textfiles-politics/pythonCode/personTestingOutput/mccabe01.xml

<xml><p> 26 page printout
<ent type='ORG'>Reproducible Electronic Publishing</ent> can defeat censorship.</p>

<p> This file, its printout, or copies of either
are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
**** ****</p>

<p>Edited by E. <ent type='PERSON'>Haldeman</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Julius</ent></p>

<p>The <ent type='LOC'>Black</ent> International No. 1</p>

<p> THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> HOW <ent type='ORG'>THE BLACK INTERNATIONAL</ent> JOINED THE
WORLD-PLOT AGAINST FREEDOM,
<ent type='ORG'>LIBERALISM</ent>, AND DEMOCRACY</p>

<p> by Joseph McCabe</p>

<p> HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS
GIRARD -- : -- KANSAS</p>

<div> **** ****</div>

<p> Chapter I</p>

<p> THE FOULEST WAR IN HISTORY</p>

<p> This war is one of the most deliberately aggressive, one of
the most bloody and costly, and the most revolting war in history.
It is not the work, of an <ent type='PERSON'>Attila</ent> or a Genghis <ent type='PERSON'>Khan</ent>, a man from the
wilds of <ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent> whose barbaric dreams of conquest had never been
checked by the ideals of modern civilization. It is the foul work
of men who know how the race has fought during a century and a
half, ever since the <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> and the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> Revolutions, to rid
its life of the last taint of barbarism and had reached at least a
fair prospect of a final victory over violence and injustice: the
work of loathsome hypocrites, who masked with a pretense of
creating a higher social order the most monstrous greed, the most
abhorrent callousness, that ever debased the human mind.</p>

<p> Historians have disputed how the guilt of the war of 1914-1918
must be distributed amongst the combatants. No historian will ever
hesitate in assigning the guilt for this war. it brands for all
time a relatively small number of men in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>.
It puts upon them this infamy, that from a barbaric lust of power
and "glory," which ought now to be confined to the idle dreams of
young schoolboys, and from an almost insane greed of wealth for
themselves and their supporters they set out to drench the planet
and in blood and bring incalculable misery upon hundreds of
millions of innocent men, women and children.</p>

<p> These men, the <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>'s and <ent type='PERSON'>Goering</ent>'s and <ent type='PERSON'>Goebbels</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>
-- "the vilest triumvirate that has appeared in history, said the
late Ambassador <ent type='PERSON'>Dodd</ent>, who knew them and knew history -- the
<ent type='ORG'>Mussolinis</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Cianos</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, the <ent type='PERSON'>Hirohitos</ent> and <ent type='ORG'>Matsuokas</ent> of
<ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> saw with wide-open eyes the tragic close of the last war.
They knew that nearly 9000000 men in the prime of life had been
slaughtered in altars that were less merciful than those of the </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
1
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>Aztecs; yet they were prepared to sacrifice even more on the sordid
altars of their hellish ambitions. They had seen desolation from
<ent type='GPE'>Calais</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>: and they proposed to spread a worse desolation
over the greater part of the earth. They had learned how in the
last war at least $100000000000 of the wealth that men
laboriously create and meagerly share -- not to count the waste of
man-power and the paralysis of trade -- had been thrown into a
morass; yet knowing the advance of science and expecting a larger
theater of war they would squander more than that sum in the
pursuit of their greed.</p>

<p> The historian of the future who will coldly write these lines
will add a fourth count to the charge. During the twenty years
between the two great wars we had caught a vision of a new and
better world. That light of science which, as it slowly dawns,
enriches the imagination of man with plans that are more hopeful
and more confident than those offered us by any utopian, had grown
brighter. You remember how ten years ago <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> rang with
discussion of the promises of the <ent type='NORP'>Technocrats</ent>. Professors said that
we could, if we were wise, "smother every family in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> with
commodities," <ent type='ORG'>Engineers</ent> became visionaries and made blueprints of
a world in which poverty would be unknown and no man would feel
that gnawing anxiety about holding the job which a dozen jobless
hungrily envied. No more of this niggardly counting of dimes when
the children want to go to the pictures, of dollars for the winter
boots and clothe's . . . An exaggeration, if you like, but every
man knows that there is a great and solid scientific truth behind
it all. And now, instead of seeing our wealth grow and brighten a
million drab homes, we must pour down the military drain a sum with
which we could have transformed the face of the earth, and we must
see our industrial productiveness pass from prostitution to
weariness.</p>

<p> That was only half the promise of science. Those knowing folk
who read so little and talk so much asked, when you spoke about
this promise of the future: Can you change human nature? You can
build a house for a pig but it remains a pig. And while folk were
glibly repeating this old saw science was quietly proving that it
is just one more popular fallacy like the luck of a rabbit's foot
or the ill-luck of number thirteen, the virtue of priests or the
wisdom of <ent type='PERSON'>Popes</ent>. By 1930 the science of psychology had conducted
the "soul" or "mind" to its frontiers, thanking it for its
provisional services -- if any. What was left to study was human
behavior, and as we examined this in a scientific light we saw
that, instead of it being unalterable or requiring a prodigious
time to change, it is one of the most modifiable things under the
sun. Precisely because it is human. Man's behavior differs from the
rigid automatic behavior of the pig just in that fact that it is
not rigid and automatic. It depends upon ideas and stimulations
from without which can be changed; as <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> changed them for its
people, with stupendous results, in less than a generation.</p>

<p> It is one of the tragic ironies of our time that, apart from
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, it was only the criminal Dictators who acted upon this rich
principle of science. As late as the end of 1929 <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> had not yet
poisoned the minds -- the mechanism of behavior -- of one in 350 of
the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> people. He had 180000 followers in a population of </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
2
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>60000000. <ent type='NORP'>Han</ent>'s wanted a quiet life, his big pipe and mug of beer
and friendly neighbors, just as we do. He would have shuddered if
someone had foretold that in ten years he would, because he
accepted the lead of a criminal lunatic and a bunch of greedy
adventurers, see his wife and little <ent type='PERSON'>Gretchen</ent> just splashes of
churned flesh and blood under the ruins of the home he had built
for them. But <ent type='PERSON'>Goebbels</ent> changed his "human nature" in six years.
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, or <ent type='GPE'>Gayda</ent>, did the same, with the help of the priests of
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. The Japs did the same with their fishers and farmers and
textile workers, seizing and prostituting all the magnificent means
of instruction that science has provided -- the school and college,
the radio and the cinema, the printing press and the library --
these poisoners of the human race had the majority of folk in three
nations soon howling like wolves at the scent of blood. Had it not
been for this we were within measurable distance of a genuine era
of peace, comfort, and brotherhood.</p>

<p> This, you may say, certainly looks like what happened, but
it's impossible. How could a gang, smaller than that which looted
<ent type='GPE'>New York</ent> in 1860 or St. Louis in 1890, take over a whole country,
make a corrupt fortune that beggars Tammany, and have a very fair
chance of becoming super-emperors?</p>

<p> Think again; and start with the fact that a small minority of
men in three countries, men of the vilest character and of colossal
greed, did secure control of those countries and organize them for
war. No one disputes that. And if you have had this success
explained to you on the line that <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> had, through
the conduct of Some melodramatic villains called <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> or
<ent type='NORP'>Bolsheviks</ent>, fallen into an anarchy that ruined their economies, and
that <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> came along with "ideologies" which
promised deliverance from this anarchy, put the theory in the
trash-basket with the stories of <ent type='GPE'>Washington</ent>'s cherry tree and
<ent type='PERSON'>William</ent> Tell's apple. It's worse. It is, as we shall see later, a
lie. For years <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> were just small-scale gangsters
directing mobs of hoodlums with bottles of castor-oil, loaded
whips, and automatics. They ranked in the <ent type='NORP'>European</ent> press, when it
thought fit to notice them, as part of the scum that had boiled to
the surface in a time of trouble.</p>

<p> It was just because they had no appeal to thinking men,
because they had relied upon disorder and brutality instead of
order and discipline to attain such position as they had, that
certain larger and more respectable forces -- wealth, privilege,
and religion -- took them up and gave them that control of the
spring's of opinion and behavior which has enabled them to make a
lie look like a grand truth, a gangster's plan seem a schedule of
national salvation. <ent type='ORG'>Thyssen</ent> wandering about <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> telling
everybody how the <ent type='NORP'>Nazis</ent> took his millions and double-crossed him is
one of the thousands who thought they could hire the gunman as the
White <ent type='ORG'>Knights</ent> of Privilege and then dismiss them with a suitable
reward. The heads of the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> are only less outspoken
because they are still within reach of the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> lash. <ent type='ORG'>The King</ent> of
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> fumes in his Quirinal just as the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> does in his Vatican.
It is -- to borrow a Phrase from <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> history -- the Day of
Dupes.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
3
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> Until we understand this the blight which has cursed our life
and <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>'s share in causing it will remain painful and
disquieting mysteries. Advertisement is a mild variety of hypnotism
weakened by the fact that the advertiser has limited resources, and
a hundred rivals. <ent type='ORG'>Smith</ent>'s soup is the finest in the world until you
see <ent type='PERSON'>Jones</ent>'s poster on the next hoarding. Now the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> system was
so successful in corrupting nations, once its highly respectable
patrons had given it wealth and power, because it uses the
hypnotism of the advertiser in its ideal form: no rivalry, no
discordant note, unlimited resources, the employment of every
device from the pulpit, to the professor's chair or the urchin with
his bit of chalk. You may object that at all events there must be
something sensible, convincing, attractive in the message that is
brayed and blazed everywhere. Is it always necessary? If you assail
ear and eye at every moment of the day for years with "Heil <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>"
or "<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> Solo" millions will begin to see genius in a
neuropathic or a brutal adventurer who ought to be selling beef and
mutton. however, there was a message, and it was very convincing.</p>

<p> Take the case of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. On April 3, 1938 the leading <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>
scientific weekly, Die <ent type='ORG'>Umschau</ent>, contained an article, not too
prominently displayed, on the future of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> in <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent>. It was
the program of the New Order, yet as far as I can ascertain, not a
single paper in <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> or <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> noticed it. It described a
system of ship-canals and canalization of lakes, already more than
half constructed in 1938, which would connect every industrial town
in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> along the <ent type='LOC'>Danube</ent> and even across <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>,
with nearly every country and port in <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent>. The scientific
writer, who ended with a "Heil <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>," coldly explained how all
<ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> would then supply food and raw materials to <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and
receive payment in manufactured goods. This, in a respectable
scientific periodical, was the raw program of the future
enslavement of <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent>, the paralysis of industry in every country,
and the colossal enrichment of the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> manufacturer and worker.
That was the bait. Neither, <ent type='ORG'>Thyssen</ent> nor <ent type='NORP'>Han</ent>s cared the toss of a
coin about theories of <ent type='NORP'>Nordic</ent> blood or <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> ideology. it was a
stupendous greed that was dangled before the eyes of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>; and
the poor fish in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, who believes that he would share the loot,
used the bait to attract his own industrialists and workers. <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>
notoriously has nothing but the same shameless greed behind its
bland talk of New Order and <ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent> for the <ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent>tic.</p>

<p> Few took any notice when, in 1938, I drew attention to this
and similar articles in the responsible <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> press. At the time
there was still a world-chorus of praise for the "order and
efficiency" of the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> system, and it would not do to admit a
jarring note. Folk were told that, while there was no need of
Fascism in <ent type='GPE'>the <ent type='GPE'>United</ent> <ent type='ORG'>State</ent>s</ent> and Great <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, these other -- or
inferior -- countries were "without form and void" and "darkness
was upon the face of the deep," and it was fine that the spirit of
Fascism "moved upon the face of the waters" creating a new world.
This Fascism, it was said, menaced only disorderly folk, sadists,
atheists, corruptors of women and children -- the <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent>, in short.
What a tissue of lies it has all turned out to be! <ent type='PERSON'>Roosevelt</ent> was
deluded as effectively as <ent type='ORG'>Chamberlain</ent> or Reynaud; Cardinal
Dougherty as effectively as the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>. The historian of the future
will not ask how a few gunmen nearly became the emperors of half </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
4
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>the world. That is already clear. He will ask why the world looked
on supinely, even applauding, while these men built a force. of so
formidable a character that they almost compassed their sordid aim.</p>

<p> There can be only one answer. The statesmen, industrialists,
bankers, and bishops of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> are as able and well-informed as
those of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> and far superior to those of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. They
were deluded about the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> program because one clause of it so
far coincided with their own interests that they were not disposed
to pay close attention to the other clauses. The great thing was
that they promised to cheek the rapid world-growth of Socialism.
But the other clauses of the program were plain enough from the
start. The only change in the scheme of the gunmen in recent years
is that it has been expanded until it aims at conquering and
exploiting more than half the earth; and this is not so near to
lunacy as some would have us believe, It was due to a cold
calculation of the possibilities in view of the supineness or
complacency of the <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> governments and their press and the
support of <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent>.</p>

<p> <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> have made no secret of their
aggressive imperialistic schemes during the last ten years. I
described them in full in 1937 in three booklets of "The A B C
Library of Living Knowledge," taking the facts from semi-official
and other reliable publications. There was no secrecy about these
publications. It was a necessary part of <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>'s appeal to the
mob from the first that, once the politicians were cleared away, he
would make a greater <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> by annexing <ent type='GPE'>Malta</ent>, Corsica, <ent type='ORG'>Savoy</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>Dalmatia</ent>. Little girls read that in their balilia catechisms and
even little girls knew that this meant war on <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>Yugo</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Slavia</ent>. It was equally necessary for <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> to promise that he
would restore the greatness of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> by bringing in all <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>-speaking lands (<ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Alsace</ent>, and part of <ent type='GPE'>Switzerland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Denmark</ent>); and to these he added as early as 1924, in
<ent type='PERSON'>Mein Kampf</ent>, the annexation of the <ent type='GPE'>Ukraine</ent> and the annihilation of
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent>. That meant a <ent type='NORP'>European</ent> War. <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> has for the last ten years
organized great patriotic societies, With millions of members,
demanding the annexation of the eastern half of <ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent> and all
islands of the <ent type='LOC'>Pacific</ent>. These three programs were the protocol of
a world war; the war by which we now suffer. In my three booklets
I showed that there was not the least uncertainty about that. It is
just another fairy-tale for adults that the <ent type='ORG'>Axis</ent> has sprung a
surprise upon an innocent world.</p>

<p> The vital question which we have to ask is why <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, Great
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> permitted, without arming themselves, the three
robber nations to create so gigantic a military force that they had
a real hope of attaining their object and dividing the earth into
three <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> spheres: into two, rather, because <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>
never regarded <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> as more than a catspaw. In a general way
you know the answer to this question. The <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>s were going to
destroy the <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> and that was so monumental a service to the
democracies, or to their ruling class and their <ent type='ORG'>Churches</ent>, that even
diplomats and statesmen and prelates took the word of the arch-liars that they would cultivate peace when they had crushed the
<ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent>. They were not ignorant but they were guilty of a gross amount
of wishful thinking. Even when <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> publicly and brazenly said</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
5
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>that he offered the world "peace resting on eight million bayonets"
they put it down as a harmless overflow of a strong man's strength.
When, in 1934, he made the most deliberate and official statement
of the nature of Fascism (in the article "<ent type='ORG'>Fascismo</ent>" in his new
Encyclopedia <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent>), saying that Fascism regarded war as the
noblest work of the race and peace as a degrading ideal, statesmen
and journalists pretended that they had never read it. So through
five shameful years the world that was threatened with an appalling
disaster smiled and praised the "efficiency" of the butchers who
were sharpening their knives; because the world is now ruled by its
press, and of the papers on which men relied the world over nine
copies out of ten came from the editorial offices and printing
shops of rich men who wanted the <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> suppressed at any price.</p>

<p> But where, you ask, does <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> enter this
conspiracy, as it really was? We are going to see immediately that
of all the privileged minorities which dreaded the <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> and were
therefore far too easily duped by the promises of the Anti-<ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> had the most urgent need of relief. The cry will be
raised, of course, that I now accuse the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> of causing the war.
That sort of rubbish is a necessary part of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
propagandist system. What I do say is that the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> allied itself
with <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, as everybody knows, with <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, as everybody ought to
know -- it is only a year since <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> coined a gold medal for
the virtuous <ent type='PERSON'>Matsuoka</ent> -- and, as far as it was allowed to do so,
with <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, and that it used its international organization to
create that fierce and confused hatred of <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent> on which the
<ent type='ORG'>Axis</ent> would rely when the crisis of the war was reached. Of that
international plotting in every country these ten booklets will
provide decisive evidence. It is shame enough that a <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> which
makes such arrogant claims of moral superiority, a <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> which
professes to have the finest international intelligence-service and
to be inflexible in the condemnation of crime, should be silent, as
it was silent, during ten years of monstrous outrages -- <ent type='GPE'>Manchukuo</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>, etc. -- but the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> has a deeper shame. He
played an active part over and over again on the side of the devil.
Because the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> was not merely threatened, like all
wealth and privilege, by the growth of Socialism -- it was in fact
breaking up under the impact, and only the violent suppression of
the Socialists, if necessary by war, could arrest this
disintegration.</p>

<p> Chapter II</p>

<p> JUST WHAT THE PAPACY NEEDED</p>

<p> There are various ways of divining into sections the broad
stream of events which we call human history. One might divide it
from a sociological viewpoint into two parts: the rise and the fall
of privilege. During the first 3000 years of history we find an
ever-widening gap between a privileged minority and the working
majority. Once upon a time men had chosen able and strong men to
"rule" them, and these had chosen "companion's" (Counts) and
"leaders" (<ent type='ORG'>Dukes</ent>) of the troops who shared their privileges. In
those days it was considered just as important to ward off evil
spirits and flatter good spirits, and cunning men who could
persuade their fellows that they were particularly skilful at this </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
6
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>sort of work founded another privileged caste. With the growth of
wealth, when men began to live in cities, the glamour of the sacred
castes -- kings, nobles, and priests -- increased, <ent type='ORG'>The King</ent>s were
Sons of God, and the priests were his very special friends. Palaces
and temples, the mansions of the rich, the nobles, and the chief
priests, rose high above the clutter of mean homes.</p>

<p> That is another story, but it is necessary to outline it
because the world-torture which we endure in this generation is a
vital stage in the second half of history; the era of the undoing
of privilege. The "profound" folk -- usually literary men whose
knowledge of any branch of positive learning would hardly fill a
five-cent note-book -- who now enlighten us about our problems by
essays, feature-articles, and sermons have made some remarkable
discoveries about our age. It is sick; it is degenerate; it is
World-weary; it has the insolence of youth; it relies too much on
old men; it misses the firm guidance of religion; it talks too much
about rights and too little about duties, and so on.</p>

<p> It is all bunk. For instance, one of the most persistent
charges is that, being irreligious, our younger men have lost the
Spirit of sacrifice, whereas in <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> at least
15000000 bravely confront the horrible dangers of a modern war,
and certainly four-fifths of them (<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s, <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns, <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> and
<ent type='NORP'>Chinese</ent>) have no religion. The truth is that our generation, our
degenerate, frivolous, selfish generation, has taken up, and more
vigorously than ever, a task which the race has approached whenever
and wherever it was free during the last 2500 years; to reduce the
harsh contrasts of privilege and service, idleness and work, wealth
and poverty. Our age does not mind paying a good price for high
service, but it doubts if the services of priests and kings are
worth billions of dollars to a nation, and the conviction spreads
that the entire system of privilege is the chief obstacle to the
scientific organization and betterment of life. The world of
privilege is, as it has always done, reacting bloodily to the
revolt.</p>

<p> The work of undoing privilege began 2500 years ago in the
cities of <ent type='LOC'>Ionia</ent>, on the coast of <ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent> Minor, where <ent type='NORP'>Greeks</ent> mingled
with men of many races on free soil. There were no kings or nobles,
the priest's had little power, and the rich -- moderately rich --
men served as merchants and in their leisure did some very useful
thinking for the race. Privilege -- the Kings of <ent type='GPE'>Persia</ent> --
scattered them, and <ent type='GPE'>Greece</ent> took up the task. It got rid of its
kings and listened to philosophers rather than priests; and if the
<ent type='NORP'>Romans</ent> to whom the torch was next passed, apostatized to the extent
of restoring monarchy and allowing some to become very rich --
though not nearly so rich as our multi-millionaires -- they at
least exacted a princely price in superb free services to the
workers. Then the night of the Dark Age fell upon <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent>.</p>

<p> Now that Professors as well as politicians have a great
respect for "the venerable <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>" and its "august head" we
must, it appears, not talk about a Dark Age. Please yourself. The
facts are that whereas in the later days of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> Empire three
workers out of four had been free men, nine out of ten of them were
during the Dark Age (500-1100) serfs, which is the polite <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
7
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THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>way of saying slaves; whereas the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> workers had all free
education (and free bread, free games, free medical service, etc.),
nine out of ten in the new <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> were totally illiterate and of an
incredible ignorance; and that whereas the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Greeks</ent> of the
fourth century had had the protection of a fine code of law and in
general character were as good as we are, law was almost as extinct
as art in the new <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent>, and the grossness of manners and morals
was indescribable. But please yourself, I am merely, in all
clarity, explaining why the work of human redemption was dropped
for five or six centuries.</p>

<p> What it is important to know if we want to understand our own
age is that from the time when <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> mentally awoke, in the
eleventh century, to our days this attempt to put the world right
has inspired three great revolutions, and what we witness today is
the most logical and the broadest of the three. After five
centuries of revolts -- the <ent type='PERSON'>Popes</ent> had to fight a <ent type='NORP'>republican</ent>
movement in their own city for two centuries -- and bloody
reprisals <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> saw that the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was the arch-enemy and
its power must be broken. Hence the Reformation. On the last
ghastly fields of the Thirty Years' War, <ent type='EVENT'>the War</ent> of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism and
<ent type='NORP'>Protestantism</ent>, which was one of the most savage and squalid in
history, the race won its first great victory over privilege; and
it is pleasant as well as informing to recall that this first
instalment of freedom was won in large part through the criminal
misbehavior of the <ent type='PERSON'>Popes</ent> themselves. They had stored away in <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>
a treasure of at least a quarter of a billion dollars to help the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s when the war came, and when it reached its crisis <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>
<ent type='PERSON'>Urban VIII</ent> gave the whole vast sum to his greedy and vicious
relatives. You can read that in the latest <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> History of the
<ent type='PERSON'>Popes</ent> (Hayward's, 1931).</p>

<p> Some of our advanced writers smile at the Reformation, but in
point of fact it released forces which brought about a rapid
progress in wealth and science and inspired the deeper revolt; the
revolt which flared up in the <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> and the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> Revolutions
and then for a hundred years sustained a struggle against reaction
and privilege which was as heroic as any in history. The fight was
now against <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and feudalism as against priests and kings (and
their politicians) in alliance. <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, having abolished
feudalism, had no share in it except to welcome refugees, and so
there is some excuse for the very shabby treatment of it in
<ent type='NORP'>American</ent> schools, colleges, and history books. But the chief reason
for the suppression of it is <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> influence because it knocks
into a cocked hat everything that the apologists say about the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. I gave a fairly full account of it in various volumes of
the Appeal to <ent type='ORG'>Reason Library</ent> and must here confine myself to what
is vitally required in order to understand <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent>
and the lies of its apologists.</p>

<p> Five year's ago, when we began to try to help <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and I
recalled <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>'s magnificent record in the nineteenth-century
struggle, a <ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent> leader, a friend of mine, disdainfully swept
that struggle aside as "merely a political revolution" and -- this
was the main point -- thought it wrong to antagonize <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s by
talking about it. I doubt if the economic revolt would have been
possible if the political-religious revolutions had not been </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
8
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THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>carried first. In any case, a few years later <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent> was extinct
in most of <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> and South <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, and the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> was
shrieking for the blood of "<ent type='NORP'>Bolsheviks</ent>" from one side of the planet
to the other. In fact, <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers are now saying everywhere
that this <ent type='NORP'>Liberalism</ent> of the last century is the real root of all
our modern disorder, and the official attitude of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is to
claim a full restoration of the royalist-clerical regime for which
it had fought in the last century. Would-be kings, semi-consecrated
loafers, wait with its blessing, on the frontiers of <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Hungary</ent>; and of course poor <ent type='PERSON'>Leopold</ent> of
<ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>, whom the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has white-washed, is going to be put back
on his golden throne.</p>

<p> Whatever satisfaction anyone finds in dismissing the
revolution of the last century, the fight to hold the gains of the
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent> Revolution, as "a mere political struggle" or a "bourgeois
revolution," the story of it is vitally relevant to our tragedy
today, and it is just on that account that it is suppressed or
toned down in our educational and historical literature. For it
shows, even as you find it told in the most important <ent type='NORP'>European</ent>
manuals, that it is the black priests and their white allies who
were guilty of just such murderous excesses and vindictive
massacres as they now mendaciously attribute to the <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent>.</p>

<p> In the course of the Nineteenth Century nearly half a million
unnamed men, women, and children were done to death, on scaffolds
and in massacres and deadly jail's, for claiming less -- they were
as a rule not <ent type='NORP'>republican</ent>s -- than the rights granted in the
<ent type='NORP'>American</ent> Constitution of 1787. If we care to add the men who, from
<ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>Peru</ent>, died on the battlefield for the sacred cause the
number rises to more than a million, but let us keep to the unarmed
victims and their very moderate demands. These men and women, and
often children, were crushed with a savagery that surpasses even
the worst features of the untruthful stories about the <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> in
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>; and the murderers and torturers were in nearly
every case directed by priests and bishops who cooperated with
monarchs (of <ent type='GPE'>Naples</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>) of the vilest type of
character. The outrages were so revolting and the complicity of the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> so clear, that the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> historian, Lord <ent type='PERSON'>Acton</ent>, the one
outstanding historian the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> can claim in modern times, wrote
to the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> historian <ent type='PERSON'>Lady Blennerhassett</ent>:</p>

<p> The accomplices of the Old Man of the Mountains (the
classic assassins of history) picked off individual victims,
but the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> contrived murder and massacre on the largest
and also on the most cruel and inhuman scale. They were not
only wholesale assassins, but they also made the principle of
assassination a law of the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and a condition of
salvation. (Selections from the Correspondence of the First
Lord <ent type='PERSON'>Acton</ent>, 1917, Vol. I, p. 55.)</p>

<p> You may read the horrible details in the <ent type='GPE'>Cambridge</ent> Modern
History (Vol X) the greatest historical work in the English
language, or in any standard history of modern <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
9
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THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> These are the undisputed historical facts and the recognized
authorities upon which I base the statement which I have put in
italic's and in bold face words. And on the same solid ground I now
make another statement in bold face words, because these are the
essential points to remember: The people recovered power from the
clerical-royalists repeatedly but they never indulged in reprisals,
much less savagery, as the <ent type='LOC'>Black</ent>-and-<ent type='NORP'>Whites</ent> always did. There were,
naturally, local outbursts against the defeated tyrants, a few
churches were burned and priests killed, but the authorities always
checked these spurts of violence. Who, then, are the real <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent>?</p>

<p> What about the famous <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> Revolution, you may ask? You will
find it strange, if you reflect, that when <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> (and some other
writers) want to show you how the "mob" is prone to commit
outrages, especially if it is deprived of "the restraints of
religion", they skip from the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> Revolution of 1789 to the
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n Revolution of 1917. They refuse to glance at the dozen
important revolutions which lie between because these were always
followed by clerical-royalist, savagery when the <ent type='NORP'>Whites</ent> recovered
power; a savagery which led Lord <ent type='PERSON'>Acton</ent>, in his day one of the
leading historians in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>, to denounce his own <ent type='PERSON'>Popes</ent> and the
worst assassins in history. But they also tell long discredited
lies about the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> and the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n Revolutions.</p>

<p> Historians are now agreed within narrow limits about the
September Massacre and the Terror which are the chief charges
against the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> Revolution, as you will find in <ent type='ORG'>Lavisse</ent>'s
standard history of <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, the equivalent of the <ent type='GPE'>Cambridge</ent>
History, and more recent <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> works. In the September Massacre
there were only about 1100 victims, and most of these were
criminals and prostitutes from the jails. It is agreed that only
about 500 men were involved in the butchery, and the hundreds of
thousands of citizens of <ent type='GPE'>Paris</ent> were horrified. In the Terror
(1793-4) there were about 18000 victims -- there had been at least
30000 in a few days in the horrible <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> St. Bartholomew
Massacre -- and only one-fifth of these were nobles, priests, and
nuns, while 67 percent were atheistic working men. It was a fight
of rival political parties, and the leader of the winning party,
the director of the carnage, <ent type='PERSON'>Robespierre</ent> was a fanatically
religious man who hated Atheism. What is worse, <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers
never mention, and very few other writer's ever mention, that there
was a White Terror in 1794 and after the fall of <ent type='LOC'>Napoleon</ent> which
was, more brutal, than the Terror of 1793. You probably never heard
of it. That is how the education of democracies is conducted today;
to the great satisfaction of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and the reactionaries.</p>

<p> The long and bloody fight which, as I said, dragged on through
the nineteenth century and was maintained in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> until
our own time was part of this second <ent type='NORP'>European</ent> Revolution. By 1920
it seemed to have triumphed everywhere, but the third revolution
had already begun. We may call <ent type='EVENT'>this the Economic Revolution</ent> but it
was much broader. Socialism -- not the <ent type='NORP'>Anglo</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>American</ent> anaemic type
but as the world knew it -- threatened a comprehensive war on
privilege; on rank, wealth, priestly immunities, political
corruption, and all sorts of "rulers." And just because it was so
all-embracing, every variety of privilege that it threatened took
alarm, and they formed a grand coalition. <ent type='ORG'>The Unholy Alliance</ent> of
1814 was alive again.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
10
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THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> To enlist in its support the more simple-minded folk and the
masses who had no wealth or privileges to fight for the cry of
<ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent>, or the <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> was raised. The enemy is, of
course, Socialism, because it aims to create a new social order in
which there shall be no great private wealth, no chance to make a
million, no rich landowners, no hereditary rank or office, no
parasitism, no privileges of priests. The present <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> may be as
ignorant as you like to think him outside of his theology and
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> Law but he did know, when he told his <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s that
"<ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent> is the greatest evil in the world" and called for a
crusade against it that outside <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent> never had a
prospect of attaining power and in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> -- <ent type='ORG'>the Union</ent> of Socialist
<ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> Republics, remember -- it is an ideal of the future.
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, we shall see, confesses that he laughed in his sleeve
when he raised the boogie of <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> the
<ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent>s were the smallest, if not the most respectable, of the
popular parties. But it would not do to talk of extinguishing
Socialism when <ent type='ORG'>the Labor Party</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> occasionally calls itself
Socialist, so they set up the scarecrow of <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent> or <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent>
and clothed it in ragged stories of rape and murder.</p>

<p> In view of it's history the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> would inevitably join its
natural allies -- wealth, power, and privilege -- but in the
present state of the world it had a special and very pressing
reason. During the fifteen years -- say from 1919 or 1920 -- after
Socialism began to spread from <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> over the world <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>
lost, mainly through its influence, more than four times as many
followers as it had lost at the Reformation.</p>

<p> The <ent type='ORG'>Press</ent> is now so much controlled in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> interest
that this will seem to many a startling statement. It is, in fact,
well within the range of demonstrable facts. If you reflect that,
as you will find, the population of Great <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, the largest
seceding country, in the days of <ent type='PERSON'>Henry VIII</ent> was only about
4000000, you easily see that the total loss to <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> at the
Reformation could hardly be more than 12000000. But beyond
question it lost, mainly to Socialism and <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent>, at least
50000000 between 1919 and the beginning of the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> reaction.
The largest items in this total will be vindicated as we proceed
but a few words of explanation will reconcile the reluctant reader
to it.</p>

<p> In countries where there was a clear-cut issue of <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and
anti-<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> at the polls -- <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, the South <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> Republics,
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> -- the election figures give a
very safe indication, and they show that in each of these cases
(except <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>) the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> had lost, and the Socialists
had gained, at least 10000000. Add <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> (where <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism was
nearly extinguished), <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> (where, we shall see,
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> clergy admit a loss of about 2000000), <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> (where the Socialists held <ent type='GPE'>Vienna</ent> until they were
treacherously disarmed for <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> by gallant little <ent type='PERSON'>Dollfuss</ent>), and
further losses in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent> . . . Need I say more? The loss
was probably nearer 70000000 than 50000000. After the anti-clerical revolution in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> in 1932 the only countries in the
world that remained officially loyal to <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> were <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>Hungary</ent>. We will not count <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>'s <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
11
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THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> The <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> knows from seven centuries of experience,
ever since the <ent type='NORP'>Albigensian</ent> Massacre, that it never recovers ground
by an intellectual appeal, by honest propaganda. How was it to
check this new and appalling leakage? Only, as in all ages, by an
alliance with forces which could and would trample on the ideals of
peace and freedom. Fascism was just what it needed.</p>

<p> Chapter III</p>

<p> IS THE CHURCH OF ROME FASCIST?</p>

<p> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> has been so drenched in recent years with <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
claims that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is ideally <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> and that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> is
-- or has been since democracy seemed to have won its battle
against feudalism -- the inflexible champion of political justice
and freedom that some may imagine that an alliance with Fascism is
unthinkable. We shall see largely on the testimony of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s, in
the following booklets that this alliance is an elementary fact of
the present situation, but it is easy to show at once that this
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> description of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>'s attitude which is broadcast in
the <ent type='GPE'>United</ent> states -- and now in <ent type='GPE'>the <ent type='GPE'>United</ent> <ent type='ORG'>State</ent>s</ent> only -- is a
mockery.</p>

<p> The <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer, W. Teeling (The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in Politics,
1937), who has quite a reputation for boldness, almost heresy, is,
his own sect, says that there are 350000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in the
world. How Teeling came to be described as bold and critical I do
not know. He criticizes the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> only in the matter of <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>
and only the most expert clerical -- shall we say manipulators of
truth? try to defend it on that point. With his 350000000
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s he goes 20000000 better than the sufficiently audacious
official claim, and, recalling how <ent type='PERSON'>Macaulay</ent> gave the total as
150000000 a century ago, he ask us to admire the miracle of its
growth. But when you reflect on the high <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> birth rate -- you
go to hell, the priest tells <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> parents, if you cheat the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of possible subscribers by using contraceptives -- and when
you learn, as you easily can, that according to the experts, the
population of a modern <ent type='ORG'>State</ent> would, without birth control, double
every third of a century, the miracle looks rather tawdry. The
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> total now obviously ought to be 600000000. It is in
point of fact less than 200000000.</p>

<p> You smile at the figure of 330000000 when, if you take the
trouble to look up <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> statistics, you find that it includes
30000000 in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, where optimistic <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers do not
claim 10000000; 30000000 in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, where <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> plays
<ent type='PERSON'>skittle</ent>'s with the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>; 40000000 in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, where as long ago
as 1919 the banned Socialists polled 1840593 votes (more than
half of the literate adult males) out of 3500000; 24000000 in
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, where it took the armies of three nations two years to put
the clerical Humpty Dumpty back on the wall; 60000000 in South
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, where the <ent type='LOC'>Black</ent>s keep power only by the use of violence,
torture, and the zeal of masses of illiterate <ent type='NORP'>Indians</ent>. And so on.
These are the little pleasantries of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> arithmetic.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
12
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> Let us say 200000000. Where are they? Now, no sophistry can
obscure the lesson of the answer to that; and it is the same
whether you prefer to speak of 150000000 or 350000000
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s. Apart from the "converts" on foreign missions, who might
be classed as consumers goods, nine-tenths of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>'s subjects
live under a <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> flag. That fact is so uncomfortable that even
the most ingenious <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> apologist prefers to say nothing about
it. They live under the regimes of <ent type='GPE'>Vichy</ent> <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>,
<ent type='PERSON'>Salazar</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='ORG'>Horthy</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Hungary</ent>, and in the
Republics of South and Central <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, nearly all of which are
<ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> was <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> before it became compulsorily <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>. And
not the boldest apologist can say, even to his own flock, that this
fact gives pain to the <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>. Everybody knows that he
warmly blesses the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> regime under which they live and urges
it as the model for all <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries. He has to. In an
atmosphere of freedom his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> always crumbles.</p>

<p> Who are the enemies of Fascism? <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, where the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has
virtually perished because of its political intrigues, is the most
effective and most thorough going enemy, Great <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, where
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s are less than one-twentieth of the population, is next.
I do not say the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Empire because the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> half of <ent type='GPE'>Canada</ent>
is <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>, and the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s of <ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent> are, under the lead of
anti-<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Archbishop <ent type='PERSON'>Mannix</ent>, by no means united for the struggle
against Fascism. Third is <ent type='GPE'>the <ent type='GPE'>United</ent> <ent type='ORG'>State</ent>s</ent>, where genuine
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s are less than one-tenth of the population but very much
more than one-tenth of the <ent type='NORP'>Isolationists</ent>. In sum, there are in
<ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> 350000000 non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> thorough opponents of
Fascism to about 20000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> more-or-less opponent's. Add
<ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent>, and you have 1000000000 non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> opponents, fighting
or ready to fight against Fascism, and less than 30000000
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s.</p>

<p> Who were the chief traitors to the cause of <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent>
civilization? <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> -- that is to say, the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> and
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>-directed part of <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent> (or its <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>s, royalists,
and priests), and the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Croats</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Yugo</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Slavia</ent>.</p>

<p> Who made the best fight against the invading <ent type='ORG'>Huns</ent>? <ent type='GPE'>Norway</ent>,
which has only 2000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s to nearly 3000000 <ent type='NORP'>Protestants</ent>; the
<ent type='NORP'>Serbs</ent>, who are bitterly anti-Papal and were let down by the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> provinces of their country; <ent type='GPE'>Greece</ent>, where the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> has no
influence; and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, where, if you will forgive in <ent type='ORG'>Irishism</ent>, he
has still less. Not for a moment do I belittle the fine resistance
of <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, but it was not fighting Fascism as such. It was already
<ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> and had for twenty years persecuted religious minorities.
It fought for its national independence and to prevent the
extension to <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> of the anti-clerical elements of <ent type='NORP'>Nazis</ent>m.</p>

<p> What is the Constitution of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>? It is the
newest approach on earth to that of <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is a
despotic monarchy. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> may not only disregard the collective
opinion of his cardinals (his cabinet) but he is not bound to
submit to the decisions of a general council of all the bishops,
arch-bishops and abbots of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world. He is the <ent type='PERSON'>Fuhrer</ent>,
with the additional prerogative of infallibility.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
13
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THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> What is the law of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>? The most tyrannical
code of law in the world. The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has two sets of laws: a code
of Public Law, which in plain English means Private Law because it
is kept in a dead language and taught to very few priests and no
laymen, and Private Law, which you may prefer to call Public Law
because it alone is translated into modern languages and accessible
to the general public. You may read this in an <ent type='NORP'>American</ent>
translation, if you are able to disentangle the text from the
artful commentaries of the translator's. It is <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> enough, if
Fascism means tyranny. It treats the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> laity like sheep.
They must not read a criticism of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and its untruthful
literature without the permission of a priest who will insist on
"replying" to it. Penalty -- hell. They must not discuss such
matters with a critical non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> friend or hear a lecture that
may be critical. They must urge non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s to read both sides
but never do it themselves. They must not marry except on lines
prescribed by the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> whether these accord with civil law or
not. Penalty -- hell. They must never get a divorce. Penalty --
hell. But if they are rich the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> will find, even if they have
been married twenty years and have ten children, that they never
were married at all.</p>

<p> The Public Law of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is the most arrogant and most
truculent code in the history of jurisprudence, It is supposed to
define the relations of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> to other corporations (states,
etc.) but if the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has a bit of legislation which might look
rather naked and immodest in English, it keeps this also under the
veil of the dead language of the Public Law. For instance, it is
one of the most emphatic principles of this Public Law (which is
never made public) that you cannot leave the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and so escape
its jurisdiction, and that if you say that you no longer believe in
it and have quitted it the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has "the right and the duty." to
put you to death. I pass sleepless nights under the shadow of this
awful sentence which has been hanging over me for 45 years. The
fundamental principle of the law is that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, being the only
institution on earth that has been established by God, is the only
"perfect society," and therefore it has the right to overrule and
dictate to merely secular and human states on any point which it
chooses to regard as affecting religion or morals; and believe me,
the clerical genius could prove in five minutes that the color of
your wall-paper or the number of your blankets is a question of
morals. It follows at once that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> will, where it has the
power, not tolerate the practice or propaganda of any other
religion, much less irreligion, or any criticism of itself or its
priests; that no priest must be tried in a civil court; that all
schools must be subject to clerical authority, and so on.</p>

<p> Well, you may say, a dead language means a dead letter. Pardon
me. Latin may be a dead language to you but it is the living
language of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. This ultra-medieval law is not dead letter
but is taught today in the international Papal (or Gregorian)
University at <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>, to which selected <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> priests are sent,
just as a few are sent from all countries, and Latin is their
<ent type='NORP'>Esperanto</ent>. It is, in fact, mainly to give them a thorough knowledge
of this secret law that they are sent to <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>, for it is not taught
in the education of ordinary priests, and not one in 100000 of the
zealous laymen (<ent type='ORG'>Knights</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Columbus</ent>, etc.) who help the priests
knows anything about it.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
14
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THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> But you may be sure that the priestly writers, who tell
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent> about the beautiful harmony of <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> Law and <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> Law
know all about it. The chief manual of it, Father Marianus de
Luca's Institutiones Juris <ent type='PERSON'>Ecclesiastici Publici</ent> is in every
seminary. It is not one of those Yellow and dusty tomes that are
considered too valuable to open every day but a modern book,
published by <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> in the present century. It has a
particularly warm letter of authorization from <ent type='PERSON'>Leo XIII</ent>, the great
"<ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>," though about ten pages of it are devoted to
chastising priests who say that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> his abandoned its "right
of the sword" or any other medieval claims. I have quoted
extensively from it elsewhere (Appeal to <ent type='ORG'>Reason Library</ent>, No.1), and
you can spend a pleasant hour comparing the nice sentiments which
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s quote for you from <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Leo</ent>'s inspiring <ent type='ORG'>Encyclical</ent>s with
the sentiments he endorses in Marianus de Lucas book.</p>

<p> In fact, it comes a little closer to <ent type='NORP'>American</ent>s. A more recent
but equally truculent manual of this Public <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> Law is Cardinal
Lepicier's De Stabilitate et <ent type='PERSON'>Progressu Dogmatis</ent>, Lapicier is a
<ent type='NORP'>Canadian</ent>, the oracle of the <ent type='NORP'>Canadian</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s. So white priests in
<ent type='GPE'>Detroit</ent> were getting round <ent type='PERSON'>Henry Ford</ent> and the <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> public with
stories of how <ent type='PERSON'>Thomas Aquinas</ent> and the Jesuit Suarez laid down our
most modern principles of political morality centuries ago, and how
the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> is the incorruptible protector of democracy, justice, and
freedom of conscience, other priests just across the river, were
chuckling over Lepicier. Perhaps they were also in <ent type='GPE'>Detroit</ent>.</p>

<p> From the ease with which the <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> public were duped in
this matter one would imagine that <ent type='GPE'>Quebec</ent> is an obscure place round
<ent type='LOC'>Hudson</ent>'s Bay or in <ent type='GPE'>Greenland</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>Quebec</ent> is, under <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> law, a
<ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> state. It is the only free country -- if you can call it
free -- in the world where Petain's miserable senile corruption of
our civilization is hailed with joy and admiration instead of
curses and derision.</p>

<p> A few years ago a <ent type='NORP'>Canadian</ent> Journalist, <ent type='PERSON'>Grant Dexter</ent>, had an
article in the <ent type='GPE'>London</ent> press (News-Chronicle, August 18, 1938) with
the title "There is Fascism under the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Flag," and it opened
with the words: "The facts about <ent type='GPE'>Quebec</ent> are not in dispute; <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
and <ent type='ORG'>State</ent> are combining in an effort to suppress freedom and to
create a <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> <ent type='ORG'>State</ent> on the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> model." <ent type='PERSON'>Dexter</ent> might have
said that there has always been Fascism in <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Canada</ent>. When the
<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> took it over from the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> the clergy made with them one
of the usual selfish deals; they would stamp out revolt in the
people if the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> would give them tyrannical rights and powers
over the people. I found the place a paradise of sleek priests,
monks and nuns in 1925, but it has become much worse just when the
<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Empire was getting up its courage to "rid the world of
Fascism." Under the new "Padlock Law" (1937) against <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent>,
which means anything the priests don't like and was directly
inspired by the present <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, the police became gestapo. They can
invade and close premises and arrest men without appeal to the
<ent type='ORG'>Courts</ent>. The censorship is tyrannical, and <ent type='NORP'>Protestants</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> who
have nothing to do with <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent> are persecuted. In 1940 a
respectable girl of sixteen was sentenced to jail (or a heavy
payment) for distributing tracts of the International Bible
Students' Association.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
15
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THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> To these <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Canadian</ent>s -- and they are four out of the 12
million people of <ent type='GPE'>Canada</ent> -- <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> is an idyllic land, and
<ent type='GPE'>Vichy</ent> <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> is making a noble effort to reach its level. <ent type='PERSON'>Salazar</ent>
in <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> and <ent type='ORG'>Horthy</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Hungary</ent> are ideal rulers, and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>'s
sale to the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> of the liberties which the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> people had won
with their blood was a grand victory over the materialism of the
age. That this encouraged <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and his gang, led directly to the
rape of Ayssinia, and had a considerable influence on <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>'s
alliance with <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> is -- well, it is just one of those things.</p>

<p> How <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> priests and their writers and politicians were,
while these sentiments were rampant in <ent type='GPE'>canada</ent>, assuring the
<ent type='NORP'>American</ent> public that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> stood inflexibly for democracy and
freedom we shall consider presently, but we must notice here one
very ironic occurrence. In 1929 the papers announced with great joy
that <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> had entered into a <ent type='ORG'>Holy Alliance</ent>. They
did not recall that <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> had recently said, or roared out on
a public platform, that he had "marched to victory over the rotting
corpse of liberty." They did not mention that he had 10000
political prisoners in jail, many under torture. They said nothing
to disturb the soothing assurances of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers, even of Al
<ent type='ORG'>Smith</ent> during his presidential campaign, that it was only when the
founders of our liberties "wedded themselves to ancient <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
political principles that they were able to give birth to modern
democracy as we know it." Shades of Franklin and <ent type='GPE'>Jefferson</ent>!
However, just when <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> mendacity of this sort was given place
of honor in the <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> press the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> himself was angrily tearing
it to tatters in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>.</p>

<p> <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> had bluntly declared in the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> Camera
(<ent type='ORG'>Congress</ent>) that he had made no concession to medievalism, and the
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> retorted at once, in an open letter to his Cardinal Secretary
of <ent type='ORG'>State</ent> which was published in <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> organ, the <ent type='PERSON'>Osservatore</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>o (May 30, 1929), that in accepting the Canon Law (Public
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> Law) for <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> the <ent type='PERSON'>Duce</ent> had conceded everything. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>,
exactly on the lines which I have described above said that
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> had admitted the thesis that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is a "perfect
society" and he must accept "the logical and juridical consequences
of such a situation according to constitutive [<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>] law."</p>

<p> We saw what these consequences are. Naturally the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> did not
dare assert his "right of the sword" or his duty to put apostates
to death. It would have meant a claim for the execution of about
20000000 <ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent>; and, in spite of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> censorship,
those blamed <ent type='NORP'>American</ent>s might have heard of it. He could not demand
the suppression of every other religion, because the <ent type='NORP'>American</ent>s and
<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> had chapels and missions in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, but he insisted on
severe restrictions, complained bitterly that it was only the
pressure of circumstances that forced him to make any concession,
and secured at least that the civil law would deal with any free or
critical discussion of religion. He did point out that one
consequence of recognizing that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is a perfect society is
that it is "absolutely superior to the <ent type='ORG'>State</ent>": another is that "in
matters of conscience the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> alone has competent
authority;" another that this particularly applies to "the matter
of propaganda" and criticism of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>: another that "the full
and perfect right to educate does not belong to the <ent type='ORG'>State</ent> but the </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
16
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THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p><ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>": another that "in a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>State</ent> liberty of conscience
and of discussion must be understood and carried out in accordance
with <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> teaching and law"; another, referring to the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
scheme of controlling marriage, that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> "can and must
enforce it."</p>

<p> From the viewpoint of the man who wants to know the truth
about the relation of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> law to civil law, who wants to
examine whether the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is really <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> or <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>, this is
the most important and most explicit document that has emanated
from <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> for fifty years. But no <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> or <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> paper
reproduced it; and even the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> who wants to read his own
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>'s words on the subject will find that he would have to read
them in my books or one of <ent type='PERSON'>Marshall</ent>'s -- which he is forbidden
under pain of hell to open! Remember what <ent type='PERSON'>Heywood Broun</ent>, a
journalist of knowledge and character, said about the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
censors of the <ent type='ORG'>Press</ent>: "There is not a single <ent type='GPE'>New York</ent> editor who
does not live in terror of this group,"</p>

<p> One of the aims of this general intimidation of editors or of
newspaper owners by threats to withdraw <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> advertisers or
readers is to protect the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>American</ent> fiction that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
never interferes in polities. The Vatican, we are told, cooperates
at one time with a <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> state and at another with a <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>
state because it leaves to the people the choice of its political
form. It must cooperate with the established state in protecting
the interests of religion. Did not the great <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Leo XIII</ent>
formulate that principle in golden words which have been reproduced
so many hundreds of times that there is no excuse for any writer
who does not know it?</p>

<p> We smile. Until 1939 the assurances of <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>
that they ardently desired peace in <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> were reproduced just as
many hundreds of times. And the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer who quotes the
<ent type='ORG'>Encyclical</ent> (<ent type='PERSON'>Immortale Dei</ent>) of <ent type='PERSON'>Leo XIII</ent> as a sublime utterance on
"The Constitution of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>State</ent>s" and the freedom of people to
shape their own constitutions is no more honest than <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> or
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>. The very title given to it in the English translation is
a trick. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>'s title is "On the Constitution of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>State</ent>s." A few other neat little changes conceal the fact that the
aim of it was almost the exact opposite of what <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers in
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent> pretend. It was addressed to <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, and its chief object
was to chastise the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> for daring to choose a constitution
which put all religions on the same level by excluding the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> from polities, the <ent type='ORG'>lawcourt</ent>, and the school: which is just
what the <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> Constitution does. The <ent type='ORG'>Encyclical</ent> was written in
1885, and the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> people had then lived under a Republic for
fourteen years. The <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> had during all that time refused to
recognize the political form which they had chosen in a free
<ent type='ORG'>Congress</ent> and with the full support of the country. <ent type='PERSON'>Leo XIII</ent>, who
never interfered in politics, had stubbornly insisted that they
must take back either the royal or the imperial family.</p>

<p> The whole <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> propaganda on this point is nauseating in
its dishonesty. The world does not need a <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> to tell it that a
nation can choose its own political form, and the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> forgot this
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> principle when the <ent type='NORP'>Spaniards</ent> set up a Republic in 1932. It</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
17
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>is not the business of a moralist, however richly oiled he may be,
to dictate on such matters as choosing between a royalist and
<ent type='NORP'>republican</ent> form. But if there is any such thing as political
morality or principle in public affairs, the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> form of a
state, being imposed upon a people by force, does concern it. And
when those who have imposed it are corrupt adventurers like <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>,
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>, or senile splutterers like Petain, when they
lie and cheat like medieval <ent type='PERSON'>Popes</ent> and princes, when they debauch
their people with sentiments of banditry and commit outrages on a
vast scale, it is time for the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, to speak out. Yet, while
statesmen all over the world who do not claim to be "holy men"
loathe and execrate them, the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> enters into alliance with them.
He has a concordat with every <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> ruler in <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> and South
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, but he goes far beyond that.</p>

<p> Does the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologist mean that men in power, no matter
how criminal they may be, must be taken into alliance if they
promise to protect and promote "the interests of religion"? What
interest of religion, in the best sense, can such men promote? And
what are their promises worth? A man's principles are suspect if he
deals with them, but his intelligence is worse than suspect.
Religion in such a case obviously means the power and wealth of the
<ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> and the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> hierarchy, And it will be shown
overwhelmingly in this series of booklets that for the last ten
years or more <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> has intrigued with the powers
of darkness in its own interest and condoned every outrage and
deception that prepared the way for this ghastly crime against
humanity.</p>

<p> Chapter IV</p>

<p> HOW THE CRIME WAS ORGANIZED</p>

<p> Aggressive war was always barbaric. Priests reserve the
richest section of their vocabulary of vituperation (loathsome,
swinish, filthy, obscene, bestial, etc.) for the man who loves a
woman without their blessing, but they have always contrived to
keep their dignity when they condemn aggressive war. They know that
whenever their own nation enters upon one they will support it. Yet
it is a crime on so vast a scale that no individual crime can for
a moment be compared with it.</p>

<p> It was always a relic of barbarism. Today it stinks. There
used to be, and still in defensive war are features -- a superb
courage, a heroism, a self-sacrifice for others, a splendid
challenge to our common cowardice -- that have moved quite
respectable writers to praise it. Sir <ent type='PERSON'>Arthur Keith</ent>, one of the most
kindly And most humane of men, said some years ago that war is
necessary. He could not say that today. Modern aggressive war,
<ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> war, the war launched by the men who mouth about their
invincible legions, their indomitable courage, their noble blood,
is an incarnation of cowardice. What is called the Age of Chivalry
in <ent type='NORP'>European</ent> history is a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> lie. Historical experts -- not
writers of manuals of general <ent type='NORP'>European</ent> history for <ent type='NORP'>American</ent>
colleges -- consider the period (1100-1400) one of the most brutal,</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
18
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>dishonest, treacherous, and aggressively sexual in the chronicle of
civilization. What we see today is not a decay of chivalry but
precisely a return to the so-called Age of Chivalry, with certain
diabolical improvements (from the bandit's angle).</p>

<p> You prepare the way for your war by years of lying, cheating,
corrupting, prostituting your women, seducing soldiers and
statesmen, and buying traitors and <ent type='ORG'>Fifth Columnists</ent>. Meantime you
forge your weapons in underground arsenals. When you are ready, you
look round the map for the weakest victim, and you bear down upon
him with a force four or five times as great as his. You shelter
your men behind an advancing war of steel. You drive hundreds of
thousands of frantic women and children and old men along the roads
before them, knowing that your enemy is less inhuman than you and
it will paralyze his defense. You pour hell upon the towns where
the women and children and old men live so as -- this is laid down
in <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese military manuals -- to take the heart out of
their husbands or sons in the field, and you then announce that you
have bombed their "military installations." You flood them with
poison gas -- unless you learn that they have enough to retaliate
A your cities . . . In a word, it stinks. And the <ent type='LOC'>Black</ent>
Internationals, the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> and his cardinals, archbishops, bishops,
priests, monks, nuns, and paid journalists and organizers, have for
ten years or more cooperated with the arch-criminals who have
brought this blight upon civilization. They have done more. They
have summoned the bandits to the foul work and called it a Crusade.</p>

<p> Now that, you say, is really too strong. But is any man really
ignorant that the present <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> raised the cry, years before the war
started, before we heard those first shots in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> which were the
curtain-raiser of the great tragedy, that the powers must unite to
"extinguish <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>," and that the
cry was taken up by the whole <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world? How did <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>'s
think that <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> was going to be extinguished? With rose-water? Seldes is very frank in his work The Vatican about the way
in which the <ent type='ORG'>Knights</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Columbus</ent> joined the Wall Street Choral
Society in demanding war upon <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, that is to say, of course,
upon its <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent>, though it hasn't got any. Is a war less
criminal when the defender is incomparably weaker than the
aggressor? Profane moralists think otherwise. Has any man now any
serious doubt that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> encouraged <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> to rebel and the
<ent type='NORP'>Italians</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s to assist him? As to <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>, who is
now <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Pius XII</ent>, has howled for the extinction of its <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent>,
and in particular has appealed to <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> to allow him to cooperate
in this, in explicit terms since 1936 and implicitly long before
that. Crushing <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> meant, as we now see and as any
properly informed man could have foreseen, the bloodiest war in
history.</p>

<p> If, as one can hardly suppose, a man has any doubt about this
charge against <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent>, he will get ample
information in the following books. We shall, in fact, see all
about <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> Pius in the next book. But proofs meet the eye every
day. Why do you suppose that the head of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, Cardinal <ent type='ORG'>Hinsley</ent>, has warned <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s to be prepared for
terrible propaganda against the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> when the war is over? Why is
Archbishop <ent type='PERSON'>Mannix</ent>, the head of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent>, permitted </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
19
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>to make such attacks on the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> effort to extinguish <ent type='NORP'>Nazis</ent>m,
that on the latest count, only 16 percent of the <ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent>n
volunteers are <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s and 65 percent <ent type='NORP'>Protestants</ent>? Why do
international radio experts complain in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> (News-Chronicle,
August 21, 1941) that <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> broadcasters address English
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s "as if they were a ready-made Fifth Column"? Why does the
Vatican radio find it necessary repeatedly to meet the charge that
the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> is pro-<ent type='ORG'>Axis</ent>? Why does it denounce as traitors to the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> and other officials who adhere to the <ent type='NORP'>Anglo</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n
alliance? Why do those servile followers of <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> and
DeValera, help <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>? What about the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>'s latest pet scheme, a
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> bloc to be formed with the help of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>?</p>

<p> But this booklet must be a preliminary general survey. The
plot will be shown and proved in detail in the following booklets,
and on the most positive evidence. It is sometimes difficult, even
impossible, to prove <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>'s share in international intrigues
and crimes. <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism is not the same thing in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> as in
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. It is a minority <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism and most behave very prudently.
Sometimes <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s tell you, when you point out the
irrepressible absurdities and eccentricities of their <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, that
you "ought to see it in a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> country." You may be sure these
men have never seen it themselves in Eire, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>. In these countries <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s can from long familiarity see
and hear without raising an eyebrow things that would make an
<ent type='NORP'>American</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> pale. Very often, in fact, they are kept in
complete ignorance of what <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> is doing in their own
country with its underground diplomacy and secret agreements, and
the apologist flatly denies these things -- until they come to
light years later.</p>

<p> What do you think of this choice specimen? In the years when
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> obstinately refused <ent type='ORG'>Home Rule</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent> there was very
serious trouble, and it was often said, and angrily denied, that
<ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> secretly negotiated with the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Government to use
the influence of the priests to cheek the people in return for
concessions in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>. The <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> leaders knew that it was true. I
have myself heard <ent type='PERSON'>John Dillon</ent> in the last century exclaim: "I take
my religion from <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> but not my polities." It all came out in the
official biography of <ent type='PERSON'>Leo XIII</ent> by <ent type='PERSON'>Msgr</ent>. T'<ent type='PERSON'>Serelaes</ent>, but it had an
ironic sequel which <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> papers have probably not noticed. The
<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> statesmen and the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> lords never thought that in the
end <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> would double-cross them, but it did. The <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Press</ent>, a staunch <ent type='ORG'>Valerist</ent> paper, said in an editorial in its issue
of May 26, 1933:</p>

<p> Today <ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent> learns for the first time one of the most
moving and glorious stories in connection with <ent type='EVENT'>the Easter Week</ent>
Rising [1916]. Before it took place <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Benedict XIV</ent> received
a mission from the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> Volunteer Executive in the person of
<ent type='PERSON'>George Noble</ent>, Count <ent type='PERSON'>Plunkett</ent>. The Count had a private audience
of two hours with His Holiness and disclosed to him the
decision to rise and the date of the insurrection and received
from him his Apostolic Benediction on the men who were facing
death for <ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent>'s liberty.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
20
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> You may admire the pathetic rebellion or you may think it
foolish in its plain futility. You may acknowledge the right of
rebellion yet feel that these secretly organized revolts, when a
country is engaged in a terrible war, are not pleasant to
contemplate. But the only point of interest here is that if we had
suggested at the time that the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> was in any way involved in
the movement we would have raised a storm of indignation. Yet it
was not simply involved. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> outwardly friendly with the
<ent type='NORP'>British</ent>, gave his most solemn encouragement to the enterprise by
giving it his Apostolic Benediction. Now that De Valera has got all
that he expects to get out of <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> he reveals the truth.</p>

<p> Should we be unduly suspicious we suggested that <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>,
through the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> hierarchy, encouraged De Valera to refuse the
use of ports to <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> and so prolonged the carnage of seamen and
the brutality of the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> regime? Especially when we have the heads
of the hierarchy in <ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent> publicly threatening what the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
will do if <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> forces a temporary occupation; especially when
De Valera, <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Salazar</ent>, and <ent type='ORG'>Weygand</ent> (who would grant the
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s the use of ports tomorrow if they were more confident of
its final victors) are abjectly amenable to Papal direction. We
remember how <ent type='PERSON'>Leo XIII</ent>'s clerical biographer boasts of the
cleverness of his hero in making deals with <ent type='GPE'>Prussia</ent> at the expense
of the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>, which was denied at the time, just as he boasts of
his diplomatic intrigues in <ent type='GPE'>London</ent> at the expense of the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>. We
remember how <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s raged when <ent type='PERSON'>Pegler</ent> in one of his
syndicated articles accused <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> of supporting <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. Now
the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> receives <ent type='PERSON'>Matsuoka</ent> in great honor at <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> and gives
that arch-hypocrite a gold medal.</p>

<p> But do not get a false impression. This exposure of the plots
of <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> will not at any point rely on
suspicions. It is based on such positive evidence is I have just
given of the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> plot. The only suggestion or suspicion I
introduce is that the plot most probably goes far beyond what we
can at present prove. That is a plain inference from the historic
way in which Vatican intrigues are angrily denied at the time and
later revealed or -- as is the case with the <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese alliance --
indignantly denied by <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> priests and at the same time claimed
by <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> priests as proof of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>'s cleverness.
The known facts, the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>'s published words and actions, are,
however, grave enough and, in view of the criminality of the <ent type='ORG'>Axis</ent>
plot against the world, the infamy of the way in which it was
organized, the bestiality with which it has so far been carried
out, they make a mockery of what <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists have said in
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent> for half a century.</p>

<p> Let us first be quite clear on this organization of the plot;
and this I particularly recommend to men and women of fine
sensitivity who are tempted to say that the whole world has somehow
apostatized from its ideals. Three nations only want aggressive
war: three nations out of fifty, or one-tenth only of the race.
Another tenth (backward people) know nothing about it, but eight-tenths loath aggressiveness and the brutality it causes. <ent type='PERSON'>Don</ent>'t
blame the world.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
21
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> Even in the case of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, the nation is
not so much corrupt as corrupted by a minority; and this corruption
was accomplished in ten years and can, by a reversal of the
educational machinery, be redeemed in less than ten years. <ent type='ORG'>Nations</ent>
like <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> may seem under Vatican influence to have
adhered to the corrupt gangs, but we know that the majority are
sound and when the time comes for the final and drastic,
destruction of this clerical influence they will rise to greater
heights than ever.</p>

<p> The second point to hold clearly in mind is that it is a
military-economic plot. It appeared first in <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, where a score
of very wealthy families wanted more wealth and hundreds of others
wanted to reach the same position. Fortunately for them <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese
naval and military commanders are still at the medieval or Samurai
level of mentality. They want to win "glory" by conquering half of
<ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent>. The miserable politicians and the heads of the <ent type='ORG'>Shinto</ent> and
<ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent> religions were bought -- literally -- to support the plot,
and <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> promised that if it were given a monopoly of the
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> missions it would see that the <ent type='PERSON'>Gospel</ent> was accommodated to
this noble design of exploiting the slave labor and vast resources
of <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, indo-<ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Thailand</ent>, etc!. In <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> the economic
element precedes the military, as it had to create the army afresh,
and in the case of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> we will not venture to speak of military
"glory." In sum, the world is darkened by a plot of two nations to
create a vast wealth by exploiting all the other nations. <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> was
never seriously meant to share it. <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> ought to have paid
more heed to <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>'s emphatic statement in <ent type='PERSON'>Mein Kampf</ent> twenty years
ago that there is no room in <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent> for two great powers.</p>

<p> The third point to keep clear is that <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> had
not at first any idea of the ultimate plot. <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, a brutal,
scatter-brained adventurer, was too busy breaking the heads of
Socialists with whom he had quarrelled, to write programs, and
<ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> just put together a few <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Socialist ideas
(especially anti-Semitism) and the already familiar demand that all
sections of the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>-speaking race must unite. Add the spice of
denouncing Versailles, though it had treated <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> far too
generously. How these mob leaders and saloon-bar politicians came
to have definite and rapidly expanding programs is a long story
that will, as far as, is necessary, be told in later booklets. In
a word, it was due to the adoption of the parties by the
capitalists, who in time saw an opportunity of acquiring amazing
wealth by enslaving <ent type='LOC'>Europe</ent>, <ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent>, and <ent type='LOC'>Africa</ent>; the majority of the
workers, who were diverted from dreams of dispossessing their own
wealthy to a dream of taking <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>'s lucrative place as "the
world's shopkeeper"; the army, which is always ready to "conquer"
when you give it the tools; the <ent type='ORG'>Churches</ent> in each country and the
Vatican for the whole world.</p>

<p> The question that will interest the future historian is, as I
said, not how the plot grew, which it is very easy to trace, but
how the rest of the world was so duped that it made no defensive
preparations, except the futile Maginot Line in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>. Again there
can be only one answer. The world was duped by its statesmen and
its rich newspaper-owner who refused to see anything except that
privilege would be saved by the extinction of <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
22
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p><ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. These are large questions to
which a full answer will be Provided in the later booklets, but
most people will remember how the press of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> (and
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent>) was filled for years with (1) lying stories of the
confusion and inefficiency into which Socialism had led <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>; (2) lying, stories of the efficiency of
the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> regimes; (3) sympathy with the pressure of
population in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, though everybody knew that
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> were forcing the birth rate, and every expert
knew that there was far less pressure than in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> or <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>.</p>

<p> To what extent statesmen and editors and heads of <ent type='ORG'>Churches</ent>
really fooled themselves into thinking that the vast armaments
which <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> were creating would be allowed to rust
when they had crushed <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> as well as
their own countries is not my concern. Perhaps you remember how a
few years ago an <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> journalist in an interview (arranged for
the purpose,) asked <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> about his emphatic statement in Mein
Kampf that <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> would be ground to powder, when he airily brushed
it aside as an ebullition of younger days -- it was still printed
in every edition on a score of pages. -- the press everywhere gave
prominence to his assurance; and the same press everywhere, with a
few honorable exception's, repeated every lie and libel about
<ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> that anybody cared to send in.</p>

<p> Chapter V</p>

<p> HOW UNCLE SAM WAS DUPED</p>

<p> The verdict of this generation of young folk, when they grow
up, will be that the "Guilty Men" -- journalists use that language
at last, forgetting that editors were as guilty as statesmen -- who
let the monstrous evil attain such proportions are only a little
less guilty than the bandits. In this respect I approach death with
clean hands. In my <ent type='PERSON'>Haldeman</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Julius</ent> publications for the last six
years, especially the Appeal to <ent type='ORG'>Reason Library</ent>, and the ABC
Library, and The History of the World Since 1918, I have thoroughly
exposed the current untruths, described the growth of the plot, and
made clear the true attitude of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. This attitude and
the work of <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists in falsely representing it
are the last point to be noticed in this introductory booklet.</p>

<p> The <ent type='GPE'>New York</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Times</ent> of May 12, 1940, contained a very special
apology for <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> by Dr. <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> bishop of <ent type='GPE'>Omaha</ent>. That
paper has, as many quotations in these booklets will show, given us
a fair news-service both from <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, and it was
right to publish the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> case. <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent>, formerly head of the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> University, is the fifteen-inch gun, the 50-ton tank, of
<ent type='NORP'>American</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologetic on these matters. His strength is,
besides his <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> learning, that he is so solemn that he always
gives you the impression that he believes what he says. Even when
in the course of this article he says that today "the place of
<ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> in world affairs seems to stand out in bolder relief than at
almost any other epoch of its long existence," he is quite serious,
though he cannot possibly refer to <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>'s share in the
world-plot.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
23
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> Dr. <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent>'s complete vindication of the wisdom and the
integrity of the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> is this. In the last century it fought
"political liberalism." This is now dead and "on its ruins there
have risen such extremes as communism and fascism" which "meet on
the common ground of state totalitarianism." Against these new
dragons the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> steps out again in shining armor, and they "have
thrown down the gauntlet to <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism," which cannot possibly
"capitulate to the new theories," Thus "the <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> regimes"
have no stouter champion than the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, and all <ent type='NORP'>American</ent>s must
rally to him.</p>

<p> Two months later, when the pious and purblind Petain trampled
on the last remnants of democracy in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, the Papal newspaper,
the <ent type='PERSON'>Osservatore</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>o (July 8), hailed his restoration of "the
principle of authority" with enthusiasm and Said that in this
respect "the aims of the dictatorships coincided with those of the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>." What the leading <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologist felt when the same New
York <ent type='ORG'>Times</ent> (July 19) gave the gist of this Papal article one
wonders. The <ent type='PERSON'>Osservatore</ent> quoted its pet dictator <ent type='PERSON'>Salazar</ent> saying:
"The authoritarian regimes have the purpose of creating a civic
conscience as a way to create a moral conscience", and in the name
of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> added: "Such are also the desire, the aspiration, and
the program of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>." And the <ent type='ORG'>Times</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> correspondent, went
on to say that the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s rejoiced at this "complete about-face by
<ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> in its position toward totalitarian states!" You see,
the terrible case with which <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> crushed <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> had convinced the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> that it was going to win the war; and
from that time onward <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>'s one great idea was to set up a
bloc of totalitarian <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>State</ent>s in cooperation with <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>.</p>

<p> Pity the poor <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> apologist in these days. But <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent>'s
plea was gross even at the time. In the last century, he begins,
the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> fought political liberalism. Yes, at a cost of half a
million lives of <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent> and with such documents as its moth-eaten
Syllabus. Political liberalism means simply democracy, sol the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> fought democracy, which <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent> has always denied. Other
apologists prefer to say "economic liberalism" but they obviously
do not know what they are talking about because the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> joined
with economic liberalism in a violent attack upon its opposite,
Socialism. This political liberalism is now "defunct," <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent> says.
Yes -- in all <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries. As we saw, nine-tenths of the
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>'s subjects live under a <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> flag, and the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> presses
upon them as the political ideal the totalitarian regime of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>
and <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>. It is upon <ent type='NORP'>Protestant</ent> lands that the Crusade for
democracy and against Fascism vitally depends. And <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent>'s final
point that the principles of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> compel it to fight
for democracy and freedom is even worse. If it were true, the
Vatican is guilty of a monstrous moral apostasy. But it is the
reverse of the truth. We have seen that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is
<ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> in its Constitution, its law, its principles, and
everything about it. It coquetted -- cocotted might be better --
with democracy as long as it paid.</p>

<p> The recent history of Vatican policy -- it has no "principles"
in the ordinary sense -- is not obscure. It was fiercely anti-<ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent>, until the last quarter of the last century. It still
remained anti-<ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent>, expressing this plainly in its relations </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
24
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p>with <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, until near the end of the century. It insulted and
humiliated the heads of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> by
addressing to them an Open Letter, published all over the world,
condemning what is called <ent type='NORP'>American</ent>ism. What it condemned was
precisely what <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent> and other apologists teach: that there is no
lack of harmony in any respect between the spirit and law of the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and the <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> spirit and law But the "century ended with,
apparently, the triumph of political liberalism all over the world,
and <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> ceased its mumbling. On political matters it became
ideally neutral; and the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> began to store up
billions of dalliers while the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> shrank,
so much that its contributions to the <ent type='ORG'>treasury</ent> were meager. One
must keep an eye on these <ent type='NORP'>American</ent>s.</p>

<p> Then began the golden age of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> propaganda in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>.
The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, they said, was essentially <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent>; always had been
in fact. The apologists grew bolder and bolder. Not only is the
eternal political truth in the <ent type='ORG'>Encyclical</ent>s (slightly retouched) of
<ent type='PERSON'>Leo XIII</ent> (who hated democracy) but it was now discovered in the
writings of the Jesuit Suarez (who would have had a man burned at
the stake for professing it) and even in the works of Thomas
Aquinas (who had picked a few ancient <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> ideas out of the works
of <ent type='PERSON'>Aristotle</ent> but otherwise defended the most merciless principles
of medieval clerical tyranny). The flag of freedom had been first
set up in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Maryland</ent>; which, <ent type='ORG'>Bancroft</ent> had clearly shown,
never had more than a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> minority, and these had passed the
policy of toleration in their own defense.</p>

<p> Year after year <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers and journals
broadcast this monumental untruth, but <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> itself was
meantime watching for the first opportunity to get rid of its
misalliance with the vulgar drab Democracy and recover its
association with its elegant Aristocracy. <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent> says: "Political
liberalism and not the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> was almost completely destroyed in
the cataclysm of <ent type='EVENT'>the World War</ent>." He ventures to say that in one of
the best-informed countries in the world! Just think for yourself,
for no reading is necessary in order to test this.</p>

<p> Democracy was not destroyed in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, for it had never had
democracy. It was not destroyed but for the first time set up in a
pure form, by getting rid of <ent type='PERSON'>Kaiserism</ent> and the Junkers, in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>.
It was not in the least weakened, but invigorated by the collective
war-effort in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Empire, <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> -- in
fact, all over the world except in <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. Oh, <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent> will say, I take
a long view; I see <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent> already growing. We will not press his
language -- that democracy was destroyed in <ent type='EVENT'>the World War</ent> -- but we
reply that he is using one of the flimsiest tricks of propaganda.
Outside <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, where the conditions were unique, <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent>, which
must be taken in this connection to mean the dictatorship of the
proletariat, never had a chance of attaining power. <ent type='PERSON'>Bela Kun</ent> was an
episode. What did show a prospect of gaining the world was
Socialism, and it is the only pure form of democracy. But the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologist, like his colleagues as fellow-crusaders in Wall
Street, finds it more useful to say <ent type='NORP'>Communism</ent>. They could never
have made <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> quite so red-hot about Socialism.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
25
.
THE VATICAN'S LAST CRIME</p>

<p> What are the facts? Dictatorship began first after the war in
<ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>; and no government in the world was more subservient to the
Vatican than the <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent>, no other nation so solidly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. The
democracy began next in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> where in 1923, the King and <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
had, to prevent an inquiry into their corruption, set up a
dictator. He had the blessing and cordial cooperation of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>.
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> had marched on <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> in the previous year, but his
dictatorship was very imperfect -- as late as 1925 more than
2500000 or half the country voted against him -- until he came to
terms with and bought the support of <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>. This was in 1929.
During ten years after the war the only blows at democracy, which,
instead of being "defunct," as <ent type='PERSON'>Ryan</ent> says, was as vigorous as ever,
had been dealt in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries with the warm support of the
hierarchy, and the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>.</p>

<p> In 1929 <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>-Pius became Secretary of <ent type='ORG'>State</ent> at <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>,
and democracy began to bleed. <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> started on <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, (1931) and
the only power in the world to enter into close association with it
was <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent> City. <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> still rejected <ent type='NORP'>Nazis</ent>m, but in 1932
the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> made an underhand deal with <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>, and this was one of
the chief reasons why he won and destroyed democracy. In 1934
democracy was destroyed in <ent type='GPE'>Vienna</ent>, after <ent type='PERSON'>Dollfuss</ent> had had an
interview with the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> and with the zealous cooperation of the
<ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>n hierarchy; and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, loudly cheered by the whole
<ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, entered <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>. Next year (1935) <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> visited
South <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, and the statesmen and generals who fawned upon him
made a bloody end of democracy. In 1936 <ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent>, with the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>'s
blessing, began his vile work in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and the way was prepared
for the world-assault on democracy. It survives, fighting for its
life, in non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries.</p>

<p> That is the story we shall tell in detail, but that this is
the true outline of it everybody knows. The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is
vitally implicated in the most criminal and most gigantic
conspiracy in history. It blesses or courts men to whom lying is a
pastime and wholesale murder and brutality are necessities which
they defend with amazing callousness. Perhaps it is <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican</ent>'s
last crime, for when this war is over a grim reckoning will be
required of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>. He clings to his infamous association while
every sane and free part of the world covers it with obloquy.</p>

<div> **** ****</div>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Reproducible Electronic Publishing</ent> can defeat censorship.</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>The Bank</ent> 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 <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>.</p>

<div> **** ****</div>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
26
</p></xml>