Annus Iam Plenus §0

⁰ ANNUS IAM PLENUS ENCYCLICAL OF POPE BENEDICT XV ON CHILDREN OF CENTRAL EUROPE TO THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, AND OTHER LOCAL ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE. Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction. A whole year has now passed since We (when the war was but a thing of yesterday) called upon all to turn their hearts in pity towards the children of Central Europe, who were so severely afflicted by hunger and want that they were wasting away with disease and were face to face with death. And, indeed, a wonderous joy it is to Us that Our appeal has not fallen vainly to the ground - an appeal which was actuated by that charity which enfolds in its kindly embrace all men, without distinction of race or nation, whosoever bear within them the image of God. The happy issue of our supplication, Venerable Brethren, is especially well known to you who assisted Us zealously in so salutary an enterprise. For in truth, a generous supply of money has been collected from the peoples of every land. There has been, as it were, a noble competition in liberality, with the result that the common father of so many, innocent children has been able to look to their necessities and dissipate their sorrows. Nor do we cease to proclaim the kindly providence of God, Whom it has pleased to use Us as a channel whereby the manifold blessings of Christian charity might flow to His abandoned little ones. In this matter We cannot desist from offering a public tribute of praise to the society entitled the "Save the Children Fund," which has exerted all possible care and diligence in the collection of money, clothing, and food. But, indeed, the general scarcity and the high cost of living, which the war has brought in its train, are of such a complex and varied character that the assistance We have rendered has perhaps neither succeeded in reaching those parts of Europe where necessity pressed hard, nor, where help was given, has it always been adequate to the actual need. To this must be added the fact that in the course of the year following the Encyclical Letter which We addressed to you, Venerable Brethren, on this very topic, there has been no appreciable improvement in the lot of most of those areas where it is evident that the people, and especially the young, find life growing yet harder and harder owing to the shortage of the necessaries of life. Nay, in some parts, war has flamed out anew and calamities of every kind, to the serious loss of those very elements that it is necessary to reestablish; in other parts where the civil State has been overthrown and where most frightful and disgraceful massacres have been perpetrated, it has come about that numberless families have been reduced to penury; that wives have been bereft of their husbands, and children of their parents; there are many districts, too, where it is so difficult to make provision for the food supply that as a consequence the population is afflicted by almost the same hardships which pressed upon it in the hideous days of the war.