Consolation, March 6, 1940

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Contents

The Press and the Pope's Encyclical 3

Conspiracy Against America 3

The Harlot's Mirror 5

Her Eyes on Uncle Sam 7

More Hooligans Needed 9

The New Government

A Conspiracy That Failed 12

Advice to Liars 15

Counsel by J. F. Rutherford

Palms 17

The Rape of Palestine 18

Under the Totalitarian Flag

A Nation Forgets God 20

Prefers Hitler to Washington 21

Handbills and Freedom 22

Christian Liberty in Burlington, Vt. 23

The Hysterical Flag-Wavers 24

Russia 25

Helpful Household Hints 26

Rocky Mountain States 27

British Comment

Championing the Pope 28

A Different Viewpoint 28

The Hope of the Nations 29

"Pro-God Propaganda" 29

Rationed Food 30

Tribunal and Jehovah's witnesses 30

Pennsylvania 31

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Appetizers

Satisfactory Results

An Irish soldier in France during the World War received a letter from his wife, saying there wasn't an able-bodied man left, and she was going to dig the garden herself.

Pat wrote at the beginning of his next letter: "Bridget, please don't dig the garden; that's where the guns are."

The letter was duly censored, and in a short time a lorry-load of men in khaki arrived at Pat's house and proceeded to dig the garden from end to end.

Bridget wrote to Pat in desperation, saying that she didn't know what to do, as the soldiers had got the garden dug up, every bit of it.

Pat's reply was short and to the point: "Put in the spuds."

Time for Tender Remembrance

Pat arrived home much the worse for wear. One eye was closed, his nose broken, and his face looked as though it had been stung by bees.

"That Dutchman—'twas him," exploded his wife. "A big man like you to get beaten up by a little fool of a Dutchman, the size of him! Why—"

"Whist, Nora," said Pat, "don't speak disrespectfully of the dead!"—Labor.

Going Out the Other Way

Two Irishmen were told to clean out a well. Mike was being lowered by Pat when suddenly he cried out, "Pat, pull me up."

"You're all right, Mike," said Pat reassuringly.

"Pull me up."

"Go on, you're all right."

"Pull me up," yelled the exasperated Mike, "or I'll cut the rope."

As Mickey Would Say It

The teacher was trying to impress upon her young pupils in the tenement district the importance of being original. She illustrated by saying:

"Mickey, repeat these sentences in your own words: 'I see a cow. The cow is pretty. The cow can run.'"

Mickey said: "Boy, lamp de cow. Ain't she a honey! An' I ask you, kin she take it on de lam?"

CONSOLATION

"And in His name shall the nations hope."—Matthew 12:21, A. R. V.

Volume XXI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, March 6, 1940 Number 534

The Press and the Pope's Encyclical

THE Press has been slavish in its servitude to its lord and master, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, and has deceived the American people as to the true aims and purposes of the pope in America. Each time the pope is quoted his words are so interpreted that they receive the most favorable reaction from the American people. That this interpretation is seldom the true one will be hereinafter demonstrated. That it is the official interpretation from Papal publicists goes without saying, since the Hierarchy will tolerate nothing but absolute obedience from the press in these matters, as has been proved times without number.

That the reason for this false face is deception pure and simple should surprise no one. The ramifications of this deceit can be well understood if we remember that in every country the "Church" has a program; in every country she faces strong opposition; and in every country she dare not reveal her aims or permit anyone to expose them, lest she lose valuable advantages—the advantages a concealed enemy has over an open one. And so for each country she has to have her words interpreted, if only to disarm or confuse her opponents. In this respect she plays the lowest politics on earth and profits greatly thereby.

The intelligent few, politician or patriot, will not be deceived; the rulers of this wicked world will understand her meanings, but the great mass of humanity will continue in the dark until such time as she is powerful enough to come boldly into the open, as in Hitler Germany.

Hypocritical Blubbering About Peace

As an offhand example of the servitude of the press: Can anyone recall a newspaper that dared to compare the pope's blubbering about PEACE with his conduct in the Spanish war, when his two devoted stooges, Hitler and Mussolini, rushed in to save Franco from the thrashing he was getting?

A more recent example of the parochial slavery of the press is found in the following dispatch on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer for October 30. In it will be found all the elements of deception and misinterpretation.

POINTED INFERENCE:

'CHRISTIAN' LAWS GET HIGH PRAISE

By James M. Minifie

Special Cable to The Inquirer

and New York Herald Tribune

ROME Oct. 29.—Pope Pius XII, consecrating 12 missionary bishops in St. Peter's today, made his homily the occasion for a condemnation of tyranny, which was obviously pointed at Germany and Russia. It was done in the oblique way so favored by the Vatican, but there could be no mistaking the Pope's speech, particularly after his denunciation in last Friday's encyclical of the practices of the agnostic and atheistic superstates.

By ignoring the truth about the pope's real attitude toward tolerance, and with an eye to what the American reader wants to hear, the impression is definitely left behind in the mind of the unwary that the greatest enemies of the religious racket on earth are the Reds and Nazis. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Compare this misinformation with the statement of E. Boyd Barrett in his book, Rome Stoops to Conquer, concerning the Catholic church in Germany, and add to it the fact that the present pope, then a cardinal, secured Hitler's alliance with Papacy in the concordat made with him.

Conspiracy Against America

That many of the pronouncements of the pope are against the interests of the American people is a fact beyond possibility of refutation. That the press has never exposed these aims for the benefit of the American people is a crime of blackest violence against them. On the contrary, the press has gone out of its way to assist the Vatican in its conspiracy against everything American. It has concealed its underhand methods in world politics; it has concealed its dirty tracks in every sort of persecution of innocent people; and, worst of all, as in the above headline, it has concealed the fact that the pope and Hierarchy are Fascist and that every Catholic church in this fair land is a hotbed of Fascism, Nazism and plots to wreck the Constitution, the Supreme Court and the American way of government.

That this deception is fully intended by the press shows that they are in agreement—in conspiracy with the Vatican against America, and in order that she may accomplish her aims before the people awake to their dangers.

This concealment of the diabolical aims and methods of the Hierarchy is especially evident in the reporting of Pius XII's first encyclical.

On the first page of the Philadelphia Inquirer of October 27 appeared the following dispatch:

POPE DENOUNCES DICTATOR NATIONS;

ASKS JUST PEACE

Appeals for Poles in First Encyclical Since Taking Reign

By James M. Minifie

Special Cable to The Inquirer

and New York Herald Tribune

ROME, Oct. 27.—In stronger terms than he had yet used, Pope Pius XII today condemned the invasion of Poland, the tearing up of treaties and the suppression of the freedom of conscience by agnostic and atheistic super-States, in the first encyclical of his reign. The immediate political repercussions are expected to be strong. But it can be said on high authority that the Pope is less concerned with these than with the conflict between the family and the State, which is the essence of his encyclical.

PONTIFF'S THEME. Issued in Castel Gandolfo and dated Oct. 20, this 13,000-word letter "to the Patriarchs, primates, archbishops, bishops and other ordinaries, in peace and communion with the Apostolic See," was given to the press in Latin and translations in English, French, German and Italian, in the Sala Regia of the Vatican at 12.30 this afternoon. The Pope's theme is the struggle of "That noble little cell, the family," against the all-engulfing totalitarian State, rapacious, pagan, avid of sacrifice and intolerant of opposition even in thought and conscience.

MEANS REICH, SOVIET. It is a picture of St. George and the Dragon, with the Saint getting very much the worse, at the moment, painted against a fiery background of European war, in which "the blood of countless human beings, even non-combatants, raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as our dear Poland, which for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in the defense of Christian civilization, written in indelible characters in the annals of history, has a right to the generous and brotherly sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, the hour of its resurrection, in harmony with the principles of justice and true peace." Without specifically naming Germany and Russia, the encyclical made it clear, even to Nazis and Bolsheviks, that these States were meant.

SUPER-STATE CONDEMNED. At the same time, the Pope made no obvious effort not to implicate Italy in his condemnation of totalitarianism. This much is evident in his oblique references to the work of the Catholic Action, which continues in Italy. And the Nazis and Bolsheviks are clearly indicated as examples of utilitarian morality, absolute autonomy and the suppression of conscience—which "can attain at times, under chance circumstances, material successes apt to arouse wonder in superficial observers." The super-State is condemned in these passages: "To consider the State as something ultimate to which everything else should be subordinated and directed can not fail to harm the true and lasting prosperity of nations."

'ROBS LAW OF NATIONS.' And again, "The idea which credits the State with unlimited authority is not simply an error harmful to the internal life of nations, to their prosperity, to the larger and well ordered increase in their well-being, but likewise of the relations between peoples, robs the law of nations of its foundations and vigor, leads to violation of others' rights, and impedes agreement and peaceful intercourse." If there could be any doubt about the States which the Pope had in mind, it would be removed by the subsequent passage with its thinly veiled allusion to the non-aggression treaties with Poland, torn up first by Fuehrer Adolf Hitler and then by Josef Stalin.

LOOKS TO FUTURE. After recognizing that treaties need revision with the passage of time, the encyclical proceeds: "But to consider treaties on principles as ephemeral and tacitly to assume the authority of rescinding them unilaterally when they are no longer to one's advantage, would be to abolish all mutual trust among States. In this way natural order would be destroyed. There would be seen dug between different peoples and nations trenches of division impossible to refill." Finally, the Pope asks what will result after the war, and sees no possible settlement, except one which is based on justice and equity to all. The Pope expressed the hope that the principles of lasting peace would be applied by "those States, neutral before the outbreak of the war, who nobly toiled to avert such a scourge from the peoples."

TRIBUTE TO COURAGE. The Pope probes to the root of modern discontent, and declares that mankind must be re-educated spiritually and religiously in ways of justice and charity. Undoubtedly the most moving passages in the encyclical are those referring to the forgotten man, fighting for his soul against the encroachments of the super-State. Tribute is paid to "the true courage and heroism" of the average man, struggling against "the daily weight of misery, growing want and restrictions on a scale never before experienced, whose reason and necessity are not always apparent." (Copyright 1939)

The Lying Headline

The headline is, of course, the usual lie that the pope is against dictators, notwithstanding the fact that no reference is made to dictators, by name or inference even once, in the entire text of the screed itself. That this is the interpretation the Vatican wanted served up to Americans is proved by the fact that it was cabled from Rome, and, as George Seldes points out in his book Freedom of the Press, under Chapter XIV, titled "The Poisoned Springs of World News", no reporter can remain in Rome who goes counter to Fascist (Papal) wishes. It should keep the American people happy to realize that in Mussolini's and Pius' Italy they are rated as fools or worse. See the above-cited authority.

The full magnitude of this criminal distortion of news, this treacherous betrayal of American ideals and institutions into the hands of the Vatican gangsters by the press, will be comprehended when this fact is known: The pope's vaunted encyclical is not directed against dictators and totalitarian states, but is aimed squarely and viciously against the United States of America—against her free dom, the rights of her citizens, her laws and ideals of a just and free government.

Hence the necessity for deceit. It would not sit well on too many stomachs to know that our own government is to be superseded in all essential points by a government composed of beskirted Italians from a famous brothel near Rome, steeped in the centuries of oppression, persecution and bloodshed of Catholic tradition and Catholic Europe.

But this end will be brought about by the aid of traitors to the American system, traitors beside whom Benedict Arnold would refuse to stand or be found dead with. While the great body of the American people are deceived and kept in ignorance of this black crime, cheap politicians, big businessmen and Protestant clergy, all with Fascist ambitions, will cooperate with or give in to Catholic Action, and the liberal laws and ideals that have kept this nation apart from the filth and national crime of the rest of the world will be swept away, and the intolerance and chaos of totalitarianism will take their place. To prove these charges, all that is necessary is to compare the press interpretation of this encyclical with the encyclical itself.

Leap year

The Harlot's Mirror

An encyclical, says Webster, is a circular letter addressed to a number of people, and one especially from the pope. This is a scant definition. Webster has been dead a long time. It should be added in strict regard for truth that a papal encyclical is a billet-doux which the old Harlot addresses to herself, and which letter she coyly and carefully places in such hands as will insure its being read by her lovers, the Rulers of this Wicked World. It is, in fact, an amorous annotation of the number of things she requires in return for her favors. The natural result of age-old experience in prostitution.

Of course, it is necessary to wear the garb of sweetness and virtue; so it is to be expected that these incestuous communications are robed in the noblest scriptures, and embroidered with the loftiest expressions. For that reason, all should beware that, when she mouths "Christianity" she means Catholicism; when she mentions Divinity she means herself; when she mentions Christ she means herself as His vicar; when she blubbers about "Christianity" she means her own particular brand of religious racketeering; and that in all places, at all times, she usurps the place of God, purloins His holiest titles, perverts His righteous truths and purposes, and thus deceives countless millions.

It should be further kept in mind that her power has multiplied many times in recent years, that she thrives on just the sort of distress the world is in today, that she is able to carry out her threats; and that such things as wars, bloodshed and violence have ever been the tools of her trade, and that with these tools ready at hand she can now aim high, and that in every country she is feared as a trouble-maker.

Self-made Glory

Beginning her letter with a long introduction in which she praises herself for her 'wisdom', and reminds the world that she is the 'vicar of Christ' and the only one commissioned to preach the gospel of Christ, she then hurries on to other more important matters, such things as the upswing in toe-kissing, and nearly bursts her brassiere with pride because business is picking up and prostitution will show a big profit come 1940.

We must, in obedience to an inner prompting, make special mention of our gratitude for the tokens of reverent homage which we have had from the Sovereigns, heads of States and Governments of those nations with which the Holy See is in friendly relations.

And don't laugh at the next one; it isn't really funny. The fact is that "God" was busy somewhere else and she had to rely on a notorious gangster and the Mafia to restore "the peace of Christ to Italy". Such joy she has.

"The peace of Christ restored to Italy," like a new dawn of brotherly union in religious and in civil intercourse, had its beginning in these pacts.

PRAYER FOR ITALIANS. We pray God that in the serene atmosphere of that peace He may pervade, revivify, strengthen and fortify the heart of the Italian people, so close to us, in the midst of which we live, with which we share the very air we breathe. We hope and trust that that people, so dear to our predecessors and to us, may be faithful to its glorious Catholic tradition, and experience through the divine protection ever more that truth of the psalmist: “Happy is that people whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 143, 15).

But her joy is short-lived. For it seems that, with the Spanish Loyalists (which she hounded to an untimely end) scarcely rotted in their graves, she has terrible news of war. She should quit reading the Totalitarian dailies—she’s behind on the news.

TERRIBLE NEWS OF WAR. Venerable brethren, as we write these lines the terrible news comes to us that the dread tempest of war is already raging despite all our efforts to avert it. When we think of the wave of suffering that has come on countless people who but yesterday enjoyed in the environment of their homes some little degree of well-being, we are tempted to lay down our pen.

Europe Started It

The most curious part is now imminent; for she unintentionally accuses herself of complicity in a number of colossal crimes, when she states, accurately, that the evils of the present totalitarian world started in Europe—Europe, the birthplace and home of Catholicism and Papal tyranny—and, wonder of wonders, further implies that even in the days of her splendor and power, when she ruled supreme, all was not serene. So one must conclude that she acknowledges sowing the wind which resulted in the present whirlwind.

EVIL STARTED IN EUROPE. The denial of the fundamentals of morality had its origin in Europe, in the abandonment of that Christian teaching of which the chair of Peter is the depository and exponent. That teaching had once given spiritual cohesion to a Europe which, educated, ennobled and civilized by the Cross, had reached such a degree of civil progress as to become the teacher of other peoples, of other continents; but, cut off from the infallible teaching authority of the church, not a few separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow the central dogma of Christianity, the Divinity of the Saviour, and have hastened thereby the progress of spiritual decay.

WEAKENING OF STATES. With the weakening of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the darkening in men's minds of the light of moral principles, there disappeared the indispensable foundation of the stability and quiet of that internal and external, private and public order, which alone can support and safeguard the prosperity of States. It is true that even when Europe had a cohesion of brotherhood through identical ideals gathered from Christian preaching, she was not free from divisions, convulsions and wars which laid her waste; but perhaps they never felt the intense pessimism of today as to the possibility of settling them, for they had then an effective moral sense of the just and of the unjust, of the lawful and of the unlawful which by restraining outbreaks of passion, left the way open to an honorable settlement. In our days, on the contrary, dissensions come not only from the surge of rebellious passion, but also from a deep spiritual crisis which has overthrown the sound principles of private and public morality.

Her "Human Unity" Joke

After prating of human unity (and small use she has for it), and contradictorily going to bat for nationalism, too, she proceeds to give to a waiting world her idea of equality. And that equality, venerable brethren, is nothing less than that she always tries, if possible, to appoint native bishops and clerics.

Nor need we tell you, venerable brethren, that we intend to proceed without hesitation along this way. Those who enter the Church, whatever be their origin or their speech, must know that they have equal rights as children in the House of the Lord, where the law of Christ and the peace of Christ prevail. In accordance with these principles of equality the Church devotes her care to forming a cultured native clergy and gradually increasing the number of native bishops.

With this appliquéd doggerel off her chest she settles down and wades right into the real business at hand. This is the point where she exposes her ambitions and desires for the future, and as such they emerge as an ultimatum or exaction. And it is this true nature of her words that the press failed to mention, thus taking sides with religious racketeering as against freedom and enlightenment. If the press had any excuse for its conduct nothing could be said; but newspaper editors themselves brag of the all-wise press, sees all, knows all, etc. So we must conclude that all that was done was done willfully and with malice aforethought.*

In view of the facts, it cannot be proved that her denunciations are against Nazis and Reds. Her own words about Mussolini’s place in Italy demonstrates that she doesn't mean Fascism. Her trafficking with Hitler in Spain and Germany demonstrates that she doesn't

*[If the reader suspects that these reflections on the complete untrustworthiness of the public press are in any wise overdrawn he is invited to read again the article entitled “Suppression, Distortion, and Reversal of News” which constituted the leading article in Consolation No. 475, issue of December 1, 1937. Therein he will see how an innocent Italian was done to death by a judge and a wealthy citizen and the thing was so handled by the police and the press that the poor man’s death was made to seem to be a real advantage to society.—Ed.] mean Nazism. The fact that she is in alliance with Stalin via Hitler demonstrates that she couldn't mean Communism. The conduct of all these squires in regard to freedom, real Christianity, and wanton bloodshed demonstrates their oneness of mind with her.

Her Eyes on Uncle Sam

It must be, then, that her words are addressed to someone else. To some such country, for instance, that has not embraced her as the way of life. Some country not yet entirely resigned to the totalitarian idea, such as the United States of America, or perhaps to a lesser degree, Great Britain. In brief, her words remind all such that they "have not grasped the importance of the educational and pastoral mission of the church" and that they "will now understand better her warnings, scouted in the false security of the past"; referring, no doubt, to that blessed time before totalitarian Catholic Action was inaugurated, and which time is past and security from Roman Catholic gangsterism is over and gone. Thus she warns them and prophesies that they will be docile. The reason will appear more fully later.

HOPE FOR NEW OUTLOOK. Perhaps—God grant it—one may hope that this hour of direst need may bring a change of outlook and sentiment to those many who till now have walked with blind faith along the path of popular modern errors unconscious of the treacherous and insecure ground on which they trod. Perhaps the many who have not grasped the importance of the educational and pastoral mission of the Church will now understand better her warnings, scouted in the false security of the past.

Warming to her subject she fills three newsprint columns with denunciations of those governments that maintain separation of church (her church) and state, and babbles about how they usurp the place of God (herself as "vicar"), and fail to support Catholic education; warbles about ties of family and its integrity, just as though she hadn't but recently destroyed or corrupted countless thousands upon millions of families as in her past.

But there is yet another error no less pernicious to the well-being of the nations and to the prosperity of that great human society which gathers together and embraces within its confines all races. It is the error contained in those ideas which do not hesitate to divorce civil authority from every kind of dependence upon the Supreme Being—first cause and absolute master of man and of society—and from every restraint of a higher law derived from God as from its first source. Thus they accord the civil authority an unrestricted field of action that is at the mercy of a changeful tide of human will, or of the dictates of casual historical claims and of the interests of a few.

USURPING PLACE OF GOD. Once the authority of God and the sway of His law are denied in this way, the civil authority as an inevitable result tends to attribute to itself that absolute autonomy which belongs exclusively to the Supreme Maker. It puts itself in the place of the Almighty and elevates the State or group into the last end of life, the supreme criterion of the moral and juridical order, and therefore forbids every appeal to the principles of natural reason and of the Christian conscience. We do not, of course, fail to recognize that, fortunately, false principles do not always exercise their full influence, especially when age-old Christian traditions, on which the peoples have been nurtured, remain still deeply even if unconsciously rooted in their hearts.

Would Fain Grab the Youth

This hypercritical pose is carried to great lengths in her charge that certain states stand in the way of proper religious training—and, as in America, prevent her from proselyting Protestant's children.

In any case, the more burdensome the material sacrifices demanded of the individual and the family by the State, the more must the rights of conscience be to it sacred and inviolable. Goods, blood it can demand; but the soul redeemed by God, never. The charge laid by God on parents to provide for the material and spiritual good of their offspring and to procure for them a suitable training saturated with the true spirit of religion, cannot be wrested from them without grave violation of their rights.

As Barrett has shown, her educational privileges have not been interfered with in Germany, and by her own words, certainly not in Italy. It is certain that these two Brutes find use for her in their vile schemes to enslave the world. It must follow then that she means some other country where parochial schools are not state supported.

She now leads with a feint that will be followed by a real declaration—just to ease the unwilling up to her trough. She refers lovingly to ecclesiastical laws, which she surely means when she mentions divine laws. To her, we are led to conclude, the state must come for its laws, its machinery and ideals of justice, war, peace, education and religion; for she is the sole keeper and repository of divine law; we must not forget she is the 'vicar of Christ'.

NO SAFETY IN SWORD. No, venerable brethren, safety does not come to peoples from external means, from the sword, which can impose conditions of peace but does not create peace. Forces that are to renew the face of the earth, should proceed from within, from the spirit. Once the bitterness and the cruel strifes of the present have ceased, the new order of the world, of national and international life must rest no longer on the quicksands of changeable and ephemeral standards that depend only on the selfish interests of groups and individuals. No, they must rest on the unshakeable foundation, on the solid rock of natural law and of divine revelation. There the human legislator must attain to that balance, that keen sense of moral responsibility, without which it is easy to mistake the boundary between the legitimate use and the abuse of power.

Public Schools Must Go (?) .

Helpfully she outlines a program; for such an upheaval of social and religious affairs will require some planning. Re-education is needed. A new understanding of Catholicism—not by Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, as has been pointed out, but by all such as do not yet acknowledge the papal throne as head of the world. And since the archbishop of Canterbury has signified his desire for an arrangement, she must mean—you guessed it—good old United States of America. It seems then that we are all due to learn of her priceless boons, her "purgatory", her hell, her cheap "saints", her miraculous medals, and her bigotry.

TASK OF RE-EDUCATION. If it is to have any effect, the re-education of mankind must be above all things, spiritual and religious. Hence, it must proceed from Christ as from its indispensable foundation; must be actuated by justice and crowned by charity. The accomplishment of this task of regeneration, by adapting her means to the altered conditions of the times and to the new needs of the human race, is an essential and maternal office of the church. Committed to her by her Divine founder the preaching of the gospel, by which is inculcated to men truth, justice and charity and the endeavor to implant its precepts solidly in mind and conscience, is the most noble and most fruitful work for peace.

Skipping a few hundred words as we must do from time to time, we find her fearful lest some advocate of freedom treat her claims lightly. To scotch such blasphemy, she begins to dwell lovingly upon the mission of the church militant. She reminds her subjects that great sacrifices are to be required, that their hope should be bright, their faith strong, because now she has the world by the tail and it can't get away, and that if they are obedient to her commands they will participate in the re-establishment of the "Kingdom of God".

That mission would seem as if it ought to discourage by its very grandeur the hearts of those who make up the church militant. But that co-operation in the spread of the Kingdom of God which in every century is effected in different ways, with varying instruments, with manifold hard struggles, as a command incumbent on everyone who has been snatched by Divine grace from the slavery of Satan and called in Baptism to citizenship of the Kingdom of God.

With such a build-up, she now unfolds to a big-eyed or snoring world that Catholic Action is her right arm; she dotes on it, praises it for its zeal and obedience, and no doubt has in mind its diabolical violence against Jehovah's witnesses, its thrust of censorship in press and radio, its political pressures and secret societies. Thus she reminds all rulers, bureaucrats and politicians that she is a power to be reckoned with.

SPUR TO FAITH. And if belonging to it, living according to its spirit, laboring for its increase and placing its benefits at the disposition of that portion of mankind also which as yet has no part in them, means in our days having to face obstacles and oppositions as vast and deep and minutely organized as never before, that does not dispense a man from the frank, bold profession of our faith. Rather, it spurs one to stand fast in the conflict even at the price of the greatest sacrifices. Whoever lives by the spirit of Christ refuses to let himself be beaten down by the difficulties which oppose him, but on the contrary feels himself impelled to work with all his strength and with the fullest confidence in God.

Her History as Teacher

Visualizing this ancient bawd as teacher, who can help recalling her past efforts in this line, accurately summed up by H. G. Wells in his "Outline", page 656:

And the intolerance of the church was not confined to religious matters. The shrewd, pompous, irascible, and rather malignant old men who manifestly constituted a dominant majority in the councils of the church resented any knowledge but their own knowledge and distrusted any thought at all that they did not correct and control. They set themselves to restrain science, of which they were evidently jealous. Any mental activity but their own struck them as being insolent. . . .

Had this intolerance sprung from a real intensity of conviction it would have been bad enough, but it was accompanied by a scarcely disguised contempt for the intelligence and mental dignity of the common man that makes it far less acceptable to our modern judgments, and which no doubt made it far less acceptable to the free spirits. . . .

It entangled itself with archaic traditions of human sacrifice, with Mithraic blood-cleansing, with priestcraft as ancient as human society, and with elaborate doctrines about the structure of the divinity. The gory finger of the Etruscan pontifex maximus emphasized the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth; the mental complexity of the Alexandrian Greek entangled them. In the inevitable jungle of these incompatibles the church became dogmatic. In despair of other solutions to its intellectual discords it had resorted to arbitrary authority. Its priests and bishops were more and more men moulded to creeds and dogmas and set procedures; by the time they became cardinals or popes they were usually oldish men, habituated to a political struggle for immediate ends. . . They were prepared to bargain even with hates and fears and lusts in men's hearts to ensure that power. . . They were intolerant of questions or dissent. . . By the thirteenth century the church was evidently already morbidly anxious about the gnawing doubts that might presently lay the whole structure of its pretensions in ruins. . . It was hunting everywhere for heretics as timid old ladies are said to look under beds and in cupboards for burglars before retiring for the night.

Continuing from the encyclical:

He does not draw back before the straits and the necessities of the moment, but faces their severity ready to give aid with that love which flees no sacrifice, is stronger than death, and will not be quenched by the rushing waters of tribulation. It gives us, venerable brethren, an inward strength, a heavenly joy, for which we daily render to God our deep and humble thanks, to see in every region of the Catholic world evident signs of a spirit which boldly faces the gigantic tasks of our age, which with generous decision is intent on uniting, in fruitful harmony the first and essential duty of individual sanctification, and apostolic activity for the spread of the Kingdom of God.

And if this is not sufficient she further reminds them that she has reserves of strength which she can hardly sufficiently prize for their usefulness at this time. She is referring to the power of Catholic Action embodied in the laity, loyally soldiering her aims, and filling in where there is a shortage of the crop of priests.

RESERVES OF STRENGTH.

From the movement of the Eucharistic Congresses furthered with loving care by our predecessors and from the collaboration of the laity formed in Catholic Action towards a deep realization of their noble mission, flow forth fountains of grace and reserves of strength, which could hardly be sufficiently prized in the present time, when threats are more numerous, needs multiply and the conflict between Christianity and anti-Christianism grows intense. At a moment when one is forced to note with sorrow the disproportion between the number of priests and the calls upon them, when one sees that even today the words of Our Saviour apply: "The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few" (St. Matthew 9, 37; St. Luke 10, 2), the collaboration of the laity in the apostolate of the Hierarchy, a collaboration indeed given by many and animated with ardent zeal and generous self-devotion, stands out as a precious aid to the work of priests and shows possibilities of development which justify the brightest hopes.

The Real Target

It is scarcely necessary to show that this Totalitarian war is a product of her best exponent of Catholic Action, Adolf Hitler, and that such a threat as this can scarcely be comprehended in its scope. That the United States is the target of this war is proved by the attempt made to force her into it—into the Totalitarian way of life, which same has brought the "peace of Christ to Italy". Coupled with this grave danger is the constant whittling away of American freedom, the constant attacks on our schools, colleges and other liberal institutions, by the bloated ecclesiastics in high places, who use the word "Communism" when they really mean "heresy", and who daily bleat of a lack of religious faith, when they mean that the people are not sufficiently priest-ridden to satisfy their greed for money, power and the praise of men.

Having in mind the services of those fanatical and criminal elements of the Catholic population which she has depraved—and which same have always, through the centuries until now, made possible such colossal hooliganism as the Crusades—she now pats them on the back and gives them to understand, by quoting a passage from "Saint" Augustine, that it is just possible that they might be consecrated members of the "church" instead of merely members of the exploited Catholic population. In other words, she is preparing them for the murders to come.

WORKERS ENOUGH.

Prayer of the Church to the Lord of the Harvest that he send workers into his vineyard (cf. St. Matthew 9, 37; St. Luke 10, 2) has been granted to a degree proportionate to the present needs, and in a manner which supplements and completes the powers, often obstructed and inadequate, of the priestly apostolate. Numbers of fervent men and women, of youth obedient to the voice of the Supreme Pastor and to the directions of their bishops, consecrate themselves with the full ardor of their soul to the works of the apostolate in order to bring back to Christ the masses of peoples who have been separated from Him. To them in this moment so critical for the church and for mankind go out our paternal greeting, our deepest gratitude, our confident hope. These have truly placed their life and their work beneath the standard of Christ the King; and they can say with the Psalmist: "I speak my words to the king" (Psalm 44, 1). "Thy Kingdom Come" is not simply the burning desire of their prayers; it is, besides, the guide of their activity. This collaboration of the laity with the priesthood in all classes, categories and groups reveals precious industry and to the laity is entrusted a mission than which noble and loyal hearts could desire none higher nor more consoling. This apostolic work, carried out according to the mind of the church, consecrates the layman as a kind of "minister to Christ" in the sense which St. Augustine explains as follows: "When, brethren, you hear our Lord saying: Where I am there too will my servant be, do not think solely of good bishops and clerics."

More Hooligans Needed

At this point she takes into account those of her subjects whose maturity of mind might rebel at seeing their children become serfs, hoodlums or Nazis, as at Madison Square Garden, and reminds them that they are little ecclesiastics and that they should make it their business to see that all schools should have crucifixes in them.

DUTY OF FATHERS.

You, too, in your way minister to Christ by a good life, by almsgiving, by preaching His name and teaching to whom you can. Thus every father should recognize that it is under this title that he owes paternal affection to his family. Let it be for the sake of Christ and for life everlasting, that he admonishes all his household, teaches, exhorts, reproves, shows kindness, corrects; and thus in his own home he will fulfill an ecclesiastical and in a way an episcopal office ministering to Christ, that He may be forever with him. (On the Gospel according to St. John, Tract 51, N. 13.) In promoting this participation by the laity in the apostolate, which is so important in our times, the family has a special mission, for it is the spirit of the family that exercises the most powerful influence on that of the rising generation. As long as the sacred flame of the faith burns on the domestic hearth, and the parents forge and fashion the lives of their children in accordance with this faith, youth will be ever ready to acknowledge the royal prerogatives of The Redeemer, and to oppose those who wish to exclude Him from society or wrongly to usurp His rights. When churches are closed, when the image of The Crucified is taken from the schools, the family remains the providential and in a certain sense impregnable refuge of Christian life.

FAMILIES STAY FIRM.

And we give thanks to God as we see that numberless families accomplish this, their mission, with a fidelity undismayed by combat or by sacrifice. A great host of young men and women, even in those regions where faith in Christ means suffering and persecution, remain firm around the throne of The Redeemer with a quiet, steady determination that recalls the most glorious days of the Church's struggles.

In parenthesis, while regarding this apparent care for the millions of priest-ridden victims, it is impossible to close one's eyes to her centuries of doing just this: with fair words, holy pretensions and sacerdotal hocus-pocus, shamelessly urging, cajoling and firing them to sacrifice themselves upon the altar of her depraved ambitions and filthy greed. American Catholics can expect to bear their share of this offering to Moloch.

Why on the High Horse

Having now fully explained why she is on the high horse, that she is strong and is going places, she opines that the world is due for great distress and woe, and that these dire calamities can be averted by turning to the church, and conceding her to be the teacher of justice and love, which she says is hers by divine right. Making peace in this world would seem to imply that she really does control Catholic Action as exemplified in this Totalitarian war. Certainly the hen that laid the egg ought to know about eggs.

What torrents of benefits would be showered on the world, what light, order, what peace would accrue to social life, what unique and precious energies would contribute towards the betterment of mankind, if men would everywhere concede to the Church, teacher of justice and love, that liberty of action to which, in virtue of the divine mandate, she has a sacred and indisputable right! What calamities could be averted, what happiness and tranquillity assured, if the social and international forces working to establish peace would let themselves be permeated by the deep lessons of the gospel of love in their struggle against individual or collective egoism! Accordingly, we, as representative on earth of Him who was proclaimed by the prophet "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9, 6), appeal to the rulers of the peoples, and to those who can in any way influence public life, to let the Church have full liberty to fulfill her role as educator by teaching men truth, by inculcating justice, and inflaming hearts with the divine love of Christ. While the Church cannot renounce the exercise of this Her mission, which has for its final end to realize here below the divine plan and to "re-establish all things in Christ, that are in Heaven and on Earth" (Ephesians 1, 10), Her aid, none the less, is shown to be indispensable as never before, now that sad experience teaches that external means and human provisions and political expedients of themselves bring no efficacious healing to the ills which affect mankind.

“Apostolic” Whoredom

Elaborating upon her “good” offices of teacher and shaper of youth, she seems to be amazed that anyone, even with a knowledge of her whoring past, should be suspicious of her intentions and professed Christianity. Against those suspicions she protests with the usual inquisitorial and infallible “apostolic sincerity”. She points out that she does not claim to take the place of or usurp the fat jobs of politicians, dictators, kings or presidents, but, rather, she teaches the children and youth to have respect—the hat-tipping, obsequious, heiling, goose-stepping kind—for such earthly authority.

And yet, venerable brethren, the teaching of Christ, which alone can furnish man with such solid basis of belief as will greatly enlarge his vision, and divinely dilate His heart and supply an efficacious remedy to the very grave difficulties of today—this and the activity of the church in teaching and spreading that doctrine, and in forming and modeling men's minds by its precepts, are at times an object of suspicion, as if they shook the foundations of civil authority or usurped its rights. Against such suspicions we solemnly declare with apostolic sincerity that—without prejudice to the declarations regarding the power of Christ and of His church made by our predecessor Pius XI of venerable memory in his Encyclical “quas primas” of December 11, 1925—any such aims are entirely alien to that same church, which spreads its maternal arms towards this world not to dominate but to serve. She does not claim to take the place of other legitimate authorities in their proper spheres, but offers them her help after the example and in the spirit of her Divine founder who “went about doing good” (Acts 10, 38). The Church preaches and inculcates obedience and respect for earthly authority which derives from God its whole origin and holds to the teaching of her Divine Master who said “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (St. Matthew 22, 21); she has no desire to usurp, and sings in the liturgy: “He takes away no earthly realms who gives us the celestial” (hymn for Feast of Epiphany).

Winding up her long-winded tirade, veiled though it be, against freedom of worship and liberty for the people, she offers eternal ‘peace and tranquillity’, and advises that since she is ‘built on Christ’, she alone can give peace. And then with a final dream of a golden age at hand she visions a world of justice and love, where she will sit a queen, with the rulers of all nations for lovers and devoted slaves.

This peace, which the world cannot give, has been left as a heritage to His disciples by the Divine Redeemer Himself; “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you” (St. John 14, 27); and thus following the sublime teaching of Christ, summed up by Himself in the twofold precept of Love of God and of the neighbour, millions of souls have reached, are reaching and shall reach peace. History, wisely called by a great Roman “the teacher of life,” has proved for close on 2000 years how true is the word of Scripture that he will not have peace who resists God. (Cf. Job 9, 4) For Christ alone is the “corner stone” (Ephesians 2, 20) on which man and society can find stability and salvation. On this corner stone the church is built, and hence against her the adversary can never prevail: “The gates of hell shall not prevail” (St. Matthew 16, 18) nor can they ever weaken her; nay, rather, internal and external struggles tend to augment the force and multiply the laurels of her victories. On the other hand, any other building which has not been founded solidly on the teaching of Christ rests on shifting sands and is destined to perish miserably (cf. St. Matthews 7, 26, 27).

‘HOUR OF DARKNESS.’ Venerable brethren, the hour when this our first encyclical reaches you is in many respects a real “hour of darkness” (cf. St. Luke 22, 53) in which the spirit of violence and of discord brings indescribable suffering on mankind. Do we need to give assurance that our paternal heart is close to all our children in compassionate love and especially to the afflicted, the oppressed, the persecuted? The nations swept into the tragic whirlpool of war are perhaps as yet only at the “beginning of sorrows” (St. Matthew.

but even now there reigns in thousands of families death and desolation, lamentation and misery. The blood of countless human beings, even non-combatants, raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as our dear Poland, which, for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in the defense of Christian civilization written in indelible characters in the annals of history, has a right to the generous and brotherly sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful intercession of Mary, help of Christians, the hour of a resurrection in harmony with the principles of justice and true peace. What has already happened and is still happening, was presented, as it were, in a vision before our eyes when while still some hope was left, we left nothing undone in the form suggested to us by our apostolic office and by the means at our disposal, to prevent recourse to arms and to keep open the way to an understanding honourable to both parties.

PEACE PLEA A DUTY. Convinced that the use of force on one side would be answered by recourse to arms on the other, we considered it a duty inseparable from our apostolic office and of Christian charity to try every means to spare mankind and Christianity the horrors of a world conflagration, even at the risk of having our intentions and our aims misunderstood. Our advice, if heard with respect, was not, however, followed and while our pastoral heart looks on with sorrow and foreboding, the image of the Good Shepherd comes up before our gaze, and it seems as though we ought to repeat to the world in His name: "If thou . . . hadst known . . . the things that are to Thy peace; but now they are hidden from Thy eyes" (St. Luke 19, 42). In the midst of this world which today resents such a sharp contrast to "the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ," the Church and her faithful are in times and in years of trial such as have rarely been known in her history of struggle and suffering.

HOUR OF TRIAL. But in such times especially, he who remains firm in his faith and strong at heart knows that Christ the King is never so near as in the hour of trial, which is the hour for fidelity. With a heart torn by the sufferings and afflictions of so many of her sons, but with the courage and the stability that come from the promises of our Lord, the spouse of Christ goes to meet the gathering storms. This she knows, that the truth which she preaches, the charity which she teaches and practices, will be the indispensable counsellors and aids to men of good will in the reconstruction of a new world based on justice and love, when mankind, weary from its course along the way of error, has tasted the bitter fruits of hate and violence. In the meantime, however, venerable brethren, the world and all those who are stricken by the calamity of the war must know that the obligation of Christian love, the very foundation of the Kingdom of Christ, is not an empty word, but a living reality. A vast field opens up for Christian charity in all its forms. We have full confidence that all our sons, especially those who are not being tried by the scourge of war, will be mindful in imitation of the Divine Samaritan, of all these who as victims of the war, have a right to compassion and help. The "Catholic Church, the City of God, whose king is truth, whose law love and whose measure eternity" (St. Augustine, Ep. CXXXVIII ad Marcellinum, C. 3, N. 17), preaching fearlessly the whole truth of Christ and toiling as the love of Christ demands with the zeal of a mother. . . .

Her Ruttish Highness

It is now time to take a crack at any who would predict her downfall, by calling to mind that she has endured for "2000 years" and stood the test of time, and says in effect that she wears well and is just as attractive as ever—for purposes of international prostitution. And if any person or government believes all that Judge Rutherford has been saying, he is in for a hot time.

STOOD THE TEST. These last are recognizing in the Catholic church principles of belief and life that have stood the test of 2000 years; the strong cohesion of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which in union with the successor of Peter spends itself in enlightening minds with the teaching of the gospel, in guiding and sanctifying men, and which is generous in its material condescension towards all, but firm when, even at the cost of torments or martyrdom, it has to say: "Non Licet" "It is not allowed!"

Knowing the desire of Americans for peace she dishes up potent medicine, well calculated to trap the ignorant and unwary, and in keeping with her scornful belief that we are a race of gullible fools. She feels that few of us know of her unchangeable wickedness, unchangeable cruelty, unchangeable lust for power, unchangeable greed for money, unchangeable craving for the praise of men and nations. She will soon say, "I sit a queen and am no widow." No, she intends not to be a widow. This encyclical shows that she intends to commit wholesale polyandry. Further, it shows that there is one certain country ripe for the plucking, that has been holding out on her, and that if that country desires peace, prosperity and happiness, it had better come running—bearing gifts. Gifts such as subsidies for parochial schools, recognition of herself as state church, enforcement of her ecclesiastical laws, enslavement of the people, and drastic alteration of the Constitution and Supreme Court.

To resist means to incur her displeasure, to face civil war, dictators, blood purges, concentration camps, and all the 'blessed gifts' of Totalitarian Germany and Italy. If this seems a harsh and cruel expedient, let us not forget that all her hypocritical life she has sacrificed the Catholic population in wars and insurrections for the sake of her own ambitions; and if her own flesh and blood mean little to her, what consideration, do you suppose, will she give to non-Catholics—"heretics" to her—or their ideals of freedom and justice?

And, too, venerable brethren, let us not forget how assiduously she imitated the Divine Samaritan when she operated that flower of Catholicism—the Holy Inquisition; and also that other fragrant bouquet—the Crusades—the last of which now nurtures the soul of the Totalitarian monstrosity.

It will be somewhat comical, in the near future, to watch the antics of the same press, who helped her to power, try to escape suppression or Papal regulation, as in Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany. - Joseph E. Bolden, Pennsylvania.

RIGHTEOUS RULER

THE NEW GOVERNMENT

A Conspiracy That Failed

◆ Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is a splendid city of 36,000 inhabitants. It is the metropolis of the state, nestling fondly on both banks of the classic Sioux, about 100 miles north of Sioux City, Iowa. John T. McKee is the mayor and J. W. Galvin is the acting chief of police. Leo Craig is a member of the National Organization of Knights of Columbus. He was recently ousted from membership of the State Board of Charities of South Dakota for irregularities in office. He appealed to the State Supreme Court only to have that august body confirm the action of ex-Governor

Leslie Jensen. J. H. Bechtold is reporter for the United States Government on weather conditions every morning; A. L. Burbank is an accountant employed in the city by an important service company; Stephen Pool is zone servant in South Dakota; J. C. Booth is regional servant from New York; John H. Barrett is manager of the Cataract hotel; Louis Horwitz is a Jewish attorney; W. O. Knight is an attorney and a former State senator and representative, and T. M. Bailey is also an attorney. So much for the cast of characters in the most interesting story you have heard since Hubbard, Ohio, became so well known in this pleasant land of ours.

On September 23, 24, 1939, the zone servant called a meeting of Zone 1 of Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and South Dakota at the Cataract hotel. The hotel grill and ballroom were contracted for for the meetings, which were held Saturday evening and all day Sunday.

Religious Signs Confiscated By Police in Downtown Area

Complaints Reach Headquarters—Advertising Seized Because of No City Permits

Signs advertising a meeting of Judge Rutherford's followers, carried about downtown streets Saturday night by dozens of people, were confiscated by police after "numerous complaints" reached headquarters.

"Religion is a snare and a racket" read one sign. "Serve Christ the King" read another. Others advertised a talk by the judge, "Government and Peace," to be given this afternoon by means of an electrical transcription.

Desk Sgt., C. J. Rector said the signs were seized because those parading the streets had no permits.

"It's necessary to get a permit from city officials before you can carry those signs around the streets," he told them.

It was explained an ordinance requiring permits to parade covered the case.

Between 150 and 200 members of "Jehovah's Witnesses," an organization of Rutherford's followers, were reported to have come to Sioux Falls from points in South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska to attend "a district convention."

J. C. Booth, Brooklyn, N. Y., is here to conduct the session, which opened Saturday. The meeting at the Cataract hotel is scheduled for 2:30 p. m.

The Sioux Falls company of Jehovah's witnesses hold their meetings in Kingdom Hall, which is just across the street, south, from the Cataract hotel, in the Minnehaha building—room 313, on the third floor.

Everything went on in regular order. J.w's engaged in the service until about the middle of Saturday afternoon. At that time an information march began. Our western city was all agog with traffic and city hubbub all up and down Phillips and Main avenues. And then came the cavalcade of Jehovah's witnesses with signs, mottoes, and banners, bearing witness to the country folk and city people that "religion is a snare and a racket", that people should "serve God and Christ the King", that "Christianity offers peace, prosperity, health, and everlasting life". Signs also announced that "Government and Peace", a lecture by Judge Rutherford, would be given at 2:30 on Sunday in the ballroom of the Cataract hotel.

…