RACIALISM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 190, 13 August 1938, Page 9

RACIALISM

POPE’S REMARKS WRONGLY REPORTED STIR IN GERMANY (By Telegraph—Presa Association—Copy tight; Received Aug. 12, 6.5 p.m. LONDON, Aug. 11. The Osservatore Romano strongly protests against an interpretation placed on the Pope's recent remarks concerning racialism, “especially in Italian and German papers which have never reported a single word of his address.’’ (Only a very scanty report reached London). The Osservator Romano says: “The Pope did not condemn two distinct racialisms. He did not say that Italian developments in the racial Held so far had been copies (from Germany), nor, as far as the Jewish question is concerned, did the reasoning or spirit of his address descend to the 'details which some people have dared to attribute to it.” A long quotation is then given from an article in the Swiss newspaper La Liberte, published at Freiburg, which explains the object of the Pope's address. This was to point out the dangers of the kind of racialism which creates divisions among the great family of human beings. Signor Mussolini’s original idea of the race which inspired, for instance, his efforts to preserve racial purity in Abyssinia, was not, according to the Freiburg newspaper, the kind of racialism which aroused the Pope’s anxiety. Christian Dissension. The Vienna correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says that the Pope's announcement that the human race is one family and the prompt retort by Fascists and Nazis that it is not has caused dissension among people who regard themselves as still Christians. Nazi journals publish pages of pictures with the object of refuting the Pope’s declaration by contrasting Aryans and Jews and the white and coloured peoples. Cardinal Innitzer refrains from public utterances, but it is known that he is trying to make a compromise between the Nazi principles of race purification and the Sermon on the Mount. His conclusions, when made known, will be received with the keenest interest throughout the world. The Catholic Church in Austria, the correspondent states, is already half-paralysed. Monks and nuns arc rarely seen in the streets, and priests must submit, to the Nazi domination in their parishes. Vast religious properties are being gradually confiscated, like those of Jews. No Nazi speaker ever refers to God or Christ, but only to Providence. Devout Catholics are shocked to see caricatures of the Pope in newspapers and magazines and comments which formerly were inconceivable in Austria. The Rome correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says that Fascist party officials told several Jewish business men that they cannot consider themselves active members of their syndicates. This is believed to foreshadow the ostracism of Jews from Fascist life. A message Loin Rome on July 29 stated that the Pope strongly condemned racial and nationalistic doctrines, declaring: “Why should Italy feel the necessity for disgracefully imitating Germany? Too many people forget that human beings are of one universal race. Catholicism means universality, but. not of doctrines of race and nationalism.”