In past years, beloved Sons and Daughters, on this occasion—after having paternally welcomed the wishes that your illustrious representative usually offers Us in your name, with such noble expressions of faith and filial devotion—We usually accompanied Our expressions of thanks with some recommendations suggested by the circumstances of the moment. We spoke to you of your duties and your function in the tottering, tormented society of our modern times, though necessarily in a somewhat general manner, with the sense of a future in mind, a future whose time and aspect were indeed difficult to predict.
Uncertainty persists, and storm clouds still loom heavy on the horizon.
No doubt it remains obscure even today. Uncertainty persists, and storm clouds still loom heavy on the horizon. With armed conflict just ended, nations find themselves faced with the burdensome task of assuming responsibility for consequences that shall bear upon the course of the times and determine which way they turn. The time has come, in fact, not only for Italy but for many other nations, to elaborate their political and social constitutions, either to create entirely new ones or to revise, retouch, and modify to a greater or lesser degree the already existing statutes bearing them up. What makes this problem all the more arduous is that all these constitutions will be as different and autonomous as you like, as autonomous and different as are the nations themselves which wish to draft them; but they will not be—in fact, if not by law—any less interdependent for all that. What we have before us, therefore, is an event of the highest importance, the likes of which have rarely presented itself in the history of the world. In it there is enough to make even the boldest tremble in their hearts, if they are even only slightly aware of their responsibility; enough to disturb the most clairvoyant of people, precisely because they see better and farther than others and because, convinced of the gravity of the task, they more clearly understand the need to devote themselves calmly and attentively to the mature reflections required by works of such great import. And now, all of a sudden, prompted by collective and mutual efforts, the event is upon us; it will have to be confronted very soon; in a few months, perhaps, solutions will have to be found and definitive decisions made, which will make their effects felt on the destinies of not just one nation, but of the entire world, and which, once made, will establish the universal condition of nations, perhaps for a long time to come. In our democratic age, all members of human society must take part in this undertaking: on the one hand, the legislators, by whatever name they are designated, to whom shall fall the task of deliberating and drawing conclusions; and on the other hand, the people, whose task it is to make their will felt by voicing their opinions and exercising their right to vote. And you too, therefore—whether or not you shall belong to the future constituent assembly—have your own function to fulfill, which will have its bearing upon both the legislators and the people. What is this function, then? 
You may have happened, more than once, to encounter, in the church of St. Ignatius, groups of pilgrims and tourists. You have seen them stop in surprise in the vast nave of the church, their eyes turned upward to the vault on which Andrea Pozzo painted his stunning triumph of the Saint in his mission, entrusted to him by Christ, of spreading the divine light as far as the remotest corners of the earth. Seeing the apocalyptic avalanche of architectonic figures colliding above their heads, they thought, at first, that they were witnessing the delirium of a madman. Then you politely led them toward the center. As they gradually drew nearer, the columns began to rise up vertically, supporting the arches soaring into space; and each of the visitors, when standing on the little disk indicating the best spot on the floor for viewing the fresco, then saw the material vault disappear before his eyes, allowing him to contemplate in astonishment, in that wondrous perspective, a vision of angels and saints, of men and demons, living and stirring around Christ and Ignatius, who form the center of the grandiose scene. In the same way the world, to those who see it only in its complex and confused materiality, in all its disorderly proceeding, presents the appearance of chaos. Step by step the fine designs of the most skillful builders collapse and leave us thinking the ruins are irreparable, the construction of a new, balanced world on firm and stable foundations impossible. Why?
“In this world there is a stone of granite laid by Christ; one must stand on that stone and turn one’s gaze upward; thence originates the restoration of all things in Christ.” Photo by Alberto Fernandez Fernandez
In this world there is a stone of granite laid by Christ; one must stand on that stone and turn one’s gaze upward; thence originates the restoration of all things in Christ. Christ has revealed the secret thereof: “Quaerite primum regnum Dei et iustitiam eius, et haec omnia adicientur vobis” [Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you] (Matt. 6:33). One cannot therefore draw up the healthy, vital constitution of any society or nation unless the two great powers—the legislator with his deliberations and resolutions and the people with the free expression of their opinions and the exercise of their electoral rights—are both firmly planted on this foundation so they can look upward and bring the kingdom of God upon their country and their world. But are things this way now?
