POPE’ DENOUNCES NAZI POLICY

Southland Times, Issue 23647, 24 October 1938, Page 8

POPE’ DENOUNCES NAZI POLICY

SPEECH IN SCATHING

TERMS

OUTCOME OF PREVIOUS TYRANNIES RECALLED

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) LONDON, October 21. It is learned that the Pope most severely denounced the Nazi policy towards Roman Catholics when giving an audience to the International Congress of Christian Archaeologists at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence, says the Rome correspondent of the British United Press. The speech is described as one of the strongest the Pope has delivered. Indeed, it was so strong that officials hesitated before publishing the text, fearing that it would irritate the Nazi leaders and cause great excesses. The Pope is reported to have used the demonstrations against the Archbishop of Vienna (Cardinal Innitzer) as the text for a scathing denunciation and condemnation. He is also implied to have warned Herr Hitler that an attempt to crush the Church would either fail or end in disaster. The Pope recalled that Prince Bismarck abandoned his kulturkampf because of its insanity and that the fall of Napoleon was the outcome of his brutal persecution of Pope Pius VII. The Rome correspondent of' Reuters says that the speech caused a sensation in Vatican circles. A report based on the notes of a prelate who was present discloses that his Holiness declared that terrible persecution, daily becoming more audacious and serious, was occurring in countries not far from Rome. Recalling the sinister failure of Julian the Apostate, whose persecution was •the bloodiest, cruellest and most subtle, he declared: “My sorrovz is profound, both as a Pope and a man, to see human dignity betrayed' as it was by Julian and Judas Iscariot. We see a hegemony seeking more or less to extend worldwide and we ask what Providence has in store for us.”

The Pope added, with his voice shaking with emotion, and thrice repeating the word “lie”: “It is a lie to say that the Church is engaged in politics. Our politics only seek to ensure the common well-being, which we shall follow as long as God allows.” . *