IN HUMANITY TO JEWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 September 1942, Page 3

IN HUMANITY TO JEWS

REPORTED PAPAL MESSAGE

TO PETAIN.

SAID TO BE CAUSING UNEASINESS.

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) NEW YORK, September 9. It is semi-officially reported that the Pope is personally sending a message to Marshal Petain and has approved of the initiative of the French cardinals and bishops in favour of the Jews He has also requested Petain's personal intervention “to prevent a continuation of the wave cf horror on the soil of Christian France,” says the “New York Times” Berne correspondent. Simultaneously, reports from France reveal a general feeling of uneasiness because the Vatican protest has ciea<.ed a different situation for the Government. Devout Catholics who hitherto wore Petain’s most reliable supporters, are resenting official anti-Jewish persecutions. Even the French Legion, which Petain regarded as the bulwark of his Government, is becoming luke-warm and will be reorganised. Observers in Vichy suy that Laval is fully aware of these sentiments and is therefore striving gradually to eliminate from public positions all those practising tolerance. .