Things on Earth

In Castel Gandolfo, papal summer palace sat a weary, unhappy old man one day last week, gazing slowly at astronomical photographs handed to him by Rev. Giovanni Stein, director of the Vatican Observatory. Said Pope Pius XI: "If things on earth go badly, at least those in the heavens must necessarily continue well."

Once more last week members of the Pope's household told newshawks that the 79-vear-old Holy Father is not well Afflicted with endocarditis, Pius XI sweats much, sleeps little, walks with difficulty. His once vigorous voice is low, indistinct. Because he is rapidly losing the use of his legs Vatican officials declared that it might soon be necessary to carry the Father wherever he goes. Chief reason for the current decline in his health, they pointed out, is the civil war in Spain, on which Papal Secretary of State Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli has daily conferred with his superior.

How many priests, nuns monks and even bishops have been killed by hot- blooded Spaniards dispatches and word-of -mouth reports to the Vatican did not indicate last week. In the bloody welter ot atrocity stories, tales, yarns, rumors and reports, not even Pius XI in all his wisdom could tell what was literally true about Spain, what was half-true and what was false. From the following Spanish material some credible, some incredible, this sad and weary old man was last week free to choose:

At least five bishops were dead -- those of Jaen, Lerida, Segorbia, Sigueenza, Barbastro. The Shepherd of Sigueenza was tarred and burned while the Bishop of Jaen was slaughtered along with his aged mother and his sister, in whose corsets had been found 8,000,000 pesetas in Government bonds (TIME, Aug. 10). In Burgos Rebel headquarters, the Archbishops of that city, of Valencia and of Valladolid held a ceremony of reparation in the Cathedral.

In peaceful little Barbastro, according to two Argentine members of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Claretians) who arrived in Vatican City last week, 40 brothers were killed by Leftists who pointed to their monkish habits, cried: "We kill you for this!" The Claretians replied: "We are happy to die for this! Vivo Cristo El Rey!" At Calaselles 18 Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God were slaughtered and in Valencia, while the Cathedral burned brightly, 30 secular priests were shot. In Malaga, 50 priests were executed by a machine gun squad. More determinedly irreligious than elsewhere in Spain, Barcelona mobs burned all but two churches in that city, ripped out religious paintings and statuary, tore open tabernacles and ground Sacred Hosts on the floor. Not content with such acts of sacrilege, Barcelona Reds wantonly dug up pious dead, either crucifying freshly buried bodies, as was done in the Monastery of St. Dominic, or hauling out from their convent crypts the ancient mummies of Carmelite nuns, propping them up around church doors to look like saints.* Near Barcelona a dance to celebrate Leftist victories was held in what remained of a church, "in order to get the people away from the idea that it is a sacred place."

In Madrid, according to further reports from shocked Catholics, a band of howling women crucified five Carmelite nuns. On the Cerro de los Angeles a civilian firing squad took aim, fired a volley at a large statue of Christ, announced that He had been duly "executed." In the Church of San Jose a statue of the Christ Child was bedecked with a pistol and a red flag, labeled: "I have been betrayed by the Fascists because I have become a Communist." Since late July no mass has been publicly celebrated in Madrid.

On the whole Spanish nuns fared better at Red hands than priests or brothers, perhaps because many of them are trained nurses, hence useful in war hospitals. Against the Spanish priesthood a stock Radical argument, not without its share of truth, has been that Spanish education, virtually monopolized heretofore by the clergy left a majority of the population dismally illiterate. Last week reports to the Vatican indicated that 120 schools, run by Christian Brothers and the largest in Spain, had all been burned or turned into barracks.

*Mummies are to be found in crypts in many a Latin land where the air is dry enough to have preserved them. In some cases, as in Palermo, Sicily and Guanajuato, Mexico, mummies are stored in catacombs because at one time or another there was a lack of land for cemeteries.

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