Consolation, February 13, 1946
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Contents
Persecution in Poland
"Never-changing Church’* Changes ‘
Cardinal Hlond “Persecuted”
Persecution of Christians
* Women Forced to Dig Trenches
Many Christians Were Shot
Continued Persecution Since th eWar
Polish Concordat Severed
Freedom from Persecution- -When?
Spiritistic Phenomena of the Early
Nineteenth Century
"If” .
"Thy Word Is Truth”
Not a Trinitarian God-Man
Current Laws and Lawmakers
America Ruled by the People
Much Progress Being Made
From the Philippines
Brazil's Excommunicated Bishop
The Priest at the Quebec Mobbings
Careful Planning in Utah
The Terrible Triplets
Confusion and Fear-of-Crcatures
Rotherham, and The, Emphasized. Bible
Believed in The Theocracy
Cutting Down the Cost of Iowa Prayers
President Harry S. Truman
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Tn Brief
Gets 59 Innocent, Useful Men Fired
♦ It takes a peculiar kind of greatness to get fifty-nine innocent, useful men fired off their jobs for no reason at all, but it has been done. In midsummer of 1944, when the United States was needing the services of every man, the Hearst press in California, having done all possible in that part of the world to create antagonism between Japanese-Amerieans and other Americans, sent one of its most efficient troublemakers on to Chicago.
Being an expert in that line, he got results right away. When he arrived the Illinois Central railway had 59 Japanese-American track laborers, rendering honest and faithful service. The next day after he arrived, the A. F. of L. Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees began to talk- strike unless these men were chased out of their jobs. On the third day the local Hearst fright began to scream of Japanese dangers in Illinois, using American Legion officials to mouth their hallucinations. On the fourth day the union called its strike meeting, and on the fifth day the United States army, needing to use the railway, asktid the Illinois Central to take these efficient men off their jobs.
In due time the readers of the Hearst publications .will understand how they have been hoodwinked, but it sometimes takes many years for truth to come to the front. For instance, the true story of how Chicago’s great fire of 1871 was started was not revealed until 73 years afterwards. Id stead of being begun by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern, it was actually started when a group of boys shooting dice overturned the lantern. Being unable to extinguish the blaze which- they had started, they lied it onto the cow. The last one of the boys to die recently told the truth of the story on his deathbed.
CONSOLATION
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.S. V.
Volume XXVH Brooklyn, N.Y., Wednesday, February 13, 1946 Number MB
Persecution in Poland
AT ELEVEN minutes past five, on the morning of September 1, 1939, Hitler ordered his troops to attack Poland, Seventeen days later, the Russians advanced on a five-hundred-mile front from the east and occupied Poland’s territory east of the Bug river. And on September 28, in less than a month’s time, the Germans entered Warsaw and the conquest was complete. Such is the terse history of Poland’s tragic defeat. The Poles then suffered beneath the double yoke of Nazism and Communism until in June, 1941, the declaration of war on Russia by Germany transformed their country again into a bloody battlefield. Still later, in 1944, the surge of battle once more swept over the country, this time from east to west, as the Russians drove the Nazis back to total defeat. All together, five and a half years of war plowed up Poland, making desolate her cities and people.
In addition to all the horrors of war, beaten Poland had to suffer under the oppressive and cruel heel of Nazi conquerors. Not only did they feed themselves off the land, but they also plundered and robbed the country, stripping it of all materials and equipment of any value.
Polish Jews Slaughtered
The “superman” program instituted in Poland, as in all other occupied territory, listed the Jews for extermination. Before the war one-tenth of the population, or about 3,500,000, were of Jewish nationality. A few of these escaped to Siberia, but the great majority suffered a gruesome death in the infamous gas-chambers at Oswiecim and Lublin. The “master plan” calling for a Jew-free Europe by 1946 almost succeeded in Poland ; only a remnant, estimated at 80,000, survived this fiendish mass slaughter. It taxes the imagination to the limit to think of a crime of such magnitude. Over 3,000,000 men, women and children murdered in cold blood!
Another policy of the Nazis was that of making the Poles work as slave labor for their war machine. Orders were issued, accompanied with a threat of violence if not complied with, and the people had their choice of either obeying or suffering the consequences. Poles, however, do not make willing slaves. It is against their nature. Many, therefore, openly rebelled against these tyrant methods and brought down the wrath of the Gestapo not only upon their own heads but also upon the heads of their countrymen as well. Privileges were withdrawn; many were arrested, beaten and imprisoned; large groups were rounded up and forcibly deported to Germany; and the general sufferings and hardships of the people were increased.
Persecution of Catholics
The American and British press have published a great deal about the inhuman treatment of Poles by the godless Nazis, claiming that it was a case of religious persecution because such victims were Catholics. There is no denying that these people unjustly suffered many atrocious outrages and indignities. But the question arises: Were they persecuted because they were Catholics or because they were Poles?
Poland, like Ireland, has been so steeped in Catholicism that it may seem to some almost impossible to distinguish between their national patriotism and their religious fervor. But if an overall jview of the matter is taken.it will help to answer the question. Consider how the Nazis treated other Catholic countries that they took over. Austria, Hungary and Slovakia were all Catholic countries, as well as Belgium and France in: the west. But were these people persecuted like the Poles? The reports of the press indicate that they were not. The conclusion must be drawn, then, that the Polish people were not persecuted because they were Catholics but because they were Poles. They w’ere not persecuted because they were Catholics, but, rather, in spite of it. This opinion is also shared by others.
That H ill cPs violent destruction of Poland had nothing to do with Poland's Catholicism as such is seen from his entirely different treatment of other Catholic nations such as Slovakia (whose president is a Catholic monsignor) and Hungary. It is clear that he would have treated the Poles in the same way whether they were Orthodox Catholics or Mohammedans. He persecutes the Poles not because they are Catholics, but because they are Poles; he persecutes them not because of their Catholicism but in spite of it.—The Converted Catholic,, April, 1943.
“Never-changing Church” Changes
At the beginning of the war the Hierarchy openly admitted its intimacy and close relationship with the Fascist-Nazi beast. Thus we read in the New' York Times in 1939:
The Catholic bishops of Germany have issued a pastoral letter stating: ,
“In this decisive hour we admonish our Catholic soldiers to do their duty in obedience to the Fuehrer and be ready to sacrifice' their whole individuality.
“We appeal to the faithful to join in ardent prayers that the; Divine Providence of God Almighty may lead this war to blessed success and peace for our fatherland and nation.”
The archangel is shown, brandishing a battlesword and piercing a dragon with a holy lance, on the front page of Catholic papers.
And a dispatch from Vatican City, in the same year, sent after Germany and Russia had split Poland between them, said:
The church under the present Pope has no fight against totalitarianism as such and its relations with totalitarian Italy are currently good. [ Baltimore Sun]
But when the totalitarian war monster began losing ground the Roman Catholic Hierarchy endeavored to cover up her illicit relationship with Fascism and Nazism. So the fusion, or rather confusion, in the minds of the general public on the subject of Polish nationalism and Catholicism served the Vatican’s purpose very well. The Catholic press in the western democracies seized upon Poland’s fate and wept that it was a persecution of the “Church” by the Nazis. And the simple and ignorant were moved by these artificial tears.
However, well-informed individuals knew of the close alliance between the Catholic Church and the Nazis. They recollected that Hitler had signed a concordat or secret agreement with the Vatican. They remembered that when the Nazis marched into Austria Cardinal Innitzcr was the first to congratulate Hitler, while at the same time the swTastika was flown atop the Catholic cathedrals. They recalled how the Catholic priest, Tiso, of Slovakia had been made head of that puppet state by Hitler. They knew also that Catholic Petain, whom the pope called “the good marshal’’, was put at the head of Vichy France by the Nazis. They had not forgotten either how King Leopold of Belgium, because he was a devout Catholic, had betrayed his country to the Nazis. Yes, wide-awake and thinking people were not deceived by the weeping and wailing of the Hierarchy that their church was being persecuted by the Hitlerites in Poland.
Another pin was stuck in the Vatican’s Western propaganda balloon when two nuns in New York spoke out of turn. They had just returned from Poland after living there under the Nazi occupation for some time, and hence were ignorant that they were letting this “persecution” gas, generated by the American Hierarchy, out of the bag. When interviewed upon their arrival in New York they innocently told the truth of t matters as they had experienced them. Their story revealed that the Nazis, while inflicting great suffering on the Polish people, were at the same time very careful to protect the official Catholic Church. Says the New York Times (February 10, 1940):
Two American nuns of the Franciscan Order returned to the United States yesterday aboard the Italian motorship Saturnia with praise for the German behavior toward their convent near Warsaw during the occupation of Poland. . . .
The German troops, mostly men from Bavaria and the Austrian Provinces, were “very nice”, Sister Bogumila asserted, brought wounded .and orphan children to the convent for care . . .
German soldiers and officers, Sister Bogumila said, helped the sisters to obtain food. The Germans, she added, made the convent staff headquarters, but took nothing from the premises except some food, for which they paid. Stores of coal were untouched. ;
“I can’t exaggerate in saying how nice the German soldiers were to us,” she said. .
Cardinal Hlond “Persecuted”
Some will recall reading about the arrests of Catholic priests, and especially about the disappearance of Cardinal Hlond, of Poland. At the time a great cry'went up about the “terrible persecution” of the Church. Much space was taken up in the public press telling of the “grave concern” expressed by the Vatican and members of the Hierarchy over the incident. Surely this was an outstanding example of Catholic persecution! said the papists.
At the time the whole matter was shrouded in mystery. Not until the year 1945 did the world learn that the story about the cardinal’s suffering at the • hands of the brutal Nazis was a hoax. The Chicago Sun, April 9, 1.945, after telling how Hlond went to Rome in 1939, and later to France, where he lived far away from all the horrors of war that , were ravaging his own country, continues and says:
He remained for a few months in Lourdes with the Bishop of Tarbes and was then interned by the Nazis in a Benedictine monastery in the Haute Savoie. Subsequently he was removed to Paris and then to Germany, where he lived in the convent of the Sisters of Christian Charity at Wicdenbrueck.
It was here that the Allies found him living on Easter day. When asked concerning all those “terrible” things the press had said he suffered under the Gestapo, the cardinal answered, as reported by the Chicago Sun, “Those little personal things are unimportant.” And they must have been, for, instead of finding him weak from starvation, suffering malnutrition, emaciated and beaten like the other prisoners of the Nazis, it is said by the New York Times, “The Primate appeared in excellent spirits and fine health.” And all along the world had been led to believe that Hlond was suffering the tortures of a concentration camp. Instead, this “redcap” was enjoying the benefits of a Benedictine monastery and the comforts of a convent!
And why did the Nazis hold this prince of the church in protective custody?; Was it to persecute him or his church? “Polish sources asserted that he was one of the most important hostages held by the Germans, and that they had hoped to use him and others, such as King Leopold of the Belgians, in a human ‘horse trade’ for the lives of Nazi
leaders.” (New York Times, April 9, 1945) All facts considered, it is absolutely certain that the Hitler government did not hold Hlond because of any quarrel with the Church of Rome; they were merely shrewd “horse traders” and knew a good one when they saw it.
ersecution of Christians
We have learned of the persecution of
Jews in Poland. And we have heard of the persecution of Catholics. But have we ever heard of the persecution of Christians in that country? What? are not devout religious Catholics'the same as Christians? No; there is a great difference between the two. It goes without ■ saying, and will not be disputed by anyone, that the Catholic Church is very much a part of this old world of politics, commerce and religion. The ambassadors and diplomats of the various political nations of this world are officially assigned to the Vatican court, and in exchange papal nuncios and prelates are sent as political emissaries of the “Church” to practically every country. Devout Catholics approve of such a system and give it their whole support.
On the other hand, Christians'are followers of Christ Jesus, who said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36) Furthermore, He tells true Christians that they are to be no part of this old Satanic world, and for such reason they would be persecuted and hated by it. He says: “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” (John 15:19) Unpretentiously these Christians go throughout all nations preaching, as commanded, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And because they testify to this fact they are known as Jehovah’s ' witnesses.
The public press being part and parcel of this present evil world, it is not surprising to find that it overlooked and ignored the persecution of these faithful Christian^ in Poland. Nevertheless, the population of Poland was aware of the wicked mistreatment endured by ‘ this small minority, and now others may learn of this from some of the eyewitness reports received from these witnesses themselves. Christians in that country were afflicted and tormented by the demonized Nazis because they were announcing- the establishment of God’s government, and because they refused to give up such important work in order to work for the totalitarians. One report reads:
One of the Warsaw brethren who was ordered to dig went to the German police and told them that he could not do so. The police commissioner would not listen. He ordered him to report and told him that when he got before the Gorman officer he would change his mind. The brother appeared for work and told the German officer that for conscience’ sake he could not do the work, and gave him a witness. The officer took his revolver and pointed it at his head. The brother made a motion with his index finger across his throat as if to say, “1 am ready.” (Hp could not speak German and needed an interpreter.) Then the German officer put his revolver away and said to the Polish policeman not to send him people like that any more. The brother was released. ,
Another report from the witnesses living in the vicinity of the Bug river tells of a similar experience:
In the spring of 1944, the Germans started to prepare the defense line along the Bug river and all families were requested to work. When one of our brethren in the village on the Bug told the commander that he could not do such work, be was told he would be shot. And to give effect to the threat, anti to make an example, the brother wfas placed on a raised stand to be seen by everybody. The officer now took his revolver and aimed it at him. The brother was quiet, commending his spirit to the Lord. The officer, finding that he could get nowhere in this manner, tried to talk to him. But in this way neither could he get anywhere. Then he realized that the brother had some buttered bread in his pocket and he told him to go ahead and eat it. The brother said, “There is no good reason to do so, for I’m going to be shot.” This stand amazed everyone. It was a great witness before all neighbors and friends who lived in the neighborhood of the brother and had heard him often on other occasions proclaim the Kingdom. But now they saw tin act. All those who claimed to be good Christians (Catholics) had not the courage to take such a stand. The commander told the brother, “There are many like you in Germany and they are for a long time in concentration camps.” Then he ordered that the brother be locked up in a barn to remain until the evening to make a decision. And if he did not decide to dig, then he would be shot. When evening came, they called the brother out of the barn. “Will you dig?” they asked. “No,” was the answer, “I cannot be unfaithful unto God.” Then he was released to go home.
Women Forced to Dig Trenches
The Nazi war lords regimented Polish women as well as men and boys to dig their trenches for them. This meant that the faithful sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ had to risk their lives like the brothers in taking an open stand for God and His kingdom.
When this question of digging trenches came up one of the sisters had to report at a certain place. There she declared that she was one of Jehovah’s witnesses and could not' dig any trenches. Without consideration, they ordered her to accompany the others in a ear. They arrived at a section where the commander was a uniformed member of the Party. He tried to force the sister to dig. She again stated that she was decoded not to do it, and gave him a witness. The two or three hundred people who were there, mostly neighbors and relatives of the sister, and knowing her to be one of Jehovah’s witnesses, took the side of the occupation forces. They cried, “We all have to dig. Why should she, with her heresy faith, not do the same ?” Others cried, “Communist! Shoot her!”
Here is an example of Polish Catholics digging ditches for the Nazis and muttering that they were being perse^-cuted thereby; while at the same time, observing the faithful course of a true Christian in their midst, they cried, “'Communist! Crucify her!” exactly like the hypocritical religionists of Jesus’ day. It is very evident which ones were the bogus Christians. Continuing, this report says:
The commander sought to reason with her again. When even this didn’t shake her determination, the commander ordered her to go to a haystack and he would shoot her in the back. He loaded his gun. She did as commanded. But when she heard him loading the gun she turned around and said, “You can shoot me from the front.” That was too much for the people. Instead of doing as they intended, they ordered her to sit beside a man near by and wait. From then until evening the sister looked on while the “Christians” dug trenches. The German officer told the Polish bailiff not to send him any more people like that.
Previous to this incident, the report says, this particular sister had spent some time in jail because a Catholic priest had denounced her. Which brings us to the discussion of a very interesting point.
Catholics Persecute Christians
Why would Catholics, and especially the priests, persecute Christians? Did Christ ever stir up mob action, or was it the religious Pharisees and priests? Did Christ charge the religionists as being seditious against-Caesar, or did the chief priests make sudh a wrongful charge against Christ? Did Christ betray anyone to the secular authorities, or was that Judas? If you are in doubt as to the answers to any of these questions you may look them up. (Matthew 26:65-68; Luke23:2-5; John 19:6,12,15; Matthew 26:14-16,47-49) Likewise, in these last days, it was the priests of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in Poland, as in other countries, that instigated mob violence and wickedly laid the charge oh sedition against faithful Christians.
Catholic mobs broke up and destroyed . the homes of Jehovah’s witnesses and beat them unmercifully. Catholic priests maliciously' lied to the Nazis that these _ Christians were connected with the underground movement. While at the same time in America and Britain the Harlot - Press bawled about the persecution of
Catholic priests in Poland!
In the larger centers Jehovah’s witnesses suffered mostly under the Nazi cudgel, but in the rural districts the tormentors were mainly' their own countrymen.
Here the persecutions were predominantly made by the strong conservative elements of . the fanatic, superstitious, Catholic population, led by the clergy. In accordance with Catholic Action they organized regular gangs which broke into the homes of the brethren, maltreated them terribly, and tried to force them to deny their faith.
In the district of Lublin lived a sister with her family. Her husband was favor/ able to the truth but did not claim to be one of Jehovah’s witnesses. One day an armed gang of Catholic men forced entrance to their home. After cruelly mistreating this man they' forced him to swear that he would deny the teachings of Jehovah’s witnesses as heresy and avoid them. Also that he would hang up on the walls pictures of “saints” and worship them. Then the demonized gang completely demolished the inside of the home, and, upon leaving, threatened him that if he did not comply' with their orders they' would return and kill him. The result of such "Catholic Action was that the man had his eyres opened to the fact that religion is of the Devil. So he made . a full consecration to the Lord to be a faithful Christian henceforth, cost what it might in persecution and suffering. When the Catholic mobsters returned the second time they tortured him unmercifully' in the most inhuman way, believing that they could bend him as they had done the first time; yet to no avail. He remained unshaken, and it resulted in a powerful witness. Says the report:
Similar cases happened often in that region.They came and hung up some crucifixes and pictures of saints on the walls of the brethren’s homes and tried through whipping to force them to worship the images. The demonized members of Catholic Action came again and again. When they saw that the idols were removed, they ill-treated the brothers and sisters with the most bestial brutality. They' called them Jews, ordered them to pray and worship pictures of their family that were hanging on the walls. Often the brethren recognized .among those who ill-treated them some people from neighboring villages. Yet they did not try to revenge themselves. They left it to the Lord, who says: “Vengeance is mine, and recompense.” (Deuteronomy 32:35, Am. Sta-n. Ver.) On one occasion a detachment of Polish soldiers of the Partisans, that was encamped in a near-by forest, saw the demolished home of a brother, and, hearing about those crimes, the officers wanted to know w'ho were the guilty' ones so that they could be found and shot. But the brother, although he knew them, did not deliver them up.
■ Besides bringing mob action to bear against Jehovah’s witnesses in Poland the clergy' made false accusations before the Nazis against the brethren, and caused them to suffer even death. To cite one such instance:
- In May, 1944, two brethren from the neighborhood of Myslcnice were arrested and tak-■ cn down to the prison of Cracow. They were arrested because of a charge that had been made by' a strong Catholic section in their home town, of which the spiritual leader was the Catholic priest. The claim was that they belonged to the secret'home army (A.K. Polish Resistance Movement) and that they' had arms in their possession. It was well known throughout the town that this was a calumny. The brethren were, since 1941, known as Jehovah’s witnesses.
In the beginning of the war, when they did not know the truth, they' had belonged to that movement and at that time they' had the favor of their present Catholic denouncers. But when they recognized the truth, in 1941, they' gave up everything and from that time on they hair no more arms. This was the circumstance that caused the enmity of the leaders of the town, the Catholic-controlled nationalists and, above all, the clergy, who were not ashamed to deliver their own Polish people to the hated occupation army, and accuse them of something that they themselves approved. The two brethren were later sent to the concentration camp.
Many Christians Were Shot
The course of least resistance is to go along with the world and comply with all of their rules and regulations whether such are right or wrong, whether they violate God’s law or not. This is the course that all religionists take. Christians, on the other hand, are commanded to obey God’s supreme law at all'times regardless of what it requires of them ■in the way of suffering. Were such not told by Christ that they would experience the^e things at the hands of Satan’s tools? Did He not tell them that some of them would be killed? (See Matthew 10:16-18; 24:9,10.) The following experiences, then, do not shake the faith of Jehovah’s witnesses, but rather give assurance to all that there are still faithful and true Christians in the world that are not afraid to die as martyrs, if need be, to maintain their integrity.
Two brethren from Kielce (30 and 24 years old), hardly two months in the truth, were assigned to dig trenches. After they refused to dig and explained their reason, they were shot immediately as an example to the others. In another village in the neighborhood of Miediow the district bailiff, with the help of Polish police, gathered the people to dig trenches. But the work entrusted to him by the occupation government had many difficulties because the people did not willingly listen to his orders. One day the state police appeared in the village to oversee the execution of the orders. The bailiff wanted to frighten the brethren. So he called, without orders of the state police, a brother and his wife to appear before the state police. The two came immediately and declared that they could not dig because they were Jehovah's witnesses, and they gave him a witness. The state policeman, not understanding what was going on, felt himself threatened and shot both of them on the spot with his M.P. revolver. All the neighbors of the village and all around were very much disturbed through this event and confessed that those people lost their lives innocently and for their faith. The bailiff felt himself responsible for the death of the brother and sister. They left a few children.
Shortly there came news from Breslau that an older brother and sister refused to do some digging and were shot.
Not all of Jehovah’s witnesses were shot. But nearly all those that came through alive can tell of narrow escapes from many perils. Even in the eastern territories of Poland from 1939 to 1941, under Russian control, the brethren also had a hard fight to maintain their integrity, One report from this section says:
The brethren had severe tests when they refused to do military service. For instance, one brother they tried to force by all means. First they talked to him, then there were whippings and threats to shoot him. The Russian officer could not understand his position. Finally, when the officer saw he could not change the opinion of the brother, he concluded to let him go free.
After a short time when the Russians were pushed back by the Nazis it happened that the people shot at the Russian soldiers out of the windows. Immediately the house was surrounded and the inhabitants, among whom was a brother, had to line up in the street to be shot. An angry officer reviewed them. When he saw the brother, he suddenly stopped, and said, “This one did not shoot.” It was the same officer before whom the brother refused military service. The brother was allowed to leave, and so escaped death. All the rest were shot.
Priest’s “Blessing” Turned into a Curse
A young sister, carrying food from the country to a town, was taken with a whole trainload of passengers. They were locked in a building which was closely watched, biit
where she naturally fulfilled her duty as a witness of Jehovah, and eagerly told of the Kingdom . . . Two days later she was carried to the station with a company Of others glosely guarded, and all were to be sent to Germany as forced labor. A Catholic priest came to “bless” and “comfort” them and en-> courage them to do their duty to the “higher j powers”. The sister, with her Bible under her arm, stood on one side. Being asked of the priest whether she didn’t want his blessing, she replied that she had her Bible and that was quite sufficient for her. In the last moment before the train left, in a second, she managed to slip away despite the closest vigilance of the guards. Full of joy she came home to her grieving family, who then wept tears of joy and thanked Jehovah for His goodness and mercy. [ From the report on Poland, taken-from the 1946 Yearbook of Jehovah's witnesses]
Does it seem strange that a Catholic priest was out “blessing” and encouraging poor Polish Catholics to work as slave labor for tlje Nazi wa?' machine? No, it was not strange at all; for the truth of the matter is that the Catholic Church worked hand in glove with the Nazi slave-drivers. This is just anothef evidence of it. But -what might seem strange to some is the fact that the girl who disdainfully refused this priest’s “blessing” was the only one reported to have escaped from that slave transport while those who were “blessed” by that agent of the pope perhaps never returned alive. However, this should not seem strange either; for that girl with Bible in hand ‘put not her trust in priests and princes’, but in the Almighty One whom she served, namely, Jehovah God.—-Psalm 146: 3. . .
Another instance of the futility of putting one’s hope and trust in religion and its idolatry to save one in a time of dire need is the following taken from an eyewitness account of the Warsaw' revolt in ] 944. ।
In the beginning of the revolution the city was mostly under the control of the revolutionary.- But when the help expected by the Russians failed; the SS troops fighting against the revolutionary encircled.them. After a few days the revolutionary were pushed back. Now began a “cleanup” job by the support troops of the German army, those renowned for their murder lust. The civilian population was shot down in the beginning, and their houses set afire.
On order of the pope there was erected in each courtyard an altar before which the household gathered themselves daily to pray for peace (already before the revolution started). And now you saw the people near to desperation and insanity. They pulled out their hair and cried to God for help. Others spit on the altar and blasphemed their god who had left them. Others kneeled down before it and stupidly mumbled the rosary. With all this were mixed' the wild cries of the enclosing cleanup troops. The crack of the revolvers of the M.P.’s and the cries and howls of the helpless women and children filled the air.
During this revolt thousands perished. All their rosaries, altars and priests, though they were sanctified with “holy water” and “Hail Marys”, were of no avail. Their god of religion was of no account; it had failed them. But let us here again remember that they suffered these things not because they were 'Catholics, but rather in spite of it, and because they had revolted against the Nazi rule, which rule had the pope’s blessing.
Continued Persecution Since the IFar
When Hitler and his gang passed out of the picture it was expected that persecution in Poland would cease. Yet reports continue to tell of anti-Semitism still flourishing in Poland.
November 26, 1945—Representative Samuel Diekstein, Democrat, of New York, said today that he had received what he believed to be authoritative evidence that Jews now being repatriated to Poland are currently becoming “the object of vicious and unprovoked maltreatment and in many cases have .been massacred or threatened with death”. He blamed the Poles for this “outbreak of antiSemitism”. [New York Times] ■
Now; who are the ones doing the persecuting this time? It is not the Germans, but the Poles themselves. And if Poles, then Catholies: Catholics carrying on an anti-Semitic campaign of persecution the same as the Nazis. No wonder the seventy Jewish delegates that called on the pope, November 29, were disappointed when they asked for relief and were callously told, as reported, that he could not intervene in matters that were “purely political and territorial” in nature.
But the cry of persecution of Jews today in Poland is drowned out by the loud and persistent sobbing of the press about “persecution” of the Catholic Church. Following the Yalta conference there has been a concerted and well-organized effort made to discredit the present Polish government. This has been called by some the “poor little Pound” campaign, and, because it has been so well rehearsed, this lamentation has» lost its ring of sincerity. To quote one stanza of the dirge:
Scoring the treatment of Poland by the Lublin government as a “violation of the laws of man and God” and a threat to .“America’s honor”, the Association of Roman Catholic Priests of Polish Descent in the Springfield Diocese today issued a statement signed by forty-three priests. [New York Times, February 8, 1945]
In direct contradiction, Boleslaw Bierut, acting president of the Lublin government, issued tills statement (same date, same paper): “ 'Full religious freedom will be given to Roman Catholics in Poland and to all other groups,’ Bierut stated in an interview.” So, then, the “persecution” of the Catholic Church must be that referred to in the statement about religious freedom being extended “to all other groups” as well as the Roman variety. Ah, yes, where education rules ignorance suffers; where freedom of worship reigns the “Church” is “persecuted”.
Some may object to the citing of Bie-FKBRUARY 13, 1946 .
rut on the question of Catholic freedom in Poland, on the ground that he is connected with the Lublin government. If so, then we must call in the testimony of a neutral observer, Mr. W. H. Lawrence, a well-known correspondent of the New York Times. Being in Poland at the time and having a first-hand knowledge of the matter, he wired the following, on January 9, 1945:
First of all, in dealing with the Roman Catholic Church the government has been meticulously and scrupulously correct. Church leaders with whom I have talked assure me that they have complete liberty of religious education, religious services and church administration, although the last problem naturally is somewhat complicated by wartime transport and communications difficulties ... In rewoonig Peasant party supporters of the division of landed estates the Polish Committee of National Liberation was careful to exclude the large properties owned by the church. This policy will be continued by the new Provisional Government.
More “Persecution” of Catholics
Another charge made to support the false claim that Catholics were persecuted was that relief supplies sent to Poland never reached Catholics. Irving Brant, however, writing in the Chicago Sun (November 12, 1945), makes this deliberate misrepresentation look rather silly.
Among the falsehoods which some antigovernment Poles attempt to plant on American newspapermen is one that UNRRA’s medicines go only to members of the Workers Party, and, especially, not to Catholics.
This statement Is nonsensical because no medicines go to individuals and nearly all Poles are Catholics.
Medical supplies are distributed in two categorics—first to hospitals, health centers and the army medical department, and then to pharmacies for general sale.
To cheek further on this matter, I went to the pharmaceutical division of the ministry of health and asked to see individual order
sheets, showing the distribution of UNRRA medicines .from warehouses. '
If they are going to the Workers Party and not to Catholics, the Communists must be _ adopting strange names. '
Records showed shipments of medicine, beds, mattresses and the like to such institutions as the Asylum of the Holy Virgin, the Asylum of God’s Providence, the Asylum of the Immaculate Sisters—all of Warsaw— and to the hospitals of St. Peter at Grojee, ( St. Charles at Pulawy, St. Lazarza at Krakow, St. Vincent and Paolo at Lublin, and Jesus Hospital in Warsaw.-
At the same time the Catholic press was bewailing the so-called ‘mistreatment of the Church’ their agencies started a similar sympathy campaign in the United States Senate in an effort .to force^the American government into the Polish controversy on the- side of the “Church”. However, the cry for “democracy” in Poland by these senators was not well taken in the light of Poland’s fascist rule before the war. The copyrighted weekly newsletter In Fact, April 30, 1945, says:
The sudden Congressional converts to “democracy” in Poland including Bushfield, Vandenberg, Wheeler, O’Konski, Butler, et al., are completely silent about the fact that there was no trace of democracy in Poland during most of the past 25 years. Not one of these politicians has ever risen on the floor of the Senate to protest the fascist regime established by Pilsudski and continued by various premiers, or national Polish anti-Semitism, or the 32 Polish families who controlled 90 percent of the land and wealth of Poland and who used Polish workers as serfs.
This Pilsudski was a fascist dictator of Poland from 1926 to 1935. He gained his rulership not by peaceful democratic election but by a coup d’etat. On May 12, 1926, he entered Warsaw at the head of his troops and seized the reins of government. Under his rule the Catholic church flourished, the people suffered, and Rome was happy.
Polish Concordat Severed *
On February 10, 1925, a concordat, or working contract,. went into effect between the See of Rome and Poland. The Encyclopedia Britannica, speaking of the strangle hold the Hierarchy gained on the people’s freedom, yea, on their very life through this agreement, says: “The Catholic Church was granted absolute freedom of execution of her authority and jurisdiction in Poland; the assistance and support, of the state being assured her in this respect.” It was of no small importance, then, when on September!, 1945, fifteen out of the nineteen Cabinet ministers of Poland voted in favor of denouncing this twentyyear concordat, thus bringing it to an end. For the church this was another great calamity added atop all the others. It would be expected that the howl of “persecution” would go up with, an even greater volume as a result of such action. And so it did. Members of the Hierarchy blasted forth that it was an “antireligious act”. Later they tried to comfort themselves by saying that the Polish Provisional Government was only a puppet government and hence did not represent the Polish people, and, therefore, the concordat could not be annulled. Maybe such stupid reasoning gave the trepidating ecclesiastics a little consolation, the poor fellows 1
All of this was merely the rise of Catholic Action foam in the Polish pot due to the cancellation of the concordat. But what was the reason, at the bottom that caused the termination? The Polish government explained that the concordat was discontinued because the Vatican had'violated certain of its Articles in that they worked with the Nazis in appointing German bishops and archbishops to Polish dioceses. More evidence, you will note, of the close accord between the Hitler government and the Vatican.
Poland’s Break for Freedom
Poland’s foreign minister, Rzymowski, •
elucidated further on the matter of persecution of the Catholic church in Poland when he was in America recently to sign the United Nations Charter. Quoting the New York Times (October 25):
Poland’s Provisional Government of National Unity aims to Westernize rather than to Sovietize its shattered land, Wincenty Rzymowski, minister of foreign affairs in the Warsaw government, declared here yesterday. ... ,
As far as the domestic program of the provisional regime is concerned, Mr. Rzymow-ski declared that “essential liberties” granted in many other countries more than 100 years ago were being “introduced just now” in Poland. ’
In 1939, he recalled there was no freedom of religion, for example, because all other faiths were “stamped out” by the “ruling Catholic Church”. Besides religious liberty (a decree making anti-Semitism a criminal offense is now being formulated) the foreign , minister said that free education, abolition of class distinctions and improvement of the general standard of living were on his government’s program.
Already huge estates have been divided among thousands of peasants, with individual ownership of the land the basis for a nonCommunist economy, Mr. Rzymowski asserted. As further evidence that Communism was being held in check, he cited government encouragement of private and co-operative trade.
Freedom .of the press has been assured in Poland except in cases where it has been necessary to destroy Fascist remnants, he held. “The Polish government is firm in its decision to uproot these reminders,” he said.
Mr. Rzymowski asserted that as many foreign correspondents as possible, “the more the better,” will be welcomed in Poland and permitted to gather news with “really no restrictions”.
This statement about freedom of the press and the suppression of fascist publications may explain why the Polish Catholic, press has not> “recuperated”. The Catholic paper Denver Register lists this as an evidence of “persecution” of the “Church”. It says (September 11): “The once vigorous Polish Catholic press has not recuperated, although some weeklies are allowed to publish discussions of purely religious matters.”
But is it persecution to give to the Polish people the liberties enjoyed by Western democracies? Is it persecution to break the shackles that have bound Poland hand and foot? Is it persecution to dissolve the union of Church and state in order that freedom of worship for all may be established? In answer to these questions the Hierarchy will moan, ‘Yes, persecution.’ Liberty-loving Poles, however, will rejoice to learn of this break for freedom, the first in a hundred years I
Freedom from Persecution—When?
While the breaking of the concordat is a long step in uprooting persecution in Poland, one wonders to what extent the new Provisional Government will succeed in preventing future assaults on individuals and their property. Jews may expect some relief from mistreatment if the government is powerful enough to enforce its legislation on antiSemitism. But, at the best, such relief is only transitory. Complete freedom from fear must come from an eternal source of power and justice.
The severance of the concordat was a relief measure for even the Catholic population themselves in Poland. For beneath the crushing burden of Church and state for many years the people were ground down to poverty. Now the suffering of honest Polish Catholics due to ignorance and superstition will be alleviated in proportion to the knowledge of the truth they receive as contained in the Bible. For Christ says to such: “The truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) However, to the extent that this liberation from religious bond-, age and fear is given to the Polish people, even to that degree may we expect the Hierarchy to weep and howl that
■ their church is being persecuted. And we have it on the best authority that such will be the case. God Almighty says by His prophet Jeremiah (25:36), “A _ voice of the cry of the shepherds, and an . howling of the principal of the flock, shall be heard: for the Lord hath spoiled *■ their pasture.”
As long as this old world under Satan’s rule continues Jehovah’s witnesses do not expect freedom from persecution, notwithstanding the mighty claims of men to outlaw the same. The only hope of relief for these Christians is in the Theocratic Government, under Christ as King. Hence these witnesses will continue to act as its ambassadors.
Freedom in its largest degree, not only from persecution but from all other evils, will come when thi$ Theocratic Government dashes to pieces every vestige of Satan’s demonic organization. Thereafter Poles, whether they now are called Jews,' Catholics or Christians, if they love righteousness and meekness, will live in that New World of peace and perfection without fear from any quarter.
Spiritistic Phenomena of the Early Nineteenth Century
THE following is taken from “Historical Collections of the Great West; by Henry Howe, author of Historical Collections of Virginia and Ohio,” Vol. 1, published by Henry Howe at E. Morgan & Co., Ill Main street, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1854:
Aboqt the commencement of the present century, the religious' meetings of the west were attended by singular mental and physical phenomena, resembling somewhat in some of their phases the mesmeric phenomena of our day. They were not exclusively confined to any one denomination, or those who have been considered the most excitable and enthusiastic, for even the phlegmatic New England Presbyterians of the reserve came under their influence. ,
They, however, exhibited themselves with greater power at the earlier forest gatherings of the Methodists. On those occasions the feelings and mental exercises were contagious, and often spread like an epidemic through a congregation, hundreds being smitten down. They could not be accounted for by any known laws of our mental organization, and therefore were, mostly ascribed to a supernatural agency.
A clerical writer classifies their different manifestations respectively as “the falling”, ( “the jerking,” “the rolling,” “the dancing,” and “the barking” exercises together with “visions and trances”.
The last named was the most common affection. In this the subject was thrown into a state of ecstasy of mental reverie, attended with the loss of all muscular power and consciousness of external relations or objects, similar to a protracted catalepsy. Yet the mind appeared wholly absorbed in delightful contemplations, which often lightened up the countenance with a rapturous, angelie expression. This condition continued from a few hours to two days, during which there was an entire suspension of all the animal and voluntary functions.
The most singular and alarming of those affections was the jerking exercise, which, although common to both sexes, was more frequent in vigorous athletic men.
The first recorded instance of its occurrence was at a sacrament in east Tennessee, when several hundred of both sexes were seized with this strange and involuntary contortion. The subject was instantaneously seized with spasms or convulsions in every muscle, nerve and tendon. His head was thrown or jerked from side to side with such rapidity that it was impossible to distinguish his visage, and the most lively fears were awakened lest he should dislocate his neck or dash out his brains. His body partook of the same impulse and was hurried on by like jerks over every obstacle, fallen trunks of trees, or, in a church, over pews and benches, apparently to the most imminent danger of being bruised and
manglgd. It was useless to attempt to hold or restrain him, and the paroxysm was permitted gradually to exhaust itself. An additional motive for leaving him to himself was the ■ superstitious notion that all attempt at restraint was resisting the spirit of God.
The first form in which these spasmodic contortions made their appearance was that of a simple jerking of the arms from the elbows downward. The jerk was very quick and sudden, and followed with short inter- vals. This was the simplest and most common form, but the convulsive motion was not confined to the arms; it extended in many instances to other part? of the body. When the joint of the neek was affected, the head was thrown backward and forward with a celerity frightful to behold, and which was impossible to be imitated by persons who were not under the same stimulus. The bosom heaved, the countenance was disgustingly distorted, and the spectators were alarmed lest the neck should be broken. When the hair was long it was' shaken with quickness, backward and forward, as to crack and snap like the lash of a whip, so as to be heard twenty feet. Sometimes the muscles of the back were affected, and the patient was thrown to the' ground, when his contortions for some time resembled those of a live fish cast, from its native element on the land.
From the universal testimony of those who have described these spasms, they appear to be wholly involuntary. This remark is applicable also to all the other bodily exercises. What demonstrates satisfactorily their involuntary nature is, not only that, as above stated, the twitches prevailed in spite of resistance, and even more for attempts to suppress them; but that wicked men would be seized with them while sedulously guarding against an attack, and cursing every jerk when made. Travelers on their journey and laborers at their daily work were also liable to them. ’
“If11
If you can keep your faith when all about you Are lacking faith and ridiculing you;
If you can hold your faith when many hate you .
And make allowance for their hating, too;
If you keep faith, and pray much to the
Master,
And always pray, in Jesus’ loving name, To help keep all these doubters from disaster, And strengthen these of “no faith” in God’s aim;
If you can bear to hear God’s Word which you have spoken
- Twisted by those by whom you’re ridiculed;
Or see life’s friendships twisted too, and broken,
Yet kneel and pray for those whose love has cooled;
If you keep calm when tears are near the surface
At seeing God’s dear name dragged in the dust,
Yet stand and claim your right to serve God’s purpose,
Insisting that in God’s kingdom come you’ll trust;
If when your friends and loved ones all desert you
You with Jehovah take your final stand, And yet, in faith, you keep your trust and virtue
And rest your all within His loving hand;
If when you hold your banner high, proclaiming
To all the world “The Kingdom is at hand”, And still keep faith, if all pass by you saying
“We do not even wish to understand”;
If in Jehovah you have faith, each minute,
And work for Him, and pray, and struggle on;
Then yours the earth, and everything that’s in it;
And what is more, my son, you’ll be God’s son.
Not a Trinitarian God-Man
SAYS a popular "Roman Catholic book on doctrine*: “Tn this one God there are three distinct Persons,—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who are perfectly equal to each other. We believe that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, is perfect God and perfect Man.”
However, at Paul’s first epistle to Timothy, chapter two, verses five and six, of the Catholic Douay Version Bible, it is written: “For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times.”
The “redemption” here mentioned means “ransom” or an exactly corresponding price, and means therefore that the life of Jesus on earth was the exact equivalent of that perfect human life which Adam had in Eden but which he forfeited for himself and for all his • offspring by disobeying God’s express command. In the scale of values, therefore, Jesus’ earthly life must weigh the equal of the perfect Adam’s. “A perfect and just weight shalt thou have; a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be long in the land which Jehovah thy God give th thee,” said the prophet Moses to God’s chosen people. (Deuteronomy 25: 15, Am. Stan. Ver.) However, if Jesus at the time He ■was on earth and at the time He died wTas God himself or w’as equal to Jehovah God the Supreme One, then Jesus was more than a perfect man and weighed
* The Faith of Our Fathers, by Cardinal Gibbons, page 17, Ed. 47.
more in value than Adam and His life w’as more than a corresponding price. In that case Jehovah God would be requiring more than a just measure to provide a “redemption” for Adam’s dying offspring. .
Here the “cloven hoof” of religion’s author, Satan the Devil, is made apparent. By the deceiver’s making it appear that Jesus was God or God’s equal,' then the reasonable mind must conclude that Jesus’ prayers and cries to God were a camouflage and that His life laid down in death was not reduced in the scales of justice to provide a ransom or redemption. Therefore this -whole trinitarian doctrinal scheme is unworthy of the consideration of a true God-fearing man. In view7 of the Bible statement that Satan, “the god of this world,” blinds the minds of men lest God’s glorious purpose should shine into their minds, it seems strange that men continue to let the religious clergy deceive them by such an unreasonable doctrine as that of the trinity.—2 Corinthians 4: 4.
The Bible truth is that, when Jesus was on earth, He was a perfect man, nothing more and nothing less, He having laid aside His heavenly life and glory and become poor comparatively as a man. (Philippians 2:5-8; 2 Corinthians 8: 9) Of all the names known to history, Jesus of Nazareth is the outstanding one. In the brief period of thirty-three and a half years of "His earthly pilgrimage He affected the course of humankind more than any other man. The more intelligent people of the nations of the earth count their years according to the birth of Jesus. The record of this truly great man is found in the Holy Scriptures. God through His prophets foretold the birth of this mighty one. (See Genesis 49:10; Deuteronomy 18:15-18; Isaiah 9:6,7.) In due time God sent His angel Gabriel to Mary, a Jewess of Nazareth, who told Alary that she, although a virgin, was the one of Israel chosen to be honored of God to be the mother of the mighty one whom God
"through His prophets had promised should come.—Luke 1: 28-32.
In due time the babe Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the city of David, just as the prophet Micah had foretold. (Micah 5:2) On the night of the birth of Jesus, about October 1 of B.C. 2, God’s holy angels bore witness to it by bringing God’s message to the humble shepherds in the fields of the holy land. That the birth of this babe should have to do with the bringing of humankind into relationship with God was testified to by the heavenly host which then and there sang: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” (Luke 2:14) God’s angel at that time bore witness to the fact that in due time the birth of Jesus would be good news to all men of good-will upon earth.
As a child, Jesus was subject to His mother and Joseph His foster-father. There is no reason to conclude that the home in which Jesus lived was anything more than the ordinary home of the little town of Nazareth. Joseph His fosterparent was a carpenter, and what evidence there is seems to indicate that Jesus worked with him and was known as a carpenter. (Matthew 13: 55) At the age of twelve the child came into some prominence for a few days. (Luke 2: 47-52) Otherwise little is said of Him' during the days of His youth. He “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man”.
At the age of thirty years,- having reached His legal majority, Jesus presented himself at the Jordan in consecration to Jehovah God and to symbolize that consecration by baptism -in the waters of the river. He was there a perfect man, holy,, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. (Hebrews 7: 26) That was true' for two separate reasons at least: (1) He was not begotten by a human father but begotten in the womb of Mary His mother by the Jioly spirit of God. The Scriptures do not give the details of how, but the fact is stated that He was begotten by the power of the holy spirit, which is Jehovah God's invisible active force; and that is the end of the controversy. (Matthew:18) Also (2) as a youth and as a man Jesus had kept His purity and had not sinned in thought, word or deed. Such was possible with Him because of His perfection. It is evident that God’s care was about the child and the boy, and when His mind began to operate and reason Jesus kept himself free from the contaminations in the world about Him. There were thirty years of preparation for the work which God had for Him to do. His existence as a spirit creature in heaven had been transferred by His heavenly Father to the human plane. He was born a man child and He grew to manhood’s estate in its perfection.
When Jesus offered himself in consecration to do His Father’s will He showed subjection to and not equality with Jehovah God. He said: “Lo, I come: in tl^e volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my ' God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40: 7, 8; Hebrews 10: 5-7) Then and there at Jordan river God gave proof of his acceptance of Jesus’ consecration. His voice came from heaven, saying: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” At that time God anointed Jesus with His holy spirit (not a “'third person” but his invisible power), and outward evidence thereof , was given to John the Baptist.—Matthew 3:16,17.
If the clergy are right in their dogmas of incarnation and trinity, why did Jesus, the perfect man, there stand before God His Father, not as equal, but as subject to the will of God His Father? If the religious clergy are right, then God in saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” was there practicing a fraud upon John the Baptist. The clergy would have men believe that there stood He who was “God the jSon”, a God-hian. The clergy are clearly wrong. Jesus was not God the Son in a trinity, but He was and is the Son of God whom Jehovah God sent to the earth to perform a great work. In subjection, the Son pledged himself to do His Lifegiver’s will, whatsoever that might be; and His Father received Jesus and accepted His agreement to do His will and manifested that acceptance by giving Him the anointing with His holy spirit or invisible active force.
…