To the Editor of the "Norra-Cuma Dany News"
Sik,—I do not know what impression Father sermon on "Must We Have War?" as reported in your columns on Monday, left on the mind of the average reader, but it caused at least one to rub his eyes and scratch his head. Surely it-is an outrage to the intelligence of Shanghai people to ask us to believe that "The Catholic Church, speaking through the Supreme Pontiff, has alw been the most potent factor in preservation of peace" The referred to the lith and ries. Were the Crusade: sed" as they were by the so-called "V of Christ," some of the "notable contributions towards world peace? hat does history say?
"No barbarian, no infidel, no Saracen, ever perpetrated such wanton and cold-blooded atrocities of cruelty as the wearers of the Cross of Christ at the capture of Jerusalem... Murder Was mercy; rape tenderness; simple Plunder, ihe mere assertion of Conquerors right. Children were Seized by their legs, some, of them plucked from their mothers breasts, End dashed against the walls "or Whirled from the battlements. Others Were obliged to leap from the walls; game, were tortured, roasted by slow fires."
Must we forget and forgive the awful massacres of the Albigenses? And what about the 13th and 14th centuries, before the "so-called Reformation....split Europe?" Is it not the case that rival "Vicars of Christ" scandalized and excommunicated each other, tortured or murdered their own cardinal employed brigands and r ree their holy (D claim not true that their doing private and public, wer and shameful that unb history ere justified clusion' the tion for a astuteness Now, Sir delve too de which our e "Society of doubtless like us to modern history is made before our part in it. Ho Did they not the armies that "took part in rape of Abyssinia? [What about Spain, a country 3 uninfluenced by the "so-called Reformation"? Who "blessed" the armies that last year slaughtered the Basques, who themselves were Catholics in religion, owning allegiance to the same "Holy Father?" What is the attitude of the "Vicar of Christ" and his followers towards the cruel war of aggression that is being waged right now in China? They seem to be peculiarly silent regarding the horrible atrocities being perpetrated on civilian men, women and children in nearly all the areas occupied by the invaders. Do they endorse Japan's actions? Is their attitude towards China similar to what they adopted towards Abyssinia? Knowing the Papacy's past history we can but expect that its sympathies are with Japan. What about the Chinese Catholics? Where do they stand?
No, Sir there is no reason for believing or hoping that that aged Italian priest who calls himself the "Vicar of Christ" is capable of doing anything to heal the wounds of the modern world any more than his early predecessors: healed those of the ancient world. What would heal them is a revival of Christianity in a form emphasizing obedience to the teaching and example of Jesus Christ far more than Rome has ever done or ever will do. The moral passion of a Savonarola would be more to one's taste than this academic discussion on "Must We Have War?" One wonders what will happen when God deals in judgment with those who "call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.