Religion: Catholics v. the Axis

In two countries the Roman Catholic Church last week clearly aligned itself against the Axis:

> In Belgium Joseph Ernest Cardinal van Roey, Archbishop of Malines, and five other bishops issued a pastoral letter strikingly parallel to the pro-Allied pastorals of the late great Cardinal Mercier which kept up the morale of occupied Belgium during World War I. Angry Nazis promptly closed every Belgian church for three days but the pastoral circulated regardless. In it the six prelates recognized the Nazis only “as a de facto power,” proclaimed that “the Belgian fatherland continues to exist,” urged “national solidarity” and “moral unity,” closed with an appeal to remember Armistice Day and to pray for all Belgians fallen in “the preceding and in this war.”

> In Canada Rodrigue Cardinal Villeneuve, Archbishop of Quebec, led 4,700,000 Catholics (42% of Canada’s population) in a day of prayer for “victory”—in definite contrast to earlier prayers which were merely for “peace.” The action offered even more concrete encouragement to the British, for Cardinal Villeneuve, probably the most influential French Canadian, by himself celebrating a votive High Mass for victory in Montreal’s famed old Notre Dame Church and afterwards reviewing a parade of French-Canadian troops, gave the Church’s full blessing to Britain’s and Canada’s war. Other Canadians, who know that the policy of the Quebec hierarchy has always been ultramontane, hoped fervently that this indicated indirect Vatican backing of the British cause.