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1
TO THE PATRIARCHS,
PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS,
BISHOPS, AND ORDINARIES
IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE HOLY SEE
Venerable
Brethren,
Health and Apostolic Benediction.
Peace,
the beautiful gift of God, the name of which, as St. Augustine says, is the
sweetest word to our hearing and the best and most desirable possession
[1]; peace, which was for more than four years implored by the ardent
wishes of all good peoples, by the prayers of pious souls and the tears of
mothers, begins at last to shine upon the nations. At this We are indeed the
happiest of all, and heartily do We rejoice. But this joy of Our paternal heart
is disturbed by many bitter anxieties, for if in most places peace is in some
sort established and treaties signed, the germs of former enmities remain; and
you well know, Venerable Brethren, that there can be no stable peace or lasting
treaties, though made after long and difficult negotiations and duly signed,
unless there be a return of mutual charity to appease hate and banish enmity.
This, then, Venerable Brethren, is the anxious and dangerous question upon
which we wish to dwell and to put forward recommendations to be brought home to
your people.
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