[The following editorial comment from the Evangelical Christian (Toronto, February, 1943) though two years old has lost none of its point by the passing of time. Our home papers even the religious press lack the pungency of this Canadian journal.—Editor.]
EVERY Christmas there comes from the Vatican a papal message which, for reasons we have never been able to fathom (except those of fear) the newspaper Press of the world spreads itself to see that great space is given to it. It comes from a man who is first of all an Italian whose
home is in the very centre of the capital of our deadly enemy, and who has shown himself to be opposed to all that we on this continent fight for, including the freedom of religious faith. This year, or rather last year, the Press of Canada and the United States excelled itself in sycophantic adulation of the platitudes that were uttered by the Pope and extolled as though they were of heavenly origin and not things that were said again and again by British statesmen and Protestant leaders. But our readers should learn to look a little behind the scenes of outward events and enquire the reason why things are not always what they seem. If they do they will find that there is a determined and concerted effort on the part of the Papal press to make sure that the Pope has a seat at the peace table, and to further this end the secular Press is cajoled or bludgeoned into giving space to every pronouncement that will advance this end. That is the reason for much of the nauseating drivel that passes for editorial comment. Here is a choice example from The Globe and Mail’s comment which is surely a sublime example of Jesuitical jargon:—
“Tied impartially to all the people entangled in this war Pope Pius XII occupies an unusual position. He does not, in the very nature of that position he cannot, speak as a political leader, nor as a martial leader of one host against the other. Yet as a spiritual leader he did not hesitate to judge the issues, and the impartiality of his position lends mightily to the authority of his judgment.”
How any man can be a judge on the issues of the present struggle and yet at the same time be unable to judge those who make the issues is a piece of reasoning that Loyola himself would have difficulty in figuring out. When the Pope speaks ex cathedra on faith and morals he is supposed to be infallible. Are faith and morals not involved in the present struggle? Are Mr. Churchill and Mr. Eden, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Hull, and all that they stand for no better than Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels and Dr. Ley and their hellish policies? If the Pope cannot speak as a military leader, as the Toronto paper says, can he not speak as a moral and spiritual leader in condemnation of the men whose evil deeds and policies have brought such woe into the world. If he cannot do so it is not because the issue is not plain enough, but because that by so doing he would condemn members of his own flock, create a breach within his native land, and be impaled on the horns of a dilemma that he is not prepared to face. But it is a melancholy spectacle to see a man who calls himself the vicar of Christ evading such a clear-cut moral issue as this.