'WHERE ARE THE GERMANS?'

He did well to move cautiously. True, he had always had good relations with Catholic priests with whom he had been in contact. Far from taking anyone away from the Catholic Church, he had helped many to return to it. In the pre-war years, his work was mainly in Protestant countries, and Rome looked with sympathy on his activities there. The great Catholic countries were only marginally affected, and Bishops had been left to decide their attitudes according to how their local situations appeared to them. Some reacted negatively, but most were neutral or mildly favourable. L’Osservatore Romano, the organ of the Vatican, reporting a Moral Re-Armament meeting in Lausanne in 1937, had underlined the value of silent listening for God's will and the importance of people of all classes putting their faith into practice unitedly.21 On the first anniversary of the launching of Moral Re-Armament, it headlined its report 'The supremacy of spiritual and moral values for the peace of the world'.22

Now, however, a new situation was about to arise.As, from the new centre at Caux, Buchman bent his energies to the reconciliation of Europe, and that trio of Catholic statesmen - Schuman of France, Adenauer of Germany and de Gasperi of Italy, together with their mentor the Italian priest, Don Sturzo - increasingly saw in Moral Re-Armament an idea which could supplement their efforts, the hierarchy in Rome began to feel the need to take up a definite attitude. The sight of a Lutheran drawing the faithful to Caux aroused suspicion - or at least caution - in the Holy Office, the institution which guarded the integrity of the faith. In the next few years, they were to come to conclusions which were to puzzle many Catholics who had found in Caux a new impetus to their faith, conclusions which were to take nearly two decades to reverse.

That, however, was in the future, and Buchman's next visit to Rome, five weeks after his return to Ganda, was at the invitation of Monsignor Francois Charrière, Bishop of Fribourg, Lausanne and Geneva, in whose diocese Caux was situated. He was taking 8,000 Swiss to Rome to attend the canonisation of the Swiss saint, Nicolas von Flüe, and invited Buchman and a party of his colleagues to be present. They were placed in excellent seats near the High Altar in St Peter's, and Buchman was fascinated by the story of the Saint and by the colour of the ceremony. In June, over Swiss radio, he spoke of the significance of the occasion, recalling how Saint Nicolas had become 'the most sought-after arbiter in affairs of state' and had saved Switzerland 'when the bitter quarrels of the cantons brought his country to the verge of civil war'. 'Truly he is a saint for our times, a model for the United Nations,' Buchman commented.23

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