THE following letter appeared sometime ago in the columns of the British Weekly and was passed by the Censor:—”On October 7th the Daily Telegraph reported a question in the House of Lords by Lord Marley, and the reply by Lord Snell. It appears that “with the approval of the Foreign Office,” Mr. Arnold Lunn was sent to South America, and that, posing as an authority on Spain, he suggested a fear lest victory for the United Nations should mean a victory for Communism. The American newspaper P.M. said that this enterprising gentlemen “had a record in written and spoken words that could only cause damage to the Allied cause wherever he went in South America.” Public opinion in America was so outraged that Mr. Lunn has been recalled.
What must be the effect in Russia when it is known that the British Foreign Office sent a Roman Catholic gentleman to America whose acknowledged mission could not but alarm our Russian Allies. We all know that many individual Roman Catholics are loyal to the Allied cause and are bearing their full share of the national effort and sacrifice. A man’s religion—in a Protestant country—is his own affair; but Papal political influence at work in the Foreign Office is another matter. In the years before the war our Vatican-inspired foreign policy in our dealings with Italy, Spain and Russia was one of the immediate causes of the war; and if this insidious fifth-column work is still going on while we are fighting for our lives the situation is truly appalling.
The Papacy in the most gigantic and ably conducted political organisation in the world, its central administration consists in an Italian Pope, thirty-one Italian Cardinals and twenty-six Cardinals of mixed nationalities. It has its enthusiastic propagandists in every corner of the world. It is well-known that the heads of the Vichy government are hand-in-glove with the Papacy, and Laval, with whom Sir Samuel Hoare made proposals against Abyssinia, is persona grata at the Vatican. When the Australians were smarting because of our inability to check Japan’s aggression Archbishop Mannix poured acid into the wound by suggesting that England, as usual was letting Australia down. The isolationist anti-British movement in America is largely Roman Catholic. Southern Ireland, rooted and grounded in priestcraft, is still bitterly antagonistic to England.
There is abundant evidence that Free Church people* and certain of their leaders are insufficiently informed concerning the historical record and present character and aims of the Papacy, and are willing to fraternise with Cardinal Hinsley and his friends in the “Sword of the Spirit” movement.
This letter is written in hope that you will be willing to allow me to place before your readers certain relevant facts which may otherwise escape their attention.”
* That is English Nonconformists.