"Explanations & Declarations"

Last fortnight 61 Episcopal and Methodist bishops in the U. S. appealed to the Catholic hierarchy to remonstrate with the Rightists, all of whose leaders are Catholic, about bombing civilians. At Vatican City last week it was officially announced that Pope Pius has already done so "on his own initiative." Reported the semi-official papal newsorgan L'Osservatore Romano: "General Franco appeared to have been touched by the paternal interest of the Holy Father in the innocent victims of the war and sent to the Holy Father filial and reassuring explanations and declarations."

This week Generalissimo Franco replied directly to a protest by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with a note saying that the Rightists bomb cities and towns "only when military necessity leaves no alternative." At Salamanca the official Rightist spokesman declared: "Our objective in Barcelona was primarily the terminals of the railroad system, but the casualties in the city were heavier than they might have been because the North subway station had been turned into an underground ammunition depot. The storage of ammunition in the heart of a city is against the most elementary rules of war. The result was that our bombs exploded the ammunition dump and the crash of the boxes of dynamite, cartridges and so forth turned the neighborhood of the station into an inferno."

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