From an allocution of Paul VI to his fellow countrymen of Brescia, September 26, 1970:
Richard M. Nixon at the Vatican meeting with Pope Paul VI, Sept. 29, 1970.
“Allow a fellow-citizen of yours from yesterday to render homage to one of the most precious values of human life, and one of the most neglected in our day: tradition. It is a fertile patrimony, a heritage to be preserved. Today the tendency of the new generations is entirely toward the present, indeed, toward the future. And that is fine, as long as this tendency does not obscure the real and total vision of life; since for enjoying the present and preparing the future, the past can be useful to us, and in a certain sense, indispensable.
...for enjoying the present and preparing the future, the past can be useful to us, and in a certain sense, indispensable. The revolutionary detachment from the past is not always a liberation...
The revolutionary detachment from the past is not always a liberation; rather, it often means cutting one’s own roots. To really progress and not decay, we must have a historical sense of our experience. This is true even in the area of external things, of techno-scientific and political matters, where the course of transformations is swifter and more impetuous; and it is even more true in the are of human realities and especially in the field of culture. And it is especially true for our religion, which is an entire tradition originating in Christ.” (Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, Vol. VIII, pp. 943-944.)
To really progress and not decay, we must have a historical sense of our experience.
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Documents V, p. 493.
