The Nations, particularly the middle-sized and small ones, ask that their fate be placed in their own hands. They might be led to contract, with their full assent, in the interest of common progress, bonds that modify their sovereign rights. But, after having sustained their share, their great share, of sacrifices for the destruction of the system of brutal violence, they have the right of not accepting that a new political or social system be imposed upon them that the vast majority of their populations flatly rejects.
Pius XII
Allocution "Nell'accogliere",
on the end of the War in Europe
June 2, 1945
