POPE'S POSITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 243, 14 October 1935, Page 7

POPE'S POSITION.

Helpless to Denounce TreatyBreaker. VATICAN DEFENCELESS. LONDON, October 13. "What can the Pope (lo to prevent this, or any other war'/" asked the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Dr. Arthur Hinsley, in a sermon at Goklers Green. "He is sv helpless old man with a small police force to guard himself and the Vatican's priceless treasures and to protect his diminutive State. "Can tlio Pope denounce as a treatybreaker a Power which is armed with every modern instrument of force, thereby risking active reprisals? It is said tiiat he could excommunicato, but by doing that he would make a war with the Dictator, his neighbour, inevitable, besides upsetting the consciences of the great mass of Italians, who have been imbued with Fascist ideas by a section of the Press. This would result in a iiercc anti-clerical outbreak. "Moreover, the Pope lias not been asked to arbitrate in the dispute between Italy and Abyssinia, in which he has no grounds for intervention as lie has been excluded, from the League through Italy's express stipulation. "i'he Pope several times lias condemned aggression and branded selfdefence as a pretext for aggrandisement and lie could not have alluded more pointedly to the trouble between Italy and Abyssinia."