MORALITY TRIALS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 133, 7 June 1937, Page 9

MORALITY TRIALS

REPLY TO GOEBBELS

CATHOLIC PRIESTS IN

GERMANY

BERLIN, June b.

In reply to the recent speech by the Minister of National Enlightenment and Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Roman Catholic priests have t-9en ordered to read from their pulpits tomorrow statistics showing that of 25,635 priests in Germany only 58 have been involved in morality trials, twenty-two hava been convicted, and the remainder of the actions/ are pending.

Bitterly replying to the attack on tha German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, by Cardinal Mundelein, Archbishop of Chicago, Dr. Goebbels, at a mass meeting of Nazis on May 28, gave a warn- - ing that most drastic steps would ba taken against high dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church if Catholics, either in Germany or abroad, continued to criticise the ■'morality trials" which were now proceeding in Germany. "Cardinal Mundelein insulted Herr Hitler in a manner impossible to repeat," said Dr. Goebbels, "and called me a dishonest Propaganda Minister who arranged the trials solely to harm the persecuted Catholic Church. Continua, slandering of German justice has forced us to disclose before tha world the reasons leading to the arrests of priests and to the disclosure of the monstrous mendacity of those who have asserted that religious motives were responsible. ' Germany does not close her eyes to the dreadful moral decay which is manifest." Dr. Goebbels recited examples of offences allegedly committed by Catholic educators. He said that immorality trial 3 were not regrettable and isolated events but a sign of the general moral depravity which was unparalleled in the cultural history of mankind.