“Columbus is our man”
Reporting of Federici Studies Center
Encyclical Quarto Abeunte Saeculo di Leo XIII, 16/7/1892
To the Venerable Brother Archbishops and Bishops of Spain, of Italy and the Americas.
Venerable Brothers, health and Apostolic Blessing.
At the end of the fourth century from the day in which, God wishes, a Ligurian man landed, first of all, beyond the Atlantic Ocean to unknown shores, the people are happy to celebrate the memory of that fact with feelings of gratitude, and to exalt the author. Certainly it would not be easy to find a more worthy reason than this to excite souls and arouse enthusiasm. Indeed, the undertaking itself is the greatest and most marvelous of any that has ever been seen in the order of human affairs: and the one who brought it to completion is comparable only to a few of those who were great in terms of spirit and height of ingenuity.. A new world arose thanks to him from the unexplored womb of the Ocean: hundreds of thousands of creatures came from oblivion and darkness to integrate the human family; from barbarism they were led to meekness and civilization: and what is infinitely more important, as lost as they were, they were regenerated to eternal life thanks to the participation in the goods that Jesus Christ provided.