The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-10-30
Just, Lasting Peace
 Prayer OF Pope Plus
Totalitarian Governments Condemned F or Usurping Power of Spiritual Authority Ex- presses Sorrow For Poland

Usurping Power of
 presses Sorrow For
 Pope Plus XII, in his first encyl- ical as head of the Catholic church, condemns totalitarian governments which deny the power of God, called on the nations of the world to estab- fish g. just and lasting peace, and expressed deep sorrow for the people of Poland.
 Prom the immense vortex or er- TOT and anti Christian movements, there had come forth a crop of such poignant disasters as to constitute a condemnatio surpassing in its conclusiveness any merely theoret- ical refutation," His Holiness said.
 Dread Tempest
 Venerable brethren, as we write these lines the terrible news comes to us that the dread tempest of war is already raging despite all our efforts to avert 1t. When we think of the wave of suffering that has come on countless people who but yesterday enjoyed in the en- vironment of their homes some little degree of well-being, we are tempted to lay down our pen. Our paternal heart is torn by anguish as we look ahead to all that will yet come forth from the baneful seed of violence and of hatred for which the sword today ploughs the blood -drenched furrow. But precisely because of this apoclayptic foresight of disaster, im- minent and remote, we feel we have a duty to raise with still greater insistence the eyes and hearts of those, in whom there yet remains good will, to the One from Whom alone comes the salvation of the world-to One whose almightly and merciful hand can alone calm this tempest-to the One whose truth and whose love can enlighten the intellects and inflame the hearts of 50 great a section of mankind plung- ed in error, selfishness, strife and struggle.
 Venerable brethren, forgetfulness of the law of universal charity-of that charity which alone can con- solidate peace by extinguishing hatred and softening envies and dissensions-is the source of very grave evils for peaceful relations be- tween nati 2. But there is yet aa- other error no less perniciouS to the well being of the nations and to prosperity of that great human so- ciety which gathers together and embraces within its confines all races. It is the error contained in those ideas which do not hesitate to divorce civil authority from every kind of dependence upon the Su- preme Being-flrst cause and abso- lute master of man and of society," and from every restraint of a high CT law derived from God as from its first source. Thus they accord the civil authority an unrestricted field of action that is at the mercy of the changeful tide of human will, or of the dictates of casual historical claims, and of the interests of few.
 Authority of God
 Once the authority of God and the sway of his law are dented in this, way, the civil authority as an inevitable result tends to attribute to itself that absolute autonomy which belongs exclusively to the Supreme Maker. It puts itself in the place of the Almighty and elevates the state or group into the last end of life, the supreme criterion of the moral and juridical orCer, and therefore, forbids every appeal to the principles of natural reason and of the Christian con- science. Where the dependence of human right upon the divine is de- nied, where appeal is made only to some insecure idea of a merely human authority and an autonomy is claimed which rests only upon a utilitarim morality, there human law itself justly forfeits in its more weighty application the moral force which is the essential con- Sitiol for its acknowledgement and also for its demand for sacrifices.
 It is quite true that power based on such weak and unsteady foun- dations can attain at times under chance circumstances material successes apt to arouse wonder in superficial observers.
 Lasting Contacts
 So, venerable brethren, tt is in- .dispensable for the existence of harmonious and lasting contacts and of fruitful relations that the people recognize and observe these principles of international natural law which regulate their normal de- velopment and activity. Such prin- ciples demand respect for corre- spending rights to independence, to life and to the possibility of con- tinuous development in the paths of civilization; they demand further, fidelity to conpacts agreed upon and sanctioned in conformity with the principles of the law of nations.
 The blood of countless human be- ings. even -combatants. raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as our dear Poland, which. for its lidel- ity to the church. for its services in the defense of Christian civilization, written in indelible characters in the annals of history, has a right to