"Now Winter Approaches . . ."

To the great chorus of exhortation for unemployment relief throughout the world was last week added the voice of His Holiness Pope Pius XI. Without preliminary notice L'Osservatore Romano published an apostolic letter, Nova Impendet (New Things Are Upon Us).

Excerpts:

"A new plague menaces--indeed already afflicts--a great portion of the flock intrusted to our care, striking more clearly the weaker though the more strongly loved --the children; the humble and those with less money--the workers and the proletariat. We refer to the grave pecuniary embarrassment, the financial crisis which ... is bringing unemployment to every land. . . . Now Winter approaches and with it the long succession of suffering and privation which that season brings, especially to the poor and to the helpless young. Most serious of all, however, is that steady aggravation of the plague of unemployment to which we have made reference. The want of so many families and of their children, if not provided for, threatens to push them (which may God avert), to the point of exasperation."

Moved by the "cries of distress" of the children and the "great multitudes of honest, willing workers forced into idleness," His Holiness appealed for a "crusade" that will give assistance "to the body" and likewise "comfort and aid to the soul." Let the clergy act as a point of union for all the charitable bodies of the faithful, "both by preaching and through the Press."

Furthermore, he wrote: "Since the unbridled race for armaments is on the one hand the effect of the rivalry among nations and on the other the cause of the withdrawal of enormous sums from the public wealth, and hence not the smallest of contributors to the current extraordinary-- crisis, we cannot refrain from renewing on this subject the wise admonitions of our predecessor * which thus far have not been heeded."

* Pope Benedict XV, who issued two encyclicals and three messages to warring nations, from 1914 until his death in 1922.

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