Harry S. Truman: Exchange of Messages With Pope Pius XII.
Your Holiness, this is a Christian Nation. More than a half century ago that declaration was written into the decrees of the highest court in this land. It is not without significance that the valiant pioneers who left Europe to establish settlements here, at the very beginning of their colonial enterprises, declared their faith in the Christian religion and made ample provision for its practice and for its support. The story of the Christian missionaries who in earliest days endured perils, hardship--even death itself in carrying the message of Jesus Christ to untutored savages is one that still moves the hearts of men.
As a Christian Nation our earnest desire is to work with men of good will everywhere to banish war and the causes of war from the world whose Creator desired that men of every race and in every clime should live together in peace, good will and mutual trust. Freedom of conscience, ordained by the Fathers of our Constitution to all who live under the flag of the United States, has been a bulwark of national strength, a source of happiness, from the establishment of our Nation to this day.
I believe that the greatest need of the world today, fundamental to all else, is a renewal of faith. I seek to encourage renewed faith in the dignity and worth of the human person in all lands, to the end that the individual's sacred rights, inherent in his relationship to God and his fellows, will be respected in every land. We must have faith in the inevitable triumph of truth and decency; faith that mankind shall live in freedom, not in the chains of untruth nor in the chains of a collectivist organization of their lives; faith of such fullness that it will energize men and women everywhere to build with tenacity, the better social world order under self-rule. The times demand faith that is strong enough to struggle if need be for the right, that is able to endure troubles and hardships, attack and even contempt from forces of evil--and able to arise reborn and revitalized from the daily struggle. Faith leads to hope, to determination, to trust in the truth and the good, and to sustained effort to create the kind of peace and well-being sought by humble men and women in all lands and which will ultimately prevail between all nations. Through faith, the purposes of God shall be carried out in the hearts and deeds of Man. I believe with heartfelt conviction that those who do not recognize their responsibility to Almighty God cannot meet their full duty toward their fellow men.