NOVA IMPENDET On the Economic Crisis

by Pope Pius XI

Excerpt: A new scourge threatens - indeed, it has already in large measure smitten - the flock entrusted to Us. It strikes most heavily at those who are the most tender and are Our most dearly beloved; upon the children, the proletariat, the artisans and the "have-nots." We are speaking of the grave financial crisis which weighs down the peoples and is accelerating in every land the frightful increase of Unemployment. We behold multitudes of honest workers condemned to idleness and want, when all they desire is opportunity to earn for themselves and their families that daily bread which the divine command bids them ask of their Father Who is in heaven. Their cry is in Our ears; and it moves Us to repeat, with the same tenderness and pity, those words which broke from the most loving Heart of the Divine Master when He beheld the crowd fainting with hunger: "I have compassion on the multitude" (Mark viii, 2).
2. More vehement still becomes Our commiseration as we gaze at the multitude of little children who "ask for bread when there is no one to break it for them" (Jer. Thren. iv, 4). These little ones, in their innocence, are bearing the worst of the burden. Squalid and wretched, they are condemned to watch the vanishing of the joys proper to their age, and to have their rightful laughter hushed upon their young lips as they gaze with bewilderment around them.
3. Winter draws on apace, with all its train of those sufferings and privations which cold weather inflicts upon the poor, and especially upon their young children. There is every reason to fear that the plague of Unemployment, which We have already mentioned, will worsen, to such an extent that poverty may push - though God forbid it!-many a misery - stricken household to exasperation

6 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 8, 2016

About the author

Pope Pius XI,born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, reigned as Pope from 6 February 1922 to his death in 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929. He took as his papal motto, "Pax Christi in Regno Christi," translated "The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ."

Pius XI issued numerous encyclicals, including Quadragesimo Anno , in the 40th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's groundbreaking social encyclical Rerum Novarum, highlighting the capitalistic greed of international finance, and social justice issues, and Quas primas, establishing the feast of Christ the King. The encyclical Studiorum Ducem, promulgated 29 June 1923, was written on the occasion of the 6th centenary of the canonization of Thomas Aquinas, whose thought is acclaimed as central to Catholic philosophy and theology. The encyclical also singles out the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum as the preeminent institution for the teaching of Aquinas: "ante omnia Pontificium Collegium Angelicum, ubi Thomam tamquam domi suae habitare dixeris" (before all others the Pontifical Angelicum College, where Thomas can be said to dwell).

To establish or maintain the position of the Catholic Church, he concluded a record number of concordats, including the Reichskonkordat with Germany (Germany's betrayals of which he condemned four years later in the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge ("With Burning Anxiety")). During his pontificate, the longstanding hostility with the Italian government over the status of the papacy and the Church in Italy was successfully resolved in the Lateran Treaty of 1929. He was unable to stop the persecution of the Church and the killing of clergy in Mexico, Spain and the Soviet Union. He canonized important saints, including Thomas More, Petrus Canisius, Konrad von Parzham, Andrew Bobola and Don Bosco. He beatified and canonized Thérèse de Lisieux, for whom he held special reverence, and gave equivalent canonization to Albertus Magnus, naming him a Doctor of the Church due to the spiritual power of his writings. Pius XI created the feast of Christ the King in response to anti-clericalism. He took a strong interest in fostering the participation of lay people throughout the Catholic Church, especially in the Catholic Action movement. The end of his pontificate was dominated by speaking out against Hitler and Mussolini and defending the Catholic Church from intrusions into Catholic life and education.

He died on 10 February 1939 in the Apostolic Palace and is buried in the Papal Grotto of Saint Peter's Basilica. In the course of excavating space for his tomb, two levels of burial grounds were uncovered which revealed bones now venerated as the bones of St. Peter.