We behold the condition of Europe. For many years past peace has been rather an appearance than a realty. Possessed with mutual suspicions, almost all the nations are vying with one another in equipping themselves with military armaments. Inexperienced youths are removed from paternal direction and control, to be thrown amid the dangers of the soldier’s life; robust young men are taken from agriculture or ennobling studies or trade of the arts to be put under arms. Hence the treasures of States are exhausted by the enormous expenditure, the national resources are frittered away, and private fortunes impaired; and this, as it were, armed peace, which now prevails, cannot last much longer. Can this be the normal condition of human society? Yet we cannot escape from this situation, and obtain True Peace, except by the aid of Jesus Christ. For to repress ambition and covetousness and envy–the chief instigators of war–nothing is more fitted than the Christian Virtues and, in particular, the Virtue of Justice; for, by its exercise, both the law of nations and the faith of treaties may be maintained inviolate, and the bonds of brotherhood continue unbroken, if men are but convinced that Justice exalteth a nation.
–Pope Leo XIII, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae.
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