textfiles-politics/pythonCode/personTestingOutput/mccabe06.xml

<xml><p> 30 page printout</p>

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

<p>Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius</p>

<p>THE BLACK INTERNATIONAL No. 6</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p> HOW THE NEW POPE TALKED PEACE
AND WORKED FOR WAR</p>

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

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

<p> Chapter</p>

<p> CHAPTER</p>

<p> I <ent type='ORG'>The Church Crowns the Papal Policy</ent> ........... 1</p>

<p> II The Pope's Peace Efforts ......... 9</p>

<p> III <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> Pays for its Piety .............. 17</p>

<p> IV <ent type='ORG'>The <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent></ent> and the War .......... 25</p>

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

<p> THE CHURCH CROWNS THE PAPAL POLICY</p>

<p> At the close of the book on the monstrous perfidy of the Black
International in <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> I asked: What did <ent type='PERSON'>Pius XII</ent>, the
new <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, and his local hierarchies do when the hellish bugles
sounded and the black flag was unfurled?</p>

<p> In our day-to-day reading of the crowded events of our time,
under the changing strain of feelings which one day are warmed with
stories of heroism and next day are chilled with despair, we
naturally lose sight of whatever continuity there is in the
bewildering procession. We could not readily answer such questions
as this, although it refers to only two years ago. But I have
prepared the reader for the answer. <ent type='ORG'>The Black International</ent> has
pursued a consistent policy during the last ten years, to say
nothing of earlier times. It has fawned upon the three <ent type='PERSON'>Powers</ent> which
had already by 1930 openly exhibited such shameless programs of
greed and barbaric violence that the war was inevitable. I have </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
1
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>proved that. So the answer to our question also is inevitable. The
<ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> clung still to the arch-enemies of the human
race through all their crimes and atrocities as long as they had a
confident prosPect of victory.</p>

<p> Will it change its policy when that prospect changes to one of
defeat and dire punishment? I write with the hum of war-planes
overhead, the slender fingers of the searchlights probing for the
enemy that would make a shuddering pulp of us. Round me are the
horrid gaps in the rows of little peaceful homes from which I have
seen the men -- the garbage-men of a "New Order" -- bring out the
shrouded, crumpled forms of the dead. In the press daily are the
rumble of a struggle in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> that surpasses everything in the
calendar of human folly and perversity and the tremulous
foreshadowing of an agony that the winter may bring upon
200000000 broken-hearted folk. The end is not in sight, and I
have no gift of prophecy. But should, as I confidently expect, the
heroism of the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n people hurl back the advancing wave of
savagery and give us an unwavering hope of victory the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> will
change its policy.</p>

<p> Remember the last war. The <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> supported <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, which had
promised it the usual reward -- more power and wealth to the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
-- even against <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, but as soon as <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> entered the arena and
the defeat of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> seemed probable, it recollected that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>
is the Great Neutral. The signs of change already flicker in the
press, but notice how feeble, how anonymous, how easily repudiated
they are as long as the terrific might of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> still rears its
brutal head! Whatever be the next or the final phase, let the world
never forget how the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> helped its deadly and unscrupulous
enemies during the long years of corrupt preparation and supported
them during two years of shuddering criminality. The one virtue
which its best apologists claim for it that it preached the virtues
of peace, did but help to dope the innocent nations while the
crooks armed themselves. At least from 1936 onward war was
inevitable because <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> could attain the
objects to which they were openly pledged by no other means, and
they saw the rest of the world so beguiled with their pipe-dream of
peace that it seemed to them safe to open the insidious campaign.</p>

<p> And in case the reader has become to some extent confused by
the mass of details and testimonies which it has been necessary to
give in support of this indictment let us sum up and formulate very
clearly the charges against <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent>. The intimate
connection of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> by solemn agreements and the exchange of
ambassadors with <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and with such satellites
of theirs as <ent type='PERSON'>Franco Spain</ent>, Vichy, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, Hungary, etc., is a
fact of ordinary record. A desperate apologist might say that this
has no more significance than the diplomatic relations of other
neutral powers with those countries. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologist is so
accustomed to writing for his own people, who are forbidden under
pain of hell to read criticisms of what he says, and treated with
such generosity in the general press that there is no limit to his
audacity. Listen to this. On the very day on which I write this I
receive a letter from a correspondent who tells me that a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
to whom he spoke of the infamous agreement of <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and the
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in 1929 denies that there ever was such a compact and that it </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
2
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>is just one of McCabe's lies! Can you beat that? The Concordat and
Treaty were editorially discussed in every paper in the world,
especially the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> papers, which hailed the agreement as a
superb triumph of Papal diplomacy, and it seems impossible that a
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> should not know that <ent type='GPE'>the Vatican City</ent> and all its
privileges (independence, radio, etc.) only began with and were
founded by that treaty.</p>

<p> There is one fundamental difference between the position of
secular powers that exchange ambassadors and courtesies with the
Vatican and that of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> itself: to say nothing of the fact
that these powers make no pretence of moral responsibility and
spiritual guidance of the world. They have not in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> or <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>
a black army of 50000 to 100000 servants under their control --
bishops, priests, monks, nuns, religious brothers, organizers,
teachers, journalists, etc. -- which professes that it has to build
the character of the nation. The Vatican has. It is one of the
loudest boasts of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> over its rivals that it is
international, its various national branches being entirely subject
to <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>, and that this gives it a unique power to judge
events from the universal moral, not the narrow national viewpoint.</p>

<p> What, then, are the vices of this triumvirate of poisoning
nations which <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> ought, on its own profession, to have
denounced to the world instead of protecting them by friendly
alliance? It will be enough here to select three.</p>

<p> The first is that the war for which they are responsible is
the most bestial in modern history because it is a war of naked
greed. Shires tells us in his <ent type='GPE'>Berlin</ent> Diary that he once said this,
in less blunt language, to the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> Economic Minister <ent type='PERSON'>Funk</ent>, and the
man admitted that the aim of it was to secure "the maximum economic
opportunity" for <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. Notoriously its aim is to concentrate
industrial production in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> or to permit it in subject
countries, which are to provide food and raw material -- a much
less profitable service -- only under <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> control. <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> won
over the mass of its workers to the plans of its militarists and
capitalists by just the same bait. Even the leaders of the Social
Mass (Socialist) Party support <ent type='EVENT'>the Chinese Incident</ent>. They say that
the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> workers have a good status because the country seized
vast colonies overseas and exploits them. I should like to hear
them tell an <ent type='NORP'>Australian</ent>, Canadian, or South <ent type='NORP'>African</ent> that his
country is a "colony" and is exploited by <ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent>. In <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>
the original idea was the same. The chief argument of the
government during <ent type='EVENT'>the Abyssinian War</ent> was that the country contained
at vast amount of undeveloped wealth which would raise the income
of every class in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. Today, it is true, they complain that the
word Axis is heard no longer, and that their <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> overlords
brutally tell them that the destiny of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> is to be a playground
and kitchen-garden for <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s. But a share in the vast spoils of
the war was the lure that brought them into it.</p>

<p> It is a much-disputed point whether all modern wars can be
brought under an economic formula. In the case of the present war
there is no dispute. <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> may have medieval dreams
of conquest and empire, and the <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese fanatics may talk about </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
3
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>the divine mission of the <ent type='PERSON'>Yamata</ent> race to uplift the world, but the
real motive is that the division of the earth into two spheres of
influence means incalculable wealth for <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> and huge
fortunes for their politicians, bankers, and industrialists.</p>

<p> That is the war the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> helped to bring on. It promised more
wealth and power to the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. It meant the paralysis of
industrial development and its consequences -- education, urban
life, free discussion and the growth of Socialism and skepticism --
in the countries in which the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> had lost most heavily. Notice
what is happening in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>. Petain makes no secret of his design
to destroy the old industrial life in the interest of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.
Even if you think a bunch of <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> clerics hardly capable of a
world-plot so subtle as this you have their cry, repeated for years
throughout the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, for the destruction of <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> and
<ent type='NORP'>Liberalism</ent>, the most prolific sources of rebellion against the
<ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent>. Whichever way you take it <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> has, for
its own profit, lent its aid in preparing the conditions of success
of the most sordid war of greed in modern history and has in each
country, through the local <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, boisterously supported every
step that Was taken in the direction of world-domination.</p>

<p> The second general vice is that the ambition of these <ent type='PERSON'>Powers</ent>
has led to a quite repulsive degradation of the standards of public
conduct. Here there is no possibility of pleading ignorance on the
part of the simple-minded Vatican. The <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s have lied to and duped
the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> itself repeatedly since their first bargain with it in
1933, and four-fifths of its complaints about <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> are
grumbles that the <ent type='PERSON'>Concordats</ent> which were solemnly signed have not
been observed. Even <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> is now beginning to give it serious
concern by its scheme to make <ent type='NORP'>Christianity</ent> purely national and
independent of foreign influence.</p>

<p> Broadly we have seen years of such lying, treachery, and
corruption as we thought that we had buried forever. Nearly a
hundred pacts, treaties, or international agreements of one kind or
other have been signed in the last 20 years and cynically disowned
as soon as it was expedient. An <ent type='NORP'>Australian</ent> paper, The Vigilant,
sends me a copy of an issue in which it quotes Hitler's solemn
assurance of non-aggression to every country he has attacked or
annexed. "<ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> neither intends nor wishes", he says in 1935, "to
interfere in the international affairs of <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>, to annex
<ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>, or to conclude an <ent type='ORG'>Anschluss</ent>." His books show that he
wished and intended it long before that time. "The <ent type='GPE'>Sudetenland</ent> is
the last territorial claim I have to make in Europe," he said on
September 26, 1938. Within a few month's he took the whole of
<ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> and began to prepare for <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>. "<ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> has
concluded a non-aggression pact with <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and she will adhere to
it unconditionally", he had told <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and Europe. So with
<ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Yugo</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Slavia</ent>. And all <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> Heil <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>ed
when on June 22, 1941, he said, with his usual ferocious solemnity:
"When the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Reich</ent> gives a guarantee, that means that it also
abides by it."</p>

<p> It is not only that the leading statesmen of the aggressor
nations have lied so brazenly and cynically for years that the
problem of the future historian will not be their psychology but </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
4
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>that of the <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> statesmen. No trick has been too dirty to
use. The corruptor, or advance-agent, was considered as respectable
as the missionary. <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese young "ladies" prostituted themselves
in the good cause in <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Mongolia</ent>, and in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> dames of the
highest elegance used their charms for <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.
<ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese and <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> gold corrupted even <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns. <ent type='NORP'>Buddhist</ent> monks
were used in <ent type='LOC'>Southern Asia</ent>, and women and promises of advancement
everywhere to provide the miserable brood of traitors, almost a
novelty of our age, whom we call Quislings. In short, the near-success of the trinity in crime was won by as vast and
comprehensive a debasement of our standards of honor as had not
been known in Europe since those flowers of the Age of Faith -- the
Age of Chivalry and the Renaissance.</p>

<p> Now not even a <ent type='PERSON'>Bernard Shaw</ent> or an Aldous Huxley will say that
this foulness, this reversion to pre-civilized ways of living, is
found on all sides. Paradox is amusing but a paradox of that sort
would be revolting. Certainly we all have our faults. I write for
men and women who discount the utterances of statesmen and bishops
and do not see the present struggle as a <ent type='NORP'>Miltonian</ent> conflict of
angels and devils. We are poor enough, heaven knows, and much of
the motivation of our conduct even in this war is far from angelic.
But that this corruption of the standards of conduct is
overwhelmingly on one side will be generally recognized. It is on
the side of the Pope's allies; and it has done incalculable harm to
the democracies, for whom he has not a good word.</p>

<p> And the third vice, closely connected with this, is the
bestiality with which the friends of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> have conducted the
campaign to attain their bestial greeds. A war inspired by such a
purpose could not very well be otherwise. It is on the gangster
level. Fear of retaliation has restrained that use of poison-gas
which we expected but the horrors thicken as I write. We thought
that we had reached a stage when soldier's recognized the rights of
man and confined their killing within certain lines. Now some blond
beast in <ent type='GPE'>Paris</ent> or <ent type='GPE'>Prague</ent>, to get praise or higher profit from his
<ent type='PERSON'>Fuhrer</ent>, shoots fifty entirely innocent men for the act of an
unknown. <ent type='NORP'>Bulgar</ent> officers bloodily exterminate whole villages.
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n villagers are shut in their houses and burned alive. The
food of children is stolen in <ent type='GPE'>Denmark</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese
officers indulge themselves or their men in rape and force opium
upon the <ent type='NORP'>Chinese</ent>. <ent type='ORG'>Gestapo</ent> men, trained in <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> Colleges to give
the rein to sadistic impulses . . . But you have read enough about
these things.</p>

<p> What does the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> say about this conduct of his allies?
Nothing. It would be "interference in polities" to notice what the
<ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>s did in <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> or are doing in <ent type='GPE'>Greece</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Yugo</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Slavia</ent>,
what the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s -- But I beg the Pope's pardon. He has twice used
very eloquent and moving language about outrages. You may not think
two protests in five years of bestiality a very high record for a
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>. In fact, if we look into them the protests are not so
impressive. On January, 22, 1940 he referred to <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> in a
broadcast address and lamented that he heard of "infamy of all
kinds" and "horrible and inexcusable excesses." What did his <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>
allies say to that? Nothing. You see, he was referring to the
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns. He said that he had heard that these outrages were "not
confined to districts under <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n occupation." We must, it is </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
5
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>true, make some allowance for the Pope's ignorance. He evidently
imagined that the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns had taken over some ten million Pole's
and were beating the life out of them, whereas, as the rest of us
know, the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns had taken back only White <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns and
<ent type='NORP'>Ukrainians</ent> and were only too eager to make them feel at home in the
<ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> Union. In any case, although the press was still acridly
anti-<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n no responsible paper even suggested that they were
committing outrages.</p>

<p> A little earlier a censure of the seizure of part of <ent type='GPE'>Finland</ent>
by <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> had shown that the eagle eye of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> ranged even
over the frozen north in search of outrages to rebuke -- if they
were not committed by its allies. There were many of us who did not
at that time know what <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> had offered for the territory and how
vitally necessary it was in view of the coming war, but we knew
that <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns did not behave like the Pope's friends. The Papal
organ, however, the <ent type='PERSON'><ent type='PERSON'>Osservatore</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>o</ent>, surpassed itself --
especially as it had never condemned outrages before. It had such
lyrical passages as:</p>

<p> "After twenty years of <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevik</ent> tyranny it now appears that
Communism which had already suppressed political liberty, stilled
individuality, reduced work to the status of slavery, and erected
violence into, a system, has added a new pearl to its diadem . . ."
After hounding men it now hounds nations.</p>

<p> The <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> complaining that some other institution stifles
individuality is rich, and one cannot help reflecting today that
for slaves the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n workers fight with remarkable spirit. But
these are incidental trifles such as we pick up in all Papal
pronouncements. The broad comment on this Vatican rebuke of
aggression is this: by that time <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> had drenched the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> with
horrors, carried out its infamous Blood Purge, and savagely
destroyed <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> had perpetrated the grossest
outrages in <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Albania</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> had overrun five
province's of <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> and treated tens of millions of the <ent type='NORP'>Chinese</ent>
with barbarity. The Vatican, which had representatives of the three
<ent type='PERSON'>Powers</ent> in the <ent type='ORG'>Papal Court</ent>, had seen none of this wanton and
monstrous aggressiveness and its accompanying savagery. Just as
today it knows nothing about the savagery that is being perpetrated
on <ent type='NORP'>Serbs</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Greeks</ent>, and other conquered peoples. But the moment
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> enters upon a normal military operation -- not after a
treacherous pact of friendship, but after an earnest effort to
bargain for what it vitally needed -- the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> ceases to be the
Great Neutral and discovers that he is the supreme judge of the
moral life of the world.</p>

<p> The <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns committed no outrages in either <ent type='GPE'>Finland</ent> or the
provinces they recovered from <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, although <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> had, as I
will show presently, shamefully persecuted those provinces for
twenty years. Today the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s are in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and are surpassing
their own record of brutality. Mr. Winston <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>ill does not love
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, so when he says that he has, officially, full and solid
information about the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> atrocities we have to believe him. On
August 24 he said, speaking of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, in a carefully-prepared
broadcast:</p>

<div> </div>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
6
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p> "As her armies advance whole districts are being exterminated.
Scores of thousands -- literally scores of thousands -- of
executions in cold blood are being perpetrated by the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>
police-troops. Since the Mogul invasion of Europe in the sixteenth
century there has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such
a scale or approaching such a scale."</p>

<p> On September 29 he spoke again about "the absolutely
frightful, indescribable atrocities which the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> police-troops
are inflicting on the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n population in the rear of the advance
of their armored soldiers."</p>

<p> But the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> has less to say than ever. One might gather from
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> papers that he is so busy praying for peace that he
cannot maintain his customary moral survey of the world. Bunk. Not
even the banks and exchanges are watching the ebb and flow of the
red tide in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and calculating the chances of the issue more
carefully than <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>. He will not utter a word of censure
until we know that <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> is beaten. The common decent <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>
soldier is sickened by the infamies committed by the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>-trained
troops and police under <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> leaders. A letter to his wife that was
found on the body of one ran:</p>

<p> "I hate the day when I was born in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. I am shocked by
what goes, on in our army in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. Vice, loot, violence, murder,
murder, and murder. We destroy old men, women, and children and
kill simply for the sake of killing . . . If I survive the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n
bullets and shells I will, in my present mood, perish from a <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>
bullet."</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Evidence</ent> accumulates daily that the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> people and
soldiers, and most of the officers, are sick of the bestial
alliance into which <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, with the cowardly connivance of the
King and the blessing of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>, has drawn them. But the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>
says nothing. The <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> clergy, 100000 of them
besides paid officials, still cry whoopee.</p>

<p> Will the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> try, when the day of
human judgment comes, to throw all the blame on Secretary of State
<ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> who is now <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Pius XII</ent>? It would not be surprising. A
year or two ago the plea was that the poor, harassed, aged <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>
felt that he must in the general interest of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> let <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>
bishops rejoice over the brutalities in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> bishops lead
their people in cheering for the "victories" in <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>Albania</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> bishops rub shoulders with the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s. Now they
discover that, as we or they knew all along, behind the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>,
issuing orders in his name, was the vigorous <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>, Will they,
when the war is over or the tide of battle definitely turns, say
that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was compromised by a man of unfortunate character?</p>

<p> We may have to defend poor <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> against the archbishops and
cardinals who lifted him to the skies a couple of years ago. He is
no more inhuman than my of themselves. He is a man of normal but
controlled sentimentality. In more fortunate circumstances he might
have been a successful <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> lawyer or banker, kind and generous to
his wife or some blonde baby. He is just a stricter churchman, more
narrowly concentrated on the interests of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, than any of
the others, and that is precisely why they made him <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>.</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
7
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p> And as far as one can penetrate the august secrets of these
proceedings it was not so much the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> as the foreign,
including the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n cardinals, who turned a wavering
scale in his favor. Pius XI, of unhappy memory -- no <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in modern
times had been so severely criticized by <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers of
several countries -- died on February 10, 1940, and the cardinal
voters flew to <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>. The world learned how scrupulous is the
procedure of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, the cardinals are locked in a room where
they sleep and eat (and drink) until two-thirds of them agree upon
a <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>.</p>

<p> What -- incidentally -- the world did not learn was the rather
amusing meaning of this <ent type='EVENT'>Conclave</ent> (or "'shut in with a key"). The
history of Papal elections for the last sixteen centuries, or since
the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> became rich, beats the history of presidential elections
to a frazzle for bribery, intrigue, and good honest fighting. If
you read <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> and can get it read <ent type='PERSON'>Petrucelli</ent> della Gattina's
Histoire diploinatique des <ent type='EVENT'>Conclave</ent>s (4 vols, 1864-6), though you
will find a good deal of the material in miss V. Pirie's Triple
Crown (1935). However, in 1271 the cardinals who were assembled for
an election in the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> provincial town of <ent type='GPE'>Viterbo</ent> so disgusted
the towns folk by wrangling for three years that the civic
authorities locked them in a room and saw that none of them left it
or intrigued with outsiders until they elected a <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>. From that
date <ent type='EVENT'>Conclave</ent>s began, though it must be confessed that the new
institution by no means put an end to bribery, intrigue, and
fighting.</p>

<p> On March 2, <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> was elected. Unlike profane elections that
of a <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> begins with a very solemn invocation of the Holy Ghost --
it did even in the days when the bribery ran to a million dollars
and the murders to 200 -- and then there are grave deliberations,
and the cardinals visit each other in their cells (the cubicles
into which part of the room is divided). After each vote the papers
are burned and the smoke is conducted out by a pipe so that the
<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>s shall see. We thus know that there were three "scrutinies",
or examinations of votes, so that it took a considerable time for
<ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> to get the necessary two-thirds of the votes. In other
words, although he was certainly the ablest candidate, the best
expert on international affairs, and the best linguist, more than
half the cardinals were at first opposed to him. It is useless to
speculate on the reasons, but we receive with skepticism the report
that <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> cardinals tried to prevent his election at
the bidding of <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>. Had <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> as Secretary of
State not done enough for them? The best authority, the Pope's
biographer <ent type='PERSON'>Rankin</ent>, says that the non-<ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> cardinals carried the
day for him.</p>

<p> The final vote is said to have been unanimous, as was very apt
to happen when it was seen that other candidates had no chance. In
other words -- this is why I enter into detail -- the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> put a
crown not merely on the head of Eugenio <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>, but on the policy
he had pursued for ten years. We will remember that if a day comes
when <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n and <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> prelates try to disavow that policy. It
is probably true that he fooled them by his suave assurances when
he visited <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> that he was a friend of democracy
and peace. But it would be juster to say that they fooled </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
8
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>themselves. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Teeling, a layman, was fully aware and
gave it as a fact of common <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> knowledge, that <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>
had for years been making every effort to counteract western
[<ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent>] influence, which is not considered very good for the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> (The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in Politics, p. 3). The <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n cardinals and
prelates who reported after his visit to <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent> States in 1936
that he was "a great friend of democracy" knew that his visit to
South <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> in 1934 had been followed by the truculent
suppression of democracy, in which the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> cordially helped, in
nearly the whole of that half of the continent. Cardinal Hinsley,
who stressed above all others that they had elected a <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> of Peace
-- even making absurd play of the fact that pace is the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> for
peace -- knew just as well that for three years he had urged an
attack on <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> that would involve <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>the United</ent> States in war, and that he had given his support to
<ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. Whoever was fooled, we will not be.
The princes of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> set the seal of his most solemn approval
on Pacelli's policy by electing him King.</p>

<p> Chapter II</p>

<p> THE POPE'S PEACE EFFORTS</p>

<p> Many will remember the note of synthetic admiration and
rejoicing that was struck in the entire press of the world when
<ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> was elected on March 12. His biographer observes that while
for some obscure reasons the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> papers grumbled those of
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent> glowed with satisfaction. The Archbishop
of <ent type='PERSON'>Canterbury</ent> talked like an elderly virgin in <ent type='ORG'>the House</ent> of Lords
at <ent type='GPE'>Westminster</ent>, and his promise that if the new <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> would lead the
world into paths of peace and justice he would follow and support
him was hailed as a new and most promising religious phenomenon.
<ent type='ORG'>Ransom</ent> sums up the general enthusiasm by pointing out that upon a
world in flames there came at last a <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> with the inflexible
motto: Peace, Truth, and Charity.</p>

<p> We skeptics are accused of stirring up sectarian strife in a
world that needs cooperative action, of indulging in destructive
criticism when what the race wants is constructive idealism. Who,
in the light of recent events, was right? Four years before the
election of <ent type='PERSON'>Pius XII</ent> I wrote, in the Appeal to Reason Library,
every word that I say in these booklets about the tendencies in
life and about all events and developments to 1935. My work was
neither destructive nor constructive. It was realistic: a statement
of facts. And it differed from the statements of fact of these
spiritual people and the newspapers which broadcast everything they
said and ignored everything we said in that it was a full and
truthful statement of facts. If all those facts which I gave -- the
programs of <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, the origin and trend of <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>sm
and Fascism, the situation in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, and so
on -- had been put squarely before the public in 1938 or 1939 there
would have been much less school-girlish rejoicing because a new
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> spoke prettily about Peace, Truth, and Charity and much more
demand for a realistic analysis of what was wrong and for
appropriate action.
<ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
9
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p> The world was not in flames at the beginning of 1939. It had
accepted Mussolini's assurance that with the annexation of
<ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> for his surplus population he was now content; Hitler's
assurance that with his annexation of the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> fringe of <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> he had reached the limit of his ambition; Japan's
assurance that it did not now covet a single additional square mile
of <ent type='NORP'>Chinese</ent> or other <ent type='NORP'>Asiatic</ent> territory.</p>

<p> But every man who saw the broad truth about the world-situation, that the race had entered upon a titanic conflict
between privilege -- wealth, <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es, all vested authority -- and
a new spirit that was reviled as <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent>, and that the utterly
corrupt and dangerous forces of <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>sm, Fascism, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese
Imperialism had been enlisted on the side of privilege, knew that,
while the world was not yet in flames, a sinister fire shouldered
underground, and it was no time for pretty talk about Peace and
Charity. Sluggish as <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> statesmen were, we now know that they
were preparing for the conflict that broke out later in the year,
though they protested that the risks of disturbing the peace of the
world by overt action (raising vast monition-plant's) restricted
them to such matters as secretly hiring premises for ministries in
the country, drafting schemes, and organizing medical and
undertaking services for vast numbers of wounded and dead
civilians.</p>

<p> I must confine myself to these matters in so far as they
involve the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>. The idea that the new <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> entered a
world of danger and confusion for which others were responsible
brought to it a new and beautiful gospel is, we now understand,
tripe. He had had as Secretary of State at least for the preceding
five years the same power which he would now wield as <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, and he
had deliberately used it to help the work of the forces of evil
because, he believed, it was to the interest of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. It was
nothing new for him to talk about peace. As the inspirer of Pius XI
he had put the praise of peace on his lips or in his fountain-pen
twice a year for years. In the intervals he had called through the
Pope's mouth for the extinction of <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> and upon that cry
only one possible interpretation can be put -- war. We saw that
Papal policy after 1919 was bound to seek this end above all
others. Socialism and Communism were running the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. And the
only possible explanation of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> entering into and in spite
of every rebuff clinging to the alliance with the corrupt forces of
<ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>sm, Fascism, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> is that they promised to accomplish
that. It was the reason, also, why <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>, in the name of Pius XI,
wrote an encyclical enjoining every <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> state to become a
<ent type='ORG'>Fascist Corporative</ent> State, and practically all the South <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
<ent type='GPE'>Republics</ent> as well as <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> and Hungary, and later <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>,
and <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent> complied. Coercion alone brought apostates to heel.</p>

<p> I made short reference in one booklet to -- as far as I can
discover -- the first public declaration by the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> -- except
that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> began to lash out with his hatred of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> in 1926
-- of the sentiment that had long been forced upon it: that
Socialism and Communism must be destroyed and that, since argument
about the beauty of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> faith ran off Socialists and
<ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent> (who knew its history too well) like water off a duck's
back, they must be destroyed by violence. As the point is </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
10
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>fundamental let us return to it for a moment. The occasion was a
reception at <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> of <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> refugees on September 14, 1936.
The Pope's speech to them, which is published in English by the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Truth Society -- I do not know if by this time they
realized their blunder and suppressed it -- with the title The
<ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> Terror is no rambling talk of an aged and agitated priest.
It is a polished rhetorical address, prepared in <ent type='ORG'>the Secretariat</ent> of
State. It represents the rebellion of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> generals in
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> as a "satanic" attack on the established order by the very
men who had established it, and it says that this is the work of
"those forces which have already given proof and estimate of their
quality in the attempt to subvert established order of every kind
from <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, from <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> to South <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>". As Chiang Kai-Chek had already, under the treacherous guidance of his earlier
associates in <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, destroyed Communism in <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> (and prepared the
way for <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>), the Pope's allies were destroying it in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and
the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> governments of South <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> had destroyed it there at
Pacelli's request, the meaning is clear. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> invited <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>
(with the aid of rugged divisions from <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries) and
<ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> to attack <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent> States to attack and annex
<ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>. From that date the cry for the extinction of <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> in
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> echoed every month through the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world.</p>

<p> It is plain that this sentiment of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> is not merely
inconsistent with his gospel of peace, but it shaped a policy which
was the very worst possible for the world and for the real prospect
of peace at that time. I do not suggest that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was either
muddle-headed or hypocritical. He had made his position clear a
score of times: peace -- when Communism was extinct by the conquest
of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> and his <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> allies had received,
as a gift, what the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> thought they wanted. It was the Pope's
admirers who were muddle-headed or -- when they told the world that
<ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> was going to work for peace without qualification --
hypocritical.</p>

<p> Recent events have now shown that the peace of the world and
the removal of the corruption that threatened civilization depended
above all upon the democracies and (in some form or other) the
United States allying themselves closely with <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. I may be
pardoned for explaining that this is not on my own part a case of
being wise after the event. In the A. B. C. Library of Living
Knowledge (No. 3, Economic Gains of <ent type='GPE'>the Soviet Union</ent>, 1937) I fully
vindicated that great civilization against calumnies that were
current in nearly the whole press and showed how peace was the
first condition it required for the completion of its splendid
work. I pointed out that whatever dreams <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns may have had at
an earlier date of inspiring revolution in other countries had been
long abandoned, and they were content to let the peoples of the
world judge for themselves between the civilizations of the west
and that of <ent type='GPE'>the Soviet Union</ent>. I warned the reader that it was just
because the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns were so successful in creating a civilization
without private capital and without religion that the combined
influence of capitalism and the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es used almost the entire
press to libel them. "This generation," I said (p. 29), "is the
most heavily duped and doped in all recent history, and its blunder</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
11
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>may prove the most costly in history to the workers of the world.".
I insisted that a great war of aggression was, on the open
professions of <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and because of this criminal
aloofness from <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, certain to come and said:</p>

<p> "If this war of aggression, which, if it were successful,
would be a signal to <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> to take up -- at the deadly expense
of <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> -- his dream of an eastern empire, is
averted, the world will have to thank <ent type='GPE'>the Soviet Union</ent> (p. 29)."</p>

<p> I have knowledge of even <ent type='NORP'>Rationalists</ent> who had long read my
books but refused to read another line of mine because of that
little book on <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. They preferred the superficial gush and
treacherous optimism of accepted writers and journalists who fooled
them about the new Papal era of <ent type='ORG'>Peace and Charity</ent>.</p>

<p> Since this is the one defence of the action of the Black
International, that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> used his world-prestige to issue one
fervent appeal after another for peace, we must make a decisive
reply to it. We are concerned with the action of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and
will not be diverted by this trick of distinguishing between local
hierarchies, as if they had a remarkable degree of independence of
<ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>, and the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>. We shall see, indeed everybody knows,
that the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> loudly supported <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>, as usual, when he
launched the world-war and all its horrors, the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
fully supported <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> in his miserable entrance into the war as
soon as he felt that victory was certain, and the <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>,
Hungarian, and Portuguese <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es -- and when the time came the
<ent type='NORP'>Belgian</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es -- supported their governments in
assisting and fawning on the aggressors.</p>

<p> But for the moment we must clearly understand the action of
the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> himself. Chanting the virtues of peace is as idle as
preaching justice in the abstract and is often far more dangerous.
The only occasion on which I ever addressed a meeting of a Peace
Society was in 1938. I at first declined the invitation and
consented only on the understanding that I would tell them truths
which they would not like. The bulk of the members refused to
attend -- the local <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es had been busy -- and to the few who
did I presented a realistic analysis of the state of the world,
which the chief officials described as masterly and worthy of their
deepest consideration, and a solemn warning of what was coming. I
was not further invited to address one of the hundreds of Peace
Societies in <ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent>, and a few months later they were all
enthusiastic over the new Pope's beautiful sentiments! These people
flatter themselves that they have superior sentiments to the rest
of us when they really differ from us in flabbiness of intellect
or, in the better cases, in lack of realism.</p>

<p> The plain truth is that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> talked peace and worked for
war. He had a very large share in the libel and hatred of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>
which prevented the one combination of sound forces that could
ensure peace. <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> had entered into an alliance of mutual defense
with <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, but the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> openly condemned it, and the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
military chiefs robbed it of reality and effectiveness. On the
other hand the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> clung to the alliances with the corrupt forces
which he had cemented. It required very little intelligence and </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
12
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>study of world-affairs at that time to perceive that the only
possible danger to the peace of the world lay in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>,
and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>. A closer student, as the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was supposed to be, could
go further. He would know that those three <ent type='PERSON'>Powers</ent>, his friends,
were determined to start an aggressive war. What, in such
circumstances, was the value of his appeals to the world at large
to see the beauty of peace?</p>

<p> Well, says the apologist, wearily, at least he soon perceived
his error and entered upon a series of practical proposals for
ensuring peace. Did he? He was crowned <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> on March 12. I said in
an earlier essay that it detracts somewhat from the beauty of his
words about Charity that on the very day of his coronation the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>
were, with terrible injustice and suffering, turned out of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>,
and he said nothing. Again I beg his pardon. He protected some of
the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>. In October (1941) the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> paper La Vita <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>a
sourly complained that not only were there still <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> but
some of them were millionaires and occupied very high positions in
the state-service. One of these, a <ent type='PERSON'>Signor Sacerdoti</ent>, had just been
appointed Director General of all the shipyards of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. The paper
went on to say:</p>

<p> "The appointment again confirms the general conviction that
<ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> are strongly favored and protected by the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and that wealthy <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> are still very influential."</p>

<p> I always acknowledge without a qualm these little injustices
to the clergy into which incomplete knowledge betrays me at rare
intervals. At the same time I must point out, in case you do not
know, <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>, that "<ent type='ORG'>Sacerdoti</ent>" means "Priests", so that this one
protected <ent type='NORP'>Jew</ent> of whom I have heard was obviously a <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
as well as a millionaire, and therefore a fit person, to come under
the Pope's mantle of Charity: which did not cover the 69999 <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>
who were robbed and cast out.</p>

<p> March 12 was not merely a real <ent type='EVENT'>Yom Kippur</ent> for the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> of
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. It was the day on which, as I have elsewhere stated, the
sleek and treacherous priest, Msgr. <ent type='ORG'>Tiszo</ent>, went from <ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> to
see <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and arrange with him for the final betrayal, or sale, of
<ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>. That foul deed was certainly done with the
agreement of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>. It made a final end of the <ent type='NORP'>Liberalism</ent>,
which the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> hated, of the <ent type='NORP'>Czechs</ent>, and it made solidly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> an independent state, another member of the Pope's new
dream of a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> bloc and abjectly submissive to <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>. As
I said, you can believe if you like that <ent type='ORG'>Tiszo</ent> accomplished this
without consulting <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>. But the step meant far more. It finally
remained the great obstacle to Hitler's march to <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and the
<ent type='LOC'>Balkans</ent>. How did the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> of Peace regard that? It is well known
that even <ent type='ORG'>Chamberlain</ent> was now convinced that war was absolutely
inevitable. The whole world saw it. Are we to suppose that the new
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in the weeks, intense brooding and praying, with three hours'
sleep a night, that followed his coronation (his biographer, says)
did not see what every statesman and editor in the world saw?</p>

<p> Well, says the apologist, still more wearily, <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> girded
his thin loins and settled down to six months' fighting to avert
the great calamity. Let me say at once that <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> was not such a
fool as one might be tempted to think when one reflects how he had </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
13
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<p>prepared the irresistible conditions of a great war. He is a man of
considerable ability and I suggest the alternative view that he
knew well that war was inevitable, was convinced that <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> -- we shall see later that he was aware of the
joint plan -- would win, and was equally convinced that this would
prove to be to the advantage of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. The known facts permit
us to make only one concession to the claim that after all he was
human as well as ecclesiastical: he would work sincerely for peace
in the sense of appeasement or granting <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> what they quite obviously wanted, and he probably did not
realize how much they wanted that they did not make obvious.</p>

<p> In this light we may review his peace-efforts in the fateful
summer of 1939. The first was unfortunate. He was crowned on March
12 and he emerged from his week of <ent type='PERSON'>Yogi</ent> meditation on the "9th.
<ent type='LOC'>East</ent>er <ent type='LOC'>Sunday</ent> was to fall on April 9, and he had to have a
particularly fervent appeal to the world for peace ready for that
date. But on Good Friday <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> took the second step in his war
by invading <ent type='GPE'>Albania</ent>! The Pope's biographer tells us that he was
annoyed, in so far as consecrated persons can be, both by the
desecration of the holy day and the need to rewrite some passages
of his appeal for peace. To what extent he was really duped we do
not know. <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s say that he wrote a letter to <ent type='PERSON'>the King</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>
to prevent the invasion. It would be as futile as writing to the
king of toyland, but there is no evidence that such a letter was
ever written. Everybody in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> knew -- was bound to know -- that
a large <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> force was concentrating at the <ent type='LOC'>Adriatic</ent> ports for
the invasion of <ent type='GPE'>Albania</ent>; and every thoughtful <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> must have
known that <ent type='GPE'>Albania</ent> was for <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> just the same stage in a
journey to the <ent type='LOC'>East</ent> as <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> had been for <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>. But
whether or no it is true that <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> double-crossed his partner
in crime by taking the step, in order to make sure that he got the
southern half of the <ent type='LOC'>Balkans</ent> for <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, need not be discussed here,
and the desecration of Good Friday does not interest us. We will
examine the eastern expansion as a whole and <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>'s relation
to it in a separate essay.</p>

<p> The upshot was that, while nice-minded people all over the
world read the Pope's appeal with the usual moist eyes and muddled
brains, for serious folk it was at the best a damp squib, at the
worst a mockery. And the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> soon knew it. Many believe that,
while <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> has certainly not the vast planning and organizing
intelligence with which <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s credit him, he probably does throw
off the general plans or imaginative scheme's which the massive
military and economic brain behind him then works out in detail.
However that may be, we see a steady and very able method in the
great plot: a step, very carefully prepared (the <ent type='ORG'>Saar</ent>, the
<ent type='GPE'>Rhineland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>, etc.) every six months or so, then six months
of covert preparation for and open lying about the next step. After
<ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> the lying became useless. Only <ent type='NORP'>Dutchmen</ent> and
<ent type='NORP'>Belgian</ent>s were duped by it. <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> was to be the next stage; and the
next stage meant war on a European scale.</p>

<p> There is evidence, which we will see later, that, as we should
assume, <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> knew this as well as the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>British</ent>
Foreign Offices. A fortnight after <ent type='LOC'>East</ent>er the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, his biographer
tells us, received so secret a message from his <ent type='PERSON'>Nuncio</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Berlin</ent> </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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<p>that he opened the letter with his own hands and kept the contents
secret. Only his Secretary of State, <ent type='ORG'>Maglione</ent>, knew what reply he
made to it. Is it fanciful to suppose that it apprised him of the
next step that <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> meditated? It was followed, the biographer
says, by "feverish activity" at <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>, the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> consulting
his <ent type='PERSON'>Nuncio</ent>s from <ent type='GPE'>Berlin</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Warsaw</ent> and seeing numbers of bishops
from <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>. As the quarrel about <ent type='ORG'>Dantzig</ent>, the
unmistakable herald of Hitler's next step, soon broke out, the
Vatican could not even pretend to be taken by surprise.</p>

<p> What, then, were all these efforts to secure peace of which
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologist speaks? We ignore the <ent type='LOC'>East</ent>er lyric. It
reminds us of one gangster sending a wreath to the funeral of
another. In May he suggested -- so unobtrusively that it could be
denied when the plan failed -- a Five Power Conference over the
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> dispute. The five <ent type='PERSON'>Powers</ent> were to be <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. You may think him either
unpractical or insincere but the fact is that he wanted <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>,
which was deeply interested, excluded, on his usual assumption that
it was not a respectable Power, and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, which was not interested
and would intervene only to support <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>, included. <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, which
was now, to the Pope's annoyance, allied with <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, and Great
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> refused. The Conference would certainly not have checked
<ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>.</p>

<p> It is said -- and, of course, denied -- that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> then
suggested a Conference on the economic grounds of the world-unrest.
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> had been complaining for some time that <ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> were trying to starve the Axis economically, and that <ent type='GPE'>Tunis</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Jibute</ent>, and a share in the control of the <ent type='LOC'>Suez</ent> were vital economic
requirements of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> and would entirely satisfy it; while his
troops were trying to cross <ent type='GPE'>Albania</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>Greece</ent> and his <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>
toughs were encouraged to <ent type='GPE'>bawl</ent> in the streets and theaters that
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> must have <ent type='ORG'>Savoy</ent>, Corsica, <ent type='GPE'>Malta</ent>, etc. <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> was pleading
that once the question of <ent type='ORG'>Dantzig</ent> and the Corridor was settled he
would lay aside his armor forever. Any man who wishes may assume
that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> really believed them. His economic peace plan was an
attempt to get <ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent> and a <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> that was already weakened
by treason to give them what they wanted. In any case his
suggestion was rejected as amateurish.</p>

<p> These various proposals are interesting only in connection
with the belief of many that <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> has as fine an
intelligence-service as any <ent type='LOC'>Chancellory</ent> in Europe. If that were so,
the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> would know that these pretended economic grievances of
<ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> were dishonest pretexts for crime. They
were based upon two lies: over-population and a disadvantage in
getting supplies from parts of the world which were included in the
empires of <ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>.</p>

<p> The grievance about over-population is nauseous when we recall
how <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> for six years and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> for fifteen years had been
whipping up the birth rate by every means in their power; and in
this their action coincided with that of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> clergy.
Neither in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> nor <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> was there the least reticence about
the reasons for demanding early marriages and giving special prizes
to parents of large families. They wanted soldiers. "We were born </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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<p>to die for <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>" was painted up in boys schools in that country,
and leading statesmen urged mothers to look anxiously for the first
mystic flicker of the "starlight of battle" in a baby boy's eyes.
The <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>s were less absurd but equally frank. The men who will
be called to account in future history are the states-men and
writers of other countries who saw year by year this frenzied and
artificial attempt to increase the population, accompanied by
hypocritical pleas that the countries were already so
overpopulated, that they must have more territory. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
clergy were the worst offenders. They pretended to discover that
birth control was immoral. Their real purpose in their ban on it
was to secure an increase of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> population while the non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> practiced birth control.</p>

<p> In point of fact, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> was very far from overpopulated, and
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> was by no mean's one of the most densely populated countries.
<ent type='GPE'>England</ent> has about 800 people to the square mile, while <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> has
only 350 and <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> 322. <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>, and other countries
annexed by <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> on the plea of wanting more "living room" for
its distressed population are twice as densely populated as it is.
The whole economic plea of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, which the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> wanted gravely
discussed, stank with mendacity. Sir <ent type='PERSON'>Norman Angell</ent>, one of the most
anxious of men to remove grounds of war, proved years ago in a
special study "that <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> had very little economic advantage from
its empire." You can trust the Canadians and <ent type='NORP'>Australian</ent>s to see
that any advantage is mutual. <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> says repeatedly and
emphatically in <ent type='PERSON'>Mein Kampf</ent> that <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> does not want colonies: in
which he includes dominions of the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> type. It wants land in
Europe, he insists, and we now see it clearly. He wants to reduce
Europe to economic servitude to the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s.</p>

<p> The Pope's biographer complains that after a time both Great
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> refused to take the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> further into their
confidence. We do not wonder. But, whether you prefer to believe
that he was not willing to be pushed out of the spotlight or that
he really thought he could help the interest of peace, he tried
again. He issued a very pretentious document in which he stated the
conditions of peace, and half the world began again to discuss the
marvelous sagacity and moral serenity of his famous "Five Points".</p>

<p> It was, in point of fact, his worst effort. The material part
of his first and most important point was: "A fundamental postulate
of an honorable and just peace is that of the right to life and
freedom of all nations, big and small, powerful and weak." It is
exasperating that most papers, in their eagerness to please
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> readers and advertisers, promised this as a very clear-headed piece of moral guidance in a world of confusion. Such a
right has been a platitude in political theory for more than half
a century. One is tempted to say ever since the ropes were
compelled by the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> armies to let the inhabitants of Central
<ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> decide by plebiscite how they preferred to live. But for
<ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>-Pius to formulate this principle solemnly to the world in
the year 1939 was a breath-taking piece of audacity.</p>

<p> As I showed in an earlier booklet, four-fifths of the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s of the world live under a <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> regime, and they are
assured by their priests that this is in accordance with the Pope's</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>teaching! What is worse, most of them have had this despotic regime
imposed upon them under <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> and at his direct instigation. I
have shown how freedom disappeared almost whenever he visited a
country or it came under <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> authorities: in 20 <ent type='GPE'>Republics</ent> of
Central and South <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, Hungary, <ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, and
in the end <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>. <ent type='ORG'>The Black International</ent> was solely
responsible for robbing the people of <ent type='GPE'>Vienna</ent> of their right to
choose their mode of life and cordially cooperated in depriving the
<ent type='NORP'>Spaniards</ent> of that right. The <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> had been an intimate ally of
the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent>s for ten years in refusing the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>s the means of
expressing their wishes and of the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s for six years. It had
consented by silence to the theft of that right from the people of
<ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Bohemia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Moravia</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Albania</ent>. It demanded almost every
month that the people of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> should be violently
deprived of that right. And the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> crowns this formidable list of
encroachments on the liberty of peoples which he inspired or
blessed by assuring the world that to respect the right of self-determination is the first condition of the peace it ardently
desires! I need not go on to ask what serious prospect he thought
there was of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, the only three powers to
whom it was necessary to preach, agreeing to it.</p>

<p> The least that the world could do, since the press is not open
for candid reflections on the Pope's actions, was to ignore him and
his Five Points. The other points were platitudes. The second
condition of peace was disarmament: a very practical thing to say
in 1939. Then we get counsels to learn from the past, to consider
the demands of racial minorities, and to cultivate mutual goodwill
and a sense of justice. It was like proposing to sell a man
asbestos paint when his house was burning furiously. If the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>,
had framed these points in the office of <ent type='ORG'>the Secretariat</ent> of State
in 1929 and had broadcast them sternly whenever a violation of them
seemed imminent he might not have averted the coming tragedy but he
would have saved the honor of the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent>. He could not. <ent type='ORG'>Authority</ent>
is the first principle and coercion the indispensable instrument of
the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Some Protestant bishops applauded the Pope's Five
Points. Others asked what freedom, good-will, and justice non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s had in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, Hungary, and a
score of other <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> states.</p>

<p> Chapter III</p>

<p> POLAND PAYS FOR ITS PIETY</p>

<p> What passed between <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> and the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s before the
invasion of <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and the opening of the European War only the
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> and a very small number of his collaborators know. On April
24, as I said, the question of <ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> being now settled and
<ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> in possession of the bridge to the <ent type='GPE'>Ukraine</ent> and the <ent type='LOC'>Balkans</ent>,
the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> got a letter from his <ent type='GPE'>Berlin</ent> representative in a secrecy
that surprises and puzzles his biographer, it took two days of
solitary reflection for him to decide upon the answer, and only he </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>and Cardinal <ent type='ORG'>Maglione</ent> know to this day what the answer was. Then
there were visits to <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> of the <ent type='NORP'>Rumanian</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>
ambassadors and various <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> bishops, and there was a
brisk secret correspondence with the <ent type='PERSON'>Nuncio</ent>s at <ent type='GPE'>Berlin</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Warsaw</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>Paris</ent>.</p>

<p> Clearly the new <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was confronted with a terrible dilemma
and he was anxious to keep secret even from the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> what
decision he took. <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is one of the busiest sounding boardes of
rumors in Europe and <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> press bureau is as <ent type='PERSON'>Pegler</ent> has
shown, one of the leakiest or most venal, but at this stage the
secret was guarded with unprecedented rigor. If you will next
notice the significant fact that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> refrained from an
explicit condemnation of the invasion of <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> as carefully as in
the case of <ent type='GPE'>Abyssinia</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Albania</ent> -- he certainly never used a word
to compare with his language about the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns when they simply
took back Rusalan provinces which <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> would have annexed -- you
will hardly hesitate in your guess what the secret was. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>
was informed of the plan to invade <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and was induced to assent
on certain conditions: probably that the occupation of <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> would
be temporary and was indispensable for the attack on <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, that
religion would be respected in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, and that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> would
get concessions in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and great opportunities in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. The
idea seems to have been that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> would persuade the very
docile <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> to submit on these conditions and would continue to
inflame them against <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, the only Power that could save them.</p>

<p> In refraining from condemning the invasion of <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> -- I do
not count later protests when the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, body was threatened
with annihilation -- the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> could not plead, as he did in the
case of <ent type='GPE'>Norway</ent>, that the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> body was small and he must think
of his <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and not offend the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s. Whether or no that
is a respectable ground of action in a <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, the fact is that there
were twice as many sincere <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> as in the <ent type='PERSON'>Reich</ent>. A
cynic would add that, though it had more adherents and of a more
passionate loyalty, the <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was not a quarter as rich as
the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. We will, of course, not admit that <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>
was moved by so profane a consideration, but the numbers are
indisputable. We have seen that by 1939 there were not 12000000
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s left in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>: probably not more than 10000000. No
one disputes that of the 33000000 people of <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> more than
20000000 were sincere <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s and several further million were
compulsory members of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>: a type of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> of which the
Vatican seems to be equally proud.</p>

<p> This strange situation requires an historical explanation, but
for even a short summary of the history of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> I
must refer to my Appeal to Reason Library (No. 5., "<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>") and confine myself here to a few
points which are essential to understand what follows. There is, as
I have often pointed out, a close parallel between <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent>, especially if you think of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent> before <ent type='NORP'>British</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Liberalism</ent> relieved many of its grievances. Both countries suffered
from their geographical position, on the outskirts of civilization,
and in both cases this gave the priests a rich opportunity to
exploit the poor and very backward population. And just as the
earlier tyranny of Protestant <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> had hardened the faith in </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
18
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<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p><ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent> and brought priests and people closer together, so had the
long tyranny of <ent type='NORP'>Orthodox</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>. While, however,
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> had very materially modified its treatment of the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>
more than half a century ago, <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n tyranny had continued until
1917.</p>

<p> We thus recognize a very serious traditional ground for that
hostility to <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> which prevented <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> from entering into
alliance with the one Power that could protect it, but it is due
mainly to <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> that hostility became worse after
1918 and completely destroyed the chances of checking <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>sm on
that side.</p>

<p> At <ent type='GPE'>Versailles</ent>, to which the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> sent <ent type='PERSON'>Paderewski</ent> to lull the
ears of statesmen with his music, a Republic of 30000000
inhabitants was set up. Not much more than half of these were
<ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>, so that there were few parts of Europe in which the
Conference of <ent type='GPE'>Versailles</ent> sowed the seeds of a future war so
recklessly as in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>. In particular the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> claimed <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n
territory (White <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and the Galician <ent type='GPE'>Ukraine</ent>) containing seven
or eight million people of alien race and generally alien religion,
and, to the disgust of the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> representatives, the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>
bulldozed <ent type='PERSON'>Wilson</ent>, who reeled under the shower of weird geographical
names (and lies) into consenting. The <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> also claimed <ent type='GPE'>Silesia</ent>
from <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, but it was so obviously far more <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> than <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent>
that <ent type='ORG'>the League</ent> of Nations was directed to take a plebiscite.</p>

<p> The time came when the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> were disgusted with their <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent>
pet -- they had supported it as a bulwark against <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> -- and
they gave away the fact that the plebiscite was corrupt. See the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Rene Martel</ent>'s La <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> et la <ent type='GPE'>Pologne</ent> (1931). The <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>
had formed a special organization for corrupting and intimidating
voters and officials, and one of the three directors of it was
Msgr, Adamski, <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Bishop of <ent type='GPE'>Posen</ent>. <ent type='ORG'>The Black International</ent>
had begun its record in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, and there is no other part of the
world in which it has proceeded with such gross inhumanity, as we
shall see presently. The vote was still 700000 for <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and
400000 for <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, and the <ent type='ORG'>Commissioners</ent> decided to divide the
province. This division was, carried out with the same corruption,
the richest districts going to <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> even when the great majority
of the inhabitants were found to be <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s. They had to sell out
to <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>, at a heavy loss, and transfer to <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. Still the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>
were not content. <ent type='ORG'>The League</ent> of Nations permitted them to take
advantage of Russia's distress and seize <ent type='GPE'>Vilna</ent> and part of
<ent type='GPE'>Lithuania</ent>. Ever since that period of grab and corruption there has
been a monument on <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> soil facing <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> with the inscription:
"<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s, never forget of what blind hatred has robbed you."</p>

<p> How in spite of all this greed and the large loans extended by
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> sank to the position of the poorest
country in Europe -- read Spivak's Europe Under the Terror if you
want to know what exploitation really is -- cannot be discussed
here. The point of interest to us is that the country no sooner rid
itself of the tyranny of Czarist <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> than it set up a still more
galling tyranny over its own minorities, and in this the Black
International worked in intimate cooperation with the Dictator
<ent type='ORG'>Pilsudski</ent>. Marshal <ent type='ORG'>Pilsudski</ent>, over whose death in 1935 we shed </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
19
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>tears as we read the record of his virtues in all our papers, was,
not to put too fine a point on it, a brute and a crook. He had led
the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> who fought for <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> against us in the 1914-1918 war,
and they had not thought it discreet to send him to <ent type='GPE'>Versailles</ent>. He
had joined <ent type='EVENT'>the White War</ent> against <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, which he hated with all
the bitterness of (like <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>) a renegade Socialist, and only
the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> had saved him from losing <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> to them. He disgusted
every group of politicians, and the Socialists saved him from ruin
and he then sent their leaders to a fortress and tortured them
exactly (even to the guards putting excrement in their food) as
<ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s later tortured <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>.</p>

<p> As far as I can discover <ent type='ORG'>Pilsudski</ent> never became a sincere
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> -- again like his friend <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> -- but he acted with
and on behalf of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, which is more powerful than in <ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent>
or <ent type='GPE'>Peru</ent>. Let me explain at once that the appalling persecution that
lasted twenty years in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> was a joint affair of <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and
state and aimed equally at destroying the nationality and the
religion of the immense non-<ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> minorities. In the Galician
<ent type='GPE'>Ukraine</ent> alone there were 1000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>, 1250000 <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>,
4000000 <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> Uniates (acknowledging the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> but with a <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>
liturgy), and 4000000 <ent type='NORP'>Orthodox</ent> or <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s. In the west
were about 1000000 <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> Protestants; and there were, of course,
representatives of all minorities and not a few skeptics in the
cities. For twenty years every device of persecution and brutality
was used to destroy the religious liberty and the national tongues
and customs of these minorities, although the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> had given
<ent type='GPE'>Versailles</ent> a solemn engagement to respect them. I am concerned only
with the coercion in religious matters, and the reason for
recalling it here is obvious. During all the years when <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>
and <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> in every country, but especially in the
United States and <ent type='GPE'>Canada</ent>, was inspiring, on the ground of its
"persecution of religion", that hatred of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> which has been of
incalculable service to the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s, this same <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent>
not only knew that there was no persecution of religion in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>
-- it was <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> conspiracy that brought punishment on the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s there but was conducting a quite fiendish persecution of
religion in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and preventing the press in other countries,
with only four exception's amongst all the dailies of <ent type='GPE'>Canada</ent>, the
United States, and <ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent>, from publishing the facts. The
honorable exceptions were <ent type='ORG'>the Toronto Evening Telegram</ent>, <ent type='ORG'>the Chicago</ent>
Daily News, the <ent type='GPE'>New York</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Herald</ent>-Tribune, and <ent type='ORG'>the Manchester</ent>
Guardian (<ent type='GPE'>England</ent>); and the persecutions had been in progress for
eleven years when they discovered it.</p>

<p> The <ent type='NORP'>Ukrainians</ent> of Galicia had sent a deputation to <ent type='GPE'>Versailles</ent>
to protest against incorporation in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and claim independence.
The <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> had got the petition dismissed, and the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> had
promised to respect their minority-rights. Six months later they
addressed to the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> a memoir (Les atrocites polonaises en
Galicie Ukrainienne) which showed a very brutal persecution,
political and religious raging over the whole vast area. In one
overcrowded and filthy jail 200 of the 2000 prisoners were <ent type='NORP'>Orthodox</ent>
priests. More than 1000 priests had been arrested and <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
priests stalked like ghouls in the rear of the police and soldiers
taking over the schools and chapels of the dispossessed <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>
priests. The soldiers were instructed to subject the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> priests </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
20
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>to every kind of humiliation and mockery so as to break the
attachment of the people. But the peasants and farmers reacted with
the fiery protests that might have been expected, and "whole
villages were depopulated by massacre." The women were raped and
beaten, the men shot by the thousand. In other words, the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> were perpetrating in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> twenty years ago just those
atrocities which are now exercised upon themselves by the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s,
and, except for this authoritative account in <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>, which was not
translated into any other language, the world was not permitted to
know anything about it.</p>

<p> It is an important secondary aim of these booklets to warn the
reader of the extraordinary extent and pernicious nature of the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> censorship of the press and of publicity generally. Just
about that time, twenty years ago, I spent six months in <ent type='GPE'>New York</ent>
and when I suggested to a well-known publisher, who asked me for a
book, that I should write on the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, he refused and
assured me that I would not find a publisher for such work in New
York. Few publishers have any sympathy with the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> -- the only
one I found with such personal admiration of it was, curiously, my
Rationalist friend G.H. <ent type='ORG'>Putnam</ent> -- but the press would not bring to
the notice of the public, in the usual way, books that were
(offensive to <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s", and they submitted that it was useless to
publish them. Libraries were often intimidated from buying them and
booksellers from exposing them for sale. Haldeman-Julius is the
only publisher in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> during the last ten years who has enabled
me to tell truths of the kind I tell here, yet it will be evident
that the world would have been far better equipped to meet the
darkening future if the whole truth had been put before it year
after year.</p>

<p> I have devoted a paragraph to events of twenty year's ago
because they were but the first page in a chapter of persecution
which covers the whole intervening period and is very material from
several angles to my present theme. The matter not only affords a
very striking illustration of the suppression of truth which it is
important to know. It shows that the worst blunders of <ent type='GPE'>Versailles</ent>,
which we blamed so fluently, were enormously aggravated by the
conduct of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>. It explains that bitter hostility of
the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> to the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns which caused them to lend a hand in every
conspiracy against the <ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> government since 1919 and brought
upon the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> priests in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, most of whom were <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>, the
legitimate legal proceedings which <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> and the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
bishops represented as persecution of religion. It shows that
outrages as vile as any committed by the Japs in <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> and now by
<ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s in many lands were being perpetrated by the most profoundly
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> state in the world for twenty years while nice-minded folk
everywhere were wondering whether the new barbarism was not due to
a decay of religion. And it puts in a strange light that standing
excuse of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> for its conduct, that the extension of its
rule over further millions of men or the maintenance of that rule
over million's who seem to be rejecting it is so important for the
moral and social good of men that we must be lenient in regard to
the crookedness of its policy.</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
21
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p> If ever this appalling record of persecution in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> by the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> is forced upon general public notice we shall
probably hear the usual distinction between the action of a local
hierarchy and the action of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>, I need not repeat that we
are here considering the conduct of <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> as a
whole not simply of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s, and we are not embarrassed by being
unable to trace in every case the instructions of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> to
national <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es. But this distinction is not even plausible in
the case of <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>. The present <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Pius XII</ent>, has, we saw, an
intimate knowledge of <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> affairs, and no plea of ignorance or
misinformation can be made in connection with any of his relations
to that country. But the late, <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> Plus XI, had the same personal
interest in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, his pontificate (1922-1939) exactly coincides
with the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Reign of Terror in that country.</p>

<p> Any writer must dwell with reluctance on the misconduct of a
people which bore, and with great heroism, the first brutal onset
of the European War and suffers so bitterly for it today. It is,
however, necessary to tell the whole truth if we are to appreciate
the insincerity of the pretensions of <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent>, the
truth about its conduct, and the mendacity with which a good deal
of that conduct is concealed. It is fortunately easier in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>
than elsewhere to learn the truth. When <ent type='ORG'>the Chicago</ent> Daily News and
the <ent type='ORG'>Herald</ent>-Tribune disturbed the clerical folk who were raving
about persecution in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> -- <ent type='NORP'>Jew</ent>ish rabbis joining in processions
with bishops in <ent type='GPE'>New York</ent> while financiers applauded from the
windows -- by showing that the real persecution was in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>,
officials in <ent type='GPE'>Washington</ent> answered inquirers with the suave
assurances of the <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> representatives that it was "all
lies." But there is a large body of <ent type='NORP'>Ukrainians</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent>
States, and in 1931 they collected and published a large volume of
testimony (letters, reports, journalistic accounts, etc.) of the
outrages.</p>

<p> No impartial person who reads this (Atrocities in the <ent type='GPE'>Ukraine</ent>,
1931, edited by <ent type='PERSON'>Emil Revyuk</ent>) can for a moment doubt the truth of
the statements. The authority is absolute. The details are
revolting. The defense urged by some is that, the <ent type='NORP'>Ukrainians</ent> had
rebelled against their <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> masters. Yes, after years of brutal
treatment in violation of the promise's made by <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> when it
received the province. But a nation of 30000000, spending a very
high proportion of its revenue on an army which could stand up to
<ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> for three weeks hardly needed torture and brutality to
suppress any revolt in a province. Flogging, with whips loaded with
wire or iron, was a daily occurrence. Pregnant women and girls were
beaten. Heated irons were applied to the feet. Water, sometimes
mixed with oil, was forced down their nostrils. Men -- not merely
peasants but professional men and scholars -- were deprived of
sleep until they became half-insane. There were 200000 in jail in
1930 and torture was used lavishly on them to make them betray
others. The brutality was even worse in 1934 and 1935, though it
seems to have relented a little after the death of <ent type='ORG'>Pilsudski</ent> in the
latter year.</p>

<p> The first encyclical that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> issued in 1939 deplored
that the root of all evil in the world was the decay of religion.
One wonders how many sage editorials took up and confirmed that
text; and not one in a hundred of these papers had informed its </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
22
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>readers that bestiality of the kind that will make sociologists of
the future hesitate to call our social order a civilization had
been going on for twenty years in the most religious country in
Europe. <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> was to 1939 far more <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> than Eire or <ent type='GPE'>Peru</ent>. A
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> visited it in 1932 and wrote an article on it in
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Revue des Deux Mondes (February 1, 1933). He describes
exhibitions of piety in public to which you will find no parallel
in any other country. <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s were, at the time, telling
non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> neighbors that if they could only see religious life
in a solidly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> country they would perceive the beauty of the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Well, <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> was the most solidly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> country in the
world, and its priests and bishops were equally behind this
persecution, which extended also to <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> Protestants and <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent>
Freethinkers, with the politicians of the <ent type='ORG'>Pilsudski</ent> school, They
were just as eager to destroy the Uniate, <ent type='NORP'>Orthodox</ent>, and Protestant
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es as the politicians were to make everybody thoroughly
<ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent>. That is abundantly shown in Revyuk's book.</p>

<p> It is hardly necessary to point out how these facts make a
mockery of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>'s assurance to the world that when the
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n troops entered this Galician <ent type='GPE'>Ukraine</ent> in 1939 they committed
outrages as the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> troops did in <ent type='GPE'>Posen</ent>. <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>
and the few other <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in the province fought against
the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns, but what was likely to be the mutual attitude of the
<ent type='NORP'>Ukrainians</ent> and the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n's after 20 years of this agony? The
<ent type='NORP'>Ukrainians</ent> hated the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> mortally. The <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns were an army of
liberation. The jails were opened. The farms were restored to their
owners. But the Papal lie was reproduced respectfully in the world-press. I remember very few papers which even troubled to explain
that the two provinces taken over by <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, palpably to anticipate
a <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> annexation of them, were <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n provinces wantonly torn
from their natural unity by <ent type='GPE'>Versailles</ent>, but I do not remember a
single paper that explained what grounds the <ent type='NORP'>Ukrainians</ent> had for
relief and how bitterly they hated the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>.</p>

<p> Another reason why I enlarge on this painful chapter of <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent>
history just before the war is because it has a vital bearing on
one of the grossest blunders of the democracies and greatest
advantages of the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s, the estrangement from <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. Since I
cannot put before the reader any correspondence of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> with
the <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> hierarchy he must decide on a general knowledge of
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> methods how far <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> knew and approved of the brutal
persecution I fancy he will not have much difficulty -- but that
the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> inflamed the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> against <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> is patent.
The <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> had, we saw, very strong traditional grounds to hate
Tsarist <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, and <ent type='ORG'>Pilsudski</ent> had carried his hatred over to <ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent>
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and had gravely implicated the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> in
<ent type='EVENT'>the White War</ent> and subsequent conspiracies. Grave difficulties were
bound to arise when there was a common frontier between the most
religious and the most irreligious country in Europe. It will,
however, not be questioned that these difficulties were immensely
aggravated by the appeals to the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world of the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> to
work for the extinction of <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> after 1926. It was in large
part owing to this that the democracies lost the last opportunity
of either preventing the war or making it short and restricted.</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
23
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p> <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> had signed a non-aggression pact with <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> in 1934,
and there cannot be the least doubt that, imbued as it was with the
Pope's idea of a crusade against <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, in which <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> must play
at least the leading part, <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> regarded this as a preparatory
condition for the eventual attack on <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. When <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> had hamstrung <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Hungary had, like wolves waiting until a buffalo is
wounded, bitten large pieces of territory out of its flanks. On
January 25, 1939, <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> had sent <ent type='ORG'>Ribbentrop</ent>, the vilest agent of
his more treacherous moves, to <ent type='GPE'>Warsaw</ent> to represent <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> at the
celebration of the fifth anniversary of the non-aggression pact. It
was, he said in his speech, "one of the firmest bases of European
peace." What children these Europeans were the historian will one
day reflect! <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> was then, he knew, plotting the destruction of
<ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and a world war.</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Ribbentrop</ent> returned to <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> to join in the plot against
<ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> in which, as I have elsewhere explained, it
received most valuable help from <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent>. The
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent>s entered <ent type='GPE'>Prague</ent> on March 15 (1939), while the new <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was
preparing his moving address on peace and charity; and the world
began to prepare for what seemed to be the inevitable war. Most of
my neighbors in <ent type='GPE'>London</ent> had gas-masks by that date and looked
forward with amazing apathy -- or was it lack of imagination? -- to
the horrors that were predicted. The <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> signed a mutual
defensive alliance with <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>. In fact, in the course of the next
few months <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent> had such alliances also with
<ent type='GPE'>Rumania</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Greece</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Turkey</ent>.</p>

<p> We can imagine some imperfectly informed reader of the next
generation exclaiming impatiently: But why string together these
small, scattered, and not wholly reliable nations and omit the one
great power, <ent type='NORP'>Soviet</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, which was Germany's natural enemy and
was worth all the others put together? We did not ask the question
at the time because we knew the answer. These <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries
and even <ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent> regarded an approach to <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> much as a
<ent type='NORP'>Baptist</ent> mothers meeting would regard a suggestion, in case of need,
to call in the aid of a gunman to protect their virtue. For that
the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> had a very large part of the responsibility.</p>

<p> Naturally there were approaches, of a sort. The <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> signed
a pact with <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, almost useless because it did not include a
military alliance, in April. The Vatican promptly condemned it. The
<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> asked <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> to promise military aid to <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Rumania</ent>,
but only in such form and measure as those powers decided, and they
would not promise <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> aid to <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> if it was attacked. <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>,
sore about the insulting exclusion from <ent type='GPE'>Munich</ent>, rightly distrusting
a <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> which, it knew, regarded it as an outlaw, refused. <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>
refused to have adequate <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>n armies in it, and the little
<ent type='NORP'>Baltic</ent> states, prizes set up by <ent type='GPE'>Versailles</ent> for the first grabber,
also refused. <ent type='GPE'>Great Britain</ent> half-heatedly pushed on. It sent a
diplomatic mission, of a character it would not send to any other
country, to <ent type='GPE'>Moscow</ent>, then a military mission of the same inferior
quality. <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> did not need to read how one of <ent type='ORG'>the Blimps</ent> of a
<ent type='GPE'>London</ent> club had said: "We may, of course, have to get <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> to
help, but, please God it will not come to that." It, in August 23,
sent the old women of the clubs into hysterics by announcing that </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
24
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>it had signed a non-aggression pact with <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. A few weeks later
it sent the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s into what we might call a subdued hysteria by
snatching the Galician <ent type='GPE'>Ukraine</ent> -- for reasons which I have surely
fully explained -- from under their guns.</p>

<p> We quite understand <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. We also now understand <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>,
which entered upon its three-years war-agony on September 1st, and
its three-years peace-agony a few weeks later. Only one feature in
that year of tragic blunders concerns us here. <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, which
thought it had been following the luminous lead of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> for
so many years, had been led by the nose. The brave, exploited,
perversely educated people had been cursed with blundering leaders
who were in closer alliance with the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> than leaders were in
any other <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> country. They had brought upon the land the
contempt of Europe and had made it refuse the aid of the big
brother who, with real aid from the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> fleets,
<ent type='GPE'>Rumania</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Yugo</ent>slavia, and <ent type='GPE'>Greece</ent> might have averted its tragic fate.
The poles paid for their piety. Little did the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> dream that
they also, the least religious people in Europe after the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>ns,
Would soon be led by <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent>, and without the
redeeming trait of honor and bravery which we accord to the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>,
into same black pit. Never was there before such lack of
foresight in an age of mortal danger. We know why the statesmen and
churchmen of <ent type='NORP'>democratic</ent> countries were reluctant to face realities.
<ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> and their satellite promised to kill
Socialism. Would the catastrophe have been as grave if the peoples
of the world had had all the facts candidly before them?</p>

<p> Chapter IV</p>

<p> THE GERMAN CHURCH AND THE WAR</p>

<p> On September 1st, 1939, began, with the invasion of <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>,
the greatest war, it maybe the most terrible and tragic three-year
period, in the whole of history. The aggression-mongers, the Pope's
biographer affirms, thrust him aside and excluded him from their
counsels. "When the swords flash let the lawyers be silent" said an
old <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> proverb. The new <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> applied it to churchmen: <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent>
assured the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> that he would see that <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> was respected as a
sacred city, and, although <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> planes have taken part in the
foul bombing of <ent type='GPE'>London</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> has never been bombed. <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>ill
persistently refuses to tell why. Perhaps the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> authorities
of <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent> States and the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Empire could tell us. The
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, to make doubly sure that he would remain out of heaven some
years longer, had a luxurious shelter prepared under an ancient
tower with walls fifteen feet thick. <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> would not require his
services again until the attack on <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>.</p>

<p> A pathetic spectacle for the moral ruler of the world! If he
had been the austere world-figure that <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> literature
represents him -- nay, if he had been a man -- what would he have
done? He would certainly not have been content, as he was to ask
the nations of the world, as if they were equally guilty, to make </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
15
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<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>peace: certainly not have proposed economic conferences, as he did,
to make the aggressive powers still stronger by conceding territory
for which they need not expend any of their forces. Indeed, the
whole world knew at that time that only one nation threatened its
peace, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. The <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese jackals would not move
until the lion had scattered a few corpses about the landscape. So
the Pope's function, unless <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> apologetic literature is
admitted to be insincere, was clear. He ought to have branded as
criminal in the highest degree the ambition to annex and exploit
other countries, one by one, of which <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> had given ample
proof. He ought to have condemned in the most explicit and severest
terms the glorification of war by the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> leaders,
the lies they put forward about encirclement and over-population,
the racial arrogance with which they were poisoning their people,
the murderous outrages with which they had begun to say to all the
little nations of Europe: See what you will get if you resist us.</p>

<p> It is hardly worthwhile discussing the immediate pretexts of
the opening of hostilities. For my part -- I have never hesitated
to say that <ent type='ORG'>Dantzig</ent> was a <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> city and ought never to have been
taken from it, and that to take from it a slice of <ent type='LOC'>East</ent> Prussia
measuring 260 miles by 80 to give the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent> -- <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> capitalists
and <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> bond-holders, that is to say -- a "Corridor" to the sea
was little less monstrous. But no one in Europe expected <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> to
be satisfied with these. The situation was as clear as the Eiffel
Tower at <ent type='GPE'>Paris</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> meant to take <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> were sworn to regard such a step as proof of a large
aggressive design and declare war. Those of us who knew the facts
reflected, sadly, that the democracies could hardly choose a weaker
case to champion than that of the synthetic <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> they had set up
at <ent type='GPE'>Versailles</ent>, the <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> state which had bludgeoned its
minorities for twenty years. It was all the worse that, as was soon
proved, they could give no help to <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> and were not even able to
help themselves.</p>

<p> The very difficult and still obscure question of <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>
require's a separate book but I can speak for <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>. About mid-day on that fateful <ent type='LOC'>Sunday</ent> the news was broadcast that <ent type='ORG'>Chamberlain</ent>
had declared war on <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. By an extraordinary blunder the sirens
wailed within half an hour and, to make matters worse in my own
street, a stupid warden gave the signal to prepare for gas. I will
not describe the panic -- which does not detract from the fine
courage of most <ent type='GPE'>London</ent>ers when the blow fell later -- but it
reminded us of one thing: we had no armament whatever for the war
we had declared. It has since transpired that <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> then had only
18 good fighter planes. <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> had thousands. Nine months
preparation had done little more than give most of us gas-masks --
I had none -- accommodations for a million or so in the hospitals
and coffins for hundreds of thousands. Yet for once Englishmen
might be proud of the folly of their government. It cried a halt to
brutality and criminal greed.</p>

<p> And the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> had nothing to say. Someone ought to collect a
bouquet, or encyclopedia, of all the impressive assurances of
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists that their <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> is the ideal
inflexible, international and irrepressible arbiter of right and
wrong, justice and injustice. Of all the excuses that they bleat </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>today the funniest -- and even bishop's mumble it -- is that he is
the Father of All <ent type='NORP'>Peoples</ent> and must not take sides! We had been told
that it was just that position of cosmopolitan and international
judge which made him a unique and incorruptible tribunal. Was there
some doubt from the moral point of view on which side the guilt
lay? Can one even imagine <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, with their miserable
armament, having any other aim than to cheek a brutal
aggressiveness? In plain English, and in the light of the Pope's
own words, this plea means that he would not denounce a wrong if
his interests and those of his <ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> were to suffer
for it in any country. And that is the gist of our accusation. The
<ent type='ORG'>Black International</ent> pursues its own interests though it be through
the ruin of civilization and of all human idealism.</p>

<p> As I have repeatedly pointed out, it is rather this Black
International than the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> that interests us. We must not allow
ourselves to be distracted when the end comes by <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> or any
other criticisms of Eugenio <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent>. Any <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> would have acted as
he did. No <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> ever acted otherwise. The great <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> scholar, A.
<ent type='PERSON'>Loisy</ent>, scourged the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> during the last war for exactly the same
conduct. And the apologist has not simply to explain way his
"neutrality," though that is a vice in a moralist in face of a
grave crime. He had helped bring on the war. He had made it easy
for <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> the annexation of <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>. He had cooperated with him
still more closely in the destruction of <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>. He had
turned a blind eye to his vile conduct in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and helped to
protect his intervention in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>. He had been in large part
responsible for the weakness and incoherence of the world-opposition to him by his preaching of hatred of <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> -- and --
not to speak of matters which will be discussed in later booklets
-- he had encouraged his monstrous plans by allying himself with
the two other powers which had similar plans.</p>

<p> But when we say that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was silent we mean only that no
clear messages were printed in the <ent type='PERSON'>Osservatore</ent> or broadcast from
<ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> Radio or sent out to the world in encyclicals. His one
encyclical at this time, when the flames of war were lit from
<ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>, was, as we saw, a plea that the world, not one
or two nations, was evil because it was losing religion, and
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Action must come to the rescue. <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Action! It had
been busy in the <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Ukraine</ent> for twenty years, in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> for
Several years, in Hungary and <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, in <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> and South
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. No one took any notice.</p>

<p> Was the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> acting through the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> hierarchy? We do not
care two pins whether this can or cannot be proved. One thing we do
know as we have already seen. The summer had seen "feverish
activity" at <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>, and an outstanding part of this was
correspondence with the <ent type='PERSON'>Nuncio</ent>s at <ent type='GPE'>Berlin</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Warsaw</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Paris</ent> and
the reception of <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> bishops. As the whole world was
now discussing the chances of preparing for an invasion of <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>
and a general war we shall hardly be accused of undue
suspiciousness's if we suggest that this was the chief topic of the
very busy correspondence and interviews. What was decided we do not
know. The most sensible theory in view of the facts is that <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>
informed <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> that he was taking over <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>, peacefully, as</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
27
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<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>the first step in a campaign against <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, promised to turn over
a new leaf in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, and wanted the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> to keep <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> out of
it; and that the <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>, not being as trustful as the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> rejected
his advice to submit.</p>

<p> However that may be, he must have had an understanding with
the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> hierarchy, and we know how it behaved. lt was as
<ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>ite as the <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> youth. Edith Moore quotes a number of the
pronouncements of the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> bishops in her No Friend of Democracy
(1941). The very sound and impartial Manchester Guardian (May 24,
1940) thus stated the position:</p>

<p> "Among the higher ranks of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> clergy a decisive
majority desire to see the victory of the <ent type='PERSON'>Reich</ent> or at least a peace
that will leave Germany's political and military strength
unimpaired. At the same time they still look to an eventual
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>-Conservative restoration. <ent type='ORG'>The National</ent> Socialist State
has, it seems, been able to reach an understanding with the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> leaders. Assurances have been given as to the status of
the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in the <ent type='GPE'>Bohemia</ent>n-<ent type='GPE'>Moravia</ent>n Protectorate and in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>
itself. The special position of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> is
also to receive due recognition. In spite of the persecution of
laymen and priests by the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s, in spite of all the attacks upon
the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> religion now hopes have been raised among the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s as a result of these negotiations."</p>

<p> As I suggested, the hierarchy -- and the references to <ent type='GPE'>Bohemia</ent>
and <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> seem to bring in <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> -- was soothed with
promises of greater advantages to the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and in view of these
saw nothing of the enormity of the annexation of <ent type='GPE'>Norway</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Denmark</ent>,
and <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent> which had then taken place. On August 22 the bishops
held their annual meeting at <ent type='ORG'>Fulda</ent>, a national shrine from which
they were accustomed to give guidance to their <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Usually only
a score of bishops attended, but this year the whole 45 were
present, and, according to the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> press, the advice they gave
to the faithful was a very emphatic "Heil <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>." By this time, I
may recall, the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> army had swept over <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and, exasperated by the opposition of those countries, had
stooped to outrages and infamies which shocked the world. Yet the
<ent type='NORP'>German</ent> papers revealed that the bishops decided that "after the
completion of the final <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> victory special ceremonies of
gratitude to the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> troops and of loyalty to <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> will be
announced." It was said that the bishops submitted their proposals
to <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> and that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> who was at the time bargaining
once more with <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> (<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Herald</ent>, August 9, 1940, and
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Tablet, September 21, 1940), forbade them to publish their
resolutions: clearly to avoid scandal in <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>.</p>

<p> The Tablet found a significance in the fact the final address
at the <ent type='ORG'>Fulda</ent> Conference was given by the bishop of <ent type='GPE'>Osnabruck</ent>, who
was appointed by <ent type='PERSON'>Goering</ent> the representative of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
in <ent type='ORG'>the Prussian</ent> State Council, and the <ent type='GPE'>New York</ent> Times reported that
"the leaders of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> . . . exhort their
believer's in and outside the <ent type='PERSON'>Reich</ent> to do their utmost in the
righteous cause of the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> nation under the leadership of
Chancellor <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>." The hierarchy, in other words, did not merely
urge <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s to support <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>, but went out of their way to </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
28
.
<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p>affirm that the miserable bandit had "a righteous cause." A <ent type='NORP'>British</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> paper, the <ent type='ORG'>Herald</ent> (October 18, 1940) quoted a passage from
a Pastoral Letter which the chief <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> chaplain, Bishop
<ent type='PERSON'>Garkowsky</ent>, addressed to all <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in the <ent type='ORG'>Army</ent>, <ent type='ORG'>Navy</ent>, and Air
Force. He said:</p>

<p> "The <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> people have a clear conscience and are aware which
people will have to bear the responsibility before God and history
for the gigantic struggle that is now going on. The <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> people
know who primarily started this war. Just as certainly as God is
the Father of all <ent type='NORP'>Peoples</ent>, He is also the judge of right and wrong,
of honor and deceit."</p>

<p> Those who find it possible to imagine that these <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>
bishops honestly blamed <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> for the war because,
after a reiterated solemn warning, they had declared that they
would oppose further aggression may do so. I would not argue the
matter. Most of us can see nothing but nauseous hypocrisy in <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>
prelates who invoke God as a witness to the righteousness of the
<ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> cause and program.</p>

<p> We have already seen that the new <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> had, a year before,
issued an Encyclical, <ent type='PERSON'>Summi Potitificatus</ent>, on the state of the
world it was very wicked because the nations had lost the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
sense of brotherhood -- so conspicuous, of course, in the
nineteenth century and earlier -- and had adopted theories of
racial superiority. Even <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> were very
uneasy in commenting on this. Could the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> possibly mean that the
democracies were at least so close to the dictatorships in these
respects that he was not called upon to draw any distinction? And
why did he not say that he meant <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>? One
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer evaded the difficulty by saying that "in
time of war the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> has to observe an impartial
reserve." The same writer said, incidently, that in no other war in
history was good so clearly on one side and evil on the other. The
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> was just a moral coward, and a consequence of his cowardice is
seen in these quotations from the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> bishops. Their stern
inexorable moral guide left them free to tell people that the
vilest campaign in modern history, both in its aim and in its
procedure, had the full approval of <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> and
their God.</p>

<p> But the cordiality between the butchers and the black-cassocks
was never long maintained in its purity. <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>, who seems to have
regarded the complaisance of the hierarchy and <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> with
complete cynicism, threatened a new blow at the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in the
Spring of 1941. He returned to the ideas of <ent type='PERSON'>Mein Kampf</ent> and said
that both Protestant and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es must be blended in one
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> body which must be strictly "national" or independent of
<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> authority and adapted in its moral teaching to <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> ideas.
The Pope's spokesman on <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> Radio now discovered some moral
courage -- not in excess, it is true -- and summoned <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>s to "wake up and see clearly the pagan tendencies which
were spreading everywhere." The sordid behavior of the <ent type='ORG'>Gestapo</ent> and
the soldiers in half of Europe -- in the concentration camp's of
<ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> itself, in <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Bohemia</ent>, and now in <ent type='GPE'>Norway</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>, and Occupied <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> must not be censured except where </p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
29
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<ent type='ORG'>THE WAR AND PAPAL</ent> INTRIGUE</p>

<p><ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> can be made to bear the greater part of the censure. The
bloody ruling of this intoxicated blonde beast over Europe must be
viewed with "impartial reserve." But to tamper with the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and
the interest of <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent> . . . And still the hierarchy supported
the war. The Archbishop of <ent type='GPE'>Freiburg</ent>, who had denounced the plot to
<ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>, added:</p>

<p> "Far be it from me in this terrible struggle to say anything
that would turn aside the energies of the people or prejudice their
devotion to their country. Everyone who thinks as a <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> desires
to secure for his country a lasting peace with honor."</p>

<p> With honor! There's the rub. It was left to <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Goering</ent>,
Goebbel's, <ent type='ORG'>Ribbentrop</ent>, and <ent type='ORG'>Himmler</ent> to interpret the phrase. They
smiled and pushed ahead, and we shall later find them again
courting <ent type='ORG'>the Vatican</ent>.</p>

<p> When Eugenio <ent type='PERSON'>Pacelli</ent> became <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> in 1939 he had to choose a
coat of arms and a motto. He chose a dove with an olive-branch in
its beak and the words "Peace in Justice"! He had by his ten years
of inflaming passion against and libelling <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, to his unctious
benediction of corruption in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>, by his intrigues in
<ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>, and especially by standing out before the world as
the friend of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, helped to make the world
war inevitable. He dare not, even when the raw greed of <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> and
<ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> was flaunted before his eyes, say one word in
condemnation of it; and the local regiments of the Black
International which he controlled sanctified every outrage and
egged on the <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> people in the most criminal aggression and most
savage behavior that the world had seen for many centuries. And his
supreme word of guidance was that the world was very wicked because
it would not listen to religious oracles.</p>

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

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

<p> The <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom is a collection of the most thoughtful,
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
suppressed books and will cover <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n and world history; the
<ent type='ORG'>Biographies</ent> and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
that <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> can again become what its Founders intended --</p>

<p> The Free Market-Place of Ideas.</p>

<p> The <ent type='ORG'>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> <ent type='ORG'>Bank</ent> of Wisdom
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