.......Furthermore, a firm and living faith is one which, day by day, is expressed in acts of humility, prayer, and sacrifice. Precisely because you intend to battle the anti-Christian forces which are "totalitarian," the first condition is to oppose them by carrying out in your life the law of God spontaneously, joyously, and fully accepted. To take this law lightly, would be a confession of a deplorable frivolity and a fatal instability. Do not forget it: -- We now address those who because of their age and social environment are more especially exposed to these dangers -- no matter how well intentioned you may be, you share like others the weakness of a fallen nature. Satan does not accept defeat: as in Eden, he continues to cajole woman to her downfall, playing upon her nature to seduce her. You know the world of today well enough, dear daughters, to realize that you yourselves who live in it, need strength and courage at each step, to triumph over the temptations and seductions of your own tendencies by an energetic "No!" But how can you say this "no" and repeat it tirelessly, unless you understand and humbly recognize, in the presence of God, that as human creatures you are powerless and need the grace of God. Now you cannot expect to obtain this grace without prayer and sacrifice. You who so praiseworthily wish to lead an apostolic life, each according to her individual situation, know well enough the world of today to realize that in your battle against unbelief and immorality, natural resources and all purely human means are radically insufficient. What you absolutely need is an intimate union with Christ, and that intimate union absolutely presupposes prayer and sacrifice. Those [early] Christians [of Rome] were men and women who understood what is meant by sacrifice; otherwise they could not have won over hatred, irreligion, and lust, the splendid triumphs the telling of which fills you with admiration, as it fills with amazement even the unbeliever. Are conditions today so different? As has been well said: to live today in our great cities without loss of faith and purity requires no less heroism than was needed in the days of bloody persecution. But under the pretense of saving the Church from the risk of being led astray in the "temporal" sphere, a slogan launched some ten years ago, continues to gam acceptance: return to the purely "spiritual." And by that is understood that the Church should confine her activities to a purely dogmatic teaching, to the offering of the Holy Sacrifice, the administration of the sacraments, and that all incursion into, or even the right of examination in the domain of public life, all intervention in the civil or social order, should be denied her. As if dogma did not have a bearing upon every aspect of human life, as if the mysteries of the faith with their supernatural wealth, were not to maintain and invigorate the lives of individuals and, as a logical consequence, to harmonize public life with the law of God, to impregnate it with the spirit of Christ! Such vivisection is nothing short of being anti-Catholic. It is a sorrow and a shame to have to mention and confess that even among Catholics, false doctrines on the dignity of woman, on marriage and the family, on conjugal fidelity and divorce, even on life and death, have stealthily infiltrated souls, and like gnawing worms have attacked the roots of the Christian family and of the Christian ideals of womanhood. It seems opportune to Us to point out here, because their inoffensive and specious appearance hide their fatal consequences, the perils of the heart to which in our day, woman is particularly exposed. We are thinking of that generous tendency that makes us sympathize with others, and share in their sorrows, their joys and their hopes. So said St. Paul: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not inflamed?" (2 Cor. 11:29). And how he advises us to have the feelings which filled Christ! (Phil. 2:5 ). What does a heart so filled have to fear? Subtle illusions. It is not enough to be good, tender, generous; one must also be wise and strong. The indulgent weakness of parents blinds them, to the detriment of their children. In the social order, a similar sentimentality blinds the mind and leads it to hold monstrous theories and to extol immoral and fatal practices. Is it not such false pity which claims to justify euthanasia and to remove from man purifying and meritorious suffering, not by a charitable and praiseworthy help but by death, as if one were dealing with an irrational animal without immortality? Is it not again this misleading sentimentality which offers divorce as a remedy to unhappy wives? Is it not that deviation from a just solicitude for the victims of social injustice which, with vain and declamatory promises, snatches them from the maternal arms of the Church to throw them into the claws of an atheistic materialism, vulgar exploiter of their poverty. From all parts of the world, the letters and visits of Our Episcopal Brethren bring Us from day to day heartrending confidences of their concern for the moral and spiritual distress of married and unmarried women. And, while each one in turn opens his heart to Us, the burden of all weighs upon Ours which carries before God the responsibility of the Supreme Shepherd solicitude omnium ecclesiarum (2 Cor. 11:28). That is why on many occasions, in Our messages during all these years, and recently again on the second of June in Our allocution to the Sacred College, We have warned, prayed and entreated all Christians, all upright souls, and in particular all those in public affairs, to give attention to the devastating work done during the war and after the war, toward the ruin of woman and of the family. At this moment, We experience much consolation and relief in expressing to you, dear women, gathered here from the whole Catholic world. Our concern and Our appeal, knowing well with what spirit of faith and charity you listen and with what glowing zeal you will everywhere make it known.....
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