ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS PIUS XII
TO A GROUP OF AMERICAN SENATORS*

Wednesday, 23 January 1946

We extend a very hearty welcome to all. Your presence, honourable Senators, renews for Us a pleasure We experienced a number of times in the past year when We received many of your distinguished colleagues in the United States Congress.

For it is a pleasure to greet and say a word of encouragement to those who today carry a heavy weight of responsibility to a world, encircled by gloom and darkness, that is groping for the first steady rays of peace. During six long years military leaders bore the bulk of this burden. It passes now to the leaders of State and to them whose exalted duty it is to formulate the laws that will govern and guide the peoples of tomorrow. If only peace could be had for the crying: peace, peace! But, no; what that intellectual giant and master of human psychology, St. Augustine, has said of the individual, is true also for the nation: «Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are not at rest till they rest in Thee». God is only too ready, eager to give peace and concord to His world; but men must be humble enough to accept it from His hands, approaching Him along the path of Truth and justice and Charity. The true friends of peace have their task clearly marked out for them. It is Our constant prayer to the God of all nations, that they may have the courage and resolution to accomplish it. And may heaven's choicest blessings descend on you and on all those who are near and dear to you.

*Discorsi e radiomessaggi, vol.VII, p.343.

L’Osservatore Romano, p.1.