Theosophy in Cardiff
Theosophical Society, Cardiff Lodge,
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, CF24 – 1DL.
Theosophy and the Great War
Sacrilege
By
Annie Besant
First Published October 29th 1916
Return to Homepage
AN incredible outrage - which will raise every Catholic against the
Germans - has been perpetrated by the armies of the Kaiser in Belgium. It is wired
to the London Standard, and was printed in our columns in the earliest edition
yesterday. The monastery at Montaigne was occupied by
the New Barbarians, and the monks had been ordered to accommodate fifty German
soldiers. The large hall and kitchen were assigned to them. More than two
hundred came instead of fifty, but the monks managed to put them up. In the
middle of the night, the Germans, presumably drunk, began firing into the rooms
to which the monks had retired, drove them into the cellars, and treated them
with foul insults. Next day they broke into the interior and plundered it,
breaking what they could not steal. In the chapel, they scattered the Host over
the altar, and carried away the sacred vessels. They then roped the monks
together, and dragged them through the town, flogged them, and turned them
adrift. The words we have italicised constitute the outrage we have called
incredible. The Host has for the Catholics - Roman or otherwise - a sancity that is unique. This is not the place to describe
what it means to the true Catholic. But everyone who is capable of reverencing
the deepest and holiest feelings of a brother human being will shrink at the
idea of such outrage. It is the action of gorillas, not of men. Sworn evidence
of the outrages has been sent to the Vatican. What will the Pope do? If he is worthy of his
office, he will use the religious weapon which strikes a religious crime,
leaving unbelievers wholly unaffected, while it calls on believers to defend
their holiest beliefs. He will excommunicate the armies of Germany and Austria, and lay an
interdict on the two Empires. It is a mediaeval weapon, but where the
restraints of modern civilisation are not present it
is the appropriate one to use. The Church may rightly exclude from her
communion those who have desecrated her holiest treasure. Austria is the great
Catholic Power. Will she send her armies to fight side by side with the German
troops after this grossest of all sacrileges? She sees what the triumph of the
Hohenzollerns means for Catholicism. Will she seat Wilhelm II.
on the desecrated altar of her faith? - New India, October 29, 1914.
Return to Homepage
Theosophical Society, Cardiff Lodge,
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, CF24 – 1DL.