David Kehoe's editorial in the newsletter contained an important reference to the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church's letter Ecclesiastical Libraries and Their Role in the Mission of the Church, which readers can view here.

Pope John Paul II in an address to the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress said, "The patrimony of human thought, cultural achievement and religious truth contained in the world's libraries is not only a monument to past human endeavor; it is the solid ground on which each new generation can strive to build a better future. To ignore this treasure would be for humanity to condemn itself to existing and working in a wasteland. Our own age particularly needs to recover the accumulated wisdom of the past."

Reiterating these words, the President of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patimony in a letter to Religious wrote, "Libraries not only gather dusty material destined to be forgotten. In them are hidden treasures of Christian experience lived out and communicated through the written word. It is not so much a matter of filling up shelves but of fulfilling the heart while dipping into the wisdom of the fathers and the mothers of the faith - the lymph of a new life - in an itinerary of cultural deepening which is an integral part of the path of individual and communal updating for the growth of the individual and the entire family."

It is for this reason the Library exists: to preserve and propagate the knowledge and wisdom of the Church, and ultimately to proclaim Christ, the Word made Flesh, who is also the Truth.