The Anniversary of Rerum Novarum

On June 1, 1941, thousands of Italian workers poured into St. Peter's Square to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the encyclical letter, Rerum Novarum. During this time Pope Pius XII broadcast a radio message to the workers of the world to commemorate the encyclical, and showed that the Church enters the field of labor precisely because it is also a portion of the Lord's vineyard. The address was considered of such importance that it was directly translated into several languages and appeared in the June 23 issue of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

THE FEAST OF PENTECOST, that glorious birthday of the Church of Christ, is to Our mind, dear children of the whole world, a welcome and auspicious occasion and one full of high import, on which to address you, in the midst of the difficulties and strife of the present hour, a message of love, encouragement and comfort. We speak to you at a moment when every energy and force, physical and intellectual, of an ever-increasing section of mankind is being strained, to a degree and intensity never before known, beneath the iron, inexorable law of war; and when from other radio aerials are going forth words full of passion, bitterness, division and strife.

But the aerials of the Vatican Hill, of that ground dedicated to be the uncontaminated source of the Good Tidings and of their beneficent diffusion throughout the world from the place of martyrdom and tomb of the first Peter, can transmit only words animated with the consoling spirit of that preaching with which on the first Pentecost Day as it came from the lips of St. Peter, Jerusalem resounded and was stirred. It is a spirit of burning apostolic love, a spirit which is conscious of no more vivid desire, no holier joy than that of bringing all, friends and enemies, to the feet of the Crucified One of Calvary, to the tomb of the Glorified Son of God and Redeemer of the human race, to convince all that only in Him, and in the truth taught by Him, and in the love which He, doing good to all and healing all, taught by His example even to sacrificing Himself for the life of the world, can there be found true salvation and lasting happiness for individuals and for peoples.

In this hour, pregnant with events that are known only to the divine counsels which rule the story of nations and watch over the Church, it is for us, beloved children, a source of sincere joy and gratification in letting you hear the voice of your Common Father, to call you together, so to speak, in a world-wide Catholic meeting, so that you may experience and enjoy in the bond of peace that one heart and one soul which held together under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, the faithful of Jerusalem on Pentecost Day. As the circumstances created by the war make direct, living contact between the Supreme Pastor and His flock in many cases difficult, We greet with all the more gratitude this most expedite bridge which the inventive genius of our age throws across the earth in a flash, to unite across mountains, seas, and continents every corner of the earth. And thus what for many is a weapon of war becomes for Us a heaven-sent means of patient, peaceful apostolate which realizes and gives new significance to the words of Holy Scripture: "Their sound hath gone forth unto all the earth; and their words unto the ends of the world." Thus does it seem as if were renewed the miracle of Pentecost, when the different peoples who had assembled in Jerusalem from regions speaking various languages, heard the voice of Peter and the Apostles in their own tongue. With genuine delight We today make use of so wonderful an instrument, in order to call to...