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<title>mccabe04</title>
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<!--Fill in your link line for CSS and JS in the XSLT here! -->
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<h1 id="title-index">mccabe04</h1>
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<div id="conspiracy">
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<p> 28 page printout</p>
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<p> Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.</p>
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<p> This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.</p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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**** ****</p>
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<p>THE BLACK INTERNATIONAL No. 4</p>
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<p> THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
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<p> HOW MUSSOLINI AND THE YELLOW BROTHER
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GOT THEIR SHARE</p>
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<p> by Joseph McCabe</p>
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<p> HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATION
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GIRARD -- : -- KANSAS</p>
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<p> CONTENTS</p>
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<p> CHAPTERS</p>
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<p> I The Church's Record In Spain ........ 5</p>
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<p> II Enter First and Second Murders
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Under the Papal Banner ......... 11
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III Spain and the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> League ....... 16</p>
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<p> IV Papal Cowardice in Abyssinia -- And Why ... 22</p>
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<p> V The Jap Gets a Gold Medal for His
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'Chinese Incident' ............. 28</p>
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<p> I</p>
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<p> THE CHURCH'S VILE RECORD IN SPAIN</p>
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<p> Some years ago I strolled on a summer day through the drowsy
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streets of Toledo, an ancient city in the center of Spain. A
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thousand years ago it was one of the richest and most populous
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cities in Europe. More than a quarter of a million vivid,
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prosperous, bright-eyed folk had filled its narrow streets and
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bought luxuries from every part of the world in its teeming stores.
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Such was the fame of its craftsmen that the "Toledo Blade" was
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sought from end to end in Europe and is still famous in literature.
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How high Spain would have risen if men had continued to build on
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that superb foundation of that old Moorish civilization! But in
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1923 I found only 30000 folk, mostly poor and illiterate, living
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within the ancient walls; and I smiled sadly, when, as I passed
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along the almost deserted streets, a boy offered to show me where
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his ancestors had hanged "those wicked devils the Moors." It is
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worse today.</p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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.
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THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
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<p> It was the history of Spain and its Church in a phrase, Spain
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inherited all the stupendous wealth and science of the Arab
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civilization, one city of which could have bought up, ten times
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over, all the cities of Christian Europe, and to this it had added
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all the wealth it had acquired by the discovery of America. It was
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literally choking with wealth by the middle of the sixteenth
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century. And little more than a hundred years later it was the
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poorest, most despised country in the world. About 5000000 folk,
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most of them ragged and unkempt, eked out a poor living on soil
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that had given rich sustenance to 30000000 Arabs and their
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contented subjects. For this awful downfall, one of the saddest in
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history, and for all the later disasters that fell upon one of the
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most attractive peoples in Europe, the Black International is
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supremely responsible.</p>
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<p> By the beginning of the twentieth century Spain had raised its
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proud head once more amongst the nations. It had a fine literature
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and a rising prosperity. The cities that had shrunk within the
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shell of ancient walls were bursting through these in the
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exuberance of the life. The people smiled again, like the roses of
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Seville in spring. They had for 80 years fought the strangle-hold
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of the Church and had loosened if not broken it. A distinguished
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literary traveller, Thirlmere, went intimately amongst the people
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and wrote this verdict: "The Church knows that she is doomed in
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Spain" (Letters from Catalonia, 1905, p. 437). Mr. Thirlmere ought
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to have been more cautious. He ought to have added: "Unless she can
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return to her old policy of violence and torture." She has
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recovered it. Today Spain is back in the ragged Middle Ages, its
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people begging food of other nations -- in a land which, with the
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crude plows and other implements of a thousand years ago, had
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richly nourished 30000000 folk and borne princely cities -- their
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minds darkened, their hearts broken. And it is the work of the
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Black International: of the bishops, priests, monks, and nuns, who
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have returned to their old sleekness while the people have returned
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to their poverty</p>
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<p> In an earlier work I referred to certain evidence of
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government by violence, indeed brutal violence, in Spain today. It
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may not have appeared in the American press, owing to the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
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censorship, and it is material to compare it with the suave
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professions of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> apologists and the beautiful words they
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quote from Papal encyclicals. It is a simple account of the
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experiences of a French girl, apparently a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>, of nineteen
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who escaped from the purgatory of Vichy France into what she calls
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the "hell" of Franco Spain. It was published (as it makes no
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reference to the Church) in the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> News-Chronicle, a paper
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that is very sensitive to <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> influence, on September 24
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(1941).</p>
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<p> Mlle. X was arrested soon after she crossed the frontier and
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was put in jail at Badajoz. She was lodged in a large room with
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about 250 women, "an appalling mixture": prostitutes, thieves, so-called Communists, etc. "Most of the prisoners were in rags,
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filthy, and covered with vermin." There were no mattresses or
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blankets for the night. After two days she was brought before the
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Governor of Badajoz and, without trial or inquiry, sentenced to an
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indefinite term of imprisonment. She claimed that she was of
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British nationality, and a few days later, she was taken before the</p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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.
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THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
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<p>prison director: a "brute", she says, who bullied her for two
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hours, told her she was "a dirty little liar" and sent her "back to
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hell." Every evening all the prisoners were assembled in the
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courtyard and compelled to sing the <span class="ORG" title="ORG">Falangist</span> anthem and at the
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close cry lustily: "Long live Spain. Up with Free Spain. Franco,
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Franco, Franco." The jailers lashed with whips any woman who did
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not join heartily in the chorus. The girl endured several weeks of
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this and she was then taken before a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> Consul to prove her
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claim of nationality. She was removed to a jail at Seville, which
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was "worse than Badajoz" (which she describes as hell), removed
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back to Badajoz, and removed to Madrid, where she bad a solitary
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dark and freezingly cold cell; and all the time officers "tried to
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be as cruel as they could to me", jeering at her as a Communist spy
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and assuring her she would never leave Spain. These Spanish
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gentlemen had her before them standing for two to three hours every
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morning. A girl in the next cell one day cried, "Live, live,
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Liberty, Long live England". She was taken out and beaten, and
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presently there were shots in the courtyard. every day such shots
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were heard. One less of those who refused to bow to the Church.</p>
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<p> I gather that this girl was not <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span>, but the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span>
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authorities humanely lied, and admitted her claim of nationality,
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and rescued her. But think of the thousands of women and girls, and
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the tens of thousands of youths and men, suffering this living hell
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in the jails of Badajoz and Seville and Madrid and a hundred
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others, after fighting heroically for three years in the cause of
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freedom. And the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> press assures you, the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> Assures
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all the world, and far too much of the world-press repeats the
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assurance or refuses to disturb it, that Spain has now resumed its
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beautiful, happy life in the arms of Mother Church; and won't you
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please contribute for the alleviation of the misery which the
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wicked Reds had brought upon the country. So it was in the
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beginning -- or nearly 500 years ago, when the Church recovered
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power -- is now, and never again shall be. Do you really wonder if
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in the heat of the hundredth struggle against the Church in 1936-1938 some of the men who knew the long record of brutality and knew
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how the priests were using the callous and ambitious Franco to
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recover their mastery of the jails, shot a few of them and trampled
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on their 'sacred' vestments and other paraphernalia of their trade?</p>
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<p> It is nearly forty years since I began writing on Spain and
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its Church, and the truth which I told was not a collection of
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obscure and disputed facts resting upon the testimony of Radicals
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and Reds. My first scalding indictment of the Church and the
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cleric-controlled state (The Martyrdom of Ferrer, 1909) was fully
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endorsed and whole pages of it translated in the following year by
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one of the most distinguished scholars of Madrid University,
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Professor Simarro, in his voluminous study of the trial (El Proceso
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Ferrer). What I claimed for the Arab civilization (The Splendor of
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Moorish Spain 1935) is based upon the works of half a dozen Spanish
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professors who are masters of Arabic and is no more than S.P. Scott
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claims in America in his 'Moorish Empire in Spain.' And the
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appalling story I gave of the struggle with the Church since 1814
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is fully and truly told in such standard and conservative works as
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the Cambridge Modern History (Vol. XI) and Major M. Hume's 'Modem
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Spain' (in the Story of Nations series). Yet every time the long
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blood-soaked struggle is renewed in Spain the public is puzzled and
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is ready to admit every <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> lie about the innocent Church and
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its "satanic" enemies. I must repeat a few points.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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3
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.
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THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
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<p> On the broad map of our chaotic world Spain seems to be of
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limited importance. In the fevered and crowded chronicle of events
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during the last five years its recent Civil War and the conquest of
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it by that unholy alliance of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> armies and Nazi-Fascist
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butchers seems to be just the third step -- after the disarming of
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Austria and the rape of Abyssinia -- in the preparation of the
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stage for the Nazi aggression. But in a study of the share of the
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Black International in the world-tragedy it is supremely important;
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and it is to Spain, with which it hopes to link Spanish America
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once more, that the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> chiefly looks for the destruction of
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our modern liberty and enlightenment by a bloc of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> powers.</p>
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<p> As far as the last century is concerned it is not necessary
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here to do more than repeat in a more definite form what I said in
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the first book of this series: that in Spain, as in Portugal and
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Italy. "Reds" have always been the clergy and their allies. The
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revolution which put Franco in power in 1938 is the tenth major
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revolution that has occurred in Spain since the days of Napoleon.
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In six of these the people wrested power, in five cases out of six
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without war, from the clerical-royalists. Every member of the
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Bourdon dynasty of Spanish monarchs except Alfonso XII, who died
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prematurely, has been ignominiously driven from Spain for his or
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her crimes and vices at one time or other. In four counter-revolutions the clerical-royalists recovered power, either by force
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or by perjury or a mixture of the two. These four counter-revolutions, in which the Church was as busy as the state, were
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followed by official reprisals of so brutal a character that
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between 50000 and 100000 unarmed <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Spaniards</span> were executed or
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killed in jail and many hundreds of thousands suffered agonies. The
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six popular revolutions were, nevertheless, never followed by
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official reprisals, and the spontaneous local outbreaks in which
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the exploited workers burned churches and killed a few priests and
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monks were checked by the authorities.</p>
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<p> All that may be read in Hume's standard history of the
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Cambridge Modern History, I have told the relevant facts in my
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'Revolt in Spain' (1931) and given a condensed account in the
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'Appeal to Reason' Library (No. 1). There is just one point of this
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past history which I would recall, as <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> writers are now apt
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to say that all this butchery was perpetrated by the state, and
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even that the clergy tried to check it. Major Hume, the highest
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recent authority on Spain, describing the counter-revolution of
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1822, says (Modern Spain, p. 256):</p>
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<p> Modern civilization has seen no such instance of brutal,
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blind ferocity as that which followed the arrival of Ferdinand
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at Madrid. There was neither justice nor mercy in the
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government of the besotted churchmen who surrounded the King.
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The gallows was the sole instrument and argument by which they
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ruled . . . The frenzy of intolerance and cruelty spread from
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the preaching friars and ignorant nobles to the brutal mob. .
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. . It is a lamentable truth that much of the atrocities of
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this persecution was owing to the influence of the friars and
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the Church. A hideous ecclesiastical society, founded by the
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Bishop of Osuna and called "The Exterminating Angel", which
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spread its ramifications. all over Spain organized vengeance
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upon Liberals; every pulpit, every monastery, every royalist
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club, was a center of persecution.</p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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4
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.
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THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
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<p> That Hume was no friend of radicalism is shown in his remark
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that they surpassed "even the most bloodthirsty wretches of the
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French Reign of Terror", and he has to confess that the man who
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"surpassed all previous efforts, even in this blood-thirsty reign"
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was the very pious and priest-ridden Count de Espana.</p>
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<p> It is enough that these horrors were perpetrated by an
|
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intimate alliance of the clergy and the servants of a King,
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Ferdinand VII who in his depravity is compared by historians to
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Nero; and about the same time even worse butchery was being
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perpetrated in South Italy by the same alliance of the clergy with
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his namesake and rival in vice, Ferdinand of Naples. Both Kings had
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recovered power by a most solemn oath on the Bible during Mass to
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observe the Constitution -- Ferdinand of Naples had asked God to
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strike him dead if he was not sincere -- and both were absolved
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from their oaths the bishops and the Jesuits and encouraged to
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wallow in blood. Eighty years later Alfonso XIII stood at the
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perjured altar amidst the crowd of bishops and took this solemn
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oath: "I swear before God and his holy gospels to maintain the
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Constitution". And the priests were silent when the old fortress of
|
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Monjuich again resounded with the cries of tortured men and the
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reports of rifles: when Alfonso, to check the threatened revelation
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of his theft of millions of dollars -- see Alfonso XIII Unmasked,
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by the greatest Spanish writer of the time, Blasco Ibanez -- tore
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up the Constitution and set up the dictatorship of the brutal and
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dissipated General de Rivers. <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Spaniards</span> know these things. After
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the revolution of 1931 a splendid system of education was created,
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and freedom of discussion carried the truth into villages and
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workshops. Did some soldier, worker here and there, knowing these
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things and seeing the priests conspiring with the perjured Franco
|
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and the butchers of Germany, lose his temper and run his bayonet
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through one or two of them? I should not be surprised. But remember
|
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that at present we have only <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> statement's about Red
|
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outrages in the Civil War.</p>
|
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<p> We know what <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> literature is, but we have also here a
|
||
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close parallel to guide us. The world-press was inundated with
|
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similar <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> stories of Red outrages after the Socialist-Communist revolt of 1934. Fortunately, Spain had not yet passed
|
||
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completely under the control of the Black International, and,
|
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though some investigators like, Lord Listowel and Ellen Wilkinson,
|
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were obstructed at every turn and soon politely conducted to the
|
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frontier, others got through; and there were weighty and
|
||
|
|
unassailable Spanish investigations to which I will return later.
|
||
|
|
Here let me just quote an incident from Leah Manning's What I Saw
|
||
|
|
in Spain (1934).</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The mother-superioress of a convent was pressed to testify
|
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|
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that her nuns had been raped by the Red's. As it was false, she
|
||
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refused. I gather, in fact, that the only outrage committed was to
|
||
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the delicate ears of the nuns, as the insurgent miners who had
|
||
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taken over the convent as a hospital were not very refined in their
|
||
|
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talk to each other. Probably many of the nuns were disappointed. A
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<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> will reflect that here at least I confess to the honesty
|
||
|
|
of a nun. As not always admitted that there are some good men
|
||
|
|
amongst the priests and plenty of good nuns the world over! The
|
||
|
|
more important question that any impartial reader will ask himself </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
5
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>is whether this particular superioress, out of hundreds, is likely
|
||
|
|
to have been the only one to be pressed by the priests and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
journalists to make a charge of outrages and reminded that the good
|
||
|
|
of the Church is paramount.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> These stories remind us of that historian of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Russian</span>
|
||
|
|
Revolution. L. Lawton, much quoted by <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s, who tells how in
|
||
|
|
the Civil War of 1919-1921 the sadistic Bolsheviks slaughtered 1275
|
||
|
|
archbishops and bishops, when even the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Encyclopedia
|
||
|
|
confesses that there were only about 80 in the entire country. But
|
||
|
|
we will return later to these things. Let me lead up briefly to the
|
||
|
|
immediate causes of the Civil War in Spain.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> In view of its disreputable record the Bourbon dynasty was
|
||
|
|
irretrievably lost in Spain when, in 1931, Alfonso was compelled to
|
||
|
|
abdicate and fled for the frontier. For two years after that date
|
||
|
|
the opposition to the Republican government came overwhelmingly
|
||
|
|
from the Church. Municipal election's in Spain gave a little more
|
||
|
|
freedom of expression than general elections, which have been very
|
||
|
|
corrupt ever since the Conservative-Liberal alternation of crops
|
||
|
|
began to flourish in the parliamentary field. It was a striking
|
||
|
|
victory of the republicans and anti-clericals at the municipal
|
||
|
|
elections of 1931 that caused Alfonso, after a fruitless attempt to
|
||
|
|
get the army to fight for him, to tuck his tail between his legs
|
||
|
|
and run. The urban or educated <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Spaniard</span>'s had voted against, him by
|
||
|
|
three to one, and it was only in the cities that voting was free
|
||
|
|
and the counting of votes honest. Even in a pro-<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> history
|
||
|
|
like Professor E.A. Peers's 'Spanish Tragedy' (1936) we find it
|
||
|
|
admitted that there, was "gerrymandering in the country districts
|
||
|
|
on a large scale." It used to be of the pleasantries of Spanish
|
||
|
|
political life -- it is this kind of thing that gives the country
|
||
|
|
so many anarchists -- to work out the results of elections some
|
||
|
|
days before the election.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Two points about these events of ten years ago must for the
|
||
|
|
stressed for the purpose of this inquiry. The first is that during
|
||
|
|
four weeks after the popular triumph there were not even isolated
|
||
|
|
outrages. I was not then in Spain but I verified this in the
|
||
|
|
'Times,' day by day and that paper was on the alert for Red
|
||
|
|
outrages. The people knew the whole ghastly 'story of the alliance
|
||
|
|
of Church and corrupt monarchy which I have outlined and they had
|
||
|
|
just escaped from a seven years' brutal dictatorship which had been
|
||
|
|
in the closest association with the Church. Yet it was not until
|
||
|
|
the twenty-eighth day after the election that the burning of
|
||
|
|
churches and convents began.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The second point explains why groups of young workers here and
|
||
|
|
there, dodging the police (who made every effort to check them),
|
||
|
|
then began to burn convents and churches; a very shocking thing, of
|
||
|
|
course, but compare it to the official <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> reprisals of
|
||
|
|
earlier years which I described. In the Spanish illustrated papers
|
||
|
|
I saw photographs of the young incendiaries politely conducting
|
||
|
|
nuns and aged priests away from the burning buildings. Well, the
|
||
|
|
fact was that Cardinal Segura, head of the Spanish Church,
|
||
|
|
supported by his three leading archbishops, had issued a most
|
||
|
|
vituperate attack on the new government and summoned the country to
|
||
|
|
resist. He started the myth which, ridiculous as it was, the </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
6
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> press has repeated ever since, that in some mysterious way
|
||
|
|
a small minority of what he called "enemies of the Kingdom of Jesus
|
||
|
|
Christ" had won a majority at the election (when, under <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
about 12000000 votes were cast). This is still written in spite
|
||
|
|
of the fact that the election had been one of the cleanest that
|
||
|
|
Span had ever had; that in the cities, where there was little or no
|
||
|
|
corruption, the voting was three to one against the Church (Madrid
|
||
|
|
90000 to 30000; Barcelona, 90000 to 28000, and so on) and that
|
||
|
|
the Church won only in the smaller town's and villages where
|
||
|
|
"gerrymandering on a large scale" is admitted by admirers of the
|
||
|
|
Church.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Segura was driven from Spain by the national flame of
|
||
|
|
indignation, and he went to talk matters over with Pacelli-Pius at
|
||
|
|
Rome. The Spanish clergy remained free to agitate for the impending
|
||
|
|
general election, which was to ratify the verdict of the municipal
|
||
|
|
election; the establishment of a republic and the disestablishment
|
||
|
|
of the Church. The result of the general election showed that there
|
||
|
|
had been no snap-vote and no intrigue of a minority. The anti-clericals -- Liberals, Radicals, and Socialists -- won 315 seats,
|
||
|
|
the clerical-royalists 121.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The new government entered peacefully upon the work of framing
|
||
|
|
a Constitution. The Church was to be disestablished and the annual
|
||
|
|
subsidy to it abandoned; the Jesuits were to be expelled and monks
|
||
|
|
driven out of trade; divorce was to be instituted and secular
|
||
|
|
marriage recognized; 27000 new schools were to be built. The worst
|
||
|
|
sting was the confiscation of the wealth of the Jesuits and some of
|
||
|
|
the orders. A <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> prelate who (like so many priests) detested
|
||
|
|
the Jesuits and the monks, Msgr. Jose Veleda de Gunjado, had shown
|
||
|
|
that the monks and nuns had in their hands two-thirds of the money
|
||
|
|
and one-third of the real estate of Spain, yet the state had been
|
||
|
|
paying the Church annually more than it spent on education. The
|
||
|
|
elections proved that, as Azana said, Spain "had ceased to be a
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> country", and this state of things was intolerable. Month
|
||
|
|
by month the clauses of the new Constitution were carried by five
|
||
|
|
to one in the Cortes. The country was quiet, except for the shrieks
|
||
|
|
of the clergy and their dupes. The progress in education attracted
|
||
|
|
pedagogists from many lands, the prosperity of the country began to
|
||
|
|
rise, a fair progress was made with schemes of social betterment.
|
||
|
|
This in all sober history, is the regime of savagery, of
|
||
|
|
persecution of the majority by a small vicious minority, about
|
||
|
|
which you read in <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> literature.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> II</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> ENTER FIRST AND SECOND MURDERERS --
|
||
|
|
UNDER THE PAPAL BANNER</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> I have now fully vindicated what I claimed in the first book;
|
||
|
|
that the Black International, instead of having disowned the
|
||
|
|
violent and bloody policy of earlier years, still pursued it in the
|
||
|
|
one country, apart from Poland, where it was able to do so. I was
|
||
|
|
in the Canaries, returning from Australia, just after the Church
|
||
|
|
and King had set up the brutal General de Rivera as dictator in
|
||
|
|
1923, and men showed me where the pavement had been reddened with
|
||
|
|
the blood of anti-clericals. I was in Spain next year and saw the </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
7
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>country cowering under the Dictator and the clergy smiling and
|
||
|
|
richer than ever. This continued until 1931; and we saw that the
|
||
|
|
anti-clericals in spite of the red record of the Church clung to
|
||
|
|
their tradition of humanity in their triumph.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> This makes it all the more necessary to inquire closely how
|
||
|
|
the country fell back into the clutches of the Black International.
|
||
|
|
You know the theory of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> press; in fact, at the time the
|
||
|
|
theory of almost the whole American press. The <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> nation, it
|
||
|
|
said, was roused to a consciousness of its enslavement by a small
|
||
|
|
Red minority, and Hitler and Mussolini merely helped it to express
|
||
|
|
itself. This is made more comical sometimes by calling the wicked
|
||
|
|
minority "Communists". The Spanish Communists were so small a body
|
||
|
|
that they had only one representative in the 300 deputies of the
|
||
|
|
Left coalition in the Cortes! I may add that they had leaders of
|
||
|
|
high culture and character and often rendered humane service during
|
||
|
|
the war.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> If you want a common-sense view of the tragedy in a few words
|
||
|
|
consider first the composition of the anti-clerical coalition. Most
|
||
|
|
of the deputies returned to the Cortes were Liberals (145) and
|
||
|
|
Radicals or Radical-Socialists (56). It is one of the painful but
|
||
|
|
inevitable facts of the struggle of democracy since 1848 that
|
||
|
|
whenever such a coalition as this wins a victory it splits up as
|
||
|
|
soon as constructive work begins. Liberalism, which had to that
|
||
|
|
time a very fine record in Spain, was still very powerful in the
|
||
|
|
cities, but it now had to face, as allies, a larger body of
|
||
|
|
Socialists, Communists, Syndicalists, and Anarchists. These had
|
||
|
|
been brought up in a tradition of hatred of the middle-class, and
|
||
|
|
in any case a split on the proposal to pass even moderately
|
||
|
|
collectivist legislation was inevitable. And the more advanced
|
||
|
|
workers, full of the mischievous principle that the proletariat
|
||
|
|
needs no help from any other class, were by no means averse to
|
||
|
|
irritating the Liberals. Government became very unstable and was
|
||
|
|
often changed. The Liberals, we shall see, for the most part
|
||
|
|
deserted the coalition against the Church, and their leader,
|
||
|
|
Lerroux, a grand fighter (as friends of his told me) in the
|
||
|
|
nineteenth century, but now a weakling, is strongly suspected of
|
||
|
|
accepting <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> bribes.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Further, the radical rump was composed of four mutually
|
||
|
|
antagonistic parties. The Anarchists, whose main principle was that
|
||
|
|
central government s always corrupt -- it always had been in Spain
|
||
|
|
-- and the Syndicalists, who wanted the chief functions of state
|
||
|
|
transferred to the unions (syndicates), would not vote at
|
||
|
|
parliamentary elections until it was too late. In 1934 a Socialist
|
||
|
|
government (or largely Socialist) had to crush a revolt got up by
|
||
|
|
these elements and the Communists. We shall see what happened, but,
|
||
|
|
while the existence of these masses of Anarchists and syndicalists
|
||
|
|
who did not vote makes the anti-clerical majority in 1931 even
|
||
|
|
larger than the election-returns make it, they were an element of
|
||
|
|
great danger until they agreed to form a Frente Popular (Popular
|
||
|
|
Front). It was then too late.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> A third point is of almost equal importance. With that noble
|
||
|
|
un-wisdom into which enthusiasts have so often driven advanced
|
||
|
|
governments the Socialists prematurely granted female suffrage. Not
|
||
|
|
only were there in Spain 500000 more women than men but Spanish </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
8
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>Liberals had, for selfish reasons, made the same blunder as the
|
||
|
|
French and resisted the modern movement for the emancipation of
|
||
|
|
women. They left them to the priests; and the priests raised their
|
||
|
|
neurotic mixture of thwarted sex and religion to fever heat in 1934
|
||
|
|
and 1935. There must have been smiles in Pacelli's gilded chambers
|
||
|
|
when the "Bolsheviks" enfranchised the women. Woman's place is the
|
||
|
|
home, except when her vote is of value the Church.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Meantime the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s got a leader, Gil Robles, of just the
|
||
|
|
type that was fitted to take advantage of such a situation. Imagine
|
||
|
|
Hearst and a Jesuit rolled into one. The Church was then organizing
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Action everywhere, or getting its lay members to do work
|
||
|
|
(intrigue, journalism, bribery, intimidation. etc.) which the
|
||
|
|
public might not allow the priests to do. Robles, Jesuit-trained,
|
||
|
|
robust and unscrupulous, was a newspaper-owner, and he introduced
|
||
|
|
a new strident note into <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> papers. With funds supplied by
|
||
|
|
the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> millionaire, Juan March, and the Church, he began to
|
||
|
|
organize "<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Youth"; with a leaven of the sort of scum that
|
||
|
|
Mussolini had attracted in Italy and Hitler in Germany. People
|
||
|
|
began to hear of <span class="ORG" title="ORG">Falangist</span>s, which is much the same as Fascists, or
|
||
|
|
Soldiers. The prospect, of a fight gives pep to any creed.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> In 1933 the Constitution was passed, and the government
|
||
|
|
appealed to the country; and a wave of enthusiasm swept over the
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> world when it was announced that the Right had won 207
|
||
|
|
seats, the Left only 99 (including one Communist), and the wobbling
|
||
|
|
Center (Liberals) 167. It was not explained that the Right now
|
||
|
|
included 150 Agrarians sent by peasants amongst whom the late
|
||
|
|
government had promised to divide the confiscated religious
|
||
|
|
property and had been too slow about it, or that women now had the
|
||
|
|
vote. Robles knew that there had been no change of heart, and he
|
||
|
|
worked harder and more unscrupulously than ever. He drew Carlists
|
||
|
|
and royalists into his camp and encouraged the kind of rowdyism
|
||
|
|
that Mussolini had found attractive in Italy. He won Lerroux -- one
|
||
|
|
hopes that it was not by money -- and the Liberals split. Against
|
||
|
|
the agreement of Liberals and Socialists three <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s were
|
||
|
|
planted in the cabinet, and the more radical workers began to
|
||
|
|
collect arms to meet a Liberal-Fascist coup. Lerroux became Premier
|
||
|
|
and declared the country in a state of war, and the workers of the
|
||
|
|
north raised the flag of revolt.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> It was the usual pathetic failure. Addressing a large meeting
|
||
|
|
organized by the Communists in London at the beginning of the Civil
|
||
|
|
War, I had to listen to one of the leading Communist speakers
|
||
|
|
predicting that the victory of democracy was certain, because she
|
||
|
|
had just heard that the government had served out rifles to the
|
||
|
|
workers. Rifles -- and to untrained men -- in an age of tanks,
|
||
|
|
planes, and big guns! When will such people cease to think about
|
||
|
|
the barricades of 1848 or even about the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Russian</span> revolution of 1918
|
||
|
|
with its unique conditions? The poor men made a heroic fight, but
|
||
|
|
Foreign Legionaries and Moors were brought over and the peasant-regiments of the army on which the clergy could rely were used. The
|
||
|
|
chief result was to accelerate the withdrawal of Liberals and give
|
||
|
|
more color to the clerical cry of bloody Bolshevism.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
9
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Still the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s were far from having won Spain. Robles
|
||
|
|
called for the execution of leaders of the revolt, and the
|
||
|
|
government refused. Very promptly, as we shall see, <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Spaniards</span> of
|
||
|
|
great authority and integrity had established that the stories of
|
||
|
|
Red outrages were fabrications and that real and disgusting
|
||
|
|
outrages had been committed by the Moorish troops, the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
Civil Guards, and even by religious communities. But Robles got the
|
||
|
|
post of Minister of War, and Franco, Queips de Llano, and other
|
||
|
|
tools of the priests, were appointed to commanding positions in the
|
||
|
|
army.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> In view of the seriousness of the situation, all radical
|
||
|
|
parties, united in a Popular Front, and at the election of
|
||
|
|
February, 1935, they -- though it is evident that at least more
|
||
|
|
than a million Anarchists and syndicalists still refused to vote --
|
||
|
|
proved that the educated Spanish people remained, in spite of all
|
||
|
|
the scares, anti-clerical. Robles's Right coalition won 165 seats,
|
||
|
|
the Liberals -- those that remained republican and anti-clerical --
|
||
|
|
52, and the Left, 256. Azana, the able Radical-Socialist leader,
|
||
|
|
became Premier.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> This last free expression of the will of the Spanish people is
|
||
|
|
important because not only <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> writers, but the press and
|
||
|
|
foreign statesmen, generally represented it as a victory for the
|
||
|
|
Right. This was done by a sophistical, indeed dishonest, quotation
|
||
|
|
of the votes cast instead of the seats won. <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> statesmen often
|
||
|
|
gave this as an excuse for their scandalous protection of the
|
||
|
|
intervention of the Germans and Italians. The vote's cast for
|
||
|
|
deputies of the Right were 4750000; for those of the Left,
|
||
|
|
4536000. But apart from the fact that women now voted -- and aged
|
||
|
|
nuns were carried to the polling station in litters -- and that the
|
||
|
|
Right coalition included Agrarians and Liberals who hated the
|
||
|
|
Church but dreaded Communism, we have not only to add the Liberal
|
||
|
|
vote (340000) to the Left votes as far as the Church is concerned
|
||
|
|
but to take into account its immense number of Anarchists and
|
||
|
|
Syndicalists who still did not vote. It is enough to say that,
|
||
|
|
although no election was ever more fiercely contested, of a total
|
||
|
|
electorate of 12548000, less than 10000000 voted.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Broadly speaking, in any case, it was a scare-election, like
|
||
|
|
that which put Hitler in power in Germany. There was no longer a
|
||
|
|
clear-cut issue on the question of supporting the Church. The
|
||
|
|
tremendous fall in the Liberal vote sufficiently shows this. It was
|
||
|
|
a popular slogan of Freethinkers of the last century and the early
|
||
|
|
years of this that the destruction of superstition is "the greatest
|
||
|
|
of all causes." But when the economic issue was raised it was
|
||
|
|
discovered -- in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, and Spanish
|
||
|
|
America -- that the defense of the chance to make a fortune (which
|
||
|
|
not one in a thousand had any effective chance of making) was a
|
||
|
|
still greater cause. Let not the opponents of "the bloody
|
||
|
|
bourgeois" crow. In most countries they made a similar blunder in
|
||
|
|
abandoning the traditional Socialist fight against the Church. It
|
||
|
|
was, they said, converted; and it smiles today over spacious
|
||
|
|
cemeteries of their dead. Reform has to be won by concentrated
|
||
|
|
movements, but they must be united in an ideal that all reaction
|
||
|
|
must die.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
10
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> These facts and reflections give the answer to the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
cry, which was lamentably accepted in the world at large, during
|
||
|
|
the Civil War, that the Spanish people had repented of the hasty
|
||
|
|
enthusiasm of 1931 and 1932, or had discovered that it had been
|
||
|
|
duped, that the Franco-Mussolini-Hitler combine was a force of
|
||
|
|
liberation. The Spanish people did not vote on the same issues in
|
||
|
|
1931 and 1935, and they were in large part not the same votes.
|
||
|
|
There were the women, who had been left to the priests because this
|
||
|
|
was supposed to help to keep them chaste while their husbands had
|
||
|
|
mistresses's or frequented brothels, and there was a new generation
|
||
|
|
of voters of the age to which Robles and the priests particularly
|
||
|
|
appealed.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> But the chief fact to bear in mind is that the election-figures themselves testify that the country was still in the
|
||
|
|
majority anti-Papal. The 4750000 votes cast for the Church
|
||
|
|
candidates, swollen by seared Liberals, disgruntled agrarians,
|
||
|
|
credulous dupes of outrage-stories, etc., were little more than
|
||
|
|
one-third of the electorate, or of the adult Spanish people. And,
|
||
|
|
like Hitler's push in 1932, it was a supreme effort. Other means
|
||
|
|
had to be sought, and the forces of the Right began at once to
|
||
|
|
organize them.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> (and at that time general) theory is that, seeing
|
||
|
|
the tide flow against them, the Reds began to murder their
|
||
|
|
opponents and plunge the country in an anarchy from which it had to
|
||
|
|
be saved. We have just the same plea in the case of Italy and the
|
||
|
|
glorification of Mussolini as its savior, and Professor Salvemini
|
||
|
|
has patiently and thoroughly proved that it is a tissue of lies.
|
||
|
|
What exactly happened in Spain we do not know. The confusion of the
|
||
|
|
Civil War, which soon opened, prevented any dispassionate Study of
|
||
|
|
the events which had immediately preceded it, and we can no more be
|
||
|
|
asked to accept statements about those events which were made under
|
||
|
|
the Franco regime than we can be asked to pay serious attention to
|
||
|
|
Fascist legends about Mussolini's early struggle and his thousands
|
||
|
|
of Fascist martyrs.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> But so much is reliably known that even Professor Peers, the
|
||
|
|
pro-<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> author of 'The Spanish Tragedy,' speaks of "an
|
||
|
|
epidemic of murder by gunmen, for at least some of which there was
|
||
|
|
an uncomfortably and rapidly growing suspicion that Fascism was
|
||
|
|
mainly responsible (p. 195). The phrase is inimitably professorial.
|
||
|
|
In the two chief incidents which were made the pretext for the
|
||
|
|
revolt the evidence is clear enough. A group of leading Socialists
|
||
|
|
coming out of a building in Madrid were shot down by gunmen. Can
|
||
|
|
there be a moment's serious doubt to which party the gunmen
|
||
|
|
belonged or by which they were hired? This led to the retaliatory
|
||
|
|
murder of a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
<span class="ORG" title="ORG">Falangist</span> leader, and we shall equally not
|
||
|
|
hesitate to judge to which party the murderers belonged. Frango at
|
||
|
|
once declared that the country must be delivered and organized his
|
||
|
|
mercenaries, the Moors and Foreign Legionaries.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Robles had got Franco appointed to the command in Morocco
|
||
|
|
where he had under his hand the force, which, as experience in the
|
||
|
|
revolt of 1934 had proved, could be relied upon to fight, and fight
|
||
|
|
brutally for its paymaster whatever the merits of the cause. In the
|
||
|
|
south of Spain, which is much more <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> (largely for business </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
11
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>reasons) than the Madrid and Barcelona regions, the command was
|
||
|
|
given to the brutal and fanatical <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Queipo de Llano, the
|
||
|
|
Spanish gentleman, who, in a broadcast from Seville during the war,
|
||
|
|
said that they would pound up the Bolsheviks to make mortar for the
|
||
|
|
rebuilding of the churches. As many more <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> officers as
|
||
|
|
possible had been put in the higher commands in the army and navy.
|
||
|
|
Few of them had more military ability than Franco and de Llano, but
|
||
|
|
they were <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>'s, at least in profession.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> This had been done while Robles, the friend of the Jesuits,
|
||
|
|
was Minister of War (May to December, 1935), a year before Franco,
|
||
|
|
on July 19, 1936, led his noble band of crusaders for the Holy
|
||
|
|
Faith, the half-savage and fanatically Moslem Moors and the scum of
|
||
|
|
the Foreign Legion, across the straits to the South of Spain, where
|
||
|
|
his fellow-conspirators waited, No serious writer hesitates to
|
||
|
|
conclude that it was done in preparation for a revolt against the
|
||
|
|
government and Constitution to which these Spanish gentlemen had,
|
||
|
|
and like Alfonso the Great, taken an oath of loyalty. The
|
||
|
|
government leaders, in fact said, when the rebellion broke out,
|
||
|
|
that they were fully aware of the plot and did not fear it. They
|
||
|
|
believed that the far greater part of the Spanish army was loyal,
|
||
|
|
and this proved to be the case in Madrid and many other places.
|
||
|
|
Their conduct seems feeble and incompetent unless we suppose that
|
||
|
|
they regarded a revolt, which they would certainly defeat, as an
|
||
|
|
opportunity to destroy the growing menace of the <span class="ORG" title="ORG">Falangist</span>s.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The early course of the war fairly justifies that expectation.
|
||
|
|
and one cannot say that they ought to have foreseen that Italy and
|
||
|
|
Germany would play the part of the First and Second Murderers.
|
||
|
|
Careful attention to Franco's pilgrimages to Berlin and Rome in
|
||
|
|
1936 might have warned them but we must admit that no one would
|
||
|
|
have expected France and Britain to look on placidly, and even give
|
||
|
|
most vital assistance, while German and Italian troops butchered
|
||
|
|
the heroic Spanish people and even, as in the bombing of Guernica,
|
||
|
|
coldly gave their airmen practice for the coming war on France and
|
||
|
|
Britain. </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> In the case of France <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> influence counted very
|
||
|
|
materially. We shall see in a later book how close at this time was
|
||
|
|
the cooperation between the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> and what it called "the
|
||
|
|
government of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Jews</span> and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Freemasons</span>." For the shame and hypocrisy of
|
||
|
|
Britain's action, there is no excuse. The so-called Committee for
|
||
|
|
the Protection of Non-Intervention in Spain ought frankly to have
|
||
|
|
been called the Committee for the Protection of Intervention. The
|
||
|
|
very moderate supply of arms by distant Russia -- and even this
|
||
|
|
began only after the Italian intervention -- was made an excuse for
|
||
|
|
condoning the massive and indispensable assistance of Italy and
|
||
|
|
Germany. Nearer the truth was the plea that Mussolini "Could not
|
||
|
|
afford to see a Communist state established so near to Italy".
|
||
|
|
These French and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> statesmen know now, to their cost, how
|
||
|
|
little they could afford to see a Fascist state created in Span.
|
||
|
|
But the plain truth which illumines the whole of that dark and
|
||
|
|
ghastly and stupid period of preparation, is that they did not want
|
||
|
|
to see a Socialist state set up anywhere, and, with all their
|
||
|
|
hypocritical professions, they murder the Spanish people, although
|
||
|
|
their Foreign Offices must have known that Communism was the
|
||
|
|
weakest element in the Frente Popular and there was no question of
|
||
|
|
following the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Russian</span> political model in Spain.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
12
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> III</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> SPAIN AND THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Whether or no Pacelli-Pius had from the start a further
|
||
|
|
intention than the restoration of the Church in Spain he clearly
|
||
|
|
saw it in time as part of a larger plan. For Mussolini, the
|
||
|
|
conquest of Spain was, part of his design of securing mastery of
|
||
|
|
the Mediterranean and cutting one of the main arteries of the
|
||
|
|
British Empire. For Hitler it was the removal of a possible menace
|
||
|
|
to his conquest of France and the possession of a bridge to Africa
|
||
|
|
when the time came to enslave the Italians as well as the French.
|
||
|
|
Blinded by their anti-Socialist zeal, no English statesman foresaw
|
||
|
|
this and realized of what enormous value to them in the coming
|
||
|
|
struggle against Fascism a democratic Spain would be. Pacelli
|
||
|
|
shared their "sacred fury" against Socialism, but the course of
|
||
|
|
events now gave him the plan of a bloc or League of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Powers
|
||
|
|
by which he hopes to counteract Germany even if it is victorious,
|
||
|
|
and in any case to, in his own words, counterbalance the influence
|
||
|
|
of the American and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> branches of his Church.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> There is no need to wait for the tranquil post-war days to
|
||
|
|
get a just estimate of the action of the Black International in
|
||
|
|
Spain. Even if there were not a scrap of documentary evidence no
|
||
|
|
one with even an elementary of the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> and of modern Spanish
|
||
|
|
history could daub that the plot was concerted and carried out in
|
||
|
|
the closest cooperation with the Church, which would gain most of
|
||
|
|
all by the success of the revolt.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> But there is plenty of evidence: not evidence of a secret
|
||
|
|
plot, but of the most open and enthusiastic support of the rebels
|
||
|
|
by the Spanish Church and the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>. There was nothing secret
|
||
|
|
about it. Whether Franco in his visit to Rome before the revolt
|
||
|
|
apprised Pacelli of his plans and asked the Papal blessing --
|
||
|
|
remember that this is just what the Irish rebels had done in 1916
|
||
|
|
-- does not matter. He was in the closest touch with the hierarchy
|
||
|
|
in Spain and as he raised the flag of revolt (and perjury) all the
|
||
|
|
Spanish bishops but three, who were in a delicate Position.
|
||
|
|
declared for him. Every priest and every convent welcomed the
|
||
|
|
rebels as they came along and helped them. It would be very
|
||
|
|
extraordinary if they had not done so, seeing that Franco came as
|
||
|
|
a crusader to smite the infidels, who, they said, had persecuted
|
||
|
|
them for five years. <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s everywhere provided the mass of
|
||
|
|
traitors within the gates which has added a new term to military
|
||
|
|
literature: the Fifth Column.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> But the Papacy or its Secretary of State very soon made a
|
||
|
|
declaration which identified it with the holy war from the
|
||
|
|
beginning. Bishops, priests, and nun, who had understood that
|
||
|
|
Franco and his had pious colleagues had corrupted the entire army
|
||
|
|
and had, in the expectation of speedy victory, declared themselves
|
||
|
|
prematurely, had to fly before the just anger of the people and the
|
||
|
|
government troops. It will be remembered that with all his <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
troops and Moslem fanatics, his jail-birds of the Foreign Legion
|
||
|
|
and his Irish Brigade, his Germans, and his Italians, Franco took
|
||
|
|
two years to conquer half of Spain: a very singular situation if it
|
||
|
|
were true that the anti-clerics were a minority. A large number of
|
||
|
|
bishops, priests, and nuns made their way to Rome, and on September
|
||
|
|
14, 1936, the aged them.
|
||
|
|
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
13
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The speech which was published, has none of the halting
|
||
|
|
senility of the Pope. It was a carefully-prepared address. lt would
|
||
|
|
in any case commit the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> to the side of the rebels as well as
|
||
|
|
the local hierarchy, but it is easy to recognize the accents of
|
||
|
|
Pacelli, to whose department the preparing of the address properly
|
||
|
|
belonged. It was this document written for broadcasting through the
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> to world, to which Pacelli was now appealing to work for
|
||
|
|
the extinction of Bolshevism in Spain, Russia, and Mexico. It was
|
||
|
|
published in England by the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Truth Society with the title
|
||
|
|
'The Spanish Terror' and might be described as the bugle-call of
|
||
|
|
that war upon Bolshevism, which made the Church the intimate ally
|
||
|
|
of all the forces of privilege and of the vilest criminals in five
|
||
|
|
centuries of European history.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Frankly, though the press generally reproduced some of its
|
||
|
|
sonorous phrases with deep respect, it was ludicrous. "All that was
|
||
|
|
most fundamentally human and most profoundly divine" was being
|
||
|
|
trodden under foot. This is bad enough when we reflect on the
|
||
|
|
splendid human service that the Socialist-Liberal coalition had
|
||
|
|
rendered and the clerical Fascists have destroyed, but Some of the
|
||
|
|
priests and nuns must have had difficulty in refraining from
|
||
|
|
Smiling when the Pope included amongst the victims "the fruitful
|
||
|
|
activity of lives wholly dedicated to religion, to science, and to
|
||
|
|
charity." The morals of the Spanish clergy are notorious, but their
|
||
|
|
devotion to science must be a profound secret. All these holy
|
||
|
|
things were "assaulted, violated, destroyed" -- it reads like the
|
||
|
|
first sentence of a famous speech of Cicero's -- "in the most
|
||
|
|
ruthless and barbarous ways, in an unbridled and unparalleled
|
||
|
|
confusion of forces so savage and cruel", etc. There had been a
|
||
|
|
"satanic preparation" -- a perfectly childish representation of the
|
||
|
|
facts -- for "the flame of hatred and savage persecution" such as
|
||
|
|
the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Church, and it alone, is so apt to experience. There
|
||
|
|
was, in fine, an attempt to "subvert established order of every
|
||
|
|
kind from Russia to China, from Mexico to South America."</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The reader will not expect me to analyze this preposterous
|
||
|
|
stuff -- the Pope talks as if it were the anti-clericals Who had
|
||
|
|
revolted -- but he will reflect that it served Pacelli's purpose.
|
||
|
|
From the time of its distribution over the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> world and the
|
||
|
|
reproduction of its gorgeous phrases in the secular press it
|
||
|
|
prepared men to swallow every tale of Red outrages that the
|
||
|
|
<span class="ORG" title="ORG">Falangist</span>s cared to concoct; it made <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s more blindly bitter
|
||
|
|
than ever against Russia; it put in a good word for the Pope's
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Japanese</span> friends; and it represented Hitler and Mussolini as
|
||
|
|
respectable crusaders who at great sacrifice, were striking a blow
|
||
|
|
for civilization. The Papal banner was the first foreign flag to
|
||
|
|
wave over Franco's diplomatic headquarters at Salamanca, and even
|
||
|
|
such ghastly massacres as that at Guernica did not receive a word
|
||
|
|
of disapproval. <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Portugal was encouraged to act as a
|
||
|
|
feeding ground for Franco's armies. American and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s
|
||
|
|
poured their dollars or pounds into a common collecting box with
|
||
|
|
the bankers and stock brokers. Ireland and Poland -- pathetically
|
||
|
|
-- resounded with the slogan, "For God and Spain," and Duffy
|
||
|
|
pompously led his Irish Brigade to join the young English Tories
|
||
|
|
who were enlisted in a London hotel to serve under Franco. So mean
|
||
|
|
a disposition was create by the Pope's words that <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s
|
||
|
|
threatened to secede from the Trade Unions if the collection of </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
14
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>funds for loyalist Spain was not stopped, and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> mothers in
|
||
|
|
some places compelled the Cooperative Movement to abandon its
|
||
|
|
humane plan of sending milk to the half-starved Spanish children.
|
||
|
|
The activity of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s materially helped to sustain the
|
||
|
|
government in that ignoble surrender to Hitler and Mussolini by
|
||
|
|
allowing unlimited intervention, for which it has paid so dearly;
|
||
|
|
and they felt no misgivings when the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>, asked to join in the
|
||
|
|
French and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> protest against the beginning of the bombing of
|
||
|
|
civilians, replied that it must avoid even the suspicion of
|
||
|
|
interfering in polities!</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> At the time when the drowsy Pope spoke about the satanic
|
||
|
|
preparation and the unparalleled outpour of barbarism, phrases
|
||
|
|
which were simply an expression of Pacelli's bitter disappointment
|
||
|
|
at the failure of the rebellion -- no one seriously believes that
|
||
|
|
it would have won without the Italians and Germans -- there had
|
||
|
|
probably been a lot of rough treatment on both sides. The Moors
|
||
|
|
were furious at winning so little of the promised loot; the Spanish
|
||
|
|
people were furious because the Church again resorted to bloodshed,
|
||
|
|
and against a government returned to power by the majority of the
|
||
|
|
people after the priests had called up every <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> voter in the
|
||
|
|
Republic. Some day we may know just what was done, on both sides,
|
||
|
|
in violation of what are called the usages of civilized warfare. We
|
||
|
|
cannot expect to learn this from Spain as it is today, but if any
|
||
|
|
man imagines that the priests and nuns just went on serenely saying
|
||
|
|
their prayers until the "sadistic" Reds burst in upon them he must
|
||
|
|
take his information from novels and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> newspapers.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> We are, however, not without helpful material. Two years
|
||
|
|
earlier there had been, as I said, a minor war of the same
|
||
|
|
combatants, and the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> press and much of the secular press
|
||
|
|
had given terrible stories of outrages by Socialists and
|
||
|
|
Communists, There always have been such stories since the French
|
||
|
|
Revolution, and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s, being forbidden to read the truth, still
|
||
|
|
cherish some of the picturesque lies -- like that of the prostitute
|
||
|
|
on an altar of Notre Dame -- told by the refugee priests of a
|
||
|
|
century and a half ago.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> After the suppression of the revolt of 1934, Lord Listowel and
|
||
|
|
Ellen Wilkinson went to Spain to investigate the stories. of
|
||
|
|
outrages. I had a talk with them after their return. They had the
|
||
|
|
written assurance of the President of the Republic Zamora (a
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>) and the Liberal premier Lerroux, that the stories of
|
||
|
|
outrage's committed by the anti-clericals were false, and when they
|
||
|
|
went to the supposed locality of the outrages to verify this, the
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> authorities prevented them, and, on the absurd pretense
|
||
|
|
that their inquiry so infuriated the people that their lives were
|
||
|
|
in danger, rushed them to the frontier. But in Spain itself the
|
||
|
|
boot was rather on the other foot. It was the champions of the
|
||
|
|
Church who had committed outrages; the Moors, the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> soldiers
|
||
|
|
or Civil Guards, and in some cases religious brothers. These
|
||
|
|
stories of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> brutality were severely investigated on the
|
||
|
|
spot by Professor Fernando de los Rios, an ex-Minister of
|
||
|
|
Education, Senior F.G. Ordas, a Liberal ex-Minister of Commerce,
|
||
|
|
and the lawyer Alvarez del Vayo, and they were found to be horribly
|
||
|
|
true. They made independent examinations and, unlike the retailers
|
||
|
|
of Red atrocities, they gave full names and places in their lengthy</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
15
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>reports. Mrs. Leah Manning has a digest of these three reports in
|
||
|
|
the appendix of her book, 'What I Saw In Spain' (1934), and she
|
||
|
|
tells how some of the stories of Red outrages were fabricated.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The best one can say, therefore, for Pacelli's scalding
|
||
|
|
rhetoric is that he had made no serious inquiry, but he inflamed
|
||
|
|
the entire <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> world and so gilded the action of Hitler and
|
||
|
|
Mussolini in the eyes of the world in general that he is in a large
|
||
|
|
measure responsible for the failure of democracies to see what the
|
||
|
|
real and ulterior aim of those butchers was. On the other hand,
|
||
|
|
Pacelli, like every <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> writer in the world, and a good many
|
||
|
|
others, perpetrated an utter absurdity and declined to notice it.
|
||
|
|
It is the contention that Spain is overwhelmingly <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>, yet a
|
||
|
|
small minority of "satanic" folk carried every free election for
|
||
|
|
five years and held half the country for two year's against the
|
||
|
|
other half, and the fleets, air-fleets, tanks, and guns, of the two
|
||
|
|
most powerful nations in Europe! It is stupid to talk about Russia.
|
||
|
|
It did what it could, but for sheer geographical reasons it could
|
||
|
|
not do much.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Before the end of the war a reluctant press felt itself
|
||
|
|
compelled to speak admiringly of the heroism of the Spanish people.
|
||
|
|
Theirs, on the anti-clerical side, was a war of the common folk,
|
||
|
|
the workers and their wives and sons and daughters. They had no
|
||
|
|
mercenary foreign troops, for the French and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> volunteers,
|
||
|
|
hampered in every way in their enlistment by their governments,
|
||
|
|
were comparatively very few, and there were still less <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Russian</span>s, as
|
||
|
|
was proved at the close. It was the people of Spain who held up the
|
||
|
|
Spanish, German, and Italian armies, backed by Portuguese Fascist
|
||
|
|
help -- that was why Franco had at once secured the Portuguese
|
||
|
|
frontier -- and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> and American funds for two years. Yet the
|
||
|
|
same papers that told the story continued to repeat that Spain was
|
||
|
|
Solidly <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>, though every loyalist soldier, every boy and girl
|
||
|
|
who helped them, was under the direst ban of the Church. And
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s continued, and continue, to drone about that remarkable
|
||
|
|
minority of Satanists who are supposed to have carried every
|
||
|
|
Spanish election for five years and then somehow contrived to get
|
||
|
|
the people to fight passionately for them for two years. The
|
||
|
|
miracles of Lourdes are pale in comparison.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Yet, in face of the most elementary common-sense, there is
|
||
|
|
hardly any lie that has been put out by the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> to cover its
|
||
|
|
policy of cooperation with crime and consecration of bloodshed that
|
||
|
|
has had a wider acceptance. I do not know whether George Seldes,
|
||
|
|
author of 'The <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>,' is or is not a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>, but on this point
|
||
|
|
he beat the Jesuits, He says that there are only 30000 non-<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s in Spain, and then he sees nothing to be explained in the
|
||
|
|
magnificent defense of the people of Spain under a shower of
|
||
|
|
anathemas from the Church! Then there is that quaint political
|
||
|
|
sport -- in the biological sense -- <span class="PERSON" title="PERSON">McGovern</span>, the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
Socialist Member of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> Parliament, the man who was chiefly
|
||
|
|
responsible for the abandonment of the anti-church policy of the
|
||
|
|
British advanced Labor; and his Church now gloats over the
|
||
|
|
destruction of Communism. He is supposed to have studied Spain on
|
||
|
|
the spot, and he is an honest man whatever you think of his
|
||
|
|
ability. He says that all but about one million of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Spaniards</span>
|
||
|
|
are <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s; which still leaves the tail wagging the dog for
|
||
|
|
seven years in a most mysterious way.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
16
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Curiously enough the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> writer who comes nearest to the
|
||
|
|
truth is a Jesuit, the Irish priest, Father Gannon. In the 'Irish
|
||
|
|
Times' (January 23, 1937), he said that there are "ten or fifteen
|
||
|
|
million <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s" in Spain. Apparently he thought it wise to admit
|
||
|
|
how far the corruption of the innocent people by the sadistic
|
||
|
|
minority (as the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>, sir P. Gibbs deliberately calls them)
|
||
|
|
had gone. The phrase "ten or fifteen" is rather loose even for a
|
||
|
|
Jesuit, especially when you are thinking of millions. Let us split
|
||
|
|
the difference and say that the priest claims only about 12000000
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s in Spain out of a total population of 29000000. We get
|
||
|
|
near commons-sense at last, and we will not quibble with so
|
||
|
|
generous an admission. The only interpretation of Spanish life from
|
||
|
|
1931 to 1938 that is not completely ridiculous is that the majority
|
||
|
|
of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Spaniards</span> had quitted the Church. That, means a loss of at
|
||
|
|
least 15000000 and fully explains the policy of the Black
|
||
|
|
International in that country.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Church shared the spoils, in fact got most of them. It was
|
||
|
|
restored to the despotic and parasitic position it had had before
|
||
|
|
1931, and the tinfoil Dictator, the most ridiculous specimen of the
|
||
|
|
brood in Europe, awarded it an annual subsidy of 65000000
|
||
|
|
pesetas. The country was and is, half-starved, reduced to
|
||
|
|
international beggary, but the Church has always been willing to
|
||
|
|
overlook that misfortune of its supporters. From all sides the
|
||
|
|
priests called for the rebuilding of their churches, seminaries,
|
||
|
|
monasteries, etc., and this made a further drain upon the slender
|
||
|
|
public purse. The remains of the dissipated General de Rivera,
|
||
|
|
whose character, Ibanez, had so ruthlessly revealed to the whole
|
||
|
|
civilized world, were transferred with gorgeous religious and
|
||
|
|
secular ceremony to the Escurial, the palace of the dead Kings of
|
||
|
|
Spain. If the flimsy structure of the new dictatorship lasts long
|
||
|
|
enough I expect to hear of him being canonized. Many young ladies
|
||
|
|
in Madrid and Paris will be interested.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Naturally all the fine work of the Liberal-Socialist coalition
|
||
|
|
was destroyed. It is one of the gems of the Papal speech which I
|
||
|
|
quoted above that the satanic Reds destroyed science, whereas, they
|
||
|
|
had done splendid work in restoring science in Spain, and a child
|
||
|
|
would know that the rebels and their priests would ruin this. The
|
||
|
|
system of education which had drawn hundreds of students of
|
||
|
|
pedagogy from all parts was abolished. Manuals of history of a
|
||
|
|
childishly mendacious character were substituted for the excellent
|
||
|
|
text books and priests and nuns had the run of the class rooms.
|
||
|
|
Whatever dropped and withered there must be money for "religion."
|
||
|
|
So greedy was the Church that by the end of 1940 there was bitter
|
||
|
|
murmuring against the priests among the <span class="ORG" title="ORG">Falangist</span>s, and Franco was
|
||
|
|
compelled to defy the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> over the appointment of bishops. It
|
||
|
|
only required this "quarrel over investitures" to complete the
|
||
|
|
restoration of the Middle Ages. But the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> won, of course.
|
||
|
|
Without German, Italian, and clerical protection, the Spanish
|
||
|
|
people, low as they have fallen, would sweep away the perjured
|
||
|
|
adventurer and his popin-jay brothier-in-law in a month. The army
|
||
|
|
is divided and in large part ripe for rebellion.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> And the 15000000 who had quitted the Church? Turn back to
|
||
|
|
the French girl's narrative which I have quoted. Tens of thousands
|
||
|
|
of the rank and file of them are taken out of vile jails to sing
|
||
|
|
hymns and Fascist chants with a whip raised over their backs, while</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
17
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>the chaplain enjoys his bottle in the background. Hundreds of their
|
||
|
|
leaders who survived the war are buried like dogs. Still the firing
|
||
|
|
squads are busy all over Spain. The American <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> must not read
|
||
|
|
these things. He is told that there are only 30000 folk, who had
|
||
|
|
quitted the Church and they are "under restraint." He will find it
|
||
|
|
out when Fascism is destroyed and something more painful than the
|
||
|
|
"terrific propaganda" which Cardinal Hinsley foresees will fall
|
||
|
|
upon his Church in Italy. France, Portugal, Spain, and Spanish
|
||
|
|
America. The Pope knows it and stakes everything on the victory of
|
||
|
|
Fascism.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Church linked Portugal with Spain in the Civil War. Here
|
||
|
|
again the record of the Black International is vile. To the middle
|
||
|
|
of the last century, Portugal had the same fate as Spain. A king of
|
||
|
|
disreputable character surrounded by fawning bishops, slew or
|
||
|
|
tortured tens of thousands of rebels against Church and feudalism.
|
||
|
|
But reform, or moderation set in earlier in that compact little
|
||
|
|
country than in Spain. When another disreputable monarch began to
|
||
|
|
play tricks in the early years of this century the middle-class
|
||
|
|
Liberals drove him out, set up a Republic and stripped the Church
|
||
|
|
of all its privileges. Then came the tragic dilemma -- feudalism or
|
||
|
|
Socialism, finance or freedom -- and before the specter of the down
|
||
|
|
the Reds, men took down their anti-clerical banners. Portugal
|
||
|
|
became a military dictatorship with the Church in full power once
|
||
|
|
more.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Under President General Cremona and Premier Dr. Salazar,
|
||
|
|
Portugal is what is humorously called a corporative state. The late
|
||
|
|
Pope, who knew as much about economics and sociology as a child in
|
||
|
|
a primary school does, gave the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> world one of those
|
||
|
|
Encyclicals which it admires so much, saying that Italy's
|
||
|
|
corporative state is the ideal for reconciling capital and labor
|
||
|
|
and honoring the Church. Naturally, you would not expect a
|
||
|
|
churchman to notice that this corporative state was a ghastly
|
||
|
|
failure, even economically, in his own country, Italy; that crime
|
||
|
|
was rising by leaps and bounds, and the schools were rotting. In
|
||
|
|
Portugal, where more than half the people are still pious,
|
||
|
|
illiterate, and densely ignorant, it was comparatively easy; and
|
||
|
|
the Jesuits, who had been expelled, were brought back to help. So
|
||
|
|
the corporative state was established. What did it matter to the
|
||
|
|
Papacy that, concentrating power over capital and labor in one pair
|
||
|
|
of hands, it was the ideal form of state for an aggressive
|
||
|
|
imperialistic dictator? Mussolini must have smiled.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> We may take it that Pacelli was the chief author of the
|
||
|
|
Encyclical 'Quadragesimo Anno' (1931) in which the Pope summoned
|
||
|
|
all <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> countries to adopt the form of the corporative state.
|
||
|
|
They were then a ragged regiment; Italy, Poland, Eire, and (more or
|
||
|
|
less) Hungary. To these Pacelli in 1934 added Austria and in 1935
|
||
|
|
most of the Republics of South and Central America. When he saw
|
||
|
|
Germany and Italy guaranteeing the success of his plot in Spain,
|
||
|
|
and Portugal had bowed to the Papal orders in 1934, he began to
|
||
|
|
dream larger dreams. He worked, we shall see, in Yugo-Slavia, to
|
||
|
|
prepare the way for Mussolini's legions and win at least a Croatian
|
||
|
|
Church for the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>. He courted France and encouraged the
|
||
|
|
Rexists in Belgium. His dream took the shape of a bloc or League of
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> corporative states, very docile to the Black </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
18
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>International, spanning the planet, following Mussolini's
|
||
|
|
"victorious eagles" eastward, ready in time to check either a
|
||
|
|
German Nazi empire in north Europe or a democratic Anglo-American
|
||
|
|
combination.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> IV</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> PAPAL COWARDICE IN ABYSSINIA -- AND WHY</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> writer Teeling (The Pope in Polities) is
|
||
|
|
generally understood to have made a protest in the name of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
democrats against the anti-democratic policy of the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>. He is
|
||
|
|
not very emphatic on any point except the Papal attitude to the
|
||
|
|
conquest of Abyssinia, and he is far from satisfactory on the
|
||
|
|
point. He says that <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s "sighed in vain" for a Papal
|
||
|
|
condemnation of Mussolini's crime, but "the poor old man" was
|
||
|
|
content with a refusal to bless the war, as Mussolini pressed him
|
||
|
|
to do, or to restrain the Italian Church from blessing it.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> It is something to have a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> writer admitting that all
|
||
|
|
the world condemned Mussolini except the Pope" (p. 130). The
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> press generally tried to twist vague Papal words into a
|
||
|
|
condemnation. But it is misleading to talk about the "poor old
|
||
|
|
man." Pacelli was the director of the Papal policy, and there was
|
||
|
|
nothing vague or evasive about it. For ages the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> has cast a
|
||
|
|
covetous eye on the Ethiopian Church. The existence of a branch of
|
||
|
|
Christianity which had as much right to call itself <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> as
|
||
|
|
that of Rome and was equally Apostolic in its foundation, has
|
||
|
|
always been a challenge and a reproach to the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>, but it was
|
||
|
|
little use dreaming of getting the submission of the Greek Church.
|
||
|
|
At the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Russian</span> Revolution, we shall see, there was some hope of
|
||
|
|
inducing the atheistic new rules to sacrifice to the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> the
|
||
|
|
rich and populous branch of the Greek Church in that country, and
|
||
|
|
for Years the Papacy courted the Hammer and Sickle as eagerly as it
|
||
|
|
later courted the Swastika. The hope died, but the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> kept its
|
||
|
|
eye on such independent branches of the Church as that of Ethiopia.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> This was the bait which Mussolini dangled before the Pope in
|
||
|
|
1934. By the "gentleman's agreement" he had made with the Pope in
|
||
|
|
1929, he had, he supposed, secured Papal support in advance for his
|
||
|
|
imperial adventures, but the whole world was so shocked in 1934 by
|
||
|
|
Mussolini's obvious preparations to attack Abyssinia, so disgusted
|
||
|
|
that his "invincible legions" chose the weakest possible opponent,
|
||
|
|
that the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> had to consider its position in America and
|
||
|
|
Britain. The solution of the difficulty was Pacellesque, if I may
|
||
|
|
coin the word. Let the Pope pose as a moral coward; a poor old man
|
||
|
|
who was bewildered by the sudden development -- so bishops said in
|
||
|
|
America -- and its menace, and let the entire Italian Church
|
||
|
|
boisterously support Mussolini and secure the unanimous support of
|
||
|
|
the nation. The <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> tried at a later stage to explain the
|
||
|
|
situation by saying that the Italian hierarchy and clergy acted in
|
||
|
|
this as Italians, not as representatives of the Church, and there
|
||
|
|
were <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s in America who repeated this miserable subterfuge.
|
||
|
|
As if it were not one of the very strongest claims for the moral
|
||
|
|
influence of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Church that on any moral issue it
|
||
|
|
sublimely ignores national limitations and judges them in the light</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
19
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>of eternal principle alone! You might as well imagine the police of
|
||
|
|
Washington consorting with criminals under the window's of the
|
||
|
|
White House as the Italian hierarchy acting on so delicate an issue
|
||
|
|
without Papal instructions.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> As to the Pope himself, which really means Pacelli, we will
|
||
|
|
not waste time discussing whether he condemned the war, especially
|
||
|
|
when we have <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> writers saying that he did not, until someone
|
||
|
|
quotes a clear and verifiable word of condemnation. The editor of
|
||
|
|
the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> paper (<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Times, July 17, 1936),
|
||
|
|
challenged by the Protestant Bishop of Durham, replied: "I grant
|
||
|
|
you that throughout these months of crisis the Holy Father has said
|
||
|
|
no word in favor of the League of Nations nor in favor of that
|
||
|
|
united stand against Italy, which was so much desired in this
|
||
|
|
country." Cardinal Hinsley, it is true, says in his Preface to
|
||
|
|
Rankin's eulogy of Pacelli, 'The Pope Speaks' (1940), that in his
|
||
|
|
presence the Pope, before the invasion of Abyssinia, spoke of "all
|
||
|
|
my efforts to prevent the barbarous tragedy." What a pity Hinsley
|
||
|
|
did not quote the words six years earlier and spare <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s in
|
||
|
|
America and Britain so much pain and humiliation! And what a pity
|
||
|
|
Mussolini did not hear that the Pope was talking of his grand
|
||
|
|
imperialist design as "barbarous."</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Cardinal Hinsley does not think it necessary to explain why a
|
||
|
|
Pope who privately thought the invasion of Abyssinia barbarous had
|
||
|
|
not one word of public condemnation of it. He could be very
|
||
|
|
eloquent on events far away in Spain, of which he could have no
|
||
|
|
exact knowledge and on events still farther away and more difficult
|
||
|
|
to check in Mexico, Russia, and China. They hurt the Church. But on
|
||
|
|
an outrage which was organized under his nose, a tragedy which was
|
||
|
|
so notorious that all the world except himself condemned it, he had
|
||
|
|
nothing to say as a world-oracle. It would hurt the Church if he
|
||
|
|
said it.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Once or twice he tried the tactics of that other famous
|
||
|
|
oracle, the ancient oracle of Delphi. On July 28, 1934, speaking
|
||
|
|
(domestically) on a saintly missionary who had worked in Abyssinia,
|
||
|
|
he glanced at the war-talk and said that he "hoped for peace,
|
||
|
|
truth, justice, and charity." On August 28th he had to address a
|
||
|
|
body of Italian <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> nurses, many of whom were destined for the
|
||
|
|
war-zone, and he could hardly ignore it. He said, with a calculated
|
||
|
|
vagueness that Delphi never surpassed, that while folk abroad
|
||
|
|
described it as "a war of sheer conquest and nothing else", which
|
||
|
|
would certainly be an "unjust war", the Italian authorities said
|
||
|
|
that it was a war of defense against Abyssinian aggression and to
|
||
|
|
find room for some of Italy's surplus population (for which the
|
||
|
|
priests were even more responsible than Mussolini). He ended in a
|
||
|
|
mumble that God would find a way to a just peace. Italian <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s
|
||
|
|
rejoiced that the Pope had endorsed Mussolini's motivation of the
|
||
|
|
war and we shall see that archbishop's declared it to be a war of
|
||
|
|
defense. American and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s boasted that he had
|
||
|
|
denounced the war of conquest.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> It occurred to some that if there is a particle of truth in
|
||
|
|
the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> claim for the Papacy it was the Pope's duty to go
|
||
|
|
beyond abstract principles which everybody recognized and say in
|
||
|
|
plain Italian whether Mussolini's enterprise, which had not the </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
20
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>least ambiguity in the eyes of the rest of the world, was or was
|
||
|
|
not criminal. Pacelli therefore had an explanatory note put in the
|
||
|
|
Osservatore, (August 29) saying that surplus population was "not by
|
||
|
|
itself a ground of war", which left matters just as they were.
|
||
|
|
American <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s felt that all the gorgeous claims that their
|
||
|
|
apologists had made for the Papacy were stultified, and Price Bell
|
||
|
|
of the 'Chicago Daily News' was instructed to get the truth from
|
||
|
|
the Pope's own lips. He wrote a moving four-page article on
|
||
|
|
"interview" in 'Liberty' (October 19, 1935), but had to confess
|
||
|
|
that he had not got a word on Abyssinia from the Pope. One gathers
|
||
|
|
that he had just paid the usual fee from $10 upward, according to
|
||
|
|
the size of the crowd -- to be admitted to a reception.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Pacelli knew that, after a little grumbling behind closed
|
||
|
|
doors American and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s would, in their own interest,
|
||
|
|
submit to anything that the Pope said or did, so he let him pose to
|
||
|
|
the outside world as a moral coward and effectively satisfied
|
||
|
|
Mussolini by a glorious unity of the Italian Church in support of
|
||
|
|
the war. Professor Salvemini has collected the utterances of 7
|
||
|
|
cardinal archbishops, 23 archbishops, 44 bishops, and 6 archbishops
|
||
|
|
with titles abroad. It is almost enough to quote from the Papal
|
||
|
|
organ, the 'Osservatore' (August 22, 1935), the fact that from the
|
||
|
|
Eucharistic Congress at Teramo a telegram was sent to Mussolini in
|
||
|
|
the name of 19 archbishops and 57 bishops saying: "<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Italy
|
||
|
|
thanks Jesus Christ for the renewed greatness of the Fatherland
|
||
|
|
made stronger by Mussolini's policy." Will anyone suggest that the
|
||
|
|
dispatch of this telegram and the Publication of it in the Papal
|
||
|
|
newspaper were contrary to the wishes of the Pope and his vigorous
|
||
|
|
Secretary of State, the real and very despotic ruler of the Church?</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The prelates continued all through the war to keep <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s
|
||
|
|
-- and practically all Italians were now compulsory <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> --
|
||
|
|
loyal to Mussolini. They gave a most unctuous consecration to a
|
||
|
|
shameful war of aggression, barbarously conducted, and openly
|
||
|
|
represented it as a gain to the Church. In a diocesan letter of
|
||
|
|
October 15, 1935, the Bishop of Nocera explained that Ethiopia was
|
||
|
|
uncivilized be cause it was not subject to the Pope and the war
|
||
|
|
would be a great blessing for it:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> It is a People which, having became detached from Rome,
|
||
|
|
can cannot get full benefit of the Christian ideas: which has
|
||
|
|
not been able, therefore, to produce those beneficial
|
||
|
|
conditions to which the West of Europe owes its greatness.
|
||
|
|
Roman <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Italy has the duty of bringing to populations
|
||
|
|
deprived of them its principles of equity, charity, and
|
||
|
|
fraternity. We pray God that he should use Italy as His divine
|
||
|
|
instrument for the evangelization of the whole world.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> One can say these things in a country where the Black
|
||
|
|
International controls education. A bishop ought at least to know
|
||
|
|
that until the 15th century the Abyssinian Church had had no
|
||
|
|
connection whatever with Rome; that submission to Rome was then
|
||
|
|
imposed from Portuguese as a condition of their help in saving the
|
||
|
|
country from the Moslem; and that it led to a grave demoralization
|
||
|
|
of Abyssinia and was fiercely rejected as soon as possible. And
|
||
|
|
note carefully the hope of the Black International that God will go
|
||
|
|
on to choose Italy to "evangelize" -- that is to say, bring into </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
21
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>submission to the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> -- the whole world. We know how it was
|
||
|
|
evangelizing Abyssinia; with poison gas, bombing natives, and
|
||
|
|
massacre (as at Addis Ababa). The interesting point is the allusion
|
||
|
|
to Pacelli's growing Plan of a league of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> powers.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> A fortnight before this the Archbishop of Taranto had said
|
||
|
|
Mass in a submarine and given an address to the officers and men.
|
||
|
|
They were, he said, fighting a war of defense -- was there ever a
|
||
|
|
more brazen apology? -- not conquest, and it would not only relieve
|
||
|
|
Italy of over-population and supply it with raw material, but it
|
||
|
|
would lead to "the expansion of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> faith". It was
|
||
|
|
therefore "a holy war, a crusade". The archbishop was worse than
|
||
|
|
the bishop and the cardinal-archbishop, Sehuster, of Milan, bead of
|
||
|
|
the Italian Church was worse than the archbishop. Speaking on
|
||
|
|
October 28 he said, as quoted by Salvemin:</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Italian flag is at this moment bringing in triumph
|
||
|
|
the Cross of Christ in Ethiopia to free the road for the
|
||
|
|
emancipation of the slaves, opening it at the same time to our
|
||
|
|
missionary enterprise.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Apart from their lies about Red outrage one can at least
|
||
|
|
understand the action of the Spanish prelates in supporting Franco,
|
||
|
|
but these Italian prelates, the nearest to Rome and the most
|
||
|
|
rigorously controlled by the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>, consecrated the crime of
|
||
|
|
their dictator and their Papal Secretary of State with all entirely
|
||
|
|
nauseous mixture of greed for the country and greed for the Church.
|
||
|
|
I saw two of the picture postcards that then circulated in Italy.
|
||
|
|
One bore a map of Abyssinia showing treasures of corn, gold, oil,
|
||
|
|
etc., in different regions. The other was a tank taking a statue of
|
||
|
|
the Virgin to the Abyssinians.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> So it was to the end. When, in May, 1936, the Italians entered
|
||
|
|
Abbis Ababa and Mussolini announced victory, the church bells rang
|
||
|
|
everywhere and the churches were illuminated and decorated. There
|
||
|
|
was one exception, St. Peter's. Its bells rang -- because peace had
|
||
|
|
come, of course -- but it was not illuminated. The fox retained his
|
||
|
|
cunning, and probably Mussolini grudgingly allowed that he had to
|
||
|
|
save his face as well as he could in Britain and America. It had to
|
||
|
|
suffice that the Pope blessed "the triumphant happiness of a great
|
||
|
|
and good people for a peace that will further and will initiate the
|
||
|
|
true European and world-wide peace" (News Times and Ethiopia News,
|
||
|
|
October 31, 1936), and that the bishops fell over each other in
|
||
|
|
hastening to congratulate the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Duce</span> and his "defence of Christian
|
||
|
|
civilization". Not a word was said when Graziani perpetrated one of
|
||
|
|
the foulest massacres of this foul period as when the butcher's
|
||
|
|
butcher-son published a book glorifying war as such and explaining
|
||
|
|
what fun it was to drop bombs on natives.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Italy did little for Abyssinia. Production fell, and a mere
|
||
|
|
title of the surplus population of Italy which was supposed to be
|
||
|
|
panting for room beyond the seas would go to Africa. The Italian
|
||
|
|
authorities made no haste to educate the natives, and such
|
||
|
|
industries as were set up were reserved for Italians. Abyssinians
|
||
|
|
were not allowed to become artisans. They were to be the hewers of
|
||
|
|
wood and the drawers of water. Make all allowance you like for
|
||
|
|
Italy's lack of capital, of which Mussolini had drained the </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
22
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>country, but the truth cannot be obscured, Mussolini wanted only
|
||
|
|
two things: the "glory" of founding an Italian empire and a
|
||
|
|
backward country for Italian's to exploit. And in 1937, the
|
||
|
|
'Osservatore' announced, the Pope blessed this enterprise by
|
||
|
|
awarding the Golden Rose, the supreme honor that the Papacy has for
|
||
|
|
mere women, to the Queen of Italy as Empress of Abyssinia.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> He had ground to do this. Whatever else Italy failed to do for
|
||
|
|
the Abyssinians it spent a vast sum in giving them the treasure of
|
||
|
|
the Papal faith. At government expense priests, monks, and nuns
|
||
|
|
were shipped out and chalets and houses built for them. There is an
|
||
|
|
account of it all in the 'International Review of Missions,'
|
||
|
|
(January, 1937, p. 103). The <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> sent out a set of Ethiopian
|
||
|
|
type and a press, and Italian <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> papers told how the natives
|
||
|
|
eagerly pressed for the good words. Protestant missionaries found
|
||
|
|
that they might as well pack up. Moslem and Christian had hitherto
|
||
|
|
shown a mutual toleration. Now they were set against each other
|
||
|
|
Whatever the state gained or failed to gain by the conquest of
|
||
|
|
Abyssinia the Church was determined to profit. All this, the
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> protests, follows inevitably from <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> principles. So
|
||
|
|
much the worse for those principles; though we seem to have heard
|
||
|
|
a hundred times that the Church emphatically disowns the maxim that
|
||
|
|
the end justifies the means.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> It is impossible to write these chapters on the action of the
|
||
|
|
Black International in Spain and Italy without irony and
|
||
|
|
repugnance, and many will find that it raises a problem about the
|
||
|
|
attitude of the American <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> layman. As far as Spain is
|
||
|
|
concerned there is little to explain. His daily paper spoke of the
|
||
|
|
Reds probably in the same language as his <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> weekly.
|
||
|
|
Bolshevism was growing like a poisonous plant in Spain, and
|
||
|
|
practically all the world wanted it eradicated. There was, it is
|
||
|
|
true, that intriguing paradox which I have discussed; how the Red
|
||
|
|
tail -- and such a small one -- had succeeded in wagging the
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> dog for seven whole years. But when there is a question of
|
||
|
|
smiting Bolshevism, you do not notice these trifles.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> In the case of Abyssinia the situation was very different. The
|
||
|
|
whole world, outside Eire, Poland, and a few other potato patches,
|
||
|
|
condemned Mussolini, and the facts were not in dispute. Such
|
||
|
|
writers as Seldes and Teeling make it clear that there was some
|
||
|
|
dissatisfaction in the body of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> laity, but the tone of
|
||
|
|
the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> press and the utterances of the hierarchy show that it
|
||
|
|
did not reach very far. Yet you find it impossible to believe that
|
||
|
|
the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> men and women whom you meet in business or at the club
|
||
|
|
or a friend's house, are so docile to their priests that they will
|
||
|
|
read without a shudder the shocking language of the Italian
|
||
|
|
prelates I have quoted, or be easily persuaded that turning
|
||
|
|
Oriental <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s into Roman <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s throws a mantle of justice,
|
||
|
|
if not nobility, over Mussolini's enterprise.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> I cannot here go deeply into this matter, but I may make one
|
||
|
|
point. The relation of a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> to his priest is not the same as
|
||
|
|
that of a Protestant to his minister. Periodically he hears a
|
||
|
|
sermon on the priesthood, and the gist of it is that, if he accepts
|
||
|
|
the creed at all, he must regard the priest as something totally
|
||
|
|
different from any other minister of religion. The preacher insists</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
23
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>that he shall not look to the priest as a man -- his intelligence
|
||
|
|
and even his character do not matter -- but to his office and
|
||
|
|
powers. He can turn bread and wine into God (in the Mass) and can
|
||
|
|
forgive sins. He has, whatever his personality, been endowed with
|
||
|
|
tremendous supernatural powers. You may find this difficult to
|
||
|
|
follow, but a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> is as strictly bound to believe these things
|
||
|
|
as to believe in God. That medieval superstition, on which the
|
||
|
|
Church still literally insists, is the root of the power of the
|
||
|
|
priests. That is why, for instance, they can do what no other
|
||
|
|
ministers can do, such as to forbid a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> to read any
|
||
|
|
literature that criticizes the Church or its teaching, and in this
|
||
|
|
way they protect the superstition which is the root of their power.
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>ism is not a collection of beliefs. It is an organic whole,
|
||
|
|
and you cannot be a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> and question a single "article of
|
||
|
|
faith." If in addition to this you remember the tremendous hypnotic
|
||
|
|
force wielded by the Church, corresponding very closely to the
|
||
|
|
German boasting of Aryan blood or the Italian boasting of
|
||
|
|
Mussolini's infallibility you will begin to understand. But it is
|
||
|
|
not a case of "to understand all is to forgive all." Your
|
||
|
|
conclusion is more apt to be: Away with the whole damn lot -- to
|
||
|
|
give a rough translation of Voltaire's polite phrase.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> V</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> THE JAP GETS A GOLD MEDAL FOR HIS
|
||
|
|
'CHINESE INCIDENT'</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> It is one of the consequences of this doctrinal mentality of
|
||
|
|
the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> that he can be persuaded to accept propositions which
|
||
|
|
to you and me look childish. I am, of course, speaking of the
|
||
|
|
general body of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s and am quite aware that you will meet a
|
||
|
|
man here and there who seems fairly liberal; though you will find
|
||
|
|
that either he is not liberal at all on these dogmas which the
|
||
|
|
Church, for reasons (as they are the basis of the power of the
|
||
|
|
clergy), declares indispensable, or he is a <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> only
|
||
|
|
nominally. One such proposition is that the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> faith is so
|
||
|
|
unique, so profoundly important for this life and the next, that
|
||
|
|
when there is a prospect of getting further millions of men to
|
||
|
|
accept it, he, in spite of his having the same sentiments as we
|
||
|
|
have, agrees to wars, executions, imprisonments without trial,
|
||
|
|
compulsory hymn-Singing and jailers'
|
||
|
|
whips. After all, the Church has "the right of the sword" over
|
||
|
|
these people. That is an indispensable article of the creed.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> A second proposition which is relevant here is -- this will
|
||
|
|
seem incredible to any who are not familiar with <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
literature -- that the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> accepts the belief, on which the
|
||
|
|
priests insist, that his Church is hated and persecuted by wicked
|
||
|
|
men with a rancor that other Churches do not experience. It is a
|
||
|
|
sheer legend, but very useful to the clergy. For the last fifty
|
||
|
|
years at least the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> Church has been treated by non-<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s with an indulgence, even an admiration, which has enabled
|
||
|
|
it to secure by intrigue, a power far out of proportion to the
|
||
|
|
number of its members in democratic countries. In <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> doctrine
|
||
|
|
-- again indispensable doctrine -- a large part of the explanation
|
||
|
|
of this legendary hatred is the devil. Naturally he hates, and
|
||
|
|
moves bad men to hate, that which is holiest . . . I feel that I
|
||
|
|
ought to apologize for talking like this to educated men and women,</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
24
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>but believe me, that is the ordinary <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> mentality. And it is
|
||
|
|
in virtue of this proposition that Bolshevism is in the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
mind associated with the devil, and he is ready to cry for its
|
||
|
|
extinction in Russia. Spain, and Mexico. You will not be so
|
||
|
|
churlish as to remind him that he is really calling for aggressive
|
||
|
|
war.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Hence the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>'s beautiful friendship with Japan and
|
||
|
|
positive hatred of Russia. We will consider in a later book the lie
|
||
|
|
which is used to give an odor of sanctity to this hatred, the claim
|
||
|
|
that Russia persecutes religion, but by 1934, when the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span>
|
||
|
|
government had officially reported to the contrary, as we shall
|
||
|
|
see, any ground for a charge of persecution had disappeared. Yet
|
||
|
|
when, in that year, Russia applied for admission to the League of
|
||
|
|
Nations, the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> whipped up its representatives at Geneva to
|
||
|
|
oppose the application. I will deal at length with the matter
|
||
|
|
later, but it is necessary here to point the contrast. Pacelli
|
||
|
|
stirred every nerve to get a great civilization, which already had
|
||
|
|
the finest record in Europe of humane service and social
|
||
|
|
betterment, publicly insulted and represented as a nation far
|
||
|
|
inferior to Mussolini's Italy or Piludski's miserable Poland (which
|
||
|
|
was at the time very seriously persecution religion). On the other
|
||
|
|
hand, he drew nearer to Japan. Russia had long discarded the idea,
|
||
|
|
which some had had, of spreading Socialism by aggressive war. It
|
||
|
|
was, if only in its own interest, very earnest for the peace of the
|
||
|
|
world. But it was damned and vituperated by Rome. Japan was just as
|
||
|
|
clearly aiming at, indeed already engaged in, a disgraceful
|
||
|
|
aggressive war. The <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> took it to its bosom.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The point arises here because just in that year there was some
|
||
|
|
prospect of war between Russia and Japan, and <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s everywhere
|
||
|
|
loudly proclaimed that, should it occur, they would side with
|
||
|
|
Japan. "In the event of a war between Japan and Russia," said an
|
||
|
|
editorial in one of the leading <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span>
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> papers, (<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>
|
||
|
|
Times, November 23, 1934) "<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s would sympathize with Japan,
|
||
|
|
at least in so far as religion is concerned, so let us beware of an
|
||
|
|
Anglo-American 'bloc' against Japan involving us on the side of
|
||
|
|
Russia." These apologists for a bad case find it difficult to write
|
||
|
|
plain English. The editor obviously means that <span class="NORP" title="NORP">British</span> and American
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s would hope on religious grounds -- that is to say, for
|
||
|
|
the profit of the Church in China and Japan -- to see Japan beat
|
||
|
|
Russia. We do not think less of sympathy with crime because its
|
||
|
|
motive is said to be religious. It is only one mare of a hundred
|
||
|
|
proofs that the interest of the Church, which always the means the
|
||
|
|
interest or profit of the Black International, is different from
|
||
|
|
and often opposed to the interest of the race.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> In the second book I described the beginning of the alliance
|
||
|
|
of the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> with Japan. The country had just taken the first
|
||
|
|
step in a monstrous plan of aggression and exploitation which must
|
||
|
|
have been known in every Foreign Office in the world, and its
|
||
|
|
conquest of Manchuria was sternly condemned everywhere. The French
|
||
|
|
were, as we shall see, then playing a dangerous game, for which
|
||
|
|
they now pay so dearly, with the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>, and -- I quoted this on
|
||
|
|
French clerical authority -- the advised the Japs to apply to the </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
25
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>Pope for recognition. As the idea was put to the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Japanese</span> by French
|
||
|
|
missionaries, you may wonder whether the initiative did not come
|
||
|
|
from the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>; but you will have to be content to wonder, as the
|
||
|
|
beginning of the negotiations is left in obscurity.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> It was not difficult to persuade the Japs to apply to Rome.
|
||
|
|
Most of the educated and ruling men of Japan are atheists of the
|
||
|
|
type who regard religion as a very useful institution -- for women
|
||
|
|
and workers, In 1871, when the Europeanization of the country
|
||
|
|
began, they sent a large and unique deputation to Europe to study
|
||
|
|
Christianity and report whether it was a more 'suitable -- that is
|
||
|
|
to say, more effective in securing the docility of the masses --
|
||
|
|
religion to give to their people than Buddhism. Lafeadio Hearn
|
||
|
|
tells how their report on the influence of Christianity in its own
|
||
|
|
field was so poor that they abandoned the idea, but much water had
|
||
|
|
gone down to the sea since 1871. One change was that the Pope was
|
||
|
|
again a secular as well as a spiritual monarch, since Mussolini had
|
||
|
|
created the state of the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> City, and the mixture of small
|
||
|
|
sovereignty and vast international religious power gave him a
|
||
|
|
unique position.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> We saw what happened. Even Pacelli dare not, while the whole
|
||
|
|
world was inflamed against Japan, pledge the Pope as a temporal
|
||
|
|
ruler to alliance with Japan, but he appointed a Vicar Apostolic
|
||
|
|
"to negotiate with the government of Manchukuo about religious
|
||
|
|
affairs." Other powers might sacrifice their trade-interests to
|
||
|
|
their principles by declaring that they would have no truck with a
|
||
|
|
bloody usurpation, but the interests of <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> missions are too
|
||
|
|
sacred to be sacrificed for mundane considerations. Whether there
|
||
|
|
was an understanding that the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> promised to work to prevent
|
||
|
|
the League of Nations from applying sanctions to Japan, as it later
|
||
|
|
worked for the exclusion of Russia, we do not know. The <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>
|
||
|
|
does not issue a Blue Book -- not even a Little Blue Book -- when
|
||
|
|
it has completed a deal. Few would trust the book if it did.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> What we do know, however, is enough. The representatives of
|
||
|
|
the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> in Manchukuo and Japan worked so amiably with the army
|
||
|
|
and the government that by 1934 the French <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> writer I quoted
|
||
|
|
was able to boast that "no <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Japanese</span> prince or mission now passes
|
||
|
|
through Rome without paying its homage to the Sovereign Pontiff."
|
||
|
|
Incidentally, French trade in the East benefitted very happily.
|
||
|
|
American <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span>s raised their familiar cry of libel of Holy See,
|
||
|
|
wicked suspicion, etc., when the growing intimacy was mentioned in
|
||
|
|
the press, and it transpired that the news had came from the
|
||
|
|
clerical officials (whose pockets are always wide open) of the
|
||
|
|
<span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> City pres's bureau that negotiations were in progress for
|
||
|
|
an exchange of ambassadors between Tokyo and the Papacy. There was
|
||
|
|
more indignation and surprise that people should malign Holy Church
|
||
|
|
so much; and on May 5, 1935, the Papal organ, the 'Osservatore,'
|
||
|
|
joyously announced that the Pope was sending a representative to
|
||
|
|
Tokyo and the Mikado sending an ambassador to the Papal Court.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> You make short work of all the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> sophistry, about this
|
||
|
|
ominous development if you consider the run of events at the time.
|
||
|
|
The world at the conquest of Manchuria had evaporated. Trade-interests had again beaten principles. Sanctions against Japan had
|
||
|
|
not been imposed, and the trading nations were on friendly terms </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
26
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>with the Jap and willing to take his word, as they would take
|
||
|
|
Mussolini's word after Abyssinia and Hitler's word after Austria,
|
||
|
|
that absolutely no further advance would be attempted; while all
|
||
|
|
three adventurers were quite openly dangling before the eyes of
|
||
|
|
their respective peoples a program of conquests that promised
|
||
|
|
wealth to every class in the nation.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The case of the alliance of the Pope and his Yellow Brother"
|
||
|
|
was the worst of all. At the beginning of the century Count Hayashi
|
||
|
|
(Secret Memoirs, 1915), had written that "Japan must keep quite and
|
||
|
|
lull suspicion and wait her day; then not only put the meddling
|
||
|
|
powers out but meddle herself." After 1930, with the growth of an
|
||
|
|
aggressive Fascism in Europe and a general profession of admiration
|
||
|
|
of its efficiency, the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Japanese</span> concluded that they need not keep
|
||
|
|
quiet in their own country; they could not, indeed, if they were to
|
||
|
|
educate their people in the ground plan of dominating Asia. One of
|
||
|
|
the most spluttering firebrands was Yosuke Matsuoka. He had been
|
||
|
|
educated in America and was a Christian, so he was very useful for
|
||
|
|
lulling suspicions abroad, especially in America, but he was very
|
||
|
|
patriotic in Japan. Upton Close in his book, 'The Challenge,'
|
||
|
|
translates an article which Matsuoka published in 1933. It
|
||
|
|
coruscated with gems like this: "The mission of the Yamata race is
|
||
|
|
to prevent the human race from becoming devilish ... The one
|
||
|
|
nation not subject to the universal law of decline is that which is
|
||
|
|
ruled by a divinity and a permeated by the spirit of the Gods ...
|
||
|
|
the fated time has come to effulge its benefits to the world". Not
|
||
|
|
very Christian, but plain enough. At the following New Year,
|
||
|
|
<span class="NORP" title="NORP">Japanese</span> stores displayed gorgeous paint-and-pasteboard panoramas
|
||
|
|
of Japan's coming victory, the sinking of the American fleet, etc.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> This was the symphony of events which accompanied the
|
||
|
|
negotiations in Pacelli's opulent chambers in the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>. Let us
|
||
|
|
charitably suppose that in 1935, Matsuoka earnestly assured Pacelli
|
||
|
|
that Japan would not steal another acre of Chinese soil, that
|
||
|
|
Pacelli was simple-minded enough to believe him, and that the
|
||
|
|
highly favored <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> missionaries in Japan did not report to the
|
||
|
|
<span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span> that the entire country, including the Buddhist and Shinto
|
||
|
|
priests, was joyously chanting the national anthem of domination of
|
||
|
|
the East. A <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Catholic</span> can probably believe that, although the
|
||
|
|
steeling of Jehol from China had already followed the stealing of
|
||
|
|
Manchuria. But in 1935 the sacred representative of the Papacy in
|
||
|
|
Tokyo would find it one of his first duties to report that, under
|
||
|
|
cynically mendacious pretexts, the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Japanese</span> were moving south over
|
||
|
|
China proper. By June, 1935, they had appropriated a further vast
|
||
|
|
area of China. In November, 1936, they tried to set up a puppet
|
||
|
|
government for five whole provinces besides Manchuria.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> In short, from that day to this, it has been one long story of
|
||
|
|
conquest officially described in the most brazen language. It was
|
||
|
|
not a war, but an "incident" -- thus escaping the economic
|
||
|
|
inconveniences of a war -- it was for the "cooperative prosperity"
|
||
|
|
of China, Japan, Europe, and America, it was just a police measure,
|
||
|
|
and so on. And all the time it was exultingly represented in Japan
|
||
|
|
itself as the mere beginning of a career of conquest that would
|
||
|
|
enrich every class in the country. It was, further, a war conducted
|
||
|
|
with the full bestiality of the methods of the Pope's allies.
|
||
|
|
Brutality to civilians in actual fighting was supplemented by
|
||
|
|
brutality after conquest. The Chinese subjects were debased with </p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
27
|
||
|
|
.
|
||
|
|
THE VATICAN BURIES INTERNATIONAL LAW</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>dope and exploited mercilessly. Soldiers and officers used Chinese
|
||
|
|
women as Goths and Vandals had never used Roman Women. A Chinese
|
||
|
|
lady told me of an incident reported to her by her family in China:
|
||
|
|
an old woman in the occupied zone traveling from village to village
|
||
|
|
was raped six times in a few hours by soldiers of the nation which
|
||
|
|
is "ruled by a divinity and permeated by the spirit of the gods."
|
||
|
|
. . .</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> By 1941 the whole diabolical plan was clear. Japan's service
|
||
|
|
was to be to draw off a very large part of the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Russian</span> forces to
|
||
|
|
the East while the "crusade" destroyed Russia in Europe. We now
|
||
|
|
know -- if anybody required any evidence -- that the <span class="NORP" title="NORP">Russian</span>
|
||
|
|
campaign was decided and plotted very early in 1941 after the
|
||
|
|
failure to reduce England by aerial bombardment or invasion, which
|
||
|
|
was originally intended to precede the attack on Russia. Matsuoka;
|
||
|
|
the Versatile was sent to Europe. He visited Hitler and Mussolini;
|
||
|
|
and the 'Osservatore' (March 31, 1941) told with pride how he
|
||
|
|
visited Pope Pacelli. Did he carefully conceal from Pacelli that
|
||
|
|
the war for the extinction of Bolshevism, the bloodiest war in
|
||
|
|
history, the most ardent desire of the Pope, was to be launched?
|
||
|
|
That Japan, besides its designs in Southern Asia and its bestiality
|
||
|
|
in China, was to help by destroying Russia and threatening to
|
||
|
|
intercept American supplies? Believe that if you can. the <span class="GPE" title="GPE">Vatican</span>
|
||
|
|
organ tells us that at the close of their cordial interview, the
|
||
|
|
Pope presented Matsuoka with a gold medal; and Matsuoka declared in
|
||
|
|
the Italian press that his talk with the Pope was "the prettiest
|
||
|
|
moment in my life."</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Bank of Wisdom is a collection of the most thoughtful,
|
||
|
|
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
|
||
|
|
suppressed books and will cover American and world history; the
|
||
|
|
Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
|
||
|
|
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
|
||
|
|
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
|
||
|
|
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
|
||
|
|
that America can again become what its Founders intended --</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Free Market-Place of Ideas.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
|
||
|
|
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
|
||
|
|
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
|
||
|
|
us, we need to give them back to America.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
||
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
|
|
28
|
||
|
|
</p>
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
</body>
|
||
|
|
</html>
|