* This letter is reprinted from the February issue of “The Churchman’s Magazine.”—Editor.
DEAR MR CHAMBERLAIN,—When taking up the daily paper on December 11th, it was with the utmost surprise and regret that one read that you had unnecessarily (and here I use the word “unnecessarily” with all due respect) been received in “private audience” by the Pope at the Vatican on the previous morning. Seeing you are a Cabinet Minister, one is most anxious to know why a “private audience” was considered necessary with the Pope to discuss grave and national affairs?
The “Daily Express” special correspondent makes the following statement:—”I understand that not the least important part of the discussion related to the Palestine problem and the Pope’s objection to Palestine solely as a home for the Jews.” If such be the case, are we to understand that the Declaration to which Mr Balfour (now Earl Balfour) put his signature (known as the “Balfour Declaration”) is to be repudiated, after being ratified by the Coalition, Conservative and Labour Governments respectively, simply because it is objectionable to the Pope?
We are told that on your arrival at the Vatican you were given military honours by the Swiss Guards in picturesque uniform, and afterwards conducted through the crimson and damask apartments and the magnificent Hall of Tapestries to the Papal Library (such magnificence is hardly in accord with the humble home life at Nazareth in which the Christ lived), where the Pope shortly appeared, attired wholly in white, with the exception of a gold chain and cross dangling or suspended in front of him, there to be privately closeted with him in deep and earnest conversation for fully thirty minutes.
But may I venture to ask of you this one question: Were you shown the horrible gloomy and prison-like Inquisition Buildings which are attached to the same, together with the cruel and abominable instruments of torture used, and I believe reserved for use for the future punishment of those who will be branded as heretics when she (the Church of Rome) gets, not the will, but the power again to do “these things,” which power will be restored through the regaining once more for a short time of Temporal Power? I would earnestly persuade you to read and re-read the “Vatican Decrees” by the late W. E. Gladstone, in which he wrote as follows:—”There is a fixed purpose among the secret inspirers of Roman policy to pursue, by the road of force upon the arrival of any favourable opportunity, the favourite project of re-erecting the Terrestrial Throne of Popedom.”
There is also the conversation you had afterwards with the Papal Secretary of State (Cardinal Gasparri), of which you are reported to have said “it was a pleasant little talk, which perhaps embraced a wider range of issues.” May I say such cannot be lightly passed over without severe criticism. Such a conversation should not remain an “impenetrable secret.” Whatever can British Statesmen be thinking of that they should be anxious to be received in “private audience by the Pope,” who, be it remembered, is no true friend to our Protestant country. Of recent years there seems to have been quite a hankering desire to hold communion with Rome. Why so, is a mystery. We remember the late Cardinal Manning, in the year 1874, said:—”There is one solution of the difficulty, a solution I fear impending, and that is the terrible scourge of a Continental war, which will exceed in horrors any of the wars of the First Empire,” a prophecy actually and literally fulfilled in the late disastrous war.
Therefore, in my humble opinion, to think it an honour to have any kind of audience (private or otherwise) with the Pope of Rome is no less than an insult to this our Protestant country, and a degradation to the British throne. It was said when our present King, George V., was about to visit the Pope, that it was an “act of courtesy.” Again, Mr Asquith, when Premier, paid a visit to the “Holy Father,” as he is blasphemously called. Mr Balfour’s visit to the Pope was followed by Sir Herbert Samuel, who is British High Commissioner in Palestine, then finally, and alas! yourself as Britain’s Foreign Secretary. I say “finally,” because I pray it may be so. All these visits to the different Popes of Rome, such as Pius X., Benedict XV., and Pius XI., in quick succession by ruling monarchs and representatives of a professedly Christian and so-called Protestant country, have, in my opinion, a most sinister influence. Might I be allowed to ask if all these visits are to be looked upon merely as “acts of courtesy?”
However genial and seemingly friendly the Pope at present might appear to be, he is antagonistic to all our ideals of Protestant freedom. Do you not conscientiously believe that in renewing diplomatic relations with the See of Rome, as Britain has unfortunately already done by having an Envoy at the Vatican, that it is a true sign of political insanity? Previous to the war breaking out, and even after hostilities ceased, we were told your Department (the Foreign Office) was actually honeycombed with Roman Catholics, and if so, I would earnestly implore you to see that it is not so any longer. As a Unionist in politics, a Protestant in the principles of the glorious Reformation, but most of all as a follower of the meek and lowly Christ, of whom I am not ashamed, I would say, beware of the Papacy as embodied in the Pope of Rome.—I remain, Rt. Hon. Sir, your obedient servant, ROBERT HEY.