Caritate Christi Compulsi §1

¹ Constrained by the Charity of Christ, in Our Encyclical Letter Nova impendet on the second day of October in last year, we incited the children of the Catholic Church - and, indeed, all men of good heart - to a pious emulation in love and in helpful action, so that the terrible evils that come from the economic crisis, and are everywhere oppressing human society, might be in some measure mitigated. Our invitation, indeed, was warmly welcomed with remarkable unanimity, through the active liberality of all. Nevertheless, since the distress is increasing and the hosts of men in affliction by enforced idleness are almost everywhere growing greater; and since seditious men make use of these difficulties and turn them to the advantage of their own several factions, it has come to pass that public institutions themselves are in a most critical situation, so that a very grave danger of disturbances and of a general upheaval is threatening civil society. In this state of things, Venerable Brethren. stirred up by the selfsame charity of Christ, We once more address you all, and the faithful committed to your care, and indeed all men, exhorting all and several that with all their forces united in a spirit of charity they should endeavor to withstand, by every possible effort, the calamities by which civil society is now afflicted and those yet graver calamities threatening it in the future.