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Handout #243 |
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Address by the Dominican Fr. Sertillanges on French peace on 10 December 1917 in the church of La Madeleine in Paris |
| Most Holy Father, we cannot for a moment accept your calls for peace. We confess that to prolong this war for even an hour would be a crime if it were possible to bring it to an end by a reassuring treaty. (As that is not possible) our peace would in that case only be a conciliatory peace. It would not be the peace of diplomats, nor the peace of Stockholm, nor the peace of the Soviets, nor the illusory but sincere peace of our socialist; it would not even be - and this we regret with all our heart -peace achieved by a fatherhood which put itself between the two camps. It would be peace by bitter war to the end, the peace of power employing violent means, the peace of the soldier. We are sons who sometimes say 'No, no', like the rebellious son in the gospel. |
