From the very hour when in the inscrutable designs of God, We though unworthy, were elevated to this Chair of Truth and Love, We earnestly desired to address a heartfelt message to you, Venerable Brothers, and to all Our beloved children who are under your immediate direction and care.  This Our desire found its inspiration in the Solemn Benediction -- Urbi et Orbi -- which We gave to an immediate multitude from the Balcony of the Vatican Basilica following Our election to the Supreme Pontificate.  This Blessing of Ours was received with every manifestation of joy and gratitude by you, by people from every part of the world, and by the Sacred College of Cardinals.  This fact was for Us a most comforting assurance, added to that other which comes from Our trust in Divine Assistance, in preparing Us to take up the tremendous Office which quite unexpectedly We have been called upon to assume.

2.  We, therefore, write to you now, "Our mouth is open to you" (II Cor. vi. 11,)  as the Birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the New Year approach, and wish this letter to be not only a message of glad greetings but a Christmas Gift as well from a father to his children.

3.  Many reasons prevented Us up to this time from fulfilling Our wish to write.  In the first place, there was what one might call a contest of filial devotion by reason of which there came to Us in letters without number the good wishes of Our brothers and children from every corner of the globe, messages which bespoke a welcome to the newly elected Successor of St. Peter and offered him the well-wishes born of a devoted homage.

4.  Following close upon these messages We were called upon to experience personally and for the first time what St. Paul has called  "my daily instance, the solicitude for all the Churches."  (II Cor. xi. 28.)  To Our every day duties there were added many extraordinary ones, for example, those most important affairs already well advanced towards a solution before Our election and which We had to rush to completion, which had to do with the Holy Places, which affected the welfare of Christianity itself, or the status of dioceses numbered among the most important of the Catholic world.  Then there were to be considered International meetings and treaties which deeply influenced the future of whole peoples and of nations.  Faithful to the ministery of peace and reconciliation which has been confided to Our care by God, We strove to make known far and wide the Law of Justice, tempered always by Charity, and to obtain merited consideration for those values and interests which, because they are spiritual, are none the less grave and important.  As a matter of fact, they are much more serious and important than any merely material thing whatsoever.  We were occupied, too, with the almost unbelievable sufferigs of those peoples, living in districts far remote from Us, who had been stricken with famine and every kind of calamity.  We hastened to send them all the help which Our own straitened circumstances permitted, and did not fail to call upon the whole world to assist Us in this task.  Finally, there did not escape Us those uprisings accompanied by acts of violence which had broken out in the very midst of Our own beloved people, here where We were born,here where the Hand of Divine Providence has set down the Chair of St. Peter. For a time these troubles seemed to threaten the very future of Our country, nor could We rest until We had done everything within Our power to quiet such serious disorders.  There were, on the other hand, certain extraordinary events which filled Our soul with joy.  Such were, for example, the Twenty-Sixth International Eucharistic Congress and the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the establishment of the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith.  These celebrations brought to Us such inexpressible consolation and such great spiritual joy that We never imagined such a thing possible at the very outset of Our Pontificate.  We also saw at that time practically all the members of the hundreds of Bishops who had come to Rome from every part of the world.  Under normal circumstances it would have taken several years to interview a like number of Bishops.  We gave audience also to many thousands of the faithful and blessed with Our fatherly blessing large and dignified representations of that immense family "from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation" as We read in the Book of the Apocalypse, (v, 9.)  which God has confided to Us.  Together with them We were privileged to assist at spectacles which were little short of Divine, for We witnessed Our Blessed Redeemer reassume His rightful place as King of all men, of all states, and of all nations when, though hidden behind the veils of the Eucharistic species, He was carried in a magnificent and truly royal triumph of faith through the streets of Our own city, Rome, accompanied by an immense concourse of people representing every nation on earth.. We beheld, too, the Holy Ghost, as it were, descend into the hearts of both Priests and faithful as He did on the first Pentecost Sunday, to rekindle in them the spirit of prayer and of the apostolate.  We were overjoyed to behold the fervent faith of the inhabitants of Rome proclaimed once again to the world, to the great glory of God and to the edification of souls.

5.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Our own dear Mother, who had most lovingly looked down on Us at the Sanctuaries of Czestochowa and of Ostrabrama as well as at the miraculous grotto of Lourdes and from the lofty spires of Our own city of Milan, to say nothing of that most holy Sanctuary of the Rho, deigned to accept the homage of Our love on the occasion when We gave back to the Venerable Basilica of Loreto, which had been restored after the serious damage caused to it by fire, her beautiful statue which had been not only done over at Our behest but had been blessed and crowned as well by Our own hands.  That occasion was without question a veritable triumph for Mary.  During the passage of her statue from Rome to Loreto, the faithful of each town rivaled one another in acclaiming her by a spontaneous and continuous outburst of profoundly religious sentiment, which showed forth a most tender affection for Our Blessed Lady, as well as a devoted attachment to the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

6.  These different events, some sad and some joyful, the history of which We wish to record for the edification of posterity, spoke most eloquently to Us, making more and more clear to Our mind those objectives which seem to claim the foremost place in Our Apostolic Ministry and of which it behooves Us to speak now in as solemn a manner as possible in this, Our very first message to you.

7.  One thing is certain today.  Since the close of the Great War individuals, the different classes of society, the nations of the earth have not as yet found true peace.  They do not enjoy, therefore, that active and fruitful tranquillity which is the aspiration and the need of mankind.  This is a sad truth which forces itself upon us from every side.  For anyone who, as We do, desires profoundly to study and successfully to apply the means necessary to overcome such evils, it is all-impotant that he recognize both the fact and the gravity of this state of affairs and attempt beforehand to discover its causes.  This duty is imposed upon Us in commanding fashion by the very consciousness which We have of Our Apostolic Office.  We cannot but resolve to fulfill that which is so clearly Our duty.  This We shall do now by this Our first Encyclical, and afterward with all solicitude in the course of Our Sacred Ministry.

8.  Since the selfsame sad conditions continue to exist in the world today which were the object of constant and almost heartbreaking preoccupation on the part of Our respected Predecessor, Benedict XV, during the whole period of his Pontificate, naturally We have come to make his thoughts and solutions of these problems Our own   May they become, too, the thoughts and ideals of everyone, as they are Our thoughts, and if this should happen We would certainly see, with the help of God and the co-operation of all men of good will, the most wonderful effects come to pass by a true and lasting reconciliation of men one with another.

9.  The inspired words of the Prophets seem to have been written expressly for our own times: "We looked for peace and no good came: for a time of healing, and behold fear," (Jer. viii, 15.)  "for the time of healing, and behold trouble." (Jer. xiv, 19.)  "We looked for light, and behold darkness . . . we have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation, and it is far from us." (Isaias lix, 9, 11.)

10.  The belligerents of yesterday have laid down their arms but on the heels of this act we encounter new horrors and new threats of war in the Near East.  The conditions in many sections of these devastated regions have been greatly aggravated by famine, epidemics, and the laying waste of the land, all of which have not failed to take their toll of victims without number, especially among the aged, women and innocent children.  In what has been so justly called the immense theater of the World War, the old rivalries between nations have not ceased to exert their influence, rivalries at times hidden under the manipulations of politics or concealed beneath the fluctuations of finance, but openly appearing in the press, in reviews and magazines of every type, and even penetrating into institutions devoted to the cultivation of the arts and sciences, spots where otherwise the atmosphere of quiet and peace would reign supreme.

11.  Public life is so enveloped, even at the present hour, by the dense fog of mutual hatreds and grievances that it is almost impossible for the common people so much as freely to breathe therein.  If the defeated nations continue to suffer most terribly, no less serious are the evils which afflict their conquerors.  Small nations complain that they are being oppressed and exploited by great nations.  The great powers, on their side, contend that they are being judged wrongly and circumvented by the smaller.  All ntions, great and small, suffer accutely from the sad effects of the late War.  Neither can those nations which were neutral contend that they have escaped altogether the tremendous sufferings of the War or failed to experience its evil results almost equally with the actual belligents.  These evil results grow in volume from day to day because of the utter impossibility of finding anything like a safe remedy to cure the ills of society, and this in spite of all the efforts of politicians and statesmen whose work has come to naght if it has not unfortunately tended to aggravate the very evils they tried to overcome.  Conditions have become increasingly worse because the fears of the people are being constantly played upon by the ever-present menace of new wars, likely to be more frightful and destructive than any which have preceded them.  Whence it is that the nations of today live in a state of armed peace which is scarcely better than war itself, a condition which tends to exhaust national finances, to waste the flower of youth, to muddy and poison the very fountainheads of life, physical, intellectual, religious, and moral.

12.  A much more serious and lamentable evil than these threats of external aggression is the internal discord which menaces the welfare not only of nations but of human society itself.  In the first place, we must take cognizance of the war between the classes, a chronic and mortal disease of present-day society, which like a cancer is eating away the vital forces of the social fabric, labor, industry, the arts, commerce, agriculture -- everything in fact which contributes to public and private welfare and to national prosperity.  This conflict seems to resist every solution and grows worse because those who are never satisfied with the amount of their wealth contend with those who hold on most tenaciously to the riches which they have already acquired, while to both classes there is common the desire to rule the other and to assume control of the other's possessions.  From this class war there result frequent interruptions of work, the causes for which most often can be laid to mutual provocations.  There result, too, revolutions, riots, and forcible repression of one side or other by the government, all of which cannot but end in general discontent and in grave damage to the common welfare.  To these evils we must add the contests between political parties, many of which struggles do not originate in a real difference of opinion concerning the public good or in a laudable and disinterested search for what would best promote the common welfare, but in the desire for power and for the protection of some private interest which inevitably result in injury to the citizens as a whole.  From this course there often arise robberies of what belongs rightly to the people, and even conspiracies against and attacks on the supreme authority of the state, as well as on its representatives.  These political struggles also beget threats of popular action and at times, eventuate in open rebellion and other disorders which are all the more deplorable and harmful since they come from a public to whom it has been given, in our modern democratic states, to participate in very large measure in public life and in the affairs of government.  Now, these different forms of government are not of themselves contrary to the principles of the Catholic Faith, which can easily be reconciled with any reasonable and just system of government.  Such governments, however, are the most exposed to the danger of being overthrown by one faction or another.

13.  It is most sad to see how this revolutionary spirit has penetrated into that sanctuary of peace and love, the family, the original nucleus of human society.  In the family these evil seeds of dissension, which were sown long ago, have recently been spread about more and more by the fact of the absence of fathers and sons from the family fireside during the War and by the greatly increased freedom in matters of morality which followed on it as one of its effects.  Frequently we behold sons alienated from their fathers, brothers quarreling with brothers, masters with servants, servants with masters.  Too often likewise have we seen both the sanctity of the marriage tie and the duties to God and to humankind, which this tie imposes upon men, forgotten.

14.  Just as the smallest part of the body feels the effect of an illness which is ravaging the whole body or one of its vital organs, so the evils now besetting society and the family afflict even individuals.  In particular, We cannot but lament the morbid restlessness which has spread among people of every age and condition in life, the general spirit of insubordination and the refusal to live up to one's obligations which has become so widespread as almost to appear the customary mode of living.  We lament, too, the destruction of purity among women and young girls as is evidenced by the increasing immodesty of their dress and conversation and by their participation in shameful dances, which sins are made the more heinous by the vaunting in the faces of people less fortunate than themselves their luxurious mode of  life.  Finally, We cannot but grieve over the great increase in the number of what might be called social misfits who almost inevitably end by joining the ranks of those malecontents who continually agitate against all order, be it public or private.

15.  It is not surprising, then, that we should no longer possess that security of life in which we can place our trust and that there remains only the most terrible uncertainty, and from hour to hour added fears for the future?  Instead of regular daily work there is idleness and unemployment.  That blessed tranquillity which is the effect of an orderly existence and in which the essence of peace is to be found no longer exists, and, in its place, the restless spirit of revolt reigns.  As a consequence industry suffers, commerce is crippled, the cultivation of literature and the arts becomes more and more difficult, and what is worse than all, Christian civilization itself is irreparably damaged thereby.  In the face of our much praised progress, we behold with sorrow society lapsing back slowly but surely into a state of barbarism.

16.  We wish to record, in addition to the evils already mentioned, other evils which beset society and which occupy a place of prime importance but whose very existence escapes the ordinary observer, the sensual man -- he who, as the Apostle says, does not perceive "the things that are of the Spirit of God", (1 Cor. ii, 14.)  yet which cannot but be judged the greatest and most destructive scourges of the social order of today.  We refer specifically to those evils which transcend the material or natural sphere and lie within the suprenatural and religious order properly so-called, in other words, those evils which effect the spiritual life of souls.  These evils are all the more to be deplored since they injure souls whose value is infinitely greater than that of any merely material object.

17.  Over and above the laxity in the performance of Christian duties which is so widespread, We cannot but sorrow with you, Venerable Brothers, over the fact that very many Churches, which during the War had been turned to profane uses, have not yet been restored to their original purpose as Temples of Prayer and of Divine Worship ; moreover, that many Seminaries whose existence is vital for the preparation and formation of worthy leaders and teachers of the Religious life have not yet been reopened; that the ranks of the Clergy in almost every country have been decimated, either because so many Priests have died on the battlefield in the exercise of their Sacred Ministry or have been lost to the Church because they proved faithless to their holy Vocation, due to the unfavorable conditions under which they were compelled to live for so long; and, finally, that in many places even the preaching of the Word of God, so necessary and so fruitful for "the edifying of the Body of Christ" (Ephesians iv, 12.)  has been silenced.

18.  The evil results of the Great War, as they affect the spiritual life, have been felt all over the world, even in out-of-the-way and lonely sections of far-off continents.  Missionaries have been forced to abandon the field of their Apostolic Labors, and many have been unable to return to their work, thus causing interruptions to and even abandonment of those glorious conquests of the Faith which have done so much to raise the level of civilization, moral, material, and religious.  It is quite true that there have been some worthwhile compensations for these great spiritual misfortunes.  Among these compensations is one which stands out in bold relief and gives the lie to many ancient calumnies, namely, that a pure love of country and a generous devotion to duty burn brightly in the souls of those Consecrated to God, and that through their Sacred Ministry the consolations of Religion were brought to thousands dying on the fields of battle wet with human blood.  Thus, many, in spite of their prejudices, were led to honor again the Priesthood and the Church by reason of the wonderful examples of sacrifice of self, with which they had become acquainted.  For these happy results we are indebted solely to the Infinite Goodness and Wisdom of God, Who draws good from evil.

19.  Our Letter so far has been devoted to a recital of the evils which afflict present-day society.  We must now search out, with all possible care, the causes of these disorders, some of which have already been referred to.  At this point, Venerable Brothers, there seems to come to Us the Voice of the Divine Consoler and Physician Who, speaking of these human infirmities says: "All these evil things come from within." (Mark vii, 23.)

20.  Peace indeed was signed in solemn conclave between the belligerents of the late War.  This peace, however, was only written into treaties.  It was not received into the hearts of men, who still cherish the desire to fight one another and to continue to menace in a most serious manner the quiet and stability of civil society.  Unfortunately the law of violence held sway so long that it has weakened and almost obliterated all traces of those natural feelings of love and mercy which the law of Christian charity has done so much to encourage.  Nor has this illusory peace, written only on paper, served as yet to reawaken similar noble sentiments in the souls of men.  On the contrary, there has been born a spirit of violence and of hatred which, because it has been indulged in for so long, has become almost second nature in many men.  There has followed the blind rule of the inferior parts of the soul over the superior, that rule of the lower elements "fighting against the law of the mind," which St. Paul grieved over. (Rom. vii, 33.)

21.  Men today do not act as Christians, as brothers, but as strangers, and even enemies.  The sense of man's personal dignity and of the value of human life has been lost in the brutal domination begotten of might and mere superiorty in numbers.  Many are intent on exploiting their neighbors solely for the purpose of enjoying more fully and on a larger scale the goods of this world.  But they err grievously who have turned to the acquisition of material and temporal possessions and are forgetful of eternal and spiritual things, to the possession of which Jesus, Our Redeemer, by means of the Church, His living interpreter, calls mankind.

22.  It is in the very nature of material objects that an inordinate desire for them becomes the root of every evil, of every discord, and in particular, of a lowering of the moral sense.  On the one hand, things which are  naturally base and vile can never give rise to noble aspirations in the human heart which was created by and for God alone and is restless until it finds repose in Him.  On the other hand, material goods (and in this they differ greatly from those of the spirit which the more of them we possess the more remain to be acquired)  the more they are divided among men the  less each one has and, by consequence, what one man has another cannot possibly possess unless it be forcibly taken away from the first.  Such being the case, worldly possessions can never satisfy all in equal manner nor give rise to a spirit of universal contentment, but must become perforce a source of division among men and of vexation of spirit, as even the Wise Man Solomon experienced: "Vanity of vaities, and vexations of spirit." (Ecclesiastes i, 2, 14.)

23.  The same effects which result from these evils among individuals may likewise be expected among nations. "From whence are wars and contentions among you?"  asks the Apostle St. James.  "Are they not hence from your concupiscences, which war in your members?" (James iv, 1, 2.)

24.  The inordinate desire for pleasure, concupiscence of the flesh, sows the fatal seeds of division not only among families but likewise among states; the inordinate desire for possessions, concupiscence of the eyes, inevitably turns into class warfare and into social egotism; the inordinate desire to rule or to donimeer over others, pride of life, soon becomes mere party or factional rivalries, manifesting itself in constant displays of conflicting ambitions and ending in open rebellion, in the crime of lese majeste, and even in national parricide.

25.  These unsuppressed desires, this inordinate love of the things of the world, are precisely the source of all international misunderstandings and rivalries, despite the fact that oftentimes men dare to maintain that acts prompted by such motives are excusable and even justifiable because, forsooth, they were performed for reasons of state or of the public good, or out of love for country.  Patriotism -- the stimulus of so many virtues and of so many noble acts of heroism when kept with the bounds of the law of Christ -- becomes merely an occasion, an added incentive to grave injustice when true love of country is debased to the condition of an extreme nationalism, when we forget that all men are our brothers and members of the same great human family, that other nations have an equal right with us both to life and to prosperity, that it is never lawful nor even wise, to dissociate morality from the affairs of practical life, that, in the last analysis, it is "justice which exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable." (Proverbs xiv, 34.)

26.   Perhaps the advantages to one's family, city, or nation obtained in some such way as this may well be a wonderful and great victory, (this thought has been already expressed by St. Augustine)  but in the end it turns out to be a very shallow thing, something rather to inspire us with the most fearful apprehensions of approaching ruin.  "It is a happiness which appears beautiful but is brittle as glass.  We must ever be on guard lest with horror we see it broken into a thousand pieces at the first touch." (St. Augustine de Civitate Dei, Book iv, Chap. 3.)

27.  There is over and above the absence of peace and the evils attendant on this absence, another deeper and more profound cause for present-day conditions.  This cause was even beginning to show its head before the War and the terrible calamities consequent on that cataclysm should have proven a remedy for them if mankind had only taken the trouble to understand the real meaning of those terrible events.  In the Holy Scriptures we read: "They that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed." (Isaias i, 28.)  No less well known are the words of the Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ, Who said:  "Without Me you can do nothing" (John xv, 5.)  and again, "He that gathereth not with Me, scattereth." (Luke xi, 23.)

28.  These words of the Holy Bible have been fulfilled and are now at this very moment being fulfilled before our very eyes.  Because men have forsaken God and Jesus Christ, they have sunk to the depths of evil.  They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin.  It was a quite general desire that both our laws and our governments should exist withut recognizing God or Jesus Christ, on the theory that all authority comes from men, not from God.  Because of such an assumption, these theorists fell very short of being able to bestow upon law not only those sanctions which it must possess but also that secure basis for the supreme criterion of justice which even a pagan philosopher like Cicero saw clearly could not be derived except from the Divine Law.  Authority itself lost its hold upon mankind, for it had lost that sound and unquestionable justification for its right to command on the one hand and to be obeyed on the other.  Society, quite logically and inevitably, was shaken to its very depths and even threatened with destruction, since there was left to it no longer a stable foundation, everything having been reduced to a series of conflicts, to the domination of the majority, or to the supremacy of special interests.

29.  Again, legislation was passed which did not recognize that either God or Jesus Christ had any rights over marriage -- an erroneous view which debased matrimony to the level of a mere civil contract, despite the fact that Jesus Himself had called it a "great Sacrament" (Ephesians v. 32.)  and had made it the Holy and Sanctifying Symbol of that indissoluble union which binds Him to His Church.  The high ideals and pure sentiments with which the Church has always surrounded the idea of the family, the germ of all social life, these were lowered, were unappreciated, or became confused in the minds of many.  As a consequence, the correct ideals of family government, and with them those of family peace, were destroyed; the stability and unity of the family itself were menaced and undermined, and, worst of all, the very sanctuary of the home was more and more frequently profaned by acts of sinful lust and soul-destroying egotism -- all of which could not but result in poisoning and drying up the very sources of domestic and social life.

30.  Added to all this, God and Jesus Christ, as well as His Doctrines, were banished from the school.  As a sad but inevitable consequence, the school became not only secular and non-religious but openly atheistical and anti-religious.  In such circumstances it was easy to persuade poor ignorant children that neither God nor Religion are of any importance as far as their daily lives are concerned.  God's Name, moreover, was scarcely ever mentioned in such schools unless it were perchance to blaspheme Him or to ridicule His Church.  Thus, the school forcibly deprived of the right to teach anything about God or His Law could not but fail in its efforts to really educate, that is, to lead children to the practice of virtue, for the school lacked the fundamental principles which underlie the possession of a knowledge of God and the means necessary to strengthen the will in its efforts toward good and in its avoidance of sin.  Gone, too, was all possibility of ever laying a solid groundwork for peace, order, and prosperity, either in the family or in social relations.  Thus the principles based on the spiritualistic philosophy of Christianity having been obscured or destroyed in the minds of many, a triumphant materialism served to prepare mankind for the propaganda of anarchy and of social hatred which was let loose on such a great scale.

31.  Is it to be wondered at then that, with the widespread refusal to accept the Principles of True Christian Wisdom, the seeds of discord sown everywhere should find a kindly soil in which to grow and should come to fruit in that most tremendous struggle, the Great War, which unfortunately did not serve to lessen but increased, by its acts of violence and of bloodshed, the international and social animostites which already existed?

32.  Up to this We have analyzed briefly the causes of the ills which afflict present-day society, the recital of which however, Venerable Brothers, should not cause us to lose hope of finding their appropriate remedy, since the evils themselves seem to suggest a way out of these difficulties.

33.  First, and most important of all, for mankind is the need of spiritual peace.  We do not need a peace that will consist merely in acts of external or formal courtesy, but a peace which will penetrate the souls of men and which will unite, heal, and reopen their hearts to that mutual affection which is born of brotherly love.  The Peace of Christ is the only peace answering this description: "let the Peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts." (Colossians iii, 15.)  Nor is there any other peace possible than that which Christ gave to His Disciples (John xiv, 27.)  for since He is God, He "beholdeth the heart" (I Kings xvi, 7.)  and in our hearts His Kingdom is set up.  Again, Jesus Christ is perfectly justified when He calls this peace of soul His Own for He was the first Who said to men, "all you are brethren." (Matt. xxiii. 8.)  He gave likewise to us, sealing it with His Own life's Blood, the Law of brotherly love, of mutual forbearance -- "This is My Commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you." (John xv, 12.)  "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfill the Law of Christ." (Galatians vi, 2.)

34.  From this it follows, as an immediate consequence, that the peace of Christ can only be a peace of justice according to the words of the prophet "the work of justice shall be peace" (Isaias xxxii, 17.)  for He is God "who judges justice." (Psalms ix, 5.)  but peace does not consist merely in a hard inflexible justice.  It must be made acceptable and easy by being compounded almost equally of charity and a sincere desire for reconciliation.  Such peace was acquired for us and the whole world by Jesus Christ, a peace which the Apostle in a most expressive manner incarnates in the very Person of Christ Himself when he addresses Him, "He is our peace," for it was He Who satisfied completely divine justice by His Death on the Cross, destroying thus in His own flesh all enmities toward others and making peace and reconciliation with God possible for mankind. (Ephesians ii, 14.)  Therefore, the Apostle beholds in the work of Redemption, which is a work of justice at one and the same time, a Divine Work of Reconciliation and of Love.  "God indeed was in Christ, reconciling the world to Hiimself." (II Corinthians v, 19.)  "God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son." (John iii, 16.)

35.  Thomas Aquinas, the Angel of the Schools, also discovered in this fact the very formula and essence of our belief, for he writes that a true and lasting peace is more a matter of love than of justice.  The reason for his statement is that it is the function of justice merely to do away with obstacles to peace, as for example, the injury done or the damage caused.  Peace itself, however, is an act and results only from love. (Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 29 Art. 3, Ad. III.)

    (Because of the length of this Encyclical it is in 2 files.  Please click on CONTINUE below.)

 The True Answer To World Peace
 Triumph Of Church