Proclamation by the Heads of Governments, United States, China and the United Kingdom
(1) We, the President of the United States, the President of the National Government of the Republic of China and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing the hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have conferred and agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war.
(2) The prodigious land, sea and air forces of the United States, the British Empire and of China, many times reinforced by their armies and air fleets from the west are poised to strike the final blows upon Japan. This military power is sustained and inspired by the determination of all the Allied nations to prosecute the war against Japan until she ceases to resist.
(3) The result of the futile and senseless German resistance to the might of the aroused free peoples of the world stands forth in awful clarity as an example to the people of Japan. The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry and the method of life of the whole German people. The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will3 mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.
(4) The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason.
(5) Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.
(6) There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world.
(7) Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing proof that Japan’s war-making power is destroyed, points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies shall be occupied to secure the achievement of the basic objectives we are here setting forth.
(8) The terms of the Cairo Declaration4 shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.
(9) The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives.
(10) We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as [a] nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. The Japanese government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established.
(11) Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those industries which would enable her to re-arm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted.
(12) The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government.
(13) We call upon the Government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.
Potsdam July 26, 1945
Harry S Truman
Winston Churchill
by H. S. T.
President of China
by wire
The results of the 1945 British election were announced. The Labour Party won an unexpected landslide over the Conservatives. Clement Attlee accordingly became the Prime Minister on this day.
The results were not a condemnation of Churchill, but an expression by the British people that they wished to go in a new direction, post war. One of Labour's slogans had been "Cheer Churchill – Vote Labour"
The British minesweeper Vestal was heavily damaged by a kamikaze attack.
I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people, not at all referring to the immoral of this world or the greedy and robbers or idolaters; for you would then have to leave the world.
But I now write to you not to associate with anyone named a brother, if he is immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a robber, not even to eat with such a person.
For why should I be judging outsiders? Is it not your business to judge those within?
God will judge those outside. “Purge the evil person from your midst.
St. Paul to the Corinthians..
The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump 2003 birthday wishes to Jeffrey Epstein, part of a book compiled for Epstein's birthday by his paramour and fellow procurer Ghislaine Maxwell included a Trump made drawing of a naked woman, with "Donald" written over the figure's genitals and apparently somewhat mimicking pubic hairs.
I'm not going to post the drawing.
Of course, Trump, in Trump fashion, has declared it to be a fake. And now he's suing the Wall Street Journal.
This all followed an increasingly desperate effort on Trump's part to divert attention from this story. Rather than try to set out the reasons that the story won't go away, I'll just link in this analysis with Ezra Klein, with which I agree.
Trying to get ahead of this, and I think that he'll find by suing the Journal he set himself behind, he's also ordered the release of the Epstein grand jury testimony.
Not the supposed "Epstein files", but the grand jury testimony. That's frankly not what people have been asking for, but its offered out as red meat for the dogs in hopes that they'll satiate themselves and go away.
It doesn't look like they will.
His most loyal supporters, of course, have simply built this into their conspiracy theory, although in a way in which the logic train derails pretty quickly. Trump isn't hiding anything. . . it was the Democrats. . . .
Um, okay. . .
I have a feeling the 25th Amendment schedule has been moved up.
The simple fact of the matter is that Donald Trump has a forty year history of hanging out with kiddy diddling creeps. That didn't start with Epstein. Maybe you could hang around in a pornographic atmosphere for 40 years and not inhale anything, but it wouldn't be easy. And once the rot sets in, and the poison is available, it tends to corrupt.
Hugh Hefner was always a creep. But he was married when he started off on his path of dissipation. He wasn't rapey at first.
And its been clear for a long time, for those who have cared to look even a little, that Trump is a deeply immoral man, and he's surrounded himself, in many instances, by those who are likewise deeply immoral.
Trump has 5 kids with 3 women.
Elon Musk has 14 kids with 4 women.
Pete Hegseth has 7 kids with 3 women.
Linda McMahon is being sued for enabling child sexual abuse.
Trump's affinity for young women has been denied by his defenders, but his own words convict him. Trump, with Howard Stern on the topic of a teenage Lindsay Lohan, stated:
TRUMP: What do you think of Lindsay Lohan?
STERN: She's hot.
TRUMP: I've seen a close-up of her chest. Are you into freckles?
STERN: Imagine having sex with this troubled teen?
TRUMP: She's probably deeply troubled—and great in bed.
From the same interview:
TRUMP: How come the deeply troubled women, deeply deeply troubled.
STERN: Right.
TRUMP: They're always the best in bed. For some reason what I said is true. I mean they're just unbelievable.
STERN: I can tell.
TRUMP: You don't want to be with them for the long term—but for the short term, there is nothing like it.
How is it that this administration, lead by a serial polygamists, who hasn't given any indication he's reconsidered the morality of his conduct, and who is now floundering like a fish on the deck on the Epstein scandal, can be seriously regarded as some sort of Christian leader?
Well, that was always baloney in the first place. Nobody can identify a Christian denomination that Trump is actually a member of. He was a Presbyterian growing up, but he's disavowed that religion. He's sort of generic American Evangelical at best, which makes sense as by and large American Evangelicalism has dumped a lot of Christianity, particularly in the sexual area. . . as long as its conventional.
Populist right wing America has long accommodated itself to deep sexual immorality, but only of a conventional kind. Far less than a century ago it was difficult for Americans to obtain a divorce, and divorce was looked down upon. Now people who have repeat marriages, or who are living together outside of marriage, have no problem identifying themselves as right wing American Evangelicals. St. Paul may have cautioned people about all sexual immorality, but in the American Civil Religion, that doesn't apply to sex between a man and a woman, apparently.
Unless, it turns out, that woman is under 18 years old. That, it turns out, is a bridge too far.
Of course, there's no reason to believe that Trump ever saw any lines as blurred, or any lines at all. Maybe he didn't bed teenage girls, but he hung around with those who did. That alone is wrong.
But we don't know, of course, what we don't know. If we were detectives, and assigned this as a set of facts to investigate, we'd sure suspect that quite a bit of kiddy diddling was going on in this circle of very wealthy "pals". Indeed, their money alone would make it easy for them to get away with things for a long time, or perhaps indefinitely.
It'd make a great film noir, albeit a creepy one.
If it all feels like something deeply fake has been and is going on here, it's also now admitted that Trump's constant claims to perfect health are fake. He has chronic venous insufficiency. It won't kill him or anything, but it doesn't suddenly appear either. He is an old man, with an old man's disease. He's had it for awhile.
Old, and under stress, Trump's rambling "weave" has become so normal that people don't even pay attention to it anymore. On Tuesday, Trump interrupted an energy and innovation event in Pennsylvania to “brag” about his uncle, John Trump, claiming that the at MIT professor had been particularly impressed with student Ted Kaczynski.
Dr. Trump died in 1985, before Kaczynski was identified as the Unabomber. And Kaczynski didn't go to MIT.
Trump went after Fed chair Jerome Powell and was upset that Biden appointed him. . . except he didn't appoint him. Trump did.
Trump's routinely claiming that petroleum prices have gone way down at the pump. They haven't.
Okay, what's this have to do with the 25th Amendment? Well, it's that bridge too far thing. I've long predicted that Trump would be removed from office under the 25th Amendment before the November, 2026 election. I think this speeds that up. Trump's utility to the NatCons is almost done with. The Big Ugly Bill was passed, and spending on things the NatCons disapprove of has been cut. ICE and the Border Patrol are getting a massive funding boost, and that's going to see mass deportations really ramp up.
Of all of Trump's supposed agenda items, the ones that NatCons really care about have been pretty well advanced. None of them have achieved what might be regarded as full success, but they've gone a lot further than they had a right to hope for. Trump's ongoing association with them, however, isn't going to advance them any further. Indeed, as people begin to feel the impact of funding cuts, they'll start to get angry. If it turns out that Trump was fishing in the shallow end of the female pool, it's completely done with.
In fact, the best thing that could possibly happen for the NatCons would be if Trump turns out to be a Dirk Diddler with an eye for girls who should be looking for prom dates.
Eh?
Well, here's why.
I've always maintained that Trump has no real allegiance to anything other than Trump. NatCons certainly do, however. NatCons have always known that their vision, which is relatively new in American politics, had very little chance of rapidly advancing as they had no chance of finding a Francisco Franco who could get elected. They're smart, and they also realized that they could coopt populist discontent, something that ironically the Democrats had a chance of doing with Bernie Sanders. And right wing populism legitimately shares some common goals with National Conservatism, which is nationalistic, ethno-nationalistic, and isolationist.
Where the two depart, however, is that populism is always a very shallow stream. Most populists would be happy if "Mexicans" were sent home, and everyone had to be a "Christian", in a fashion that didn't include the Apostolic Faiths, and which didn't really make you "go to Church" on Sundays, or which held that the spouse you married three spouses ago is your real spouse. NatCons, however, have much more intellectual view on everything, and they espouse "traditional values" in the fashion that Franco, or if you prefer, Belloc, would have recognized, and they'd legislate towards that end.
That man isn't Donald Trump, it's J.D. Vance.
The rest of the NatCon agenda is dead in the water if the Republicans don't hold the House and the Senate in 2026. It can't be cemented if Vance isn't elected in 2028. The GOP won't hold the House, at a bare minimum, if the "Trump agenda" becomes any more unpopular than it already is, and it will. It's becoming increasingly likely that the Republicans will lose the Senate. There's no way on earth that Vance can win the 2028 election as a stand alone Presidential candidate.
But if Trump were to go after the impact of the current legislation starts to sink in, the taint might stick to him. That would give the GOP a chance, albeit only that, to ride things out until 2028. And Vance might have a chance if he became President due to a Trump removal. And, the way things work, that might given NatCons a fellow traveler in the Oval Office for a solid ten years, as Vance could complete the last two years of Trump's term and eight years of two terms on his own.
In terms of "removal", I mean that. That's what will have to happen. Trump isn't going anywhere voluntarily. And hence, the 25th Amendment comes in.
Gosh, we'll hear, the stress of things just caught up with the old fellow.
Or gosh, we didn't know he was a diddler.
July 20, 2025
Not too surprisingly, women with a connection to this story have resurfaced, including Stacey Williams, who was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model featured in the pornography, um, swimsuit, issue at some joint in the 90s. She was also Epstein's girlfriend in the early 90s, showing some bad judgment on her part.
Anyhow, she states that Epstein took her up the Trump tower where Trump groped her while he and Epstein talked, liking it to “some sort of sick bet or game” between the two “close friends". Several of her friend corroborated the story and she offered to take a polygraph tests, although such tests are frankly worthless.
Trump predictably denied this, but it's worth remembering that he has been convicted for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll.
It's also worth remembering that starting in the last decade it became common to support the women making these difficult accusations. And there are others against Trump. Williams doesn't seem to fit into the category of somebody we'd instantly doubt.
At what point will people take this seriously?
July 21, 2025
The president is trying to present himself as if he’s doing something here and it really is nothing,
* * *
It’s not going to be much, because the Southern District of New York’s practice is to put as little information as possible into the grand jury.
Sarah Krissoff, former Epstein prosecutor, regarding the release of the Epstein Grand Jury material.
This material, which may be as little as 60 pages in length, is not the same as internal FBI or prosecutorial files, and therefore is unlikely to satisfy the demand for what the government has on Epstein. Indeed, it's more likely an effort to simply end the controversy by doing very little.
Trump's current mental state, in my view, is heavily impacted by advancing dementia, although he's never been a good guy. What Tommy Tuberville's excuse is, however, I don't know.
Tuberville stated this past week that Trump's chronic venous insufficiency might be due to "battling radicals".
Is Tuberville actually that stupid?
At least in terms of what he says that hits the press, Tuberville says some really remarkably idiotic things. Maybe he's just one of those guys that says dumb stuff without thinking about it, making him seem dumber than he really is. Be that as it may, with Marjorie Taylor Green and Tuberville both in Congress right now, the GOP has a couple of figures that are just stunningly unqualified for their jobs intellectually, if what they say is what they actually think. Tuberville, for his party, gives unintended evidence for the worst stereotypes of football coaches, particularly for somebody like me who doesn't like football.
cont:
Apparently Donald Trump is posting a random video of a girl in a bikini catching a snake on social media.
Oh, that's not weird. . .
July 23, 2025
Mike Johnson sent the House home for an extra long vacation rather than make them face a vote on the Epstein files.
Like that's not odd . . .
Well that must mean that nothing is embarrassing in them, right. . . right?
Oh, some of these folks will have "town halls" on their month plus long break. . . it'd be a shame if they were asked about the Epstein files.. .
Apparently Sen. Lummis doesn't agree with the recess.
She wants them to stay in session so they can make appointments that haven't been made. While I'm not at all happy with the illegitimate Trump Administration, she certainly has a point. Six months in and there's still hundreds of unfilled offices. This will be a huge problem by next year, if it keeps up, for Maga's as the next Congress is going to be Democratic.
Trump's talking up his latest nutty conspiracy:
Barack Hussein Obama is the ringleader. Hillary Clinton was right there with him and so was Sleepy Joe Biden, Comey, Clapper. They tried to rig an election and they got caught. And then they did rig the election in 2020. And then because I knew I won that election by a lot, I did it a third time and I won in a landslide.
There must be some sort of statute of limitations on blaming Obama for everything. And by this point, isn't this thin gruel for Republicans? Literally everything is Obama's fault, according to Trump and the satellites in his orbit.
This is somebody nobody else can do. I can get the drug prices down… 1000% 600% 500% 1500%. Numbers that are not even thought to be achievable.
Donald Trump.
Those numbers aren't thought to be achievable as that would mathematically mean pharmaceutical companies would have to pay you to take drugs.
On Jerome Powell:
He has these think tanks. The build buildings for people who think. It’s really not thinking. It’s a little bit of a combination of thinking. It’s something you sort have or don’t have… He ought to raise interest rates.
Donald Trump.
July 24, 2025
It appears that the Wall Street Journal learned a lesson from the tactic deployed by The Atlantic, and held stuff back from its first report on Trump and Epstein. At least one insider is indicating that there's a lot more to come, which if true, would explain why Trump is currently bouncing off the walls.
Yesterday the WSJ revealed that Bondi had briefed Trump on what's in the Epstein files back in May and that his name does occur frequently. The files also reportedly contain child pornography which is why, reportedly, Bondi determined not to release the information as she did not wish to reveal the names of the victims.
This doesn't mean that Trump is associated with child pornography, and we'd note again that so far what Epstein seems to have dabbled in was ephebophilia, not pedophilia, which doesn't mean that he wasn't, as Trump has indicated, a "creep". But things just keep looking worse and worse for Trump.
Indeed, Jon Stewart hilariously noted this on his show, comparing the situation to the most recent Top Gun movie, which I have not seen, with fighter countermeasures being deployed.
I haven't looked, but if there aren't new variants of the bunker scene in Downfall circulating, I'd be amazed. Those in fact would be apt as Trump is desperately pulling out everything to deflect attention from the Epstein story, even suddenly going after the Washington Commanders, demanding that they go back to being called the Redskins. His most dangerous action, however, is now a serious attempt to go after former President Obama on some wild conspiracy theory.
That latter move is not only desperate, it's dumb. Trump is now setting a precedent that prosecuting a former President is perfectly legitimate. . . with it being obvious that if he lives through his term, which is unlikely due to his advanced old age, he could be prosecuted as well. That increases the incentive, we'd note, for him to try to advance an excuse that he can run for a third term in order that he can attempt to guaranty that he'll die in office.
A move to prosecute Obama, it should be noted, is a full blown step from democracy into fascism and its impossible to pretend otherwise. I've resisted the claims that we're now in a fascist state, as we're not, but at that point, we are. Trump appears perfectly willing to take us there.
This also ramps up the 25th Amendment pressure. Trump is in a full on panic. His loyal lieutenant, Wilhelm Keitel, oops, Mike Johnson, seems willing to stay in Berlin, oops, loyal to his Leader, and do whatever is necessary to hide what's in the files even up to the extent of sending the House home so it couldn't vote in releasing the files, but this drama isn't going away.
The files should be released. Yes, that will reveal the names of young women who were defiled by the rich, but the fact of the matter is that keeping their names secret is protecting their abusers at this point. And that reemphasizes that Trump's female accusers have, for the most part, been silenced as well.
So, as a final matter, what is in these files and who is being protected? The conclusion that nobody is, is impossible. Trump is clearly panicked, and we now know his name shows up multiple times, but in what context.
Whatever it is, it's impossible to not conclude that Trump himself is being protected due to proof of a grossly immoral act or character, or that some very wealthy and powerful people are being so protected.
Frankly, it's also impossible not to conclude that these files are going to be scrubbed. Congress may be in recess, but the Administration isn't. That would be a crime, but the current administration doesn't have much of a problem committing crimes. If whatever is in these is bad enough to attempt to prosecute a former President, it's bad enough to take the lighter fluid and Zippo to.
July 25, 2025
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Ghislaine Maxwell yesterday on the renewed Epstein scandal.
Maxwell was the "girlfriend" and then assistant procurer of Jeffrey Epstein. The relationship started off when she was in a period of financial distress, but never developed to what she seemingly likely hoped, a marriage, as Epstein was frank that he liked teenage girls for sex partners, and that wasn't going to change.
Which does, frankly, bring up the creepy "enigma's never age" line of the Trump birthday wish poem.
At this point, if Maxwell comes out and says that Trump had no interest in the high school and junior high set, it won't matter, as people will believe that the politicized Department of Justice is doing Trump's bidding. And she's not going to say otherwise, would be my prediction.
Jerome Powel somewhat gently took Trump to school in a public meeting at which they were both present, with Trump floundering like a fish on the deck when Powell corrected him on a building under construction, and mostly complete, whose budget was approved, apparently back in 2015.
I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.
The reason that late procurer Jeffrey Epstein remains in the news is that the Republicans made the "Epstein files" a big deal.
That's the only reason.
I don't believe that Trump had Epstein murdered. I don't believe the really bizarre conspiracy theory that the Clintons did either. Even at the time that was asserted, however, I thought that it made a lot more sense that Trump would have offed Epstein than the Clintons, but I don't believe that either happened.
Epstein and Trump knew each other, and that association (I don't know if Trump has any actual friends at all, I somewhat doubt it) was more than casual. Epstein claimed to know that Trump liked to screw the wives of Trump's "friends" and that he first had carnal knowledge of Melania aboard the Lolita Express. At least based on what is out there, Epstein never claimed that Trump dabbled with the underaged. Trump did claim that Epstein like women "on the younger side", which can mean a variety of things. Author Michael Wolff claimed that Epstein claimed he had photos of Trump with topless "young women" sitting on his lap, which again doesn't mean they were underaged.
There have been, however, some accusations, and that's what they are, accusations, that went beyond that. "Katie Johnson" claimed that she was raped by Trump in association with Epstein. Was she? How would we know, the suits were never advanced, and the allegations are so extreme that there's plenty of reason to question them.
And other women claimed they were abused by Trump, while teenagers, on Epstein's island.
But still, all of this may just prove what we already know. Trump can be proven to be a creep, but that doesn't mean he's a pedophile, if the women's claims are disregarded (which generally, we tend not to do with accusatrices).
Having said that, there's the smoke and fire matter. People related rumors about the Hefner mansion for years before the full truth of its horrors were told after his death. Hefner was a rapist, under the current definition, based on what one of his female house guests related to have witnesses in terms of compelled sex. James Brown was violent towards women there. Bill Cosby, who turned out to be a rapist, frequented it.
Can you really have an island dedicated to sexual trafficking and not descend into rape? Can you really circluate underaged girls and not have them compelled into sex?
During Biden's administration, the populist far right, which got ahead of Trump in its conspiracy theories, whipped itself into a frenzy with the belief that Democrats were a secret cabal of pedophiles, and that the Epstein Files would reveal a vast number of important Democrats who were involved . As soon as the files were released, we were told, the lid was going to be off this horrific discovery. Trumpite figures adopted releasing the Epstein files as one of the things they were going to do.
After the election, Pam Bondi did in fact release part of the FBI files on Epstein, which is seemingly now forgotten even by Bondi. She claimed she had an Epstein client list on her desk that she was reviewing, with the information set to be released.
Now the list is lost, or maybe never existed.
Hmmm. . .
Well, if a list existed, it's being hidden, and given the way the Trumpites approached this, there's real reason to wonder why. They cried for the information, it didn't get released if there was a list, and it should be. Is it lost?
If it is, how did that happen?
We're also told a list never existed, and it might not have. That would have been smart for Epstein, and Epstein was no dummy. How much of a list would he have needed?
Well, maybe some sort of list. Knowing the high rollers being supplied with teenage girls would, I suppose, perhaps be easy enough, but you'd think you'd write this stuff down for self protection if nothing else.
All of which fuels more conspiracy theories.
Chances are there was no client list. Epstein probably packed a list of perverts around in his head. Probably most of the girls he supplied were young, but not underaged, probably.
But now, we'll never really know.
What we do know is that somebody was lying. Bondi, for example, either had a list and "lost" it, or she never had one. Others who suggested there was all sorts of smoking gun material that would come to light, if they didn't lie, were in the neighborhood of lies.
But then, Trump has lied so often that people have become numb to it.
Gary Hart had to drop out of the 1988 Presidential election when an affair he engaged in, involving a boat called Monkey Business, came to light.
American screenwriter and television producer Rod Sterling died at age 50 of a heart attack.
Serling was an extremely heavy smoker, which was no doubt the cause of his death. He'd been a paratrooper during World War Two, serving in the Pacific.
He's best remembered for The Twilight Zone.
Serling in 1959, at which time he would have only been 34 years old. This photo gives us a good example of what we've noted elsewhere, about how people aged more rapidly in the past. The cigarette in hand would have helped contribute to that. World War Two probably didn't help either. Serling's bracelet features Army jump wings.
Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
Pope Pius XII gave an address to the College of Cardinals warning that danger still existed in Europe.
As we very gratefully acknowledge, venerable brethren, the good wishes which the venerable and beloved dean of the Sacred College has offered to us on your behalf, our thoughts bring us back to this day six years ago when you offered your congratulations on our feast day for the first time after we, though unworthy, had been raised to the See of Peter.
The world was then still at peace: but what a peace and how very precarious!
With a heart full of anguish, perplexed, praying, we bent over that peace like one that assists a dying man and fights obstinately to save him from death even when all hope is gone.
The message which we then addressed to you reflected our sorrowful apprehension that the conflict which was ever growing more menacing would break out-a conflict whose extent and duration nobody could foresee. The subsequent march of events has not only justified all too clearly our saddest premonitions but has far surpassed them.
Today, after six years, the fratricidal struggle has ended, at least in one section of this war-torn world. It is a peace if you can call it such-as yet very fragile, which cannot endure or be consolidated except by expanding on it the most assiduous care; a peace whose maintenance imposes on the whole church, both pastor and faithful, grave and very delicate duties: patient prudence, courageous fidelity, the spirit of sacrifice!
All are called upon to devote themselves to it, each in his own office and at his own place. Nobody can bring to this task too much anxiety or zeal. As to us and our apostolic ministry, we well know, venerable brethren, that we can safely count on your sage collaboration, your unceasing prayers, your steadfast devotion.
I. The Church and National Socialism
In Europe the war is over: but what wounds has it not inflicted! Our Divine Master has said: "All that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matthew xxvi, 52).
Now what do you see? You see what is the result of a concept of the State reduced to practice which takes no heed of the most sacred ideals of mankind, which overthrows the inviolable principles of the Christian faith. The whole world today contemplates with stupefaction the ruins that it has left behind it. These ruins we had seen when they were still in the distant future, and few, we believe, have followed with greater anxiety the process leading to the inevitable crash.
For over twelve years-twelve of the best years of our mature age-we had lived in the midst of the German people, fulfilling the duties of the office committed to us. During that time, in the atmosphere of liberty which the political and social conditions of that time allowed, we worked for consolidation of the status of the Catholic Church in Germany.
We thus had occasion to learn the great qualities of the people and we were personally in close contact with its most representative men. For that reason we cherish the hope that it can rise to the new dignity and new life when once it has laid the satanic specter raised by National Socialism and the guilty (as we have already at other times had occasion to expound) have expiated the crimes they have committed.
While there was still some faint glimmer of hope that that movement could take another and less disastrous course either through the disillusionment of its more moderate members or through effective opposition from that section of the German people which opposed it, the church did everything possible to set up a formidable barrier to the spread of ideas at once subversive and violent.
In the spring of 1933 the German Government asked the Holy See to conclude a concordat with the Reich: the proposal had the approval of the Episcopate and of at least the greater number of the German Catholics.
In fact, they thought that neither the concordats up to then negotiated with some individual German states nor the Weimar Constitution gave adequate guarantee or assurance of respect for their convictions, for their faith, rights or liberty of action.
In such conditions the guarantees could not be secured except through a settlement having the solemn form of a concordat with the Central Government of the Reich.
It should be added that, since it was the Government that made the proposal, the responsibility for all regrettable consequences would have fallen on the Holy See if it had refused the proposed concordat.
It was not that the church, for her part, had any illusions built on excessive optimism or that, in concluding the concordat, she had the intention of giving any form of approval to the teachings or tendencies of National Socialism; this was expressly declared and explained at the time (Cfr L'Osservatore Romano, No. 174, July 2, 1933). It must, however, be recognized that the concordat in the years that followed brought some advantages or at least prevented worse evils.
In fact, in spite of all the violations to which it was subjected, it gave Catholics a juridical basis for their defense, a stronghold behind which to shield themselves in their opposition-as long as this was possible-to the ever growing campaign of religious persecution.
The struggle against the church did, in fact, become ever more bitter: there was the dissolution of Catholic organizations; the gradual suppression of the flourishing Catholic schools, both public and private; the enforced weaning of youth from family and church; the pressure brought to bear on the conscience of citizens and especially of civil servants; the systematic defamation, by means of a clever, closely organized propaganda, of the church, the clergy, the faithful, the church's institutions, teaching and history; the closing, dissolution and confiscation of religious houses and other ecclesiastical institutions; the complete suppression of the Catholic press and publishing houses.
To resist such attacks millions of courageous Catholics, men and women, closed their ranks around their Bishops, whose valiant and severe pronouncements never failed to resound even in these last years of war. These Catholics gathered around their priests to help them adapt their ministry to the ever changing needs and conditions. And right up to the end they set up against the forces of impiety and pride their forces of faith, prayer and openly Catholic behavior and education.
In the meantime, the Holy See itself multiplied its representations and protests to governing authorities in Germany, reminding them in clear and energetic language of their duty to respect and fulfill the obligations of the natural law itself that were confirmed by the concordat.
In those critical years, joining the alert vigilance of a pastor to the long suffering patience of a father, our great predecessor, Pius XI, fulfilled his mission as Supreme Pontiff with intrepid courage. But when, after he had tried all means of persuasion in vain, he saw himself clearly faced with deliberate violations of a solemn pact, with a religious persecution masked or open but always rigorously organized, he proclaimed to the world on Passion Sunday, 1937, in his encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" what national socialism really was: the arrogant apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine and of His work of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood, the overthrow of human liberty and dignity.
Like a clarion call that sounds the alarm, the Papal document with its vigorous terms-too vigorous, thought more than one at the time-startled the minds and hearts of men. Many-even beyond the frontiers of Germany-who up to then had closed their eyes to the incompatibility of the national socialist viewpoint with the teachings of Christ had to recognize and confess their mistake. Many-but not all! Some even among the faithful themselves were too blinded by their prejudices or allured by political advantage.
The evidence of the facts brought forward by our predecessor did not convince them, much less induce them to change their ways. Is it mere chance that some regions, which later suffered more from the national socialist system, were precisely those where the encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" was less or not at all heeded?
Would it then have been possible, by opportune and timely political action, to block once and for all the outbreak of brutal violence and to put the German people in the position to shake off the tentacles that were strangling it? Would it have been possible thus to have saved Europe and the world from this immense inundation of blood? Nobody would dare to give an unqualified judgment.
But in any case nobody could accuse the church of not having denounced and exposed in time the true nation of the National Socialist movement and the danger to which it exposed Christian civilization.
"Whoever sets up race or the people or the state or a particular form of state or the depositaries' power or any other fundamental value of the human community to be the supreme norm of all, even of religious values, and divinizes them to an idolatrous level distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God." (Cfr Acta Apostolica Sedis, Vol. XXIX, 1937, pages 149 and 171.)
The radical opposition of the National Socialist State to the Catholic Church is summed up in this declaration of the encyclical. When things had reached this point the church could not without foregoing her mission any longer refuse to take her stand before the whole world.
But by doing so she became once again "a sign which shall be contradicted" (Luke ii, 34), in the presence of which contrasting opinions divided off into two opposed camps.
German Catholics were, one may say, as one in recognizing that the encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" had brought light, direction, consolation and comfort to all those who seriously meditated and conscientiously practiced the religion of Christ. But the reaction of those who had been inculpated was inevitable, and, in fact, that very year, 1937, was for the Catholic Church in Germany a year of indescribable bitterness and terrible outbreaks.
The important political events which marked the two following years and then the war did not bring an attenuation to the hostility of National Socialism toward the church, a hostility which was manifest up to these last months, when National Socialists still flattered themselves with the idea that once they had secured victory in arms they could do away with the church forever.
Authoritative and absolutely trustworthy witnesses kept us informed of these plans-they unfolded themselves actually in the reiterated and ever more intense activity against the church in Austria, Alsace Lorraine and, above all, in those parts of Poland which had already been incorporated in the old Reich during the war: there everything was attacked and destroyed; that is, everything that could be reached by external violence.
Continuing the work of our predecessor, we ourselves have during the war and especially in our radio messages constantly set forth the demands and perennial laws of humanity and of the Christian faith in contrast with the ruinous and inexorable applications of national socialist teachings, which even went so far as to use the most exquisite scientific methods to torture or eliminate people who were often innocent.
This was for us the most opportune-and we might even say the only-efficacious way of proclaiming before the world the immutable principles of the moral law and of confirming, in the midst of so much error and violence, the minds and hearts of German Catholics in the higher ideals of truth and justice. And our solicitude was not without its effect. Indeed, we know that our messages and especially that of Christmas, 1942, despite every prohibition and obstacle, were studied in the diocesan clergy conferences in Germany and then expounded and explained to the Catholic population.
If the rulers of Germany had decided to destroy the Catholic Church even in the old Reich, Providence had decided otherwise. The tribulations inflicted on the church by national socialism have been brought to an end through the sudden and tragic end of the persecution! From the prisons, concentration camps and fortresses are now pouring out, together with the political prisoners, also the crowds of those, whether clergy or laymen, whose only crime was their fidelity to Christ and to the faith of their fathers or the dauntless fulfillment of their duties as priests.
For them all of us have prayed and have seized every opportunity, whenever the occasion offered, to send them a word of comfort and blessing from our paternal heart.
Indeed, the more the veils are drawn which up to now hid the sorrowful passion of the church under the national socialist regime, the more apparent becomes the strength, often steadfast unto death, of numberless Catholics and the glorious share in that noble contest which belonged to the clergy.
Although as yet not in possession of the complete statistics, we cannot refrain from recalling here, by way of example, some details from the abundant accounts which have reached us from priests and laymen who were interned in the concentration camp of Dachau and were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus. (Acts v, 41.)
In the forefront, for the number and harshness of the treatment meted out to them, are the Polish priests. From 1940 to 1945 2,800 Polish ecclesiastics and religious were imprisoned in that camp; among them was a Polish auxiliary bishop who died there of typhus. In April last there were left only 816, all the others being dead except for two or three transferred to another camp.
In the summer of 1942 480 German-speaking ministers of religion were known to be gathered there; of these, forty-five were Protestants, all the others Catholic priests. In spite of the continuous inflow of new internees, especially from some dioceses of Bavaria, the Rhineland and Westphalia, their number, as a result of the high rate of mortality, at the beginning of this year did not surpass 350.
Nor should we pass over in silence those belonging to occupied territories, Holland, Belgium, France (among whom the Bishop of Clermont), Luxembourg, Slovenia, Italy.
Many of those priests and laymen endured indescribable sufferings for their faith and for their vocation.
In one case the hatred of the impious against Christ reached the point of parodying on the person of an interned priest, with barbed wire, the scourging and the crowning with thorns of our Redeemer.
The generous victims who during the twelve years since 1933 have in Germany scarified for Christ and his church their possessions, their freedom, their lives, are raising their hands to God in expiatory sacrifice. May the just Judge accept it in reparation for the many crimes committed against mankind no less than against the present and future generation and especially against the unfortunate youth of Germany, and may He at last stay the arm of the exterminating angel!
With ever-increasing persistence National Socialism strove to denounce the church as the enemy of the German people. The manifest injustice of the accusation would have deeply offended the sentiment of German Catholics and our own if it had come from other lips. But on the lips of such accusers, so far from being a grievance, the accusation is the clearest and most honorable testimony to the strong, incessant opposition maintained by the church to such disastrous doctrines and methods in the interest of true civilization and of the German people; to that people we offer the wish that, freed now from the error which plunged it into chaos, it may find again its own salvation at the pure fountains of true peace and true happiness, at the fountains of truth, humility and charity flowing with the church from the heart of Christ.
II. Looking to the Future
A hard-learnt lesson surely, that of these past years! God grant at least that it may have been understood and be profitable to other nations!
"Receive instruction, you that judge the earth!" (Psalm ii, 10.)
That is the most ardent wish of all who sincerely love mankind. For mankind, now the victim of an impious process of exhaustion, of cynical disregard for the life and rights of men, has but one aspiration: to lead a tranquil and pacific life in dignity and honest toil. And to this purpose it hopes that an end will be put to that insolence with which the family and the domestic hearth have been abused and profaned during the war years.
For that insolence cries to heaven and has evolved into one of the gravest perils not only for religion and morality but also for harmonious relations between men. It has, above all, created those mobs of dispossessed, disillusioned, disappointed and hopeless men who are going to swell the ranks of revolution and disorder, in the pay of a tyranny no less despotic than those for whose overthrow men planned.
The nations, and notably the medium and small nations, claim the right to take their destinies into their own hands. They can be led to assume, with their full and willing consent, in the interest of common progress, obligations which will modify their sovereign rights.
But after having sustained their share-their large share-of suffering in order to overthrow a system of brutal violence, they are entitled to refuse to accept a new political or cultural system which is decisively rejected by the great majority of their people. They maintain, and with reason, that the primary task of the peace-framers is to put an end to the criminal war game and to safeguard vital rights and mutual obligations as between the great and small, powerful and weak.
Deep in their hearts the peoples feel that their rule would be discredited if they did not succeed in supplanting the mad folly of the rule of violence by the victory of the right.
The thought of a new peace organization is inspired-nobody could doubt it-by the most sincere and loyal good will. The whole of mankind follows the progress of this noble enterprise with anxious interest. What a bitter disillusionment it would be if it were to fail, if so many years of suffering and self-sacrifice were to be made vain, by permitting again to prevail that spirit of oppression from which the world hoped to see itself at last freed once and for all!
Poor world, to which then might be applied the words of Christ: "And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first." (Luke xi, 24-26):
The present political and social situation suggests these words of warning to us. We have had, alas, to deplore in more than one region the murder of priests, deportations of civilians, the killing of citizens without trial or in personal vendetta. No less sad is the news that has reached us from Slovenia and Croatia.
But we will not lose heart. The speeches made by competent and responsible men in the course of the last few weeks made it clear that they are aiming at the triumph of right, not merely as a political goal but even more as a moral duty.
Accordingly, we confidently issue an ardent appeal for prayers to our sons and daughters of the whole world. May it reach all those who recognize in God the beloved Father of all men created to his image and likeness, to all who know that in the breast of Christ there beats a divine heart rich in mercy, deep and inexhaustible fountain of all good and all love, of all peace and all reconciliation.
From the cessation of hostilities to true and genuine peace, as we warned not long ago, the road will be long and arduous, too long for the pent-up aspiration of mankind starving for order and calm. But it is inevitable that it should be so.
It is even perhaps better thus. It is essential that the tempest of overexcited passions be first let subside: Motos praestate componere fluctus (Virgil, Aeneid 1, 135).
It is essential that the hate, the diffidence, the stimuli of an extreme nationalism should give way to the growth of wise counsels, the flowering of peaceful designs, to serenity in the interchange of views and to mutual brotherly comprehension.
May the holy spirit, light of intellects, gentle ruler of hearts, deign to hear the prayers of His church and guide in their arduous work those who in accordance with their mandate are striving sincerely despite obstacles and contradictions to reach the goal so universally, so ardently, desired: peace, a peace worthy of the name; a peace built and consolidated in sincerity and loyalty, in justice and reality; a peace of loyal and resolute force to overcome or preclude those economic and social conditions which might, as they did in the past, easily lead to new conflicts; a peace that can be approved by all right-minded men of every people and every nation; a peace which future generations may regard gratefully as the happy outcome of a sad period; a peace that may stand out in the centuries as a resolute advance in the affirmation of human dignity and of ordered liberty; a peace that may be like the Magna Charta which closed the dark age of violence; a peace that under the merciful guidance of God may let us so pass through temporal prosperity that we may not lose eternal happiness (cfr collect third Sunday after Pentecost).
But before reaching this peace it still remains true that millions of men at their own fireside or in battle, in prison or in exile must still drink their bitter chalice. How we long to see the end of their sufferings and anguish, the realization of their hopes! For them, too, and for all mankind that suffers with them and in them may our humble and ardent prayer ascend to Almighty God.
Meanwhile, venerable brethren, we are immensely comforted by the thought that you share our anxieties, our prayers, our hopes; and that throughout the world Bishops, priests and faithful are joining their supplications to ours in the great chorus of the universal church.
In testimony of our deep gratitude and as a pledge of infinite mercies and Divine favors, with sincere affection we impart to you, to them, to all who join us in desiring and working for peace our apostolic benediction.
Today In Wyoming's History: June 2: 1945 Ft. F. E. Warren made a redeployment center for Quartermaster and Transportation Corps troops, a rather surprising thing considering how late in World War Two this was.
"37mm anti-tank gun is shown firing cannister ammunition at Japs hidden in tall grass lining the road along route #5 between Yangiran and Bone Province. North Luzon, P.I. 2 June, 1945. Photographer: T/5 Morris Weiner."
August Hirt, age 47, German anatomist and Nazi who performed experiments on concentration camp inmates committed suicide.
The Soviet Union demanded a right of veto in the proposed United Nations Security Council.
"Sentimental Journey" by Les Brown topped the Billboard singles charts.
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