Religion: Demons of Hell

After the German Reich absorbed Austria last spring, Theodor Cardinal Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna, raised a swastika flag on his cathedral (TIME, April 18). Last fortnight he wrote Adolph Cardinal Bertram, Archbishop of Breslau, that Austria’s hierarchy would continue to cooperate with Hitler. The German episcopate, he declared, need not expect Austrians at the annual conference of bishops (mostly anti-Nazi) this month in Fulda. Instead, the Austrian bishops would hold their own meeting in Salzburg.

Thus, to the continued nervousness of the Vatican, there remained in German-speaking Catholicism a dangerous breach, which Pope Pius XI undoubtedly had in mind when, in recent speeches, he referred elliptically to the evils of “separatism.” Last week anti-Nazi Catholics took heart in pondering a sermon lately delivered by a potent Austrian churchman —Most Rev. Siegmund Waitz, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. Cried he on the 25th anniversary of his episcopate: “Does it not seem as if demons of hell were sneering at the episcopal jubilee of today: ‘Bishop, what did you achieve in these 25 years? . . . Where are the results of all your ministerial activities? Do you not know that at this moment hundreds insult and sneer at everything the priests do? Do you not know that apostasies from the Church are increasing, that ecclesiastical holidays are no longer respected, that godlessness is spread among the youth?’ “