December 23, 1922
Pope Pius XI issued his first encyclical, Ubi arcano Dei consilio (On the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ.) It launched the “Catholic Action” movement, which involved lay men and women in an organization, under the supervision of the bishops, which would to manifest the social teachings of the church through direct service to the poor and those who lived on the margins of society.
“Patriotism – the stimulus of so many virtues and of so many noble acts of heroism when kept within the bounds of the law of Christ – becomes merely an occasion, an added incentive to grave injustice when true love of country is debased to the condition of an extreme nationalism, when we forget that all men are our brothers and members of the same great human family, that other nations have an equal right with us both to life and to prosperity, that it is never lawful nor even wise, to dissociate morality from the affairs of practical life…”
