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John fllieit m5r. Ex-WWW Bros: Sludeal Tel.
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PRICE THREEPENCE.
PERTH, WEDNESDAY, (AUGUST 22, 1946.
NO. 3,194.
SEVENTYSECOND YEAR.
Church h Italy Has Emerged From War Stronger Than Before Invaluable Part of Archbishops in Final Critical Phase Holy Father Enjoys Enormous Prestige, POPE'S SUPRA-NATIONAL AND WORLD-WIDE ACTIVITY or political beliefs, and many of the present Government were harboured by the Church. When the Germans The Church in Italy has emerged attacked the Church for this the right from the national ordeal very much of sanctuary was very emphatically stronger. The Cardinal Archbishops vindicated in several issues of the " Osof the great northern cities, of Florservatore Romano" in February, 1944, ence and Bologna,' Venice, Milan, as was described in this journal at the Genoa and Turin, played highly intime, and those who were then inveighvaluable parts in the final critical ing against sanctuary as an abuse phases, as did the Archbishop of Ferwere told that they might in turn be rara. Mgr. Bovelli, who received a parvery glad of it themselves; as by the ticular ovation. The authority of CarRome, dinal Schuster is to-day very high in a end of that year they were. with its great religious houses, gave city which has had for so long its trashelter of a particularly adequate kind, dition of militant anti-clericalism, to both in and outside the Vatican. By which the Repub lican Fascists devoted resting the right to give sanctuary on a great deal of Aention, Mussolini rethe broadest ground of human charity, membering his anti-clerical Socialist the Church made a much-needed provouth of thirty to forty years ago. test against the increasing fashion of When the bodies of Mussolini and his denying any rights to political or naassociates were treated with a degrading barbarity in the Piazzo Loreto, the' tional opponents. Italian Archbishops are singularly ac. Cardinal interyened as soon as he cessible. Most of them have fixed heard of it and threatened to come and morning hours to receive all callers, take the hodies down with his own though there is a preliminary essential hands. It is an illustration of the "vetting" of callers, by kindly but historic position held by the Archbispractised secretaries. Editors also, I hop as an institution that the final find, put up in their offices the times negotiation between the Republican at which everyone can come to see Fascists and the Committee of Liberathem. Whein i went to see the Bis. tion took place in his palace, which hop of Bergamo he was away on a visiryas felt by both parties to be a place tation to a village in the foothills of his where they could meet, as in a sanctunorthern boundary, and Iand my comary. In all these cities the inhabipanion, having business that would not tants know very well that it was ex. wait, set out to track him down. We ceedingly useful that there existed found the village gaily decorated with such people as their Bishops, to faciligreen arches and flowers and flags, tate negotiations which have preserved many buildings and lives. There is a making of the visitation a great fiesta. Although unexpected, we were taken in consciousness of the direct continuity to where, after the morning's labours, with the great Bishops of the Dark the parish priest was entertaining the Ages; and the more violent and bar. Bishop and all the neighbouring clergy barons the politics of the twentieth to a meal which was at once simple century become the more important it and splendid, which ended with " Asti" will he that this office Shall continue, and an enormous cake of coloured for its civic advantages, which, al. sugar. though altogether subsidiary to the in Brescia and in Florence I found main end, can be of the greatest social the Catholic publishing houses full of value. eagerness to make contact with Eng. When I visited these Archbishops' lish Catholic letters again, and it is in palaces ( I did . not reach Venice or general true of Italy that there is a Turin) In the middle of ) fav, they were great deal of high-grade Catholic writhumming with a new good work, the ing just now, like the new review business of sorting out and repatriat"Idea; conducted by Mgr. Barbieri in ing the refugees. The pillars in the Rome, a Catholic monthly seeking and courtvards and the baTustrades. had finding a general public. In the short many notices asking for nerds of this or that Italian, a prisoner of war or a period since the Armistice there has been a plethora of Catholic writing on worker taken to Germany, each diocese the State and the individual and on doing for its own people what the the social teaching of the Church, and Vatican has been doing on an interthere is much exposition of theology national scale. for the laity, conspicuous among it in the period of German occupation being Mgr. Sid's "Corso di Teologia sanctuary was given to those in dan. Dogmatica per Laid," of which two ger without regard to their religious By DOUGLAS WOODRUFF.
For Value and Service
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volumes out of seven have appeared. This work took shape' from conferences given 'in week-end study-circles for which, as for retreats, there are spe. cial villas set apart in pleasant spots. \ear Rome there.is one such villa kept particularly for politicians, who need dogmatic instruction ,as they need retreats, rather more than most men. But the problem is how to get those who need these things most to think they need them at all. Men like Professor Giordani have written a number of books at one remove from formal theology, books which are, as it were, the text-hooks of the Catholic Action movement. Where there seer's a dearth is in Catholic " belles lettres,' and in works which are not direct apologetics but are of Catholic inspiration. The great prestige which the Holy Father enjoys to-clay is a triple crown of gratitude: of the people of Rome to their Bishop, the " Defenso Civitatis," to whom they attribute a great part of their immunity from bombardment; of the Italians to the Primate of Italy, who has steered his course so that of the great number of nearly three hundren Italian Bishops, any one of whom had it in his power seriously to com. promise the' Church, not one refused the guidance and lead of the Holy See. To-dav only one or two have incurred any shadow of hostility for having lent themselves to any part of the Fascist propaganda. To read some of the comments of " Pravda," to watch the persistent attempt even now to give vitality to a legend that Fascism grows out of Catholicism, and that the one cannot be eradicated unless the other is reduced to powerlessness, is to read a criticism singularly remote from recent history. It is true that the Church has always to be everywhere tolerant of national patriotism, and is always and rightly--expected to endeavour to adapt herself to the different political regimes encountered in different times and places; but it is the third crown of appreciation of Pope Pius NII, that, with a great gentleness of expression and speech, he has nevertheless made it absolutely clear that the Church is not to be used for any temporal policies of temporal rulers. Ile always refused the insistent invitation to declare a crusade against Communist Russia, a fact ignored in the Communist criticism of to-day, and he will not now support all the things that are put forwaiwl in the West as the objects and aims for which the war Nowas previous fought.Pope had travelled so far afield before election, and none has since received in his own home so many thousands of the ordinary men of so many nationalities, the tens of thousands of soldier<of the very mixed
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forces which make up the Fifth and Eighth Armies. Ile is so accessible that it was a pardonable mistake of the South African in front of me at the turnstile of the Vatican Museum who put down his lire and took his ticket, was told the museum was up the stairs, and exclaimed in disappointment that he had not come to see any museum; he had come to see the Pope. Isis ticket was returned and he was told how to find his way to the Vatican itself, where there is no turnstile. The private audiences in the Library, the special audiences in the rooms outside and the general audiences in the Sala Clementina take up a great part of the Holy Father's morning, but the result after a year is that throughout Britain and America he will be known as no other Pope has been, not only to the Catholics but to tens of thousands of men in all walks of life. This supra-national and world-wide activity is the great mark of this pontificate. The man who as a young priest thought to devote himself to the Romans has found the whole world his parish, and in every country his "chiesa nuova." His gift for languages is it. self a symbol of a pontificate in which all the many tongues to be heard in Rome bear witness to the new world, in which the Church has a much great. er power of physical communication and faces )much greater threats of poli• tical obstruction. Aeroplanes from the Rome airfield can reach any part of Europe in a few hours. London is one of the more outlying and distant capitals, but it is easily reached in a flight of six or seven hours. At the moment about half these capitals are inaccessible, and there is little news of Vienna or Budapest, Warsaw or Belgrade. The speed of invention, of wireless communication and air travel, has taken the Church by surprise, and it finds the Catholics in different countries still very much in watertight compartments and knowing very little about each other's special historical backgrounds. But there is already a strong current running to make of the headquarters of the government of the Church a place where the different nations are represented, if unevenly, yet broadly and adequately. The diplomatic corps itself is to-day more numerous and representative than ever before, and there is an understanding that in the new condition of the world it will make for the strength of the, Church to widen her basis. It has to he admitted that the present composition of the Curia ,in the middle of the twentieth century, is still eminently in the old tradition that served the (Continued on Page 11.)
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