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SEPTEMBER 19, 1936
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
SEVEN
TRACES PERSECUTION
TO SOURCE OF THAT
MEXICO, RUSSIA
Forces Behind Spanish At
tack on Religion Menace
All Culture His Holiness 1
Asserts in Broadcast
(By N. C. W. C. News Service)
(The text, in English translation, of
the discourse of His Holiness Pope
Pius XJ to the refugee Bishops, clergy
and laymen of Spain, Monday, as re
ceived over the radio facilities of the
National Broadcasting Company and
transcribed in this country, follows):
Your presence here, beloved sons
and exiles of Spain, of a Spain so
dear to Us and now so desolate, fills
Our heart with an utterly inexpres
sible tumult of afflicting and conflict
ing feelings and emotions. Now We
would weep for the bitterness which
afflicts Our hearts. Again We would
rejoice for the sweet and proud joy
which consoles Us and makes Us ju
bilant. You are here, beloved sons,
to tell Us of the great tribulation
from which you came. Of that trib
ulation you bear on your persons and
possessions the signs and visible
marks- These are signs and marks of
the great battle of suffering which
you have borne and which make you
a spectacle before Our eyes and be
fore the eyes of all the world. You
have been robbed and despoiled of
all things.
You have been hunted and set upon
to death in cities and in villages, in
the dwellings of men and in the sol
itudes of the mountain tops. It is
just as the Apostle saw the first mar
tyrs and his admiration and exulta
tion at seeing them called forth those
proud and magnificent words which
he cast in the face of the world and
which declared the world unworthy
of them: Of whom the world was not
worthy. You have come to tell Us of
your joy in having been found wor
thy like the first Apostle to suffer for
the name of Jesus, and of your hap
piness, like that once praised by the
first Pope. You have been covered
with reproaches in the name of Je
sus and because you were Christians.
What would He say, what can We say
to raise you, venerated. Bishops and
priests, persecuted and wronged in
your character as ministers of Christ
and dispensers of the mysteries of
God?
□ Q
| HEROISM AND MARTYRDOM |
D-
-a
These praises are of men in Chris
tian and priestly virtue, of heroism
and martyrdom in the full, sacred
and glorious meaning of the word, of
the sacrifice of lives the most inno
cent, of those venerable with age, of
youth in its first flower, of many so
bold and generous as to ask for a
place among the victims who were
being carried to where the execu
tioners were awaiting them. It is in
this superhuman light that We see
you and in which We proclaim to you
the sacred and reverent admiration of
all and even of those who do not
possess our faith but who have some
sense of human dignity and great
ness; for in that faith, beloved sons, is
to be found the secret and divine
power which for twenty centuries has
been enkindling and feeding that
flame.
consecrated persons and sacred
things and holy institutions, inesti
mable and irreplaceable treasures of
faith and Christian piety as well as of
culture and of art, the most precious
antiquities, the holiest of relics, dig
nity, sanctity, the fruitful activity of
lives wholly dedicated to religion, to
science and to charity, the highest
members of the sacred Hierarchy,
Bishops and priests, consecrated vir
gins, the laity of every class and con
dition, venerable gray hairs and the
first flower of youth, the very silence
so sacred and solemn of the tomb—
all have been assaulted, violated, de
stroyed and in the most ruthless and
barbarous ways, in an unbridled and
unparalleled confusion of forces so
savage and so cruel as to have been
thought utterly impossible for human
dignity, let alone for human nature,
even the most miserable and debased.
And louder than all this confusion
and this clash of unrestrained vio
lence passing through these burnings
and massacres, a voice is'' heard pro
claiming to the world a truly horri
fying story. Brothers have murder
ed brothers. Civil war—war between
the sons of a common country, of a
common peepie, of a common father
land. God knows that war, even in
the least tragic of circumstances, is
always something so fearful and so
inhuman, man seeking man to kill
and to kill as many as possible, to de
stroy persons and property and with
means increasingly fatally effective.
But what is to be said when war is
fraticidal? It has been well said that
the blood of a single man shed by
the hand of his brother is more than
enough for all time and for the whole
earth.
What is to be said when we are face
to face with the stories of brothers
killing brothers, which are daily be
ing told? Above the bond of hu
manity and fatherland there is a
brotherhood, which makes us one in
Christ, our Redeemer, in the sonship
of the Catholic Church which is the
Mystical Body of Christ Himself, the
treasury and fullness of all that our
Redemption has brought us. And it is
precisely this sublime brotherhood
which made Spain Christian but
which in the present .calamity has
had particularly to suffer and which
continues to suffer.
CI
PRO PAGAND A OF HATRED
-O
-a
Beloved sons, you have stirred the
admiration of all but especially of Us,
for to Us has been communicated by
the Supreme Father of all an all-
embracing fatherhood and in virtue
of that fatherhood, We may and We
must apply to Ourself that beautiful
and divine expression: “A wise son
maketh a father joyful.” We em
brace with Our gaze and with Our
heart you and all your fellow suffer
ers in tribulation and in martyrdom
and again We must say to you as the
Apostle to your earliest predecessors
in the glory of martyrdom: “My joy
and My crown;” and not merely mine,
but that of God Himself, for accord
ing to the glad and glorious vision of
the great Prophet and His grace there
has been made by his hand of each
one of you a crown of glory and a
royal diadem. And thou shalt be a
crown of glory in the hand of the
Lord and a royal diadem in the hand
of thy God.
What a splendid reparation is this
of yours, beloved sons, which you
have offered and continue to offer
to that Divine Majesty which in so
many parts of the world and even in
Spain by so many 1 is unrecognized, de
nied, blasphemed and in a thousand
ways brutally offended. How timely,
how providential and how pleasing to
God is your reparation of fealty, of
honor and of glory in these our own
days in which it lias been given to
hear the new and horrifying cries of
the Godless and enemies of God.
»□ : O
| WITNESSES AND VICTIMS |
Li U
But all of these shining rays of
heroism and glory which you, beloved
sons, offer and recall to Us, make Us
see all the more inevitably and clear
ly as in a great apocalyptic vision
the wreck and ruin, the profanation
and havoc of which you have been
not merely the witnesses, but the vic
tims. All that is most humanly hu
man, all that is most divinely divine,
His Holiness
POPE PIUS
even necessary, and for us a duty, to
warn all against the insidiousness
with which the heralds of the forces
of subversion are seeking to find
some common ground for a possible
approach and collaboration on the part
of Catholics, and this on the basis
of a distinction between ideology and
application, between ideas and action,
between the economic and moral or
der. This insidiousnes is dangerous in
the extreme and its purpose is pure
ly and simply to deceive and disarm
Europe and the world in favor of an
unchanging program of hate, subver
sion and destruction by, which they
are being threatened.
It can only be said that a Satanic
preparation has relighted, and that
more fiercely in neighboring Spain,
that flame of hatred and savage per
secution which has been confessedly
reserved for the Catholic Church and
the Catholic Religion as being the
one real obstacle in the way of those
forces which have already given a
sample and a measure of themselves
in subversive attacks on every kind
of order from Russia to China, from
Mexico to South America.
Such trials and preparations have
been preceded and unfailingly ac
companied by a universal, persistent
and most astute propaganda, intent on
subjecting the whole world to those
absurd and disastrous indeologies
which once they have seduced and
stirred up the masses, aim at nothing
less than arming them and throwing
them madly against every form of in
stitution, human and divine.
And how can this awful consum
mation fail to be inevitable, and that
in the most aggravated conditions and
proportion, if out of false calculation
and self-interest and because of ruin
ous rivalry and the egistic pursuit of
particular supremacy, those who have
a duty in the matter do not hasten
to repair the breach, if indeed it is
not already too late.
We who share in that universal
divine fatherhood which embraces all
souls created by one God and des
tined for God by the blood of the
same God redeemed. We who share
this fatherhood which adds to human
solidarity such new and sublime
bonds and duties, we cannot but give
expression once more and particularly
in this gathering which your pres
ence here, beloved sons, has render
ed so solemn and so moving by rea
son of the sacredness of your suffer
ing—to all the anguish of a father's
heart. We must bewail not merely
such evils and disasters in general, but
more in particular such fratricidal
carnage, so many offenses to Christ
ian life and dignity, such a ruining of
the most sacred and precious heritage
of a great and virile people and of a
people so singularly dear to us. But
beloved sons, the doings which your
presence brings to vividly to mind are
something more than a mere succes
sion, however impressive, of devasta
tions and disaster. They are likewise
a school in which the most serious
lessons are being taught to Europe
and the whole world—to a world now
at last wholly steeped in, ensnared
and threatened by subversive propa
ganda and more especially to a
Europe battered and shaken to its
very foundations.
CJ o
I CIVILIZATION MENACED |
Li — U
These tragic happenings in Spain
speak to Europe and the whole world
and proclaim once more to what ex
tent the very foundations of all order,
of all culture, of all civilization are
being menaced. This menace, it must
be added, is all the more serious,
more persistent, more active, by
reason of a profound ignorance and
a disclaiming of the truth, by reason
of the truly santanic hatred against
God and against humanity redeemed
by Him, all that concerns religion and
the Catholic Church. This point has
so often been admitted and as we just
observed, openly confessed, that it is
superfluous for Us to insist on the
matter further, and now less than
ever when the events of Spain have
spoken with such appalling eloquence.
It is not superfluous, on the other
hand, but rather it is opportune and
Another truth is this, that with this
renewed revelation and open confes
sion of that privileged hate for re
ligion and the Catholic Church so
lamentably obvious in Spain, a fur
ther lesson is being offered to Europe
and 'the world, a lesson precious and
highly' salutary for all who do not
care to close their eyes and grope in
the dark. Now. at last, it is certain
and manifestly obvious from the very
confession of these forces of subver
sion which are threatening everything
and everybody that the one real ob
stacle in their way is Christian teach
ing and the consistent practice of
Christian living as these are taught
and enjoyed by the Catholic Religion
and the Catholic Church. This is to
say it is certain and evident that
wherever war is being made on re
ligion and the Catholic Church and
her beneficent influence on the in
dividual, on the family, on the mass
of the people, that war is in alliance
with the forces of subversion, by
these forces and for the same disas
trous purpose.
This is to say that wherever and
with whatever means, insidious or
violent, according to circumstances,
and with whatever fictitious and in
sincere distinction between the Cath
olic Religion and “religious politics,”
difficulties, obstacles and barriers are
placed in the way of the full develop
ment of the action and influence of
the Catholic Religion and the Catholic
Church, with its divine mandate and
authority, precisely to that extent
there is aided and abetted the influ
ence and the pernicious action of the
forces of subversion.
This is not the first time that we
have set forth these very grave con
siderations and have recommended
them to all, particularly to those in
positions of responsibility. We have
wished to profit by your presence
here to renew these recommendations
and that in a moment so critical in
the history of Europe and of the world
and in which We Ourselves are so
near our day of final reckoning. In
this matter, there is no testimony
more authoritative, beloved sons,
than yours, because you in your per
sons and in what you hold most dear,
your fatherland, have experienced the
evils and disasters which are threat
ening us all.
□ —a
CHURCH TEACHINGS
-Ci
the need of our neighbor, as these are
felt and measured By a love which
can have no bounds because it is like
the love to which God Himself has
a right;
Give us a society in which there is
a full and undisputed influence and
authority of those teachings and of
those other principles, theoretical and
practical, organically related to those
teachings as premises for legitimate
conclusions or imperative applications,
and we ask now and by what means
can the Church and the Catholic re
ligion make a greater or better con
tribution to the reawakening, whether
of the individual or of the family or
of society.
The Church and religion do in fact
something more and something better,
for they offer and provide to every
one of good-will the means which
make it possible to derive from those
teachings and those principles the
whole o? that practical good of which
they contain the secret and the gen
erative power, for they offer divine
grace, and the instruments and vehic
les of grace, prayer, the sacraments
and Christian life.
.□ ; Ci
j NEGLIGENCE AND INERTIA j
[ j 1 i
There will always be, of course, the
fearful possibilities of negligence, of
inertia, of resistence, of opposition, all
of which have their source in human
liberty and thus how many sad affairs
may be explained and traced to their
source without involving the least
shadow of complicity on the part of
the Church and the Catholic Religion,
but rather revealing a full and persis
tent contradiction with an opposition
to all the things which they teach
and try to make effective in every
way possible to them. That is by
teaching, by translating teachings in
to lives lived in a Christian manner.
There are other explanations and
sources for that which they would
attribute to the insufficiency and in
effectiveness of the Catholic Church
and the Catholic Religion, and to
these we cannot but make at least
a passing allusion. What can the
Catholic Church do but deplore and
protest and beseech whenever and
wherever contradictions and hind
rances are met at every step taken in
regard to youth, to the family, to the
people? That is to say precisely in
those spheres that have the most need
of the presence and action of this
Mother and Mistress? What else can
the Catholic Church do in times and
places which seek to confine to the
church and pulpit, the Catholic Press,
which is designed for the diffusion,
exposition and defense of those
genuinely Christian teachings of
which the Catholic Church is the sole
guardian: the authentic and integral
Christianity which it alone possesses
and proclaims?
The Catholicc press is persistently
suspected and increasingly hampered,
while every freedom and favor, or at
least complete toleration, is shown to
that press whose mission and purpose,
it would seem, is to spread confusion
among ideas, to mislead by falsify
ing facts, to bring the church into
suspiciion and to discredti economical
persons and things, Catholic teachings
and institutions; a press that does not
hesitate to proclaim a new Christian
ity and a new religion of a new coin
age. And again, how hampered and
paralyzed is the beneficient influence
and action of the Catholic Church and
religion by all those obstacles which
make all but impossible the practice
of Christian living and the fulfuill-
ment of duties which the church im
poses to nourish the inner and
soiritual life; by that unceasing and
dizzying swell of contemporary life
which carries away into the turmoil
of exterior and material things, the
youth of today and not the youth
alone, still more and what is worse,
that general wave of immortality
which more and more is breaking
down every restraint of law and
which seems already to have quench
ed in so many souls every sense of
medesty and dignity, of conscience
and responsibility by reason of the
great scandals which are given and
suffered. _
Q
I HEAVY RESPONSIBILITY
Refugees
HIS HOLINESS BEGS
PRAYERS FOR THOSE
PERSECUTING CHURCH
Pleads That ‘Serene Vision
of Truth Will Illuminate
Minds’ of Those Guilty of
Outrages in Spain
mony of this heroic attachment to the
faith of your fathers, to a faith which
by hundreds and thousands had ad
ded confessors and martyrs— and in
that glorious legion you are number
ed—to the already glorious martyrol-
ogy of the Church of Spain. This
heroic attachment—and this We learn
with inexpressible consolation— has
been the occasion for an impressive
renewal of devotion and for such wide
and deep awakening of Christian life
and piety, particularly among the
good, simple people of Spain, and
heralds the dawn and beginning of
better thnigs and fairer days for the
whole of Spain.
□ -a
! BENEDICTION FOR SPAIN
3 a
To all this good and faithful people,
to all this dear and noble Spain, which,
has suffered so much. We direct Our
Benediction and We desire that it
may reach them; and to them no less
our daily prayer goes out and will
continue to go out until fair peace
wholly and finally returns.
Our Benediction, above any mun
dane consideration, goes out in a spec
ial manner to all those who have as
sumed the difficult and dangerous
task of defending and restoring the
rights and honor of God and of re
ligion, which is to say the rights and
dignity of conscience, the prime con
dition and the most solid basis for
all human and civil welfare.
It has been recently asserted that
the Catholic Church and Religion
have shown themselves unprepared
and ineffective in the face of such
evils and disasters and the example
of Spain, and not merely Spain, has
been urged in proof of this. Very
much to the point in this matter is
a reflection of Alessandro Manzoni:
“There is no need to have recourse
to example to justify the Church. It
is enough to look at her teachings.”
The observation is no less obvious
than solid and profound. Give us in
fact a societly in which there is a
genuinely free and untrammeled op
portunity for the teachings which the
Chur cl’, and the Catholic Religion un
failingly teach and inculcate with the
force of law of essential directions as
being willed by God and controlled
and sanctioned by God, as a guide
for individual conduct and dignity,
for private, public, social and profes
sional justice and for the sanctity of
the family; teachings on the origin
and exercise of authority in other
spheres, on human brotherhood lifted
to a divine level in Christ and His
Mystical Body, the Church, and on the
dignity of labor regarded as a divine
undertaking of expiation and redem
ption, looking to inevitable and as
sured rewards; teachings on the obli
gations of mutual charity of which the
And like you, We, too, have willed
and so disposed that Our voice in
Benediction should reach far and
wide to all brothers in suffering and
exile, who have wanted, but in vain,
to be here with you today. We know
how widely they are scattered; but
no doubt even in this there is a dispo
sition of Divine Providence aiming at
much good.
Providence has willed you to be in
many places, scattered far and wide,
so that you, who bear the marks of
the tragic events which have afflicted
you and your dear Spain and Ours,
sole rule and criterion is the good and might bear personal and living testi-
But sin maketh nations miserable
and certainly a heavy and formidable
responsibility lies on all those who
by reason of and in proportion to the
public character of their office fail
to oppose to these great evils every
remedy and barrier that is possible.
We know only too well that there
are many other grave obstacles in the
various fields of public, private, col
lective and individual life which are
opposed to the full efficacy of the in
fluence and action of the Catholic
Religion and Church.
We must, however, content ourself
with the indication We have just set
forth in order not to delay any fur
ther that fatherly and Apostolic Bene
diction which you have come to ask
of the common father of your souls,
of the Vicar of Christ, a Benediction,
beloved sons, which you are longing
to receive and which your father is
longing to impart, a Benediction
which you have more than merited.
This task. We have said, is both dif
ficult and dangerous, for it is only
too easy for the very ardor and diffi
culty of defense to go to an excess
which is not wholly warranted. And
further, intentions less pure, selfish
interests and mere party feeling may
easily enter into, cloud and change the
morality and responsibility for what
is being done. Our fatherly heart can
never forget, and in this moment
more than ever it must recall, with
the most sincere and fatherly grati
tude. all those who with purity of in
tention and unselfish motive have
sought to intervene in the name of
humanity. And Our gratitude is not
diminished, even though We have had
to realize the failure of their local
efforts.
And what of the others? What is to
be said of all those others who also
are so near and never cease to be
Our sons, in spite of the deeds and
methods of persecution so odious and
so cruel against persons and things
to Us so dear and sacred? What of
those who as far as distance permit
ted have not even spared Our person
and who with expression and gestures
so highly offensive have treated Us not
as sons with a father bust as foes with
an enemy who is particularly detested?
We have, beloved sons, divine pre
cepts and examples which may seem
too difficult for poor and unaided
human nature to obey and imitate,
but which are in reality, with divine
grace, beautiful and attractive to the
Christian soul, to your souls, beloved
sons.
D □
PRAYER FOR ENEMIES
~d)
So that We cannot and could not
for one moment doubt as ^3 what is
left for Us to do—to love them and to
love them with a special love bom
of mercy and compassion; to love
them and, since We can do nothing
else, to pray for them; to pray that
the serene vision of truth will illu
minate their minds and will reopen
their hearts to the desire "and fraternal
quest for the real common good; to
pray that they may return to the
Father who awaits them with such
longing and will make a joyous festi
val of their return: to pray that they
may be one with Us.
Of this We have confidence in
Almighty God. the rainbow of peace
will shine forth in the clear skie of
Spain bearing the news of peace to
the whole of your great and splendid
country; a peace, let Us add, serene
and secure, consoling all sorrows,
repairing all harm, contenting every
just and wise aspiration, which is
compatible with the common good and
heralding a future order with tran
quility and prosperity with honor.
Parish Scout Troops
Increase 391 in Year
NEW YORK.—The number of Cath
olic Boy Scout Troops in the arch
diocese and dioceses of the United
States and possessions increased by
391 in 1935, according to the report of
the Catholic Committee on Scouting
here, which has just been sent to
Catholic Scout Chaplains and Bishops.
The figure for 1935 is given as 2.319
as against a total of 1,928 for 1934.
Troops are organized in 15 archdio
ceses and in 89 dioceses. Two of the
dioceses—Cheyenne and Raleigh— in
1935 joined the Sees having one or
more troops. The Archdiocese of Chi
cago has the greatest number of
troops with 253. The Philippines are
second with their 102.