1944 Christmas message of Pope Pius XII : addressed to the people of the entire world on the subject


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1944 CHRISTMAS MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS

POPE PIUS XII

NATIONAL CATHOLIC WELFARE CONFERENCE

1312 Massachusetts Ave., N. W. Washington 5, D. C.



1944 Christmas Message

of

His Holiness Pope Pius XII

Addressed to the People oj the Entire World on the

Subject oj Democracy and a Lasting Peace

1. “But when the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour
appeared” (St. Paul’s Epistle to Titus, Chap. 3, 4th verse).
2. For the sixth time since the opening of the dreadful war,
the Christmas liturgy again hails with these words redolent of

peaceful serenity, the coming into our midst of God, Our Saviour.
3. The humble, mean cradle of Bethlehem, by its wonderful
charm, focusses the attention of all believers. Deep into the
hearts of those in darkness, affliction and depression there sinks
and pervades a great flood of light and joy.
4. Heads that were bowed lift again serenely, for Christmas is
the feast of human dignity, “the wonderful exchange by which
the Creator of the human race, taking a living body, deigned to
\)€ born of a virgin, and by His coming bestowed on us His
divinity” (first antiphon of first vesper for the feast of the

Circumcision).

5. But our gaze turns quickly from the Babe of the Crib to
the world around us, and the sorrowful sigh of John the Evan-
gelist comes to our lips : “and the light shines in darkness, and
the darkness did not comprehend it” (John, first chapter, fifth
verse).

6. For alas, for the^sixth- time, the Christmas dawn breaks again
on battlefields spreading ever wider, on graveyards where are
gathered the remains of victims in ever-increasing numbers, on
desert lands where a few tottering towers tell with silent pathos
the story of cities once flourishing and prosperous, and where
bells fallen or carried off no longer awaken the inhabitants with
their jubilant Christmas chimes.



2 1944 Christmas Message

7 . They are so many silent witnesses to denounce this blot on
the story of mankind which, deliberately blind to the brilliance

of Him Who is the Splendor and Light of the Father, deliber-
ately straying from Christ, has descended and fallen into chaos
and into the denial of its own dignity.
8. Even the little lamp is out in many majestic temples, in many
modest chapels, where before the tabernacle it had shared the
watches of the Divine Guest over a world asleep. What desola-
tion ! What contrast ! Can there then be still hope for mankind ?

Dawn of Hope
9. Blessed be the Lord ! Out from the mournful groans of
sorrow, from the very depths of the heart-rending anguish of
oppressed individuals and countries there arises an aura of
hope. To an ever-increasing number of noble souls there
comes the thought, the will, ever cleared and stronger, to make
of this world, this universal upheaval, a starting point for a new
era of far-reaching renovation, the complete reorganization of
the world. Thus while the armed forces continue to engage in
murderous battles with weapons ever more deadly, the states-
men, responsible leaders of nations, meet for talks, for con-
ferences, to determine the fundamental rights and duties on
which should be built a community of states, and to blaze the
trail towards a better future, more secure and more worthy of
mankind.
10. A strange paradox this, of a war whose bitterness bids fair

\ to reach the limits of paroxysm, and of the notable progress made
in aspirations and proposals for a solid and 'Tasting

-
peace:

undoubtedly one may well discuss the worth, the feasibility, the
efficacy of this or that proposal

;
judgment may well be suspended

in their regard, but it remains nonetheless true that the process
has begun.

The Problem of Democracy
11. Moreover—and this is perhaps the most important point

—

beneath the sinister lightning of the war that encompasses them,
in the blazing heat of the furnace that imprisons them, the
peoples have, as it were, awakened from a long torpor. They
have assumed, in relation to the state and those who govern, a
new attitude—one that questions, criticizes, distrusts.
12. Taught by bitter experience, they are more aggressive in



of Pope Pius XII 3

opposing the concentration of dictatorial power that cannot be
censured or touched, and call for a system of government more
in keeping with the dignity and liberty of the citizens. These
multitudes, uneasy, stirred by the war to their innermost depths,
are today firmly convinced—at first, perhaps, in a vague and
confused way, but already unyieldingly—that had there been
the possibility of censuring and correcting the actions of public
authority, the world would not have been dragged into the
vortex of a disastrous war, and that to avoid for the future the
repetition of such a catastrophe, we must vest efficient guarantees
in the people itself.

13. In such a psychological atmosphere, is it to be wondered
at if the tendency towards democracy is capturing the peoples
and winning a large measure of consent and support from those
who hope to play a more efficient part in the destinies of individ-
uals and of society ?
14. It is scarcely necessary to recall that, according to the teach-
ing of the Church, “it is not forbidden to prefer temperate,
popular forms of government, without prejudice, however, to
Catholic teaching on the origin and use of authority,” and that
“the Church does not disapprove of any of the various forms of
government, provided they be per se capable of securing the
good of the citizens” (Leo Thirteenth: Encyclical “Libertas,”
June 20, 1888).
15. If, then, on this feast day which commemorates both the
benignity of the Incarnate Word and the dignity of man (both
in its personal and social aspects), We direct our attention to
the problem of democracy, examining the forms by which it
should be directed if it is to be a true, healthy democracy answer-
ing the needs of the moment, our action shows clearly that the
interest and solicitude of the Church looks not so much to its
external structure and organization—which depend on the
special aspirations of each people—as to the individual himself,
who, so far from being the object and, as it were, a merely
passive element in the social order, is in fact, and must be and
continue to be, its subject, its foundation and its end.
16. Given that democracy, taken in the broad sense, admits of
various forms, and can be realized in monarchies as well as in
republics, two questions come up for our consideration: first,
what characteristics should distinguish the men who live under
democracy and a democratic regime? Second, what character-



4 1944 Christmas Message

ization should distinguish the men who hold the reins of
government in a democracy?

One : Characteristics Proper to Citizens in a Democratic
Regime

17. To express his own views of the duties and sacrifices that
are imposed on him

;
not compelled to obey without being heard

—these are two rights of the citizen which find in democracy, as
its name implies, their expression.

18. From the solidity, harmony and good results produced by
this between the citizens and the Government, one may decide
which democracy is really healthy and well balanced, and what
is its life energy and power of expansion.

19. If, then, we consider the extent and nature of the sacrifices
demanded of all the citizens, especially in our day when the
activity of the state is so vast and decisive, the democratic form
of government appears to many as a postulate of nature imposed
by reason itself.

20. When, however, people call for “democracy and better
democracy,” such a demand cannot have any other meaning
than to place the citizen ever more in the position to hold his
own personal opinion, to express it and to make it prevail in a
fashion conducive to common good.

People and “The Masses”
21. Hence follows a first conclusion with its practical conse-
quence, the state does not contain in itself and does not mechan-
ically bring together in a given territory a shapeless mass of
individuals.

22. It is, and should in practice be, the organic and organizing
unity of a real people. The people, and a shapeless multitude
(or, as it is called, “the masses”) are two distinct concepts.
23. The people lives and moves by its own life energy; the
masses are inert of themselves and can only be moved from
outside. The people lives by the fulness of life in the men that
compose it, each qf-whom—at his proper place and in his own
way—is a person conscious of his own responsibility and of his
own views.
24. The masses, on the contrary, wait for the impulse from
outside, an easy plaything in the hands of anyone who exploits



of Pope Pius XII 5

their instincts and impressions; ready to follow in turn, today
this flag, tomorrow another.
25. From the exuberant life of a true people, an abundant rich
life is diffused in the state and all its organs, instilling into them,
with a vigor that is always renewing itself, the consciousness of

their own responsibility, the true instinct for the common good.
26. The elementary power of the masses, deftly managed and
employed, the state also can utilize : in the ambitious hands of
one or of several who have been artificially brought together for
selfish aims, the state itself, with the support of the masses,

reduced to the minimum status of a mere machine, can impose
its whims on the better part of the real people: the common
interest remains seriously, and for a long time, injured by this
process, and the injury is very often hard to heal.
27. Hence follows clearly another conclusion : the masses—as
we have just defined them—are the capital enemy of true
democracy and of its ideal of liberty and equality.
28. In a people worthy of the name, the citizen feels within him
the consciousness of his personality, of his duties and rights,
of his own freedom joined to respect for the freedom and dignity
of others.

29. In a people worthy of the name all inequalities based not
on whim but on the nature of things, inequalities of culture,
possessions, social standing—without, of course, prejudice to
justice and mutual charity—do not constitute any obstacle to
the existence and the prevalence of a true spirit of union and
brotherhood.

30. On the contrary, so far from impairing civil equality in any
way, they give it its true meaning

;
namely, that, before the state,

everyone has the right to live honorably his own personal life
in the place and under the conditions in which the designs and
dispositions of Providence have placed him.
31. As against this picture of the democratic ideal of liberty and
equality, in a people’s government by honest and far-seeing men,
what a spectacle is that of a democratic state left to the whims
of the masses

:

32. Liberty, from being a moral duty of the individual becomes
a tyrannous claim to give free rein to a man’s impulses and
appetites to the detriment of others.
33. Equality degenerates to a mechanical level, a colorless
uniformity: the sense of true honor, of personal activity, or



6 1944 Christmas Message

respect for tradition, of dignity—in a word all that gives life
its worth—gradually fades away and disappears.
34. And the only survivors are, on the one hand, the victims
deluded by the specious mirage of democracy, naively taken for
the genuine spirit of democracy, with its liberty and equality;
and on the other, the more or less numerous exploiters, who have
known how to use the power of money and of organization, in
order to secure a privileged position above the others, and have
gained power.

Two: Characteristics of Men Holding Power in a
Democratic State

35. The democratic state, whether it be monarchical or repub-
lican, should, like any other form of government, be entrusted
with the power to command with real and effective authority.
36. The absolute order itself of beings and purposes, which
shows that man is an independent person, namely the subject of
inviolable duties and rights, who is the source and end of his own
social life, comprises the -state also as a necessary society
endowed with authority, without which it could neither exist
nor live.
37. And if men, using their personal liberty, were to deny all
dependence on a superior Authority possessing coercive power,
they could by this very fact cut the ground from under their
own dignity and liberty—by violating, that is, the absolute
order of beings and purposes.
38. As they are established on this same foundation, the person,
the state, the government, with their respective rights, are so
bound together that they stand or fall together.
39. And since that absolute order, in the light of right reason,
and in particular of the Christian Faith, cannot have any other
origin than in a personal God, our Creator, it follows that the
dignity of man is the dignity of the moral community willed
by God, the dignity of political authority is the dignity deriving
from its sharing in the authority of God.
40. No form of state can avoid taking cognizance of this intimate
and indissoluble connection—least of all a democracy. Accord-
ingly, if those in power do not see it, or more or less discount it,
their own authority is shaken, as is social morality, and that
specious appearance of a purely formal democracy may often
serve as a mark for all that is in reality least democratic.



of Pope Pius XII 7

41. Only a clear appreciation of the purposes assigned by God
to every human society, joined to a deep sense of the exalted
duties of social activity, can put those in power in a position
to fulfill their own obligations in the legislative, judicial and
executive order with that objectivity, impartiality, loyalty, gen-
erosity, and integrity without which a democratic government
would find it hard to command the respect and the support of
the better section of the people.

42. The deep sense of the principles underlying a political and
social order that is sound and conforms to the norms of right
and justice is of special importance in those who in any kind
of democratic regime have, as the people's delegates, in whole
or part, the power to legislate.
43. And since the centre of gravity of a democracy normally
set up resides in this popular assembly from which political
currents radiate into evqy field of public life—for good or ill

—

the question of the high moral standards, practical ability and
intellectual capacity of parliamentary deputies is for every people
living under a democratic regime a question of life and death,
of prosperity and decadence, of soundness or perpetual unrest.
44. To secure effective action, to win esteem and trust, every
legislative body should—as experience shows beyond doubt

—

gather within it a group of select men, spiritually eminent and
of strong character, who shall look upon themselves as the
representatives of the entire people and not the mandatories
of a mob, whose interests are often unfortunately made to
prevail over the true needs of the common good—a select group
of men not restricted to any profession or social standing but
reflecting every phase of the people's life

;
men chosen for their

solid Christian convictions, straight and steady judgment, with
a sense of the practical and equitable, true to themselves in all
circumstances

;
men of clear and sound principles, with sound

and clear-cut proposals to make; men above all capable, in
virtue of the authority that emanates from their untarnished
consciences and radiates widely from them, to be leaders and
heads especially in times when the pressing needs of the moment
excite the people’s impressionability unduly, and render it more
liable to be led astray and get lost: men who—in periods of
transition, generally stormy and disturbed by passion, by
divergent opinons and opposing programs—feel themselves
doubly under the obligation to send circulating through the veins



8 1944 Christmas Message

of the people and of the state, burning with a thousand fevers,

the spiritual antidote of clear views, kindly interest, a justice

equally sympathetic to all, and a bias towards national unity /
and concord in a sincere spirit of brotherhood.
45. Peoples whose spiritual and moral temperament is suffi-
ciently sound and fecund, find it themselves and can produce
the heralds and implements of democracy, who live in such
dispositions and know how effectively to put them into practice.
46. But where such men are lacking, others come to take their
places in order to make politics serve their ambition, and be a
quick road to profit for themselves, their caste and their class,
while the race after private interests makes them lose sight of
completely and jeopardize the true common good.

State Absolutism

47. A sound democracy, based on the immutable principles of
the natural law and revealed truth, will resolutely turn its back
on such corruption as gives to the state legislature in unchecked
and unlimited power, and moreover, makes of the democratic
regime, notwithstanding an outward show to the contrary,
purely and simply a form of absolutism.
48. State absolutism (not to be confused, as such, with absolute
monarchy, of which we are not treating here) consists in fact
in the false principle that the authority of the state is unlimited
and that in face of it—even when it gives free rein to its despotic
aims, going beyond the confines between good and evil—to
appeal to a higher law obliging in conscience is not admitted.
49. A man penetrated with right ideas about the state and
authority and the power that he wields as guardian of social
order, will never think of derogating the majesty of the positive
law within the ambit of its natural competence. But this
majesty of positive law is only inviolable when it conforms—or
at least is not opposed—to the absolute order set up by the
Creator and placed in a new light by the revelation of the
Gospel.

50. It cannot subsist except in so far as it respects the founda-
tion on which human personality rests, no less than the State
and the Government. This is the fundamental criterion of
every healthy form of government, including democracy. It is
the criterion by which the moral value of every particular law
should be judged.



of Pope Pius XII 9

Three: Nature and Conditions of an Effective Peace
Settlement Unity of Mankind and Society

of Peoples

51. We were anxious, Beloved Sons and Daughters, to take the
occasion of Christmastide to point out along what lines a democ-

racy befitting human dignity can, in harmony with the law of
nature and the designs of God as manifested in Revelation, secure
happy results. Jjideed, We are deeply convinced of the supreme
importance of this problem for the peaceful progress of mankind.

52. But We also realise the exalted claims that this form of
government makes on the moral maturity of the individual
citizen : a moral maturity to which he could never hope to attain

fully and securely if the light from the Cave of Bethlehem did

not illumine the dark path along which the peoples are going

forward through the stormy present towards a future which they

hope will be more serene.

53. But how far will the representatives and pioneers of democ-
racy he inspired in their deliberations by the conviction that
the absolute order of beings and purposes, of which We have
repeatedly spoken, comprises also, as a moral necessity and the

crowning of social development, the unity of mankind and of
the family of peoples?

54. On the recognition of this principle hangs the future of the
peace. No world reform, no peace guarantee can abstract
from it without being weakened and without being untrue to
itself.

55. If. on the other hand, this same moral necessity were to
find its realization in a society of peoples which succeeded in
eliminating the structural defects and shortcomings of former
systems, then the majesty of that order would regulate and
inspire equally the deliberations of that society and the use erf
its instruments of sanction.

56. For this reason, too. one understands why the authority of
stich a society must be real and effective over the member
states, in suchwise. however, that each of them retain an equal
right of its own sovereignty.
57. Only thus will the spirit of sane democracy be able to
pervade the vast and thorny ground of foreign relations.



10 1944 Christmas Message

Against Wars of Aggression as Solution of
International Disputes

58. There is a duty, besides, imposed on all, a duty which
brooks no delay, no procrastination, no hesitation, no subterfuge

:

It is the duty to do everything to ban once and for all wars of
aggression as legitimate solution of international disputes and
as a means towards realizing national aspirations.
59. Many attempts in this direction have been seen in the past.
They all failed. And they will all fail always, until the saner
section of mankind has the firm determination, the holy obstinacy,
like an obligation in conscience, to fulfill the mission which
past ages have not undertaken with sufficient gravity and
resolution.

60. If ever a generation has had to appreciate in the depths of
its conscience the call : “war on war,” it is certainly the present
generation.

61. Having passed, as it has, through an ocean of blood and
tears in a form perhaps never experienced in past ages, it has
lived through the indescribable atrocities with an intensity
such that the recollection of so many horrors must remain
stamped in its memory, and even in the deepest recesses of its
soul, like a picture of a hell against which anyone who cherishes
a sense of humanity desires more than anything else to close
the door forever.

Formation of a Common Means to Maintain Peace
62. The decisions already published by international commis-
sions permit one to conclude that an essential point in any
future international arrangement would be the formation of an
organ for the maintenance of peace, of an organ invested by

common consent with supreme power to whose office it would
also pertain to smother in its germinal state anv threat of

isolated or collective aggression.

63. No one could hail this development with greater joy than
he who has long upheld the principle that the idea of war as
an apt and proportionate means of solving international conflicts
is now out of date.
64. No one could wish success to this common effort, to be
undertaken with a seriousness of purpose never before known,
with greater enthusiasm, than he who has conscientiously striven



of Pope Pius XII 11

to make the Christian and religious mentality reject modern war
with its monstrous means of conducting hostilities.

J

Monstrous Means of Conducting Hostilities
65. Unquestionably the progress of man’s inventions, which

should have heralded the realization of greater well-being for
all mankind, has instead been employed to destroy all that had
been built up through the ages.
66. But by that very fact the immorality of the war of aggression
has been made ever more evident. And if now, to the recogni-
tion of this immorality there is to be added the threat of a
judicial intervention by the nations and of chastisement inflicted
on the aggressor by the society of states, so that war will always
be subject to the stigma of proscription, always under surveil-
lance and liable to preventive measures, then mankind, as it
emerges from the dark night in which it has been so long
submerged, will be able to hail the dawn of a new and better era
of its history.

Its Constitution Excluding Unjust Imposition
67. But only on one condition : namely that the peace settlement
which should be strengthened and made more stable bv mutual
guarantees and, where necessary, economic sanctions and even
armed intervention, should not give definite countenance to
any injustice, does not imply any derogation of anv right to the
detriment of any nation (whether it be on the side of the victors,
the vanquished, or the neutrals), and does not impose any per-
petual burden, which can only be allowed for a time as reparation
for war damages.
68. That any peoples, to whose Government—or perhaps even
partiallv to themselves—the responsibility for the war is attrib-
uted, should have for a time to undergo the rigors of securitv
measures until the bonds of mutual trust, violently broken, should
be gradually welded together again, is quite understandable
from a human point of view, and in practice will in all probability
be inevitable.

69. Nevertheless, even these peoples must have a well-founded
hope—commensurate to their effective collaboration in the work
of reconstruction—of being able, together with the other states
with equal consideration and with the same rights, to be associ-
ated with the great community of nations.



12 1944 Christmas Message

70. To deny them that hope would be the reverse of far-seeing
wisdom, it would be to assume the grave responsibility of barring
the way of a general liberation from all the disastrous conse-
quences, material, moral and political, of the gigantic cataclysm
which has shaken the poor human family to its very foundations,
but which, at the same time, has shown it the road to new goals.

The Stern Lessors of Suffering
71. We will not renounce Our confidence that the peoples, who
have all passed through the school of suffering, will be able to
retain the stern lessons learned.

72. And in this hope we are strengthened by the words of men
who have had a greater share in the sufferings of the war and
who have found generous words to express, together with the
insistence on their own need of security against any future
aggression, their respect for the vital rights of other peoples

and their aversion to any usurping of those rights.
73. It would be vain to expect that this sage judgment, dictated
by the experience of history and a high political sense should be
—while men’s spirits are still burning white-hot—generally
accepted by public opinion, or even by the majority.
74. Hatred and the impossibility of mutual understanding have
given rise in peoples that have fought against each other, to a
mist too dense to hope that the hour has already come when a
ray of light may shine out to clear the tragic panorama on either
side of its dark wall.

75. But one thing We know : that the moment will come, perhaps
sooner than the people think, when both sides realize that, all
things considered, there is only one way of getting out of the
meshes in which war and hate have wrapped the world, namely
a return to the solidarity, too long forgotten, a solidarity not

restricted to these or those peoples, but universal, founded on
the intimate connection of their destiny and rights which belong

equally to both.

The Punishment of Crimes
76. No one certainly thinks of disarming justice in its relations
to those who have exploited the war situation in order to commit
real and proven crimes against the corpmon law, and for whom
supposed military necessity could at most have offered a pretext,
but never a justification.



of Pope Pius XII 13

77. But if justice presumed to judge and punish not merely
individuals but even whole communities together, who could
not see in such a procedure a violation of the norms which guide
every human trial?

Four: The Church as Guardian of Man’s True Dignity
and Liberty

78. At a time when the peoples find themselves with duties
such as perhaps they have never met before in the course of
their history, they feel deeply in their tortured hearts the desire,

impatient and almost instinctive, to take the reins of their
destiny in their own hands with more independence than here-
tofore, hoping that thus they will find it easier to defend them-
selves from the periodic invasions of violence which, like a
boiling lava torrent, spares nothing of all that they hold sacred

and dear.
79. Thank God, one may believe the time has passed when the
call to moral and Gospel principles to guide the life of states and
peoples was disdainfully thrust aside as unreal.
80. The events of these war years have given ample evidence
to confute, in a harder way than one could ever have imagined,
those who spread such doctrine.
81. The disdain that they affected towards this supposed un-
reality has been changed into stark reality: brutality, iniquity,
destruction, annihilation.

82. If the future is to belong to democracy, an essential part
in its achievement will have to belong to the religion of Christ
and to the Church, the messenger of our Redeemer’s word which
is to continue His mission of saving men. For she teaches
and defends supernatural truths and communicates the super-
natural helps of grace in order to actuate the divinely-established

order of beings and ends which is the ultimate foundation and
directive norm of every democracy.
83. By her very existence, the Church rises before the world
as a shining beacon to remind it constantly of that Divine order.
Her history reflects clearly her providential mission. The strug-
gles, which coerced by the abuse of power, she has had to
sustain in defense of the liberty given her by God, were at the
same time struggles for man’s true liberty.
84. The Church has the mission to announce to the world, which
is looking for better and more perfect forms of democracy, the



14 1944 Christmas Message

highest and most needed message that there can be : the dignity
of man, the call to be sons of God. It is the powerful cry, which
from the Manger of Bethlehem to the furthest confines of the
earth resounds in the ears of men at a time when that dignity
is tragically low.

85. The holy story of Christmas proclaims this inviolable dignity
of man with a vigor and authority that cannot be gainsaid—an
authority and vigor that infinitely transcends that which all
possible declarations of the rights of man could achieve.
86. Christmas, the Great Feast of the Son of God Who appeared
in human flesh, the feast in which heaven stoops down to earth
with ineffable grace and benevolence, is also the day on which
Christianity and mankind, before the Crib, contemplating the
“goodness and kindness of God our Saviour” become more
deeply conscious of the intimate unity that God has established
between them.
87. The Birth of the Saviour of the World, of the Restorer of
human dignity in all its fullness, is the moment characterized by
the alliance of all men of goodwill. There to the poor world,
torn by discord, divided by selfishness, poisoned by hate, love
will be restored, and it will be allowed to march forward in
cordial harmony, towards the common goal, to find at last the
cure for its wounds in the peace of Christ.

Five: Crusade for Charity

88. We do not want to close this Christmas message without
addressing a word of heartfelt gratitude to all those—states,
governments, Bishops and peoples—who at this time of untold
misfortunes have lent Us valiant aid as We hearken to the cry
of suffering which reaches Us from so many parts of the world,
and give a helping hand to so many of Our beloved sons and
daughters whom the misfortunes of war have reduced to extreme
poverty and misery.
89. And in the first place it is but just to record the immense
work of assistance achieved in spite of the extraordinary diffi-
culties of transport, by the United States of America and, with
regard to Italy in particular, by His Excellency the personal
Representative of the President of the Union.

90. It is a pleasure for us to express equal praise and gratitude
for the generosity of the head of the State, the Government and
people of Spain, and the Governments of Ireland, Argentina,



of Pope Pius XII 15

Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Italy, Lithuania, Peru,

Poland, Roumania, Slovakia, Hungary and Uruguay, who have
vied with one another in noble rivalry of brotherly love and
charity, the echo of which will not resound in vain through the
world.

91. While men of goodwill are endeavoring to bridge the gulf
and bring the peoples together, this purely disinterested act of
charity assumes an aspect and a value of unique importance.
92. When—as we all wish—the dissonance of hate and discord
that dominates the present moment will be but a tragic memory,
the good effects of this victory of active and magnanimous charity
over the poison of selfishness and enmity will ripen into even a
larger harvest of good.

93. May all who have had a share in this crusade of charity
receive as an incentive and a token of gratitude our apostolic
benediction and the thought that on the feast of love from num-
berless hearts in anguish, but not forgetful in their anguish,

there rises to heaven the grateful prayer for them: Deign to
reward, O Lord, all those who do good to us for Your Name’s
sake with eternal life

!