The Spanish manifesto to Belgium, signed by seven hundred leading
Roman Catholics, condemning the German invasion and the atrocities committed by the invaders, and expressing the desire that Belgium should be compensated and restored to inde- pendence, has provoked serious discussion in the Spanish Press. The Times correspondent at Madrid, in a summary of the contro- versy, shows that while the Manifesto is disavowed and condemned by the Roman Catholic Germanophil papers as a tissue of "absurd misstatements," an "intolerable intrusion in the domestic affairs of a friendly country," and calculated to cause "offence to the German Emperor and his people," these critics are impugned by Liberal journalists as disloyal to the Pope, whose authority they reject. This view is also taken by the correspondent, who notes that these Germanophil Spanish Roman Catholics seem "driven at last to admit the conflict between the authority of the Pope and the interests of the German Emperor. . . . Spanish Roman Catholics have had it brought home to them that they cannot serve two masters." This view is based on the assumption that the Manifesto was backed or approved by the Pope, and we have no means of testing its accuracy, though the challenge may very possibly serve the interesting purpose of bringing the Pope into the open.
Previous page
