate the mystery of the birth of the Son of God. The prophet Isaiah had foretold that birth in these words: “a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Is 9:6).
Your presence is a sign of the importance of the peace and human fraternity that dialogue helps to build. The task of diplomacy is precisely to resolve conflicts and thus to foster a climate of reciprocal cooperation and trust for the sake of meeting common needs. It can be said that diplomacy is an exercise of humility, since it demands that we sacrifice something of our self-regard in order to build a relationship with others, to understand their thinking and points of view, and thus to oppose the human pride and arrogance that are the cause of every will to wage war [...]

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