BRIEF FROM POPE PIUS IX

To Henri Lasserre - September 4th, 1869 

  BELOVED SON, Salutation and the apostolic benediction. 
Receive our felicitations, very dear son. Having obtained some time since, a most remarkable benefit, you have just accomplished, scrupulously and with feelings of love, the vow you then made: you have just employed your best efforts, in proving and establishing the truth of the recent Apparition of the most clement Mother of God; and this you have done in such a manner that the very struggle of human malice against the divine mercy serves but to bring out more forcibly the luminous evidence of the fact.

In the explanation you have afforded of events, their progress and dependence on each other, all men may perceive clearly and with certitude how our most holy Religion tends towards and results in the true advantage of all people ; how it heaps on all those who have recourse to it, gifts not only of a celestial and spiritual but also of a temporal and terrestrial nature. They will be able to see how, even in the absence of all material force, this Religion is all-powerful for the maintenance of order; amid excited multitudes, it can restrain within just bounds the anger and indignation, however justified, of exasperated minds. They will be able to see lastly how the Clergy cooperate by their loyal efforts and zeal towards the attainment of such results, and how, far from encouraging superstition, they display infinitely more deliberation and severity of investigation than any other class of men, when it is a question of pronouncing judgment with reference to facts which seemingly surpass the ordinary powers of nature.
Your narrative, in no less luminous a manner, will render manifest the following truth that impiety declares war against religion entirely in vain, and that the attempts of the wicked to hamper the divine counsels of Providence by human machinations are utterly unavailing, the perversity of men and their criminal audacity serving, on the contrary, as a means, in the hands of Providence, to confer on its works more power and splendor. 

Such are the reasons which have induced us to receive with the most lively joy your work entitled: Our Lady of Lourdes. We firmly believe that She who, from every quarter, attracts towards Herself by miracles of her power and goodness, multitudes of Pilgrims, wills, in the same manner, to employ your book in order to propagate more widely, and to excite towards Herself, the piety and confidence of mankind, to the end that all may participate in the plenitude of Her graces.  As a pledge of the success we predict for your work, receive our apostolic benediction, which we address to you very affectionately, as a testimony of our gratitude and our paternal benevolence. 

Pius IX, Pope

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