CARDINAL MERCIER DEAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19234, 25 January 1926, Page 9

CARDINAL MERCIER DEAD.

THE HERO OF MALINES. NOBLE BELGIAN PATRIOT. DEFIANCE OF THE INVADERS. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received 5.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z. LONDON, Jan. 23. A message from Brussels announces the death of Cardinal Mercier, whose championship of the Belgians during the Great War made him famous as " the hero of Malines." ' Cardinal Mercier realised that his end was approaching and summoned his servants, whom he joined in prayers for the dying. The Observer says the name of Cardinal Mercier will live in history as the undaunted champion of Belgian rights against the oppression and outrage of the German invasion.

Desire Felicien Francois Joseph Mercier was Lorn in November, 1851, at a small chateau at Braitfe L'Alleud, near Malines. His father, who came of a good family, was an artist. In 1870 he entered the Malines Seminary to bo trained for the priesthood and was ordained in .1874. He then pursued his studies at the University of Louvain, afterwards becoming lecturer on philosophy at the Malines Seminary, and in 1882 at Louvain itself. In the same year he was made an honorary canon of Malines and in 1886 Domestic Prelate to the Pope. As director of the philosophical faculty of Louvain University he published several notable works on philosophy. In 1906 ho succeeded Cardinal Goossens as archbishop of Malines and Primus of Belgium, and a year later he was elected to the College of Cardinals by the Consistory. Throughout the four years of the occupation of Belgium by the German troops during Fhe world war Cardinal Mercier was the heart and soul of the moral resistance of the Belgians. Step by step he fought with the German Governors, Von Bissing and Von Falkenhausen, for the last remnants of Belgian independence. There were two, and only two, positions which a churchman of Cardinal Mercier s rank and authority could have taken in 1914 when the Germans first crossed the Belgian border. He could have clung to his non-national character as. a Prince of the Church of Rome, kept out of the strife, avoided clashing with the invader and contented himself with caring for the physical needs of his parishioners. Or he could have proclaimed the ties that bound him to the land of his birth, made himself a shield and buckler of his people, and cared for and strengthened the spirit that would keep his and their honour glorious and unstained in the face of oppression and subversion. The stand he was to take was clearly indicated in December, 1914, in his famous Christmas pastoral issued under the title of " Patriotism and Endurance." In this he protested strongly against the cruelties inflicted on the Belgian population, but recommended submission to the authorities in everything that was just. The' result was that the cardinal, who had hoped to get his message into Bavaria, where the Catholic population would be inclined to believe what a Prince of the Church would say, was treated as a prisoner Tor four days by General Baron von Bissing, then military governor of Belgium. '1 hough other indignities followed, Von Bissing attempted to bring about a conciliation with the cardinal, and sent him a letter pointing out that their personal relations, while not cordial, had not been unpleasant. This was the reply sent by the cardinal: —"General von Bissing.—There have been, as you say, good personal relations between yourself and me. Bat that does not buy my own or my country's honour." Nearly a year after he had written his Christmas pastoral Cardinal Mercier throw a bomb into the very midst of the enemy's camp by sending a direct appeal to "Their Eminences the Cardinals and Their Lordships the Bishops of Germany, Bavaria and Austria-Hungary." The document was entitled "An Appeal to Iruth. In this the cardinal was joined by the bishops of Ghent, Bruges, Namur and Liege and bv the Bishop-Designate of Tournai. "While Von Bissing was still fuming with anger at this insult to the authority of the " Most High, with anger the impotence of which might any day be translated*into vigorous action, his defier wrote again in a Lenten pastoral for 1916:—"We shall win, though we are not yet at 1 the end of our sufferings. Our future is not in doubt.' One of Cardinal Mercier's most famous messages was published under tho title " The Voice of God." It was a heartening message to his people, bidding them hold fast to the verities. One passage has been widely quoted: " We cannot exclude any from our prayers, even our enemies; but Christian theology teaches us to graduate our affections. Give your best affection, says Thomas Aquinas, to your relatives, your compatriots, those who do good to you." In October, 1916, when the deportations . reached their height, Cardinal Mercier addressed a formal protest to General von Bissing. The latter replied that the deportations would be continued. So the cardinal went on to the end of the war, never losing his faith, and always able to say _ a word that heartened his people, and in doing so incurred the wrath of the invaders. But still they could do nothing with him. They realised that the whole Catholic world would be outraged by any indignity to his person, or, as sometimes was suggested, real violence,. When the war was over the cardinal undertook a propaganda tour in America. There he collected a large sum of money, part of which went to the rebuilding of Louvain University destroyed by the German troops, and the rest to the relief of distress, etc. In April, 1924, he celebrated his jubilee as a priest. He had also taken part in conferences with representatives of a section of the Anglican Church with the idea of bringing about a reunion with Rome. '