Allied Peace Aims Find Echo in Vatican

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 307, 29 December 1939, Page 8

Allied Peace Aims Find Echo in Vatican

Popes Censure of Aggressors POTENT EFFECT ON WORLD OPINION IS EXPECTED (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 27. HU Holiness the Pope’s allocution to the College of Cardinals on Christmas Eve receives considerable prominence and appreciative comment in the British Press. The Daily Telegraph says: ‘ Many years have passed since there came from the Vatican so stern a censure on ru.ers of States or such direct and precise declarations on international policy. Their effect on world opinion will be widespread and potent. “Pope Pius XII strove to the last to preserve peace in Europe against Hitler’s fury, and when Poland lay ravaged he declared his faith in her resurrection and denounced the system of Hitlerism. Now his Christmas allocution opens with a condemnation of a series of acts incompatible with international law and natural law and the most elementary feelings of humanity/ “The atrocities on the bloodstained soil of Poland and Finland he boldly describes as acts which call for Divine vengeance.

• Tne first of the Pope's five condition* ; lor peace, justice and honour was that peace must assure the right to life and freedom of all nations, great and small, and that for whatever has been destroyed there must be reparation. Ihas aaya the Telegraph; “The head of the Roman Catholic Church tells his people in the Reich, and other* all over Europe and the world, that the war must go on until atonement is made for the Fuhrer's crimes against humanity by German recognition of the wrong done in Czechoslovakia, Roland and rinland, and by the establishment of their freedom.’’ , The Telegraph concludes: “There is no substantial difference between the general definition announced by the Allies of the vrar aims which must be Won, and the Pope’s declaration of the conditions in which he sees the only possible basis of peace.” v The Manchester Guardian holds the tame view that the Pope's condition* i*r a lasting and just peace require eedom for the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, inns and Austrians if it is their wish. The Guardian compares the Pope’s | Elocution with President Roosevelt's jvords on his appointment of a personal Representative at the Vatican, and brings out the important point of similarity which was expressed in each—namely, that the will to peace must be Supported by general agreement on the method for bringing it about. • The Guardian concludes: "If, by their (Sorts, the Pope and the President can ring earlier that security wnich we arc i arced to pursue with arms, the world I’ill have been spared more misery thau |: now realises.”