What the Encyclical Intends

3. The aim of this encyclical will be to demonstrate with increasing clarity how vital it is for the world, and how greatly desired by the Catholic Church, that the two should meet together, and get to know and love one another.

4. Last year We were given by God's merciful grace a golden opportunity of addressing you in person. It was on the feast of the Archangel Michael, when you were assembled together in St. Peter's basilica for the opening of the second session of Vatican II. We told you on that occasion that it was Our intention to do what other popes have done on their accession to the pontifical office: to write to you as your Father and Brother an encyclical letter proclaiming the policies which are uppermost in Our thoughts and which seem to Us to have a considerable practical bearing on the conduct of the first years of Our pontificate.

5. The declaration of these policies is not, in fact, an easy matter. All such policies must be derived first of all from an earnest consideration of divine doctrine, for even Christ Himself, we must remember, said: "My doctrine is not mine, but his who sent me." ¹ Then they must be shown to measure up to the present state of the Church, a state in which the Church's interior life is still vigorous, having stood the test of long experience, and its exterior energies are powerfully directed toward the work of the apostolate. And finally We must bear in mind the actual situation in which human society today finds itself. Our task is to serve society.