AAS 31 (1939), p. 538
(e te<vtu latino versio anglica).
ENCYCLICAL LETTER
TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS,
BISHOPS AND OTHER ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE
APOSTOLIC SEE.
POPE PIUS XII
VENERABLE BRETHREN
HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION
In the very year which marks the fortieth anniversary of the consecration
of mankind to Our Kedeemer's most Sacred Heart the inscrutable
counsel of the Lord, for no merit of Ours, has laid upon Us the
exalted dignity and grave care of the Supreme Pontificate; for that
consecration was proclaimed by Our immortal Predecessor Leo XIII
at the beginning of the Holy Year which closed the last century.
And We, as a newly-ordained priest, then just empowered to recite:
I will go in to the altar of God (Psalm 42, 4), hailed the Encyclical Annum
Sacrum with genuine approval, enthusiasm and delight as a message
from heaven. We associated Ourselves in fervent admiration with the
motives and aims which inspired and directed the truly providential
action of a Pontiff so sure in his diagnosis of the open and hidden needs
and sores of his day. It is only natural, then, that We should today feel
profoundly grateful to Providence for having designed that the first
year of Our Pontificate should be associated with a memory so precious
and so dear of Our first year of priesthood, and that We should take
the opportunity of paying homage to the King of kings, and Lord of
lords (I Timothy, 6, 15; cf. Apocalypse, 19, 6) as a kind of Introit
prayer to Our Pontificate, in the spirit of Our renowned Predecessor
and in the faithful accomplishment of his designs and that, in fine, We
should make of it the alpha and omega of Our aims, of Our hopes, of
Our teaching, of Our activity, of Our patience, and of Our sufferings,
by consecrating them all to the spread of the Kingdom of Christ.
As We review from the standpoint of eternity the past forty years in
their exterior events and interior developments, balancing achievements
against deficiencies, We see ever more clearly the sacred significance
of that consecration of mankind to Christ the King ; We see its inspiring
ENCYCLICAL LETTER
TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS,
BISHOPS AND OTHER ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE
APOSTOLIC SEE.
POPE PIUS XII
VENERABLE BRETHREN
HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION
In the very year which marks the fortieth anniversary of the consecration
of mankind to Our Kedeemer's most Sacred Heart the inscrutable
counsel of the Lord, for no merit of Ours, has laid upon Us the
exalted dignity and grave care of the Supreme Pontificate; for that
consecration was proclaimed by Our immortal Predecessor Leo XIII
at the beginning of the Holy Year which closed the last century.
And We, as a newly-ordained priest, then just empowered to recite:
I will go in to the altar of God (Psalm 42, 4), hailed the Encyclical Annum
Sacrum with genuine approval, enthusiasm and delight as a message
from heaven. We associated Ourselves in fervent admiration with the
motives and aims which inspired and directed the truly providential
action of a Pontiff so sure in his diagnosis of the open and hidden needs
and sores of his day. It is only natural, then, that We should today feel
profoundly grateful to Providence for having designed that the first
year of Our Pontificate should be associated with a memory so precious
and so dear of Our first year of priesthood, and that We should take
the opportunity of paying homage to the King of kings, and Lord of
lords (I Timothy, 6, 15; cf. Apocalypse, 19, 6) as a kind of Introit
prayer to Our Pontificate, in the spirit of Our renowned Predecessor
and in the faithful accomplishment of his designs and that, in fine, We
should make of it the alpha and omega of Our aims, of Our hopes, of
Our teaching, of Our activity, of Our patience, and of Our sufferings,
by consecrating them all to the spread of the Kingdom of Christ.
As We review from the standpoint of eternity the past forty years in
their exterior events and interior developments, balancing achievements
against deficiencies, We see ever more clearly the sacred significance
of that consecration of mankind to Christ the King ; We see its inspiring