Prelates Against Hitler

Two more church leaders in Nazi Europe have taken a dramatic stand against Naziism. One is the Catholic primate of conquered Belgium, the other the Lutheran bishop of Wuerttemberg in Germany.

> "With Germany we step many degrees downward and reach the lowest possible depths," said Joseph Ernest Cardinal van Roey, Archbishop of Malines and successor to Belgium's late great Cardinal Mercier, in a speech at Wavre-Notre Dame. "We have a duty of conscience to combat and to strive for the defeat of these dangers. . . . Reason and good sense both direct us towards confidence, towards resistance. . . ."

> "Nazi leaders are waging war against Christianity," Bishop Theophil Wurm of Wuerttemberg told a Lutheran conference last month.

"I would like to ask for unconditional confidence in our leadership, but it is not possible. The facts are against them. When we glance at the newspapers we are often overcome with the number of deaths registered once more in our families. We are about to enter the third winter of the war, and we all have the feeling that our people are not sufficiently united to fulfill the tasks that bind us all."

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