Monday, Feb. 24, 1941
Lies and Bombers
Eugenic Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, is an Italian, but he is neutral. He is also honest and suffers acutely because the Axis press and radio systematically distort his acts, words and purposes, try incessantly to persuade the world that somehow or other His Holiness is on the totalitarian side against Democracy. Recently, for instance, the Nazi-dominated No. 1 Catholic news-organ of the Czech Protectorate declared: "There is no Catholic in Europe who would shed a tear to see the collapse of democratic political disorder and who further would not sincerely welcome the fall of economic liberalism, which has been denounced by the Pope's leading Catholic ideologists because it misuses the working people in favor of a few capitalistic speculators. Czech Catholics see a clear line of duty, namely, to contribute with all their strength to the consolidation and development of the [Nazi] New Order in Bohemia and Moravia."
Last week the Vatican's own paper, Osservatore Romano, finally lashed out--without mentioning names--against such typical Axis propaganda. The Pope desired to be only "the common father of all the faithful. ... In the midst of contrasting systems, which are part of the times and dependent upon them, the Church cannot be called upon to favor one more than the other. . . . Some have dared to spread the news that the Holy Father said it was obligatory to adapt one's self to the New Order. ... All these stones may have achieved their purpose among weak spirits who sponsor . . . conceptions hostile to Christianity. . . ."
"Lying literature," observed Osservatore, "can be no less deadly than tanks and bombers."
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