Petrus v. Satanus

So many years have passed since angry Cromwellians flung toward Rome the horrid epithet "Whore of Babylon," that even English Protestants were shocked and horrified last week when the official Soviet news-organ Pravda applied to Pope Pius a much milder epithet, "Heavenly Liar."

Definitely the whole tone of the Soviet crusade to extinguish religion became less hysterical as the week advanced. Addressing a Moscow mass meeting of The Militant Atheists, Chairman Emelyan Yaroslavsky said that the Government deplored efforts to progress too rapidly with spectacular wholesale destruction of churches and the burning of ikons by the carload in public squares. He advised less attention to such externals, more concentration on lectures and house-to-house work among those from whose minds and hearts the Communist missionary seeks to remove belief in God.

"Work must be particularly intensified among women," said Comrade Yaroslavsky, ''because in the main they are more ignorant and superstitious than men. And remember always the little ones! In their childish hearts is the future of Great Russia."

Persecutions. In Moscow one definite act of persecution was committed last week by the Soviet Government: Jews were deprived of their Matzoth or "Passover Bread" by an order forbidding its sale.

In Plain Scarlet. Meanwhile in the Papal State some 50,000 Italians were present at St Peter's and in the adjoining piazza, when Pope Pius XI celebrated a mass of "expiation, propitiation and reparation," the paramount feature of which was a mighty prayer by His Holiness that religious persecution in Russia shall cease. After the service a collection was taken up, to be used for relief among the persecuted. Since the Soviet Government maintains that no persecutions have taken place (TIME, March 10), it was this prayer and the collection which caused Pravda to refer to Pope Pius, first as "Heavenly Liar" and secondly as "a Godly Thief."

Correspondents of long experience cabled that never before had they seen the present Supreme Pontiff show such intense emotion, or such iron self-control, as during the service. He appeared without many of the customary trappings of the Papacy, wore neither the triple tiara, nor the dazzling white Pontifical garb, but instead a simple cape and stole of scarlet.

As the Supreme Pontiff entered, carried shoulder-high on his portable throne, it was seen that the usual canopy had been stripped away, as if for freer action. The two enormous, semicircular flabella or ostrich fans were also omitted.

Tu Es Petrus! Shouts of "Papa! Papa! Evviva Il Papa!" always greet the Holy Father as he is carried through St. Peter's, but last week the fervor of those expressions reached pandemonium when it was seen by all that the Pope's jaw was set, and that he visibly clenched it harder as the Sistine Choir burst into a mighty chant of "TU ES PETRUS!" ("Thou art Peter!")

In the fervent minds of the cheering Italian congregation, Pius XI unquestionably appeared at that moment as the dread and visible incarnation of stern St. Peter, girt in the austere scarlet of a bishop to do battle with the Devil.

"Judge me, O God," cried the voice of Petrus, "and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy. Deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.

"For thou, O God, are my strength. .. ."

Thus for a long hour continued the most impressive, most authoritative appeal which the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church can make to God Almighty. At last, with the mighty work performed, Pope Pius dismissed the stupendous throng which had now swelled to 60,000, with the Apostolic Benediction ending: "Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth!"

Holy relics displayed by three canons during the mass were: a piece of the True Cross, a strip of the linen with which St. Veronica wiped the brow of the Saviour, a fragment of the spear which pierced His side.

Cartoons. Roman Catholicism's counter-strokes of the week included the mailing, from Manhattan, of some 30,000 envelopes to each & every priest in the U. S. Recipients of these envelopes noted first that the letterhead within was impressed with the names of three Princes of the Catholic Church: Cardinals Hayes (Manhattan), O'Connell (Boston) and Dougherty (Philadelphia), plus those of the Archbishops of St. Louis, San Francisco, and the Bishops of Cleveland, Kansas City.

The enclosure was a 38-page pamphlet by Father Edmund Aloysius Walsh. President of the Society, considered the leading Catholic authority on Russia today, one-time Director-General of the Papal Relief Mission to Russia (1921-22). Pages 28 to 30 were devoted to three Soviet cartoons, the first showing a workman climbing up to Heaven with his hammer to smash all the Gods, who appear frightened, and the third cartoon depicting the cemetery of the Gods after they have been knocked on the head and buried.

Instead of the second cartoon there was a page of the pamphlet boxed by a heavy black mourning band. Within was printed:

"Exhibit No. 2"

"This exhibit is a Soviet caricature of the Sacrament of Holy Communion. It is depicted in such a gross, revolting and ghastly form that its public reproduction is impossible. The dismembered and disembowelled body of the dead Christ, depicted in a pale green hue, is surrounded by a group of priests, peasants and laymen who are ravenously devouring the flesh and drinking the blood which pours from the Saviour's side. Several of the figures, with countenances of maniacs and ghouls, are pulling forth the intestines and mouthing them."

Privately Father Walsh agreed last week that the cartoon, to which his pamphlet ascribed no date, actually appeared in Soviet Russia seven years ago. He agreed that since then there have been "modifications of the [Soviet] method, which has passed from legal brutality to brutal legality"--i. e. Soviet law is now enforced with iron strictness, but Soviet law no longer countenances savage acts. Father Walsh further agreed that most of the Soviet atrocities and murders of priests described in his pamphlet (nearly all without dates) occurred prior to 1923, and some as early as 1919, when the present Soviet Government as now organized did not exist. In a word, the Walsh pamphlet is another presentation of the same out-of-date stories against which Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald recently warned (TIME, March 10), urging Englishmen to demand fresh not vintage news from Russia.

In his covering letter Father Walsh wrote: "To the Right Reverend and Reverend Clergy. . . . You will notice that . . . mention is made of a particularly blasphemous cartoon ... in mockery of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. . . .

"I am including a reproduction of this sacrilegious attack . . . for the private information of the clergy and for such use as they may deem advisable and prudent.''

Many a priest mailed the loose-leaf cartoon to the Editor of TIME and many another. Although green in the Soviet original, the body of the Saviour was blue in the Papal reproduction, but the original caption was retained, Christ's command: "Take ye and eat--This is my body."

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