Holy Year

6 plebiscite
for peace'
Holy Father speaks to diplomats
RECEIVING the ambassa
dors, ministers and other envoys accredited to the Holy See when they came to present their New Year's greetings, the Holy Father said that the 1950 Holy Year had been living evidence of the universal desire for peace.
'Rather than the end of an epoch." said His Holiness, it marks in history the encouraging start on the way along a new road.
" All await this peace, all desire it, all implore it.
Eagerness
" All have manifested with the same energetic eagerness their horror of war, their conviction that this is less than ever a proper means to resolve conflicts or re-establish justice.
"That there could be any question of 'popular ' wars—in the sense that they respond to the wishes and the will of the population—can only be in the case of an injustice so flagrant and so destructive of the essential good of a people that it revolts the conscience of all nations.
" The impressive turning towards Rome which has become a symbol of Christian universalism—that community of life without a shadow of national resentment hut with reciprocal respect and love—this moving rapprochement of flag to flag, of nation to nation, this frank joy of participating . together in the same welfare and the same happiness without forgetting one's own country— all this was like a plebiscite of the peoples in favour of peace, not only in the name of Christianity but in the name of all humanity.
37 nations
A new list published by.the Papal Secretariate of State shows that 18 nations now have ambassadors accredited to the Holy See. 10 have ministers. three have charges d'atfaires, and nine others maintain diplomatic contact with the Vatican.
Among the embassies is that of the Polish Government in exile.
Two Iron Curtain countries— Czechoslovakia and Rumania—still retain nominal relations with the Holy See. But on neither side are there now any envoys.