Published April 1, 1993
Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, at this beginning of the year, amidst the clamor of arms and of events too often tragic, the angels’ hymn on Christmas night still rings out: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!” All the greetings we exchange are summed up in this heavenly message. In this violent world, so ready to suspect and to strike, in which interests sometimes seem to stifle the most generous aspirations, the Child in the crib of Bethlehem brings the sweetness of his innocence. He is the sign, offered to man, of God’s infinite compassion!
To you, your countrymen, your Authorities, to all our brothers and sisters in humanity, I offer from my heart this “Good News” in its perennial freshness. I ask you to accept it! In it is found human happiness, for today and for tomorrow.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. and holds EPPC’s William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.
