Belloc, As a Catholic, Protests Persecutions of Jews in Germany

Persecution of the Jews in Germany is attacked as something which cannot be justified by common morals by Hilaire Belloc, noted Catholic writer, in a copyright article in America, weekly Catholic review.

Reviewing the appeals made for support of the Hitler regime, Mr. Belloc declares, “I think we may safely lay all these pleas for supporting the Nazi policy (which after all is not mainly our concern) upon one side and simply ask ourselves whether, as Catholics, we can accept their attitude toward the Jews.

“That most emphatically is our concern. As Catholics we belong to a world-wide organization, and the Jewish organization and people are also world-wide; what is done to them in one province of Christendom does most emphatically concern every other province.

CANNOT BE CONDONED

“Now I confess I cannot see how any Catholic can support or condone what has happened to the Jews in this predominantly Protestant country governed from Berlin. I am not speaking of the atrocities committed—and again it may be argued that they have been exaggerated, that the Government is not responsible for them, and so forth. But I am here speaking of what has admittedly been done and that, it seems to me is definitely opposed to good morals. Men who have passed their lives earning their living by their professions in a particular trade have been reduced, through no fault of their own and merely by the accident of birth, to penury at a moment’s notice. How can that possibly be excused?”

Declaring that in his opinion, the injustice will not be permanently continued, Mr. Belloc says: “But whether the outrage is to continue for many years or for few, an outrage it is, and I cannot but raise my own small voice as a Catholic in condemnation of it. If there is anything to be said on the other side I should like to hear it; but so far I have read nothing which, in common morals, can be maintained.”