Letters of the Holy Father Leo XIII

by which the tenth edition of Father Marc's Moral Institutions was honored

To the beloved son John Peter Kannengiesser

Leo XIII, Pope.

Beloved Son, health and Apostolic benediction.

No small praise of Clement Marc, a member of the Alphonsian Congregation, will remain among posterity on account of the Moral Institutions published by him and already, to this day, reprinted for the ninth time. For in preparing a very useful work, his principal cares were that he should in no way depart from the doctrine of Alphonsus, the Father and Lawgiver, to which so much has been accorded by the Apostolic See that it has declared it to be safely held. Wherefore bishops from very many nations, in great number, decreed that Marc's Institutions should be publicly taught in the schools of seminaries, and the superiors of several religious families likewise sanctioned the same for their own students. Therefore you indeed, Beloved Son, will be doing a work worth the effort by preparing the tenth edition of this excellent volume; to it, from your industry, this usefulness will be added, that the Pontifical Decrees which meanwhile have been issued and regard moral matters will be commemorated suitably in their own places. But that the testimony of Our benevolence may add eagerness in carrying out the plan undertaken, We most lovingly impart to you the Apostolic benediction, the pledge of divine gifts.

Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the 15th day of November, 1898, in the twenty-first year of Our Pontificate.

Leo XIII, Pope.