 For the second time this year, I have met in private audience with His Holiness Pope John Paul II. We discussed the practical aspects of ideals we share, peace, justice, and the expansion of freedom. We agreed that, as the Pope first remarked when I visited him at the Vatican City in 1982, peace is not only the absence of war, it also involves reciprocal trust between nations. His Holiness and I had the opportunity to share our views on the progress that had been made toward the establishment of a genuine peace in Central America. I assured His Holiness that the United States is committed to the extension of democracy throughout Latin America. The Pope and I also discussed the prospects for improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. And I told him that the United States is unshakably committed to the establishment of an enduring world peace and to the extension or expansion of human freedom around the globe. Indeed, without freedom there can be no peace. On arms control, we discussed the nearness of an agreement that would eliminate all American and Soviet INF missiles, for the first time in history achieving not just a limitation, but an actual reduction in nuclear weapons. Of course, all of this depends upon Soviet willingness to get down to the hard work of completing an agreement. We stand ready as well for another historic agreement, one that would reduce strategic arms on both sides by half. With regard to the economic needs of the world's poor nations, I thank the Pope for speaking so eloquently about what he terms the moral causes of prosperity, among them hard work, honesty, thrift, initiative, and daring. Generous aid from the wealthier nations to the poorer is certainly of great importance, but in the long term it's even more important to share the conditions, the moral causes of prosperity, including respect for the economic rights of the individual that represents such a powerful force for economic growth and human betterment. Once again, Your Holiness, welcome back to the United States. I must leave you now, but I know that Nancy is looking forward to greeting you in Los Angeles. In the meantime and throughout your visit, millions of our fellow Americans will welcome you with affection, listening joyfully to your message of human dignity and peace. Mr. President, I am grateful for the great courtesy that you extend to me by coming personally to meet me in this city of Miami. Thank you for this gesture of kindness and respect. In my part, I cordially greet you as the elected chief executive of the United States of America, in addressing you, express my own deep respect for the constitutional structure of this democracy, which you are called to preserve, protect, and defend. In addressing you, Mr. President, I greet once again all the American people with their history, their achievements, and their great possibilities of serving humanity. I willingly pay honor to the United States for what she has accomplished for her own people, for all those whom she has embraced in a cultural creativity and welcomed into an indivisible national unity according to her own motto, a pluribus uno. I thank America and all Americans, those of past generations, and those of the present for their generosity to millions of their fellow human beings in need throughout the world. Also today, I wish to extol the blessings and gifts that America has received from God and cultivated and which have become the true values of the whole American experiment in the past two centuries. For all of you, this is a special hour in your history, the celebration of the bicentennial of your constitution. It is a time to recognize the meaning of that document and to reflect on important aspects of the constitutionalism that produced it. It is a time to recall the original American political faith with its appeal to the sovereignty of God. To celebrate the origin of the United States is to stress those moral and spiritual principles, those ethical concerns that influenced your founding fathers and have been incorporated into the experience of America. Eleven years ago, when your country was celebrating another great document, the Declaration of Independence, my predecessor, Paul VI, spoke to American congressmen in Rome. His statement is still pertinent today. At every turn, he said, your bicentennial speaks to you of moral principles, religious convictions in early naval rights given by the creator. And he added, be earnestly hope that this commemoration of your bicentennial will constitute a rededication to those sound moral principles formulated by your founding fathers and enshrined forever in your history. Among the many admirable values of this nation, there is one that stands out in particular. It is freedom. The concept of freedom is part of the very fabric of this nation as a political community of free people. Freedom is a great gift, a great blessing of God. From the beginning of America, freedom was directed to forming a well-ordered society and to promoting its peaceful life. Freedom was channeled to the fullness of human life, to the preservation of human dignity and to the safeguarding of human rights. An experience in all that freedom is truly a cherished part of the history of this land. This is the freedom that America is called to live and guard and to transmit. She is called to exercise it in such a way that it will also benefit the cause of freedom in other nations and among other peoples. On the true freedom, on the freedom that can truly satisfy is the freedom to do what we ought as human beings created by God according to his plan. It is the freedom to live the truth of what we are and what we are before God. The truth of our identity as children of God, as brothers and sisters in a common humanity. That is why Jesus Christ linked truth and freedom together. Stating solemnly, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. All people are called to recognize the liberating truth of the sovereignty of God over them both as individuals and as nations. The effort to guard and perfect the gift of freedom must also include the relentless pursuit of truth. In speaking to Americans on another occasion about the relationship between freedom and truth, I said that as a people you have a shared responsibility for preserving freedom and purifying it. Like so many other things of great value, freedom is fragile. St. Peter recognized this when he told the Christians never to use their freedom as a pretext for evil. Any distortion of truth or dissemination of non-truth is an offense against freedom. Any manipulation of public opinion and abuse of authority or power or, on the other hand, just the omission of vigilance and dangers the heritage of a free people. But even more important, every contribution to promoting truth in charity consolidates freedom and builds up peace. And shared responsibility for freedom is truly accepted by all. A great new force is set at work for the service of humanity. Service to humanity has always been a special part of the vocation of America and is still relevant today in continuity with what I said to the President of the United States in 1979. I would now repeat, attachment to human values and to ethical concerns which have been a hallmark of the American people must be situated especially in the present context of the growing interdependence of peoples across the globe within the framework of the view that the common good of society embraces not just the individual nation to which one belongs but the citizens of the whole world. Present day relationships between peoples and between nations demand the establishment of greater international cooperation also in the economic field. The more powerful nation is, the greater becomes its international responsibility. The greater also must be its commitment to the betterment of the Lord of those whose very humanity is constantly being threatened by wanted need. America, which in the past decades has demonstrated goodness and generosity in providing food for the hunger of the world will, I am sure, will be able to match this generosity with an equally convincing contribution to the establishing of a world order that will create the necessary economic and trade conditions for a more just relationship between all the nations of the world in respect for their dignity and their own personality linked to service. Freedom is indeed a great gift of God to this nation. America needs freedom to be herself and to fulfill her mission in the world at a difficult moment in the history of this country. A great American, Abraham Lincoln, spoke of a special need of that time that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom. A new birth of freedom is repeatedly necessary. Freedom to exercise responsibility and generosity. Freedom to meet the challenge of serving humanity. The freedom necessary to fulfill human destiny. The freedom to live by truth, to defend it against whatever distorts and manipulates it. The freedom to observe God's law, which is the supreme standard of all human liberty. The freedom to live as children of God, secure and happy. The freedom to be America, the freedom to be America. In that constitutional democracy which was conceived to be one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.