THE LATERAN TREATY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3953, 8 June 1929, Page 3

THE LATERAN TREATY.

POPE REPLIES TO MUSSOLINI. Rome, June 5. Signor Mussolini, on May 15, in delivering his long-expected speech on the Lateran 'Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, declared that the Reiman Catholic Church was not sovereign; it was not even free, but was subject to the general laws of the .State and the terms of the Concordat. According to the cable message the Papal representatives we/re perturbed at Signor Mussolini’s lon., recital of past conflicts and his reference to Christianity as a Palestinian sect which might well have died out, had it not come to Rome. “Together they stand and together they fall, even if the Vatican City .State should fall with them,” declared the Pope in a letter to Cardinal Gasparri, in answering Signor Mussolini’s speeches, especially referring to Mussolini’s hint, that the fate of the Lateran Treaty and the Concordat may not be the same. The Pope characterises Signor Mussolini’s speeches as a painful set-back to the rejoicing throughout Italy and the world which followed the signing of the Lateran Treaty. He adds, referring to Mussolini’s declaration that “if the Christian religion had not been transferred to Rome it would have flickered out like any other Palestine sect,” least of all would His Holiness have expected an heretical or a worse than heretical expression regarding the very essence of Christianity .Catholicism.” He .adds that it was neither fitting nor generous to recall laws and regulations which must he most painful, offensive, and damaging, to the Holy See, the Pontiff, and Catholics all over the world. He declares that. Mussolini’s . statement that the Church is subject to the Italian State is tantamount to saying that the Supreme Pontiff i,s subject to Italy. He adds: “Signor Mussolini’s frequent declarations that the State lias preserved all means of vigilance over the Church clearly suggests that the clergy are suspicious characters, and that the Church has attempted a usurpation and spoliation of the 'State, while the contrary is historically and notoriously true both in Itfily and abroad.”