PRIEST PROSECUTED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 201, 26 July 1937, Page 7

PRIEST PROSECUTED.

SENTENCE REMITTED. MUNICH, July 23. Rev. Father Rupert Mayr, who was arrested on “technical charges,” was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, but the Court immediately remitted the sentence. Father Mayr is regarded by Catholics as a hero and a martyr. A large force of police was in Court to prevent demonstrations. The Berlin correspondent of the Daily Telegraph reported on June 14 that the arrest of Father Mayr had dismayed the army, as Father Mayr was regarded as one of Bavaria’s national heroes. He lost both legs in the war and was awarded the highest military honours for his services as a chaplain. Father Mayr answered the attack of the Minister of Propaganda (Dr. G. J. Goebbels) on tho Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Mundelein, by declaring: “It is better that a priest be shot down in Spain than see his faith dragged in the dirt in Germany.’’ The Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Michel von Fraulhaber, protested to tho Government that the arrest of Father Mayr was a breach of tho Concordat with the Vatican. Despite the restraint imposed on Catholics, the agitation for the priest’s. release increased daily. Catholics feared that unless the authorities acted there might be an outbreak of violence.