No Politics Allowed

Editors and news folk generally were informed last week, by representatives of the Holy See, in what terms they are to couch stories about the Pope and the Vatican, now the former has resumed temporal sovereignty and the latter has become a state (TIME, Feb. 18).

Expostulating in Rome, Count Dalla Torre, Editor of the Papal news organ Osservatore Romano, and recognized by most Catholics as the temporal spokesman for the Pope, declared that news arising out of the new Papal state is not "political." Acknowledging that "foreign newspapers, with few exceptions" are treating temporal news of the new Papal State as "political news," Count Dalla Torre explained in a signed editorial that the Holy See's reconciliation with the Italian State was "entirely religious." It is believed in Rome that Count Dalla Torre never signs an editorial until it has been read and at least tacitly approved by the Supreme Pontiff. The Count is aware that the "entirely religious" Italo-Papal settlement is replete with references to specific plots of real estate, and is supplemented by a Financial Convention whereby the Holy See receives from the Italian State $92,000,000.

Additional guidance for news folk was supplied from Washington, D.C., last week, by the Bureau of Publicity and Information of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, in the form of a ten-page mimeographed handout. Excerpts:

"The chief reasons which make necessary the political independence of the Holy See are that the Catholic Church is a perfect society of men established by Christ Himself to carry out faithfully His laws and teachings. . . .

"In thinking and writing of 'temporal power' and 'temporal sovereignty' this should be remembered and the fact made known: The new Vatican State, in area, will be only about one quarter of a square mile, or something like 160 acres. . . .

"The Catholic Church is not a national church, but a universal society and to the head of that society men of all nationalities owe the same spiritual allegiance. . . . That certain nationalistic groups (in the U. S.) continually attempt to make him a 'foreign potentate' is a proof of the necessity that the universal, supernatural, and supranational character of his office be clearly recognized. . . . "No earthly recognition can add to the divine commission of the Papacy. The independent sovereignty which is rightfully hers and which has finally been restored to the Church will but evidence to the world the supernatural and supernational mission with which the Visible Head of the Church has been commissioned since Christ spoke to Peter. . . ."