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ruthlessness and insensiblity to all moral considerations. This is no   
time for a recourse to diplomacy. Having made every effort to avoid this  
war, we shall not now be weakened by Axis cunning when we ave taken the   
field. We consider that Axis-inspired proposals of "peace" would be   
           nothing less than a blow aimed at us.            
 
                                                            
 
 
There is reason to believe that our Axis enemies will attempt, through   
devious channels, to urge the Holy See to endorse in the near future   
proposals of peace without victory. In the present position of the   
belligerents, we can readily understand how strong a pressure the Axis   
powers may bring to bear upon the Vatican. We therfore feel it a duty to   
support the Holy See in resisting any undue pressure from this source. It   
is for this reason that we feel impelled to make known our views on the   
subject of peace,and to point out that the growing power of the United   
States is now being applied to re-establish those principals of   
international decency and justice which have been so well expounded by   
the Holy See. We are not so close geographically to the Vatican as some   
of our enemies, nor are we in a position to enjoy as many of the indirect   
day-to-day contacts as they. Nonetheless, we have the fullest confidence   
that due weight will be given to the considerations advanced by a nation   
which numbers among its citizens so many millions of devout Catholics,   
and whose government is in such close agreement with the principles   
enunciated by the Holy See on the issues of this war and the kind of   
               peace which it must follow it.               
 
                                                            
 
 
The people of the United States have a depp and sympathetic understanding   
of the Holy Father's desires for peace as he looks out upon a world   
convulsed with the harrowing spectacle of death and destruction on every   
side. The promotion of world peace, we know, is one of the great   
functions of the Holy See. Though deferred, that peace will come--not a   
specious peace of strategy nor a short-lived peace of compromise. It will   
be the peace  of "justice and charity" for wich the Holy Father has so   
often prayed; it will be the peace of compromise. It will be the  the   
peace "in which the spirit of Christ will rule the hearts of men and of   
nations" as promised by the President of the United States. The United   
States and its allies will win that peace. Ans in its consolidation, we   
should wnat nothing better than a continuation, so devoutly to be hoped   
much can be accomplished to ensure that the peace will be la
 
                                                            
 
The war aims of the United States are peace aims. The world knows them.   
The Atlantic Charter lays down conditions which in our deepest conviction   
are irreducible. Any proposal under the plausible title of a "negotiated   
peace", which falls short of these aims, would only tend to confuse   
issues which we are determined to keep clear and decide definitively, and   
would, morever, inevitably weaken the moral influence of those who might   
             be inveiglied into presenting it.