Cardinal Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, told members of the Anglo-American Palestine Inquiry Committee yesterday that he plans to ask Pope Pius to issue a pastoral message calling on all Catholics in Europe to fight anti-Semitism.
The Cardinal, who is to leave for Rome today, declared he would present a memorandum to the Pope requesting that he take every step possible to eliminate anti-Semitism not only from Germany but from the rest of the world, particularly Europe.
Cardinal Faulhaber voiced these sentiments during a two-hour audience he gave Bartley Crum, American member, and Sir Frederick Leggett, British member of a Palestine inquiry sub-committee, in his palace here.
“Anti-Semitism is a curse against humanity,” Cardinal Faulhaber was quoted as declaring. “The whole Christian religion was founded on the Old Testament, a product of the Jewish spirit, and therefore anti-Semitism is completely an act of Anti-Christ. I, as Cardinal, will do everything in my power to convince the Catholics of Bavaria that they must eradicate from their hearts any remnants of anti-Semitism.
“A Germany without Jews is unthinkable. We must have Jews in Germany. Jews have the same right to live in Germany as I, having been born in Germany, have a right to live here. The Jews likewise have a right to live in peace here. I hoped to see German Jews return to Germany. I had hoped to see our great Jewish physicians return to our hospitals. I am astonished to learn that only one has returned.
The committee members pointed out to the Cardinal that in their questioning of displaced Jews in the American zone of occupation they had found that virtually 99 percent of them wished to go to Palestine. These DP’s have made up their minds, the committee members said, that there was no future for them in Germany, and that if the Americans withdraw from Germany the Jews felt they would be slaughtered as their relatives were.
Cardinal Faulhaber asked Crum to take up with President Truman the possibility of bringing into Germany canned milk and clothing collected under the auspices of the Catholic Church, which is now being held in Switzerland because it has not been cleared by the American authorities for shipment to Germany. These supplies, he said, would be used not only for Germans but for Jewish children as well.
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.
