On the eve of the opening tonight of the controversial play “The Representative”–which is now being performed in other countries under the title “The Deputy”–in which the late Pope Pius XII is presented as having abstained from protesting against the Nazi annihilation of Jews, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Albert Schweitzer said in a statement that not only the Catholic Church but also the Protestant Church “was guilty in her simple acceptance of the persecution of the Jews.”
Declaring that the play is “a judgment on an historical figure who invited the greatest responsibility upon himself” Dr. Schweitzer said in his statement released by the Royal Shakespeare Company, which is presenting the play at the Aldwych Theater, that it “is not only an historical judgment but an alarm call to our age which is sinking into inhumanity and unawareness.”
“We are all guilty today for the reason that we were all guilty then, ” he stressed. “The Catholic Church bears the greater guilt, because as a great international organization, she could have taken some action but the Protestant Church too was guilty in her simple acceptance of the fearful, inhumanity of the persecution of the Jews.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
