'Thi Gluse oS VeAC^

THE CAUSE OF PEACE

by Pope Pius XII

An address of His Holiness Pope Pius XII

to the World Union of Catholic Women's

Organizations

April 24, 1952

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CATHOLIC WOMEN
1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. * Washington 5, D.C



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

m

1

https://archive.org/details/causeofpeaceaddrpius



THE CAUSE OF PEACE

Assured, as We are, of the great contribution that women
are able to make to the cause of peace. We address this
paternal message to you, mothers, wives and daughters of

every nation, and particularly to you. Catholic women,

whom We know to be filially devoted to the Vicar of Christ
and through Him, to Jesus Himself, Who, during the course

of His mortal life, had so many exquisite proofs of womanly
devotion.

Ever anxious to promote the cause of peace with all

possible means, until the rainbow of stable tranquillity shall

shine forth in the skies of the world. We desire to give also
into your trust, beloved daughters, the arduous but sub-

lime task of laboring for peace; since you, perhaps better

than others, appreciate the importance of the tranquillity

of order as the essential condition of a sound feminine life.

It is in this very Rome, which the Peaceful King of the

human family made His own, as if to consecrate and elevate
that universal peace which the empire of Augustus had

proposed for its goal and, to a certain extent, brought to

realization, that there has assembled a Congress, repre-

senting the Catholic Women of the entire world, to solemnly
express their desire for peace, to affirm their will to demand

it from those who have the power to effect it here below,
to study the concrete means and offer their cooperation to

attain it, in the name of God and on the basis of Christian
principles.

In truth, yours is not a new voice nor the latest among
the so many that are being raised up on all sides on behalf
of peace; but it is certainly among the most sincere and.
We have reason to hope, fruitful. Who, in fact, could doubt
the sincerity of a woman when she invokes peace, to which
she primarily is devoted, or when she detests war, of which
she would become the most pitiable victim? Such she has

ever been. The ancient fable of the sorrowing Andromache,

condemned by destructive war to widow's tears, to become
the mother of a fatherless child and subsequently an exile

and a slave, continues to be, even though it is a legendary

epic, the personification of the cruel tragedies into which

3



the wars of every period have drawn woman and of those
even more atrocious tragedies reserved for her by modern

total war.

Millions of men and women, who can be considered as
the survivors of the recent conflagration, still retain vivid

memories of its horrors: mothers with babies at their

breasts, struck down with the ruins of their homes, others

torn by wounds
;
others turned, as it were, to stone by the

sorrow and unexpectedness of their losses, as if something

of their life were suddenly dashed to pieces. And in other
places, in unnumbered multitudes there are women, to whom
home means everything, compelled to go about wandering

from place to place, driven on by the armies, with the dread

shadow of terror hanging over them, with babies clinging to

their necks and wailing with hunger or from disease.

Mothers and wives for long years without word of the fate

of their dear ones
;
and some, by reason of the unbelievable

insensibility of rulers of state whose actions are so contrary

to their words, even today are still suffering the awful

anguish of the question: is my son alive? Virgins shame-
fully defiled and families deprived of their support and

maidens from whom has been snatched away forever the
great dream of their life. This then is the lot of woman in
time of war!

Have the rulers of peoples ever thought with the hearts

of sons of such tragedies, they who. We shall not say, are
cherishing thoughts and desires of war but who are respon-
sible for and maintain a state of affairs such as to create

the danger of war and, perhaps, on the part of peoples

unjustly oppressed (it is horrible to say so) even the desire

for war, as the extreme hope for just liberation? But upon

whom falls the responsibility for such a desperate desire?

Even though man, who boasts of being able to inure
himself to difficulties, may somehow become adapted to
those conditions of life which are imposed by wars, such

as discomforts, hardships, sudden terrors and general irreg-

ularities, yet, such conditions are, too frequently, both

physically and morally disastrous for woman.

Now the fear that (God forbid!) such an evil may recur
moves the women of every part of the world to ardently

4



invoke peace. This invocation, We, as the Common Father,
have often heard on their lips, and today We make it Our
own to say to those in whose hands is the fatal choice

between the sword and the olive branch : look with the eyes

of sons to the anxieties of so many mothers and wives,

among whom are also yours, and let them have greater
weight on the scales of your deliberations than reasons of

prestige, immediate advantage, or indeed, as may be the
case, Utopian dreams inspired by theories which have little

foundation in the real nature of men and of things. Do not
ask for acts of useless heroism of women; they already

have so many of them to accomplish in their ordinary life
for their country and for the human family

!

However, the sentiment which induces women to abhor
war, would avail nothing, nor would it ever become a valid

contribution to the cause of peace, if it were not trans-

formed into a positive desire to restore everywhere the

sense of fraternity, sustained by the consciousness of a

higher obligation of charity, strengthened by the readiness

to put into practice, in their environment, justice, of which

peace is the work; in a word, if sentiment does not lead

to action conducted according to the essential principles of

Christianity. What these principles are in particular, and
how they determine the action of the Church and of Catho-
lics, We have recently expounded in Our Christmas Message
of December 24 last, on the mission of the Church on behalf

of peace (Acta Ap. Sedis, vol. 46, 1952, pp.11-15).

In it your cry of peace, beloved daughters, is distinguished

clearly from that of other women, whose sincerity We are
far from questioning but whose cry, unfortunately. We
often see desecrated and turned to other ends, even if it is

not brought to the extreme of becoming a cry of bitterness

and of hatred. In any case, it is certain that any invocation

of peace, which is deprived of the Christian concept of the

world as a foundation, is doomed to resound in the desert of

the heart, as the cry of the shipwrecked in the empty wastes

of the ocean.

In this way you. Catholic Women, are messengers and
promoters of peace in virtue of the very title which you

bear, because Catholic is in a way synonymous with peace-
ful. And even though your duty as citizens of your country

5



may require of you the ready resolution to die for your
fatherland if it were really attacked unjustly or threatened

in its vital rights, you are, on the other hand, more natural-

ly and with greater fervor disposed to make your contri-

bution toward creating those internal and external condi-

tions which ensure order and peace.

This action the Church and humanity expect of you;

action aimed at wiping out hatred, at forging bonds of

brotherhood between peoples, at eliminating the material

causes of conflict, such as want, unemployment, obstacles

to emigration and such like.

This is a twofold action. On the one hand a psychological
and moralizing action which your delicate tact enables you

better than others to undertake : to bring men to an appre-
ciation of heavenly things

;
to induce them gently to auster-

ity, or at least to a seriousness and moral uprightness of

life; to irradiate everywhere the spirit of gentleness, the

sense of fraternity among all children of God; the con-
sciousness of the obligation of renouncing unlawful riches,

you yourselves being the first to renounce a luxurious stand-

ard of living
;
above all, as a synthesis and crown of spirit-

ual action, to educate your children in a Christian manner,

in accordance with the Christian vision of the world

revealed to us by the Saviour.

To whom, in fact, if not to mothers, is the first trans-

mission of the Gospel message entrusted? The wisdom and

goodness of Divine Providence ! It has ordained that every

generation, at its birth, should pass through the kindly

school of woman—who has at her side the Common Mother,
the Church—in order that each in its own time may draw
upon that goodness, that sweetness, that piety which are

inborn in her.

Without this periodical return to that fount of goodness,

humanity would soon give way under the hardships and
bitter struggles of life and degenerate toward the most

miserable savagery. Let you, therefore, who in virtue of
your natural duty and of your divine mission form the

souls of the young, let you direct the new generations to

a sense of universal fraternity and of abhorrence of

violence.

6



An action too remote, somebody may say. No; it is an
action which builds on deep foundations and which is th(M*e-

fore fundamental and urgent. Just as wai-s, at least in

modern times, do not come about unexi)octedly, but germi-

nate over long years in heai*ts, so also true, just and stabk‘

peace does not blossom forth at the fii’st bi*ight ray of

sentiment or of a clarion call.

There js also an external activity because if in other

ages the influence of women was restricted to their home
and the surroundings of the home, in our days it extends

(whether we like it or not) to even wider fields: to public
and social life, to parliaments, to tribunals, to journalism,

to the professions and to the trades. May women carry
their work of peace into each of these spheres. If indeed all

women were to pass from that innate feeling which makes
them abhor war, to concrete action to impede war, it would

be impossible that the total of such imposing efforts, which

bring into play those forces best calculated to move the

will, that is piety and love, it would be impossible, We say,
that it should fail to attain its end.

May the Divine aid invoked in prayer which women, who
are by nature pious, are accustomed to offer with greater

perseverence to God, render still more fruitful these efforts.

Just as, at the marriage of Cana, the prayer of your merci-

ful Queen and Mother, full of solicitude and concern at the

embarrassment and upset of the newly married spouses, was

able to move the will of Jesus to change water into wine,

“the wine which those of refined taste call the soul of ban-

quets” (Bossuet, Sermon for the second Sunday after

Epiphany)
;
so also may your supplication, modeled on the

fervor of faith of the Most Blessed Virgin, turn the will of

men from hate to love, from greed to justice.

Beloved daughters! You know the great benefits which
women owe to Christianity. When Christianity appeared
on earth, pagan culture very often exalted women only for
an ensemble of external and ephemeral endowments or for

their fineness of sensibility. This esthetic vision and this

exquisite feeling reached, in fact, the highest and most

delicate forms. The finely turned phrases in the immortal

works of the poets of the Augustan age throb with feeling

;

the statues of the gods, divine creations of art, embellished

7



the streets and forums, the temples and the courtyards of

the sumptuous palaces. And yet all this was empty and
superficial. Neither Athens nor Rome, beacons of civiliza-

tion though they were, which spread so much natural light
on family ties, succeeded by their lofty philosophical specu-

lations or by the wisdom of their legislation in raising

woman to the level which becomes her nature.

Christianity alone, on the other hand, while not failing

to recognize those external and intimate qualities, was the

first to discover and foster in wom^n those duties and call-
ings which are the true foundation of her dignity and the

motive for a more genuine exaltation. So that new types
of womanhood come to light and make their influence felt
under Christian civilization, such as those who were
martyrs for religion, saints, apostles, virgins, promoters of

widescale reforms, assuagers of all human sufferings, savers
of lost souls and educators. According as new social needs
arose, their beneficent mission extended and the Christian

woman became, as she is today, with every good reason, a
no less necessary factor in civilization and progress than

man.

Precisely in this setting We see your present-day work
of pacification, the most extensive, perhaps, assigned to

you by Providence up to the present, and more social and

salutary than any you have had in the past. Embrace it

as a mission from God and humanity
;
dedicate your most

assiduous attention to it, seconding those suggestions which

a chosen section of you undertook to study and promote in

the International Congress of Catholic Women, convinced
of the fact that you could do nothing more conducive to

the salvation of your nations and of your children, or more

in accordance with the desires of the Vicar of Christ.

On all of you then, beloved daughters, spread throughout
the earth, and in a special manner on you. Catholic Women,
as on each of those taking part in the Roman Congress, We
invoke light and grace from the Almighty, in token of which

We impart to you with fullness of soul Our paternal Apos-
tolic Blessing.

N 28 J-16815