The Roman Catholic Bishop of Mayence, Dr. Hugo, who roused the fury of the Hitlerists several months ago by issuing a pastoral letter forbidding Roman Catholics under pain of excommunication to belong to the Hitlerist movement, and denouncing its teachings as incompatible with Christianity, has refused church burial for Deputy Gemeinder, of Frankfurt, a Hitlerist leader who was found dead in a taxicab last week, when returning from a meeting at which he had denounced the Jews. The Deputy had worked himself into such a state in trouncing the Jews that his death is attributed directly to the strain.
The German Roman Catholic Bishops have unanimously condemned National Socialism as heresy, the Bishop declares in refusing burial, and no Catholic may therefore be a member of the Hitlerist Party, and no Catholic who belongs to the Hitlerist Party can be given Church burial.
Last December, soon after he had issued his pastoral letter against Hitlerism, Bishop Hugo was attacked in the streets of Mayence by a Hitlerist gang while he was going on an official errand attended by his Chaplains, and he was jeered and pelted with snowballs and stones.
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