5. For all these consolations, after God, it is you We thank, Venerable Brethren, you to whom We can say, as Jesus Christ said to your predecessors, the Apostles: "And you are they who have continued with Me in My temptations" (Luke xxii, 28). And in expressing Our gratitude to you, we wish also to perform the duty, most sweet to Our paternal heart, of thanking those multitudes of good and worthy children, who separately and collectively, as individuals and as members of various organizations and associations (especially the Associations of Catholic Action and of Catholic Youth), have sent Us so many and such affectionate tributes of devotion and sympathy, and of generous and practical conformity with Our directions and Our desires. It has been for us an exquisite satisfaction to see the Catholic Action organizations of all countries, both near and far, united round the common Father, inspired by a single spirit of faith, of filial sorrow and of generous impulses, all expressing their astonishment and grief in seeing Catholic Action societies persecuted and assailed here, in the very centre of the Apostolic Hierarchy, where its raison d'etre is strongest. Here in Italy, as in all parts of the world where Catholic Action exists, Catholic Action is true to its solemn and authentic definition. Obeying Our watchful and assiduous instructions (which you, Venerable Brethren, have so largely seconded), it does not wish to be nor can be anything other than "the participation and the collaboration of the laity with the Apostolic Hierarchy."