War and providence

A lot of us are still around who remember this time 70 years ago when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and the world was again set in flames only 20 years after the guns were silenced in the catastrophe of the First World War.

You will undoubtedly these days be recalling those cries “war never again” from Europe to the Pacific and the work of those men and women amid the ruins of Europe who began to build the European Community.

May I highlight this providential happening within those 70 years: the election of a son of Poland to the Chair of Peter and then the election of a son of Germany after one of the shortest conclaves in history.