MESSAGE FROM VATICAN

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20026, 26 August 1939, Page 5

MESSAGE FROM VATICAN

SECOND APPEAL MADE “GRAVE HOUR. STRIKING” (Reed. August 26, Noon.) ROME, August 25. His Holiness the Pope, broadcastsaid:— “In this grave hour striking for the great human family, an hour of tremendous deliberation, in which our spiritual authority cannot disinterest itself from the task of inducing mankind to return to the path of justice and truth, thus I speak to all of you who carry the weight of such great responsibility, because, through our voice, you are listening to the voice of that Christ which schooled the world in. the higher life, a voice in which millions and millions of souls place their trust in an emergency in which only His words can rise over the thunders of earth to-day.

“When tension seems to have reached such a pitch that we fear an outbreak of a tremendous whirlwind war, we make to the rulers of the peoples our warmest appeal to lay aside the threat of arms and try to resolve their present differences. The danger is vast, but there is still time.

“Nothing is lost by peace. Everything is lost by war. With us it is the whole of humanity which looks for a break fbr freedom rather than for the sword, which kills and destroys. “We invite all men to turn their gaze on high and ask the Lord with fervent prayers that His Christian mercy may descend abundantly on a tortured world, and placate angers and bring sunshine and the dawn of a calmer future.

“In this expectation and in this hope we impart to all men of lieart our paternal benediction.”