NAZISM’S AIMS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 183, 6 July 1937, Page 7

NAZISM’S AIMS.

FEARS OF THE CHURCH. SPEECH BY CARDINAL. MUNICH, July 5. “The Nazis regard the churches as their Enemy No. 1. They no longer attack Bolshevists and Marxists,” declared the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Michel Faulhaber. addressing thousands of members of the Catholic Young Men’s Associations, which, although the organisations are banned, assembled in defiance of the political police to protest against the arrest of Rev. Father Rupert Mayr. The cardinal added: “Nazism now aims at the destruction of the Catholic Church in Germany. You face a decision as to whether you believe in the Nazi conception of God without Christianity or whether you are Christian.” A message from Berlin states that all Confessional Church pastors still at liberty read from the pulpits yesterday a motion passed by the Prussian Council of Brethren denouncing the Nazis for arresting Dr. Martin Niemoller, leader of the Confessional movement against the Nazification of the Evangelical Church. Tlie motion declared that Dr. Nie. moller and the 36 other arrested pastors were only doing their duty in fighting for the maintenance of Christianity.

Tho Berlin correspondent of the " Daily Telegraph reported on Juno 14 that tho arrest, of Rev. Father Rupert Mayr on “technical charges” had dismayed the army, as Father Mayr was regarded as one of Bavaria’s national heroes. He lost both legs in the war. and was awarded the highest military honours for his services as a chaplain. Father Mayr answered tho attack of the Minister of Propaganda (Dr G. J. Goebbels) on the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago. Cardinal Mundelein, by declaring : “It is better that a priest be shot down in Spain than see his faith dragged in the dirt in Germany.” The Archbishop of Munich. Cardinal Frulhaber, protested to tho Government that the arrest of Father Mayr was a breach of the concordat with the Vatican. Dr Martin Niemoller, leader of the < onfcssional movement against Nazi-umfication of the Evangelical Church, had been arrested on a charge of announcing from the pulpit the names of members of tho congregation who had seceded from the Church, such announcement being forbidden by the Minister of the Interior, it was reported from Berlin on July 1. An official announcement confirming the arrert of Dr Niemoller stated tc«it for a long time ho had used divine cervices and other church activities to deliver provocative speeches and calumniate leading persons of the State and of the Nazi Party, and spread untrue reports about church conditions in Germany, and incited disobedience of lnw« and decrees. .