CHAPTER IV BELGIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF ‘CHRISTUS REX’

THE Catholic Action in Belgium and its political expression:”Christus Rex”. — The testimony of Raymond de Becker, former Rexist: Livre des vivants et des marts. Education at the Jesuits’. Youth’s spiritual crisis between the two world wars. The Catholic Action in conquest of the modern world. Mgr. Picard, Canon Cardijn and their creature Leon Degrelle, apostles of Fascism. L’Action catholique, corrupter of consciences. Journey to Rome.”You men from the north believe in dogmas. We make them”. — Retreat to the Trappe. Pius XI, Enemy of France. — German aggression: Belgium collapses, undermined by the”fifth column”. — Leon Degrelle on the Russian front. The Memoirs of a braggart.

AFTER Italy and Mussolini’s Fascism; Germany and Hitler’s Nazism; and Spain and the Falangism of General Franco, a similar situation created by the Vatican in another European country can now be examined. We shall thus add Rexist Belgium to the Papacy’s honours list.

“Christus Rex” was a subversive political movement set up by the Catholic Action. The objective of its leaders was not spiritual revival, but to attract to themselves young Catholics who could first be schooled to the fascist ideology boosted by the Papacy, and then launched forth on the attack against democracy. Cardinal Van Rooy, Primate of Belgium, gave his blessing to the new catechumens of Fascism, as follows:

“Greetings, young troop of the glorious Catholic Army! I salute and bless you in the name of all Belgian bishops.”

Some of the catechumens were disillusioned, but they were not all able to make a timely escape from the yoke of Mgr. Picard and Canon Cardijn.

We have an example in the moving testimony of a former Rexist and seminarist, Raymond de Becker. His book: Livre des vivants el des marts is an autobiographical narrative of great interest. He describes his activity in the bosom of the Catholic Action and takes us behind the scenes of this movement, run by the Vatican for solely political ends. It is important to note that Raymond de Becker’s testimony is particularly valuable since he was tried and convicted of collaboration with the enemy.

“The majority among the bourgeois circles”, he writes,”considered it better to put their children to school in Jesuit colleges or episcopal colleges than in the state schools. … At the age of seven, therefore, I was sent to the Institut Sainte-Marie. . . .

“We had constantly before our eyes nothing but figures of the sorrowing Virgin and of Christ crucified; from the outset our consciences were tormented and distorted by visions of blood and horror. . . . Our minds could get no farther than the narrow confines of dogma, and our consciences suffered terrors which had no connexion with real life. . . .”

The author goes on to describe his early experiences of the world, which happened to be in a small job in a commercial firm. But he was disheartened by the uninteresting work and the vulgarity of his colleagues:

“Thus, when one of my friends, who had been seduced by the priestly vocation and was several years older than I, tried to convince me, his affection and arguments met with little opposition. … I therefore accepted Catholicism once again . . . and this is how I came to join the Action Catholique de la Jeunesse (Catholic Youth Movement). . . .”

Raymond de Becker then describes the spiritual crises that Europe was going through after the war, and the rising generation’s deep-rooted desire for a bright new world:

“In Belgium and among most Catholic youths of Europe, this need for the absolute and for renewal was thought to have found its expression in the Action Catholique. . . . Everyone, except for a few people who deliberately closed their eyes, was forced to recognize that Catholic Europe now existed only in history books. . . . Consequently, Catholic Action began as the expression of a sincere impulse…. The Church found in Pope Plus XI an inspired man who was resolved to free her from her age-old fetters and so enable her to conquer the modern world. His call found a particularly enthusiastic echo in Belgium. . . .

“Catholic Action had found in Belgium some men exceptionally well suited to develop ideas and propagate them among the people. The first was Mgr. Picard … the other was Canon Cardijn, founder of the ‘Jocist’ movement, an irascible, violent-tempered and visionary individual. . . . I joined the secretariat of Catholic Actionlat Louvain, as Secretary General of the J.I.C. (Jeunesse Independante Catholique). A certain Father Foucart, a bearded Jesuit, used to come regularly to the secretariat . . . among whom was Victor Mathys, who was later to become Director of the Pays Reel and head of ‘Rex’ during Lean Degrelle’s absence at the eastern front. This little group used to meet at mealtimes and in the chapel, for common prayers. .. .

“One day I was in Father Desmedt’s office, when the door burst open. . . . Father Desmedt shouted almost as loudly as the intruder and they both seemed very pleased with themselves. . . . Father Desmedt turned to me, full of enthusiasm:

‘It’s Leon Degrelle, a tough guy!’

“Incidentally, Lean Degrelle also was living in the house. . . .

“We all were, even then, agitated by a kind of Fascism. . . . Indeed, it should be noted that the Catholic Action circles in which I moved were most sympathetic towards Italian Fascism. . . . Mgr. Picard proclaimed Mussolini’s genius from the housetops and prayed for the coming of a dictator. . . . Moreover, contacts with Italy and Fascism were being encouraged through pilgrimages. On one occasion, when I was returning with three hundred students from a visit to Italy, everyone was giving the Roman salute and singing ‘Giovinezza’. . . .”

Another writer, Jacques Saint-Germain, gives the following details on Mgr. Picard’s role:

“Mgr. Picard displayed remarkable activity. . . . From 1928 onwards. Lean Degrelle’s group was to collaborate regularly with Mgr. Picard. The youngsters learned from him the thousand and one details of methods of modern propaganda … of the way to spread ideas. . . . Mgr. Picard entrusted Lean Degrelle with a particularly important mission — that of running a new publishing house established within the Catholic Action secretariat. This publishing house was soon to become famous: it was called Rex.

The apostles of Fascism

“On 10 October 1931, the Rex publishers launched the first paper to be directed by Lean Degrelle. … It was called Soirees . . . from that day a new breeze blew over the Catholic world. … On 30 September 1932, Lean Degrelle threw himself into the fray and on that day Soirees launched a political supplement called Rex.

The appeals for a new regime were increasing . . . the astonishing results of this propaganda in Germany were noted with much interest. In an article of October 1933, Vlan recalled that the Nazis had numbered only seven in 1919, and that a few years later, Hitler had brought them the sole asset of his gift for publicity. . .. Founded upon similar principles, the Rexist team began its active propaganda within the country. . . . On 8 July 1933, the first ‘Rex’ manifesto was published. It read:

‘Rex ‘is:
1. A youth movement;
2. A movement of Catholic action.

‘Rex’ will devote itself:
1. To Belgium, to reinvigorate its blood. . . .
2. To Christ, Christus Rex, by devoting to Him every effort of its soldiers and apostles. . . .

“The present ‘Rex’ movement works like a police force’, wrote Le Peuple. ‘Every Fascist movement has had the same rowdy character in its origins. . . .’

The whole intellectual standpoint of the young movement was, indeed, violently opposed to the ideology of 1789. . . .”

Thus, since it worked by undermining. Catholic Action was preparing war from inside. It was found to be an efficient corrupter of consciences.

A book we came across at that time had a great influence upon our generation. It was Un nouveau moyen age, by Nicolas BerdiaefF …. The time is near!’ wrote Berdiaeff, ‘for extreme application … .A special type of monastic life will have to be developed in the world, a kind of ‘New Order’.’ … I could think of this new totalitarian order only as Catholic. . . .”

Yet a pilgrimage to Rome left Raymond de Becker3 on the whole with a feeling of disappointment:

“Rome gives one much more the impression of being a great pagan city than a Christian capital … a basilica such as Saint Peter’s is disconcerting in its coldness and magnificenpe. It is so much designed for spectacular demonstrations that the soul is turned away from meditation and love. When I reached the Vatican, it conveyed to me anything but a religious impression. … We went in procession through the streets of Rome, singing the Magnificat. … An eminent Roman said to me, somewhat cynically:

—You men from the north believe in dogmas. We make them.” Back in Belgium, Raymond de Becker got in touch with a young solicitor, Marcel Laloire:

“He published a small paper, Les Jeunesses Politiques, which devoted much of its space to the study of youth movements which, in Italy, Germany, Spain and Portugal, were seeking to reform the state so as to make it fascist.”

Yet, he was not entirely satisfied with this political activity: “I had been sickened by the sight of Catholic politicians. … I wanted to give myself to Christ . . . and I felt that this could be done only by breaking away from all my attachments and by renouncing the world. . . .”

Hence his retreat to a Trappist monastery:

“I intended to stay two years in my retreat in Savoy (at the Trappe de Tamie) and to devote myself to prayer. . . . This Trappe must have been particularly backward, for care of the body and culture of the mind were regarded with equal horror; baths and showers, of course, were obviously unknown there and, in order to fight against vermin, the monks had a special place for de-lousing; as for reading matter, any but the missal and the bible was unknown.

. . . One found the lowest passions and the meanest rivalry. . . . Often the only heavenly peace one saw was in the outward acts and the style of the community … a pious and honest monk told me: ‘When I forsook the world and came to this monastery, I imagined I was taking leave also of Satan and sin, but the doors of this retreat had hardly shut behind me when I found myself face to face with them again. . . .’ We lived in the Middle Ages there. . . . A tribe of outcasts trailed about with their physical ailments and mental defects. An epileptic teacher, whose illness prevented him from reaching any high orders, a neurasthenic layman and a rachitic adolescent made up a veritable Court of Miracles. … I had not enough confidence in my physical and mental equilibrium to have no fear of the friendship of men who were sick and unbalanced. . . . One of the brothers went raving mad, and had to be forcibly removed to Albertville asylum. … I could not conceive of heroism or holiness in the form of illness. In a mind as great as Pascal’s pessimism revolted me. … I decided to leave this place for a while and to make a pilgrimage, with a friend, to Sainte Baume, Provence. . . . This struck me rather as a vast waste land, or a bumed-out graveyard in which the vestiges of a great old civilization lay petrified. . . .

In the churches, the number of faithful was reduced to the minimum. . . . Yet, this could not destroy the impression we had of Christianity still lingering in this land, rather as Paganism had lingered in Europe several centuries after the appearance of the Christian faith.”

Plus XI, France’s enemy

“Incidentally, it was at Martigue that I had the opportunity of meeting Charles Maurras. . . . Maurras made some particularly insulting remarks about Pope Pius XI, who he insisted was nothing but France’s enemy and the servant of Germany.”

Painful intellectual acrobatics of the Roman writers

“The great men of French Catholicism did not strike me as very great men . . . their inability to face the world of today made me think of them as the product of decadence. … I then worked with the Avant-Garde. . . . This paper clearly tried to wean away Belgium from its association with Anglo-French policy… .

“The mythical character of Catholic dogma was becoming ever more apparent to me. The effects of the Catholic theologians to go beyond the literal sense of dogmatic beliefs and to give them a spiritual content compatible with our scientific knowledge, seemed like intellectual acrobatics very similar to those of the last pagan philosophers who, at Alexandria, had tried to save the old Greek and Roman myths by denying their literal significance and attributing them an allegorical meaning.”

Europe, however, was not long in joining the “phoney” war, and the time was coming when the intrigues of the Belgian Catholic Action would produce the first result planned: the rapid collapse of the nation before Hitler’s offensive. During the night of 9 to 10 May 1940, German troops crossed the frontier.

Lean Degrelle was not in fact arrested by the Belgian authorities: they did not have the time. The Germans, thanks to the sustained underground work of the “Fifth column”, were invading Belgium And the head of Christus Rex was at last able openly to serve the masters he had chosen for himself and for his country.

Like the Baudrillarts, the Deats, the Mayol de Luppes, the Doriots and the Darnands in France, Degrelle appointed himself recruiter of those legions who, wearing the German uniform and swearing allegiance to Hitler, went to the eastern front, to fight the “common enemy”.

He placed himself at their head. But if, to judge by appearances, lie did little harm to the Russians, he did much on the other hand to his compatriots.

“Ten years ago”, wrote Maurice A. de Behault in 1954,”the Port of Antwerp, the third in importance in the whole world, fell almost intact into the hands of the British troops. The Allies thus miraculously took possession of the Continent’s only equipped port, which meant that the route used to reprovision the troops in the lines had been shortened by 700 km.

“Just when the population was within sight of the end of its sufferings and privations, it was assailed by the most diabolical of all Nazi inventions: flying bombs or V1s and V2s. This bombardment, the longest ever, since it was to last almost six months, night and day, was carefully hushed up, by order of Allied headquarters. That is why little is generally known of the martyrdom of the town of Antwerp and of Liege.

“On the eve (of the first bombardment—12 October 1944) some had heard the disturbing utterances made by the Rexist traitor Leon Degrelle over the Berlin radio: ‘I have asked my Fuhrer’, he declared, ‘for twenty thousand flying bombs. They will chastise an imbecile nation. They will turn Antwerp into a portless town or a townless port, I promise you. . . .’

“At 09.40 hours the first VI bomb fell right in the middle of the town. They were to fall night and day for almost six months, almost without respite.”

Such was the last exploit of the chief of “Christus Rex”, the darling pupil of Cardinal Van Rooy, Primate of Belgium, of Mgr. Picard and of Canon Cardijn. The last-named was soon rewarded for having produced such a brilliant disciple: Pius XII made him a prince of the Church and entrusted him with the world management of all “jocist” (Jeunesse Ouvriere Catholique) movements. We may be sure that he will continue to do a good job of work, as in the past.

Thus heroic Belgium, so cruelly martyred in 1914-1918, was to be delivered to the enemy in 1940 by those who, under the guise of “regenerating”the country, were preparing it a second martyrdom— a martyrdom which they prolonged, as has just been shown, until the last day of the war.

Like many of his emulators, after the defeat the Rexist traitor fled to Spain, leaving less important gentlemen to pay the bill.

Another book, though of far inferior quality, might be likened to that of Raymond de Becker, and might as Denis Marion has said, be entitled”The Memoirs of a Braggart”. It is the work of Leon Degrelle himself.

On 17 March 1946, Louis Picard made this declaration:

Whereas in Belgium the atmosphere strikes us as sometimes being literally poisoned with the question of purging, it is a bitter experience to see how astonishingly slowly the chastisement of war criminals is taking place in Germany. Since I am speaking of war criminals, I must refer to the Lean Degrelle case. So far. Spain has refused to hand over to us Degrelle, Belgian traitor No .1.”

Indeed, the apostle of “Christus Rex” stayed in Franco’s country, spending his leisure writing his political and military memoirs:

“If it is to be regretted”, writes Denis Marion,”from the point of view of justice, that Lean Degrelle should so far have escaped punishment, we are nevertheless gaining an important document: without the publication of his memoirs, we should never have known the extent of the gullibility of this handful of traitors. It was difficult to imagine that they were even more stupid than abject.”

Thus, Catholic Action facilitated the Nazi-Fascist victory outside the frontiers of Germany and Italy. Its main task was to undermine people’s minds, to organize dissidence and to recruit assassins. It was among the Christian youth, schooled and trained by Catholic Action, that Leon Degrelle drew the most devoted members of his monstrous Waffen SS “Death’s Head” brigades.

This horrible spider’s web stretahed across Belgium, France, Italy and the other countries of papal obedience, having declared its mission to be the moral and religious training of its militants, and claiming to be an”apostolic organization”, appeared in practice as a powerful organism of Nazi-Fascist liaison, an agent of national and social decomposition.

In reality, the Church on the march means Fascism on the march.