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17 Dec. 45
always rigorously organized, he proclaimed
to the world on Passion Sunday 1937 in his Encyclical, Mit
brennender Sorge, that National Socialism really was: the arrogant
apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine and of His work
of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood,
the overthrow of human liberty and dignity ...
"From the prisons, concentration camps, and fortresses are now
pouring out, together with the political prisoners, also the crowds of
those, whether clergy or laymen, whose only crime was their fidelity
to Christ and to the faith of their fathers or the dauntless
fulfillment of their duties as priests.
"In the forefront, for the number and harshness of the treatment
meted out to them, are the Polish priests. From 1940 to 1945, 2,800
Polish ecclesiastics and religious were imprisoned in that camp; among
them was the Auxiliary Bishop of Wloclawek, who died there of typhus.
In April last there were left only 816, all the others being dead
except for two or three transferred to another camp. In the summer of
1942, 480 German-speaking ministers of religion were known to be
gathered there; of these, 45 were Protestants, all the others Catholic
priests. In spite of the continuous inflow of new internees,
especially from dioceses of Bavaria, Rhenania and Westphalia, their
number, as a result of the high rate of mortality, at the beginning of
this year did not surpass 350. Nor should we pass over in silence
those belonging to occupied territories, Holland, Belgium, France
(among whom the Bishop of Clermont), Luxembourg, Slovenia, Italy. Many
of those priests and laymen endured indescribable sufferings for their
faith and for their vocation. In one case the hatred of the impious
against Christ reached the point of parodying on the person of an
interned priest, with barbed wire, the scourging and the crowning with
thorns of our Redeemer." THE
PRESIDENT: I think perhaps it would be time now to adjourn.
[The Tribunal adjourned
until 18 December 1945 at 1000 hours.]
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