NAZI BITTERNESS AMIDST CATHOLICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 126, 29 May 1937, Page 10

NAZI BITTERNESS AMIDST CATHOLICS.

"DRASTIC STEPS."

V, r arning of Action by

Minister.

U.S. CARDINAL'S REMARKS

United Tress Association.—Copyright.

(Received 12.30 p.m.) BERLIN*, May 28,

Bitterly replying to remarks made ,i week ago by Cardinal Mundelein, of Chicago, in which Herr Hitler was referred to as "the Austrian paperhanger," the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Dr. fioebbels, speaking at a mass meeting of Nazis, issued a warning that most drastic steps would 'oe taken against high dignitaries of the Catholic Church if Catholics, either in Germany or abroad, continued to criticise the "morality trials" now proceeding in Germany.

Cardinal Mundelein, he said, had "insulted Herr Hitler in a manner impossible to repeat. Ho called me a dishonest propaganda Minister who arranged the trials solely to harm the persecuted Catholic Church. The continual slandering of German justice has forced us to disclose before the world the reasons leading to the arrests of priests and the monstrous mendacity of those who asserted that religious motives were responsible.

"Germany does not close her eyes to tihe dreadful moral decay which is manifest."

Dr. Goebbels recited examples of •ffences allegedly committed by Catholic teachers.

The Minister added that the "morality trials" were not regrettable isolated •vents, but were "a sign of a general moral depravity iinparalleled in the cultural history of mankind."

Replying to the German protest against Cardinal Mundelein, the Vatican points out that it cannot be responsible for the personal views of individual cardinals. It directs attention to the German Government's inconsistency in permitting Press attacks on the Pope.

The editor of the "Zealandia," the Roman Catholic newspaper published in Auckland, stated this afternoon that accusation and defamation were the instruments by which the Nazis were seeking to complete ruin of religious orders in Germany. There was h.6 news in the cabled announcement, he said, an some such developments had been expected since June of last year. At that time most preposterous and exaggerated allegations were made by Nazi leaden against Catholic priests and teachers, but the very extravagance of .the charges, together with the numbers arretted, defeated the purposes o£ the Nazi campaign.

It was immediately evident, however, that the publicity surrounding the arrests Was all that the. Nazis desired, and they did not follow up the arrests with trials, but released over 200 a£ those committed to prison.

The next indication of the Nazi attitude ■was given when Herr Wilhelm Wagner, Nazi Governor of the State of Baden, said shortly afterward®: "It is not martyrs that we want to create but criminals," and he promised his listeners that there would be further sensational later.

Tlie member* of the German hierarchy regarded the immorality campaign of last year as a form of blackmail, because at the time of the Munich trials the Nazi Government offered an amnesty provided the hierarchy- would agree to the dissplution of all Catholic associations and religious orders. . ,