Mr. Teeling on the German Church

Extract

Mr. William Teeling has now replied to the many critics of his book The Pope in Politics, which was published in 1937. His reply takes the form of a study of the conditions and prospects of the Catholic Church in Germany, a subject with which he is undoubtedly familiar and about which he can speak with considerable authority. He knows the language and the people well, and has taken pains to interview all kinds of personalities to ascertain the real state of feeling in the country. And though conversations, even with the most varied authorities, are not the most certain way of getting at the real truth, it is scarcely possible to adopt any other method in Germany. The Nazi press is inspired to tell just what the party leaders wish to have announced and the foreign press is often biassed.

The method has its drawbacks, so serious that one has to read the book with some caution. For it is undoubtedly true that it is a very dangerous thing to speak to foreigners about the faults of the system, and it is questionable whether even Mr. Teeling’s interviewing ability would elicit the whole truth about these from any responsible German. It is also a fact that the more highly placed ecclesiastics are rightly unwilling to grant interviews of the type that the author needed for the purposes of publication. Every spokesman, of course, is made anonymous in this book, but even this security would not encourage many to speak quite openly about politics.