It
will not be easy for them to do so. They will have to explain how it
is that German bishops, priests, pastors, and flocks, undoubtedly
sincere in their professions of faith, deeply pious, as our soldiers
saw in Cologne, and fervent in their devotion to the sacraments on
their side of the fighting-line, as the Irish Catholics on our side,
were able to reconcile this piety with their war of aggression. The
faith of the Austrian Catholics must be explained in relation to their
crimes, if they were criminal, as we say they were, in leading the way
to this war by their ultimatum to Serbia. If Christianity has no
restraining influence upon the brutal instincts of those who profess
and follow its faith, then surely it is time the world abandoned so
ineffective a creed and turned to other laws likely to have more
influence on human relationships. That, brutally, is the argument of
the thinking world against the clergy of all nations who all claimed
to be acting according to the justice of God and the spirit of Christ.
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