DENUNCIATION BY POPE

Waikato Times, Volume 123, Issue 20635, 22 October 1938, Page 7

DENUNCIATION BY POPE

STRONG WARNING TO HITLER NAZI POLICY TOWARDS CATHOLICS CONDEMNED ATTEMPT TO CRUSH CHURCH WILL END IN DISASTER {Untied Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) (Received Oct. 22, 11.25 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 21 The Rome correspondent of the British United Press says it is learned that the Pope most severely denounced the Nazi policy towards the Roman Catholics, when giving an audience to the International Congress of Christian Archaeologists. The speech is described as one of the strongest the Pope has delivered, so strong that the officials hesitated to publish the text, fearing it would irritate the Nazi leaders and cause great excesses. The Pope is reported to have used the demonstrations against Cardinal Innitzer as the text for scathing denunciation and condemnation. It is also implied that he warned Herr Hitler that an attempt to crash the Church would either fail or end in disaster. He recalled that Bismark abandoned “Kultur” owing to its inanity and the fall of Napoleon was due to the brutal persecution of Pope Pius VII. Reuter’s Rome correspondent says the speech has caused a sensation in Vatican circles. A report based on the notes of a prelate who was present disclose that His Holiness declared that terrible persecution, which daily was becoming more audacious and serious, was occurring in countries not far from Rome, recalling the sinister failure of Julian the Apostate, whose persecution was of the bloodiest, cruellest and most subtle. “My sorrow is profound, both as Pope and man, to see human dignity betrayed as by Julian and Judas Iscariot,” said the Pope. “We see hegemony seeking more or less to extend world-wide, and we ask what Providence has in store for us.” He added, with a 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 shall follow as long as God allows.”