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figure of our very own Pedro Duque; because astronaut Polyakov once again reminds us both of
the enormous advantages of peaceful cooperation and of the futility of confrontation between
peoples; and because —coming as they do from two different continents— Mukai and Glenn add
a universal perspective to the conquest of outer space, the Japanese astronaut by her contribution
to the progress of space medicine, and Glenn by consolidating with his experience that pioneering
nature that his country has long demonstrated in its ventures into space.
All of them, after great sacrifice and with great risk to their lives, have travelled far away from
our planet, only to be closer to it, only to watch over and safeguard its progress, only to ennoble
science. They have been able to see our beautiful, blue planet almost in miniature from their
spacecraft; at the same time, they have seen it spectacularly united under its biosphere.
No doubt each of them have pondered on what brings mankind together and what forces
humanity apart, on the incomprehensible, sterile hatreds among men, on the invisible borderlines
drawn up to separate nations, on the confrontation between different peoples of a planet that is so
prodigious, so teeming with life and so beautiful. The effort and tenacity of each of them provides
us with a number of examples which, as a single unit, we point to here today with admiration: their
outstanding professionalism, their fraternal joint work, the peaceful nature of their project, their
wish to disseminate and share their experience and, in short, the high ideals of their work for the
benefit of science and thus of the human race as a whole.
One of the principles that our Foundation follows —that of contributing to society’s moral
awareness-raising– is fulfilled in exemplary fashion this year by the Prince of Asturias Award for
Concord, bestowed on Caritas Spain.
No work is as indispensable and as noble as work for the most needy: the elderly, the homeless,
immigrants, those dependent on drugs, AIDS victims, the handicapped, the prison population, the
socially ostracised in general, groups at difficult moments in their youth, in their infancy, in their
family, and women. Faced with such special, outstanding work, we wish to stress here that charity
and justice are not opposing concepts that cancel each other out, but quite the opposite. As was
pointed out by the president of Caritas Spain when granted the Award, the meaning of the word
“charity” is in no way synonymous of “a hand-out” or of “benefits”; it is rather a synonym of the
word “love”. For this reason, it could be said that Caritas is like “a love which never fails you”, because
of the fine example that its seventy-five thousand volunteers set, because of the work carried out
in its network of five thousand Caritas parish groups, three thousand five hundred and seventy-
five centres and seven thousand reception points, all established
thanks to the hearts of tens of thousands of contributors who,
moved by generosity and with great tenacity, dream of creating
a better world, a fairer, more fraternal world, and of getting
mankind, in the words left to us by Albert Camus, “to feel once
more the love for fellow man without which the world would be
an immense solitude.”
Once more, youth and effort that borders on the limits come together in exemplary fashion
in the award for the best sports persons in the world. This is why the Prince of Asturias Award
for Sports has been bestowed on the German tennis player, Steffi Graf. It has been awarded to her
for her career in sport, but also for her human qualities, for an aspiring to the common good that
goes beyond her strictly professional work and which has recently taken on a tangible form in the
opening of a foundation to help children and young victims of violence and exploitation, with
special attention paid to those suffering the consequences of war.
It is difficult to synthesise the many merits of Steffi Graf ’s career in sport. Outstanding are her
twenty-two Grand Slam tournament victories, her 377 weeks as leader of the professional tennis
players ranking and being the youngest Roland Garros winner.
Yet once more when faced with any outstanding professional work, when faced with any
youthful, brilliant triumph, we would point out that the person achieving such success would
be nothing if he or she did not possess other human values. Thus the criteria of the great athletes
“Achieving a fairer, more caring world must
continue to be a priority of human activity.”
22
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O
ctober
1999
