Just two days after Adolf Hitler had warned the German people to expect more hardships and setbacks, one came. The Red Army captured Radovel, placing themselves within 18 miles of the pre World War Two, and post Russo Polish War, Russian border.
Much of the attention in late 1943 had been on the war in Ukraine, but this frankly was more than a little ominous. The Soviets were not only recovering lost ground, they were about to enter ground they had not been on since their 1939 invasion of Poland.
The US landed troops of the 32nd Infantry Division at Saidor in New Guinea in Operation Michaelmas, an operation which would ultimately involve 13,000 U.S. troops in an effort to cut off 6,000 Japanese troops.
The 32nd Infantry Division was comprised of National Guard units from Michigan and Wisconsin and had seen significant participation in World War One. Immediately after the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor, the unit was designated for shipment to Northern Ireland and ordered to move to embarkment locations, however, Japanese advances caused it to be redesignated for the Pacific, at which time, after having suffered some manpower losses due to restructuring, it was given only three weeks to make the cross-country trek and embark. It was not fully equipped at the time. Manpower shortages were filled out, however, by recent conscripts. It was then sent to Australia.
Division patch.
While the unit's early commitment to combat was problematic, the unit achieved many first during the Second World War. It was the first US division to deploy as an entire unit from the US and the first to be shipped in a single convoy. The 128th Infantry Rgt, part of the division, was the first to be airlifted into combat. It was the first US unit to launch a ground assault against the Japanese. At Saidor, they became the first US division to make a beach landing in New Guinea. They later became the first US division to supply eleven battalions at one time from the air.
They were one of the "last" units as well, in that they were fighting Japanese soldiers on the Philippines the day after the Japanese surrender. They then went into occupation duty in Japan, and returned in 1946.
It is so easy for those who have made their money under a given system to think that that system must be right and good. Conservatism is for that reason nothing else than a pseudo-philosophy for the prosperous. -
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West, p. 81
This is going to hit California and Baja Mexico:
Coastal Watches/Warnings and Forecast Cone for Storm Center
Forecast Length*
Forecast Track Line
Initial Wind Field
* If the storm is forecast to dissipate within 3 days, the "Full Forecast" and "3 day" graphic will be identical
This graphic shows an approximate representation of coastal areas under a hurricane warning (red), hurricane watch (pink), tropical storm warning (blue) and tropical storm watch (yellow). The orange circle indicates the current position of the center of the tropical cyclone. The black line, when selected, and dots show the National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast track of the center at the times indicated. The dot indicating the forecast center location will be black if the cyclone is forecast to be tropical and will be white with a black outline if the cyclone is forecast to be extratropical. If only an L is displayed, then the system is forecast to be a remnant low. The letter inside the dot indicates the NHC's forecast intensity for that time:
D: Tropical Depression – wind speed less than 39 MPH S: Tropical Storm – wind speed between 39 MPH and 73 MPH H: Hurricane – wind speed between 74 MPH and 110 MPH M: Major Hurricane – wind speed greater than 110 MPH
NHC tropical cyclone forecast tracks can be in error. This forecast uncertainty is conveyed by the track forecast "cone", the solid white and stippled white areas in the graphic. The solid white area depicts the track forecast uncertainty for days 1-3 of the forecast, while the stippled area depicts the uncertainty on days 4-5. Historical data indicate that the entire 5-day path of the center of the tropical cyclone will remain within the cone about 60-70% of the time. To form the cone, a set of imaginary circles are placed along the forecast track at the 12, 24, 36, 48, 72, 96, and 120 h positions, where the size of each circle is set so that it encloses 67% of the previous five years official forecast errors. The cone is then formed by smoothly connecting the area swept out by the set of circles.
It is also important to realize that a tropical cyclone is not a point. Their effects can span many hundreds of miles from the center. The area experiencing hurricane force (one-minute average wind speeds of at least 74 mph) and tropical storm force (one-minute average wind speeds of 39-73 mph) winds can extend well beyond the white areas shown enclosing the most likely track area of the center. The distribution of hurricane and tropical storm force winds in this tropical cyclone can be seen in the Wind History graphic linked above.
Considering the combined forecast uncertainties in track, intensity, and size, the chances that any particular location will experience winds of 34 kt (tropical storm force), 50 kt, or 64 kt (hurricane force) from this tropical cyclone are presented in tabular form for selected locations and forecast positions. This information is also presented in graphical form for the 34 kt, 50 kt, and 64 kt thresholds.
Interestingly, it's going to basically go right over Bakersfield, California, where this lifelong resident of that city is now serving in Congress:
Bakersfield is an oil town, and a rough one. Kevin McCarthy never worked in the oil patch, but he comes from blue collar roots. He graduated with a MBA from California State University, Bakersfield, in 1994, but was already in politics by that time. He's been a member of Congress since 2006.
Kern County is representative of a type of California we hardly think of. An oil and gas province in a state that we associate originally with agriculture, and then with. . . well itself. In some ways, McCarthy has been sort of an odd man out in his native state his entire life. And it must be frustrating, as he's a fourth generation Californian.
That sort of frustration has expressed itself in the nation's politics, on both the left and the right, for some time now. It's given rise to populism, and that populism has morphed into a form of fascism. Right McCarthy's party is struggling to see if it will be, after the nomination process is over, a conservative party, a populist party, or a fascist party. The fascist is in the lead, but he disregards of the law, a common trait for fascist leaders, may be his undoing. If it isn't, it risks being the undoing of American democracy.
The fact that "conservatives" no longer apply the broad scope of the word "conserve" may prove to lead to multiple undoings as well.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen hit on something that ought to be obvious to us all, but in fact It's something rarely occurs to anyone. Liberals, or progressives as they like to think of themselves, decry the rich as evil on the basis that bad things happen due to wealth and therefore that's evil, and the evil must know that it's evil. In truth, "It is so easy for those who have made their money under a given system to think that that system must be right and good.", and that doesn't apply only to those who make vast amounts of money in something. Regular workers feel the same way. Tobacco farmers probably almost never thought to themselves about how their product directly resulted in cancer, and if they did, they must have mentally excused it, for example.
Systems are big, and big systems have to be addressed at a big level. Germans who worked in factories that were converted to war products as the war went on weren't in the same position as Albert Speer. But attempting to sanctify your occupation and livelihood (something I'll note that is very common for lawyers to do) doesn't change the reality of things.
This the first tropical storm to hit California like this in 84 years, the last such one being 1939's El Cordonazo. That storm was not only the last one, it's the only one to have made landfall in California in the 20th Century. We've had the terrible fires in Maui. We've had terrible fires in Canada all summer long. The list goes on.
The GOP is loud on the Biden "radical climate agenda". At least one of our local Congressional representatives, I'd wager, can be guaranteed to come on Twitter or Fox News within the next 30 days and complain about "Biden's radical climate agenda". The truth is, humans should not dare alter the climate, and just because I make money from things that might doesn't mean that it can't happen.
After this storm hits Bakersfield, McCarthy, along with the other top GOP leaders, should go to Kern County and explain what they're doing. McCarthy is Catholic (one of our three Congress people was, but long since adopted a Protestant faith, the latter allowing divorce and remarriage, although I don't know that's the reason that he did so). In Catholic theology, lying about serious matters is a grave sin.
I note that as I feel that most of these people, although not all of them, know better. If they don't know better, they can be excused, I guess, for not knowing better, but they can't be for willfully blinding themselves to the truth, which certainly can and does occur.
We really don't need Kevin McCarthy blathering about Hunter Biden. There's no excuse for ignoring the real, and difficult, problems of the day. You can feed red meat to the dogs, but once that's gone, and they're starving, they'll be coming for you.
People cheered Mussolini when he marched on Rome. They then hung around and celebrated his demise 20 years later. Austrians lined the streets when Hitler visited after the Anschluß, and were pretty glad to see the Nazi go just a few years later.
People who faced reality and undertook to engage it are better remembered than those who buried their heads in the sand and tried to ignore it. People don't sing the praises of John C. Calhoun today. They're not going to sing the praises of Ted Cruz tomorrow. People remember Lindbergh for what he did heroically, not for being an American Firster before December 7, 1941.
There's an opportunity here to be grasped, but will it be. Of couse, is there even an audience for it. The Wyoming GOP has been busy censuring its members for not falling into the fantasy right. People like to hear that they're beautiful, that smoking won't hurt you, and that you can go ahead and have that fourth beer before you drive home.
For the first time in history, a National Hockey League match concluded with no penalties having been imposed. The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Hamilton Tigers, 5 to 4.
Hockey, unlike football, is not boring.
Italy required public school students to start using the extended arm fascist salute, claimed to have been derived from Rome, but with little historical support for the proposition.
The general gesture was in vogue at the time, having been popularized in the United States as the Bellamy Salute. It's co-opting by fascism, forever associated it with fascist movements.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt Jr., occupying the position that his father had leading up to the Spanish American War, and his cousin had during World War One, addressed the midyear graduating class of the Peter Force School, a school he had attended during his father's occupancy of the office. The class planted a Lombardy Poplar in memory of Quentin Roosevelt, aviator, who had died in action in World War One.
The school had been founded in 1879 and was named for a former Washington, D.C. mayor. Many children of important personages attended the school, including the late Quentin Roosevelt and Charles Taft, the son of President Taft.
The school would not have a much longer run. It was abandoned in 1939 and demolished in 1962 in order to make way for the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies.
Vice Pres. Coolidge and House Speaker Gillett exercising in House gym. Jan. 31, 1923
President Harding nominated Democrat Pierce Butler to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace William R. Day. Nominating a Democrat assured Harding that he could get his nomination past the then Democratic U.S. Senate.
Gee, it's almost like politics played a role in Supreme Court nominations back then. . .
While he was a Democrat, he was also a staunch conservative, this being a day when conservatives still existed in the Democratic Party. He was one of the justices that proved to be trouble for Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s.
Butler was also a devout Catholic. Today he's partially remembered for issuing the only dissenting opinion in Buck v. Bell, a case which permitted compulsory sterilization of the intellectually disabled and which is regarded now as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time. Bell's dissent, was, interestingly, without a dissenting opinion, but it was a dissent. Oliver Wendell Holmes attributed his dissent to his Catholicism.
Butler also dissented from Olmstead v. United States, which upheld Federal wiretapping.
He died at age 73 in 1939.
Võ Văn Kiệt, a North Vietnamese Communist figure who later played a prominent role in opening the Vietnamese economy back up, and who served as the Prime Minister of the country in the 1990s, was born.
On this day in 1942 West Virginia mandated a salute to the flag as a regular part of school activities.
German children? Nope, US children in May 1942 giving the flag the "Bellamy Salute" that was advocated by Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy. At the time, the association with Fascism and Nazism had not yet fully sunk in.
The measure was struck down by the US Supreme Court as unconstitutional the following year.
Until that summer, the salute would have been in the form advocated by Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy, who was also the author of the Pledge of Allegiance. Bellamy had died a decade prior, but the pledge and the salute were gaining popularity since the onset of the war. Concern over its Nazi like appearance caused adoption of the palm over the heart form of the salute now used by civilians in this gesture, a measure urged by the Veteran's of Foreign Wars and the American Legion.
Saluting by civilians is, frankly, in my view an odd deal. Simply standing and taking off your hat makes more sense to me. But like a lot of things, things, this has really spread, and morphed, in our society.
Bellamy began advocating for it as early as 1892, when he wrote:
At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the flag the military salute – right hand lifted, palm downward, to align with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all." At the words, "to my Flag," the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side.
The Youth's Companion, 65 (1892): 446.
Bellamy of course meant no fascist connotations by it, and fascism wasn't even a thing at the time. It spread slowly but picked up speed as a school thing following World War One.
In the same period of time, however, fascism and Nazism adopted the same salute. Distinctions are sometimes made between it and the Bellamy salute, but in reality the only difference is that the fascist weren't attempting to copy Bellamy. At any rate, it spread like wildfire in the 20s and 30s amongst fascistic movements, making a change in the US necessary.
This wasn't the only thing to suffer such a fate. As noted on our companion blog, Painted Bricks:
Here's one that you would not see done again, and you might also expect to have been changed since 1945. Swastika motif in brickwork.
This is not as sinister as it might seem. Swastikas showed up as ornamental designs in quite a few things prior to World War Two, and they bore no association at all with the Nazi Party. In the west, they were associated with Indians, and were regarded as an Indian good luck symbol. Chances are that the architect of this Thermopolis, Wyoming building had that in mind, as Thermopolis is not far from the Wind River Reservation.
Indeed, at the time we're speaking of, the 45th Infantry Division, a unit made up of National Guardsmen heavily featuring Native American Oklahoman's, was only two years out from the redesign of its unit patch adopted during World War One, which looked like this:
And it gets even odder yet. Lord Baden Powell waxed about it in What Scouts Can Do--More Yarns, in 1921, in which he stated.
On the stole of an ancient bishop of
Winchester, Edyndon, who died in 1366, is the Swastika or Scouts' Thanks Badge.
It was at that time called the " Fylfot," and was said to represent
Obedience or Submission, the different arms of the cross being in reality legs
in the attitude of kneeling.
But as you know from the account of
the Swastika Thanks Badge which I have given you in Scouting for Boys, this
symbol was used in almost every part of the world in ancient days, and
therefore has various meanings given to it.
It has been found engraved on
weapons belonging to the Norsemen. It was also engraved on the spindles used by
the ancient Greeks in their- weaving at Troy.
In India rice is spread on the
ground in the form of the Swastika at the baptism of a baby boy to bring him
luck.
The Indians in North America use it
as an ornament, and it has been found engraved on ancient pottery in Peru.
How it got from one country to
another, separated as they are by oceans, it is difficult to guess, but some
people who say they know all about these things, affirm that there was once a
great continent where now there is the Atlantic Ocean, but it went under the
sea in an earthquake.
This continent was called Atlantis,
and joined up Europe with America.
It was supposed to have four vast
rivers running from a central mountain in different directions—North, East,
South, and West—and the Swastika is merely a map of Atlantis showing those four
rivers rising from the same center.
The Thanks Badge
I want specially to remind Scouts to
keep their eyes open and never fail to spot anyone wearing this badge. It is
their duty then to go up to such person, make the Scout sign, and ask if they
can be of any service to the wearer.Anyway, whatever its origin was the
Swastika now stands for the Badge of Fellowship among Scouts all over the
world, and when anyone has done a kindness to a Scout it is their privilege to
present him—or her—with this token of their gratitude, which makes him a sort
of member of the Brotherhood, and entitles him to the help of any other Scout
at any time and at any place.
I have heard of several instances
where Scouts have done this, and it has greatly increased the value of the
Thanks Badge to the persons who were wearing it when they found that Scouts
recognized it and were anxious to do a Good Turn to them.
All that is more than a little cringe worthy now, but prior to the rise of the Nazis, the symbol had a wide range of meanings and in fact was quite common in the US, derived from Native American usage. Of course, that can take you into the conversation about European Americans appropriating Native American symbols and identities, but that's another topic (albeit one we've discussed before).
By 1939, when the 49th Infantry Division went to its new symbol. . .
it was already the case that the Nazis had claimed this one forever, although perhaps a final non fasicst use carried on, for quite awhile, by the Finns.
Finnish Me109s during the Continuation War. Some below the radar use of the swastika goes on in Finland today, due to its wartime use, even though a turn away from it started in 1945 when the Finns ended up reluctantly declaring war on the Germans.
In Slovenia, partisans engaged the Germans in what would become the Battle of Dražgoše.
Admiral Yamamoto made a statement to Taketora Ogata in which he stated:
A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.
This is likely the origin of the claim that on December 7, he stated that he feared that all the attack had done was to "awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve".
Joe Louis regained the heavyweight boxing title by knocking out Buddy Baer in round one of a match at Madison Square Garden.
Back to saluting, I'm very glad, as I'm sure everyone is, that the Bellamy salute was dropped and I'm okay with the hand on the heart salute, although personally I think simply standing and uncovering the head would be enough, but since the First Gulf War, and dating back to the Reagan Administration really, saluting in the military style by civilians has really spread and I really don't like it.
This really started with President Reagan giving a snappy salute to the Marine Corps guards and other servicemen he routinely encountered. At the time, that was technically illegal, although probably unenforceable, as it was reserved for servicemen. Reagan had served as a reserve cavalry officer before the war and during the war in the entertainment branch of the U.S. Army, which I do not wish to discount, but he was a civilian and should not have done that. Since then, however, every President has, encouraging the creeping militarization of our society.
At some point in the 90s or 00s, the law in this was officially changed to allow veterans to use the salute, and some really do. I could, as I’m a veteran. I don't, as I'm a civilian. There's no need for it.
Louis Brandeis, former Supreme Court Justice, died at age 84. He'd retired from the court in 1939.
Brandeis remains a legend from the court, although probably few people could really define what he stood for now. He was a progressive when that term had been defined by Theodore Roosevelt's politics. He was appointed to the court by Woodrow Wilson. He was a wealthy man, but was opposed to consumerism and felt it influence corrupting. He was also an opponent of big finance and big corporations. He was personally very reserved.
He was the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, although his parents were members of the heretical Frankism sect. The rest of his family was not, and it does not appear that Brandeis himself was. He was married to a cousin of his and had two children.
On the same day, the New York Times ran an article that things were worsening for Jews in Eastern Europe, an understatement if ever there was one, but an understandable understatement given that Western news outlets hadn't had free access to Eastern Europe for twenty years at the time, and the Germans weren't about to give it to them. Herman Hoth, a German general, was appointed commander of the German 17th Army where he would be a strong proponent of the war of annulation against the Jews and the Communists, whom he made no distinction between. Hoth was tried after the war for war crimes and tried to excuse his actions as ones that that were sales puffery only, which was quite a stretch. He served 15 years in prison for war crimes and died in 1971.
Weekly German propaganda poster released on this day in 1941. The text reads, loosely; "Farmers and Soldiers stand hand in hand together, to give to the Volk their day bread, and to the Reich freedom through room. The poster is a ghastly perversion of Christian ideals in regard to its reference to "daily bread" and bizarrely has the sword not beat into a plowshare, but anchored to a plot.
Of note, if you were in the West reading the news from this period, it'd have been hard not to conclude the Germans were going to win the war. Now, of course, we realize that they were already in trouble in the Soviet Union, but that wouldn't have been obvious from reading the newspapers.
Execution of the agreement between the Polish government in exile and the USSR, with Winston Churchill in attendance.
On this day in 1941 the Polish government in exile and the Soviet Union entered into a treaty abrogating the results of the Soviet Union's participation with Nazi Germany in the September 1939 invasion of Poland and making them allies. The agreement also provided that the USSR would cause a Polish military unit to be formed in its territory.
Polish-Soviet Union Agreements : July 30, 1941
Moscow, July 30, 1941
1. The Government of the U.S.S.R. recognizes
the Soviet-German treaties of 1939 as to
territorial changes in Poland as having lost their validity. The Polish
Government declares Poland is not bound by any agreement with any third power
which is directed against the U.S.S.R.
2. Diplomatic relations will be restored between
the two governments upon the signing of this agreement, and an immediate
exchange of Ambassadors will be arranged.
3. The two governments mutually agree to render
one to another aid and support of all kinds in the present war against
Hitlerite Germany.
4. The Government of the U.S.S.R. expresses its
consent to the formation on territory of the U.S.S.R. of a Polish Army under a
commander appointed by the Polish Government in agreement with the Soviet
Government, the Polish Army on territory of the U.S.S.R. being subordinated in
an operational sense to the Supreme Command of the U.S.S.R., in which the
Polish Army will be represented. All details as to command, organization and
employment of this force will be settled in a subsequent agreement.
5. This agreement will come into force
immediately upon signature and without ratification. The present agreement is
drawn up in two copies, in the Russian and Polish languages. Both texts have
equal force.
The Soviet Government grants amnesty to all
Polish citizens now detained on Soviet territory either as prisoners of war or
on other sufficient grounds, as from the resumption of diplomatic relations.
The Soviets did indeed allow for the formation of Polish military units under this agreement, although in 1942 they were evacuated to the west through Iran. They were fairly sizable in number, with over 70,000 men at the time. Following evacuation, they came under overall British control and were part of the Polish forces armed and equipped by the United Kingdom.
Following that, additional Polish formation were created under the leadership of Polish communists. These forces were outside the control of the Polish government in exile.
On the same day, the Royal Navy launched a Quixotic raid on the European far north, hitting Kirkenes in Norway and Petsamo in Finland by air.
The raid was not a success and frankly fit into the category of odd British efforts of a show the flag nature that were not always well thought out. The leader of the two carrier raid doubted the concept himself and his doubts proved correct. Conducted in the high Arctic summer, the long day precluded surprise and the overall results have been termed a "disaster".
The German 6th Army commenced an assault on Kiev.
Hitler issued his Directive No. 34 on the fact of increased Soviet resistance to the invasion of the Soviet Union. Just days prior he was planning for the whole thing to wrap up.
German General Nikolaus Von Falkenhorst meeting Finnish General Hjalmar Siilasvuo on June 24, 1941. Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive (sa-kuva.fi). Free to use for every purpose if the the source "SA-kuva" is mentioned.
On this day in 1941 Latvia, occupied by the Soviets since 1939, declared independence in hopes of having that supplied by the advancing German army. It would not receive it, instead being part of the German Reichskommissariat Ostland. This was addressed somewhat in yesterday's post, but the overall plan in regard to Lativia was to kill its Jewish population, expel some of its population and "Germanize" the remainder. The Germans considered the Latvians suitable for the latter as the country had been influenced by the Danes and Swedes in prior centuries and therefore were Europeanized, in the view of the Germans. That Latvians, a people closely related to the Finns but with a unique history, didn't see themselves the same way.
On the same day, crowds in Madrid turned out to demonstrate in supporter of the German invasion of the USSR, something noted here:
As these entries show, not all peoples everywhere were in June 1941, of the same mind as the Allies. Of course, what the German invasion would mean wasn't fully appreciated at the time either.
Elsewhere, British officials confirmed that the United Kingdom would provide aid to the Soviet Union. And the Franklin Roosevelt publicly confirmed the same.
On this day in 1971 the European Economic Community came to a resolution with the United Kingdom on terms for the UK to enter the EEC and its Common Market. The principal point of the resolution involved payments to the EEC by the UK.
And they all lived happily ever after. . . right?
Poland turned over 6,900 former German Churches, many of which had been Lutheran Churches, to the Catholic Church. This came about due to protests that occurred in Poland in December 1970.
This may seem odd, but at the end of the Second World War the Soviets had moved the German population east, clearing out much of eastern Prussia and all of East Prussia from its German residents. Many had already fled the advancing Red Army in 1944 and 1945 in any event, and many who remained were killed by the Soviets. The Soviets also, in turn, shoved the Polish population in eastern Poland west. Effectively the Russians redrew the map tin the way that they favored it and those borders have since stuck. While the forced resettlements may seem barbarous, and really were, they did have the effect of concentrating the populations in a fashion that involved a clearer ethnic concentration than they had previously.
As a Catholic jurisdictional matter, it's always the case that a Catholic diocese includes, from a Catholic prospective, all of the souls within its territorial boundary, and the Parish Priest is responsible for all of them. In Poland's case, nearly 100% of the population were and are observant Catholics. While there were Polish communists, the movement had never been very popular in Poland and such Polish communists as existed tended to have ended up in the USSR in the post World War One period. Catholics resisted the Nazi and Soviet occupation of 1939-1941, the Nazi occupation of 1941-45 ,and the Soviet occupation thereafter and the Church remained a strong force even in Communist Poland. As the Church needed Church buildings, the transfer made sense. Additionally, as a practical matter, many churches in northern and eastern Europe were for Catholic congregations at the time they were built, so the transfer was effectively a reversion to their original status.
As a final note, since fall of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany, there has been a tourist phenomenon of Germans revising their former homes in what is now Poland. They're generally unwelcome.
"Vote for Poland and you will be free", a pro Polish campaign poster. Interestingly, while the vote would go on largely ethnic lines, this poster was in Polish and German.
A plebiscite was held in Upper Silesia to determine its national fate. The result apportioned the territory between Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia.
This would, of course, help set the game board for World War Two, as did the Treaty of Riga from the day prior. Germany wasn't content with the results, and in actuality Poland really wasn't either. When Germany dismembered Czechoslovakia in the following decade, Poland took a piece, although I think of lower Silesia and other border areas, before it soon faced Germany's territorial expansion itself. Czechoslovakia took them back in October 1939 and then the border returned to its 1920 line following World War Two.
Also following World War Two almost all of Upper Silesia was placed in Poland. Interestingly, unlike Lower Silesia, not all of its ethnic German population was expelled as some of it was bilingual and as the Germans in Upper Silesia were Catholic, and somewhat intermixed with the Polish population, some were allowed to remain. The region currently has a small autonomy movement.
The Treaty of Riga officially settled the conflict between Soviet Russia and Poland. In doing so, it drew borders through regions that were neither Russian nor Polish.
Ironically, Polish negotiators, fearing growing Soviet power and also fearing the internal strife that the situation was leaving itself with, chose to omit territories that Russia would have ceded to Poland that contained Polish populations. These populations would suffer under Soviet rule. Some Poles likewise wished to omit Ukrainian territories offered to them and sought to back an independent Ukraine, but in the end regions of Ukraine were annexed and in future years would undergo Polanization. Territory in Belarus was divided between Soviet Russia and Poland.
The treaty reflected the state of many former imperial regimes. The Wilsonian concept of national self determination had failed to really appreciate that long existing empires had allowed for ethnic populations to blend on their maps, rather than retain precise territories, something that indeed reflected their pre imperial states. There was typically a multi ethnic frontier of sorts in which populations of various ethnicities occupied the same territories but did not really mix. This was very common as to German populations, which had expanded into the Baltic regions and Russia during prior centuries, and it was likewise common with Polish populations, which had expanded into Russia and the Baltics, as well into German regions a bit. Poland, additionally, had been a major Medieval kingdom which stretched far beyond its 20th Century territorial claims, and at one time had been the largest western European state.
To complicate the matters further, the Poles were a closely related ethnicity to some populations on their borders, and in some periods of the past ethnicities that regarded themselves as distinct had regarded themselves as Polish, even when from very distinct groups. Nonetheless, coming out of the Russian Revolution almost every culturally distinct group that had territory sought to become independent of Russia and treaties such as this ignored those aspirations. That would have to wait until after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It's easy to look back and criticize treaties such as this, but in reality, the Poles took less than they could have and they had real reason to fear Soviet Russia, as 1939 would prove. If they'd taken all that they could have, 1939 would probably not have worked out for them, but what that would have meant in terms of the survivability of the Polish state, and the ability to influence things in the Stalinist starvation period of the late 1920s and early 1930s in the Soviet Union, is something at least worth pondering.
On this day in 1920, Finland and the Soviet Union entered into the Treaty of Tartu which fixed Finland's first post war borders with Soviet Russia. This came in the context of ending the Heimosodat, a Finnish sponsored effort in the Finnish regions of Russia that sought to join the land inhabited by Russian Baltic Finns with Finland.
The story is complicated as the entire story involves a series of wars including wars of independence in neighboring states that were formerly part of Imperial Russia. In some instances Finnish volunteers sought to aid independence movements in hopes of a friendly state being established, in others they hoped for outright annexation of Finnish lands that lay inside of Russia's boundaries. The entire matter demonstrated, as the wars of the Poles we've recently dealt with, that former European imperial boundaries were rarely ethnic ones.
Finland itself occupies about 60% of the landmass inhabited by the Baltic Finns. Estonia is the second state that has a Baltic Finn population, with Estonians also being Baltic Finns, but Baltic Finns speaking a branch of the overall Finnish language. Finns from Finland sent volunteer units into Estonia to support it independence movement, which was successful at the time, a fairly remarkable thing to do as it was more or less concurrent with the Finnish Civil War.
Finnish volunteers in Estonia.
More serious, from a Russian prospective, were a series of Finnish supported efforts to secure the annexation of the large Finnish landmass to Finland's east. This lead to a complicated series of wars, the Heimosodat, that are now largely forgotten outside the region but which form an important aspect of the situation from that point forward.
From March 1918 until October 1918, Finnish volunteers attempted, and nearly succeeded, in taking Karelia from Russia. They were defeated not by Russian troops, with Russia collapsing into civil war at the time, but by British ones who feared the Germans securing access to the White Sea. Conservative Finns, the Finnish Whites, had support from Imperial Germany and the British saw the Finnish effort in that context. British efforts successfully caused the Finnish advance to fall apart and the Finns ultimately retreated. Following that, the British attempted unsuccessfully to sponsor Karelian independence.
Murmansk Legion, a British organized and equipped Finnish unit in Karelia that fought the Finnish volunteers in that region. The unit was made up of, in part, refugee Finnish Red Guards, making it essentially a Finnish communist unit organized to fight the Finnish whites in Karelia. When the British left Russia in 1919, many of its members went to Canada, with some securing reentrance to a less than enthused Finland. Some officers stayed in Soviet Russia and would later fight for the reds in the Spanish Civil War.
Also in 1918 Finnish volunteers attempted to annex Petsamo, the large northern landmass bordering the Arctic Sea, but were also pushed back by the British.
Finnish volunteers in Petsamo in 1918.
Finnish volunteers tried again for Karelia in 1919 in the Aunus expedition, now that Russia was fully in turmoil. The plan depended upon a Karelian uprising that didn't materialize, and after two months it retreated back into Finland.
In 1920 they also tried for Petsamo again, but were pushed back this time by Soviet troops.
In 1920 an uprising in North Ingria, the southern part of Karelia, ended up establishing a putative independent state that had the goal of being annexed to Finland, but which would have required the balance of Karelia to join Finland in order to succeed.
The Treaty of Tartu largely followed the former Imperial Russian boundaries of the Grand Duchy of Finland, excepting that the Finns received a portion of Petsamo including a port, which had been promised to them by the Imperial Russian government in 1864. They withdrew from some territory taken in in the other expeditions and abandoned support for North Ingria. The treaty largely held until the Soviet's unwarranted invasion in 1939 although the Finns supported an uprising in Karelia in 1921-22 which severely strained their relations with the USSR at the time.
The entire matter is another example of the mess of imperial boundaries and the complicated nature of the break apart of imperial regimes. By and large, Finns who dreamed of incorporating all Finnish lands into their newly independent state were justified in that goal. Imperial Germany ironically ended up supporting their aspirations and the British helped crush them. German support of Finnish whites helped prevent Finland from becoming a Soviet state that would have been annexed to the Soviet Union in the 1920s, but its probable that had the Finns succeeded in establishing themselves beyond their imperial boundaries the Soviets would have taken that territory back in any event, and perhaps the rest of Finland as well. At any rate, a good deal of Finnish ethnic territory remains outside of modern Finland today, and the territory, such as it was, that was gained by Finland in the Treaty of Tartu was lost at the end of the Continuation War.
From the Sandusky Ohio Star Journal, August 23, 1920. "The Sky Is Now Her Limit".
The achievement of the franchise was being heralded as a major advance for women in society by the press around the country, which of course, it was.
Poland's dramatic reversal of military fortunes, and the Soviet Unions, was also being noted. The Poles were on the verge of defeat just a few days ago but now were defeating the Soviet Union. Red Army soldiers were departing Trotsky's forces for captivity with the Poles.
At the same time, German workers in Danzig organized a Communist Soviet which took action to disrupt Allied shipments to embattled Poland.
Danzig's German dockworkers present an interesting item here, in that the Danzig Corridor was one of the contention points between Germany and Poland that the Nazi's would use as a basis for war. At least in 1920, however, those German workers were Red. They'd lose their homes in 1945 when the Soviet Union came in and pushed the Germans out and the city has since been known by its Polish name, Gdansk. It's Polish dockworkers were instrumental in bringing down Poland's Communist government in 1989 which was the first step of the end of Communism as a serious entity anywhere.
Summi Pontificatus On the Unity of Human Society Pope Pius XII - 1939
To
Our Venerable Brethren: The Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops,
and Other Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See. Venerable Brethren; Health and Apostolic Benediction. In
the very year which marks the fortieth anniversary of the consecration
of mankind to our Redeemer’s Most Sacred Heart, the inscrutable counsel
of the Lord, for no merit of Ours, has laid upon Us the exalted dignity
and grave care of the Supreme Pontificate; for that consecration was
proclaimed by Our immortal predecessor, Leo XIII, at the beginning of
the Holy Year which closed the last century. 2. And We, as a newly
ordained priest, then just empowered to recite “I will go in to the
altar of God” (Psalm xlii. 4), hailed the Encyclical Annum Sacrum with
genuine approval, enthusiasm and delight as a message from heaven. We
associated Ourselves in fervent admiration with the motives and aims
which inspired and directed the truly providential action of a Pontiff
so sure in his diagnosis of the open and hidden needs and sores of his
day. It is only natural, then, that We should today feel profoundly
grateful to Providence for having designed that the first year of Our
Pontificate should be associated with a memory so precious and so dear
of Our first year of priesthood, and that We should take the opportunity
of paying homage to the King of kings and Lord of lords (I Timothy vi.
15; Apocalypse xix. 6) as a kind of Introit prayer to Our Pontificate,
in the spirit of Our renowned predecessor and in the faithful
accomplishment of his designs, and that, in fine, We should make of it
the alpha and omega of Our aims, of Our hopes, of Our teaching, of Our
activity, of Our patience and of Our sufferings, by consecrating them
all to the spread of the Kingdom of Christ. 3. As We review from
the standpoint of eternity the past forty years in their exterior events
and interior developments, balancing achievements against deficiencies,
We see ever more clearly the sacred significance of that consecration
of mankind to Christ the King; We see its inspiring symbolism We see its
power to refine and to elevate, to strengthen and to fortify souls. We
see, besides, in that consecration a penetrating wisdom which sets
itself to restore and to ennoble all human society and to promote its
true welfare. It unfolds itself to Us ever more clearly as a message of
comfort and a grace from God not only to His Church, but also to a world
in all too dire need of help and guidance: to a world which,
preoccupied with the worship of the ephemeral, has lost its way and
spent its forces in a vain search after earthly ideals. It is a message
to men who, in ever increasing numbers, have cut themselves off from
faith in Christ and, even more, from the recognition and observance of
His law; a message opposed to that philosophy of life for which the
doctrine of love and renunciation preached in the Sermon on the Mount
and the Divine act of love on the Cross seem to be a stumbling block and
foolishness. 4. Even as the precursor of the Lord proclaimed one
day to those who sought and questioned him: “Behold the lamb of God”
(Saint John i. 29), in order to warn them that the desired of the
nations (cf. Aggeus ii. 8), dwelt, though as yet unrecognized, in their
midst, so, too, the representative of Christ addressed his mighty cry of
entreaty: “Behold your King” (Saint John xix. 14) to the renegades, to
the doubters, to the wavering, to the hesitant, who either refused to
follow the glorious Redeemer, living ever and working in His Church, or
followed Him with carelessness and sloth. 5. From the widening and
deepening of devotion to the Divine Heart of the Redeemer, which had
its splendid culmination in the consecration of humanity at the end of
the last century, and further in the introduction, by Our immediate
predecessor of happy memory, of the Feast of Christ the King, there have
sprung up benefits beyond description for numberless souls — as the
stream of the river which maketh the City of God joyful (Psalm xlv. 5).
What age had greater need than ours of these benefits? What age has
been, for all its technical and purely civic progress, more tormented
than ours by spiritual emptiness and deep-felt interior poverty? May we
not, perhaps, apply to it the prophetic words of the Apocalypse: “Thou
sayest: I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing: and
knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind,
and naked.” (Apocalypse iii. 17.) 6. Can there be, Venerable
Brethren, a greater or more urgent duty than to preach the unsearchable
riches of Christ (Ephesians iii. 8) to the men of our time? Can there be
anything nobler than to unfurl the “Ensign of the King” before those
who have followed and still follow a false standard, and to win back to
the victorious banner of the Cross those who have abandoned it? What
heart is not inflamed, is not swept forward to help at the sight of so
many brothers and sisters who, misled by error, passion, temptation and
prejudice, have strayed away from faith in the true God and have lost
contact with the joyful and life-giving message of Christ? 7. Who
among “the Soldiers of Christ” — ecclesiastic or layman — does not feel
himself incited and spurred on to a greater vigilance, to a more
determined resistance, by the sight of the ever-increasing host of
Christ’s enemies; as he perceives the spokesmen of these tendencies deny
or in practice neglect the vivifying truths and the values inherent in
belief in God and in Christ; as he perceives them wantonly break the
Tables of God’s Commandments to substitute other tables and other
standards stripped of the ethical content of the Revelation on Sinai,
standards in which the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the
Cross has no place? 8. Who could observe without profound grief
the tragic harvest of such desertions among those who in days of calm
and security were numbered among the followers of Christ, but who —
Christians unfortunately more in name than in fact — in the hour that
called for endurance, for effort, for suffering, for a stout heart in
face of hidden or open persecution, fell victims of cowardice, weakness,
uncertainty; who, terror-stricken before the sacrifices entailed by a
profession of their Christian Faith, could not steel themselves to drink
the bitter chalice awaiting those faithful to Christ? 9. In such
dispositions of time and temperament, Venerable Brethren, may the
approaching Feast of Christ the King, on which this, Our first
Encyclical, will reach you, be a day of grace and of thorough renewal
and revival in the spirit of the Kingdom of Christ. May it be a day when
the consecration of the human race to the Divine Heart, which should be
celebrated in a particularly solemn manner, will gather the Faithful of
all peoples and all nations around the throne of the Eternal King, in
adoration and in reparation, to renew now and forever their oath of
allegiance to Him and to His law of truth and of love. 10. May it
be for the Faithful a day of grace, on which the fire that Our Lord came
to cast upon the earth will kindle with ever greater light and purity.
May it be a day of grace for the lukewarm, for the weary, for the
afflicted, that their heads, which have become faint, may give proofs of
interior renewal and regeneration of spirit. May it be a day of grace
also for those who have not known Christ or who have lost Him; a day
when from millions of faithful hearts will rise to Heaven the prayer
that “the Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this
world” (Saint John i. 9) may make clear to them the way of salvation,
that His grace may stir in the “troubled heart” of the wanderers a
homesickness for things eternal, a homesickness that impels them to
return to Him, Who from His sorrowful throne of the Cross thirsts for
their souls also and Who is consumed by a desire to become for them,
too, “the Way, and the Truth and the Life” (Saint John xiv. 6). 11.
As, with a heart full of confidence and hope, We place this first
Encyclical of Our Pontificate under the Seal of Christ the King, We feel
entirely assured of the unanimous and enthusiastic approval of the
whole flock of Christ. The difficulties, anxieties and trials of the
present hour arouse, intensify and refine, to a degree rarely attained,
the sense of solidarity in the Catholic family. They make all believers
in God and in Christ share the consciousness of a common threat from a
common danger. 12. We witnessed a consoling and memorable display
of this Catholic solidarity, greatly intensified in such difficult
circumstances — the serried ranks, the assurance, the resolution, the
will to win — in those days when, with faltering step but with
confidence in God, We took possession of the chair left vacant by the
death of Our great predecessor. 13. We cherish the memory of the
many testimonies of filial attachment to the Church and to the Vicar of
Christ, and of the ovation so genuine, so enthusiastic, and so
spontaneous accorded to Us on the occasion of Our election and
coronation; and We gladly take this opportune occasion to address to
you, Venerable Brethren, and to all who belong to the flock of the Lord,
a word of sincere gratitude for that orderly manifestation of reverent
love and of steadfast loyalty to the Papacy, in which one could see
recognition of the God-given mission of the High Priest and of the
Supreme Pastor. 14. For, We well know it, all those manifestations
were not and could not have been addressed to Our poor person but to
the singular and exalted office to which the Lord had raised Us. And
though from that first moment We felt all the great weight of
responsible cares inseparable from the supreme power given to Us by
Divine Providence, it was a consolation to see that magnificent and
tangible demonstration of the indissoluble unity of the Catholic Church
rallying all the closer to the impregnable Rock of Peter, to form around
it a wall and a bulwark as the enemies of Christ become bolder. 15.
This same manifestation of world-wide Catholic solidarity and of
supernatural brotherhood of peoples around their Common Father, seemed
to Us all the richer in fair hopes in view of the tragic circumstances,
both material and spiritual, of the moment. That memory has continued to
comfort Us also in the first months of Our Pontificate in which We have
already witnessed the toil, the anxiety, and the trials with which the
path of the Spouse of Christ across the world is strewn. 16. Nor
can We pass over in silence the profound impression of heartfelt
gratitude made on Us by the good wishes of those who, though not
belonging to the visible body of the Catholic Church, have given noble
and sincere expression to their appreciation of all that unites them to
Us in love for the Person of Christ or in belief in God. We wish to
express Our gratitude to them all. We entrust them one and all to the
protection and to the guidance of the Lord and We assure them solemnly
that one thought only fills Our mind: to imitate the example of the Good
Shepherd in order to bring true happiness to all men: “that they may
have life, and may have it more abundantly” (Saint John x. 10). 17.
But We must, in obedience to an inner prompting, make special mention
of Our gratitude for the tokens of reverent homage which we have had
from the Sovereigns, heads of States and Governments of those nations
with which the Holy See is in friendly relations. Our heart is joyous
especially at the thought that We can, in this first Encyclical directed
to the whole Christian people scattered over the world, rank among such
friendly powers Our dear Italy, fruitful garden of the Faith, which was
planted by the Princes of the Apostles. For, as a result of the Lateran
Pacts, her representative occupies a place of honor among those
officially accredited to the Apostolic See. “The Peace of Christ
restored to Italy,” like a new dawn of brotherly union in religious and
in civil intercourse, had its beginning in these Pacts. We pray God
that, in the serene atmosphere of that peace, He may pervade, revivify,
strengthen and fortify the hearts of the Italian people, so close to Us,
in the midst of which We live, with which We share the very air We
breathe. We hope and trust that people, so dear to Our predecessors and
to Us, may be faithful to its glorious Catholic tradition, and
experience through the Divine Protection ever more that truth of the
Psalmist: “Happy is that people whose God is the Lord” (Psalm cxliii.
15). 18. This happy new juridical and spiritual position which
that achievement, destined to make an indelible mark in history, has
secured and sealed for Italy and for the whole Catholic world, never
appeared to Us so impressive in its unifying effects as when, from the
lofty loggia of the Vatican Basilica, We opened and raised Our arms and
Our hand for the first time in blessing over Rome — Rome, the Seat of
the Papacy and Our own dear birthplace — over Italy reconciled with the
Church, and over the peoples of the entire world. 19. As Vicar of
Him Who in a decisive hour pronounced before the highest earthly
authority of that day, the great words: “For this was I born, and for
this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth.
Every one that is of the truth, hearest My voice” (Saint John xviii.
37), We feel We owe no greater debt to Our office and to Our time than
to testify to the truth with Apostolic firmness: “to give testimony to
the truth.” This duty necessarily entails the exposition and confutation
of errors and human faults; for these must be made known before it is
possible to tend and to heal them. “You shall know the truth and the
truth shall make you free” (Saint John viii. 32). 20. In the
fulfillment of this, Our duty, we shall not let Ourselves be influenced
by earthly considerations nor be held back by mistrust or opposition, by
rebuffs or lack of appreciation of Our words, nor yet by fear of
misconceptions and misinterpretations. We shall fulfill Our duty,
animated ever with that paternal charity which, while it suffers from
the evils which afflict Our children, at the same time points out to
them the remedy; We shall strive to imitate the Divine Model of
shepherds, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, Who is light as well as love:
“Doing the truth in charity” (Ephesians iv. 15). 21. At the head
of the road which leads to the spiritual and moral bankruptcy of the
present day stand the nefarious efforts of not a few to dethrone Christ;
the abandonment of the law of truth which He proclaimed and of the law
of love which is the life breath of His Kingdom. 22. In the
recognition of the royal prerogatives of Christ and in the return of
individuals and of society to the law of His truth and of His love lies
the only way to salvation. 23. Venerable Brethren, as We write
these lines the terrible news comes to Us that the dread tempest of war
is already raging despite all Our efforts to avert it. When We think of
the wave of suffering that has come on countless people who but
yesterday enjoyed in the environment of their homes some little degree
of well-being, We are tempted to lay down Our pen. Our paternal heart is
torn by anguish as We look ahead to all that will yet come forth from
the baneful seed of violence and of hatred for which the sword today
ploughs the blood-drenched furrow. 24. But precisely because of
this apocalyptic foresight of disaster, imminent and remote, We feel We
have a duty to raise with still greater insistence the eyes and hearts
of those in whom there yet remains good will to the One from Whom alone
comes the salvation of the world — to One Whose almighty and merciful
Hand can alone calm this tempest — to the One Whose truth and Whose love
can enlighten the intellects and inflame the hearts of so great a
section of mankind plunged in error, selfishness, strife and struggle,
so as to give it a new orientation in the spirit of the Kingship of
Christ. 25. Perhaps — God grant it — one may hope that this hour
of direct need may bring a change of outlook and sentiment to those many
who, till now, have walked with blind faith along the path of popular
modern errors unconscious of the treacherous and insecure ground on
which they trod. Perhaps the many who have not grasped the importance of
the educational and pastoral mission of the Church will now understand
better her warnings, scouted in the false security of the past. No
defense of Christianity could be more effective than the present
straits. From the immense vortex of error and anti-Christian movements
there has come forth a crop of such poignant disasters as to constitute a
condemnation surpassing in its conclusiveness any merely theoretical
refutation. 26. Hours of painful disillusionment are often hours
of grace — “a passage of the Lord” (cf. Exodus xii. 11), when doors
which in other circumstances would have remained shut, open at Our
Savior’s words: “Behold, I stand at the gate and knock” (Apocalypse iii.
20). God knows that Our heart goes out in affectionate sympathy and
spiritual joy to those who, as a result of such painful trials, feel
within them an effective and salutary thirst for the truth, justice and
peace of Christ. But for those also for whom as yet the hour of light
from on high has not come, Our heart knows only love, Our lips move only
in prayer to the Father of Light that He may cause to shine in their
hearts, indifferent as yet or hostile to Christ, a ray of that Light
which once transformed Saul into Paul; of that Light which has shown its
mysterious power strongest in the times of greatest difficulty for the
Church. 27. A full statement of the doctrinal stand to be taken in
face of the errors of today, if necessary, can be put off to another
time unless there is disturbance by calamitous external events; for the
moment We limit Ourselves to some fundamental observations. 28.
The present age, Venerable Brethren, by adding new errors to the
doctrinal aberrations of the past, has pushed these to extremes which
lead inevitably to a drift towards chaos. Before all else, it is certain
that the radical and ultimate cause of the evils which We deplore in
modern society is the denial and rejection of a universal norm of
morality as well for individual and social life as for international
relations; We mean the disregard, so common nowadays, and the
forgetfulness of the natural law itself, which has its foundation in
God, Almighty Creator and Father of all, supreme and absolute Lawgiver,
all-wise and just Judge of human actions. When God is hated, every basis
of morality is undermined; the voice of conscience is stilled or at any
rate grows very faint, that voice which teaches even to the illiterate
and to uncivilized tribes what is good and what is bad, what lawful,
what forbidden, and makes men feel themselves responsible for their
actions to a Supreme Judge. 29. The denial of the fundamentals of
morality had its origin, in Europe, in the abandonment of that Christian
teaching of which the Chair of Peter is the depository and exponent.
That teaching had once given spiritual cohesion to a Europe which,
educated, ennobled and civilized by the Cross, had reached such a degree
of civil progress as to become the teacher of other peoples, of other
continents. But, cut off from the infallible teaching authority of the
Church, not a few separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow
the central dogma of Christianity, the Divinity of the Savior, and have
hastened thereby the progress of spiritual decay. 30. The Holy
Gospel narrates that when Jesus was crucified “there was darkness over
the whole earth” (Matthew xxvii. 45); a terrifying symbol of what
happened and what still happens spiritually wherever incredulity, blind
and proud of itself, has succeeded in excluding Christ from modern life,
especially from public life, and has undermined faith in God as well as
faith in Christ. The consequence is that the moral values by which in
other times public and private conduct was gauged have fallen into
disuse; and the much vaunted civilization of society, which has made
ever more rapid progress, withdrawing man, the family and the State from
the beneficent and regenerating effects of the idea of God and the
teaching of the Church, has caused to reappear, in regions in which for
many centuries shone the splendors of Christian civilization, in a
manner ever clearer, ever more distinct, ever more distressing, the
signs of a corrupt and corrupting paganism: “There was darkness when
they crucified Jesus” (Roman Breviary, Good Friday, Response Five). 31.
Many perhaps, while abandoning the teaching of Christ, were not fully
conscious of being led astray by a mirage of glittering phrases, which
proclaimed such estrangement as an escape from the slavery in which they
were before held; nor did they then foresee the bitter consequences of
bartering the truth that sets free, for error which enslaves. They did
not realize that, in renouncing the infinitely wise and paternal laws of
God, and the unifying and elevating doctrines of Christ’s love, they
were resigning themselves to the whim of a poor, fickle human wisdom;
they spoke of progress, when they were going back; of being raised, when
they groveled; of arriving at man’s estate, when they stooped to
servility. They did not perceive the inability of all human effort to
replace the law of Christ by anything equal to it; “they became vain in
their thoughts” (Romans i. 21). 32. With the weakening of faith in
God and in Jesus Christ, and the darkening in men’s minds of the light
of moral principles, there disappeared the indispensable foundation of
the stability and quiet of that internal and external, private and
public order, which alone can support and safeguard the prosperity of
States. 33. It is true that even when Europe had a cohesion of
brotherhood through identical ideals gathered from Christian preaching,
she was not free from divisions, convulsions and wars which laid her
waste; but perhaps they never felt the intense pessimism of today as to
the possibility of settling them, for they had then an effective moral
sense of the just and of the unjust, of the lawful and of the unlawful,
which, by restraining outbreaks of passion, left the way open to an
honorable settlement. In Our days, on the contrary, dissensions come not
only from the surge of rebellious passion, but also from a deep
spiritual crisis which has overthrown the sound principles of private
and public morality. 34. Among the many errors which derive from
the poisoned source of religious and moral agnosticism, We would draw
your attention, Venerable Brethren, to two in particular, as being those
which more than others render almost impossible or at least precarious
and uncertain, the peaceful intercourse of peoples. 35. The first
of these pernicious errors, widespread today, is the forgetfulness of
that law of human solidarity and charity which is dictated and imposed
by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men,
to whatever people they belong, and by the redeeming Sacrifice offered
by Jesus Christ on the Altar of the Cross to His Heavenly Father on
behalf of sinful mankind. 36. In fact, the first page of the
Scripture, with magnificent simplicity, tells us how God, as a
culmination to His creative work, made man to His Own image and likeness
(cf. Genesis i. 26, 27); and the same Scripture tells us that He
enriched man with supernatural gifts and privileges, and destined him to
an eternal and ineffable happiness. It shows us besides how other men
took their origin from the first couple, and then goes on, in
unsurpassed vividness of language, to recount their division into
different groups and their dispersion to various parts of the world.
Even when they abandoned their Creator, God did not cease to regard them
as His children, who, according to His merciful plan, should one day be
reunited once more in His friendship (cf. Genesis xii. 3). 37.
The Apostle of the Gentiles later on makes himself the herald of this
truth which associates men as brothers in one great family, when he
proclaims to the Greek world that God “hath made of one, all mankind, to
dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times,
and the limits of their habitation, that they should seek God” (Acts
xvii. 26, 27). 38. A marvelous vision, which makes us see the
human race in the unity of one common origin in God “one God and Father
of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in us all” (Ephesians iv.
6); in the unity of nature which in every man is equally composed of
material body and spiritual, immortal soul; in the unity of the
immediate end and mission in the world; in the unity of dwelling place,
the earth, of whose resources all men can by natural right avail
themselves, to sustain and develop life; in the unity of the
supernatural end, God Himself, to Whom all should tend; in the unity of
means to secure that end. 39. It is the same Apostle who portrays
for us mankind in the unity of its relations with the Son of God, image
of the invisible God, in Whom all things have been created: “In Him were
all things created” (Colossians i. 16); in the unity of its ransom,
effected for all by Christ, Who, through His Holy and most bitter
passion, restored the original friendship with God which had been
broken, making Himself the Mediator between God and men: “For there is
one God, and one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (I
Timothy ii. 5). 40. And to render such friendship between God and
mankind more intimate, this same Divine and universal Mediator of
salvation and of peace, in the sacred silence of the Supper Room, before
He consummated the Supreme Sacrifice, let fall from His divine Lips the
words which reverberate mightily down the centuries, inspiring heroic
charity in a world devoid of love and torn by hate: “This is my
commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you” (Saint John
xv. 12). 41. These are supernatural truths which form a solid
basis and the strongest possible bond of a union, that is reinforced by
the love of God and of our Divine Redeemer, from Whom all receive
salvation “for the edifying of the Body of Christ: until we all meet
into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a
perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ”
(Ephesians iv. 12, 13). 42. In the light of this unity of all
mankind, which exists in law and in fact, individuals do not feel
themselves isolated units, like grains of sand, but united by the very
force of their nature and by their internal destiny, into an organic,
harmonious mutual relationship which varies with the changing of times. 43.
And the nations, despite a difference of development due to diverse
conditions of life and of culture, are not destined to break the unity
of the human race, but rather to enrich and embellish it by the sharing
of their own peculiar gifts and by that reciprocal interchange of goods
which can be possible and efficacious only when a mutual love and a
lively sense of charity unite all the sons of the same Father and all
those redeemed by the same Divine Blood. 44. The Church of Christ,
the faithful depository of the teaching of Divine Wisdom, cannot and
does not think of deprecating or disdaining the particular
characteristics which each people, with jealous and intelligible pride,
cherishes and retains as a precious heritage. Her aim is a supernatural
union in all-embracing love, deeply felt and practiced, and not the
unity which is exclusively external and superficial and by that very
fact weak. 45. The Church hails with joy and follows with her
maternal blessing every method of guidance and care which aims at a wise
and orderly evolution of particular forces and tendencies having their
origin in the individual character of each race, provided that they are
not opposed to the duties incumbent on men from their unity of origin
and common destiny. 46. She has repeatedly shown in her missionary
enterprises that such a principle of action is the guiding star of her
universal apostolate. Pioneer research and investigation, involving
sacrifice, devotedness and love on the part of her missionaries of every
age, have been undertaken in order to facilitate the deeper
appreciative insight into the most varied civilizations and to put their
spiritual values to account for a living and vital preaching of the
Gospel of Christ. All that in such usages and customs is not inseparably
bound up with religious errors will always be subject to kindly
consideration and, when it is found possible, will be sponsored and
developed. 47. Our immediate predecessor, of holy and venerated
memory, applying such norms to a particularly delicate question, took
some generous decisions which are a monument to his insight and to the
intensity of his apostolic spirit. Nor need We tell you, Venerable
Brethren, that We intend to proceed without hesitation along this way.
Those who enter the Church, whatever be their origin or their speech,
must know that they have equal rights as children in the House of the
Lord, where the law of Christ and the peace of Christ prevail. 48.
In accordance with these principles of equality, the Church devotes her
care to forming cultured native clergy and gradually increasing the
number of native Bishops. And in order to give external expression to
these, Our intentions, We have chosen the forthcoming Feast of Christ
the King to raise to the Episcopal dignity at the Tomb of the Apostles
twelve representatives of widely different peoples and races. In the
midst of the disruptive contrasts which divide the human family, may
this solemn act proclaim to all Our sons, scattered over the world, that
the spirit, the teaching and the work of the Church can never be other
than that which the Apostle of the Gentiles preached: “putting on the
new, (man) him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of
him that created him. Where there is neither Gentile nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free.
But Christ is all and in all” (Colossians iii. 10, 11). 49. Nor is
there any fear lest the consciousness of universal brotherhood aroused
by the teaching of Christianity, and the spirit which it inspires, be in
contrast with love of traditions or the glories of one’s fatherland, or
impede the progress of prosperity or legitimate interests. For that
same Christianity teaches that in the exercise of charity we must follow
a God-given order, yielding the place of honor in our affections and
good works to those who are bound to us by special ties. Nay, the Divine
Master Himself gave an example of this preference for His Own country
and fatherland, as He wept over the coming destruction of the Holy City.
But legitimate and well-ordered love of our native country should not
make us close our eyes to the all-embracing nature of Christian Charity,
which calls for consideration of others and of their interests in the
pacifying light of love. 50. Such is the marvelous doctrine of
love and peace which has been such an ennobling factor in the civil and
religious progress of mankind. And the heralds who proclaimed it, moved
by supernatural charity, not only tilled the land and cared for the
sick, but above all they reclaimed, moulded and raised life to divine
heights, directing it toward the summit of sanctity in which everything
is seen in the light of God. They have raised mansions and temples which
show to what lofty and kindly heights the Christian ideal urges man;
but above all they have made of men, wise or ignorant, strong or weak,
living temples of God and branches of the very vine which is Christ.
They have handed on to future generations the treasures of ancient art
and wisdom and have secured for them that inestimable gift of eternal
wisdom which links men as brothers by the common recognition of a
supernatural ownership. 51. Venerable Brethren, forgetfulness of
the law of universal charity — of that charity which alone can
consolidate peace by extinguishing hatred and softening envies and
dissensions — is the source of very grave evils for peaceful relations
between nations. 52. But there is yet another error no less
pernicious to the well-being of the nations and to the prosperity of
that great human society which gathers together and embraces within its
confines all races. It is the error contained in those ideas which do
not hesitate to divorce civil authority from every kind of dependence
upon the Supreme Being — First Source and absolute Master of man and of
society — and from every restraint of a Higher Law derived from God as
from its First Source. Thus they accord the civil authority an
unrestricted field of action that is at the mercy of the changeful tide
of human will, or of the dictates of casual historical claims, and of
the interests of a few. 53. Once the authority of God and the sway
of His law are denied in this way, the civil authority as an inevitable
result tends to attribute to itself that absolute autonomy which
belongs exclusively to the Supreme Maker. It puts itself in the place of
the Almighty and elevates the State or group into the last end of life,
the supreme criterion of the moral and juridical order, and therefore
forbids every appeal to the principles of natural reason and of the
Christian conscience. We do not, of course, fail to recognize that,
fortunately, false principles do not always exercise their full
influence, especially when age-old Christian traditions, on which the
peoples have been nurtured, remain still deeply, even if unconsciously,
rooted in their hearts. 54. None the less, one must not forget the
essential insufficiency and weakness of every principle of social life
which rests upon a purely human foundation, is inspired by merely
earthly motives and relies for its force on the sanction of a purely
external authority. 55 Where the dependence of human right upon
the Divine is denied, where appeal is made only to some insecure idea of
a merely human authority, and an autonomy is claimed which rests only
upon a utilitarian morality, there human law itself justly forfeits in
its more weighty application the moral force which is the essential
condition for its acknowledgment and also for its demand of sacrifices. 56.
It is quite true that power based on such weak and unsteady foundations
can attain at times, under chance circumstances, material successes apt
to arouse wonder in superficial observers. 57. But the moment
comes when the inevitable law triumphs, which strikes down all that has
been constructed upon a hidden or open disproportion between the
greatness of the material and outward success, and the weakness of the
inward value and of its moral foundation. Such disproportion exists
whenever public authority disregards or denies the dominion of the
Supreme Lawgiver, Who, as He has given rulers power, has also set and
marked its bounds. 58. Indeed, as Our great predecessor, Leo XIII,
wisely taught in the Encyclical Immortale Dei, it was the Creator’s
will that civil sovereignty should regulate social life after the
dictates of an order changeless in its universal principles; should
facilitate the attainment in the temporal order, by individuals, of
physical, intellectual and moral perfection; and should aid them to
reach their supernatural end. 59. Hence, it is the noble
prerogative and function of the State to control, aid and direct the
private and individual activities of national life that they converge
harmoniously towards the common good. That good can neither be defined
according to arbitrary ideas nor can it accept for its standard
primarily the material prosperity of society, but rather it should be
defined according to the harmonious development and the natural
perfection of man. It is for this perfection that society is designed by
the Creator as a means. 60. To consider the State as something
ultimate to which everything else should be subordinated and directed,
cannot fail to harm the true and lasting prosperity of nations. This can
happen either when unrestricted dominion comes to be conferred on the
State as having a mandate from the nation, people, or even a social
order, or when the State arrogates such dominion to itself as absolute
master, despotically, without any mandate whatsoever. If, in fact, the
State lays claim to and directs private enterprises, these, ruled as
they are by delicate and complicated internal principles which guarantee
and assure the realization of their special aims, may be damaged to the
detriment of the public good, by being wrenched from their natural
surroundings, that is, from responsible private action. 61.
Further, there would be danger lest the primary and essential cell of
society, the family, with its well-being and its growth, should come to
be considered from the narrow standpoint of national power, and lest it
be forgotten that man and the family are by nature anterior to the
State, and that the Creator has given to both of them powers and rights
and has assigned them a mission and a charge that correspond to
undeniable natural requirements. 62. The education of the new
generation in that case would not aim at the balanced and harmonious
development of the physical powers and of all the intellectual and moral
qualities, but at a one-sided formation of those civic virtues that are
considered necessary for attaining political success, while the virtues
which give society the fragrance of nobility, humanity and reverence
would be inculcated less, for fear they should detract from the pride of
the citizen. 63. Before Us stand out with painful clarity the
dangers We fear will accrue to this and coming generations from the
neglect or nonrecognition, the minimizing and the gradual abolition of
the rights peculiar to the family. Therefore We stand up as determined
defenders of those rights in the full consciousness of the duty imposed
on Us by Our Apostolic office. The stress of our times, as well external
as internal, material and spiritual alike, and the manifold errors with
their countless repercussions are tasted by none so bitterly as by that
noble little cell, the family. 64. True courage and a heroism
worthy in its degree of admiration and respect, are often necessary to
support the hardships of life, the daily weight of misery, growing want
and restrictions on a scale never before experienced, whose reason and
necessity are not always apparent. Whoever has the care of souls and can
search hearts, knows the hidden tears of mothers, the resigned sorrow
of so many fathers, the countless bitterness of which no statistics tell
nor can tell he sees with sad eyes the mass of sufferings ever on the
increase; he knows how the powers of disorder and destruction stand on
the alert ready to make use of all these things for their dark designs. 65.
No one of good-will and vision will think of refusing the State, in the
exceptional conditions of the world of today, correspondingly wider and
exceptional rights to meet the popular needs. But even in such
emergencies, the moral law, established by God, demands that the
lawfulness of each such measure and its real necessity be scrutinized
with the greatest rigor according to the standards of the common good. 66.
In any case, the more burdensome the material sacrifices demanded of
the individual and the family by the State, the more must the rights of
conscience be to it sacred and inviolable. Goods, blood it can demand;
but the soul redeemed by God, never. The charge laid by God on parents
to provide for the material and spiritual good of their offspring and to
procure for them a suitable training saturated with the true spirit of
religion, cannot be wrested from them without grave violation of their
rights. 67. Undoubtedly, that formation should aim as well at the
preparation of youth to fulfill with intelligent understanding and pride
those offices of a noble patriotism which give to one’s earthly
fatherland all due measure of love, self-devotion and service. But, on
the other hand, a formation which forgot or, worse still, deliberately
neglected to direct the eyes and hearts of youth to the heavenly country
would be an injustice to youth, an injustice against the inalienable
duties and rights of the Christian family and an excess to which a check
must be opposed, in the interests even of the people and of the State
itself. 68. Such an education might seem perhaps to the rulers
responsible for it, a source of increased strength and vigor; it would
be, in fact, the opposite, as sad experience would prove. The crime of
high treason against the “King of kings and Lord of lords” (I Timothy
vi. 15; cf. Apocalypse xix. 6) perpetrated by an education that is
either indifferent or opposed to Christianity, the reversal of “Suffer
the little children to come unto me” (Saint Matthew xix, 14), would bear
most bitter fruits. On the contrary, the State which lifts anxiety from
the bleeding and torn hearts of fathers and mothers and restores their
rights, only promotes its own internal peace and lays foundations of a
happy future for the country. The souls of children given to their
parents by God and consecrated in Baptism with the royal character of
Christ, are a sacred charge over which watches the jealous love of God.
The same Christ Who pronounced the words “Suffer little children to come
unto me” has threatened, for all His mercy and goodness, with fearful
evils, those who give scandal to those so dear to His heart. 69.
Now what scandal is more permanently harmful to generation after
generation, than a formation of youth which is misdirected towards a
goal that alienates from Christ “the Way and the Truth and the Life” and
leads to open or hidden apostasy from Christ? That Christ from Whom
they want to alienate the youthful generations of the present day and of
the future, is the same Christ Who has received from His Eternal Father
all power in Heaven and on earth. He holds in His omnipotent Hand the
destiny of States, of peoples and of nations. His it is to shorten or
prolong life: His to grant increase, prosperity and greatness. 70.
Of all that exists on the face of the earth, the soul alone has
deathless life. A system of education that should not respect the sacred
precincts of the Christian family, protected by God’s holy law, that
should attack its foundations, bar to the young the way to Christ, to
the Savior’s fountains of life and joy (cf. Isaias xii. 3), that should
consider apostasy from Christ and the Church as a proof of fidelity to
the people or a particular class’s word: “They that depart from thee,
shall be written in the earth” (Jeremiah xvii. 13). 71. The idea
which credits the State with unlimited authority is not simply an error
harmful to the internal life of nations, to their prosperity, and to the
larger and well-ordered increase in their well-being, but likewise it
injures the relations between peoples, for it breaks the unity of
supra-national society, robs the law of nations of its foundation and
vigor, leads to violation of others’ rights and impedes agreement and
peaceful intercourse. 72. A disposition, in fact, of the divinely
sanctioned natural order divides the human race into social groups,
nations or States, which are mutually independent in organization and in
the direction of their internal life. But for all that, the human race
is bound together by reciprocal ties, moral and juridical, into a great
commonwealth directed to the good of all nations and ruled by special
laws which protect its unity and promote its prosperity. 73. Now
no one can fail to see how the claim to absolute autonomy for the State
stands in open opposition to this natural way that is inherent in man —
nay, denies it utterly — and therefore leaves the stability of
international relations at the mercy of the will of rulers, while it
destroys the possibility of true union and fruitful collaboration
directed to the general good. 74. So, Venerable Brethren, it is
indispensable for the existence of harmonious and lasting contacts and
of fruitful relations, that the peoples recognize and observe these
principles of international natural law which regulate their normal
development and activity. Such principles demand respect for
corresponding rights to independence, to life and to the possibility of
continuous development in the paths of civilization; they demand,
further, fidelity to compacts agreed upon and sanctioned in conformity
with the principles of the law of nations. 75. The indispensable
presupposition, without doubt, of all peaceful intercourse between
nations, and the very soul of the juridical relations in force among
them, is mutual trust: the expectation and conviction that each party
will respect its plighted word; the certainty that both sides are
convinced that “better is wisdom, than weapons of war” (Ecclesiastes ix.
18), and are ready to enter into discussion and to avoid recourse to
force or to threats of force in case of delays, hindrances, changes or
disputes, because all these things can be the result not of bad will,
but of changed circumstances and of genuine interests in conflict. 76.
But on the other hand, to tear the law of nations from its anchor in
Divine law, to base it on the autonomous will of States, is to dethrone
that very law and deprive it of its noblest and strongest qualities.
Thus it would stand abandoned to the fatal drive of private interest and
collective selfishness exclusively intent on the assertion of its own
rights and ignoring those of others. 77. Now, it is true that with
the passage of time and the substantial change of circumstances, which
were not and perhaps could not have been foreseen in the making of a
treaty, such a treaty or some of its clauses can in fact become, or at
least seem to become unjust, impracticable or too burdensome for one of
the parties. It is obvious that should such be the case, recourse should
be had in good time to a frank discussion with a view to modifying the
treaty or making another in its stead. But to consider treaties on
principle as ephemeral and tacitly to assume the authority of rescinding
them unilaterally when they are no longer to one’s advantage, would be
to abolish all mutual trust among States. In this way, natural order
would be destroyed and there would be seen dug between different peoples
and nations trenches of division impossible to refill. 78. Today,
Venerable Brethren, all men are looking with terror into the abyss to
which they have been brought by the errors and principles which We have
mentioned, and by their practical consequences. Gone are the proud
illusions of limitless progress. Should any still fail to grasp this
fact, the tragic situation of today would rouse them with the prophet’s
cry: “Hear, ye deaf and ye blind, behold” (Isaias xlii. 18). What used
to appear on the outside as order, was nothing but an invasion of
disorder: confusion in the principles of moral life. These principles,
once divorced from the majesty of the Divine law, have tainted every
field of human activity. 79. But let us leave the past and turn
our eyes towards that future which, according to the promises of the
powerful ones of this world, is to consist, once the bloody conflicts of
today have ceased, in a new order founded on justice and on prosperity.
Will that future be really different; above all, will it be better?
Will treaties of peace, will the new international order at the end of
this war be animated by justice and by equity towards all, by that
spirit which frees and pacifies? Or will there be a lamentable
repetition of ancient and of recent errors? 80. To hope for a
decisive change exclusively from the shock of war and its final issue is
idle, as experience shows. The hour of victory is an hour of external
triumph for the party to whom victory falls, but it is in equal measure
the hour of temptation. In this hour the angel of justice strives with
the demons of violence; the heart of the victor all too easily is
hardened; moderation and farseeing wisdom appear to him weakness; the
excited passions of the people, often inflamed by the sacrifices and
sufferings they have borne, obscure the vision even of responsible
persons and make them inattentive to the warning voice of humanity and
equity, which is overwhelmed or drowned in the inhuman cry. “Vae victis,
woe to the conquered.” There is danger lest settlements and decision
born in such conditions be nothing else than injustice under the cloak
of justice. 81. No, Venerable Brethren, safety does not come to
peoples from external means, from the sword which can impose conditions
of peace but does not create peace. Forces that are to renew the face of
the earth should proceed from within, from the spirit. 82. Once
the bitterness and the cruel strifes of the present have ceased, the new
order of the world, of national and international life, must rest no
longer on the quicksands of changeable and ephemeral standards that
depend only on the selfish interests of groups and individuals. No, they
must rest on the unshakable foundation, on the solid rock of natural
law and of Divine Revelation. There the human legislator must attain to
that balance, that keen sense of moral responsibility, without which it
is easy to mistake the boundary between the legitimate use and the abuse
of power. Thus only will his decisions have internal consistency, noble
dignity and religious sanction, and be immune from selfishness and
passion. 83. For true though it is that the evils from which
mankind suffers today come in part from economic instability and from
the struggle of interests regarding a more equal distribution of the
goods which God has given man as a means of sustenance and progress, it
is not less true that their root is deeper and more intrinsic, belonging
to the sphere of religious belief and moral convictions which have been
perverted by the progressive alienation of the peoples from that unity
of doctrine, faith, customs and morals which once was promoted by the
tireless and beneficent work of the Church. If it is to have any effect,
the reeducation of mankind must be, above all things, spiritual and
religious. Hence, it must proceed from Christ as from its indispensable
foundation; must be actuated by justice and crowned by charity. 84.
The accomplishment of this task of regeneration, by adapting her means
to the altered conditions of the times and to the new needs of the human
race, is an essential and maternal office of the Church. Committed to
her by her Divine Founder, the preaching of the Gospel, by which is
inculcated to men truth, justice and charity and the endeavor to implant
its precepts solidly in mind and conscience, is the most noble and most
fruitable work for peace. That mission would seem as if it ought to
discourage by its very grandeur the hearts of those who make up the
Church Militant. But that cooperation in the spread of the Kingdom of
God which in every century is effected in different ways, with varying
instruments, with manifold hard struggles, is a command incumbent on
everyone who has been snatched by Divine Grace from the slavery of Satan
and called in Baptism to citizenship of the Kingdom of God. 85.
And if belonging to it, living according to its spirit, laboring for its
increase and placing its benefits at the disposition of that portion of
mankind also which as yet has no part in them, means in our days having
to face obstacles and oppositions as vast and deep and minutely
organized as never before, that does not dispense a man from the frank,
bold profession of our Faith. Rather, it spurs one to stand fast in the
conflict even at the price of the greatest sacrifices. Whoever lives by
the spirit of Christ refuses to let himself be beaten down by the
difficulties which oppose him, but on the contrary feels himself
impelled to work with all his strength and with the fullest confidence
in God. He does not draw back before the straits and the necessities of
the moment but faces their severity ready to give aid with that love
which flees no sacrifice, is stronger than death, and will not be
quenched by the rushing waters of tribulation. 86. It gives Us,
Venerable Brethren, an inward strength, a heavenly joy, for which We
daily render to God Our deep and humble thanks, to see in every region
of the Catholic world evident signs of a spirit which boldly faces the
gigantic tasks of our age, which with generous decision is intent on
uniting in fruitful harmony the first and essential duty of individual
sanctification, and apostolic activity for the spread of the Kingdom of
God. From the movement of the Eucharistic Congresses furthered with
loving care by Our predecessors and from the collaboration of the laity
formed in Catholic Action towards a deep realization of their noble
mission, flow forth fountains of grace and reserves of strength, which
could hardly be sufficiently prized in the present time, when threats
are more numerous, needs multiply and the conflict between Christianity
and anti-Christianism grows intense. 87. At a moment when one is
forced to note with sorrow the disproportion between the number of
priests and the calls upon them, when one sees that even today the words
of Our Savior apply: “The harvest indeed in great, but the laborers are
few” (Saint Matthew ix. 37; Saint Luke x.2), the collaboration of the
laity in the Apostolate of the Hierarchy, a collaboration indeed given
by many and animated with ardent zeal and generous self-devotion, stands
out as a precious aid to the work of priests and shows possibilities of
development which justify the brightest hopes. The prayer of the Church
to the Lord of the Harvest that he send workers into his vineyard (cf.
Saint Matthew ix. 37; Saint Luke x.2) has been granted to a degree
proportionate to the present needs, and in a manner which supplements
and completes the powers, often obstructed and inadequate, of the
priestly apostolate. Numbers of fervent men and women of youth obedient
to the voice of the Supreme Pastor and to the directions of their
bishops, consecrate themselves with the full ardor of their souls to the
works of the apostolate in order to bring back to Christ the masses of
peoples who have been separated from Him. 88. To them in this
moment so critical for the Church and for mankind go out Our paternal
greeting, Our deepfelt gratitude, Our confident hope. These have truly
placed their lives and their work beneath the standard of Christ the
King; and they can say with the Psalmist: “I speak my words to the King”
(Psalm xliv. 1). “Thy Kingdom come” is not simply the burning desire of
their prayer; it is besides, the guide of their activity. 89.
This collaboration of the laity with the priesthood in all classes,
categories and groups reveals precious industry and to the laity is
entrusted a mission than which noble and loyal hearts could desire none
higher nor more consoling. This apostolic work, carried out according to
the mind of the Church, consecrates the layman as a kind of “Minister
to Christ” in the sense which Saint Augustine explains as follows:
“When, Brethren, you hear Our Lord saying: where I am there too will My
servant be, do not think solely of good bishops and clerics.” You too in
your way minister to Christ by a good life, by almsgiving, by preaching
His Name and teaching to whom you can. Thus every father should
recognize that it is under this title that he owes paternal affection to
his family. Let it be for the sake of Christ and for life everlasting,
that he admonishes all his household, teaches, exhorts, reproves, shows
kindness, corrects; and thus in his own home he will fulfill an
ecclesiastical and in a way an episcopal office ministering to Christ,
that he may be for ever with Him” (on The Gospel according to Saint
John, tract 51, n. 13). 90. In promoting this participation by the
laity in the apostolate, which is so important in our times, the family
has a special mission, for it is the spirit of the family that
exercises the most powerful influence on that of the rising generation.
As long as the sacred flame of the Faith burns on the domestic hearth,
and the parents forge and fashion the lives of their children in
accordance with this Faith, youth will be ever ready to acknowledge the
royal prerogatives of the Redeemer, and to oppose those who wish to
exclude Him from society or wrongly to usurp His rights. 91. When
churches are closed, when the Image of the Crucified is taken from the
schools, the family remains the providential and, in a certain sense,
impregnable refuge of Christian life. And We give thanks to God as We
see that numberless families accomplish this, their mission, with a
fidelity undismayed by combat or by sacrifice. A great host of young men
and women, even in those regions where faith in Christ means suffering
and persecution, remain firm around the Throne of the Redeemer with a
quiet, steady determination that recalls the most glorious days of the
Church’s struggles. 92. What torrents of benefits would be
showered on the world; what light, order, what peace would accrue to
social life; what unique and precious energies would contribute towards
the betterment of mankind, if men would everywhere concede to the
Church, teacher of justice and love, that liberty of action to which, in
virtue of the Divine Mandate, she has a sacred and indisputable right!
What calamities could be averted, what happiness and tranquillity
assured, if the social and international forces working to establish
peace would let themselves be permeated by the deep lessons of the
Gospel of Love in their struggle against individual or collective
egoism! 93. There is no opposition between the laws that govern
the life of faithful Christians and the postulates of a genuine humane
humanitarianism, but rather unity and mutual support. In the interests
of suffering mankind, shaken to the depths both materially and
spiritually, We have no more ardent desire than this: that the present
difficulties may open the eyes of many to see Our Lord Jesus Christ and
the mission of His Church on this earth in their true light, and that
all those who are in power may decide to allow the Church a free course
to work for the formation of the rising generation according to the
principles of justice and peace. 94. This work of pacification
presupposes that obstacles are not put to the exercise of the mission
which God has entrusted to His Church; that the field of this activity
is not restricted, and that the masses, and especially youth, are not
withdrawn from her beneficent influence. 95. Accordingly We, as
representatives on earth of Him Who was proclaimed by the Prophet
“Prince of Peace” (Isaias ix. 6) appeal to the rulers of the peoples,
and to those who can in any way influence public life, to let the Church
have full liberty to fulfill her role as educator by teaching men
truth, by inculcating justice and inflaming hearts with the Divine Love
of Christ. 96. While the Church cannot renounce the exercise of
this, her mission, which has for its final end to realize here below the
Divine plan and to “re-establish all things in Christ, that are in
heaven and on earth” (Ephesians i. 10) her aid, nonetheless, is shown to
be indispensable as never before, now that sad experience teaches that
external means and human provisions and political expedients of
themselves bring no efficacious healing to the ills which affect
mankind. 97. Taught precisely by the sad failure of human
expedients to stave off the tempest that threatens to sweep civilization
away, many turn their gaze with renewed hope to the Church, the rock of
truth and of charity, to that Chair of Peter from which, they feel, can
be restored to mankind that unity of religious teaching and of the
moral code which of old gave consistency to pacific international
relations. 98. Unity, towards which, so many, answerable for the
destiny of nations, look with regretful yearning as they experience from
day to day the vanity of the very means in which once they had placed
their trust! Unity, the desired of those many legions of Our sons who
daily call upon “The God of Peace and of love” (II Corinthians xiii.
11). Unity, the hope of so many noble minds separated from Us, who yet
in their hunger and thirst for justice and peace turn their eyes to the
See of Peter and from it await guidance and counsel! 99. These
last are recognizing in the Catholic Church principles of belief and
life that have stood the test of 2,000 years; the strong cohesion of the
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, which in union with the Successor of Peter
spends itself in enlightening minds with the teaching of the Gospel, in
guiding and sanctifying men, and which is generous in its material
condescension towards all, but firm when, even at the cost of torments
or martyrdom, it has to say: “Non licet; it is not allowed!” 100.
And yet, Venerable Brethren, the teaching of Christ, which alone can
furnish man with such solid bases of belief as will greatly enlarge his
vision, and divinely dilate his heart and supply an efficacious remedy
to the very grave difficulties of today — this and the activity of the
Church in teaching and spreading that Doctrine, and in forming and
modeling men’s minds by its precepts, are at times an object of
suspicion, as if they shook the foundations of civil authority or
usurped its rights. 101. Against such suspicions We solemnly
declare with Apostolic sincerity that — without prejudice to the
declarations regarding the power of Christ and of His Church made by Our
predecessor, Pius XI, of venerable memory, in his Encyclical Quas
Primas of December 11, 1925 — any such aims are entirely alien to that
same Church, which spreads it maternal arms towards this world not to
dominate but to serve. She does not claim to take the place of other
legitimate authorities in their proper spheres, but offers them her help
after the example and in the spirit of her Divine Founder Who “went
about doing good” (Acts x. 38). 102. The Church preaches and
inculcates obedience and respect for earthly authority which derives
from God its whole origin and holds to the teaching of her Divine Master
Who said: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”
(Saint Matthew xxii. 21); she has no desire to usurp, and sings in the
liturgy: “He takes away no earthly realms who gives us the celestial”
(hymn for Feast of Epiphany). She does not suppress human energies but
lifts them up to all that is noble and generous and forms characters
which do not compromise with conscience. Nor has she who civilizes the
nations ever retarded the civil progress of mankind, at which on the
contrary she is pleased and glad with a mother’s pride. The end of her
activity was admirably expressed by the Angels over the cradle of the
Word Incarnate, when they sang of glory to God and announced peace to
men of good will: “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to
men of good will” (Saint Luke ii. 14). 103. This peace, which the
world cannot give, has been left as a heritage to His disciples by the
Divine Redeemer Himself: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto
you” (Saint John xiv. 27); and thus following the sublime teaching of
Christ, summed up by Himself in the twofold precept of love of God and
of the neighbor, millions of souls have reached, are reaching and shall
reach peace. History, wisely called by a great Roman “The Teacher of
Life,” has proved for close on two thousand years how true is the word
of Scripture that he will not have peace who resists God (cf. Job ix.
4). For Christ alone is the “Corner Stone” (Ephesians ii. 20) on which
man and society can find stability and salvation. 104. On this
Corner Stone the Church is built, and hence against her the adversary
can never prevail: “The gates of hell shall not prevail” (Saint Matthew
xvi. 18), nor can they ever weaken her! Nay, rather, internal and
external struggles tend to augment the force and multiply the laurels of
her glorious victories. 105. On the other hand, any other
building which has not been founded solidly on the teaching of Christ
rests on shifting sands and is destined to perish miserably (cf. Saint
Matthew vii. 26, 27). 106. Venerable Brethren, the hour when this
Our first Encyclical reaches you is in many respects a real “Hour of
Darkness” (cf. Saint Luke xxii. 53), in which the spirit of violence and
of discord brings indescribable suffering on mankind. Do We need to
give assurance that Our paternal heart is close to all Our children in
compassionate love, and especially to the afflicted, the oppressed, the
persecuted? The nations swept into the tragic whirlpool of war are
perhaps as yet only at the “beginnings of sorrows” (Saint Matthew xxiv.
8), but even now there reigns in thousands of families death and
desolation, lamentation and misery. The blood of countless human beings,
even noncombatants, raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as Our
dear Poland, which, for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in
the defense of Christian civilization, written in indelible characters
in the annals of history, has a right to the generous and brotherly
sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful
intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, the hour of a resurrection in
harmony with the principles of justice and true peace. 107. What
has already happened and is still happening, was presented, as it were,
in a vision before Our eyes when, while still some hope was left, We
left nothing undone in the form suggested to us by Our Apostolic office
and by the means at Our disposal, to prevent recourse to arms and to
keep open the way to an understanding honorable to both parties.
Convinced that the use of force on one side would be answered by
recourse to arms on the other, We considered it a duty inseparable from
Our Apostolic office and of Christian Charity to try every means to
spare mankind and Christianity the horrors of a world conflagration,
even at the risk of having Our intentions and Our aims misunderstood.
Our advice, if heard with respect, was not however followed and while
Our pastoral heart looks on with sorrow and foreboding, the Image of the
Good Shepherd comes up before Our gaze, and it seems as though We ought
to repeat to the world in His name: “If thou . . . hadst known . . .
the things that are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from thy eyes”
(Saint Luke xix. 42). 108. In the midst of this world which today
presents such a sharp contrast to “The Peace of Christ in the Reign of
Christ,” the Church and her faithful are in times and in years of trial
such as have rarely been known in her history of struggle and suffering.
But in such times especially, he who remains firm in his faith and
strong at heart knows that Christ the King is never so near as in the
hour of trial, which is the hour for fidelity. With a heart torn by the
sufferings and afflictions of so many of her sons, but with the courage
and the stability that come from the promises of Our Lord, the Spouse of
Christ goes to meet the gathering storms. This she knows, that the
truth which she preaches, the charity which she teaches and practices,
will be the indispensable counselors and aids to men of good will in the
reconstruction of a new world based on justice and love, when mankind,
weary from its course along the way of error, has tasted the bitter
fruits of hate and violence. 109. In the meantime however,
Venerable Brethren, the world and all those who are stricken by the
calamity of the war must know that the obligation of Christian love, the
very foundation of the Kingdom of Christ, is not an empty word, but a
living reality. A vast field opens up for Christian Charity in all its
forms. We have full confidence that all Our sons, especially those who
are not being tried by the scourge of war, will be mindful in imitation
of the Divine Samaritan, of all these who, as victims of the war, have a
right to compassion and help. 110. The “Catholic Church, the City
of God, whose King is Truth, whose law love and whose measure eternity”
(Saint Augustine, Ep. CXXXVIII. Ad Marcellinum, C. 3, N. 17), preaching
fearlessly the whole truth of Christ and toiling as the love of Christ
demands with the zeal of a mother, stands as a blessed vision of peace
above the storm of error and passion awaiting the moment when the
all-powerful Hand of Christ the King shall quiet the tempest and banish
the spirits of discord which have provoked it. 111. Whatever We
can do to hasten the day when the dove of peace may find on this earth,
submerged in a deluge of discord, somewhere to alight, We shall continue
to do, trusting in those statesmen, who before the outbreak of war,
nobly toiled to avert such a scourge from the peoples; trusting in the
millions of souls of all countries and of every sphere, who call not for
justice alone but for love and mercy; above all, trusting in God
Almighty to Whom We daily address the prayer: “in the shadow of thy
wings will I hope, until iniquity pass away” (Psalm lvi. 2). 112.
God can do all things. As well as the happiness and the fortunes of
nations, He holds in His hands human counsels and sweetly turns them in
whatever direction He wills: even the obstacles are for His Omnipotence
means to mould affairs and events and to direct minds and free wills to
His all-high purposes. 113. Pray then, Venerable Brethren, pray
without ceasing; pray especially when you offer the Divine Sacrifice of
Love. Do you, too, pray, you whose courageous profession of the Faith
entails today hard, painful and not rarely, heroic sacrifices; pray you,
suffering and agonizing members of the Church, when Jesus comes to
console and to heal your pains, and do not forget with the aid of a true
spirit of mortification and worthy practice of penance to make your
prayers more acceptable in the eyes of Him Who “lifteth up all that
fall: and setteth up all that are cast down” (Psalm cxiv. 14), that He
in His mercy may shorten the days of trial and that thus the word of the
Psalmist may be verified: “Then they cried to the Lord in their
affliction: and he delivered them out of their distresses” (Psalm cvi.
13). 114. And you, white legions of children who are so loved and
dear to Jesus, when you receive in Holy Communion the Bread of Life,
raise up your simple and innocent prayers and unite them with those of
the Universal Church. The heart of Jesus, Who loves you, does not resist
your suppliant innocence. Pray every one, pray uninterruptedly: “Pray
without ceasing” (Thessalonians, v. 10). 115. In this way you will
put into practice the sublime precept of the Divine Master, the most
sacred testament of His Heart, “That they all may be one” (Saint John
xvii. 21) that all may live in that unity of faith and of love, from
which the world may know the power and efficacy of Christ’s mission and
of the work of His Church. 116. The early Church understood and
practiced this Divine Precept, and expressed it in a magnificent prayer;
do you associate yourselves with those sentiments which answer so well
to the necessities of the present hour: “Remember, O Lord, Thy Church,
to free her from all evil and to perfect her in Thy love, and sanctify
and collect her from the four winds into Thy Kingdom, which Thou has
prepared for her, because Thine is the power, and the glory for ever”
(Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, C 10). 117. In the confidence
that God, the Author and Lover of Peace, will hear the supplications of
the Church, We impart to you all as a pledge of the abundance of Divine
Grace, from the fullness of Our paternal heart, the Apostolic
Benediction.