n Thursday, 6 December 2018, the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Pontifical University of St Thomas (Angelicum), in cooperation with the Centre d’Études du Saulchoir (CES, Paris) and the Agence Internationale Diplomatie et Opinion Publique (AIDOP, Paris), held an international commemorative academic conference on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the address of Pope Pius XII, delivered in Rome on 23 March 1958. This allocution at the “Colony of the Marches” explicitly employed the Roman Catholic social doctrine of the principle of a “legitimate and healthy laïcité of the State” in the following famous passage:

There are people who act because they fear that Christianity takes from Caesar that which is Caesar’s—as if giving to Caesar that which belongs to him were not a commandment of Jesus, as if the legitimate and healthy “laïcité” of the State were not one of the principles of Catholic doctrine, as if it were not a tradition of the Church to continually endeavour to maintain as distinct and yet always united the just principles, the two Powers.¹

It is on the basis of this passage that we proceed.

Let us thank:

• the Holy See (Msgr Roberto Mazzola, Secretariat of State, Section for the Relations with States),
  
  
• France (Mr Yves Teyssier d’Orfeuil, the Chargé d’Affaires, and Msgr Michel Cacaud, Conseiller ecclésiastique, both of the French Embassy to the Holy See), the important university personalities of the Italian State for their presence here with us,
  
  
• the Embassy of Kuwait for its message,
  
  
• the representatives of other institutions (Mgr Saturino Gomez, Auditor of the Tribunal of the Holy Roman Rota, Fr Serge-Thomas Bonino op, Secretary General of the International Theological Commission, Prof Jean-Pierre Schouppe, Pontifical University of Santa Croce, and other institutions, including those of the speakers)
  
  
• and the following for their messages: Professor and Honorary Dean, Philippe Capelle-Dumont, Académie Catholique de France, Paris; Emeritus Professor Emmanuel Decaux, President of AIDOP, University Panthéon-Assas-Paris II, Member of the UN Committee on Forced Disapperances).
• Let us also thank the Reverend Father and Rector of the Angelicum, Prof Michal Paluch op, Polish, represented in absentia, due to travel, by the Reverend Sister and Vice-Rector, Sr Helen Alford op.

We also thank:

• the Reverend Father and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Prof Alejandro Crosthwaite op, (USA),
  
  
• and the Reverend Father and Emeritus Rector, Prof. Francesco Compagnoni op, with whom we have been able to collaborate.
  We thank the Revue OKONOMIA for publishing these proceedings.
  And, finally, we thank the CES, its Director, Fr Bernard Bourdin op, and AIDOP, as well as the honourable speakers and the other participants.

NOTE:
¹ Documents pontificaux de Sa Sainteté Pie XII, vol. 1958, p. 135; in La Documentation catholique, N° 1275, 1958, col. 456.