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Effects of Persecution of
Church in Europe
Dr. Frederic Funder, Veteran Catholic Journalist
and Former Dachau Prisoner, Sums up the
Situation
DR. FREDERIC FUNDER,
one of Europe's foremost
Catholic journalists and
long-time Vienna correspondent
of the N.C.W.C. News Service,
has resumed writing for the
American Catholic news agency.
Dr. Funder, now in his mid-
70's was a vigorous foe of
Nazism. Consequently, after the
Hitler-engineered "anschluss" in
Austria, he was arrested and
shunted from one concentration
camp to another - including the
dreaded Dachau camp. He survived
Nazi cruelties.
He now is editor of "Die
Furche" and a recent long dispatch
on the Church's position in
central and eastern Europe was
the first article he has contributed
to N.C.W.C. News Service since
the Austrian occupation in 1938.
The following is a summary of
Dr. Funder's article:
Europe, from the Danube to
the Vistula, is on the eve of decisions
which will determine its
spiritual destiny for centuries to
come.
Three inescapable factors are
going to influence these decisions:
1. The losses incurred by the
Church during Nazi rule.
2. The advance and progress
of Communism towards Western
Europe.
3. The new supremacy acquired
by Russian Orthodoxy among the
Western, Slavs, now united to
Soviet Russia.
The Church in Europe is bleeding
from many wounds. And in
Jugoslavia the wounds are deepest.
Hundreds of priests have
been killed and in some districts
all Catholic ministry has been put
to an end.
In Czechoslovakia the border
provinces have lost their entire
pastoral organisation through the
deportation of 3,000,000 Germans.
In Hungary, where the Church
was endowed with landed property
all sources of revenue have
been cut off in an attempt to
uproot the Church economically.
VICIOUS ATTACKS
In Austria there is only a slow
recovery from the methodic campaign
of the Nazis to discredit,
weaken and stifle the Church.
Hitler attacked no other institution
in Austria as viciously
as he did the Church. It was
Nazidom's most formidable foe.
The Nazis began their attack on
the Church with military precision
and in well-defined stages.
First it attempted to impoverish
the Church economically, then it
discredited the clergy, finally
came brutal terrorism to silence
the Church and bring about
the apostasy of the faithful.
SYSTEMATIC PERSECUTION
This is how the Nazi anti-
Church campaign worked:
Economically, all State subsidies
were cancelled. Bishops
could only appeal to the faithful
for a voluntary Church "tax."
And the Austrian workingman
reached into his overall pockets
and supported the Church.
The second phase of the Nazi
campaign, discrediting the clergy,
failed also. More than 1000
priests were gaoled, 40 murdered,
but with martyrdom came only
greater heroism from the clergy.
CATHOLICS APOSTATISE
The third step, to cause the
faithful to apostatise, was sadly -
more successful. Some 240,000
Catholics apostatised. Gradually
now some of these are returning.
Of portentous consequence is
the decline of vocations to the
priesthood and sisterhood.
And what has been the result
of all this persecution? The
establishment of the Church's
position more solidly than ever
among the entire population.
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