DISCORSO DI SUA SANTITÀ PIO PP. XII
AI PARTECIPANTI AL CONGRESSO
MONDIALE DELLA POPOLAZIONE*

Sabato, 8 settembre 1954

And now, We are in true happy to greet the perspective participants in the World Congress of Population, who desired to pay Us a visit.

The science of population is young, but it is basic since it touches immediately on human life and it can clarify some of the most serious individual and social problems.

The Church is not ignorant of these problems; it is not indifferent to their anguishing aspects, as is evidenced by the many documents which have been issued recently by the Holy See on family life, national economy, and the relations between peoples, some of whom find themselves abundantly furnished with riches, while others remain in tragic conditions.

But the Church has always wanted to place the problems of population in their true perspective: that of a moral, personal destiny, which through courageous and even daring action in time, is to find its accomplishment in the eternal possession of God.

That is why We can only rejoice at the light that your labors and those of all sincere population-experts bring to the knowledge of the laws and the values which condition the development of populations. That is why we are also urging Catholics to take an active part in the researches and in the efforts which are being made in this field. But We want them to do it with fidelity to Christian doctrine, in communion with the many men and women, who, enlightened by their reason and sustained by a proper confidence in Providence, fully conscious of the difficulties which they are facing and of their duties toward the community, respect the creative vow which is to be found at the very heart of love and of life.

*The Pope Speaks, vol.1 n°3, p.265.