AN ATTACK ON REXISM " Religion Now a BackNumber"

From Our Belgian Correspondent Intense criticism of the Belgian Resist movement and its leader, Leon Degrelle, is made in an article entitled " The Secularisation of Christ King," which appeared at the end of last week in the Belgian Catholic newspaper, La Libre Belgique.
The writer declares that Degrelle, first inspired by the papal encyclical on the reign of Christ and the institution of the feast on the last Sunday in October, had since 1925 slowly worked up the Resist movement from its original purely religious character to a state where religion wa.s hut a figurehead and secular activity the keynote.
The movement, states the writer, was at its establishment planned to remain parallel with Catholic Action, as for instance the Catholic Association of Belgian Youths.
The Break-Away
Degrelle had found a staunch supporter in the chaplain of this association, the A.C.J.B. He was Mgr. Picard and through him Rex had at one time been housed in the offices of the association.
But although Mgr. Picard was pleased to smile on Rexism, the other chiefs of the A.C.J.B. were not so disposed and refused to show the least enthusiasm for Degrelle's " novel methods." Regarding this, it is pointed out that later both Catholic Action and the A.C.J.B. broke away from the connection, first semi-officially and at length officially.
" Nevertheless," the article continues, " hi. Degrelle continued unfurling the banner of Christ King under the device ' Rex Shall Conquer.'
" Now in the Rexist movement, in its publications, in its propagandists' speeches, the cry Rex Shall Conquer ' is multiplied more than ever but its significance has been secularised."
The writer here lends power to his criticism by the statement that the Pope's recommendation for an apostolate was actually to be rid of this very secularism which Degrelle was flaunting. " Rex Shall Conquer,' " he says, " means Degrelle Shall Conquer.'"
A Mixed Bag
He goes on : " The Resist movement has become a purely political movement, the movement of a new party which claims to take the best out of all the other parties and to recruit its adherents not only from among Catholics but also from Liberals, Socialists, nay, even from Communists, and at any rate from among Flemish Nationalists whose daily newspaper, until not long ago, was directed by M. Vos, a notorious free-thinker, who has since entered the ranks of the Extreme Left."
The article finishes with the accusation that the feast of Christ King was celebrated among the Rexists not with religious fervour, but with propaganda meetings which made it impossible for the faithful within and outside of the movement to take part in the public church devotions.
Rexism and the Clergy. See page 9.