A Basis for Unity

Extract

On Christmas Eve, in a comprehensive survey of the dangers and opportunities of the future, his Holiness Pius XII reiterated many of the teachings that have been characteristic of his Pontificate. We would point especially to his desire for collaboration among good-willed worshippers of Almighty God. ‘These principles (for the solution of the social question) can be followed in their entirety, and bear their fullest fruits only when statesmen and people, employers and employees, are animated by faith in a personal God . . . Every man who believes in God is numbered among his partisans and paladins. Those who have faith in Christ, in his divinity, in his love, in his work of love and brotherhood amongst men will make a particularly valuable contribution to the reconstruction of the social order.’ At the same time his Holiness reaffirms the spiritual centrality of Rome, concluding with this moving appeal : ‘From this Rome, centre, rock, and teacher of Christianity, from this city called Eternal by reason of its relations with the living Christ rather than by reason of its association with the passing glory of the Caesars, from this Rome . . . We direct Our Appeal to all . . .’ The present number of Blackfriars offers some parallels to these words.