The Christian world is called upon to combat the influence of the Jews in a pastoral letter issued today by the Bishop of Linz, G. Foellner. While the letter rejects, what is described as the anti-Christian Nazi program and also the radical anti-Semitism of the Nazis and their pogroms, it also condemns what it terms the destructive Jewish spirit which is poisoning the souls of the Christian peoples.
The letter contains brief expressions of approval of Jews mentioned in the Old Testament and several Jewish individuals of the present day. But it reserves a vigorous attack for present day Jewry as a whole and its influence in the cultural and intellectual fields.
The Jews are attacked as carriers of Capitalism, Socialism and Bolshevism.
It is the duty of Christians to combat the influence of the Jews, the pastoral letter says. In the middle ages this was accomplished by confining the Jews to ghettos. This has become unnecessary today, says the pastoral letter, for it is possible through legislative and administrative acts to eliminate the influence of the Jews and to prevent them from flooding the world with demoralization.
The press on the whole accepts the letter without adverse comment. Several papers however reject its allegations and ask whether such a program differs in any way from Nazi pogroms.
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