POPE’S POSITION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 27 September 1943, Page 5

POPE’S POSITION

PRISONER IN VATICAN NO POSITIVE OR CONCRETE METHOD OF HELP New York, Sept. 26. The first authoritative confirmation that the Pope is held prisoner in the Vatican is given by Archbishop Spellman, says the New York “Sunday News.” “The Pope’s position is most difficult,” said Dr Spellman. “Like St. Peter he is a prisoner and not free to communicate with his archbishops throughout the world. We have no positive or concrete way of helping h.-m According to the London correspondent of the “New York Times” the British Minister to the Vatican, Mr Osborne and the American representative, Mr Tittman, are communicating fairly regularly with their governments but the Germans are determined to halt the practice. The paper, speculating on the political consequences of the fall of the Vatican, points out that it would not be as drastic as centuries' ago since the nations most shocked —Italy, France and Spain—are least able to do anything, and adds that high Catholics in London estimate that reaction would be sharpest next in French Canada, South America and Australia, with dismay and anger voiced in Britain and America. London, Sept. 24. The Pope intends to constitute himself a voluntary prisoner by re-estab-lishing the conditions which prevailed before the Lateran Treaty of 1939. Till the Lateran Treaty was signed no Pope had left the Vatican City since 1870, this being in protest against the entry of King Victor Emmanuel ITs troops into Rome and the conquest of the last of the Papacy’s temporal possessions.