The Pope on Unconditional Surrender

HAPPILY, the first section of the Holy Father's Allocution, the section concerned with the fate of Rome, cleats with a state of affairs which has already passed into history.
A second section of the Allocution deals, as was natural in the days of Pentecost, with the topic so dear to the heart of Pius XII, the unity of Christendom and the sad consequences, especially in these days of moral and spiritual projects, of the " vast division and dispersal of religious confessions that in the course of time have detached themselves from Mother Church."
But in the short space at our disposal it seems to be of the most immediate importance to direct attention to the third part of the Allocution—the part which we do not hesitate to call " The Pope on Unconditional Surrender."
The Allied Victory
Though that phrase is not used and though the actual phrase can bear a number of different meanings, we think that the Holy Father spoke clearly enough to make it plain that he had in mind the policy which is marked by three points: (1) no attempt to shorten the war by suggesting any terms to which the enemy might appeal at a later date; (2) unconditional surrender itself as the only possible end, and (3) the denial to the defeated of any reasonable hope of national restoration.
In expressions that give authority and strength to sentiments which we have tried to express time and again in these columns Pope Pius denies that war, less than ever to-day, can be imputed to peoples, but that peoples Once they feel faced with the sole alternative of victory or destruction are forced into ' 'a n hypnotic sleep through abysses of Unspeakable sacrifices," thus constraining "others to a war of extermination that drains their life blood—a war
whose economic, social and spiritual consequences threaten to become the scourge of the age to come."
Practical Points