Today, with delicate
kindness, his Holiness has decided to renounce the annual offering of
Peter's Pence from Belgium.
In a letter dated on the beautiful festival of the Immaculate Virgin,
Dec. 8, he assures us of the part he bears in our sufferings. He prays
for us, calls down upon our Belgium the protection of Heaven, and
exhorts us to hail in the then approaching advent of the Prince of Peace
the dawn of better days. Here is the text of this valued message:
_To Our Dear Son, Desire Mercier, Cardinal Priest of the Holy
Roman Church, of the Title of St. Peter in Chains, Archbishop
of Malines, at Malines:_
Our Dear Son: Health and apostolic benediction. The fatherly
solicitude which we feel for all the faithful whom Divine
Providence has intrusted to our care causes us to share their
griefs even more fully than their joys.
Could we, then, fail to be moved by keenest sorrow at the
sight of the Belgian Nation, which we so dearly love, reduced
by a most cruel and most disastrous war to this lamentable
state?
We behold the King and his august family, the members of the
Government, the chief persons of the country, Bishops,
priests, and a whole people enduring woes which must fill with
pity all gentle hearts, and which our own soul, in the fervor
of paternal love, must be the first to compassionate.
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