In the summer of 1917 I received at Kreuznach a visit from the Papal Nuncio, Pacelli, who was accompanied by a chaplain. Pacelli is a distinguished, likeable man, of high intelligence and excellent manners, the perfect pattern of an eminent prelate of the Catholic Church. He knows German well enough to understand it easily when he hears it, but not sufficiently to speak it with fluency.
Our conversation was conducted in French, but the Nuncio now and then employed German expressions of speech. The chaplain spoke German fluently and took pait—evea when not asked—in the conversation, whenever he feared that the Nuncio was becoming too much influenced by what I said.
Very soon the conversation turned on the possibility of peace mediation and the bringing about of peace, in which connexion all sorts {of projects and possibilities were touched upon, discussed and.dismissed.
Finally, I suggested that the Pops should make an effort, seeing that porce offer of December 12, 1916, Nad been rejected in such an unareerdented manner. The Nuncio remarked that he thought such a step would he attended with great Aificulties: that the Pope had al-randy been rebuffed when he had ade certain advances in this direction: that, apart from this, the Pone was absolittely in despair on neconnt of the slaughter and wondered ceaselessly how he might help toward freeing the world and european culture from the scourage of war. Any snegestion as to this, he added, would be most valuable to the Vatican.
I stated that the Pope, as: the highest in rank among all the priests of the Roman Catholic Christians and Church, should, first of all, seek to issue instructions to his priests in all countries to banish hate, once for all, from their minds, since hate was the greatest obstacle the path of the peace idea; that was, unfortunately, true that the clergy in the Entente countries were, to a positively frightful extent, the standard-bearers and instigators of hate and fighting.
I called attention to the numerous reports from soldiers at the beginning of the war concerning abbes and parish priests captured with arms in their hands; to the machinations of Cardinal Mercier and the Belgian clergy, members of which often worked as spies'?*to the sermon of the Protestant Bishop of London, who, from the pulpit, glorified the Baralong" murderers and to other similar cases. I added that it would be, therefore, a great achievement if the Pope should succeed in having the Roman Catholic clergy in all the countries. at war condemn hatred and recommend peace, as was already being done by the German clergy, be it from the pulpit or by means of pastoral letters.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.