Your Holiness,
we joyfully received the news of your election last night and thank the Lord for providing us with a new successor to Peter at the Roman pontifical throne. At this moment, as you prepare to take on your ministry, I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations – both personally and on behalf of the entire Carmelite Order.
We felt particularly close to you when you invited us to pray for your predecessor Benedict XVI, and when you asked us to pray for blessings upon you as you begin your new ministry as Bishop of Rome and shepherd of the Catholic Church. We are aware of the necessity of prayer, know its effectiveness, and strive to cultivate its art.
The call to Mary, to whom you wanted to pay tribute today – as the first gesture of your pontificate – moves us and urgently reminds us of the duty to become, like Mary, bearers of Christ, humble mediators, strong in weakness and poverty of spirit, voices in silence.
We wish for you, just like the Poor Man of Assisi, whose name you have chosen, to be a simple and humble instrument of fraternity, dialogue, and peace. We ask the Lord to grant you the missionary zeal of your brother St. Francis Xavier. The example of these two saints will enable you, with evangelical love, to extend your hand to the whole Church, which always needs conversion, to our Christian brothers and sisters from other churches, to believers in the one God of Abraham, and to all who worship God and all people of good will.
May Jesus, who tirelessly leads His bride the Church, grant you the grace to steer Peter's boat with wisdom and courage through the waves of today's times, which create such terrible opportunities for significant material and spiritual poverty.
May Mary, our Mother and Sister, Star of the Sea, accompany and support you so that you may lead God's people to the promised harbor.
Along with thanking God for your election, we also wish to thank you for accepting the choice of your brother cardinals.
We assure you of our unconditional loyalty and above all of our prayers for you and your ministry. We are ready to collaborate with you in every possible way in the work of evangelization and especially in serving the poor and in spiritual accompaniment. We want to walk together with you on the steep and beautiful path "to the summit of the mountain, which is Christ" (the opening prayer from the Mass for the memorial of Blessed Mary of Carmel).
Together with my brother and sister religious and all the members of the Carmelite family, who are persistently praying for you and for the Church, I ask you for your special blessing.
Your devoted in Christ
P. Fernando Millán Romeral, O.Carm.
General Prior
