"THE BONDS OF PEACE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 85, 7 February 1941, Page 8

"THE BONDS OF PEACE"

Speech By His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Hinsley. recently broadcast by the BBC

HERE is general agreement that the Europe of to-mor-row will be, and sought to be, different from the Europe of yesterday. Something new, better, more advanced, organically more sound, cleaner and stronger must take the place of the past. My concern to-day is not with politics; but with spiritual and moral values. I speak my own convictions, as a free citizen of a free country. In the words of the fearless one-time Chancellor of England, St. Thomas More, I am a loyal servant of my own country, but God’s servant first. So much I say in answer to my proNazi critics. They talk of a new order because the old order has not brought peace and happiness. They are right to desire order; order is a word-another word-for justice, after which the human soul hungers. For it is justice, tempered with charity, of which St. Paul speaks when he warns us to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The new order imposed by Nazi war machines, by the dragooning of populations, by the desecration of families, by the mass executions in Poland, by prison camps, can form no bond of peace. The unity of the spirit is never the fruit of slavery under the lash. Hitler’s new order and the ideal of Christian civilisation are poles apart. Nazi peace means the enforcement of the party will on the rest of mankind; it means subjection or death for all the invaded nations. But the Governor-General of Poland, Dr. Franck, declared at Cracow last Christmas that Hitler is the leader of the world, absolute in his authority. To these claims of military depotism, only enslaved souls can answer, as did the crowd to Pilate: "We have no King but Caesar." The loyalty of Christians is to a very different King. He is the Prince of Peace, Who proclaims an order that outlives tyrants. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. In Him, and through Him we may win the freedom of the spirit and the unity of fellowship and love." The ideal of our faith is the last prayer of Christ on the eve of his martyrdom for men, that they all may be one. "As thou art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast seen me." " De-Christianised " I am told Europe has been too extensively de-Christianised to listen to such pleadings for religious re-constitution. Yes, we know that statesmen and certain leaders of thought have tried to get on without God. They have excluded Him from their schemes of progress. The outcome of their secularism we see to-day. It furnishes the best plea for Christianity; the most convincing refutation of the materialism and cult of utility on which the advancement of mankind was supposed to depend. The peaceful message of Christ, the voice of reason, and Christian brotherhood have largely been forgotten. In consequence we have the

roar of guns, the flash of bombs, destruction on sea and land. The grand discoveries and inventions which have brought the peoples of the earth into closer contact do not provide the moral harmony which is the bond of peace. Instead, they are made the instruments of savage ruin. I recall the words uttered 60 years ago by my predecessor, Cardinal Manning. They were spoken at a time, about the ’70’s of last century, when certain nations of Europe chose to follow the policy of fierce rivalry and unscrupulous aggression. "History seems to some men," he said, "to be written in vain, and the lessons of experience seldom outlive the first generation of those whom suffering had made wise." Fresh Entry How true are these words now. They are the words of a far seeing man, almost of a prophet. The idolatrous worship of Caesar makes a fresh entry on the stage of the 20th century. His name now is Totalitarianism. He appears armed with every engine of coercion and of propaganda. He carries on a violent but subtle persecution, but the deceptive methods of his double-faced propaganda are more perilous still. Persecution tests sincerity and makes martyrs, whose blood gives increase to the harvests of faith. You can stand up to a murderous onslaught, but to withstand systematic corruption of the multitude by controlled press and wireless, verges on the impossible, particularly where means of correct information are ruthlessly suppressed. Yet the truth will out. The world has now before it a mass of records and documents of unquestionable authenticity, which prove to all minds open to evidence that the Nazi system is unjust, villainous, and essentially anti-Christian. Nazi-ism is more that a political regime, it is an ersatz religion, a carhouflaged paganism, fiercely opposed to Christian civilisation. There is no use in them denying the persecution ‘of Catholic and Confessional Churches. From the leaders of Nazidom we know that blood and soil are the

new divinity, and that the Fuehrer is the embodiment of eternal Nordic blood, This God of German blood planned war from the start-on God Almighty. A German's Views Nazi-ism allows no room save for itself. A book has recently been published, compiled by a German who lived under Nazidom. He noted events and official pronouncements from the advent of the Nazis to power in 1933 down to the year 1940. He gives careful references for all statements. The English translation is entitled "The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich." The conclusion is, first, that a war against Christianity is waged by National Socialism in Germany with diabolical thoroughness and with unscrupulous methods; secondly, that the feligious persecution is camouflaged with a perfect skill of cunning deceit. Yes, the hissing of the serpent is accompanied by the cooing of the dove, till the opportune moment for striking with unconcealed malice. What kind of a new order of Europe then can we expect, if the Nazi is to be its architect and builder? Certainly not the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Slavery is despotism; it finally stirs its victim to strike back in self defence; the bully will always be the enemy of peace till he is taught to control brute strength by reason and faith. In the name of these moral principles, reason and faith, we claim justice, and that freedom which is recognised in this country as liberty of conscience. We demand the right to seek and find the truth; when found, to do the truth in charity, to use the words of St. Paul. Practical tolerance requires at this stage of civilisation that the human soul shall not be invaded by the tyranny of power. Against such aggression Christians are reacting even as free men of all times have resisted. Some of my fellow Catholics in both hemispheres miay not fully realise that a world-wide battle is engaged against the Church, which is justly called the City of God, whose paean is truth, whose law is charity.

whose frontier is eternity. The Nazi organisation shows no signs of these prerogatives. Truth is systematically discarded by National Socialism, and charity is despised; there is no eternity except in the earthly stream of Nordic blood, Morality Supreme To my friends and brethren in Germany and Italy I would say: " You know well that the Church insists on the supremacy of morality in both private and public life. You are suffering and the world is tormented because the principles of morality, justice, truth and charity are disregarded by Totalitarian tulers. Religion which could secure the bond of peace, by the reasonable obedience of men’s minds for the law and love of God, is proscribed and outlawed." Look at Poland, where you can see for yourselves the brutal means adopted to exterminate the people’s faith and conscience. Here, however, in the British Commonwealth of Nations, we are determined to withstand to the bitter end that State monopoly of consciences, that idealogy which as Pius XI. warned us resolves itself into a real Pagan worship of force. Without the true God who by nature is justice and love, a new order in Europe will be a jungle-the hunting ground of selfish hate and untamed passions. To my listeners, whoever they may be or whatever they are, I repeat the appeal of Pius XI. to all believersand "believers" comprises the overwhelming majority of mankind — that they may take a united part in resisting the anarchy and terrorism of those antireligious groups which seek to ensnare the world in unending disorders and strife. Belief in God is the answer to the foundation of all social order, and of all responsibility on earth. The basis on which peace and happiness depend is not the domination of one race or class, but the liberty of all the servants of God. Thou it is oh God who giveth to all life and breath, and all things; that maketh as one all mankind to dwell upon the whole face of the earth. He hath also appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in everything. Mussolini once wrote words which might have provided points of meditation for Hitler at the Brenner Pass, "A fight against religion," said the Duce, "is a fight against the impregnable. against the intangible. It is open warfare against the spirit, its most vrofound and most significant force."