ESPERANTISTS CONFER

Cardinal Van Roey Says Movement is Necessary
From Our Own Correspondent
ANTWERP.
The International Union of Catholio Esperantists have been holding their 21st Congress at Antwerp.
The Congress opened on Sunday by Pontifical High Mass in Antwerp Cathedral. The sermon was preached in Esperanto.
I sat among the 420 delegates, men and women, of 12 different nationalities and of diverse tongues—the most distant hailed from Trinidad—and representing varying classes of laity. The clerical deputies included members of the Redemptorist, Norbertine, Cistercian, Sacred Heart and Dominican orders.
Under discussion was the Jocist (Y.C.W.) organisation of Belgium. Its work and method was illustrated for the delegates to spread its lesson in other lands.
The secretary told me that in the middle of. last week their headquarters at Brno, Czechoslovakia, had been, closed bu the Nazi authorities and their archives seized.
"CAN HELP THE CHURCH" Cardinal van Roey, Primate of Belgium, who is the patron of the Congress, was prevented from attending. His Vicar-General, Mgr. Van Eynde, gave the Congress the Cardinal's message.
" The Cardinal appreciates the value of Esperanto and realises how this language can help the Church," affirmed Mgr. Van Fynde.
" Esperanto helps to serve an ideal of the highest morality." the message stated, " and if this Catholic Esperantist Movement did not exist, the Congress shows that the Movement would have to he created. . . ."