SEVERELY DENOUNCED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1938, Page 9

SEVERELY DENOUNCED

NAZI POLICY

SPEECH BY THE POPE

ATTEMPT TO CRUSH THE CHURCH

WARNING TO' HERR HITLER

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received October 22, 9.50 a.m.)

LONDON, October 21.

The Rome correspondent of the British United Press learned that the Pope most severely denounced the Nazi policy towards Roman Catholics when he gave an audience to the delegates to the International Congress of Christian Archaeologists at Castel Gandolfo. The speech is described as one of the strongest the Pope has delivered—so strong that officials hesitated to publish the text, fearing that it would irritate the Nazi leaders and cause great excesses.

/ The Pope is reported to have used the demonstrations against Cardinal

Innitzer in. Vienna as the text for a scathing denunciation and condemnation which also contained an implied warning to Herr Hitler that his attempt to crush the Church would either fail or end in disaster. He recalled that Bismarck abandoned his kulturkampf owing to its inanity and that the fall of Napoleon was due to his brutal persecution of Pope Pius VII.

Reuters' Rome correspondent says that the speech came as a sensation in Vatican circles. The report of the speech is based on the notes of a prelate who was present, and discloses that his Holiness declared that terrible persecution, daily more audacious and serious, was occurring in countries not far from Rome, recalling the sinister figure of Julian the Apostate, whose persecution was most bloody, cruel, and subtle. !

"My sorrow is profound," the Pope is reported to have said. "Both as the Pope and as a man I see human dignity betrayed as by Julian and Judas Iscariot. We see a hegemony seeking more or less to extend throughout the world, and we ask what Providence has in store for us." His voice, shaking with emotion, and thrice repeating the word "lie," he said: "It is a lie to say that the Church is engaged in politics. Our politics only seek to ensure com* mon well-being which shall follow as long as God allows."

, Understanding between the Vatican and the Reich is henceforth impossible, declares the Vatican organ "Osservatore Romano," which charges the German Government with violating the concordat by an • organised campaign of violence against the Catholic Church.

It instances the support that the German authorities accorded to those guilty of violence against Cardinal Innitzer. It strenuously denies that Catholicism wishes .to participate in politics against the German State.

The Kulturkampf was the name applied to the conflict which arose out of the alliance of Bismarck with the Liberals. The dispute originally developed out of the decrees issued by the Vatican Council of 1870, which declared the infallibility of the Pope in matters of faith to be a dogma of the Church. The German Old Catholics refused to recognise this new dogma and were excommunicated, the Pope demanding that the Government of the States should dismiss all Old Catholic teachers.' Bismarck regarded this as encroaching on the authority of the State, and refused to do so. He also introduced measures to take the registration of births, deaths, and marriages out of the hands of the clergy, to make the celebration of marriage a State function exclusively, and to abolish clerical supervision over schools. The bishops forbade Catholics attending classes of Old Catholic teachers, and Bismarck replied by expelling the Jesuits and withholding emoluments from any bishops who would not declare their obedience to the State. He passed an Imperial Act forbidding the clergy making use of the pulpit or the confessional for purposes of political agitation. He took rights of vetoing the appointment of priests. The bishops called for passive resistance and several bishops were arrested, the Archbishop of Posen being removed from his office. More/ measures followed, and the feeling was so intense that in 1874 an attempt was made on Bismarck's life. The Pope declared the Prussian legislation invalid, and Bismarck, who had underestimated the powers of resistance of the Catholics, became anxious for an agreement, especially as he desired the support of the Centre Party, which opposed him in the matter. Between 1880 and 1887 most of the laws-were relaxed or repealed. Julian the Apostate (Flavius Claudius Julianus) was born about 331 A.D. and died in 363. He was created Caear by Constantius in 355 and elected Emperor by his army in 301. They death of Constantius left him master of the Empire and he became a pagan, and attempted the restoration of the old faith. / i