THE HOLY FATHER AND PEACE

New Zealand Tablet, 6 April 1916, Page 13

THE HOLY FATHER AND PEACE

■ — Rev. R. J. Campbell, late of the ; City Temple, London, in an sj article which he contributes to the Illustrated Sunday Herald ’ for January 23, writes: Is it impossible to hope for a high-souled concentration of the . energies of . Christendom .-upon the design of putting an end to warfare between civilised States? [When the present devastating struggle is over shall we -not all be in the mood to listen to some such proposal ? Broadly speaking, the .nations coming within , the pale •of International .Law . are ' the .so-called ,Christian nations. . Japan r, was not included until a few years back. « Cannot we utilise the tremendous spiritual force involved in .the Christian 1 sentiment of these nations to put a stop for ever to the use of violence, so wasteful, wanton, and wicked, in the settlement of international disputes, and the prosecution of international. rivalries ? To be sure we can if we want to. And the Pop© is the most fitting personage to take the : lead in virtue of the peculiar position he holds in the Western world. ' • . : ' Protestants were invited to the Council of Trent, the most important General Council of the Church since primitive "times. - Why ’ not invite' them again, not to a General Council, but to something even more comprehensive r convoked on a specific issue ? Could the Pope be got to do it as soon as the war is over? No one could charge him with pro-Germanism then, and it would not matter a button if they did. His personal opinions would not be in question. . To Make a ;World Conflict Impossible. What the assembly would be expected to do would be to place on record its abhorrence of war between Christian Powers and to pledge itself to bring all reasonable pressure to bear upon civilised Governments and peoples to render a world conflict like the present impossible for . all time to come. We should have had our lesson by then and be more than disposed to listen to the appeal. ■. There is not a Church in Christendom that would not join in it through its appointed representatives. And the vast conference thus convened would 'not end in smoke. As the outcome of it there might be a tribunal established more authoritative arid effective than that of The Hague, to say no more. .. Perhaps we should get even further than that in, shall we say, the direction of adjusting our religious differences too and unifying civilisation once, more on that basis. Why not ? The like has been done before, . not so thoroughly perhaps, but to a large extent. We owe the mitigation of the horrors of modern warfare to it. It was Church councils in the tenth century that forbade the spoliation and. maltreatment of non-com-batants.- And who has not heard of the Truce of God throughout the Middle Ages, whereby hostilities were limited to what was practically about three months in the year ? . There , was -to be no fighting from Wednesday evening to Monday morning in any one week, and there were special seasons, such as Lent, when there was to be none at all. Think of that to-day! We have lost inrsome ways if we have gained in others by our boasted material advance in the past few generations. .• . . . '■ -.v - v . , c'. Opinion: at the Vatican Early in 1914. . When I was in Rome in the early spring of .1914 I discussed the above subject ~ (with special reference to the reduction of ' armaments) with a highly-placed dignitary of the Papal Court, and found him . not unsympathetic but more than doubtful, of success until a big war had taken place. He might have forseen what was coming, so truly did he describe the. terrible, situation in ; which we find ourselves at this moment. • ■ Governments‘ would ' not listen .to /any’ such repre- ; sentation, he said, even if backed : by the i suffrages: of all; the Christian societies on earth, until, the arbitrament brute force had been tried once more/ ’ * They have not been piling up armaments all these years for,, noth- ■. ing, arid!the explosion .must soon come. . ’ :r’

‘ Moreover, Mie added, ‘ this is the outcome of the false ideals £ by:, which the nations have been living. Politics ,are non-moral. Conscience is left out. of them! The very men who' in their .? private : lives : are amiable and. exemplary will, the moment they enter the bureau from which they exercise their functions as statesmen, divest themselves of all . scruples and behave without consideration for anything but the material interests of the particular country they happen to serve. It is all very sordid-and very grievous; and there is a period of great tribulation ahead of us. After that perhaps something may be _ done on the’, lines you suggest. The Holy Father would take the-first opportunity he could find if he saw any good likely to come of it.’