POPE'S DUTY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 116, 12 November 1935, Page 20

POPE'S DUTY

TEACHER, NOT JUDGE

APOLOGIA AND REPLY

GOD'S CAUSE IN ITALY

(From "The Post's" Representative) LONDON, October 19. With the war in Abyssinia there come serious reflections on the inaction of the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Sooner or later, the Pops was bound to be attacked, but in this country the subject was not publicly discussed until this week. The Catholic Archbishop of Westminster set the ball rolling by an apologia and a denial of certain rumours that had got abroad. He was preaching at the Church of St. Edward the Confessor, Golder's Green, last Sunday. He denied that the bells of St. Peter's in Rome were rungl for the great Italian Rally a few days ago. If church bells were rung—and Fascists could commandeer church bells and much else —then it was done by compulsion and against the Canon Law which expressly prohibited the use of church bells for secular purposes. "I am authorised by. the Holy See to let it be known," he said, "that this assertion is absolutely false. I am even reproached for ordering bells to be rung here in this diocese on the outbreak of war! That is a ludicrous falsehood. 'But bells in Rome and other parts of Italy were rung for the Rally.' I reply that the Canon Law expressly forbids the use of church bells for secular purposes, and. a special decree of the Sacred Council of the Congregation warns bishops and others against allowing any breach of this law. I reply further that the Fascists can commandeer .the church bells and much else, and I have reliable testimony that church bells were rung (if and when they were rung) by compulsion." A DIMINUTIVE STATE. The Archbishop emphasised the fact that although the Pope was in Italy he was not of it. "What can the Pope do to prevent this or any other war?" asked Archbishop Hinsley. "He is a helpless old man with a small police force to guard himself, to guard the priceless treasures of the Vatican, and to protect . his diminutive State, which ensures his due independence in the' exercise of his universal right and duty to teach and to guide his followers of all races. Can he denounce a neighbouring Power —a Power armed with absolute control of everything and with every modern instrument of force? 'He could excommunicate.' Yes, and thus make war with his dictator neighbour inevitable, besides upsetting the peace and the consciences of the great mass of Italians, with the result of a fierce anti-clerical outbreak. "Has he been invited by the contending parties in this Italo-Abyssin-ian dispute to be judge and arbitrator to settle the quarrel?. He has not. I have insisted, and I insist again, that the Pope was expressly excluded by the secret Pact of London in 1915 from future deliberations in ■ the councils of peace. Until he is invited to intervene by both sides, he cannot act as a judge. As an independent Sovereign he has no grounds for intervention in this present case, not even those grounds enjoyed by a member of the League of Nations, to join which League, through Italy's express stipulation, he was not invited. ITALY UNDER FASCISM. "As Head of the Church the Pope has no grounds to interfere in purely political matters unless, as I have intimated, he be invited. But when morals are involved, as in this case and in the case of any war where morals are involved, he has a right and a duty to lay down the law, with the object of warning those whom the cap fits. The League of Nations might have indicated the person whom the cap fitted months ago, but actually only a week after the aggression which has now taken place did they decide who it was whom the cap fitted. Before that verdict of the League the Pope could not in decency have stigmatised either one side or the other as the wrongdoers; one can imagine—nay, we know—how he could have been blamed if he had done any such thing. "It is easy to say fiat justitia ruat coelum (let justice be done though the heavens crash). But no man, least of all the Pope, can contemplate the crashing of the heavens with equanimity. To speak plainly, the existing Fascist rule, in many respects unjust —it is one example of the present-day deification of Caesarism and of the tyranny which makes the individual a pawn on the chessboard of absolutism —I say that the Fascist rule prevents worse injustice, and if Fascism—which in principle I do not approve—goes under, nothing can save the country from chaos. God's cause goes under with it." AN OXFORD CRITIC. Most damaging criticism of this apologia comes from Mr. Charles W. Warner, of Oxford, whose letter is published in "The Times." He writes:— "Surely Roman Catholics and many others who have a deep respect for the great Church of the West—the Church that has triumphantly guarded the main truths of the Christian Faith midst the buffetings of the centurieswill be profoundly disappointed by the defeatist character of Archbishop Hinsley's apologia for the Pope. Has his. Holiness, whose sacred office is embellished with the most august titles, ranging from Vicarius Christi to Servus Servorum Dei, ever before been described by friend or foe as 'a helpless old man'? Have, thus, the mighty fallen? "And what are the 'priceless treasures of the Vatican'? The real treasures which the Holy Father guards, not by a small police force but by his supreme moral authority, are the Cardinal Virtues, the first of which ,is Justice. Sometimes in secular diplomatic negotiations there may have been reason to fear that the pursuit of disinterested justice has been prevented by the dictates of policy, but are we now to understand that principle is displaced by expediency in the Vatican? ' Archbishop Hinsley's suggestion that 'God's cause' is dependent upon the survival of Fascism is bewildering to a degree. And his declaration that the invoking of the Church's terrible weapon of excommunication—the rectitude of which he does not question—would 'upset the peace and the consciences of the great mass of Italians,' suggests the further displacement of expediency by treacherous compromise. Principle dethroned by expediency degenerating into betrayal is, unfortunately, a common enough sequence in erring individual behaviour. We do not expect to find it sanctioned by the Roman hierarchy. "Lord Dickinson writes: 'We are still waiting for the Head of the Church of Rome.' Pray God we shall not. even at this late hour, wait in vain." TEACHER, NOT JUDGE. Dr. Hinsley follows this up with a letter to "The Times," in which he tries, as he says, to make the matter more clear. He writes:— "Obviously, as King of the Vatican City State the Pope is not obliged in the interests of justice and charity to