THE restoration of peace may provide as many problems as the exigencies of war. Yet if good will cannot solve them, the outlook is indeed dark. General Smuts declares that if the San Francisco Conference fails, he sees nothing but stark disaster before mankind. War has become a more awful menace that the human mind can conceive, but it will be worse in the future. In fact science has discovered new and powerful weapons of destruction which would make the terrors of this war seem small in comparison, and “might mean the end of the human race.” Poland stands in the front rank as a real obstacle to peace. At Versailles Paderewski claimed territory inhabited by non-Poles, larger than Poland, with ten million people in it. Naturally they resented incorporation, and this brought about a ruthless attack on their race and religion. Whole villages were depopulated by massacre, and hundreds of Ukrainians were arrested every day. The Polish Roman Catholic Church headed this bitter vendetta, being most eager to stamp out the Greek Orthodox Church. In Galicia, which was allotted to Poland at Versailles, there were one million Roman Catholics and three million Greek Orthodox. In Upper Silesia, the Protestants also suffered, hundreds of their churches being reduced to ruins, sixty pastors arrested and others expelled. In the whole of the new Republic, Protestants and Greek Orthodox Catholics were subjected to extreme pressure. Agonising accounts were received of the sufferings of the Ukrainians. Thousands of acres were taken from the owners and given to Roman Catholic peasants from Poland. Three thousand schools were closed or seized by Roman Catholics. From 500 to 800 villages were destroyed, and the Romish priests followed everywhere in the wake of the torturers. Paderewski had promised that religious freedom should be given in the new Poland. Unable to countenance the conduct of the Roman Church, or to bring about happier conditions, at the end of a year he was forced to resign his position of Premier. Now the Papacy is insisting that Poland must retain the territories allotted to Paderewski at Versailles, and is determined that Romanism shall still be the State religion. In Spain, Ethiopia, and Poland persecution has resulted from the dominance of the Roman Church. Unless the Poland of the future is left unshackled by Papal fetters, that land will remain a storm centre, unreach’d by the power of the Gospel. May God grant that the living Word may be so scattered through the liberated countries that a new
Europe may arise, with the desert blossoming like a rose, and hearts changed by the power of the Spirit!
At the swearing-in ceremony of Mr. Roosevelt for his fourth Presidential term at the White House on January 20, the Benediction was pronounced by Monsignor John A. Ryan, Director of the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. Yet out of 130,000,000 people, only 16 per cent. is Roman Catholic. The attempt to “foster relations” with the Papacy was the vein of dross in a character of great nobility.
—“The Protestant Woman.”