"Crusade"

"The war is a crusade," postulated Jean Cardinal Verdier, Archbishop of Paris, last week. "We are struggling to preserve the freedom of people throughout the world, whether they be great or small peoples, and to preserve their possessions and their very lives. No other war has had aims that are more spiritual, moral, and, in sum, more Christian."

It is several centuries too late for Pius XII to proclaim officially a crusade, but His Holiness gave every sign last week of finding the metaphor chosen by Cardinal Verdier felicitous. With joy the French primate received a letter entirely in the handwriting of Pius XII. "We desire ardently," wrote the Pope, "that Catholic France, overcoming the difficulties of the present hour, achieve in ever greater degree her noble vocation of apostleship and civilization, which Divine Providence has assigned to her in the concert of nations."*

*For another papal statement last week, see p. 38.

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