Cardinals warn capitalists

A PASTORAL letter signed by Cardinal von Preysing, Bishop
of Berlin, Cardinal Frings, Archbishop of Cologne, and 10 other members of the German Hierarchy warns capitalists as well as Communists that " our world will remain a volcano—which must some day explode in tremendous convulsions—as long as millions of people must again and again struggle for their live lihood."
The letter is directed principally against Godless materialism.
While the Hierarchy denounce specific expressions of materialism in Communism, they condemn modern
trends of materialistic capitalism in equally strong terms.
"To the capitalist countries," they say, " a serious word must be addressed, for they deceive themselves by the opinion that by referring to their higher living standards and their liberalistic freedoms they would overcome a movement which has arisen because of the injustices still widely prevailing in the world, and therefore will find followers as long as these injustices remain.
" As long as millions of people do not know today on what they will live tomorrow, as long as the nightmare of unemployment menaces all countries and the egoism of one restricts the opportunity of another, as long as a group of individuals or groups have the last word in our national economics and business leaders do not cooperate to organise world relations systematically—as long as these'conditions prevail. severe disturbances are bound to recur.
'Anti-Christ'
" Materialism is Godless in its very essence. It is anti-Christ anti antiChurch.
" The recent decree of the Holy See against Communism must be viewed in this light.
"The Church refuses to take sides in the political and economic struggle between Communist and non-Communist forces.
" It does not side with capitalism, which in many of its teachings is as materialistic a system as Communism and contradicts the Divine Order.
" In condemning Godless Communism. the Church is concerned only with the preservation of the Christian Faith, the administration of the sacraments and the unity of the Church—for the Christian Faith and materialistic philosophies exclude one another as fire and water or light and darkness."
The pastoral coincides with one against Communism by the Protestant Churches over the signature of Bishop Debelius of Berlin, on the occasion of a synod of delegates from all over the Soviet zone.
With a united Christian front thus established in the face of the persistent onslaught of the Communists, observers in Germany expect a growing tension in relations between Churches and the Red rulers.