AN IRREVOCABLE NO

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 66, 20 April 1943, Page 3

AN IRREVOCABLE NO

NO TRUCK WITH HITLER

CHURCHES IN FRANCE

In the French nkational resistance to Hitler a leading part is being taken by Christians, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, states the Christian News Letter. On the Protestant, side, a set of eight theses, known as the '"Theses of Pomeyrol," though they have not been officially adopted by the Reformed Church of France, have been widely circulated. They remind the State and society of the demands of truth and justice which God makes upon the whole community, and of the mission of the' State; to assure to each citizen a regime of law, guaranteeing essential liberties and excluding unfair discrimination, spying and arbitrary dealing. They make a solemn protest against .'legislation which casts: out the Jews f-nm human communities, and conclude with the following declaration:—■ "Laj-ing aside all equivocations the Church affirms that it is impossible to describe the necessary submission to the conqueror as an act of free choice. While accepting the material consequences of defeat, the Church considers resistance to all totalitarian and idolatrous, things as a spiritual necessity." Roman Catholic Resistance The: majority of the Roman Catholic bishops in unoccupied Franco have taken a line of grim resistance, A series of printed pamphlets and leaflets is being secretly issued under the title, Papers of Christian Witness, One of the recent pamphlets says in its preface:— "The waiting of France is not indifference or .inertia, but a silent preparation for hastening the day of liberation. The silence of tlu; nation, which is, with its sufFeri'ng, the, only possible form which in the present circumstances it can express its fidelity, condemns in advance to failure the New Order of llitk'T and. the illusions of co-opera-tion under the sign of the swastika." The pamphlet .launches a vigorous attack on various attempts in Catholic quarters to palter with the issues and to betray the cause of Christianity and humanity, and concludes a.s foMows:— No Peace With Hitler "To Hitler's 'Mcin Kainyf we oppose 'Notre Combat' (our light), for we know, and will make known, that in the issue of this light there are at stake, without any possible doubt, Hier, that there can be no peace Avitli Hitler that is. consistent with French, human or Christian honour:—■ "bccausc. Hitlerism means domination, pride and falsehood, and above all contempt of man—Contempt of justice and of goodness, of the weak and. of fidelity; "because the religious and racial persecution of Nazism is the most crafty and stubborn; "because the. German nco-pagan-ism signalises the devaluation of Christian values and compels the Church to repudiate it or to die of asphyxia. "because the swastika of racialism sets itself up as a cross antogonistie to the Cross of Christ. "To this idolatrous worship we have decided to say an irrevocable No."