On Reverend Sun Myung Moon's 80th Birthday world leaders showed their support for his work and hear is what they had to say:
Dear Dr. Moon
We are delighted to wish you a very happy birthday.
We hope you enjoy a year of good health, filled with every happiness.
Have a joyous celebration.
President Bill Clinton
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
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Heartfelt congratulations on the opening of the World Culture and Sports Festival 2000. I think that all nations of the world are seeking permanent peace through this international celebration. Exchange and friendship is indeed consolidated serving humanity's deep-desired reconciliation, forgiveness and peace.
It is my hope that this celebration will contribute to the realisation of a more peaceful and harmonised world. I congratulate Rev. Sun Myung Moon on his 80th birthday and wish him hope in all endeavours.
Kim Dae Jung
President of the Republic of Korea
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It is a tribute to our two guests of honour Dr. and Mrs. Moon, who have the happy arrangement of celebrating their birthday on the same day. This of course avoids a lot of not very necessary family expenditure. But it does give a particular significance to this event as it occurs year after year. But surely the significance this year of the eightieth birthday of our two most distinguished guests is a very important one.
It shows to all us how very much they achieved in their lives. We therefore can thank them wholeheartedly for what they have done in this way.
The world is grateful to them because it is something which has influenced for the better people all over the world. And so it is right that tonight at this historic gathering we should come to the climax of this evening by drinking to their future health. It is thanks for the past and all good wishes for the future. I now invite you to take up your glasses and to stand and drink to the stand and drink to the health of Dr. and Mrs. Moon. Happy Birthday to them and a creative and beneficial future....Dr. and Mrs. Moon.
Sir Edward Heath
Former Prime Minister of Geat Britain
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Dear Friends,
I come here a little bit late. You all know about this. During the time I have been waiting my mind has been with you. Because I came here mainly to honor Rev Moon and in particular for his thoughts about the family.
You have heard the thoughts of Dr. Kaunda, Vice President Quayle and Sir Edward Heath so my speech is redundant. Anyway I have come from far away so you have to accept a peace of my mind. I am from an Islamic country and Islam faces modernization. Islam faces two choices. The first is the choice of resisting change. In Islam we worship only God and nothing else.
While God creates mankind from man and women and makes them into tribes and nations in order to know each other, there is no way to kill each other. We must take the second step which is the equal treatment of all people, religion, and language in front of the law.
The obligation of Muslims is to uphold the spirituality of Islam especially in the relations between religion and the state.
We need morality and it can only be created in the family and not in anything else. We have to strengthen the family and then we can have confidence in the future. Then we can have confidence in our relationship with God and fellow human beings.
Abdurahman Wahid
President of Indonesia
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This comment came from a seminar in the United States
I see him as someone with a vision and with the means to carry that vision out.
He is someone with a vision, with the means to carry it out and the willingness to spend those means. There are other faith traditions with the means but they do not have the will. And he's obviously very strong in his commitment in doing this.
Rabbi Rami Mark Sharpe
Beth Or Synagogue,
Miami, Florida, USA.
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Dear participants of the World Culture and Sports Festival 2000,
distinguished Reverend and Mrs. Moon, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great pleasure for me to send you best regards for such a magnificent event as the World Culture and Sports festival. I regret I cannot share the joy with you in Seoul, Korea, due to my current busy schedule. However, I am honoured, at the beginning of this new millennium, to have the opportunity to congratulate Reverend Sun Myung Moon on his 80th birthday. As I understand, Reverend Moon's life has been dedicated to the holy striving for the love, peace, happiness and prosperity of humankind. As a newly elected President of the Republic of Macedonia and a person who strongly shares religious attitudes and believes in God, I truly appreciate his tremendous efforts to mobilise mankind for the greatest human goal - peace on earth…. I am strongly confident that we can achieve these goals by sincerely following the basic values of morality and religion. We should therefore pay more attention in future to our families, we should raise our children with true love and treat our elderly and neighbours with respect. Peace among nations is not the goal itself, rather the happiness of each divine creature on earth. I am confident that you and your families will give your best to attain such a goal. May God bless you!
Boris Trajkovski:
President of Macedonia
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In my opinion, Sun Myung Moon can without doubt be included in the extensive catalogue of characteristics of "saints"…. He belongs to the lineage of those who, in terms of biography and life content, in a particularly vivid and memorable way represent that which all Christians demand: to take responsibility for the initiating nature of the love of God. He establishes here markers and directional constants, which one ought to take seriously. Sun Myung Moon is in full accordance with the most essential and unmistakable characteristic of saintliness: to bring strongly into focus once again the relationship between God and humankind, which is currently diffuse and disappearing. One does not need to become involved with the phenomenon of this modern saint and his charisma to nevertheless recognize in him a positive and creative opposing camp to the worldwide triumphal procession of banality and cynicism.
The saint always tries to surmount the limitations of his own denomination. He feels directly responsible for the well-being of all others and is there for them. The special saintliness of Sun Myung Moon is that he does not belong exclusively to the Christian realm, but also to the shamanistic, Buddhist, and Confucianist as well. Yet he found his deepest roots in Korean Christianity. If one is to take seriously the role of Pyongyang as the Jerusalem of the East, which Sun Myung Moon has always done, we should hope that against the background of this eschatological light a coming together of all religions will take place. However, he will have to develop a much greater ecumenism than our forefathers attained at the end of the last century. A more tolerant, accepting and deeply founded "advanced ecumenism" is called for. Thanks to the man whose 80th birthday we are now celebrating, the pointers and principles for such a brotherly and continuous discussion among all religions have been established. It would seem that Sun Myung Moon possesses the appropriate philosophical instrument to enable him to realise his life's highest goal.
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Prof. Dr. Jürgen Redhardt,
Professor of theology (emeritus), Giessen University, Germany
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Reverend Moon!
I had the honour to participate in your birthday celebration in Washington and was able to express my congratulations and best wishes to you in a personal way. Once more: God bless you!
During this occasion I came to know how many famous statesmen all the way up to President Bill Clinton also expressed their congratulations to you. Apparently all of them are convinced that you are following the voice of your conscience, working with all your strength for the well-being of humankind following God's Will. My gratitude and appreciation for your work.
Statesmen of my country are not among those congratulating you. On the opposite: you were even refused entry into Germany. When I inquired why, the responsible Minister of Interior Manfred Kanther never gave me an answer. Certainly you know that this man, who was considered by many a special man of law and order, was forced to leave the political stage with scorn and shame. He did injustice to you as well. For this injustice, I as German citizen want to apologize to you. We can only hope that his successor will respect the good spirit of our constitution, allowing you to visit your community here in Germany.
I am writing this letter as a catholic. I know that many of my fellow Christians, who today like to talk about tolerance, also are spreading suspicion and bad defamation about new religious movements, causing damage for their followers. The old sin has discovered a new object. Let us pray: "Father forgive them, for they don't know what they do!"
The common fight against the god-denying an inhuman communism brought us together. Please allow me to dedicate this issue of my recently published book "Red Book of the Communist Ideology: Marx & Engels, Fathers of Terror" to you in acknowledgement of your great merits.
With warm greetings
Prof. Dr. jur. Konrad Löw
Professor of Political Science, University of Bayreuth
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I always appreciate that Rev. Moon is engaged in making available a platform to the discussion of scientists of very different fields and to the meeting of members of all kind of religions of the world. I wished my church and all Christian churches would do the like. I honestly admire the tolerance of Rev. Moon as he admits critical disputes with Unification Theology in his conferences.
Dr. Klaus Rohmann
Professor for Comparative Religions
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To His Excellence Reverend Sun Myung Moon:
Honoured Mr. Chairman! On the occasion of your birthday, which you are able to greet in the new millennium, I would like to convey to you the respect and admiration of many people in Germany for your work to maintain world peace during the Cold War and for your contribution to harmony among the world's peoples. Your struggle to preserve the virtues at the heart of the family, which is the base of our society, has earned you worldwide recognition. Your actively taking responsibility for the welfare and the neighbourly support of many peoples of the world, who in contrast to the rich industrial nations rely on energetic support, has brought you widespread admiration.
May your support for the reunification of your fatherland also be crowned by success.
Together with my friends, I wish you many years of happiness and success for all efforts in building a world of justice.
Dr. Achim Rohde
Lawyer, Committee member of the Free Democratic Party of Germany
