FASCISTS AND VATICAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 December 1940, Page 2

FASCISTS AND VATICAN

EDITOR LIBELS THE POPE.

Expressing active resentment of the “campaign of vilification” being waged against his Holiness Pope Pius XII. and the Holy See by Roberta Farinacdi, editor of “Regime Fascista” and Minister of State in Italy, the Right Rev. Mgr. Michael J. Ready, General Secretary of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, brands these outpourings as a “hysterical, lying attack.” Mgr. Ready says in his statement that “they have presumed to link the basest attacks on American citizens and even on the President of the United States with their assaults on the Holy Father.” He declares the supposed basis for the attacks is a calumny “too gross to merit a denial” and that it represents a “resort to the sordid and mercenary.” Mgr. Ready asks: “Has it come, to the point where a leading Italian Fascist and influential editor, seemingly with Government consent, finds it expedient to ape the clumsy, unscrupulous propaganda methods of the Nazis?” The text of Mgr. Ready’s statement follows: —

“The Honourable Roberto Farinacci, Minister of State in Italy and former secretary of the Fascist party, presently is engaged in a campaign of vilification against the Holy See and the Pope. Farinacci carries on his attack in ‘Regime Fascista,’ of which he is editor. These attacks have been so vicious and reckless that an American correspondent in Rome terms them ‘an unbridled campaign of abuse.’ Moreover, they have presumed to link the basest attacks on American citizens and even on the President of the United States with their assaults on the Holy Father. The September 3 issue of ‘Regime Fascista,’ summing up its usual hysterical, lying attack, asserts, ‘these criminals of the Vatican are interested in politics, not in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.’ When a Catholic reads the continued, violent and calumnious personal attacks on the saintly Pius XII. in the controlled Press of a country overwhelmingly Catholic, he is first surprised, then pained, and at last actively resentful. “The whole world knows the strictly controlled character of the Press in Italy. Such calumnies can be perpetrated continuously only with the complacent agreement or connivance of the Italian Government. A people enjoying freedom could answer such attacks in a free Press. That is now not possible in Italy. SORDID CHARGE. “And what is the supposed basis of these attacks? They rest on the Christian compassion of Pius XII. for the terrible sufferings and grievous trials of Jews throughout Europe.. The Holy Father’s concern and mercy for the afflicted are shared by all right-minded men when their, fel-low-men face persecution, distress and injustice. These sentiments are in the honoured tradition of the Holy See. But such sentiments are considered traitorous by an official Fascist.

“ ‘Regime Fascista’ has the effrontery to charge that Jewish money from this country, has, to put it bluntly, bought the Holy Father’s solicitude for the persecuted Jewish people. The calumny is too gross to merit denial. Unwilling to recognise a noble motive, an official Fascist naturally must resort to the sordid and mercenary. Pope Pius has received money from America, of course. I can attest that very subsi antial sums have been contributed by my fellow-Catholics in the United States for the relief administered bv the Holy Father in favour of the persecuted and war sufferers of all races and countries. These dollars were contributed by our citizens of every condition, rich and poor, because they recognised in Pius XII the character and spirit of the vicar of Christ.

“An American who loves Italy and the Italian people grieves over such Fascist attacks against the Holy Father and the Church. Has it come to the point where a leading Italian Fascist and influential editor, seemingly with Government consent, finds it expedient to ape the clumsy, unscrupulous propaganda methods of the Nazis? More particularly are we witnessing a borrowing of the ‘technique’ of the Nazi master of the German people who wrote that ‘all propaganda has to adapt its spiritual level to the perception of the least intelligent of those towards whom it intends to direct itself,’ and counselled insistence on a propaganda point even if it is not in accordance with the real facts?

“If the Government of Italy has descended so low as to countenance such calumnies, regardless of its solemn agreement to respect the Holy See and the person of the Holy Father, then indeed, may admirers of Italy’s history and people mourn.”