ASSURANCE TO POPE

Evening Star, Issue 24915, 13 July 1943, Page 3

ASSURANCE TO POPE

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S _ j MESSAGE | LONDON, July 11. President Roosevelt sent a message to the Pope, stating, according to a.' Washington message, that during the invasion of Italian soil churches and religious institutions would be spared the devastation of war and that the neutral status of the Vatican would be respected. " By the time this messages reaches your Holiness," the message said, "a landing in force by American and Bri-

tish troops will have taken place on Italian soil. Our soldiers have come to rid Italy of Fascism and all its unhappy symbols and to drive out the Nazi oppressors infesting her soil. There is no need to reaffirm that respect for religious beliefs, and a free exercise of religious worship is fundamental to our ideals. Churches and religious institutions will, to the extent that it is in our power, be spared the devastations of war during the struggle ahead. Throughout the period of the operations the neutral status of Vatican City, as well as the Papal domains throughout Italy, will be respected. " I look forward, as does your Holiness, to the bright day when the peace of God will return to the world. We are convinced that this will occur only when the forces of evil which now hold vast areas of Europe and Asia enslaved have been utterly destroyed."