Christmas Truce?

Pope Pius XII last week discharged a Christian duty apropos of Christmas. In Vatican City courtiers close to the Apostolic Throne remarked sadly that there has been fighting on the last six Christmas Days -- in Ethiopia, Spain and Europe, not to mention the Far East.* But the Pope did not send a circular telegram to Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill and other heads of warring States. He issued a motu proprio or letter of instruction to Roman Catholic Bishops.

The motu proprio of the Supreme Pontiff permitted, for the first time in the recorded history of the Church, an alteration in the time of celebrating the High Mass usually performed at midnight Christmas Eve. In localities where a blackout is enforced His Holiness permitted this Mass to be celebrated as early as the afternoon of Dec. 24. Those who partake of the Host may do so, by exceptional Apostolic indulgence, after having fasted for four hours.

Pius XII went only so far as to say in his motu proprio: "It is fair to hope and trust that at least on that holy night and on that holy day all belligerents will declare a truce. ..."

In Berlin, officers said stiffly that "it has never been the practice of the German fighting forces to disturb the quiet of that holy day," and strongly implied that a spontaneous Christmas truce is possible this year at least in regard to German bombings. During World War I in various individual sectors of the Western Front there was often such spontaneous Christmas truce as the Pope last week thought well to mention. But a formal, negotiated 1940 Christmas truce was seemingly ruled out by Winston Churchill fortnight ago in the House of Commons. To a question from Laborite Thomas Ellis Naylor whether His Majesty's Government would "invoke the good offices of the Vatican or of some neutral State" in furthering a Christmas truce, the Prime Minister quietly answered: "No, sir."

If this was coldblooded, the U. S. at least could not point a finger of reproof, for Americans have long been proud of the exploit of George Washington, who on Christmas evening, 1776, crossed the Delaware and attacked the Hessians who had overeaten and overdrunk. Actually a general Christmas truce is impossible for practical reasons. The Germans, for example, could not be expected to keep their submarines inactive so long as British convoys plied the seas. And to keep their convoys off the seas on Christmas Day the British would have to give up shipping on the North Atlantic for a week or ten days.

There is also a religious reason why a Christmas truce would not work -- as Pope Benedict XV found when he proposed one in 1914. In Albania the Italians will celebrate on Dec. 25, but the Greeks, following their Church's calendar (like the Russians in 1914), will celebrate it on Jan. 6.

* Last year United Press reported that on the Western Front there were "no casualties on Christmas Day." In his recent book, I Saw France Fall, Captain Rene de Chambrun wrote of the Maginot Line, where he was stationed Dec. 25, 1939, that "for the first time since the beginning of the war, there was no firing along the battle front. A gentleman's agreement seemed to have been tacitly reached between both camps for Christmas celebration." The official Nazi news agency told Germany that "on all three Christmas days from the 24th to the 26th of December the Christmas holiday spirit of the German troops on the Western Front was repeatedly disturbed by enemy artillery fire."

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