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6th Pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Acqui

doctrine that he wrote: "I cannot understand that any man can be
virtuous without religion. It is true, I too held this false idea, but
now I am entirely undeceived". Memorable too are the words
pronounced not too long ago by the President of the French
Republic, Adolph Thiers, before the National Assembly: "We
have to return to the Catechism". Words in the mouth of that
famous Statesman, himself a propagator for many years of
revolutionary theories, that express the conviction that society
could not be saved from greater and more terrible turmoil except
by a return to the doctrine of the Gospel in everything and for
everything.
Thus it is true: society is undermined by the teaching of a
vague, maimed, incoherent, changeable morality without any
efficacious sanctions. With the help of the press, the principles
and maxims that raise passions have been popularized and have
penetrated in all their forms even into the hovels of the poor and
the workers' shops; they corrupt the mind and the heart, they
shake the family foundations, they increase the number and the
power of subversive factions that undermine the social order,
and dare to call themselves Revolution, Anarchy and Nihilism.
Society will not be saved except by drawing close to those
treasures of wisdom and of life that are enclosed in the doctrine
of the Catechism which is the voice of the One who teaches with
power and authority and has words only of eternal life.
Harmoniously proportioned to all needs, rich in comfort,
hope, and consolation for everyone, it alone can render the poor
virtuously resigned, bless the rich with an ordered and
persevering charity, bring concord among children and parents
and make them solicitous for good, render children obedient to
their parents; masters discreet and kind toward their servants,
regarding them as brothers before God, and servants active and
faithful in their service, not through fear but in conscience,
blameless and just those who exercise authority thinking of the
account they will have to render to the One from whom they

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