The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-09-12

V transmit to the hands of His Emil hence. the Cardinal Secretary of State of the Holy See, its expressions < of 'profund grief because of the wrong done to the rights and to the dignity ! of the Polish nation by the Apostolic letter of His Holiness, Benedict VA, @ addressed to the leaders Of, the bel I ligerent peoples.
 ( Every liberty-and justiceEloving t individual must greet with full ap- {. preciation the peremptpry demand or His Holiness, that the Geyr1ans should < forthwith evacuafe, the territories of Z Belgium and France, which they oc- 4 cupy. By this demand His Holiness ,a expressly rejects the idea of conquest and, recognizes the fact that conquest by force of arms cannot constitute laxal basis for incorporating foreign tprritories without the consent of the people of such territories. Thus the indisputable right of the Belgian and the French nations to the territories 5 inhabited by them in1ne ediately prior to the outbreak of the war. has been .emphatically recognized by the Holy See.
 The attitude of the Holy See with . regard to the provinces of Alsace and
  E France in 1871, isa however, not as .Ndefnite, as the Apostolic letter of His Holiness in discreet silence passes lover the imperative necessity of re- Y storing these provinces to tneir : -lsrnot1er-country, France.
 xfs Painful and unexpected. however -eits the attitude assumed by the Holy See with regard to the rights of the { Polish nation to liberty and independ- ence. His Holiness speaks of the Polish question in the following words:
 ..The same spirit of equity and jus tice ought to be followed in the ex- animation of other territorial and political questions .. relative rto territories making part of the ancient Kingdom of Poland, whose noble and historical traditions and sufferings which it has endured, es- pecially during the present war. { ought~to conciliate the sympathies of nations"
 Thus in the opinion of the Holy See. Poland is not nation which is fully entitled to independent political life. His Holiness does not demand < that the Germans evacuate the terri- tory of the former Commonwealth Of Poland. which is almost in its entirety \ occupied by the armies of Germany and Austria ia-Hungary. The Holy See AoeS not recognize the sovereign rights of the Polish nation to its own territory, but merely speaks of sym- pathies of nations, which Poland ought to concfiiate because of the sufferfngs She has endured. Accord { ing to the terms of the Apostolic i letter, Poland is but a. territorial and
 political question which should be S examined'' not in it's entirety but only in 'part.r The fate of the rest K of the spartss' of Poland which His :ll Holiness excludUs from the examina- Nfion remains unknown Which of the -partitioning powers is therefore to have possession of the excluded parts of Poland7
 In the. opinion of the Holy See the FPoles are not even entitled to decide about their own fate. The Apostolic letter expressly defines the compost ton of the body. which is to examine nthe territorial questions. In the par ~agraph relating to this subject we 2 read as follows:
 "The parties in conflict would wish 1to examine therp with "a conciliatory { fdispqsitipn, taking into consideration, Z las we said formerly, the aspirations tEpf the peoples.v v sssa se15s
 ~ Thus the Polish nation is supposed fto wait patiently, without participat- Ing in the congress of the leaders of the belligerent nations, while these W leaders decide the fate of but a f espart" of Poland.
 l, If such is to be the Supremacy of right" referred to by the Holy See ! we can give the positive assurance
 that there wiff afStsDe o71a Single, citi- ' gen in Poland wffno will assent to
 such decision made by the partition
 ing powers.
 sf, Different was the tenor of addresses directed by the predecessors of His
 Holiness Benedict XIV, to the Polish
 nation at the times of the latter's
 triumphs over the foes of Poland At the time when the Polish Kings
 triumphed over the German Empire and were about to crush the rebel. <, lious and treacherous Teutonic Order
 of the Cross, the Holy See defending
 the Germans insisted that they should {; be spared by the Polish Kings and die
 not shrink from interdicting the re-
 caIcftrant Polish Kings sad the en.
 tire Polish nation, when the Poles were protecting their own interests. Clear and peremprory was also tn. X~ttkhAAC aSou4nG0 Oy bklc 11Oly 1o6t when it frustrated, in the interests O. s3he Roman Catholic church to the dis hHdvantage of the Polish and of the
 Russian nations. the victory of King
 Btefan ~Batory, elected king by tht .YRoles through a free election, ovel ,Ivan the Terrible. Cxar of Muscovy
 the greatest tyrant since Nero. B,
 his action of the Holy See, the east Award march of civilization was halted And the Russian nation delivered int ,bR bondage of an autocracy. sis'
 Clear and peremptory was the teno ltof the demand made by, the Holy Sc, kupon the King of Poland, John IT lEobieski, to, save Austria, contrary t 'the inteSest of Poland, from the dan :sger of threatening at that time tn,
 Hapsburg Empire at the hands of tn,
 Moslems. ~
 On the other hand the connivanc Of the Holy See with Austria's par
 ticipation in the partition of Polant
 is a generally known. fact. Knowl
 also is the intsrdict pronounced b.
 the Holy See against che Polish revo
 lutionaries in 1830-1Ss1.
 Hut now. when on May 2S, 1917
 the Polish nation, through its repre-
 senfatives proclaimed at the city hal
 in Crac0w a free. united and inde
 rxmnHaxf polon6 ruvfkI. oo11-1 <> $I,. r~s