Enemies Old & New

By Fr. Paul Mankowski, S.J. ( articles ) | Jun 24, 2003

The following news items appeared in the New York Times, January 22nd, 1935, Sect. 6, p. 6. They merit reflection on what hasn't changed, and what has.

JESUIT HOWLED DOWN BY NAZIS IN MUNICH

Police Quell Riot at University Lecture -- Cologne Cardinal Assails Neo-Paganism

MUNICH, Germany, Jan. 21 -- Latent Nazi antagonism to the Catholic Church found violent expression here tonight when a band of Nazis rioted at a Catholic lecture in Munich University. Several persons were slightly injured and the police had to be summoned.

Some 2,000 students and Munich residents attended the lecture by a Jesuit, Father Przywara, on "Christianity and Heroism." When the priest rose to speak the Nazi minority in the audience began to jeer, hiss and cry, "Down with the Jesuits!" Organized interruptions continued and when the lecturer mentioned Aristotle, there were shouts of "We don't want any Greeks; give us Germans."

Finally there was an effort to drive the noisy minority from the hall whereupon a free-for-all fight started and the police, hurriedly summoned, plunged into the milling crowd and made several arrests.

COLOGNE, Germany, Jan. 21-- Cardinal Schulte vigorously attacked Dr. Alfred Rosenberg's neo-paganism when 5,000 pilgrims from northwestern Germany assembled within and around the cathedral here today. The occasion was the resumption of pilgrimages to the Shrine of the Magi, one of the great annual religious events of late medieval Europe.

"As good Christians and patriots," the Cardinal declared, "Catholics feels obliged to stand up for their faith. There has been an attempt to undermine the whole historical life of Jesus and finally dissolves it into a myth. He who deprives Jesus of his dignity as God will ultimately deprive man of his dignity as a human being."

The Cardinal protested against the description of Catholic Christianity in Dr. Rosenberg's "The Myth of the Twentieth Century" as negative Christianity. Catholic brethren in the Saar, he said, proved heroically their unswerving loyalty to the German nation.