ROME AGAINST ROTARY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 597, 25 February 1929, Page 9

ROME AGAINST ROTARY

ATTACK BY PAPAL ORGAN BREACH WIDENS TO CHASM (United Service) LONDON, Saturday. A dispatch from Rome says the breach between the Roman Catholic Church and the Rotary movement has widened to a chasm. The Vatican organ Osservatore Romano attacks Rotarianism at length, as being subservient to the interests of Freemasonry. This is believed to foreshadow an open declaration of war by the Church. Tho Spanish bishops have already prohibited lay Roman Catholics from belonging to Rotary clubs. Mr. H. J. Sutton, who is himself a Roman Catholic, and is president of the Rotary movement, visited Rome in order to convince the Holy See that its hostility was founded on a misreprehension, and he thought he had done so, and went to America on the day preceding the Osservatore’s attack. London Rotarians are surprised at the attitude of the Church, and declare that the movement is unsectarian and non-political. Mr. Sydney Wicks, a Manchester Rotarian, says the Roman Catholic Church logically opposes any movement such as Rotary, which may satisfy a man’s religious nature without pinning him down to Roman Catholicism.