12 Am I Not Your Mother? Church improved somewhat. At least there was no longer a violent persecution, even if there were some members of the government who did not give up in their efforts to continue persecuting the Church. A very significant moment was when Archbishop Martínez gave to the North American bishops a relic of the tilma on which the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe miraculously appeared, in gratitude for the important help they offered to Mexican Catholics during the awful period of religious persecution. <> In 1939, in one of his first addresses, Pope Pius XII condemned moral, legal, and social modernism, which led to a disastrous relativism that disregarded the laws of truth. The Holy Father exhorted those who were being formed as, or who already were, ministers of God, saying: “As preachers of the Gospel, you must courageously counteract this modernism by opposing it to the complete and absolute truth that comes from God. This is the basis of the fundamental rights and obligations of man, of the family and of states, which safeguard the dignity and welfare of civil society.” He also noted the importance of studying moral theology and canon law. Likewise, he attached special importance to
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