LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often snore read, and therefore more efiectire, than those which fill treble the space.]
THE VATICAN AND THE WAR.
[To THE EDITOD Of run SPECUT011."1 SIR,—Will you allow me in the interests of historical accuracy to offer a few comments on your article of December 8th, entitled " The Vatican and the War "? The writer says—
Dots the Pope doubt that Germany tore up the treaty guaran- tying the inviolability of Belgium and invaded that unhappy country? Does he doubt that the Lusitania ' was sunk ? Doee he doubt that the Germans broke all the rules and laws and customs of war in shooting hostages, in bombarding open towns, in murder- ing non-combatant men and women and children on the high seas? Does he doubt the word of the noble and courageous Cardinal Mercier of Belgium? Why did he receive the heartrending appeal of Cardinal Mercier early in the war with a stony silence? So far from condemning the ghastly transactions of Germany, the Pope suggested in his proposal of peace," &c.
The writer seems to be unaware of the fact that the Pope did condemn each and every one of these "ghastly transactions," if not in his Peace Note—which was hardly the place for such a eondemnation—at least on other occasions. Let me take them seriatim (I) The invasion of Belgium. The Germans invaded Belgium in the early days of August, 1914. Herr von Bethmann Hollweg declared in the Reichstag on August 4th that "necessity knows no law," that the invasion was "an unlawful act," but that "we shall seek to repair it when our military object has been achieved"; in other words, he sought to justify it on the plea of military necessity. Pope Benedict XV. was not elected till September 3rd, 1914. In the public Consistory of January 22nd, 1915, the new Pope used these words "To proclaim that on no plea whatever is it allowable to violate justice is a duty which belongs to the Sovereign Pontiff, and that we proclaim, without waste of worde, denouncing all injustice, on whatever side it has been committed." These words, though the reference to the German Chancellor's plea of military necessity was plain enough, by themselves might be considered ambiguous, but any possible ambiguity was removed by a subsequent letter of Cardinal Gasparri, the Papal Secretary of State, to H. Van den Heuvel, the Belgian Minister at the Vatican, in which Ile said "The invasion of Belgium is directly included in the words used by the Holy Father on January 22nd, 1915." An address afterwards presented by a body of French journalists to Cardinal Gaspard thanked the Pope for having, " alone among the neutral Powers, publicly condemned the violation of Belgian neutrality " (see the journal Rome, May Oil,, 1916).
(2) The Pope's silent reception of Cardinal Mercier's appeal early in the war. Your writer does not specify the particular appeal to which he alludes, but as early in the war as December 8th, 1914, the Pope wrote to Cardinal Mercier expressing his personal sympathy, and again in the same sense on April 16th, 1915, enclosing an offering of £1,000 for the Belgian Relief Fund, and again through his Secretary of State on Janaary 29th, 1916. In a pastoral letter to his people in June, 1915, Cardinal Mercier says:
"As for our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XV., what could be do for Belgium that he has not done?" In another pastoral letter in April, 1916, Cardinal Mercier describes a long interview with the Pope, at the conclusion of which the Pope presented him with a photograph of himself inscribed with the words: "Your cause is our own" (Rome, June lath, 1915, and April 8111, 1916).
(3) The murder of non-combatants on the high seas, and in particular the sinking of the ' Lusitania.' On May 18th, 1916, in an answer given in the House of Commons to a question put by Sir Ivor Herbert, now Lord Treowen, the then Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, mid that "the Vatican had made representa- tions to Germany to induce her to abandon that form of war- fare." As to the case of the ' Lusitania,' that vessel was sunk on May 7111, 1915. On the 25th of the some month the Pope addressed an open letter to Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, in which he condemned "measures of offence by land or sea which are opposed to the dictates of humanity and principles of international law." If that condemnation, too, may be %might so general as to be ambiguous, the Pope, in the much- dismissed interview granted to H. Latapie of La Libertg in June, 1915, said of the sinking of the ' Lusitania "I can conceive of no more horrible crime." That interview was, it is true, in part disavowed by the Vatican, but that particular condemnation was not. Cardinal Gasparri subsequently corroborated M. Latapies evidence on that point. " The Holy rather has deplored the sink- ing of the great Transatlantic liner, as M. Latapie says" (Rome, July 3rd, 1915).
(4) The shooting of hostages. In default of any more specific charge, we may assume this refers to Belgium. In a published interview granted to another French journalist, M. Laudet of the Revue liebdomadaire, in July, 1915, the Pope said: "I strongly condemn the martyrdom of the poor Belgian priests, and so many other horrors on which light has been shed" (see the Month. August, 1915, p. 186).
(5) The bombardment of open towns. It is a matter of common knowledge that the Pope has protested in turn against the bombardment from the air of Rimini, Ravenna, Padua, and Treviso, and that it is due to his intervention that Venice has been to a large extent spared similar attacks. Although Reims is not, I suppose, an open town, the words of the Pope to M. Laudet, in the interview mentioned above, are on record "At the beginning of the bombardment of the Cathedral of Reims, we charged the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne to convey our protest e) the German Emperor."
Moreover, these condemnations have been discriminating. When an attempt was made in Germany to represent the Pope's words in the letter to Cardinal Vaunutelli quoted above as referring to the British naval blockade, a prompt denial was given by Cardinal Gasparri in July, 1915, in a letter to Sir Henry 'Toward, the then British Envoy to the Vatican (Tablet, July 24th, 1915). If these condemnations do not seem public and precise enough to some of us, they are evidently considered so by those to whom they were meant to apply. On January 29th, 1917, the Hamburger Fremdenblatt mid: "The only belligerent Power against which the Vatican has officially spoken is Germany," In view of this evidence, the statements of the writer of the article in one.stion would appear to need some qualification.—I am, Sir, tic.,
AUDI ALTERAM PARTED.
(We should much like to agree with our correspondent, but we cannot help saying that if the Pope had spoken in unequivocal language it would never have been necessary for his Secretary of State to explain his meaning. Surely if our correspondent is right in believing that the Pope's condemnation of German crimes was strong and undoubting, it was the Pope's duty to make his meaning perfectly clear. Not one man in ten thousand is aware that the Pope has ever addressed any word of remonstrance to Germany. The ordinary observer—at least outside Roman Catholicism—has been amazed that the Head of a mighty Church has not proclaimed loudly and persistently his indignation at the nn-Christian, or rather the devilish, practices of Prussia, which professes to be a Christian country.—ED. Spectator.]
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