From page 1 before the expiration of the death threat, which you have announced against him, a good and honest man, whom no one can accuse of any crime, or accuse of Insufficient social sensibility or of a lack of attention to justice and to peaceful civic unity.
'I have no mandate (obligation) to him, not am I bound by any private interest towards him. But I love him as a member of the great human Family, as a stildent-days' friend, and in a very special way as a brother in the Faith and as a son of the Church of Christ ...
"1 beg you on my knees, free the honourable Aldo Moro simply, unconditionally, not so much because of my humble and affectionate intercession, but because of his dignity as a cornmon brother in humanity, and for
the reason, which 1 wish to hope will be compelling in your consciences, of making real social progress, which should not be stained by innocent blood, or tormented by superflous grief.
"Already we must grieve for and deprecate too many victims in the death of persons, entrusted with carrying out their given duty. All of us should fear hatred, which degenerates into vendetta or which gives way to sentiments of degrading desperation ...
"Men of the Red Brigades, leave me, the representative of so many of your co-citizens, the hope that your souls may yet harbour a victorious feeling of humanity.
"I wait in prayer, and moreover ever in love. the proof. (signed) Paulus PP VI.
On Sunday, Pope Paul told a crowd of close to 50,000 in the square of St Peter's below the papal apartments:
"About Aldo Moro? We have no news regarding him. Alas, we were anxious on Saturday at the expiration of the hour set (the ultimatum deadline of 1500 hours) by the anonymous men who constituted themselves as unilateral judges and executioners.
"And we are still anxious, ever praying and waiting, that Rome, Italy, the world and, especially, Moro's family and his friends be saved the consummation of this misdeed."
The Holy Father concluded: "This expectation still allows us to have hope. Meanwhile we suffer and pray."
The Red Brigades' eighth cornmuniqu'e was "found" simultaneously in Rome, Milan, Genoa and Turin — as had occurred in all seven previous cornmuniquks — on Monday, after the Catholic Church's relief organisation Caritas had announced that telephone switchboards in Freiberg, Germany, and Rome — the two major headquarters of the organisation — would remain open night and day to handle possible Red Brigade demands for mediation.
Monday's eighth communiqué was followed later by publication of a further letter from Moro himself to Signor Zaccagnini, secretary general of the Christian Democrat Party, in which he wrote, of the "growing dramaticitv of the situation."
He added: "We are almost at zero hour, seconds rather than minutes are left: we are at the moment of bloodshed."
Despite Moro's pleas, there appears little likelihood that the Italian Government will release any terrorist now in jail.