NEW MOVES AGAINST CHURCH?
By DOUGLAS HYDE
BEING held in London this week is a meeting which may have far-reaching results upon the fight against the Church in Eastern Europe and upon the Communist attack upon the West.
For into London have been coming world Communist leaders and internationally-notorious fellow-travellers, for a meeting of the International Committee of the so-called World Peace Congress.
Recent meetings of this Communist-created body have been made the occasion for the
public launching of Cominform decisions and also the
cloak for behind-the-scenes meetings of some of the international Communist leaders themselves.
Its last meeting, held in Stockholm, called for strikes and agitation in docks and other basic industries.
The " Stockholm Resolution " is being used today in every country behind the Iron Curtain in the Communist war against the Church, to intimidate and blackmail the clergy into giving the appearance of support to Communist policies and to confuse the faithful.
The British Communists, taking their line from the Stockholm meeting, threw everything they had into working for and exploiting the I.ondon dock strike which followed so soon after.
It was followed, ton, by a great Communist-led drive for signatures for " peace " petitions throughout this country, as elsewhere.
Their campaign. whilst deceiving very few national organisations (apart from some of the pacifist bodies) has none-the-less puzzled. and in some cases deceived many genuine peace lovers. Catholic bodies have, in some cases. felt it necessary to counter the campaign by explaining its true character.
Calling as it does for world peace and for the banning of the atom bomb. it has the appearance of expressing the hopes and fears of millions.
But the world-wide campaign of which that in Britain is but a part is timed and designed only to aid the U.S.S.R., which stands to benefit so much by the disarmament of the West.
Powerful weapon
The existence of a strong pacifist movement in the democracies in the 1930's was Hitler's greatest aid to aggression. 'I he Communists have learned this lesson and hope. through their " peace" movement, so to weaken the democracies' power to resist the most outrageous of Russian demands or manoeuvres that Russia may have the fruits of war without any serious risk of getting involved in war itself.
The campaign, therefore, becomes a powerful weapon against the West and. behind the Iron Curtain. is used directly against the Catholic Church in particular.
Among those gathering for the
executive meeting in London this week-end were. following the usual Communist tactic, many well-known figures. some openly Communist and others notorious only as fellow: ravel 1 ers.
They included Professor JolioCurie. French atom-bomb scientist, who was recently purged on security grounds ; Francois Salient and Liu Ning-i, general secretary and vicepresident respectively of the World Federation of Trade Unions, from which the British T.U.C. recently disaffiliated itself; Signor Nenni, Italian political leader whose policies today are indistinguishable from those of the Cominform, and many others.
The Communists claim to have obtained for their " peace " petition scores of millions of signatures in the Red-dominated countries. In Hungary, for example, the figure is now given as seven million out of a total population of only nine million.
The degree of pressure upon any who wish to dissociate themselves from it is obvious in the circumstances.
Tuam to N.Z.
The Sisters of the Presentation of Our Lady of the Tuam diocese, Ireland. are establishing a cornmunity in the diocese of Wellington. New Zealand.