"Protestant Heresy"

So cumulative and persistent is the undeviating policy of the Popes in orderly succession that the Holy See is seldom forced to act in the brusque and hasty manner of statesmen who feel they have but one life to live and that one short.

Yet, at opportune moments, the Papacy can and does strike swift and sharp. Last week, in Poland, where 95% of all Y. M. C. A. members are Roman Catholics, the Archbishop of Warsaw, Alexander Cardinal Kakowski, decided to smash the "Y" at one blow. This he prepared to do by issuing a formal message to all Polish Christians:

"I warn the Christian population under my leadership against the influences of the Protestant controlled and heretical Young Men's Christian Association on Catholic youths. I base my warning on the Pope's decree dated Nov. 5, 1920. The Y. M. C. A. is neither Polish nor Catholic. It is supported by Protestants and heretics and anyone who gives a cent to this institution is harming the Church and Polish youth. We can not give our Catholic youth to this American heresy, born and bred of Protestant propaganda, which is now being spread over the whole world."

Observers recalled that Mme. Moscicki, wife of President Ignatz Moscicki of Poland, is Chairman of the Executive Board of the Polish Y. M. C. A., an organization built up since the War with funds contributed from the U. S., though there are today only five U. S. citizens employed by the Polish Y. M. C.A.

Most adept was the papal policy which suggested that a decree of the late Pope Benedict XV be used as the authority for Cardinal Kakowski's warning. By that means the present Pope Pius XI, once Papal Nuncio to Poland, will tend to escape criticism among Poles. Poles.