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Venerable Brethren;
Health and Apostolic Benediction.
In the very year which marks the fortieth anniversary of the
consecration of mankind to our Redeemer's Most Sacred Heart, the
inscrutable counsel of the Lord, for no merit of Ours, has laid upon Us
the exalted dignity and grave care of the Supreme Pontificate; for that
consecration was proclaimed by Our immortal predecessor, Leo XIII, at
the beginning of the Holy Year which closed the last century.
2. And We, as a newly ordained priest, then just empowered to recite "I
will go in to the altar of God" (Psalm xiii. 4), hailed the Encyclical
Annum Sacrum with genuine approval, enthusiasm and delight as a message
from heaven. We associated Ourselves in fervent admiration with the
motives and aims which inspired and directed the truly providential
action of a Pontiff so sure in his diagnosis of the open and hidden
needs and sores of his day. It is only natural, then, that We should
today feel profoundly grateful to Providence for having designed that
the first year of Our Pontificate should be associated with a memory so
precious and so dear of Our first year of priesthood, and that We
should take the opportunity of paying homage to the King of kings and
Lord of lords (I Timothy vi. 15; Apocalypse xix. 6) as a kind of
Introit prayer to Our Pontificate, in the spirit of Our renowned
predecessor and in the faithful accomplishment of his designs, and
that, in fine, We should make of it the alpha and omega of Our aims, of
Our hopes, of Our teaching, of Our activity, of Our patience and of Our
sufferings, by consecrating them all to the spread of the Kingdom of
Christ.
3. As We review from the standpoint of eternity the past forty years in
their exterior events and interior developments, balancing achievements
against deficiencies, We see ever more clearly the sacred significance
of that consecration of mankind to Christ the King; We see its
inspiring symbolism We see its power to refine and to elevate, to
strengthen and to fortify souls. We see, besides, in that consecration
a penetrating wisdom which sets itself to restore and to ennoble all
human society and to promote its true welfare. It unfolds itself to Us
ever more clearly as a message of comfort and a grace from God not only
to His Church, but also to a world in all too dire need of help and
guidance: to a world which, preoccupied with the worship of the
ephemeral, has lost its way and spent its forces in a vain search after
earthly ideals. It is a message to men who, in ever increasing numbers,
have cut themselves off from faith in Christ and, even more, from the
recognition and observance of His law; a message opposed to that
philosophy of life for which the doctrine of love and renunciation
preached in the Sermon on the Mount and the Divine act of love on the
Cross seem to be a stumbling block and foolishness.
4. Even as the precursor of the Lord proclaimed one day to those who
sought and questioned him: "Behold the lamb of God" (Saint John i. 29),
in order to warn them that the desired of the nations (cf. Aggeus ii.
8), dwelt, though as yet unrecognized, in their midst, so, too, the
representative of Christ addressed his mighty cry of entreaty: "Behold
your King" (Saint John xix. 14) to the renegades, to the doubters, to
the wavering, to the hesitant, who either refused to follow the
glorious Redeemer, living ever and working in His Church, or followed
Him with carelessness and sloth.
5. From the widening and deepening of devotion to the Divine Heart of
the Redeemer, which had its splendid culmination in the consecration of
humanity at the end of the last century, and further in the
introduction, by Our immediate predecessor of happy memory, of the
Feast of Christ the King, there have sprung up benefits beyond
description for numberless souls - as the stream of the river which
maketh the City of God joyful (Psalm xlv. 5). What age had greater need
than ours of these benefits? What age has been, for all its technical
and purely civic progress, more tormented than ours by spiritual
emptiness and deep-felt interior poverty? May we not, perhaps, apply to
it the prophetic words of the Apocalypse: "Thou sayest: I am rich, and
made wealthy, and have need of nothing: and knowest not, that thou art
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." (Apocalypse
iii. 17.)
6. Can there be, Venerable Brethren, a greater or more urgent duty than
to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians iii. 8) to the
men of our time? Can there be anything nobler than to unfurl the
"Ensign of the King" before those who have followed and still follow a
false standard, and to win back to the victorious banner of the Cross
those who have abandoned it? What heart is not inflamed, is not swept
forward to help at the sight of so many brothers and sisters who,
misled by error, passion, temptation and prejudice, have strayed away
from faith in the true God and have lost contact with the joyful and
life-giving message of Christ?
7. Who among "the Soldiers of Christ" - ecclesiastic or layman - does
not feel himself incited and spurred on to a greater vigilance, to a
more determined resistance, by the sight of the ever-increasing host of
Christ's enemies; as he perceives the spokesmen of these tendencies
deny or in practice neglect the vivifying truths and the values
inherent in belief in God and in Christ; as he perceives them wantonly
break the Tables of God's Commandments to substitute other tables and
other standards stripped of the ethical content of the Revelation on
Sinai, standards in which the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of
the Cross has no place?
8. Who could observe without profound grief the tragic harvest of such
desertions among those who in days of calm and security were numbered
among the followers of Christ, but who - Christians unfortunately more
in name than in fact - in the hour that called for endurance, for
effort, for suffering, for a stout heart in face of hidden or open
persecution, fell victims of cowardice, weakness, uncertainty; who,
terror-stricken before the sacrifices entailed by a profession of their
Christian Faith, could not steel themselves to drink the bitter chalice
awaiting those faithful to Christ?
9. In such dispositions of time and temperament, Venerable Brethren,
may the approaching Feast of Christ the King, on which this, Our first
Encyclical, will reach you, be a day of grace and of thorough renewal
and revival in the spirit of the Kingdom of Christ. May it be a day
when the consecration of the human race to the Divine Heart, which
should be celebrated in a particularly solemn manner, will gather the
Faithful of all peoples and all nations around the throne of the
Eternal King, in adoration and in reparation, to renew now and forever
their oath of allegiance to Him and to His law of truth and of love.
10. May it be for the Faithful a day of grace, on which the fire that
Our Lord came to cast upon the earth will kindle with ever greater
light and purity. May it be a day of grace for the lukewarm, for the
weary, for the afflicted, that their heads, which have become faint,
may give proofs of interior renewal and regeneration of spirit. May it
be a day of grace also for those who have not known Christ or who have
lost Him; a day when from millions of faithful hearts will rise to
Heaven the prayer that "the Light which enlighteneth every man that
cometh into this world" (Saint John i. 9) may make clear to them the
way of salvation, that His grace may stir in the "troubled heart" of
the wanderers a homesickness for things eternal, a homesickness that
impels them to return to Him, Who from His sorrowful throne of the
Cross thirsts for their souls also and Who is consumed by a desire to
become for them, too, "the Way, and the Truth and the Life" (Saint John
xiv. 6).
11. As, with a heart full of confidence and hope, We place this first
Encyclical of Our Pontificate under the Seal of Christ the King, We
feel entirely assured of the unanimous and enthusiastic approval of the
whole flock of Christ. The difficulties, anxieties and trials of the
present hour arouse, intensify and refine, to a degree rarely attained,
the sense of solidarity in the Catholic family. They make all believers
in God and in Christ share the consciousness of a common threat from a
common danger.
12. We witnessed a consoling and memorable display of this Catholic
solidarity, greatly intensified in such difficult circumstances - the
serried ranks, the assurance, the resolution, the will to win - in
those days when, with faltering step but with confidence in God, We
took possession of the chair left vacant by the death of Our great
predecessor.
13. We cherish the memory of the many testimonies of filial attachment
to the Church and to the Vicar of Christ, and of the ovation so
genuine, so enthusiastic, and so spontaneous accorded to Us on the
occasion of Our election and coronation; and We gladly take this
opportune occasion to address to you, Venerable Brethren, and to all
who belong to the flock of the Lord, a word of sincere gratitude for
that orderly manifestation of reverent love and of steadfast loyalty to
the Papacy, in which one could see recognition of the God-given mission
of the High Priest and of the Supreme Pastor.
14. For, We well know it, all those manifestations were not and could
not have been addressed to Our poor person but to the singular and
exalted office to which the Lord had raised Us. And though from that
first moment We felt all the great weight of responsible cares
inseparable from the supreme power given to Us by Divine Providence, it
was a consolation to see that magnificent and tangible demonstration of
the indissoluble unity of the Catholic Church rallying all the closer
to the impregnable Rock of Peter, to form around it a wall and a
bulwark as the enemies of Christ become bolder.
15. This same manifestation of world-wide Catholic solidarity and of
supernatural brotherhood of peoples around their Common Father, seemed
to Us all the richer in fair hopes in view of the tragic circumstances,
both material and spiritual, of the moment. That memory has continued
to comfort Us also in the first months of Our Pontificate in which We
have already witnessed the toil, the anxiety, and the trials with which
the path of the Spouse of Christ across the world is strewn.
16. Nor can We pass over in silence the profound impression of
heartfelt gratitude made on Us by the good wishes of those who, though
not belonging to the visible body of the Catholic Church, have given
noble and sincere expression to their appreciation of all that unites
them to Us in love for the Person of Christ or in belief in God. We
wish to express Our gratitude to them all. We entrust them one and all
to the protection and to the guidance of the Lord and We assure them
solemnly that one thought only fills Our mind: to imitate the example
of the Good Shepherd in order to bring true happiness to all men: "that
they may have life, and may have it more abundantly" (Saint John x.
10).
17. But We must, in obedience to an inner prompting, make special
mention of Our gratitude for the tokens of reverent homage which we
have had from the Sovereigns, heads of States and Governments of those
nations with which the Holy See is in friendly relations. Our heart is
joyous especially at the thought that We can, in this first Encyclical
directed to the whole Christian people scattered over the world, rank
among such friendly powers Our dear Italy, fruitful garden of the
Faith, which was planted by the Princes of the Apostles. For, as a
result of the Lateran Pacts, her representative occupies a place of
honor among those officially accredited to the Apostolic See. "The
Peace of Christ restored to Italy," like a new dawn of brotherly union
in religious and in civil intercourse, had its beginning in these
Pacts. We pray God that, in the serene atmosphere of that peace, He may
pervade, revivify, strengthen and fortify the hearts of the Italian
people, so close to Us, in the midst of which We live, with which We
share the very air We breathe. We hope and trust that people, so dear
to Our predecessors and to Us, may be faithful to its glorious Catholic
tradition, and experience through the Divine Protection ever more that
truth of the Psalmist: "Happy is that people whose God is the Lord"
(Psalm cxiii. 15).
18. This happy new juridical and spiritual position which that
achievement, destined to make an indelible mark in history, has secured
and sealed for Italy and for the whole Catholic world, never appeared
to Us so impressive in its unifying effects as when, from the lofty
loggia of the Vatican Basilica, We opened and raised Our arms and Our
hand for the first time in blessing over Rome - Rome, the Seat of the
Papacy and Our own dear birthplace - over Italy reconciled with the
Church, and over the peoples of the entire world.
19. As Vicar of Him Who in a decisive hour pronounced before the
highest earthly authority of that day, the great words: "For this was I
born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony
to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, hearest My voice" (Saint
John xviii. 37), We feel We owe no greater debt to Our office and to
Our time than to testify to the truth with Apostolic firmness: "to give
testimony to the truth." This duty necessarily entails the exposition
and confutation of errors and human faults; for these must be made
known before it is possible to tend and to heal them. "You shall know
the truth and the truth shall make you free" (Saint John viii. 32).
20. In the fulfillment of this, Our duty, we shall not let Ourselves be
influenced by earthly considerations nor be held back by mistrust or
opposition, by rebuffs or lack of appreciation of Our words, nor yet by
fear of misconceptions and misinterpretations. We shall fulfill Our
duty, animated ever with that paternal charity which, while it suffers
from the evils which afflict Our children, at the same time points out
to them the remedy; We shall strive to imitate the Divine Model of
shepherds, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, Who is light as well as love:
"Doing the truth in charity" (Ephesians iv. 15).
21. At the head of the road which leads to the spiritual and moral
bankruptcy of the present day stand the nefarious efforts of not a few
to dethrone Christ; the abandonment of the law of truth which He
proclaimed and of the law of love which is the life breath of His
Kingdom.
22. In the recognition of the royal prerogatives of Christ and in the
return of individuals and of society to the law of His truth and of His
love lies the only way to salvation.
23. Venerable Brethren, as We write these lines the terrible news comes
to Us that the dread tempest of war is already raging despite all Our
efforts to avert it. When We think of the wave of suffering that has
come on countless people who but yesterday enjoyed in the environment
of their homes some little degree of well-being, We are tempted to lay
down Our pen. Our paternal heart is torn by anguish as We look ahead to
all that will yet come forth from the baneful seed of violence and of
hatred for which the sword today ploughs the blood-drenched furrow.
24. But precisely because of this apocalyptic foresight of disaster,
imminent and remote, We feel We have a duty to raise with still greater
insistence the eyes and hearts of those in whom there yet remains good
will to the One from Whom alone comes the salvation of the world - to
One Whose almighty and merciful Hand can alone calm this tempest - to
the One Whose truth and Whose love can enlighten the intellects and
inflame the hearts of so great a section of mankind plunged in error,
selfishness, strife and struggle, so as to give it a new orientation in
the spirit of the Kingship of Christ.
25. Perhaps - God grant it - one may hope that this hour of direct need
may bring a change of outlook and sentiment to those many w ho, till
now, have walked with blind faith along the path of popular modern
errors unconscious of the treacherous and insecure ground on which they
trod. Perhaps the many who have not grasped the importance of the
educational and pastoral mission of the Church will now understand
better her warnings, scouted in the false security of the past. No
defense of Christianity could be more effective than the present
straits. From the immense vortex of error and anti-Christian movements
there has come forth a crop of such poignant disasters as to constitute
a condemnation surpassing in its conclusiveness any merely theoretical
refutation.
26. Hours of painful disillusionment are often hours of grace - "a
passage of the Lord" (cf. Exodus xii. 11), when doors which in other
circumstances would have remained shut, open at Our Savior's words:
"Behold, I stand at the gate and knock" (Apocalypse iii. 20). God knows
that Our heart goes out in affectionate sympathy and spiritual joy to
those who, as a result of such painful trials, feel within them an
effective and salutary thirst for the truth, justice and peace of
Christ. But for those also for whom as yet the hour of light from on
high has not come, Our heart knows only love, Our lips move only in
prayer to the Father of Light that He may cause to shine in their
hearts, indifferent as yet or hostile to Christ, a ray of that Light
which once transformed Saul into Paul; of that Light which has shown
its mysterious power strongest in the times of greatest difficulty for
the Church.
27. A full statement of the doctrinal stand to be taken in face of the
errors of today, if necessary, can be put off to another time unless
there is disturbance by calamitous external events; for the moment We
limit Ourselves to some fundamental observations.
28. The present age, Venerable Brethren, by adding new errors to the
doctrinal aberrations of the past, has pushed these to extremes which
lead inevitably to a drift towards chaos. Before all else, it is
certain that the radical and ultimate cause of the evils which We
deplore in modern society is the denial and rejection of a universal
norm of morality as well for individual and social life as for
international relations; We mean the disregard, so common nowadays, and
the forgetfulness of the natural law itself, which has its foundation
in God, Almighty Creator and Father of all, supreme and absolute
Lawgiver, all-wise and just Judge of human actions. When God is hated,
every basis of morality is undermined; the voice of conscience is
stilled or at any rate grows very faint, that voice which teaches even
to the illiterate and to uncivilized tribes what is good and what is
bad, what lawful, what forbidden, and makes men feel themselves
responsible for their actions to a Supreme Judge.
29. The denial of the fundamentals of morality had its origin, in
Europe, in the abandonment of that Christian teaching of which the
Chair of Peter is the depository and exponent. That teaching had once
given spiritual cohesion to a Europe which, educated, ennobled and
civilized by the Cross, had reached such a degree of civil progress as
to become the teacher of other peoples, of other continents. But, cut
off from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, not a few
separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow the central dogma
of Christianity, the Divinity of the Savior, and have hastened thereby
the progress of spiritual decay.
30. The Holy Gospel narrates that when Jesus was crucified "there was
darkness over the whole earth" (Matthew xxvii. 45); a terrifying symbol
of what happened and what still happens spiritually wherever
incredulity, blind and proud of itself, has succeeded in excluding
Christ from modern life, especially from public life, and has
undermined faith in God as well as faith in Christ. The consequence is
that the moral values by which in other times public and private
conduct was gauged have fallen into disuse; and the much vaunted
civilization of society, which has made ever more rapid progress,
withdrawing man, the family and the State from the beneficent and
regenerating effects of the idea of God and the teaching of the Church,
has caused to reappear, in regions in which for many centuries shone
the splendors of Christian civilization, in a manner ever clearer, ever
more distinct, ever more distressing, the signs of a corrupt and
corrupting paganism: "There was darkness when they crucified Jesus"
(Roman Breviary, Good Friday, Response Five).
31. Many perhaps, while abandoning the teaching of Christ, were not
fully conscious of being led astray by a mirage of glittering phrases,
which proclaimed such estrangement as an escape from the slavery in
which they were before held; nor did they then foresee the bitter
consequences of bartering the truth that sets free, for error which
enslaves. They did not realize that, in renouncing the infinitely wise
and paternal laws of God, and the unifying and elevating doctrines of
Christ's love, they were resigning themselves to the whim of a poor,
fickle human wisdom; they spoke of progress, when they were going back;
of being raised, when they groveled; of arriving at man's estate, when
they stooped to servility. They did not perceive the inability of all
human effort to replace the law of Christ by anything equal to it;
"they became vain in their thoughts" (Romans i. 21).
32. With the weakening of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the
darkening in men's minds of the light of moral principles, there
disappeared the indispensable foundation of the stability and quiet of
that internal and external, private and public order, which alone can
support and safeguard the prosperity of States.
33. It is true that even when Europe had a cohesion of brotherhood
through identical ideals gathered from Christian preaching, she was not
free from divisions, convulsions and wars which laid her waste; but
perhaps they never felt the intense pessimism of today as to the
possibility of settling them, for they had then an effective moral
sense of the just and of the unjust, of the lawful and of the unlawful,
which, by restraining outbreaks of passion, left the way open to an
honorable settlement. In Our days, on the contrary, dissensions come
not only from the surge of rebellious passion, but also from a deep
spiritual crisis which has overthrown the sound principles of private
and public morality.
34. Among the many errors which derive from the poisoned source of
religious and moral agnosticism, We would draw your attention,
Venerable Brethren, to two in particular, as being those which more
than others render almost impossible or at least precarious and
uncertain, the peaceful intercourse of peoples.
35. The first of these pernicious errors, widespread today, is the
forgetfulness of that law of human solidarity and charity which is
dictated and imposed by our common origin and by the equality of
rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong, and by the
redeeming Sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the Altar of the Cross
to His Heavenly Father on behalf of sinful mankind.
36. In fact, the first page of the Scripture, with magnificent
simplicity, tells us how God, as a culmination to His creative work,
made man to His Own image and likeness (cf. Genesis i. 26, 27); and the
same Scripture tells us that He enriched man with supernatural gifts
and privileges, and destined him to an eternal and ineffable happiness.
It shows us besides how other men took their origin from the first
couple, and then goes on, in unsurpassed vividness of language, to
recount their division into different groups and their dispersion to
various parts of the world. Even when they abandoned their Creator, God
did not cease to regard them as His children, who, according to His
merciful plan, should one day be reunited once more in His friendship
(cf. Genesis xii. 3).
37. The Apostle of the Gentiles later on makes himself the herald of
this truth which associates men as brothers in one great family, when
he proclaims to the Greek world that God "hath made of one, all
mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining
appointed times, and the limits of their habitation, that they should
seek God" (Acts xvii. 26, 27).
38. A marvelous vision, which makes us see the human race in the unity
of one common origin in God "one God and Father of all, Who is above
all, and through all, and in us all" (Ephesians iv. 6); in the unity of
nature which in every man is equally composed of material body and
spiritual, immortal soul; in the unity of the immediate end and mission
in the world; in the unity of dwelling place, the earth, of whose
resources all men can by natural right avail themselves, to sustain and
develop life; in the unity of the supernatural end, God Himself, to
Whom all should tend; in the unity of means to secure that end.
39. It is the same Apostle who portrays for us mankind in the unity of
its relations with the Son of God, image of the invisible God, in Whom
all things have been created: "In Him were all things created"
(Colossians i. 16); in the unity of its ransom, effected for all by
Christ, Who, through His Holy and most bitter passion, restored the
original friendship with God which had been broken, making Himself the
Mediator between God and men: "For there is one God, and one Mediator
of God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Timothy ii. 5).
40. And to render such friendship between God and mankind more
intimate, this same Divine and universal Mediator of salvation and of
peace, in the sacred silence of the Supper Room, before He consummated
the Supreme Sacrifice, let fall from His divine Lips the words which
reverberate mightily down the centuries, inspiring heroic charity in a
world devoidof love and torn by hate: "This is my commandment that you
love one another, as I have loved you" (Saint John xv. 12).
41. These are supernatural truths which form a solid basis and the
strongest possible bond of a union, that is reinforced by the love of
God and of our Divine Redeemer, from Whom all receive salvation "for
the edifying of the Body of Christ: until we all meet into the unity of
faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto
the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians iv. 12,
13).
42. In the light of this unity of all mankind, which exists in law and
in fact, individuals do not feel themselves isolated units, like grains
of sand, but united by the very force of their nature and by their
internal destiny, into an organic, harmonious mutual relationship which
varies with the changing of times.
43. And the nations, despite a difference of development due to diverse
conditions of life and of culture, are not destined to break the unity
of the human race, but rather to enrich and embellish it by the sharing
of their own peculiar gifts and by that reciprocal interchange of goods
which can be possible and efficacious only when a mutual love and a
lively sense of charity unite all the sons of the same Father and all
those redeemed by the same Divine Blood.
44. The Church of Christ, the faithful depository of the teaching of
Divine Wisdom, cannot and does not think of deprecating or disdaining
the particular characteristics which each people, with jealous and
intelligible pride, cherishes and retains as a precious heritage. Her
aim is a supernatural union in all-embracing love, deeply felt and
practiced, and not the unity which is exclusively external and
superficial and by that very fact weak.
45. The Church hails with joy and follows with her maternal blessing
every method of guidance and care which aims at a wise and orderly
evolution of particular forces and tendencies having their origin in
the individual character of each race, provided that they are not
opposed to the duties incumbent on men from their unity of origin and
common destiny.
46. She has repeatedly shown in her missionary enterprises that such a
principle of action is the guiding star of her universal apostolate.
Pioneer research and investigation, involving sacrifice, devotedness
and love on the part of her missionaries of every age, have been
undertaken in order to facilitate the deeper appreciative insight into
the most varied civilizations and to put their spiritual values to
account for a living and vital preaching of the Gospel of Christ. All
that in such usages and customs is not inseparably bound up with
religious errors will always be subject to kindly consideration and,
when it is found possible, will be sponsored and developed.
47. Our immediate predecessor, of holy and venerated memory, applying
such norms to a particularly delicate question, took some generous
decisions which are a monument to his insight and to the intensity of
his apostolic spirit. Nor need We tell you, Venerable Brethren, that We
intend to proceed without hesitation along this way. Those who enter
the Church, whatever be their origin or their speech, must know that
they have equal rights as children in the House of the Lord, where the
law of Christ and the peace of Christ prevail.
48. In accordance with these principles of equality, the Church devotes
her care to forming cultured native clergy and gradually increasing the
number of native Bishops. And in order to give external expression to
these, Our intentions, We have chosen the forthcoming Feast of Christ
the King to raise to the Episcopal dignity at the Tomb of the Apostles
twelve representatives of widely different peoples and races. In the
midst of the disruptive contrasts which divide the human family, may
this solemn act proclaim to all Our sons, scattered over the world,
that the spirit, the teaching and the work of the Church can never be
other than that which the Apostle of the Gentiles preached: "putting on
the new, (man) him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the
image of him that created him. Where there is neither Gentile nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free.
But Christ is all and in all" (Colossians iii. 10, 11).
49. Nor is there any fear lest the consciousness of universal
brotherhood aroused by the teaching of Christianity, and the spirit
which it inspires, be in contrast with love of traditions or the
glories of one's fatherland, or impede the progress of prosperity or
legitimate interests. For that same Christianity teaches that in the
exercise of charity we must follow a God-given order, yielding the
place of honor in our affections and good works to those who are bound
to us by special ties. Nay, the Divine Master Himself gave an example
of this preference for His Own country and fatherland, as He wept over
the coming destruction of the Holy City. But legitimate and
well-ordered love of our native country should not make us close our
eyes to the all-embracing nature of Christian Charity, which calls for
consideration of others and of their interests in the pacifying light
of love.
50. Such is the marvelous doctrine of love and peace which has been
such an ennobling factor in the civil and religious progress of
mankind. And the heralds who proclaimed it, moved by supernatural
charity, not only tilled the land and cared for the sick, but above all
they reclaimed, moulded and raised life to divine heights, directing it
toward the summit of sanctity in which everything is seen in the light
of God. They have raised mansions and temples which show to what lofty
and kindly heights the Christian ideal urges man; but above all they
have made of men, wise or ignorant, strong or weak, living temples of
God and branches of the very vine which is Christ. They have handed on
to future generations the treasures of ancient art and wisdom and have
secured for them that inestimable gift of eternal wisdom which links
men as brothers by the common recognition of a supernatural ownership.
51. Venerable Brethren, forgetfulness of the law of universal charity -
of that charity which alone can consolidate peace by extinguishing
hatred and softening envies and dissensions - is the source of very
grave evils for peaceful relations between nations.
52. But there is yet another error no less pernicious to the well-being
of the nations and to the prosperity of that great human society which
gathers together and embraces within its confines all races. It is the
error contained in those ideas which do not hesitate to divorce civil
authority from every kind of dependence upon the Supreme Being - First
Source and absolute Master of man and of society - and from every
restraint of a Higher Law derived from God as from its First Source.
Thus they accord the civil authority an unrestricted field of action
that is at the mercy of the changeful tide of human will, or of the
dictates of casual historical claims, and of the interests of a few.
53. Once the authority of God and the sway of His law are denied in
this way, the civil authority as an inevitable result tends to
attribute to itself that absolute autonomy which belongs exclusively to
the Supreme Maker. It puts itself in the place of the Almighty and
elevates the State or group into the last end of life, the supreme
criterion of the moral and juridical order, and therefore forbids every
appeal to the principles of natural reason and of the Christian
conscience. We do not, of course, fail to recognize that, fortunately,
false principles do not always exercise their full influence,
especially when age-old Christian traditions, on which the peoples have
been nurtured, remain still deeply, even if unconsciously, rooted in
their hearts.
54. None the less, one must not forget the essential insufficiency and
weakness of every principle of social life which rests upon a purely
human foundation, is inspired by merely earthly motives and relies for
its force on the sanction of a purely external authority.
55. Where the dependence of human right upon the Divine is denied,
where appeal is made only to some insecure idea of a merely human
authority, and an autonomy is claimed which rests only upon a
utilitarian morality, there human law itself justly forfeits in its
more weighty application the moral force which is the essential
condition for its acknowledgment and also for its demand of sacrifices.
56. It is quite true that power based on such weak and unsteady
foundations can attain at times, under chance circumstances, material
successes apt to arouse wonder in superficial observers.
57. But the moment comes when the inevitable law triumphs, which
strikes down all that has been constructed upon a hidden or open
disproportion between the greatness of the material and outward
success, and the weakness of the inward value and of its moral
foundation. Such disproportion exists whenever public authority
disregards or denies the dominion of the Supreme Lawgiver, Who, as He
has given rulers power, has also set and marked its bounds.
58. Indeed, as Our great predecessor, Leo XIII, wisely taught in the
Encyclical Immortale Dei, it was the Creator's will that civil
sovereignty should regulate social life after the dictates of an order
changeless in its universal principles; should facilitate the
attainment in the temporal order, by individuals, of physical,
intellectual and moral perfection; and should aid them to reach their
supernatural end.
59. Hence, it is the noble prerogative and function of the State to
control, aid and direct the private and individual activities of
national life that they converge harmoniously towards the common good.
That good can neither be defined according to arbitrary ideas nor can
it accept for its standard primarily the material prosperity of
society, but rather it should be defined according to the harmonious
development and the natural perfection of man. It is for this
perfection that society is designed by the Creator as a means.
60. To consider the State as something ultimate to which everything
else should be subordinated and directed, cannot fail to harm the true
and lasting prosperity of nations. This can happen either when
unrestricted dominion comes to be conferred on the State as having a
mandate from the nation, people, or even a social order, or when the
State arrogates such dominion to itself as absolute master,
despotically, without any mandate whatsoever. If, in fact, the State
lays claim to and directs private enterprises, these, ruled as they are
by delicate and complicated internal principles which guarantee and
assure the realization of their special aims, may be damaged to the
detriment of the public good, by being wrenched from their natural
surroundings, that is, from responsible private action.
61. Further, there would be danger lest the primary and essential cell
of society, the family, with its well-being and its growth, should come
to be considered from the narrow standpoint of national power, and lest
it be forgotten that man and the family are by nature anterior to the
State, and that the Creator has given to both of them powers and rights
and has assigned them a mission and a charge that correspond to
undeniable natural requirements.
62. The education of the new generation in that case would not aim at
the balanced and harmonious development of the physical powers and of
all the intellectual and moral qualities, but at a one-sided formation
of those civic virtues that are considered necessary for attaining
political success, while the virtues which give society the fragrance
of nobility, humanity and reverence would be inculcated less, for fear
they should detract from the pride of the citizen.
63. Before Us stand out with painful clarity the dangers We fear will
accrue to this and coming generations from the neglect or
nonrecognition, the minimizing and the gradual abolition of the rights
peculiar to the family. Therefore We stand up as determined defenders
of those rights in the full consciousness of the duty imposed on Us by
Our Apostolic office. The stress of our times, as well external as
internal, material and spiritual alike, and the manifold errors with
their countless repercussions are tasted by none so bitterly as by that
noble little cell, the family.
64. True courage and a heroism worthy in its degree of admiration and
respect, are often necessary to support the hardships of life, the
daily weight of misery, growing want and restrictions on a scale never
before experienced, whose reason and necessity are not always apparent.
Whoever has the care of souls and can search hearts, knows the hidden
tears of mothers, the resigned sorrow of so many fathers, the countless
bitterness of which no statistics tell nor can tell He sees with sad
eyes the mass of sufferings ever on the increase; he knows how the
powers of disorder and destruction stand on the alert ready to make use
of all these things for their dark designs.
65. No one of good-will and vision will think of refusing the State, in
the exceptional conditions of the world of today, correspondingly wider
and exceptional rights to meet the popular needs. But even in such
emergencies, the moral law, established by God, demands that the
lawfulness of each such measure and its real necessity be scrutinized
with the greatest rigor according to the standards of the common good.
66. In any case, the more burdensome the material sacrifices demanded
of the individual and the family by the State, the more must the rights
of conscience be to it sacred and inviolable. Goods, blood it can
demand; but the soul redeemed by God, never. The charge laid by God on
parents to provide for the material and spiritual good of their
offspring and to procure for them a suitable training saturated with
the true spirit of religion, cannot be wrested from them without grave
violation of their rights.
67. Undoubtedly, that formation should aim as well at the preparation
of youth to fulfill with intelligent understanding and pride those
offices of a noble patriotism which give to one's earthly fatherland
all due measure of love, self-devotion and service. But, on the other
hand, a formation which forgot or, worse still, deliberately neglected
to direct the eyes and hearts of youth to the heavenly country would be
an injustice to youth, an injustice against the inalienable duties and
rights of the Christian family and an excess to which a check must be
opposed, in the interests even of the people and of the State itself.
68. Such an education might seem perhaps to the rulers responsible for
it, a source of increased strength and vigor; it would be, in fact, the
opposite, as sad experience would prove. The crime of high treason
against the "King of kings and Lord of lords" (I Timothy vi. 15; cf.
Apocalypse xix. 6) perpetrated by an education that is either
indifferent or opposed to Christianity, the reversal of "Suffer the
little children to come unto me" (Saint Matthew xix, 14), would bear
most bitter fruits. On the contrary, the State which lifts anxiety from
the bleeding and torn hearts of fathers and mothers and restores their
rights, only promotes its own internal peace and lays foundations of a
happy future for the country. The souls of children given to their
parents by God and consecrated in Baptism with the royal character of
Christ, are a sacred charge over which watches the jealous love of God.
The same Christ Who pronounced the words "Suffer little children to
come unto me" has threatened, for all His mercy and goodness, with
fearful evils, those who give scandal to those so dear to His heart.
69. Now what scandal is more permanently harmful to generation after
generation, than a formation of youth which is misdirected towards a
goal that alienates from Christ "the Way and the Truth and the Life"
and leads to open or hidden apostasy from Christ? That Christ from Whom
they want to alienate the youthful generations of the present day and
of the future, is the same Christ Who has received from His Eternal
Father all power in Heaven and on earth. He holds in His omnipotent
Hand the destiny of States, of peoples and of nations. His it is to
shorten or prolong life: His to grant increase, prosperity and
greatness.
70. Of all that exists on the face of the earth, the soul alone has
deathless life. A system of education that should not respect the
sacred precincts of the Christian family, protected by God's holy law,
that should attack its foundations, bar to the young the way to Christ,
to the Savior's fountains of life and joy (cf. Isaias xii. 3), that
should consider apostasy from Christ and the Church as a proof of
fidelity to the people or a particular class's word: "They that depart
from thee, shall be written in the earth" (Jeremiah xvii. 13).
71. The idea which credits the State with unlimited authority is not
simply an error harmful to the internal life of nations, to their
prosperity, and to the larger and well-ordered increase in their
well-being, but likewise it injures the relations between peoples, for
it breaks the unity of supra-national society, robs the law of nations
of its foundation and vigor, leads to violation of others' rights and
impedes agreement and peaceful intercourse.
72. A disposition, in fact, of the divinely sanctioned natural order
divides the human race into social groups, nations or States, which are
mutually independent in organization and in the direction of their
internal life. But for all that, the human race is bound together by
reciprocal ties, moral and juridical, into a great commonwealth
directed to the good of all nations and ruled by special laws which
protect its unity and promote its prosperity.
73. Now no one can fail to see how the claim to absolute autonomy for
the State stands in open opposition to this natural way that is
inherent in man - nay, denies it utterly - and therefore leaves the
stability of international relations at the mercy of the will of
rulers, while it destroys the possibility of true union and fruitful
collaboration directed to the general good.
74. So, Venerable Brethren, it is indispensable for the existence of
harmonious and lasting contacts and of fruitful relations, that the
peoples recognize and observe these principles of international natural
law which regulate their normal development and activity. Such
principles demand respect for corresponding rights to independence, to
life and to the possibility of continuous development in the paths of
civilization; they demand, further, fidelity to compacts agreed upon
and sanctioned in conformity with the principles of the law of nations.
75. The indispensable presupposition, without doubt, of all peaceful
intercourse between nations, and the very soul of the juridical
relations in force among them, is mutual trust: the expectation and
conviction that each party will respect its plighted word; the
certainty that both sides are convinced that "better is wisdom, than
weapons of war" (Ecclesiastes ix. 18), and are ready to enter into
discussion and to avoid recourse to force or to threats of force in
case of delays, hindrances, changes or disputes, because all these
things can be the result not of bad will, but of changed circumstances
and of genuine interests in conflict.
76. But on the other hand, to tear the law of nations from its anchor
in Divine law, to base it on the autonomous will of States, is to
dethrone that very law and deprive it of its noblest and strongest
qualities. Thus it would stand abandoned to the fatal drive of private
interest and collective selfishness exclusively intent on the assertion
of its own rights and ignoring those of others.
77. Now, it is true that with the passage of time and the substantial
change of circumstances, which were not and perhaps could not have been
foreseen in the making of a treaty, such a treaty or some of its
clauses can in fact become, or at least seem to become unjust,
impracticable or too burdensome for one of the parties. It is obvious
that should such be the case, recourse should be had in good time to a
frank discussion with a view to modifying the treaty or making another
in its stead. But to consider treaties on principle as ephemeral and
tacitly to assume the authority of rescinding them unilaterally when
they are no longer to one's advantage, would be to abolish all mutual
trust among States. In this way, natural order would be destroyed and
there would be seen dug between different peoples and nations trenches
of division impossible to refill.
78. Today, Venerable Brethren, all men are looking with terror into the
abyss to which they have been brought by the errors and principles
which We have mentioned, and by their practical consequences. Gone are
the proud illusions of limitless progress. Should any still fail to
grasp this fact, the tragic situation of today would rouse them with
the prophet's cry: "Hear, ye deaf and ye blind, behold" (Isaias xlii.
18). What used to appear on the outside as order, was nothing but an
invasion of disorder: confusion in the principles of moral life. These
principles, once divorced from the majesty of the Divine law, have
tainted every field of human activity.
79. But let us leave the past and turn our eyes towards that future
which, according to the promises of the powerful ones of this world, is
to consist, once the bloody conflicts of today have ceased, in a new
order founded on justice and on prosperity. Will that future be really
different; above all, will it be better? Will treaties of peace, will
the new international order at the end of this war be animated by
justice and by equity towards all, by that spirit which frees and
pacifies? Or will there be a lamentable repetition of ancient and of
recent errors?
80. To hope for a decisive change exclusively from the shock of war and
its final issue is idle, as experience shows. The hour of victory is an
hour of external triumph for the party to whom victory falls, but it is
in equal measure the hour of temptation. In this hour the angel of
justice strives with the demons of violence; the heart of the victor
all to easily is hardened; moderation and farseeing wisdom appear to
him weakness; the excited passions of the people, often inflamed by the
sacrifices and sufferings they have borne, obscure the vision even of
responsible persons and make them inattentive to the warning voice of
humanity and equity, which is overwhelmed or drowned in the inhuman
cry. "Vae victis, woe to the conquered." There is danger lest
settlements and decision born in such conditions be nothing else than
injustice under the cloak of justice.
81. No, Venerable Brethren, safety does not come to peoples from
external means, from the sword which can impose conditions of peace but
does not create peace. Forces that are to renew the face of the earth
should proceed from within, from the spirit.
82. Once the bitterness and the cruel strifes of the present have
ceased, the new order of the world, of national and international life,
must rest no longer on the quicksands of changeable and ephemeral
standards that depend only on the selfish interests of groups and
individuals. No, they must rest on the unshakable foundation, on the
solid rock of natural law and of Divine Revelation. There the human
legislator must attain to that balance, that keen sense of moral
responsibility, without which it is easy to mistake the boundary
between the legitimate use and the abuse of power. Thus only will his
decisions have internal consistency, noble dignity and religious
sanction, and be immune from selfishness and passion.
83. For true though it is that the evils from which mankind suffers
today come in part from economic instability and from the struggle of
interests regarding a more equal distribution of the goods which God
has given man as a means of sustenance and progress, it is not less
true that their root is deeper and more intrinsic, belonging to the
sphere of religious belief and moral convictions which have been
perverted by the progressive alienation of the peoples from that unity
of doctrine, faith, customs and morals which once was promoted by the
tireless and beneficent work of the Church. If it is to have any
effect, the reeducation of mankind must be, above all things, spiritual
and religious. Hence, it must proceed from Christ as from its
indispensable foundation; must be actuated by justice and crowned by
charity.
84. The accomplishment of this task of regeneration, by adapting her
means to the altered conditions of the times and to the new needs of
the human race, is an essential and maternal office of the Church.
Committed to her by her Divine Founder, the preaching of the Gospel, by
which is inculcated to men truth, justice and charity and the endeavor
to implant its precepts solidly in mind and conscience, is the most
noble and most fruitable work for peace. That mission would seem as if
it ought to discourage by its very grandeur the hearts of those who
make up the Church Militant. But that cooperation in the spread of the
Kingdom of God which in every century is effected in different ways,
with varying instruments, with manifold hard struggles, is a command
incumbent on everyone who has been snatched by Divine Grace from the
slavery of Satan and called in Baptism to citizenship of the Kingdom of
God.
85. And if belonging to it, living according to its spirit, laboring
for its increase and placing its benefits at the disposition of that
portion of mankind also which as yet has no part in them, means in our
days having to face obstacles and oppositions as vast and deep and
minutely organized as never before, that does not dispense a man from
the frank, bold profession of our Faith. Rather, it spurs one to stand
fast in the conflict even at the price of the greatest sacrifices.
Whoever lives by the spirit of Christ refuses to let himself be beaten
down by the difficulties which oppose him, but on the contrary feels
himself impelled to work with all his strength and with the fullest
confidence in God. He does not draw back before the straits and the
necessities of the moment but faces their severity ready to give aid
with that love which flees no sacrifice, is stronger than death, and
will not be quenched by the rushing waters of tribulation.
86. It gives Us, Venerable Brethren, an inward strength, a heavenly
joy, for which We daily render to God Our deep and humble thanks, to
see in every region of the Catholic world evident signs of a spirit
which boldly faces the gigantic tasks of our age, which with generous
decision is intent on uniting in fruitful harmony the first and
essential duty of individual sanctification, and apostolic activity for
the spread of the Kingdom of God. From the movement of the Eucharistic
Congresses furthered with loving care by Our predecessors and from the
collaboration of the laity formed in Catholic Action towards a deep
realization of their noble mission, flow forth fountains of grace and
reserves of strength, which could hardly be sufficiently prized in the
present time, when threats are more numerous, needs multiply and the
conflict between Christianity and anti-Christianism grows intense.
87. At a moment when one is forced to note with sorrow the
disproportion between the number of priests and the calls upon them,
when one sees that even today the words of Our Savior apply: "The
harvest indeed in great, but the laborers are few" (Saint Matthew ix.
37; Saint Luke x.2), the collaboration of the laity in the Apostolate
of the Hierarchy, a collaboration indeed given by many and animated
with ardent zeal and generous self-devotion, stands out as a precious
aid to the work of priests and shows possibilities of development which
justify the brightest hopes. The prayer of the Church to the Lord of
the Harvest that he send workers into his vineyard (cf. Saint Matthew
ix. 37; Saint Luke x.2) has been granted to a degree proportionate to
the present needs, and in a manner which supplements and completes the
powers, often obstructed and inadequate, of the priestly apostolate.
Numbers of fervent men and women of youth obedient to the voice of the
Supreme Pastor and to the directions of their bishops, consecrate
themselves with the full ardor of their souls to the works of the
apostolate in order to bring back to Christ the masses of peoples who
have been separated from Him.
88. To them in this moment so critical for the Church and for mankind
go out Our paternal greeting, Our deepfelt gratitude, Our confident
hope. These have truly placed their lives and their work beneath the
standard of Christ the King; and they can say with the Psalmist: "I
speak my words to the King" (Psalm xliv. 1). "Thy Kingdom come" is not
simply the burning desire of their prayer; it is besides, the guide of
their activity.
89. This collaboration of the laity with the priesthood in all classes,
categories and groups reveals precious industry and to the laity is
entrusted a mission than which noble and loyal hearts could desire none
higher nor more consoling. This apostolic work, carried out according
to the mind of the Church, consecrates the layman as a kind of
"Minister to Christ" in the sense which Saint Augustine explains as
follows: "When, Brethren, you hear Our Lord saying: where I am there
too will My servant be, do not think solely of good bishops and
clerics." You too in your way minister to Christ by a good life, by
almsgiving, by preaching His Name and teaching to whom you can. Thus
every father should recognize that it is under this title that he owes
paternal affection to his family. Let it be for the sake of Christ and
for life everlasting, that he admonishes all his household, teaches,
exhorts, reproves, shows kindness, corrects; and thus in his own home
he will fulfill an ecclesiastical and in a way an episcopal office
ministering to Christ, that he may be for ever with Him" (on The Gospel
according to Saint John, tract 51, n. 13).
90. In promoting this participation by the laity in the apostolate,
which is so important in our times, the family has a special mission,
for it is the spirit of the family that exercises the most powerful
influence on that of the rising generation. As long as the sacred flame
of the Faith burns on the domestic hearth, and the parents forge and
fashion the lives of their children in accordance with this Faith,
youth will be ever ready to acknowledge the royal prerogatives of the
Redeemer, and to oppose those who wish to exclude Him from society or
wrongly to usurp His rights.
91. When churches are closed, when the Image of the Crucified is taken
from the schools, the family remains the providential and, in a certain
sense, impregnable refuge of Christian life. And We give thanks to God
as We see that numberless families accomplish this, their mission, with
a fidelity undismayed by combat or by sacrifice. A great host of young
men and women, even in those regions where faith in Christ means
suffering and persecution, remain firm around the Throne of the
Redeemer with a quiet, steady determination that recalls the most
glorious days of the Church's struggles.
92. What torrents of benefits would be showered on the world; what
light, order, what peace would accrue to social life; what unique and
precious energies would contribute towards the betterment of mankind,
if men would everywhere concede to the Church, teacher of justice and
love, that liberty of action to which, in virtue of the Divine Mandate,
she has a sacred and indisputable right! What calamities could be
averted, what happiness and tranquillity assured, if the social and
international forces working to establish peace would let themselves be
permeated by the deep lessons of the Gospel of Love in their struggle
against individual or collective egoism!
93. There is no opposition between the laws that govern the life of
faithful Christians and the postulates of a genuine humane
humanitarianism, but rather unity and mutual support. In the interests
of suffering mankind, shaken to the depths both materially and
spiritually, We have no more ardent desire than this: that the present
difficulties may open the eyes of many to see Our Lord Jesus Christ and
the mission of His Church on this earth in their true light, and that
all those who are in power may decide to allow the Church a free course
to work for the formation of the rising generation according to the
principles of justice and peace.
94. This work of pacification presupposes that obstacles are not put to
the exercise of the mission which God has entrusted to His Church; that
the field of this activity is not restricted, and that the masses, and
especially youth, are not withdrawn from her beneficent influence.
95. Accordingly We, as representatives on earth of Him Who was
proclaimed by the Prophet "Prince of Peace" (Isaias ix. 6) appeal to
the rulers of the peoples, and to those who can in any way influence
public life, to let the Church have full liberty to fulfill her role as
educator by teaching men truth, by inculcating justice and inflaming
hearts with the Divine Love of Christ.
96. While the Church cannot renounce the exercise of this, her mission,
which has for its final end to realize here below the Divine plan and
to "re-establish all things in Christ, that are in heaven and on earth"
(Ephesians i. 10) her aid, nonetheless, is shown to be indispensable as
never before, now that sad experience teaches that external means and
human provisions and political expedients of themselves bring no
efficacious healing to the ills which affect mankind.
97. Taught precisely by the sad failure of human expedients to stave
off the tempest that threatens to sweep civilization away, many turn
their gaze with renewed hope to the Church, the rock of truth and of
charity, to that Chair of Peter from which, they feel, can be restored
to mankind that unity of religious teaching and of the moral code which
of old gave consistency to pacific international relations.
98. Unity, towards which, so many, answerable for the destiny of
nations, look with regretful yearning as they experience from day to
day the vanity of the very means in which once they had placed their
trust! Unity, the desired of those many legions of Our sons who daily
call upon "The God of Peace and of love" (II Corinthians xiii. 11).
Unity, the hope of so many noble minds separated from Us, who yet in
their hunger and thirst for justice and peace turn their eyes to the
See of Peter and from it await guidance and counsel!
99. These last are recognizing in the Catholic Church principles of
belief and life that have stood the test of 2,000 years; the strong
cohesion of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, which in union with the
Successor of Peter spends itself in enlightening minds with the
teaching of the Gospel, in guiding and sanctifying men, and which is
generous in its material condescension towards all, but firm when, even
at the cost of torments or martyrdom, it has to say: "Non licet; it is
not allowed!"
100. And yet, Venerable Brethren, the teaching of Christ, which alone
can furnish man with such solid bases of belief as will greatly enlarge
his vision, and divinely dilate his heart and supply an efficacious
remedy to the very grave difficulties of today - this and the activity
of the Church in teaching and spreading that Doctrine, and in forming
and modeling men's minds by its precepts, are at times an object of
suspicion, as if they shook the foundations of civil authority or
usurped its rights.
101. Against such suspicions We solemnly declare with Apostolic
sincerity that - without prejudice to the declarations regarding the
power of Christ and of His Church made by Our predecessor, Pius XI, of
venerable memory, in his Encyclical Quas Primas of December 11, 1925 -
any such aims are entirely alien to that same Church, which spreads it
maternal arms towards this world not to dominate but to serve. She does
not claim to take the place of other legitimate authorities in their
proper spheres, but offers them her help after the example and in the
spirit of her Divine Founder Who "went about doing good" (Acts x. 38).
102. The Church preaches and inculcates obedience and respect for
earthly authority which derives from God its whole origin and holds to
the teaching of her Divine Master Who said: "Render therefore to Caesar
the things that are Caesar's" (Saint Matthew xxii. 21); she has no
desire to usurp, and sings in the liturgy: "He takes away no earthly
realms who gives us the celestial" (hymn for Feast of Epiphany). She
does not suppress human energies but lifts them up to all that is noble
and generous and forms characters which do not compromise with
conscience. Nor has she who civilizes the nations ever retarded the
civil progress of mankind, at which on the contrary she is pleased and
glad with a mother's pride. The end of her activity was admirably
expressed by the Angels over the cradle of the Word Incarnate, when
they sang of glory to God and announced peace to men of good will:
"Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will"
(Saint Luke ii. 14).
103. This peace, which the world cannot give, has been left as a
heritage to His disciples by the Divine Redeemer Himself: "Peace I
leave with you, my peace I give unto you" (Saint John xiv. 27); and
thus following the sublime teaching of Christ, summed up by Himself in
the twofold precept of love of God and of the neighbor, millions of
souls have reached, are reaching and shall reach peace. History, wisely
called by a great Roman "The Teacher of Life," has proved for close on
two thousand years how true is the word of Scripture that he will not
have peace who resists God (cf. Job ix. 4). For Christ alone is the
"Corner Stone" (Ephesians ii. 20) on which man and society can find
stability and salvation.
104. On this Corner Stone the Church is built, and hence against her
the adversary can never prevail: "The gates of hell shall not prevail"
(Saint Matthew xvi. 18), nor can they ever weaken her! Nay, rather,
internal and external struggles tend to augment the force and multiply
the laurels of her glorious victories.
105. On the other hand, any other building which has not been founded
solidly on the teaching of Christ rests on shifting sands and is
destined to perish miserably (cf. Saint Matthew vii. 26, 27).
106. Venerable Brethren, the hour when this Our first Encyclical
reaches you is in many respects a real "Hour of Darkness" (cf. Saint
Luke xxii. 53), in which the spirit of violence and of discord brings
indescribable suffering on mankind. Do We need to give assurance that
Our paternal heart is close to all Our children in compassionate love,
and especially to the afflicted, the oppressed, the persecuted? The
nations swept into the tragic whirlpool of war are perhaps as yet only
at the "beginnings of sorrows" (Saint Matthew xxiv. 8), but even now
there reigns in thousands of families death and desolation, lamentation
and misery. The blood of countless human beings, even noncombatants,
raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as Our dear Poland, which,
for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in the defense of
Christian civilization, written in indelible characters in the annals
of history, has a right to the generous and brotherly sympathy of the
whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful intercession of
Mary, Help of Christians, the hour of a resurrection in harmony with
the principles of justice and true peace.
107. What has already happened and is still happening, was presented,
as it were, in a vision before Our eyes when, while still some hope was
left, We left nothing undone in the form suggested to us by Our
Apostolic office and by the means at Our disposal, to prevent recourse
to arms and to keep open the way to an understanding honorable to both
parties. Convinced that the use of force on one side would be answered
by recourse to arms on the other, We considered it a duty inseparable
from Our Apostolic office and of Christian Charity to try every means
to spare mankind and Christianity the horrors of a world conflagration,
even at the risk of having Our intentions and Our aims misunderstood.
Our advice, if heard with respect, was not however followed and while
Our pastoral heart looks on with sorrow and foreboding, the Image of
the Good Shepherd comes up before Our gaze, and it seems as though We
ought to repeat to the world in His name: "If thou . . . hadst known .
. . the things that are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from thy
eyes" (Saint Luke xix. 42).
108. In the midst of this world which today presents such a sharp
contrast to "The Peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ," the Church
and her faithful are in times and in years of trial such as have rarely
been known in her history of struggle and suffering. But in such times
especially, he who remains firm in his faith and strong at heart knows
that Christ the King is never so near as in the hour of trial, which is
the hour for fidelity. With a heart torn by the sufferings and
afflictions of so many of her sons, but with the courage and the
stability that come from the promises of Our Lord, the Spouse of Christ
goes to meet the gathering storms. This she knows, that the truth which
she preaches, the charity which she teaches and practices, will be the
indispensable counselors and aids to men of good will in the
reconstruction of a new world based on justice and love, when mankind,
weary from it course along the way of error, has tasted the bitter
fruits of hate and violence.
109. In the meantime however, Venerable Brethren, the world and all
those who are stricken by the calamity of the war must know that the
obligation of Christian love, the very foundation of the Kingdom of
Christ, is not an empty word, but a living reality. A vast field opens
up for Christian Charity in all its forms. We have full confidence that
all Our sons, especially those who are not being tried by the scourge
of war, will be mindful in imitation of the Divine Samaritan, of all
these who, as victims of the war, have a right to compassion and help.
110. The "Catholic Church, the City of God, whose King is Truth, whose
law love and whose measure eternity" (Saint Augustine, Ep. CXXXVIII. Ad
Marcellinum, C. 3, N. 17), preaching fearlessly the whole truth of
Christ and toiling as the love of Christ demands with the zeal of a
mother, stands as a blessed vision of peace above the storm of error
and passion awaiting the moment when the all-powerful Hand of Christ
the King shall quiet the tempest and banish the spirits of discord
which have provoked it.
111. Whatever We can do to hasten the day when the dove of peace may
find on this earth, submerged in a deluge of discord, somewhere to
alight, We shall continue to do, trusting in those statesmen, who
before the outbreak of war, nobly toiled to avert such a scourge from
the peoples; trusting in the millions of souls of all countries and of
every sphere, who call not for justice alone but for love and mercy;
above all, trusting in God Almighty to Whom We daily address the
prayer: "in the shadow of thy wings will I hope, until iniquity pass
away" (Psalm lvi. 2).
112. God can do all things. As well as the happiness and the fortunes
of nations, He holds in His hands human counsels and sweetly turns them
in whatever direction He wills: even the obstacles are for His
Omnipotence means to mould affairs and events and to direct minds and
free wills to His all-high purposes.
113. Pray then, Venerable Brethren, pray without ceasing; pray
especially when you offer the Divine Sacrifice of Love. Do you, too,
pray, you whose courageous profession of the Faith entails today hard,
painful and not rarely, heroic sacrifices; pray you, suffering and
agonizing members of the Church, when Jesus comes to console and to
heal your pains, and do not forget with the aid of a true spirit of
mortification and worthy practice of penance to make your prayers more
acceptable in the eyes of Him Who "lifteth up all that fall: and
setteth up all that are cast down" (Psalm cxiv. 14), that He in His
mercy may shorten the days of trial and that thus the word of the
Psalmist may be verified: "Then they cried to the Lord in their
affliction: and he delivered them out of their distresses" (Psalm cvi.
13).
114. And you, white legions of children who are so loved and dear to
Jesus, when you receive in Holy Communion the Bread of Life, raise up
your simple and innocent prayers and unite them with those of the
Universal Church. The heart of Jesus, Who loves you, does not resist
your suppliant innocence. Pray every one, pray uninterruptedly: "Pray
without ceasing" (Thessalonians, v. 10).
115. In this way you will put into practice the sublime precept of the
Divine Master, the most sacred testament of His Heart, "That they all
may be one" (Saint John xvii. 21) that all may live in that unity of
faith and of love, from which the world may know the power and efficacy
of Christ's mission and of the work of His Church.
116. The early Church understood and practiced this Divine Precept, and
expressed it in a magnificent prayer; do you associate yourselves with
those sentiments which answer so well to the necessities of the present
hour: "Remember, O Lord, Thy Church, to free her from all evil and to
perfect her in Thy love, and sanctify and collect her from the four
winds into Thy Kingdom, which Thou has prepared for her, because Thine
is the power, and the glory for ever" (Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles,
C 10).
117. In the confidence that God, the Author and Lover of Peace, will
hear the supplications of the Church, We impart to you all as a pledge
of the abundance of Divine Grace, from the fullness of Our paternal
heart, the Apostolic Benediction.
Given at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, on the twentieth day of October,
in the year of Our Lord, 1939, the first of Our Pontificate.
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