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Official English Translation

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

!