The Most Rev. A loijsius I Muench. D D.
1315 hop of fargo

cund.

The Most Rev. Vincent I Rgan.D. D

Bishop of Bismarfc





msn

THE CHURCH, FASCISM

AND PEACE

by

The Most Rev. Aloisius J. Muench, D. D.,

Bishop of Fargo

and

The Most Rev. Vincent J. Ryan, D.D.,

Bishop of Bismarck

PUBLISHED IN U.S.A.

April 24, 1944
BY

OUR SUNDAY VISITOR PRESS
HUNTINGTON, INDIANA





FOREWORD

This booklet is unique. It is the only one in

existence which was written by the combined efforts

of the members of the Hierarchy of one entire

state. Their Excellencies, the Most Rev. Aloisius

J. Muench, D.D., Bishop of Fargo, North Dakota,

and the Most Rev. Vincent J. Ryan, D.D
,
Bishop of

Bismarck, North Dakota, present in this book a

group of eleven radio addresses which were given

over a hookup of the North Central Broadcasting

System during the lenten season of 1944. The radio

talks, sponsored by the North Dakota State Council

of the Knights of Columbus, received a generous re-

sponse from the listening audience. Because of the

numerous requests for copies, it was decided to print

the addresses under one cover and make the booklet

available to a wider reading public.

The topics and problems discussed in the book-

let are timely. The Most Reverend Authors have

presented facts to clarify the position of the Church

and to remove current misrepresentations. The

devastating rapier of reason is employed to attack

and analyse phoney peace plans. While the book-

let contains two distinct radio series, they are

integrated by the same basic principles for peace.

The matter is presented in a style simple, yet cogent

;

instructive, yet interesting and readable.

Members of the State Council of the Knights of

Columbus are deeply grateful to Their Excellencies

for their gracious permission to print these radio

addresses. They pledge the members of the Order

to full cooperation in the suggestions and wishes



of their Bishops so that the principles so well ex-

pressed in the pages which follow may be accepted

by an ever increasing number.

Palm Sunday Rev. Wm. F. Garvin, State Chaplain

April 2, 1944 Knights of Columbus

>V

Deacfdifed



TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword 3

PART I

The Catholic Church and Fascism

Most Rev. Aloisius J. Muench, D.D.

Chapter 1. The Common Man Under Fire 7

Chapter 2. Double Talk from Split Tongues 13

Chapter 3. Master, Be a Servant 19

Chapter 4. Black is Not White 25

Chapter 5. Wanted: Rich Men ~ 32

PART II

What Must We Do For Peace?

Most Rev. Vincent J. Ryan, D.D.

Chapter 1. Brotherhood or Chaos 39

Chapter 2. Tomorrow’s World 47

Chapter 3. The Earth is Holy 55

Chapter 4. Citizens of Tomorrow 63

Chapter 5. At the Crossroads 72

Chapter 6. Christ and His Church 80





THE COMMON MAN UNDER FIRE

At the height of the slavery controversy in

our country a pro-slavery Senator called the Decla-

ration of Independence “a self-evident lie.” In

the Declaration it had been solemnly proclaimed as

“a self-evident truth” that all men are created equal.

From the earliest days of Christianity on, it

has been the consistent teaching of the Catholic

Church that all men are created equal. If they

are not equal in physical or intellectual capacity,

they all are equal in value. They are all invested

with human dignity, no matter what other dis-

tinctions might be made as to race or nationality,

culture or social standing.

Two doctrines, chiefly, furnish the foundation

for the Catholic Church’s teaching on the equality

of man.

The first doctrine is that, in the words of the

Holy Bible, all men are created in the image of God.

There are no exceptions. Made in the likeness of

God all men are His children. God is their Father,

and all are brothers of equal value in His sight.

In this doctrine is found the real reason for the

Fatherhood of God and for the brotherhood of men.

The second doctrine is that all men are equal

because all are redeemed by the precious blood of

Christ. Again, there are no exceptions. Through

His blood all are made His brothers. The Savior

declared that we all are brothers: “But all you

are brothers”; (1) and brothers of Himself, as St.

Paul taught the Romans, “that he might be the first-

(!) Matthew 23, 8



8 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

born amongst many 'brethren.”

(2)

Setting aside

every difference of race, language, and interest, the

Divine Master taught His brethren to lift up their

eyes to heaven, and say: “Our Father who art in

heaven.” {3)

This is not merely pious, sentimental teaching.

It conveys ideas of the greatest practical import-

ance. The spiritual equality which this teaching

proclaimed became the seed of political equality.

The principle of the equal value of human beings

in the spiritual order was made a first principle in

the political order. That momentous document

which ushered in the American Republic, the De-

laration of Independence, enshrined that principle

in our national life.

Though old in its concept, this principle of the

equal value of man as a human being is ever new.

Today it is at the bottom of the gigantic conflict

that has brought the clash of arms to every part

of the world. Everywhere the common man is

under fire. His rights as a human being are at

stake. There are those who deny these rights be-

cause they deny the basic teaching on which these

rights are based—all are created equal, all are
brethren in Christ.

Fascism denies man these inherent, natural

rights. Under its system of government, be its

form what it will—Mussolini’s Fascism, Hitler’s
Naziism, or Stalin’s Communism—man has only
such rights as the state will accord him. Fascism

does not recognize the American constitutional

rights of man to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of

(2) Romans 8, 29

(3) Matthew 6, 9



THE COMMON MAN UNDER FIRE 9

happiness.” In a fascistic system of government,

man disappears as an individual; he is but a tiny

unit in the collective enterprise of the absolutistic

state; he is but a cog in the totalitarian machine;

he is but an animal, an insignificant ant, in the ant-

hill of the fascistic state. Natural rights are de-

nied, and natural freedoms are demolished.

Fascism is consistent in its further assertions

that there are supermen and master races among

the various peoples of the earth, and that to them

has come the task of subjecting, or even extermi-

nating, races and nations of an inferior status.

Because of such false teaching, the Catholic

Church always has been, and always will be, the

deadly foe of Fascism. Never will she compromise

her teaching on the high dignity of man. Fascism

has recognized that, and consequently does not

cease to attack the Church, the Vatican, or the

Pope with every possible means at its powerful

command. It uses half-truths; it uses lies. Its

smear bucket is always ready at hand to paint its

labels of falsehood in order to tag them on the

Church.

Those who know the doctrine of the Catholic

Church are not deceived. They will agree with the

writer in Time in its issue of August 16, 1942 : “No

matter what critics say, it is scarcely deniable that

the Church Apostolic, through the encyclicals and

other papal pronouncements, has been fighting

against totalitarianism more knowingly, devoutly,

and authoritatively, and for a longer time, than

any other organized power.”

In truth, the social encyclicals from the days

of Pope Leo XIII down to the present Pope Pius XII,

reveal to what extent the Catholic Church is the



10 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

friend of the common man, and therefore a friend

of his rights and freedoms. At every turn she

defends his rights—his right to decent work con-
ditions, his right to reasonable hours of work, his

right to collective bargaining, his right to a just

family wage, his right to own a home, land or some

other kind of productive property, his right, in brief,

to security, prosperity, and happiness. What to-

day are generally accepted as the rights of the com-

mon man in every sound social program were pro-

claimed more than fifty years ago in the celebrated

encyclical of Leo XIII, On The Condition of Work-

ingmen, and have been restated time and time again

by his successors in office.

Students of social theory and social practice

know where the sympathies of the Catholic Church

lie with regard to the basic rights and fundamental

freedoms of the common man. By their furious

attacks on the Church, Fascists have revealed only

too clearly that they do not like the Church’s at-

titude in this matter.

The Church’s doctrine on the nobility of man

as a child of God and as a brother in Christ con-

stitutes the basis, also, for her attitude of sympathy

toward persecuted and exploited races, oppressed

national minorities, and defenseless small nations.

It is a great wrong to oppress, persecute, and

kill people on account of their race. Anti-Semitism

is full of iniquity. With Pius XI we Christians

will exclaim: “In spirit we are all Semites.” With-

out reservation we condemn the un-Christian at-

tacks on Jews, and rather join hands with Pius XII

in his work of charity, giving aid to the tens of

thousands of non-Aryans who are exiles from their

home-land, have lost all they once possessed, and



THE COMMON MAN UNDER FIRE 11

today are in dire distress. Christian charity allows

no distinctions because of race; it embraces all

men in its universal law of love. There is but

“one God and Father of all, who is above all, and

through all, and in us all.” (4) The unity of the

human race is a cardinal dogma of the Catholic

Faith. Catholicism rejects as false the naziistic

“myth of blood and race” with its pernicious theor-

ies of Herrenvolk and master races. Pius XI un-

reservedly condemned the worship of race as idol-

atry.

There is no justification whatsoever for the

exploitation of races, no matter what their color

or their level of culture. Toward less favored races

the more abundantly gifted races have an obliga-

tion of justice and charity. Speaking on the sub-

ject of colonies Pius XI pointedly remarked: “It

is evident that a colonizing country’s first aim must

be to civilize, that is, to allow colonies to share in

the benefits of civilization. What are colonies for,

if they are not meant to educate races less civilized ?

.... If nations do not colonize in order to spread

civilization, then they are open to the accusation

that they found colonies in order to exploit

them.” (5) These are uncompromising words, and

demonstrate clearly what the Church’s attitude is

with regard to poor, uncivilized races.

Nor can human rights be denied national mi-

norities. They have a right to their distinctive

characteristics—to their language, their usages,
their customs, their folkways. In all her mission-

ary work of nineteen hundred years, the Catholic

Church has followed that policy. The sad history

(4
> Ephesians 4, 6

< 5 > Pius XI, Principles of Peace, 1294.



12 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

of recent times has tragically shown that this is

not the policy of absolutistic states.

The defense of the rights of small nations has

also been the concern of the Papacy. Small nations

equally with big and powerful nations have the

right to life, to economic development, and to ac-

cess to the resources of the earth. In his mem-

orable Christmas message of 1939, Pius XII said:

“The will of one nation to live must never mean

the sentence of death passed upon another.” (6)

Catholicism will always be the unyielding foe

of Fascism wherever and whenever it lays desecrat-

ing hands on the inherent rights of man—sacred
above all to the common man.

Today the common man is again under fire.

His rights are in danger; his freedoms are jeopar-

dized. Why? Because there are those who tell

us his origin is not of God, but of an animal. The

theory of the animalistic evolution of man is doing

more to destroy the rights and freedoms of man

than all the bombs and shells that are fired by

fascistic armies.

Let it be affirmed again as clearly and as

strongly as we know how: “Man is created, not in

the image of an animal, but in the image of God.

He is a child of God, and a brother in Christ.” In

this affirmation rests our hope for making a reality

of the great ideal expressed by the immortal Lin-

coln: “I say in relation to the principles that all

men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached

as we can. If we cannot give freedom to every

creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery

upon any other creature.” (7)

Te) Phis XII, 1497, ibid.

<7) Fortune, February, 1944, p. 155



DOUBLE TALK FROM SPLIT TONGUES

Up to June, 1941, when Hitler made war on

Stalin, the two were partners in their common crime

of aggression. In 1939 both had invaded helpless,

defenseless Poland. They sealed their criminal

pact of partnership with the blood of innocent

people. Hitler himself said so in his famous tele-

gram to Stalin in 1939: “Our friendship is sealed

with blood.”

There were no split tongues then, and there

was no double talk. Lovers of democracy every-

where were agreed that both Naziism and Com-

munism were Fascism in its worst form— two
branches of the same poisonous tree of tyrannical

dictatorship. Our own President had assured us:

“The Soviet Union is a dictatorship as cruel and

as absolute as any other dictatorship on the face

of the earth/’ That sentiment was echoed and re-

echoed by writers in newspapers, weekly periodi-

cals, and monthly magazines; it was given expres-

sion by books in bookstalls and libraries as well as

by pictures on the screen; it was voiced in most

vigorous language from lecture platforms and by

commentators over the radio. Do you remember

all that?

Do you remember, too, that in that same fatal

year of 1939 the Foreign Secretary of Russia, Com-

rade Molotoff, said to the Foreign Secretary of

Germany, Herr v. Ribbentrop: “Fascism is only

a matter of taste?”

Split tongues used no double talk then that

Fascism was anti-democratic, and Communism was

not. Men who had any ideas at all about democracy

were sure at that time that both Fascism and Com-

munism were two phases of the same system of



14 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

totalitarianism, and that, consequently, both were

foes of democracy.

In truth, they are foes of democracy. Their

governments are not governments by, for, and

through the people. They are governments by a

small clique of Nazis on the one hand and by a

small clique of Communists on the other. There is

but one political party; all others are suppressed,

and their leaders sent to concentration camps or in-

to the jails of Siberia. Lenin, the founder of Rus-

sian Communism, was once asked by a foreign cor-

respondent whether under his system of govern-

ment political parties were allowed in Russia.

“Yes,” he answered, “the Communist Party in

power, and all the other parties in jail.” Is that

democracy? Americans know the answer.

They know the answer, too, when they learn

that under these anti-democratic dictatorships there

are only one school, one press, one police, one army.

Dissent in major principles and policies is not

allowed. There is no freedom of speech, no free-

dom of assembly, no freedom of organization, ex-

cept such as may be allowed by the dictators in

control. Is that democracy? And is it democracy

to deny freedom of religion? In Hitler’s Germany,

religion, while tolerated, is rendered most difficult

to practice, and in Stalin’s Russia it is entirely

suppressed, except for the limited and precarious

existence that has been now given to the Russian

Orthodox Church. All other religious bodies are

still denied religious freedom.

Recently the Rev. Dr. W. 0. Lewis, General

Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, speaking

to a Student Planning Conference on the World

Mission of the Church declared that, while the



DOUBLE TALK FROM SPLIT TONGUES 15

Soviet Union has for some time permitted groups

to gather for worship, there has been no inclination

on the part of Soviet officialdom to sanction evan-

gelistic activity. Reports that Bibles are being

printed in Russia are incorrect, he said, and books

of religious content have not been published in

Russia since the early twenties.

Split tongues that define democracy now in one

way and now in another are not serving the cause

of democracy by their double talk. Such talk is

neither honest nor sincere. Democracy is not

served by sham words; it is definitely hurt by any

talk that has not truth for a foundation.

The fact is there is basically no difference be-

tween Communism, Fascism, and Naziism. The

three agree in their one-party totalitarian govern-

ment. “They believe in the suppression of the free

ballot. They believe in the supremacy of the state

not only in political matters but in education, science,

art, literature, religion, and every field of human

endeavor. They believe in the suppression of all

opposition, and by any means. They want those

who disagree with them to be shot or to be thrown

into concentration camps.” (1) “There is little dif-

ference between the three,” the scholarly and dis-

tinguished head of the Diocese of Bismark, Bishop

Ryan, wrote in his most recent issue of Dakota

Catholic Action; “each denies human rights, free-

dom of speech and freedom of the press. Each

lodges all power in the hands of a dictator. Such

a concept of the state is absolutely contrary to the

teaching of the Catholic Church.” (2)

So it is in truth. Catholicism can not make

U) The New York Times, Feb. 11, 1944
< 2) Ryan, Bishop Vincent J., March 1, 1944



16 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

common cause with Fascism—whether it is black-
shirted, red-shirted, or brown-shirted. The color

of the shirt makes no difference; what matters is

what it covers, and in each case it covers a dictator-

ship that is abhorrent to Catholicism.

Catholicism is a friend of true democracy be-

cause it believes in and defends the natural and in-

alienable rights of man. These give life to de-

mocracy’s chief characteristic—the participation of
the people in their government. Is the Catholic

Church unsympathetic to this idea of democracy?

Not at all.

Let us listen to her most brilliant scholar, Saint

Thomas Aquinas. Writing about the middle of the

thirteenth century when Catholicism enjoyed its

greatest bloom, he declared that the best form of

government is one in which the people participate

through the election of those who will govern

them. (3) For such participation by the people he

adduces the authority of the Scriptures as evidence.

Moses asked the people when he led them out of

Egypt, to select from among themselves wise and

understanding men to help him in the work of

government. (4) It was government with consent

of the people.

The doctrine of Aquinas was in accord with the

elective system of government of his day. The

historical records of the Middle Ages show forth

instance after instance of government derived from

the consent of the governed. “Thus in his Chronicle
,

under date of 1199, Matthew Paris gives a reported

conversation of Archbishop Hubert explaining why

he had proposed John Lackland as king to the

(3) Thomas, Summa Theologica I-II, q. 105. a. 1
<4 > Deut. 1, 13



DOUBLE TALK FROM SPLIT TONGUES 17

barons and to the people assembled for his corona-

tion, and why he had preceded his proposal by say-

ing: 'None has succession to this kingdom, unless,

after invoking the grace of the Holy Spirit, he be

unanimously elected by the whole of the king-

dom.’
” (5) Note, this was said more than seven

hundred years ago.

The king or ruler was a law-giver only by

virtue of his being chosen and accepted by the

people. Another instance. In 1158 the Archbishop

of Milan is reported as having said to Frederick

Barbarossa : “Know that all the right of the people

in the making of the laws has been granted to you.”

As far back as 827, in the days of the Carolingian

Empire, the chronicles record that only by consent

of all had ordinances of the ruler been added to

the basic law, the Salic Law, and, hence, they are

“no longer to be called capitularies (ordinances)

but only law and indeed to be held as law.” (6)

Thus it was in German, English, French, and Italian

lands. There was more of democracy in those days,

in the sense of government derived from the con-

sent of the governed, than is generally known.

Finally, it is pertinent to recall that it was a

Cardinal of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Langton,

the Archbishop of Canterbury, who headed the

barons when they appeared before King John of

England, compelling him to underwrite the rights

and liberties formulated in perhaps the most fa-

mous and most influential public document among

English speaking people—the Magna Charta. This
was in 1215. This celebrated document is admitted

by all to be the foundation of all that modern de-

mocracies hold to be precious and sacred.

(5) Jarret, 0. P., Social Theories of the Middle Ages p. 120
(6) ibid. p. 20



18 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

Did Catholicism depart from this teaching?

Let’s look once more at the historical record. When

the autocratic king of England, James I, asserted

for himself divine rights to justify his absolutistic

rule, the eminent Jesuit scholar, St. Robert Bellar-

mine, championed the divine rights of the people;

so, too, did his eminent Spanish colleague, also a

Jesuit, Francis Suarez. By royal edict the latter’s

books were solemnly and publicly burned. This all

happened at the beginning of the seventeenth cen-

tury.

Their defense of the principles of democracy

found its way into the writings of the English so-

cial philosophers of that period, particularly, John

Locke, who in turn influenced Thomas Jefferson,

the author of the Declaration of Independence.

Fascism in its different colored garb has raised

“totalitarianism to the dignity of a new religion.” (7)

To this new religion the Catholic Church is definite-

ly opposed. The sympathetic attitude of the Cath-

olic Church toward democracy is sufficiently evi-

denced by the little known, but highly important,

encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Christian Democracy,

issued in 1901, as well as by the friendly attitude

toward democratic nations, such as Switzerland and

France in Europe, and toward our own United

States.

We conclude with the famous phrase of Leo
XIII : “If democracy is Christian it will do a great

deal of good to the world.” But the democracy must

be a true democracy, that is, government by the

people to the exclusion of one party, one class, or

one clique; and it must be Christian, that is, it

must affirm Christian principles on which to base

sane national and international policies.

U) The New York Times, Feb. 4, 1944



MASTER, BE A SERVANT

The first article in the creed of Fascism was

stated by Mussolini as follows: “Nothing against

the state, nothing above the state, nothing outside

the state.” Whatever the color of their shirts,

the dictators of our day have placed this article

at the head of their fascistic creed. Discarding

its role as a servant, the fascistic state makes itself

the master of all. It is a new declaration of in-

dependence—this time, not in favor of the rights
and liberties of man, but in favor of an all-wise,

all-powerful state. To this overlord state we say:

“Master, be a servant. You have usurped your

throne
;
you have taken a scepter to which you have

no right; you have placed a crown upon your head

that belongs to the people. Go back to the place

assigned to you by God, and be a servant.”

The principles of social ethics of Catholicism

definitely affirm that the state’s function is that

of a servant. We do not mean to say thereby that

the state is in a condition of servitude. We mean

to say that the state has been established by men

to serve them in the pursuit of their earthly and

heavenly happiness.

This service of the state to men is twofold:

first, it is a service of protecting its members in

the exercise of their human rights; and secondly,

it is a service of promoting their prosperity and

happiness.

The state’s first duty is to protect the rights

of its citizens. These are basically the rights to life,

property, and security; the rights to work, family

life, and religion. Unless man is free to exercise



20 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

these rights, he will not be able to discharge the

duties laid on him by the Creator. For, rights are

means by which men are enabled to fulfill their

duties toward themselves, toward others, and to-

ward God. The state may not absorb nor abolish

these rights. If it does so, it oversteps its bounds;

it gets to be a tyranny.

That all is simple teaching, and so clear and

obvious that it needs no further explanation.

And yet, there has arisen a school of thought

which boldly asserts that man has no natural, in-

herent, and inalienable rights. Whatever rights

he has, come from the state. Such teaching is not

exactly new. It goes back to the seventeenth cen-

tury. Concerned with bolstering up the absolutis-

tic rule of the Stuarts in England, Thomas Hobbes

(1588-1679) held that whatever the state decrees

is just, and therefore right. There are no rights

except from the state.

This idea of state absolutism, like the seed of

a weed, was carried to other countries, Germany and

France particularly. It grew, flowered, and bore

fruit. Today state absolutism is flesh and blood

of all systems of Fascism, whether red, black, or

brown. Pius XI condemned it in these words:

“Almost everywhere it is said that everything be-

longs to the state; that is, the totalitarian state,

as it is called; nothing without the state, every-

thing for the state. This error is so evident that

it is astonishing that men, otherwise serious and

talented, say it, and teach it to the masses.” (1)

Interested in the well-being of youth this same

Pontiff said in his encyclical letter, in which he

(1) Pius XI, Principles of Peace, 1297



MASTER BE A SERVANT 21

condemned Italian Fascism, that an idea of a state

which without exception, makes the rising gen-

eration, from its tenderest years up to adult life,

the exclusive possession of the state can not be

reconciled by a Catholic either with Catholic doc-

trine or with the natural rights of the family. (2)

If all rulers of nations had seen these danger-

ous trends of Fascism, as did Pius XI, and if they

had just as fearlessly condemned them, and taken

action against them with the powers these rulers

possessed, such as he did not possess, the world

would have been spared the bloody tragedy in

which all peoples everywhere are today playing

an unwanted part.

The state’s second duty is to promote the well-

being of its members through the pursuit of the

common good. The promotion of the common good

is the state’s first law, Benedict XV declared at
the close of the First World War. (3) All its gov-

ernmental enactments, all its administrative mea-

sures, all its legislation must be directed toward the

promotion of the common good. For the achieve-

ment of this purpose equal opportunities must be

given to all, whether rich or poor, whether high or

low, in no matter what station of life. Those in

control of the state must constantly be on their

guard not to favor special interests, or special

groups, or special organizations. Lobbying, pres-

sure politics, or class legislation is harmful to the

common good.

Where abuses occur the state has not only the

right but also the duty to intervene. Leo XIII ex-

(2) Pius XI, ibid. 1052

(3) Benedict XV, ibid. 654



22 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

pressed this principle in this way: “If, therefore,

any injury has been done to or threatens either

the common good or the interest of individual

groups, which injury can not in any other way be

repaired or prevented, it is necessary for public

authority to intervene.” (4)

State intervention, however, has its limita-

tions, lest it develop into a fascistic system of

government, regulating and regimenting every phase

of human life. As late as June, 1941, Pius XII

cautioned against an overextension of state power.

His words are deserving of attention. He said:

“To deduce such extension of power from the care

of the common good would be equivalent to over-

throwing the very meaning of the word common

good, and to falling into the error that the proper

scope of man on earth is society, that society is

an end in itself, that man has no other life which

awaits him beyond the life which is closed here

below.” (5)

The ideas of Fascism on the state are so false

and so contradictory to Catholic social doctrine

that repeatedly they have been condemned by the

sovereign Pontiffs. No one was more vigorous in

condemnation of them than Pope Pius XI. His

pontificate saw the tremendous rise of Fascism.

In Italy it has been boldy proclaimed by the

Minister of Justice in the Italian Cabinet, Signor

Alfredo Rocco, that “for Fascism society is an end,

individuals the means, and its whole life consists

in using individuals as instruments for its social

ends. Individual rights are recognized only in so

far as they are implied in the rights of the state.”

( 4 ) Leo XIII, ibid. 148
O) Pius XII, ibid. 1685



MASTER BE A SERVANT 23

Such doctrine met with the explicit condem-

nation of Pius XI who in his Christmas allocution

of 1926 said—note eighteen years ago: “We again
see an idea of state making headway which is not

a Catholic idea, because it makes the state an end

unto itself and citizens mere means to that end,

absorbing and monopolizing everything.” His

words of warning against the menace of the false

idea of Fascism on the state went unheeded. What

did the statesmen of nations do about it? Nothing.

They let the world of false ideas drift along. There

are still countless people, learned even and edu-

cated, who do not see destruction and death in

certain ideas. Perhaps they see it now.

As he condemned Italian Fascism, so, too,

Pius XI condemned German Fascism, and for the

same reason. His encyclical letter “Mit Brennender

Sorge,” written on the Condition of Religion in

Germany, bears testimony to that. The Nazi au-

thorities forbade the distribution and reading of

this letter. Dr. Goebbel’s propaganda machine

howled it down as “political Catholicism.” This

was not a new charge. It was made against the

early Church in days of persecution under the Ro-

man Emperors; it was heard in succeeding cen-

turies; and it is heard again in our day. It is the

outcry of despots who want to exercise unlimited

power.

The Catholic Church inculcates a high regard

for the state. In her doctrine the state is supreme

in the temporal domain; she recognizes its auth-

ority as coming from God through the channel of

the collective body of men in whom earthly power

is vested; she inculcates reverence for and obe-

dience to legitimately constituted authority. All



24 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

that has been stated time and time again in papa*

pronouncements on this subject.

As clear and as plain as her teaching is on the

nature and the function of the state, no less clear

and plain is her teaching on the limitations of the

powers of the state. She reminds those exercising

these powers that the state is not a master but a

servant. Men have formed the state in order to be

served, not mastered, by it, both for the protection

of their rights and the promotion of their well-being.

To the state, therefore, that has arrogated to itself

a dominion that it does not rightfully possess free

men cry out: “Master, be a servant.”

The Catholic Church supports men in this de-

mand. She does not make it her concern to tell

them what form of government they should choose.

That is their affair. Throughout her long history

of centuries she has lived in peaceful relationship

with every kind of form of government—monarchies
and republics, aristocracies and democracies.

The rights of men, however, are sacred to her.

These she will defend, as she has always defended

them. Such defense has made her the object of

cruel attack by despotic powers—by the tyrannical,
absolutistic, fasoistic powers of our day.

The cult of the state has been on the rise. Will

the state be master or servant? That is the critical

question. If the firm answer of peoples everywhere

will be: “Master, be a servant/’ rights and free-

doms will be safe
;
if not, civilization will be pushed

into the black abyss of ruin.



BLACK IS NOT WHITE

That Fascism has hurled a challenge at the

supremacy of the moral law needs hardly to be

demonstrated. The rejection of the moral law is

inherent in its system. Fascistic dictatorship can

not tolerate the moral law, and still be a dictator-

ship. The moral law irritates, restrains, and curbs

the dictator; its supremacy stands in his way, and,

therefore, he kicks it aside. The absolutism of

Fascism is so absolute that it will refuse submis-

sion to the one thing that is absolute—moral law;
this law is as absolute as God from Whom it pro-
ceeds. Sin, and vice, and crime, the moral law

calls black, and nothing that Fascism’s dictators

say will ever make them white. Black is not white.

Red-shirted Fascism has openly and boldly pro-

claimed its rejection of the moral law. Lenin, the

founder of atheistic Communism in Russia, has

given us an instance. Contemptuously he char-

acterized truth “as a middle-class virtue.” All

the deceitful, lying tricks of Communism’s propa-

ganda have their source in this pernicious principle.

Truth is not held in honor, and consequently the

solemnly pledged word, given in agreements, pacts,

or treaties, is cast aside as soon as it no longer

serves the interests of the state.

For illustration let us see what happened with-

in recent memory. The Soviet Union signed with

Poland the Kellogg Pact, renouncing war as an in-

strument of national policy on February 9, 1929;

a Non-Aggression Pact on July 25, 1932; the Con-

vention for the Definition of the Aggression, July 3,

1933; the Polish-Soviet Protocol extending the Pact



26 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

of Non-Aggression until December, 1945; the Joint

Communique issued by the Governments of Poland

and the United Socialist Soviet Republics (U.S.S.R.)

on Polish-Soviet relations. All these treaties and

agreements have been broken by the Soviet Union.

They were more than broken. In direct violation

of them, before the present war was a month old,

the Red armies fell upon helpless Poland from the

East, while it lay prostrate under the iron heel of

Hitler’s armies. The events of September, 1939,

are still so fresh in our memories that they need

not be recounted. Finland, too, had earlier become

the tragic victim of Russia’s broken word. This

small nation had relied too much on the good, old-

fashioned middle-class virtue—truth—in its rela-
tions with its unscrupulous neighbor.

Today the principles of the Atlantic Charter

lie shattered on the bloody soil of Eastern Europe.

There is great anxiety in both Washington and

London over the aggressive, unilateral action of

Moscow. There is one refreshing sign. Courageous

voices are being heard in increasing volume in

our country because of a policy of appeasement

that is bringing the principles of the Atlantic

Charter and of the Declaration of Moscow and

Teheran into greatest peril.

Black-shirted Fascism showed hardly less re-

gard for the pledged word. Mussolini signed the

Lateran Treaty with the Vatican in February, 1929.

It guaranteed freedom of religion for the youth of

Italy. Mussolini broke these promises. Catholic

clubs were closed, their libraries, furnishings, and

office equipment confiscated, and it was forbidden

to reopen them. This occasioned a protest by Pius

XI in his famous letter Non Abbiamo Bisogno of



BLACK IS NOT WHITE 27

June 29, 1931. Knowing that its publication would

be prevented by the fascist police, he had the of-

ficial Italian text carried abroad by special messen-

gers to be printed there together with authenticated

translations.

‘‘In this encyclical Pius XI openly condemns the

fascist theory of the state as an end of the in-

dividual, deplores the ill-treatment of Catholic youth

organization, and defends it from the charge of

seeking to engage in politics; he recognizes the

distressful position of the faithful forced to take

the fascist oath, and declares authoritatively that

such an oath can be tolerated only on condition that

each individual in taking it shall do so with the

intent of reserving the rights of God and of con-

science—a reservation that must be openly expressed
if necessity arises, to remove any ambiguity of pro-

fession of faith and of respect of Catholic mor-

ality.”
(1)

The Italian Fascist Government, also, wan-

tonly broke its Treaty made with Abyssinia in 1928.

The aggression is too well known to need rehearsing.

Asserting his right under Article 24 of the Lateran

Treaty to make his moral and spiritual protest

heard, Pius XI, in his address of August 27, 1935,

expressed his mind in clear and explicit words on

this unjust war. It was by far more than was done

by the Great Powers of the League of Nations who

took great care to exclude all moral implications.

After his successful campaign Mussolini order-

ed the illumination of Rome to celebrate the victory

;

the Vatican was the only dark spot in Rome. He
ordered the ringing of all bells in Italy at 3 :15 p.m.,

a) Sturzo, Luigi, Church and State, p. 491, New York, 1939



28 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

the date of the conquest; the bells of St. Peter were

silent. Pius XI rebuked the fascist press for having

made it appear that he endorsed the conquest. When

Mussolini sought to have the Pope crown Victor

Emmanuel Emperor of Abyssinia, the Holy Father

refused. He would not and could not call black,

white.

Brown-shirted Fascism followed the same path

of broken pledges. Like Lenin, Hitler glorified the

lie. “The bigger the lie,” he wrote in Mein Kampf,

“the more readily will it be believed.” The ink was

scarcely dry on the document of the Concordat, made

with the Vatican in 1933, when it was broken.

Hitler changed the meaning of the agreement, Pius

XI charged, evaded its provisions, and emptied its

terms of all significance. Of this the Roman Pontiff

said in his encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge: “We

have done everything to defend the sanctity of a

word solemnly pledged, to protect the inviolability

of obligations freely undertaken, against theories

and practices which, if officially approved, must

destroy all confidence and render valueless any word

that might also be pledged in the future.” (2)

Spoken in 1937 these were prophetic words.

There came Munich, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Po-

land, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France—one brok-
en pledge after another.

Worse things came. They had to come. Men

who reject the reign of the moral law in one thing

will have no scruples about observing it in another.

Nothing will be held sacred, neither the life of

individuals or of nations, nor their property, nor

their other God-given rights. What happened in

(2) Pius XI, Principles of Peace, 1169



BLACK IS NOT WHITE 29

the Reign of Terror in the days of the French

Revolution was re-enacted in modern dress before

our own eyes. Brave men and women who opposed

Fascism were sent into exile^ into Siberia or into

concentration camps such as Dachau; they were

liquidated in Russia or purged in Germany; tjieir

property was taken away, families were torn apart,

their members scattered and driven into foreign

lands. Unheard of atrocities were committed

against racial minorities, against women and child-

ren. The barbarism that ensued has chilled the

hearts of men with horror throughout the world.

We were shocked that such barbarities could

happen in this day and age, which boasts of its

culture and civilization. They have happened

—

right before our own eyes. It has always hap-

pened when men reject God’s law. “They are the

natural fruit of a system which lacks all inner re-

straint,” writes Pius XI in his encyclical on Athe-

istic Communism. He continued: “Tear the very

idea of God from the hearts of men, and they are

necessarily urged by their passions to the most

atrocious barbarity.” (3)

Defender of God’s moral law, Catholicism can

never favor nor approve amoral Fascism. Catholi-

cism teaches a doctrine on the moral code that is

poles apart from that of Fascism.

First, it teaches that moral principles are de-

rived, not from the economic order, nor from so-

cial usages and customs, nor from the state, but

from God. The moral law is written by the Finger

of God on the tablets of the hearts of men, which

(3) Pius XI, ibid. 1215



30 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

the reason of man, not darkened by sin or pas-

sion, is able to read. So St. Paul already taught

the pagans of Rome. (4) The natural, moral law

is given to all men, pagan or Christian, Jew or

Gentile, as a guide for their moral conduct.

% Second, Catholicism teaches that this moral

law is sacred. It is strengthened by God’s Ten

Commandments. Their dictates were binding on

the Jews of old; they are binding on us all in our

day. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is as ex-

acting in our day as it was in days long past. De-

cent Americans have cause to reflect that a recent

flagrant violation of this law met with hardly a

hint of disapproval in the public press, all the

while that lamenting is heard on every side about

the great increase of juvenile delinquency. Wear-

ing the honored garb of a soldier of our armed

forces or being the father of quads does not change

black into white. Adultery is always black
;

it

can never, never be made white.

Third, Catholicism teaches that moral prin-

ciples are unchangeable—as unchangeable as the
stars in the heavens. They come from the un-

changeable God; they are ordinances of His Divine

Mind. In a striking statement, having his eye on

the amoral and unmoral principles of German Fasc-

ism, Pius XI wrote: “God has given His com-

mandments in His capacity as Sovereign. They ap-

ply regardless of time and space, country or race.

As God’s sun shines on all that bear human counte-

nance, so does His law know no privileges nor ex-

ceptions. The rulers and the ruled, crowned and

uncrowned, high and low, rich and poor, all alike

Romans, 2, 15



BLACK IS NOT WHITE 31

are subject to His law.” (5) Everybody is subject

to the moral law—also the state and those in power
in the state, duces and fuehrers, kings, presidents,

and prime ministers, generals and admirals, all

who rule, and all who are ruled. They can not,

under the moral law, make might right, and co-

erce smaller and weaker nations to do their bidding

against their will; they can not, under the moral

law, justify their use of unlawful means by as-

serting that the end is good, because the end never

justifies the means; they can not, under the moral

law, say, “everybody is doing it,” for what the

moral law calls black can not be made white by the

whim and will of a majority; they can not, under

the moral law, call a wrong deed black today, and

tomorrow justify it by calling it white. To admit

such principles in moral conduct in only one in-

stance justifies from that hour on the crimes that

a gangster or an assassin commits, be he an in-

dividual or be it the state. On what grounds can

terrorism, or barbarities, or atrocities be condemn-

ed if men, to suit their pleasure, or their interest,

or their gain, make moral standards? If we assert

for ourselves the right to set up at pleasure moral

norms, why have not Hitler, and Stalin, and Tojo

the same right? On what grounds can their atro-

cious crimes be condemned?

The need of the hour is the reaffirmation of

the principles of the moral code and their uncom-

promising application in every situation of hu-

man life. The hopes and prayers of mankind for

a just and durable peace depend on it. This is as

certain as that black is not white.

Pins XI, Principles of Peace, 1173



WANTED—RICH MEN

Fascism recognizes Catholicism as its arch foe.

Attacks of fascistic powers make that evident.

Friends do not attack friends.

In its whole ideology Catholicism is opposed to

Fascism. The basic ideas of Catholicism on the

dignity of the human person with its consequent

natural rights and freedoms, on the principle of

equality as the essence of true democracy, on the

service role of the state as opposed to master

domination, on the supremecy of the moral law

with its checks against dictators, and on the sanctity

of religion with its rich resources of spiritual as

against material values—these ideas of Catholicism
stand in direct opposition to the ideas of Fascism.

In the field of these ideas they can never meet on

common ground.

Fascism under Communism in Russia has open-

ly made war on religion. That is known to all the

world. Based on materialism and thereby denying

the very existence of the spiritual, Communism

has refused to allow religion in Russia to live.

Religion was not only derided as “the opium of the

people” but was officially assaulted by the creation

of a government-sponsored and government-financed

League of Militant Atheism. Bezboshnik—The God-
less, was its official publication. Just prior to the

war a Museum of Atheism was under construction

in Moscow.

Satanical banners against God were unfurled

to the winds. Through a diabolically planned pro-

gram of publications and pictures every attempt



WANTED—RICH MEN 33

was made to tear belief in God out of the hearts

of the young. The blasphemies that were heard

in speech and seen in cartoons were shocking. A
few years ago they were on exhibit in this country.

Churches were closed and turned into theaters,

museums, or even barracks for soldiers; bishops

and priests, indeed the clergy of all denominations,

were no longer permitted to hold services; a great

number of them were sent into Siberia, confined in

concentration camps under horrible living con-

ditions, or simply killed.

The new city of Magnitorsk in the Ural Moun-

tains, with a population of several hundred thous-

and people, boasts of not having a single church,

Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant. No chaplains

accompany the soldiers into battle; millions have

died unprepared on their journey into eternity.

To the credit of the Russian people, at heart

deeply religious, opposition was shown to these

devilish assults on religion. The atheists in power

had to relent. Here and there a few churches are

now open. It is claimed that about one-third of

the urban population, at the least, still goes to

church, and about two-thirds of the rural popu-

lation. Recently a faction of the Russian Orthodox

Church was recognized by the Soviet Government,

but neither the Catholic nor the Protestant Church.

The present Patriarch of the Russian Church is

under Stalin’s thumb. No one who knows the

tricks of deception of the past, played with con-

summate skill by the top-leaders of Communism

in Russia, trusts the few concessions made to re-

ligion. American and British statesmen are these

days experiencing, to their bitter chagrin, some of

these deceitful tricks in the field of politics. The



34 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

patience they have been showing in the appease-

ment to Stalin is wearing thin.

Pius XI was no appeaser of the Atheistic Com-

munism of Soviet leaders. He issued an encyclical

against it in March, 1937. Unhappily the mem-

ories of people are short; in the space of these few

years they have forgotten the warnings that the

Sovereign Pontiff issued at that time against the

menace of Atheistic Communism. And the mem-

ories of statesmen, apparently, are short also, other-

wise they would have given heed to the Pope’s ad-

monition : “Communism is intrinsically wrong, and

no one who would save Christian civilization may

collaborate with it in any undertaking whatso-

ever.” (1) Laughingly statesmen answered in the

words of a proverb :“We shall walk with the devil

until we have crossed the bridge.” But they for-

get that the devil has the power to clutch throats

before men get to the bridge. That is happening

today, and men are gasping for breath in fear that

Communism will sweep over all Western Europe.

Stalin’s red star is growing brighter and brighter

in the skies of Europe; Hitler’s is fading out.

At the height of his power Hitler was no less

a foe of religion than Stalin. His methods were

different. The Church was allowed to exist, but

she was hampered in all her work. Her clergy

was told to confine their activities within church

walls. Religious organizations were suppressed,

particularly those of youth. Religious schools were

either closed or were slowly strangled to death by

not being permitted to take any new students. If

not outlawed, religious publications were prevented

(1) Pius XI, Principles of Peace, 1247



WANTED—RICH MEN 35

from publishing anything but strictly religious news.

Activities in the field of social action in the in-

terest of charity, youth, workingmen, or farmers

were prohibited. Atheism was not preached and

fostered as in Russia, but the cult of the pagan

Teuton gods was revived. Neo-paganism was giv-

en every encouragement. Every possible means

was employed to de-Christianize the German peo-

ple. The publications of Naziism in discussing re-

ligious matters continued to use Christian terms

but gave them a meaning absolutely out of harmony

with Christian tradition. It was heresy in a stream-

lined form.

In his celebrated encyclical “Mit Brennender

Sorge,” to which reference has been made a number

of times, Pius XI described in detail this diabolical

perversion of Christian truth. Because of such

cunning deception there were those who said that

there is no religious persecution in Germany. This

is the Pope’s answer : “We shall call things by

their real names. In Germany there is indeed a

religious persecution. It is said, and it has been said

for some time past, that this is not true. We know,
on the contrary, that there is a terrible persecution

;

only a few times previously has there been a per-

secution so terrible, so fearful, so grievous, and so

lamentable in its far-reaching consequences. This

is a persecution in which neither brutality, nor

violence, nor the deceits of cunning have been lack-

ing.” (2)

Against these assaults of Fascism under Nazi-

ism the Church has stood firm. The German Bish-

ops together with their clergy, under the leader-

<2 > Pius XI, ibid. 1278



36 THE CHURCH, FASUISM AND PEACE

ship of Cardinal Faulhaber, have not relented, even

in these days of war, to assert the sacred rights of

man and of God in matters religious. As a result,

in the words of a Swedish observer, Mr. Fredborg,

the prestige of the Church has grown tremendously.

Once more the blood of martyrs becomes the seed

of Christians.

To stem the black, raging waters of irreligion

and paganism these grave times need men in whose

hearts belief in God is a strong and living convic-

tion. Lip-service to religion is totally inadequate.

Men are wanted who are rich in the belief, love,

and service of God.

Let us face facts honestly. In our own country,

with all its reverence for religion, millions of per-

sons, young and old, are spiritually poor. In re-

ligious matters they are illiterates. They know

little about God, less about His Divine Son, and

practically nothing about the Church He founded

for the salvation of their souls. Indifference to-

ward God, and, in consequence, toward religion is

appalling. When, according to a poll taken last

year, twenty per cent no longer have any religious

belief, when fifty per cent never pray, when sixty

to seventy per cent no longer have any church affili-

ation, who will say any longer that we still are a

religious people? Religion has to go deeper than

putting on our coins: In God we trust, or opening

the sessions of Congress with prayer, or hearing a

pious proclamation from the President on the ob-

servance of Thanksgiving Day.

People everywhere want peace—an early and
an enduring peace. They shall not have it with-

out religion.



WANTED—RICH MEN 37

Without religion they shall not have God-fear-

ing men, and if the statesmen who will assemble to

make the peace have not the fear of God in their

hearts, neither shall they have His wisdom. “The

fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,” say the

Scriptures. How can a good peace be made with-

out God’s wisdom?

Without religion nations will not have honest

statesmen. They will lie, they will say one thing

and mean another, they will keep neither promise

nor pledge, they will fool by deceitful words, as

they have always done, the people who have placed

their trust in them.

Without religion people will not have courage-

ous men. It takes great courage to set respon-

sibility to one’s country above responsibility to a

political party, or to a favorite clique, or to sel-

fish groups, or to greedy pressure groups. States-

men who recognize that they have a responsibility

in conscience to God for the manner in which they

use the powers of a political office may not always

be popular but in the end they will have been a

nation’s greatest asset.

Without religion we shall not have reverent

men. How shocking the profanities and blasphem-

ies heard on every side. They are a disgrace to

our armed forces. We hung our heads in shame
when we read recently that General Eisenhower

had to issue regulations in this matter because of

the scandal our soldiers in England were causing

on account of profane and filthy speech. In the

Yugoslav armies under General Tito the use of

profane and blasphemous words is made a disci-

plinary offense. How can we expect blessing on
our arms if a million times over, each hour of



38 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

the day, God is petitioned to damn them and those

who use them? And what a terrible thing it is

that men die with a curse instead of a prayer on

their lips! Once that reverence for God is lost,

all is lost. It is impossible to have reverence for

anything less than God.

Wanted—Rich Men, rich in their religious con-
victions, in honesty, in courage, and in reverence.

These are the men that will save the day. No

others will. Reason and experience both forbid us

to expect that we shall prosper if we exclude the

religious principle from our national life. Without

God there will be no peace. Unless the Lord builds

the structure of peace, they that build shall build

in vain.



Part II

WHAT MUST WE DO FOR PEACE?

1. Brotherhood Or Chaos

A weary world longs for peace. What price

would you be willing to pay for peace ? What

sacrifice are you ready to make to bring a lasting

peace to the world? Peace, like victory, depends

upon the sacrifice of many.

To blaze a path for peace we are sacrificing

the flower of our youth and untold quantities of

wealth. What must we on the home front do that

all this waste of human life and human resources,

and all the blood and tears of this tragic era, be

not spent in vain? This is the subject we shall

consider in a series of six broadcasts.

Of course, we on the home front must do our

part in an all-out effort to hasten the victorious

end of the war at the earliest possible date. Ij>ut

we must do more than win a war to bring about

peace. A military victory will open the road to
peace, but will not of itself bring peace. Many

things must be done if the new order that will

follow the war is to be a peaceful order
;
and unless

these things be done, the aftermath of war may

even be worse than the war itself.

If America is to be a messenger of peace to

the world, we must first secure peace and harmony

in our own country. The various classes that make

up the American people must learn to live and work

in harmony. City and country, labor and capital,

white and colored, and members of the various races

and religions—all must learn to cooperate and work



40 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

together for the common good, if we are to have

peace in the nation and peace in the world.

We have just ended another Brotherhood Week.

As a slogan for Brotherhood Week the President

of the United States coined a magnificent expres-

sion— “Brotherhood or Chaos.” We are either
going to acknowledge the bond of brotherhood that

binds us together, or we shall have chaos in the

era that will follow the war. In fact, a want of a

sense of brotherhood to some extent even now

hampers the war effort.

To win the war America needs every ounce

of cooperation on the part of all her citizens. The

enemies of America would like nothing better than

to sow discord in our ranks and ally class against

class. In fact, some editors have described a re-

cent pronouncement by a foreign power as an at-

tempt to pit one religious group in America against

another. Shall we permit them to do this? Unity

and cooperation will be needed also to build after

the war the peace we all long for. Those who sow

dissension between class and class are the most

dangerous fifth columnists. They are saboteurs

of both defense and peace.

Brotherhood Week has a special significance

this year; for even in the midst of our national

crisis and world crisis, many are sowing dissen-

sion and hate in the ranks of the American people.

There are books, magazines, and even daily papers

engaged in sowing the seeds of misunderstanding

and even the seeds of hate between class and class,

between race and race, between religion and re-

ligion.

A new wave of intolerance is on the rise. Un-
less it is arrested in time, the results will be far



BROTHERHOOD OR CHAOS 41

more disasterous than the results of the former

waves of intolerance which have swept the nation.

In view of the world catastrophe, America cannot

stand a wave of intolerance either now or in the

period that follows the war.

The history of our nation shows that waves

of intolerance, like the flu, come periodically in the

United States. Like the flu, intolerance is always

with us; and like the flu, it breaks out in epidemic

form about once in every generation. We have an

epidemic of the flu once in every generation; and

as the people become immune, the malady dies down.

A wave of intolerance also seems to afflict every gen-
eration. The ancient lies are dragged out again

from the dark chambers, where they slumbered

like sleeping germs, and many people will swallow

them again. Finally, society becomes immune and

the epidemic of intolerance dies out. Many people

get the flu but once, and some get it every time

' it comes around. So it is with intolerance. Many

become immune but some get it every time. Some

swallow the hoary lies every time they are passed

around. For some it is not even necessary to

disguise them in a new dress.

What is the cause of intolerance? Intolerance

thrives on ignorance—the ignorance of one class
about another class. Many people have prejudices

although few are ready to admit them. Many people

are victims of inherent prejudice; they are victims

of influences that surrounded their cradles. They

were brought up on distorted ideas and mistaken

notions about their neighbor who belong to another

class. These prejudices prevent them from in-

vestigating and from knowing their neighbor.

People who are prejudiced against a class are prone



42 THE CHURCH, FASCISM ANO PEACE

to believe evil reports about that elass. Even peo-

ple who are not prejudiced are apt to believe evil

reports about a class they do not know.

The soil of ignorance and prejudice is a fer-

tile soil in which to sow intolerance. This soil is

exploited by the sowers of hate.

Who are the sowers of hate? 1. The “crack-

pots” who constitute America’s lunacy fringe. Lu-

nacy has a special love for hate and destruction.

All hate is lunacy. 2. The special interest groups

who strive to further their cause and point of view

by a smear campaign against those who stand in

the way. The chief special interest groups who

promote intolerance today are the Communists.

They promote dissension to prepare the way for

Communism. 3. Individuals who make money out

of intolerance. There are publications which flourish

on intolerance. They prey upon the prejudices of

people and retell the old lies. They promote and

foster intolerance and feed upon it. They go out*

of circulation when the epidemic is over, or con-

duct their business on a smaller scale between the

intervals of epidemics.

Among the most notorious organs of intoler-

ance today is a certain vicious anti-Catholic month-

ly. It is carrying on a smear campaign against the

Catholic Church under the guise of combating anti-

Semitism. The insincerity of the publisher is shown

by the fact that he also denounces Jews who par-

ticipate in organizations for promoting better un-

derstanding between Jews and Christians. His

latest attempt to embarrass Christians, and especial-

ly the Catholic Church, is a proposal that the New

Testament be changed on the grounds that it pro-

motes anti-Semitism. It is true, as stated in the



BROTHERHOOD OR CHAOS 43

New Testament, that a Jewish mob, led by a Jew-

ish highpriest, persuaded a Roman governor to

condemn Christ to death. But when Christians

recall the work of the Jewish mob and the Jewish

highpriest on the first Good Friday, they do not

blame the Jews of today; rather they see the sins

of men through all time as responsible.

As Monsignor Sheen has well pointed out,

Christians are spiritual Semites. The Jewish race

is singularly honored by Catholic beliefs and by

the things Catholics revere. We Catholics believe
that the God-man and the Savior of the world

sprang from the Jewish race. His mother, whom

we hold in higher reverence than any other human

being, was a Jewess. The Apostles and the first

Christians were Jews. The Gospel was first preach-

ed to the Jews, and Jewish converts to the Faith

became the first members of the Church almost

everywhere in the Greek and Roman world. With

a Jew who has religion, all Christians have much

in common—belief in God, belief in the same Ten
Commandments, and belief in the Old Testament.

The publisher of this magazine, of course, has

no interest in combating anti-Semitism. His com-

munistic connections and the communistic connec-

tions of his associates have been traced. Referring

to this particular magazine, a Jewish writer in

Forward, a Jewish daily, states, “The campaign

against anti-Semitism is being used by Communists

for hidden political purposes, and is really result-

ing in making the plight of the Jew worse.” He

does not hesitate to name this particular magazine

a front for Communism.

Tolerance is written in the Declaration of In-

“Forward”, Feb. 22, 1944



44 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

dependence and in the Constitution of the United

States. Where the Declaration proclaims that “All

men are created equal and endowed by the Creator

with certain inalienable rights,” it proclaims the

broad principle of tolerance. The Constitution un-

dertakes to protect the rights of every citizen re-

gardless of his race, color, or creed.

To be effective, however, tolerance must be

written not only on the printed page, but also in

the hearts of men. Tolerance means a recognition

of the rights of our neighbor regardless of race,

color, or creed. It is more than this; for tolerance

also means that we credit our neighbor with sin-

cerity whenever possible and even when he differs

from us. Tolerance does not mean a scrambling

of our beliefs and convictions; but rather a sym-

pathy which leads us to respect the honest con-

victions of our neighbor even when we believe his

point of view to be dead wrong.

Every American who loves his country and

who loves truth will do his part to check the rising

tide of intolerance. Here are a few rules for fight-

ing intolerance:

1. Do not support those who preach hate be-

tween class and class, between religion and religion,

between race and race, between country and city.

2. Beware of those who condemn a particular

class of people. There are good and bad people in

every class.

3. Be slow to believe evil reports. The air

today is surcharged with false propaganda. About

us are the “crackpots,” the self-interest groups, and

the personal profit groups who thrive on the gospel

of hate.

4. Refrain from criticism unless you have



BROTHERHOOD OR CHAOS 45

certain knowledge. Refrain from criticism also

when you know that your criticism will be harmful

and will only fan the flames of hate.

5. Try to know your neighbor. Try to know

and understand the class to which you do not be-

long. Someone has said: “To know all is to love

all.” To this I would say, “To know all is at least

to pity all.” If you knew your neighbor better,

perhaps you would love him.

Tolerance is not enough. Merely to tolerate

your neighbor is not showing very much respect

for him. Jesus Christ has commanded us to love

our neighbor, to love even our enemies, to do good

to those who hate us, and to bless those who cal-

umniate us. No one can claim to be a Christian

who does not love his neighbor and who would do

wrong even to one who has wronged him. We may

not even hate the intolerant. In fact, those afflicted

with the vice of intolerance should often be an

object of pity, especially those whose intolerance is

a result of prejudice which was sown in their minds

even in their childhood.

Intolerance does not mean that we tolerate

everything. We cannot be expected to tolerate
intolerance, dishonesty, crime, and the other things

that are injurious to human society. Fair and hon-

est criticism and even denunciation of false sys-

tems and systems harmful to society is not a viola-

tion of tolerance. Just and honest criticism of

persons is also warranted; but let those who speak

know what they are talking about and be certain

of what they say. Special caution is wise when you

speak of a group to which you do not belong.

The basis of tolerance and love for our neighbor

is a belief in a common brotherhood. All the hu-



46 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

man race are of the same family. While we are

engaged in a war to protect our nation, the com-

mand of our Christian religion forbids us to hate

even our enemies in this war. We may inflict just

punishment without hatred. We may hate evil. We

may hate false philosophies and oppose them; but

we may hate no man. Hatred is one of the things

Jesus Christ condemned above everything else, and

love of all men is the thing He commanded above

everything else.

If we are to have peace in America, we must

recognize the common bond of brotherhood that

exists between the members of all classes, and we

must work together in the interest of all. We shall
have some mighty problems to solve when the war

is over, problems that will demand every ounce of

cooperation on the part of all the citizens of the

nation.

If we are to have world peace, it must be

founded on the recognition of the common brother-

hood that exists between the members of all na-

tions. We cannot build a peaceful world on hate and
intolerance. In fact, we are at war because the com-

mon bond of brotherhood had been forgotten.

The only basis for the brotherhood of man is

the Fatherhood of God. Those who reject God

reject the basis of brotherhood. Those who teach

or hold that man is just another animal, reject the

basis of brotherhood; brotherhood is not recognized

in the animal kingdom. Christ’s doctrine of love

rests upon the fact that we are all children of the

same Father in heaven, all members of the same

human race, and all have intrinsic worth because

we have immortal souls made to the image and

likeness of God.



WHAT MUST WE DO FOR PEACE?

2. The World Of Tomorrow

In the sentimental novels of bygone years, the

ending was always the same
—

“They married and

lived happily ever after.” Multitudes in America

today look forward for a similar happy ending to

our present world conflict—the war will end, and
we shall live happily and peacefully ever after.

It is presumed that peace and an era of great

abundance, marked by freedom from want and

freedom from fear, will follow as a matter of course,

once the Axis Powers are defeated. Many fail to

realize that both peace and security must be pur-

chased at great sacrifices, and that all are called

upon to make these sacrifices.

Unfortunately, this false notion about peace

and this false sense of security leads great numbers

today to be improvident about tomorrow. This is

an era of big incomes for every class. The war

has brought about these big incomes. Few seem

to realize that we are piling up a debt that must

be paid. Large numbers are spending all they earn.

No statistics are available on the cashing in of war

bonds; nevertheless, there is sufficient evidence to

show that many people are cashing in their war

bonds and spending the cash. Even children are

earning big money, and likely the most of them

are spending as fast as they are earning. Too

many parents neglect to teach their children sav-

ing habits.

Out of the good incomes of today, a very large

group are setting aside nothing against the day



48 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

when war work will cease and unemployment be-

gin. In their blindness, they fail to use the mopey

now in their hands to provide for their future se-

curity through the ownership of a home or the

ownership of some productive property. They

seem to go on the assumption that the good wages

will continue indefinitely. Peace and prosperity

after the war is taken as a matter of course. Sav-

ings would contribute to postwar peace and pros-

perity, while excess spending brings about price

inflation and the upset of the financial structure

of the nation. “Let the future take care of itself,”

seems to be the motto of many. They do not un-

derstand that they themselves are helping today

to make the future.

A multitude of problems will face the Ameri-
can people as well as the rest of the world after

we have achieved a military victory. An all-out-

effort for peace at the present moment is as neces-

sary as an all-out effort for war. The two must

go hand in hand. The purpose of the war is to

prepare the way for peace. Just as victory de-

pends on each one doing his bit for victory, so

peace depends on each one doing his bit for peace.

We must do our bit for peace now and not wait

until the war is ended. We must all learn to do

now the things that make for peace and for a better

world.

Peace will not come as a matter of course at

the end of the war. Great sacrifices must be made

for peace, and these sacrifices must be shared by

all. For the first time in our history we shall be

able to use the word, “trillion” in estimating Amer-

ican dollars. The term “trillion” heretofore has

been an astronomical term used to measure the dis-



THE WORLD OF TOMORROW 49

tances between the stars. We shall need the word

“trillion” to count lost dollars. The loss of the war

will be estimated in trillions. In America we shall

count our war debt in the hundreds of billions.

All this must be paid and paid by the American

people. It is a debt which will rest heavily on the

shoulders of all. With such a debt, visions of self-

denial, rather than visions of prosperity, should

haunt us.

Businessmen entertain high hopes of bigger and

better business after the war. To promote bigger

and better business they are studying the needs and

stimulating the wants of people. Attractive ads

in our magazines picture a rosy era of prosperity

to follow the war—an era of more luxurious cars,
better rubber, more powerful gasoline, and an un-

named variety of new gadgets and improvements

to minister to the comforts of the people.

Businessmen are counting on accumulated sav-

ings and accumulated wants to stimulate produc-

tion and sales to an unheard of high.

After the last war we did, indeed, have in-

creased production and sales; we did have an era

of material prosperity. It lasted while the savings

lasted, and was continued for several years through

credit and installment buying. Then came the crash.

What will follow World War No. 2? After in-

dustry, now geared for war production, is adjusted

for peace, we may have a period of material pros-

perity that will overshadow the riotous twenties in

its splendor. It would be an error to mistake it

for a permanent wave as we did in the twenties.

It will last while savings last and until production

catches up to the wants of people who have money.

When purchasing power and credit are gone, the



50 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

wheels of industry must low down with resultant

unemployment and depression. This, of course,

could be avoided by better distribution of purchas-

ing powfer and wise spending of money by the peo-

ple. Wise spending makes for permanent prosperi-

ty.

The stability of society and the happiness of

the people would be made more secure if the people

were encouraged to invest their savings in homes

and in productive property, instead of spending all

on consumptive goods. It is also well to remember

that a three hundred billion war debt will be an ob-

ligation that will rest on every man, woman, and

child in the nation.

The great debt and the loss of property and

money will not represent the greatest loss of the

war. The fabric of human society is being wrench-

ed today to its foundation under the impact of war.

Its effects are extending out to the remote corners

of the nation. A nation and a world must be re-
built when the war is ended. This will demand

the sacrifices and the cooperation of all the people

of the United States. If we are to have peace, man,

woman, and child, must be taught to realize their

responsibilities.

It is a tragic mistake to hide from the Am-

erican people the stern realities that will face us

in the era following the war. It would be better

if they were led to understand that a long period

of penance for the whole world awaits us. It would

be better if people were only made to realize the

sacrifices and labors required of all to bring about

peace and security, and to rebuild a world on the

right foundations.



THE WORLD OF TOMORROW 51

It is a sad mistake to delude the people with the

idea that economic changes, treaties and proclama-

tions about peace for all mankind, will bring peace

and abundant prosperity. Far better would it be

to make the American people aware that a spirit-

ual regeneration is the condition for lasting peace,

for prosperity, and for a reign of justice. Rather

than promise abundance, it would be better to warn

the American people that a civilization founded on

materialism is doomed. If we were to stress the

things that all must do to bring about peace, in-

stead of looking upon peace as something that will

come as a matter of course, more people might rea-

lize their responsibility and make possible a lasting

peace and a better order.

Most people take for granted that we shall

return to the same pattern of life which was before

the war. We shall not return to the same pattern

of life. A new order is in the making. A new
world is being born. The new order will be marked

with great changes in the old fabric of human so-

ciety. Even the wisest man cannot forecast the

pattern of that new order. Let us hope that we

shall succeed in saving our precious heritage of

human rights, our liberties, and our democratic

form of government; otherwise, we shall have won

the war and shall have lost the peace. We shall
have lost the very thing for which we are today

paying such a great price in property and in hu-

man life.

A new order is taking shape today. That order
will be the result of forces at work this very hour.

Whether he knows it or not, each member of the

great American family is today weaving the strands

in the pattern of tomorrow’s world. Your actions,



52 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

your attitude toward life, your character, your

sense of duty to society and to God, and above all

else the, type of training you are giving your child-

ren—all these are helping to determine the pattern
of tomorrow’s world. Even your inaction and lack

of concern will help determine the type of a world

in which you will live.

Certain groups are putting forth efforts to

determine the design of tomorrow’s world. The

Communists are busy, and very busy. If they have

their way in determining the design, there will be

no place for human rights. Shall we leave the de-

sign of tomorrow’s world to the Communists?

Shall we leave the pattern of the new order in

the hands of those who wish to build the world of

tomorrow without God ? Most of the proposed

peace plans find no place for God or for religion.

They aim to secure peace solely through economic

changes, stipulations, and treaties, without re-

course to God, the source of all justice. Although

this was the tragic mistake at Versailles in 1918

and 1919, men still persist in repeating it. God

and the principles of eternal justice had no place at

Versailles where “the high contracting parties” were

made the court of last recourse.

If we are to have peace we must remove the

causes of war. We are in a war today because

man denied the sovereignty of God, and because

man blasted the Christian foundations on which our

civilization had been built. “No God” is emblazoned

on the banners of more than one nation. “No God”

is the fundamental dogma of those who led the

German nation into war. This dogma, with the

denial of the eternal moral law which follows from

it, is the source of all their false philosophy which



THE WORLD OP TOMORROW 53

has threatened the freedom and even the existence

of our own nation. To overthrow this false phi-

losophy is the reason we are at war.

Despite this, some would use the dogma, “There

is no God,” as a corner stone in building tomorrow’s

America. If they have their way, they will laj)

the foundation for another World War. If they

have their way, World War No. 2 will be the sec-

ond in a series that will flare up until civilization

is utterly destroyed.

The President of the United States, on the in-

ception of the war, proclaimed that we were enter-

ing the war to restore Christianity to the world, and

that the war would be in vain if we did not restore

Christianity. In spite of this, most of the peace

plans proposed try to build a peace and a new world

with God left out. Shall we yield to this? Our

civilization is founded on Christian principles, and

it will crumble, if the foundation be removed.

Religion must be the foundation of the new

order. The four freedoms, beautifully enunciated

in the Atlantic Charter, presume a religious foun-

dation. In fact, our belief in the rights of man

presumes a belief in God who gave these rights to

man. The American Charter of freedom proclaims

that the rights of man come from God
—

“All men

are created equal .... they are endowed by their

creator with certain inalienable rights.” On no

other foundation can we offer a defense of human

rights. Belief in God and belief in human rights

stand and fall together.

The four freedoms cannot be achieved except

by a people who recognize God and see in every

man a soul of intrinsic worth. The four freedoms

cannot be achieved without a recognition of an eter-



54 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

nal moral law. This moral law must be written

in the hearts of men. Men must relearn that peace

and freedom are purchased and made secure at

the price of continuous sacrifice.

In the gospel read last Sunday, the tempter

said to Christ, “If thou be the Son of God, com-

mand that these stones become loaves of bread.” (1)

The tempter has often tempted mankind with bread

and the material things represented by bread. At

the basis of war is the worship of material things;

and the greatest conflicts in civil society, which pit

class against class, are over a division of material

things.

And Jesus said to the tempter, “Not by bread

alone does man live, but by every word that comes

forth from the mouth of God.” (2) We can never
build peace, and we can never build a better world

if we are concerned only with material things.

Our civilization was founded on spiritual ideas.

It was founded by men who believed. It was

founded and it grew and developed on the belief

that there is something higher than the material.

It will endure only as long as we keep spiritual

things in the first place.

The first contribution that each man should

make for peace and for a better world is to build

his character on the lines suggested in the gospel.

Peace and happiness in tomorrow’s world depend

upon the degree in which this ideal is realized.

U) Matthew 4: 3

Matthew 4: 4



WHAT MUST WE DO FOR PEACE?

3. The Earth Is Holy

“And God saw all the things He had made and

they were very good.” 1 These words are found in

the last verse of the first chapter of the Holy Bible.

The earth is good and the earth is holy because God

made it for man’s use and enjoyment and because

man draws from the earth all the material things

necessary for his achievements and for the develop-

ment of his personality.

His food, his clothing, his shelter, and all the

material things he needs are derived from the

holy earth. From the earth he derives the materials

with which he builds his cities and creates his mas-

terpieces. From the earth comes even his body,

which may become the temple of the Holy Ghost,

and which returns to mingle with the earth at

death. The earth is holy because from its substance

the human body will one day rise clothed with im-

mortality.

The earth belongs to God and not to man. “The

earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world

and all that dwell therein.” 2 Man is but a steward,

a trustee, of the things his hands handle. He is a

trustee of the earth which God has committed to his

keeping. His trusteeship carries a great respon-

sibility. Man has a duty to use the earth justly and

honestly, having in mind not only the living, but

also posterity. As a trustee, he may not waste and

abuse the riches of the earth. He is a servant of

(i) Gen. 1: 31

Psalm 23: 1



56 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

God. As a faithful servant, each man must have

in mind at all times the rights of his fellow servants-

The earth is holy and the earth is good, be-

cause it provides a superabundance for all living

things, and especially for man. Man’s stewardship

includes responsibility for a just distribution of

the riches of the earth. Where there is just dis-

tribution, no man is in want.

The earth is holy, but man’s stewardship has

been exceedingly bad. His common mistake has

been his failure to recognize that he is only a trustee

and a servant, and that the earth, which was given

for the use of all mankind, belongs to God.

Man is inclined to look upon the earth as a

storehouse of treasures to be plundered by the first

comer. Under the title of absolute ownership,

and without regard for the rights of others, he,

appropriates all he can for himself. In his mad

thirst for personal wealth, man has plundered and

wasted God’s holy earth. He has mined and robbed

the soil. He has denuded the forest, with no thought

of replacing it. He has robbed and wasted the pre-

cious metals stored beneath the earth’s crust. He

has polluted the streams with his refuse. Some

of the streams of North Dakota were beautiful

when God made them, but some of God’s servants

have polluted them with the refuse of the barn-

yard which could have been used wisely to restore

fertility to the soil.

The trustee known as the lumberman, after rob-

bing the forest of its trees, has left behind ugly

masses of debris. The trustee known as the miner,

after extracting the precious metals, has left the

earth scarred and marred with the refuse of the

mine. Not only have these robbed the earth to en-



THE EARTH IS HOLY 57

rich themselves, but they have also left behind

them hideous masses of waste that mar the land-

scape. Even many farmers make unsightly con-

tributions to God’s beautiful earth. A neat farm-

stead is one of the most attractive scenes. Unfor-

tunately, there are not many of them.

Through his wars, man has wrought his great-

est deeds of plunder. War has been his greatest

sacrilege in his management of God’s holy earth.

Through his wars, man wastes the vast resources

stored for man’s use beneath the earth’s crust.

Through his wars man destroys the cities and the

wealth garnered from the earth through the labor

and genius of those who preceded him on the planet.

The wealth gathered by former generations and

the natural resources of the earth belong not only

to the living, but also to future generations.

We are in a war today for the professed pur-
pose of protecting God’s holy earth. It is, however,

well to remember that the unfaithful stewardship

of many in all nations of the world is a cause of

war. Greed and injustice and the failure of man

to recognize his status as a steward make war in-

evitable.

The farmer is especially blessed through his

contacts with the earth. His is one of the most

dignified of all vocations. But let the farmer re-

member that, like the rest of men, he is not an

owner in the strict sense, but only a steward of

the land he uses during his earthly life. He does

not and cannot take his land with him. He takes with

him only the character he has ennobled through

the right use of the soil committed to his care.

The farmer is a steward in a twofold sense.

He is trustee for the rest of mankind as well as



58 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

God’s trustee. He is a steward for the rest of man-

kind because he raises the food upon which the rest

of mankind lives. His is the quasi-public business.

To him the rest of society is indebted. They should

see that his rights are protected and that he receives

a fair return for the benefits he confers upon the

rest of human beings in supplying them with food.

He has a special duty to use the soil intelligently in

the interest of all mankind and for the common

good of all. He has a sacred obligation not to rob

or mine the soil. He has a duty to promote its

productivity for future generations.

It takes brains to be a good farmer. No other

line of work requires such a diversity of knowledge.

The farmer must know the varied types of soil and

the techniques for using them to the best advantage.

He must have a certain knowledge of practical

chemistry to maintain and restore its fertility. He

must know plants and animals. He must also be

a mechanic who knows how to build and how • to

operate and care for machinery. Besides all this,

he must have a knowledge of business and market-

ing.

Special education and study is needed to make

a success of farming. For all other occupations,

the need for special education is recognized. It is

no less needed for operating a farm successfully.

We have self-educated farmers, who not only sup-

plement their practical experience with the newest

scientific developments, but who even improve their

minds by cultural reading. Nevertheless there is

need for practical courses in agriculture in all

schools attended by farm youth.

The occupation of farming develops a spirit of

independence. This is good but often it is carried



THE EARTH IS HOLY 59

too far. It often keeps the farmer from uniting

with his fellow farmers and cooperating with them

in promoting and protecting their mutual interests.

Agriculture is beset with many problems. The

war has hidden most of them. These problems are

not insoluble. They could be solved if the farmers

would unite and work together. Just as city groups

need organizations, so do the farmers need organiza-

tions to promote and protect their mutual interests.

But these organizations must be controlled from the

bottom and not from the top. The farmer group

which is controlled from the top is organized in the

wrong way and there is danger that the leadership

sooner or later will sacrifice the welfare of the

group in its own selfish interests.

Farmers make a great mistake in relying on

some politician, or law, or mere membership in an

organization, to protect and promote their interests.

Without active, sustained, and understanding in-

terest by individual farmers, farm organizations will

not be successful. Nothing can take the place of

sustained, understanding, and active interest on

the part of the individual farmer. The farmer

must think, plan, and cooperate with his fellow

farmers if he is ever going to get out of his dif-

ficulties. The local groups should control the pol-

icies and determine the leadership of their organiza-

tion. This is democracy at the grass roots. And

unless we have democracy at the grass roots, we

have no democracy.

The farmer who owns the soil, in the limited

sense God permits ownership, will take care to

improve on its fertility. The vocation of farming

lacks some of the incentives to greed associated

with business enterprises. The cultivation of the



60 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

fields and daily contacts with nature tend to breed

an appreciation of the higher values in life. The

farmer who owns and tills his own land is a be-

liever in stable institutions. He believes in de-

mocracy and in the principles on which democratic

government rest. Farm groups who own and cul-

tivate their own land are the backbone of a stable

society and the solid basis of democratic institu-

tions.

The farmer should look upon his farm as a

home for himself and for his children, rather than

a money making business. Only with this point

of view, can we hope for a stable and prosperous

agriculture. The farmer should love the holy

earth he tills and the animals he rears. He should

take just pride in the productivity of his soil and

in the high standard of his herds. He should have

a suitable house in pleasant and attractive surround-

ings, equipped with conveniences and labor-saving

devises. Many of the conveniences and comforts

available in the city should be made available to

the farmer. While making a living, he should

have the right to use the labor saving devices and

conveniences modern science has developed.

While there are glittering things in the city

that are not possible on the farm, they are things

that a man should not want. In their place the

farmer has independence, for he knows no master

but God. The farmstead has many things more

interesting than the glittering attractions of the

city. The farmstead is the world’s most intriguing

laboratory, the laboratory of growing things. An

understanding approach to work in this laboratory

has an ennobling effect on the character of the

farmer. A right appraisal of the things that have



THE EARTH IS HOLY 61

real value will cause the farmer and the farmer’s

children to resist the lure of the city. Life on the

land provides better than life in the city for the

spiritual things that should always have first place.

Not only does the farmer provide food for

the nation, but he also replenishes its population.

No one city in America with a population of one

hundred thousand or more, has a birth rate nearly

large enough to maintain its population. Every

one of these cities would die out were it not for

the migration from the countryside. The farm

families of America make it possible for us to think

of a defense army of ten million. The farm home

provides the most wholesome atmosphere for rear-

ing a family. The farm family plan together, work

together, play together, and even pray together.

In no city group today is this happy condition to

be found.

But not all can pursue the vocation of farming

even if they desired it. Cities are needed. The city

dweller, however, has certain rights to God’s good

earth, which was made for all mankind. He, too,

derives his sustenance and all his wealth from the

good earth, for from the great outdors there flows

into the city all its material wealth.

The city dweller, too, has a right to ownership

of land on which to build a home for himself and

for his family. Widespread ownership by city dwel-

lers would, indeed, make for a stable society of

freemen. Fortunate would it be if workers in the

plant and factory had homes on small plots of

land; where they and their families would be pro-

vided with the wholesome atmosphere of rural liv-

ing.

The city dweller also is a trustee of the things



62 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

he handles. As a just servant, he, too, is bound to

promote just distribution. He, too, must always

have in mind the rights of his fellow servants.

Neither the farmer nor the city dweller has a right

to make God’s holy earth unsightly with ugly con-

structions.

God has given the earth for the support of

all mankind. Through countless ages he stored it

with almost unlimited treasures. There is a super-

abundance for all. If misery and want exist on the

good earth, it is because of man’s greed; it is be-

cause man has been unfaithful in his stewardship.

It is because people have but sacrificed to the selfish-

ness of greedy individuals, greedy groups, and

greedy nations.

A recognition of man’s stewardship of the holy
earth is the foundation stone of a secure and last-

ing peace. The world has been catapulted into war

because man has been unfaithful. Earth is a kindly

earth when used rightly and honestly. The just

distribution of its wealth and its resources has been

left to man. When he is unfaithful, just punishment

follows. When he is faithful, there is peace and

prosperity for all.



WHAT MUST WE DO FOR PEACE?

4. Citizens Of Tomorrow

The children and youth of today will be the

active citizens of tomorrow. The future of Amer-

ica and the future of the world is dependent on the

type of training given to the children and youth

of today. In the homes and schools of America,

we are weaving the pattern of tomorrow’s world.

Peace and the better world for which we all hope,

depend in a large measure on the type of training

given to children in the homes and the schools of

today. What type of training are we giving to

the children and youth of this age? This is a most

important question. Our hope for peace depends

in a great measure on the answer.

Here is the favorable side of the picture. We
have homes and schools in America where chil-

dren are receiving the right training and where

children are reared to a sense of duty. We have
parents who give their children a right appraisal

of life. We have parents who are rearing their
children to a sense of responsibility in the face of

the world tragedy. We have parents who teach
their children their duty to God, to country, and

to their fellow man. We have parents who are
training their children to be unselfish.

There is abundant evidence today of sacrifice,

unselfishness, and seriousness on the part of chil-

dren. Many children voluntarily give up movies

and other things they like, so as to have something

to give for a good cause. They are learning and

practising unselfishness. The children of America



64 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

have purchased three hundred million dollars worth

of defense bonds and stamps. A sizeable portion of
these three hundred million dollars represents sac-

rifice on the part of children. Everywhere in the

nation, children are taking their part in the all-

out effort. Especially in their earnest prayers for

victory and peace and for those in service is the

seriousness of many of our young folks revealed

today.

This is one picture of young America. There

is another picture which is not so promising. The

alarming, increase in juvenile delinquency provides

another picture of young America which indicates

all is not well.

The unprecedented increase in juvenile delin-

quency has been the subject of much editorial com-

ment. It has been discussed even on the floor of

Congress. Courts and social welfare groups have

had surveys to determine the cause.

The theory that delinquency, both adult and

juvenile, is confined largely, or entirely, to a sub-

normal or abnormal group of people is, of course,

in the discard. Criminals are not born; they are

made. Poverty has been pointed out as a cause

of delinquency. It has been a cause of much de-

linquency. Grinding poverty is degrading. In the

cities large classes have become shiftless over the

years under the impact of poverty. Children born

in city slums and in rural hovels are handicapped.

Crime and shiftlessness are often their inheritance.

The rehabilitation of disadvantaged families con-

stitutes a special problem for society.

But juvenile delinquency is confined neither to

the subnormal group, nor to the submerged group

who have had insufficient incomes. The wave of



CITIZENS OF TOMORROW 65

juvenile delinquency, which is sweeping the na-

tion, affects the rich and the poor. Of course, cases

involving the poor are more apt to reach the courts.

Among the causes cited for the unprecedented

increase in juvenile delinquency are war hysteria,

mothers in industry, lack of recreational facilities,

and a shortage of teachers. Now all these are

causes, but they are not the fundamental cause.

The fundamental cause is lack of proper training.

A multitude of children are growing up without a
sense of responsibility. The court records are in-

complete. The court records are rather a barometer

which indicate widespread failures that never reach

the attention of the court.

Many children and many adolescents have a

wrong appraisal of life. Reared without the proper

interpretation of life, they look upon life as a joy-

ride. From the funnies, from the movies, from the

printed page, from companions, and even from their

parents, they have derived a distorted idea of life.

To many young people the war is a lark. Their

brothers and friends and relatives in service, in

their way of thinking, have gone on a great adven-

ture from which they will return safe and crowned

with glory, to enter into continuous rounds of pleas-

urable enjoyment. They, too, look forward to the

day when they can don an attractive uniform and

join in the adventure. In the meantime, many

give themselves up to gay living and reckless aban-

don, believing this is the preparation for the great

adventure. They think this is the way to become

men and women. The war, too, has provided them

with an opportunity to earn money, which they

spend as fast as they earn.

In Nazi Germany, youth and even children are



66 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

taught to sacrifice for false ideals. Children and

youth in Germany are making great sacrifices for

a wrong way of life, and they are taking their part

in it seriously. Of course, we know that there are

also many children of religious parents in Germany

today who are showing a spirit of martyrdom in

the practice of their religion. They are accepting

even greater responsibility, and for right ideals. If

children can be taught to make the greatest sac-

rifices for the Nazi ideal of life, surely, we in

America can teach our youth and our children to

sacrifice for high ideals—for God and country and
for the future of the world.

We should teach the children of today the facts
about the past and the future. We should teach
them that the failure of man to live rightly and

honestly is the cause of war. We should teach

them that the denial of God and the rejection of the

moral law is the cause of war. We should impress

them with the seriousness of the situation that con-

fronts the nation and the world. We should em-

phasize the part they must play to bring about peace.

We should teach them that work and sacrifice and

virtuous living, are necessary both for war and

for peace.

Children are idealists. They will work for an

ideal if the ideal is properly interpreted to them.

What our children need today is a proper inter-

pretation of life and an understanding of the serious

role they are called upon to play in life.

We need recreational facilities. Recreational

facilities keep the child and youth busy and use up

time that might be devoted to harmful activities.

Wholesome recreation can be made a means for

developing character. But something more is need-



CITIZENS OF TOMORROW 67

ed. If we were to impress our children and our

youth with the seriousness of the responsibilities

that now rest upon them and the greater respon-

sibilities that will come later, we would achieve

something that recreation can never achieve-

War hysteria has been assigned as an explana-

tion of the disorders among youth today. If we were

creatures without intelligence and will, this would,

indeed, be an explanation. But human beings, en-

dowed as they are with intelligence and will, are

not subject to the fatal push and pull of things. They

can and must adjust themselves to their environ-

ment. The proper interpretation of the world

tragedy is needed. It should be easy to show the

young that the tragedy of the world is a special

reason for seriousness. Teach the young that life is

serious and life is duty.

The breakdown of the home is the chief cause

of juvenile delinquency in the opinion of J. Edgar

Hoover, Chief of the FBI. The home, in fact, is

chiefly responsible also for the failures in the train-

ing of youth that never reach the attention of the

courts.

Parents may argue that the social environment

outside of the home constitutes danger for their

children. This is true, but parents are in a position

to control the social environment of their children

outside of the home. They can exercise a control

that no one else can exercise.

Parents are the divinely commissioned arch-

itects of the characters of their children. When they

contracted the sacrament of marriage, they received

a special grace and a special commission to rear

their children in a proper way. No one can ever

take their place. The school and other agencies



68 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

of human society may help, but they can never take

the place of the father and the mother. What each

child is going to be in later life depends on his

home and on his parents more than on anything

else. When he turns out badly, nearly always it is

due to a lack of solicitude, wisdom, or proper love

on the part of his parents. Fortunate is the child

that has a good home, and God pity the child that

has not a good home. A good home is the greatest
blessing that any child can have.

The good qualities and the defects in the char-

acter of the child most frequently reflects the good

qualities and defects in his home and in the char-

acters of his parents. From parents, children usual-

ly derive their appraisal of life and their attitudes

to wealth, to pleasure, to virtue, and to religion.

Did you ever meet the sophisticated child, the

youngster of 12 or 14, who has the tastes and habits

of the reckless youth of 18? I have met parents who

are fearful over the activities of their precocious

youngsters of that age. Whose fault is it? A little
self-examination would be profitable for parents

who have youngsters in this classification. Perhaps

the parents, too, have been looking upon life as a

joyride, even though their lives may be overlaid

with a thin veneer of religious practices. Perhaps

they, too, have been given over to the gay parties,

characteristic of the modern world. Perhaps they,

too, are readers of improper literature. Perhaps

they have neglected to teach their children that life

is duty.

The proper training of their children is the

chief business in life for both the father and the

mother. Nothing will ever compensate for their

failure in this important work. Let not the father



CITIZENS OF TOMORROW 69

plead that he is too busy with other things and

that the work of training the children is the mother’s

task. The training of children requires not only

the example but also the special interest of the fath-

er. It is a work that should not be put aside for

anything else.

To be a good, father and a good mother requires

much thought and study. Parents should study how

they can best rear their children. It is more im-

portant to do this, than it is to study how to produce

greater crops or bigger business.

Many parents who love their children love them

unwisely. A false love leads them to train their
children in selfishness and without a sense of duty.

They give their children their own way when the

children have no right to have their way. The lives

of many children are wrecked by fond parents who

have a false love for them.

Many parents are misled by the false ideas

abroad today about the training of children. We
are afflicted today with what is called self-expres-v

sion. Self-expression is good. We shall have ample
room for self-expression. But in the modern world

we have self-expression run mad.

There are those who advocate complete liberty

of choice for the child. They caution parents never

to say “no” to the child, lest by so doing, they might

stunt a budding genius. Give the child unrestricted

freedom of choice, and it is obvious that many of

the choices will be wrong.

Obedience should be the first lesson taught. The

child should learn early in life that his parents and

elders know more than he knows. This lesson should

be repeated again and again. Failure to do this

breeds a lack of reverence and respect for all au-



70 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

thority and even for the moral law itself. The

child should, indeed, be taught self-reliance; but

he should also be taught to accept both human and

divine authority.

What is needed today in the training of chil-

dren and youth is discipline. This discipline should

be intelligent and gentle, but at the same time firm.

It can be exercised while at the same time allowing

ample room for self-expression. Perhaps many of

my listeners tonight have loving memories of strict

parents who also set them good example and to

whom they owe a debt that cannot be paid.

Some parents may ask, “How can we exert

discipline today? Our children crave the liberties

given to other children.” When parents are wise,

their children will follow not only their commands

but even their wishes. I know some homes where

there exists no problem of discipline. The children

are not going with the crowd. They learned early

in life to trust and respect the guidance of their

parents and to obey them. Today their habits and

tastes are good because of wise parental training.

They will be leaders in the world of tomorrow.

Jesus Christ came into this world to teach

men how to live. His first lesson was the lesson

of obedience. He spent the first thirty years of His

life in the silence of the home at Nazareth, prepar-

ing for His three years public work. His example

emphasizes the importance of the years of prepara-

tion in the life of everyone. It is during these years

that character is formed and the future made.

Silence hovered over the home of Nazareth

as silence hovers over every good home. We are

given only one glance into the childhood of Jesus.

The curtain lifts only once, and we see the Child at



CITIZENS OF TOMORROW 71
\

the age of twelve in the temple. A few significant
words are spoken and the curtain drops. St. Luke

sums up in two sentences the life of the Child and

youth at Nazareth
—
“And He went down with them

and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them . . .

And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace

before God and men/’ These words tell us what

every home should be— a place of silent growth
where the child learns obedience and grows in wis-

dom with the years and in grace before God and

men. America needs homes of this kind today

more than it needs anything else. They are our chief

hope for peace and for a better world.

Luke 2: 31, 32



WHAT MUST WE DO FOR PEACE?

5. At The Crossroads

This war will bring about great changes in

the social and economic structure of our nation.

Many old things will go. New patterns will take

their place. Many groups and individuals are at-

tempting to determine the pattern of tomorrow’s

world. We must be prepared for many changes.

If common sense prevails, the changes will be in

the right direction.

Many old things ought to go. We should not

want to keep the pattern just as it was in the era

preceding the war. There is a pressing need for

an overhaul job. The inherent evils in our system

that lead to war should be removed. We must also

admit that there were many injustices in the old

pattern that ought to be removed.

With the most extreme radicals we can agree

that there are injustices in our social and economic

system. We disagree, however, with them only

in the proposed remedies. The dictator state,

whether Communist or Fascist, is not the solution.

Our purpose in the war is to prevent either of these

forms of tyranny. At all cost human rights and

liberty must be preserved.

We must, however, be prepared for great

changes. Unless we are prepared for these great

changes and unless we spend our efforts to correct

the evils in our present system and go along with

needed changes, we are apt to get what we do not

want. We are apt to find ourselves living in a state
that recognizes neither human rights nor liberty.



AT THE CROSSROADS 73

We find ourselves today at one of the turning

points of human history. We stand today at the

crossroads of history. These critical turning points

in history have come before. Those who could have

done so, failed to steer the course of change in the

right direction. They failed to make the corrections

in the social and economic system that would have

averted the catastrophe. They failed even to rec-

ognize the inevitable approach of change; and in

the revolution that followed, they perished.

The upper classes on the eve of the French

Revolution, in 1789, could have corrected the abuses

which were bringing on that tragic period of blood-

shed and destruction. They should have recognized

the need for change. As a result of their blindness,

they perished. It was the same with those who

long ruled in Russia. They failed to recognize the

evils in the social and economic system. They tried

to keep things as they were. The revolution that

followed upset the whole system of which they were

a part and carried them to their death.

Great and far-reaching changes are coming, and

for them we must be prepared. We may postpone
them by our opposition for a time; but they will

eventually come and come in the wrong way unless

we are prepared to make the corrections that are

needed. We must be prepared to steer in the right
direction the course of change.

There is need for many changes in our social

and economic structure. It is not geared for a just

distribution of the wealth produced in the nation.

The extremes of wealth and poverty in the United

States cannot be defended. People will no longer

believe that vast fortunes, running into hundreds of



74 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

millions, can be justified, when one-third of the pop-

ulatioil have an insufficiency for a bare subsistence.

The ever recurring depressions, characterized by

want in the midst of plenty, is an indictment of

something in our system. Multitudes without decent

homes with plenty of building material and willing

hands to build, multitudes without suitable clothing

V'ith plenty of material for clothes and willing hands

to fabricate clothes, a superabundance of food and

people hungry—such combinations do not make
sem e. But today when all have good incomes we

ar apt to forget about such matters. There is

something fundamentally wrong with a distribution

system that makes such situations possible. This

something needs correction.

Corrections must be made in our social and

economic system to protect the farmer. At the pres-

ent time, under stress of war, the farmer with the

rest of the nation, is enjoying material prosperity;

but under the operation of the economic rules of

the old system, he is faced again with the prospect

of raising crops below the cost of production.

The laborer’s right to a decent wage, and at

least a living wage, has not always been recognized

in the past. Perhaps even today there are those

who believe that labor should be bought as a chattel

on the market at the lowest possible price. But labor

today is in control. At least a large section of labor

is in control. There is the danger that this control

might result in certain sections of labor getting

more than its just share of the wealth produced.

Through organization, labor is succeeding in getting

its rights
;
but one might question whether organized

conflict should be the enduring method whereby

labor gets its rights. Labor groups might become so



AT THE CROSSROADS 75

powerful that injustice to the rest of society, in-

cluding other laborers, might result.

Our economic system today operates on an

economy of scarcity. By this is meant that com-

modities and services are made scarce in order to

maintain or raise the price. Manufacturers and

processors limit the amount of goods, so as to keep

up the price and make greater profits. Organized

labor aims to keep up wages, by shortening hours,

reducing the output of labor, and limiting the num-

ber of apprentices. When carried too far, this puts

labor in conflict with the rest of society. It puts

one labor group in conflict with another. The farmer,

too, in order to secure just prices for the things he

raises, attempts to control and limit production, and

in some instances, the fruits of the earth are de-

stroyed to secure a just price. This, of course, does

not make sense when people are hungry.

An economy of scarcity pits each group of so-

ciety in bitter conflict with every other group. Even

family is pitted against family when the economy

of scarcity is applied in the limitation of children.

John Jones, the merchant, reasons thus: “If I have

only one child, I shall have more money to spend

on him and also upon myself.” If John Brown, who

has five children, had imitated John Jones’ example,

John Jones would sell only one pair of shoes where

he now sells five. If all groups and individuals in

society were to operate on an economy of scarcity,

the advantage one group or one individual seeks

to gain would be blotted out by action of the others.

An economy of scarcity is one of the weakest

points in our economic system. The advocates of

Communism and Fascism have made this defect a

subject of mocking jibes. Both the Communist and



76 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

the Fascist will tell you that they propose to operate

on an economy of abundance. But, of course, both

sacrifice human rights and liberty.

In the world of tomorrow, we must find some

way of operating on an economy of abundance. Some

form of cooperation in society must replace the eter-

nal conflict between the various groups. Surely man's

ingenuity can devise a new pattern that will secure

just distribution and an economy of abundance. Such

a plan should be the answer to both the Communist

and the Fascist.

I am told that many businessmen recognize that

great changes are in the making. I am told that an

increasing number of businessmen are beginning to

recognize that wealth carries a social responsibility,

and that they recognize a more just distribution is

necessary for the security of our society and for

the maintenance of increased production. If this be

true, there is hope for the future of our country.

We must be prepared to go along with the need-
ed changes in order to avoid forms of state Social-

ism, or even Communism. We want neither of these

because they mean the sacrifice of human rights and

liberty. Let us hope that those who wield power

today will not make the same mistake that people

of influence usually made in the past-

We need an enlightened leadership, but the

average man must take an understanding interest

to correct what needs correcting. “Only an informed

America is an invincible America”—we hear this
slogan daily over the radio. This slogan is true for

peace as well as for war
—

“Only an informed Amer-

ica is an invincible America.” It is, indeed, difficult

today to disentangle propaganda from truth. Even

the meaning of words has been changed. Com-



AT THE CROSSROADS 77

munists have succeeded, at least in part, in chang-

ing the content of the word “fascism,” making it

mean anti-communism. Even the word “democracy”

has lost its original content. The word “democracy”

is used today to stand for systems of government

where the people have no voice, and where human

rights are sacrificed to a dictator or to an all-power-

ful state. Much effort, indeed, is needed to discern

the true from the false. The man, however, with

a character grounded on right principles, is the man

who will quickly recognize the true and the false.

Too many are indifferent to their responsibilities

as citizens. They leave to a few leaders all the think-

ing and all the planning. The average man is a

joiner. He joins a political group, a labor union, or

a farm organization, and then relies on the leaders

of the group to take care of his interests. To make

matters worse, he does not actually select the leaders.

Again and again the result has been the same; the

leaders sacrifice the welfare of the group to their

own selfish purposes.

An intelligent democracy that functions at the

grass roots is required to steer the course of change

in the right direction. We shall have such democ-
racy only when the people in each community of

the nation begin to think and act and elect to po-

litical office and as heads of their organizations men

who represent their thinking. Unless this can be

done, democracy will be on the way out.

God must be the cornerstone of the new order.

“Unless the Lord build the house, he labors in vain

who builds it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he

watcheth in vain who keepeth it.” It is folly to

Psalm 126: 1-2



78 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

talk about human rights unless we recognize that

God gave these rights to man—rights that no one,
not even the largest majority, nor even the all-

powerful state, can take from him. The doctrine

of human rights can be defended on no other

grounds. Without God there are no human rights.

In the many plans for peace there is much talk

about justice for all. It is folly to talk about justice

unless we admit an eternal law of right and wrong

implanted by God in the human heart. There is no

such thing as justice, unless justice be sought in

God’s eternal law. If God be not the corner stone

of the new order in the United States, the prospect

for us is the tyranny of the dictator state in some

form or other. The all-powerful state must then be

the court of first and last appeal.

With God as the cornerstone, the new order

should be built on justice and on charity. Justice to

every group in human society should be the founda-

tion of tomorrow’s America. Just wages, just prices,

and just profits, should be our objective.

The purpose of law is to geeure justice. But man

can and does circumvent the law. While the purpose

of law is to achieve justice, laws alone will not bring

about justice. The virtue and habit of justice must

be implanted in the hearts of men. Laws are futile

unless we have a type of education which trains

men to live justly.

Charity should find its proper place in the new

order. Pius XI calls charity, “the soul of the social

order.” We have large disadvantaged groups in

America that should be the object of charity. Per-

haps some of them are in their present condition be-

Quadragesimo Anno p. 44



AT THE CROSSROADS 79

cause of their own fault. God alone knows the

causes in each individual case. But we do know that

many of them are in their present condition be-

cause of injustice to them or to their forebears.

Without charity, they and their families will re-

main helpless in their present status. They need re-

habilitation, and it is in the interest of human so-

ciety to spend generously for this rehabilitation.

o Our charity must go out to other nations, the

victims of unjust aggressions, and even to vanquish-

ed nations now our enemies in war. After the war,

disease and famine will march across the conti-

nents of Europe and Asia. History will present no

parallel of the distress that will cover a great por-

tion of the world. Millions are doomed to death

from want of food and from malnutrition. Were we

to put every ounce of sacrifice into our efforts, we

would be able to save only a portion of the starving

millions. Nevertheless, Christian charity demands

that every effort and every sacrifice be made to save

suffering humanity and especially the innocent vic-

tims. The period after the war will not be the time

for the untilled fields and for an economy of scar-

city, when millions will be starving. When so

much sorrow and want demand our charity, the

period after the war will not be a suitable time for

self-seeking, money making, luxurious living, and

rounds of pleasure. If we close our eyes to the

needs of suffering humanity, the curse of God will

rest upon us.

We who live today may not hope to see the era
of peace for which we all long. We are entering
on a long period of penance that will not end with

our generation. We must do penance for the sins
of our own generation and the sins of past genera-



80 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

tions. Riotous and unjust living must be atoned

for.

Sufficient for us should it be, if through our

efforts the world may start again on the upward

grade. This will be our joy and our reward. Un-

less we face the facts and strive to better human so-

ciety, especially in our own country, many of this

generation will see dreadful days. With the rest of

the world we stand today at the crossroads of his-

tory.



WHAT MUST WE DO FOR PEACE?

6. Christ And His Church

Last Sunday was Passion Sunday. All symbols

of joy in Catholic churches are draped with the

purple of mourning on Passion Sunday. This is a

reminder that on Passion Sunday we enter again

into the shadow of the Passion.

The shadow of the Passion fell across the whole

life of Jesus Christ. When Simeon, the aged prophet

of the Temple, held the Infant in his arms, he

foretold the Passion, saying to Mary, His mother,

“Behold this child is destined for the fall and for the

rise of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be

contradicted
;

and thy own soul a sword shall

pierce.”
1

His journey through life was always toward the

hill of Calvary; and in the distance, He Who knows

the future, saw the cross. Some ten days before

His crucifixion the shadow began to deepen. His

enemies were beginning to get busy. This fore-

shadowing of the Passion is commemorated on

Passion Sunday. Passion Sunday begins the pre-

lude to Good Friday.

This is Palm Sunday. Today the Church com-

memorates again the triumphal entry of Jesus

Christ into Jerusalem when the crowd met Him

with waving branches of palm and hailed Him as

their king. Before the week would end, the same

fickle crowd, moved by false rumors, would shout

the terrible words : “Away with Him
;
crucify Him.”2

(1) Luke 2: 34

(2 > John 19: 15



82 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

Today the Church begins another Holy Week, and

the faithful everywhere will pause to commemorate

the Passion and death of Christ. During this week

the Church calls all to repentance; for it was the

sins of men through all time, rather than the crowd

around Pilate’s hall and on the hill of Calvary, that

crucified the Son of God.

Jesus Christ loved the world, and He sorrowed

over the sins and follies of men. His message to

men was a message of peace. From the mountains

of history, the prophet Isaias hailed Him as “the

Prince of Peace.” 3 Peace the angels sang at His

birth, and peace was His last word to His Apostles

—

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.”4

Peace was the first word the Risen Christ spoke

to His Apostles
—

“Peace be to you.” 5 This message

of peace was for all His followers in the years to

come—Peace to all who suffer for justice sake

—

Peace to the mother sorrowing for her lost son

—

Peace to the captive in his prison—Peace to the
faithful soldier on the battle front—Peace in the
midst of a world falling into ruin—Peace which
the world can neither give nor take away.

Christ was Eternal Truth. He spoke as no man

ever spoke; but most of the people were too busy

with their farms and their merchandise to listen.

They were not concerned about truth. They did

not want to hear anything that would interrupt their

pursuit of material things. They despised and re-

jected Him. They mocked and scourged Him and

crowned Him with thorns. They cast a garment

of shame about Him and fastened Him to a cross

<3 > Isaias 9: 6

W John 14: 27
John 20: 19



CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH 83

and then challenged Him to come down. He did not

come down, but changed the garment of shame into

a mantle of glory and the cross into a throne from

which He rules the ages. Men who accept that

cross and what it stands for, find peace. Men who

reject it find sorrow and bring sorrow to the world.

Christ founded His Church to carry on His

work among men, and to teach the world the way to

peace and happiness here and hereafter. He fore-

told that the world would treat His Church even as

it treated Him, saying to His Apostles, “No servant

is greater than his master. If they have persecuted

Me, they will persecute you also.” 6

The Catholic belief that the Church is the Mys-

tical Body of Christ comes from St. Paul- It may

be difficult to understand all the implications of

this doctrine; but this is clear, the Mystical Body

of Christ is subjected to the same indignities that

were heaped upon His natural body. In its mem-

bers it is mocked and scourged and crucified. This

is the story of the Church.

There is no country in the world where the

Church has not been persecuted. The soil of every

land has been sanctified by the blood of her martyrs.

In our day she has undergone bitter persecution

in Mexico, Russia, Spain, and Germany. Persecution

is in progress this very hour.

•Faithful to her mission, the Church has al-

ways taught the doctrines committed to her keep-

ing. But just as the teachings of the Master went

against the popular notions of His day, so do the

teachings of the Church conflict with the fads and

fancies of each age. If the Church conformed with

<«> John 15: 18



84 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

the popular notions of the day, she would not be

the Truth
;
for the popular notions of the day change

with the passing of the years while truth is eternally

the same.

Ag'ain and again subsequent history has proven

that the notions of the age were wrong and the

Church was right. Seventy-five years ago, Pius IX

foresaw the danger of Communism and denounced

it. The so-called liberals of his day said the Pope

was opposing liberty. History has proven that Pius

IX was right not only in condemning Communism,,

but also in other things he condemned. In 1933, when

the Catholic bishops of Bavaria denounced NazisnpL

and forbade Catholics to join the Nazi party, self-

styled liberals in the United States said the Ger-

man bishops were stifling liberty. Subsequent his-

tory shows that the German bishops were right.

In our day, the Church is in conflict with cer-

tain popular notions and quack remedies which in-

volved moral issues. Another age will find the

Church was right and the popular notions wrong.

The Church views everything under the light of

eternal truth. To be up to date today is to be out

of date tomorrow. Truth is never out of date and

never in harmony with the changing fads and fan-

cies of any era.

While the mission of the Catholic Church is the

salvation of souls, her contributions to man’s ma-

terial welfare and earthly happiness have been ntani-

fold. She it was that lifted up our ancestors when

they were savage tribes and forged them into great

nations, united in a common faith, under the title

of Christendom. She it was who taught our an-

cestors the arts of civilization. To her we are in-

debted for our civilization and our culture. From



CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH 85

her we receive the doctrine of human rights. It

was the Church which gave the world its interna-

tional law. And if nations are reverting to savagery

in our day, it is because they have rejected her

teaching.

Her message to the world has always been a

message of peace. This is abundantly evident in

our day. Pope Pius XI strove for peace. He saw

the impending tragedy of the world and did his best

to avert it. Well known are his frequent appeals to

men and nations to desist from acts that were lead-

ing headlong to war. In 1933, he called the world

to prayer and spiritual regeneration as a means of

avoiding war
;
but the world did not heed him. Men

and nations continued their greedy pursuit of mate-

rial things in smug content that there would be

peace in our time. Had the world listened, the his-

tory of the last five years would have been dif-

ferent.

The last word on the lips of Pius XI was the

word, “peace. ” Peace was the word his successor

took for his motto; and from the beginning of his

pontificate, he has never ceased to work for peace.

Surrounded by armed forces, who flaunt justice and

trample on every human right, Pius XII has never

waivered in his outspoken defense of human rights

and justice. He condemned acts of aggression by

his fearless words of sympathy to the victims of

aggression. His sympathetic messages to nations

invaded by the unjust aggressor, were at the same

time fearless condemnations of the aggressor. His

oft-repeated words on human rights and justice

were stinging rebukes to the enemies of liberty,

whose armed forces surrounded him. Unarmed, he

has defied the power of modern Caesars, who have



86 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

failed in their attempt to bend his will. Refusing

to seek' his own safety, he remains at his post, be-

sieged by hostile enemies, to proclaim and defend

the truth and to minister to the victims of war. Is

it not strange that such a man should be the vic-

tims of calumny at the hands of some who profess

to be the defenders of democratic government and

justice?

The fearless stand of the Church behind the

Nazi ring of steel should be a matter of common

knowledge. In Germany, the voice which has never

ceased to speak for human rights and to denounce

Nazi aggression has been the voice of the Catholic

bishops of Germany. In Holland and in Belgium,

the chief obstacle in the way of Nazi doctrine has

been the Catholic bishops and the Catholic priests,

of these countries. Scores of Catholic priests from

the Netherlands have given their lives in defense

of truth- and many more are in concentration camps

because of their outspoken defense of justice.

Despite her glorious record in defense of truth

and justice, the Church today is made a victim of

calumny even in our own country. Her enemies are

busy here also. For some time a campaign of cal-

umny has been under way. Almost everywhere today

the Church is moving in the shadow of her passion.

False rumors are afloat to turn the people away from

her. False witnesses have appeared again to testify

to lies, as they did in Pilate’s court; and now as in

the court of Pilate, they contradict themselves.

Again and again in her long history, the Church

has encountered persecution. Her enemies have

triumphed, or seemed to have triumphed, for a time.

Again and again they have mocked and scourged

her; again and again they have placed upon her



CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH 87

head the crown of thorns. A score of times in her

history, they have sung her dirge, announcing that

her long reign had at last come to a close. In each

instance they were disappointed; for each time she

moved again in a new and more wonderful resur-

rection. So it will be in our time if her enemies

dispoil her. She will descend again into the cata-

combs; the temple of civilization which she has

reared will crumble; and she will return to nurse

back to health bleeding and broken humanity.

Only the faithful few stood by Christ along the

road to Calvary and on its summit. As it was with

Christ, so is it with His Church. In the days of

peace, when splendor surrounds her, crowds gather

about her. In days of persecution, the weak fall

away; and when the persecution is fierce, only the

faithful few remain.

For almost three years great crowds had fol-

lowed Christ. In these peaceful days, His enemies

did not dare lay a hand upon Him. When, under

the influence of false rumor, the opposition grew, the

crowds deserted Him. Many who hailed Him as

their king on the first Palm Sunday, joined the mob

that clamored for His death five days later. Only a

few faithful ones followed Him to the end.

As Christ walked the road to Calvary carrying

His heavy cross, a certain woman, Veronica by

name, recognized His Divine countenance beneath

the scorn and abuse that had been heaped upon Him.

She lifted her veil to wipe away the tears and blood

and grime that had gathered on His sacred brow.

In the days that lie ahead, we, too, may witness His

Mystical Body, the Church, carried again to her

Calvary. Veronicas along the way will recognize her

holy countenance beneath the derision and abuse



88 THE CHURCH, FASCISM AND PEACE

that may be heaped upon her, and they will lift the

veil to wipe away the stains.

Christ was betrayed and deserted by His own.

So has it always been with His Church. When her

members are faithful to her sublime teachings, she

has nothing to fear from the enemies without.

But when an insufficient number of her members fail

to live their religion, an age of martyrdom comes

and the earth is watered with the blood of martyrs

that the faith may bloom again.

The testing time may come in America in our

day, as it has already come to members of the Faith

in other lands. To the weeping women on the road

to Calvary, Christ spoke these words. “Do not weep

for Me but weep for yourselves and for your chil-

dren/’
7

The Church might indeed say to us today, “Do

not weep for me but weep for yourselves and for

your children.” We need not fear for the permanence

of the Church, for her Founder said to Peter, the

fisherman, whom He made her first visible head:

“Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my

Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against

her.”
8 The question for us is where shall we stand

if the test comes.

(7) Luke 23: 28

(8) Math 16: 18