THE POPE’S DUTY

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 November 1935, Page 10

THE POPE’S DUTY

TEACHER, NOT JUDGE

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 Pepe wan bound to be attacked, but. in this country the subject was not publicly discussed until this week. The (J&tholic Aren* bishop of Westminster set the ball rolling by an apologia and a denial of certain rumours that had got abroad. Mu was preaching at the Church of St. Edwarii tbo Confessor, Golder’s Green, last. Sunday. lie denied that the bells of St. Petur’s in Rome were rung for the great Italian Rally a i- w days ago. ■; church bells were rung—and Fascists could commandeer church bells md much else —then it was done by jompulsion. 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 .jii(break of war! That is a ludicrous falsehood. ' ‘But bells in Rome and other parts of Italy were rung lor the Rally.’ I reply that the Canon Law expressly forbids the use of chujch bells tor 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 1 have reliable testimony that church bells wore rung (it and when they were rung) by compulsion.” The Archbishop emphasised (lie 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 excom rnunicatc.’ Yes. and thus make Wai 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 lie 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 iiivited. But when morals are involved, as in this case and in the case of any war whete morals are involved, he has a. right ami 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 actualy 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—hpw he could have been blamed if he hpd 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—l 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.’’

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 centuries—will bo profoundly disappointed by the defeatist character of Archbishop Kinsley’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 bu<t by his supreme moratf authority, are the Cardinal Virtues, the first of which is Justice. Sometimes in secular diplomatic negotiations there may have been reason to tear 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—lthc 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.” A FURTHER DEFENCE. 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 intervene, as other States occasionally are, in the disputes between nations. It was for that reason that I emphasised his materially weak and defenceless position. ‘Again, even as Head of the Catholic Church, he holds the office of teacher, not of judge, except, of course, in ecclesiastical cases. His business is to interpret the moral law, primarily for the guidance of those who recognise his authority. In the present case he has done so repeatedly and emphaticaly, declaring inter alia that a war of aggression is always wrong, that even the right of defence is •strictly limited, and that the need for ‘expansion’ does not confer a right to seek it by war. “Furthermore, the tribunal which had cognisance of the case, the League of Nations, did not decide that Italy was the aggressor until several days alter the actual aggression. How the world would have blamed the Pope if he, assuming the role of judge, had broken in upon this legal process and anticipated its verdict weeks beforehand!

“Now that the League has decided, is the Pope to denounce, and launch spiritual penalties against the aggressor? Those who are convinced' of Italy’s guilt would say yes, but the Pope has Jo consider whether such action would 'do anything to help the Ethiopians or to stop the war. He has made his own moral attitude abundantly clear, and if he thought that excommunication would 'further the cause of justice no doubt he would speak out. But if he is practically certain that the only result won,ld be to produce worse evils —to expose the faithful in Italy to persecution if Fascism remained in power, or to .plunge Italy into chaos and’ anarchy if it fell —why should he to no purpose risk precipitating either disaster? “During the late war critics of the Papacy wrote largely on “The, Silence of Pope Benedict,’ yet Pope Benedict was one of the . few public men who spoke ‘word’s of wisdom and charity. Let us not in our zeal for our own cause forget that the Pope is the best judge of his own duty.”