Excerpt: The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Our own dear Mother, who had most lovingly looked down on us at the Sanctuaries of Czestochowa and of Ostrabrama as well as at the miraculous grotto of Lourdes and from the lofty spires of Our own city of Milan, to say nothing of that most holy Sanctuary of the Rho, deigned to accept the homage of Our love on the occasion when We gave back to the Venerable Basilica of Loreto, which had been restored after the serious damage caused to it by fire, her beautiful statue which had been not only done over at Our behest but had been blessed and crowned as well by Our own hands. That occasion was without question a veritable triumph for Mary. During the passage of her statue from Rome to Loreto, the faithful of each town rivaled one another in acclaiming her by a spontaneous and continuous outburst of profoundly religious sentiment, which showed forth a most tender affection for Our Blessed Lady, as well as a devoted attachment to the Vicar of Jesus Christ. 6. These different events, some sad and some joyful, the history of which We wish to record for the edification of posterity, spoke most eloquently to Us, making more and more clear to Our mind those objectives which seem to claim the foremost place in Our Apostolic Ministry and of which it behooves Us to speak now in as solemn a manner as possible in this, Our very first message to you. 7. One thing is certain today. Since the close of the Great War individuals, the different classes of society, the nations of the earth have not as yet found true peace. They do not enjoy, therefore, that active and fruitful tranquility which is the aspiration and the need of mankind. This is a sad truth which forces itself upon us from every side. For anyone who, as We do, desires profoundly to study and successfully to apply the means necessary to overcome such evils, it is all-important that he recognize both the fact and the gravity of this state of affairs and attempt beforehand to discover its causes. This duty is imposed upon Us in commanding fashion by the very consciousness which We have of Our Apostolic Office. We cannot but resolve to fulfill that which is so clearly Our duty. This We shall do now by this Our first encyclical, and afterward with all solicitude in the course of Our sacred ministry. 8. Since the selfsame sad conditions continue to exist in the world today which were the object of constant and almost heartbreaking preoccupation on the part of Our respected Predecessor, Benedict XV, during the whole period of his pontificate, naturally We have come to make his thoughts and his solutions of these problems Our own.