BLASPHEMOUS GERMANS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 23 April 1917, Page 6

BLASPHEMOUS GERMANS.

* ‘FIRST-RATE COURTIERS. ’ ’

THE POPE AND THE ALLIES,

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the German people are surely flyst-rate courtiers. It is amusing to not how the Kaiser’s desire to share with God the responsibility for his orgy of ruthless murder has communicated itself to people in less exalted spheres. The latest example of this is furnished by a speech made by a Reichstag deputy named Roeseki, as president of the Schleswig-Holstein Union of Agriculturists. This is what he says: —"God has so ordered the world harvest that it should be bad in order that England may bo unable to feed herself. Me must grasp the hand of the Almighty, stretched to help us. for, if we allow England to find salvation in the unhindcring arrival of wheat ships, it is doubtful whether such an opportunity will ever be offered again.” This blasphemous outburst was too much ver for the Frankfurter Zeitung, which protested as follows: —“This opinion of God will make a very painful impression in good church circles as well as in circles at the other extreme, for it is not to be excused on the ground of political excitement that a sharpened submarine war should be raised in such a manner to a confession of faith.” A SERMON IN ROME.

In the face of such blasphemy as that quoted above, and the unspeakable outrages which the Germans have perpetrated in. the name of war, it is not surprising to learn that a slow change has been going on in "Vatican circles regarding its attitude to the war. That this is so is shown by the report appearing in the London Daily Telegraph of a sermon delivered in Home by the Franciscan friar Padre Michel Angelo Draghetti, which ended with a praj cr for a victorious peace for Italy and the Allied armies. The peculiarity of this event, says th e Telegraph, it that for the first time such a sermon has been openly preached in the Pope’s own diocese, and, as the Franciscan frair gave his congregation to understand, with more or less approval by the Pope. The sermon was delivered in the Church o± Saint Andrea della Yalle, before a crowded congregation, and the preacher after thrilling his hearers by his words of patriotism, faith and enthusiasm, was applauded spontaneously by the entile congregation, who rose to their feet as he concluded with an impassioned appeal that all the blood shed on the battlefields for the cause of humanity and Christian civilisation by the Allies should not bo shed in vain. Such a demonstration is extremely unusual inside Roman Catholic churches, continues the writer, and is all the more striking because it occurred in Rome. Many officers and soldiers were in the congregation, and they were the first to rise and applaud. The preachers concluding words, as he turned towards the image of Christ, were: —“I pray for our soldiers and sailors on land and sea, who,, for their country, and for true Christian civilisation, face the enemy like walls of steel, and I pray that they may have victory which will bring peace to our country, a victorious peace for all the Allies.” The sensation was heightened when the frair declared that before preaching he had had the honour of kneeling at the feet of Pope Benedict XY., who encouraged him to tell the faithful of Rome and of all Italy ‘‘ to pray to God for a victorious peace in the name of civilisation, that the peace of Christ should be the triumph of charity, of fraternity, of justice, and of right.