The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915Various
History
The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
Hundreds of innocent men were shot. I possess no complete necrology; but
I know that there were ninety-one shot at Aerschot and that there, under
pain of death, their fellow-citizens were compelled to dig their graves.
In the Louvain group of communes 176 persons, men and women, old men and
sucklings, rich and poor, in health and sickness, were shot or burned.
In my diocese alone I know that thirteen priests or religious were put
to death.[6]
[Footnote 6: Their brothers in religion or in the priesthood will wish
to know their names. Here they are: Dupierreux of the Society of Jesus,
Brothers Sebastian and Allard of the Congregation of the Josephites,
Brother Candide of the Congregation of the Brothers of Mercy, Father
Maximin, Capuchin, and Father Vincent, Conventual; Lombaerts, parish
priest at Boven-Loo; Goris, parish priest at Autgaerden; Carette,
professor at the Episcopal College of Louvain; de Clerck, parish priest
at Bueken; Dergent, parish priest at Gelrode, and Wouters Jean, parish
priest at Pont-Buule. We have reason to believe that the parish priest
of Herent, van Bladel, an old man of 71, was also killed. Until now,
however, his body has not been found.]
One of these, the parish priest of Gelrode, suffered, I believe, a
veritable martyrdom. I made a pilgrimage to his grave, and amid the
little flock which so lately he had been feeding with the zeal of an
apostle, there did I pray to him that from the height of Heaven he would
guard his parish, his diocese, his country.
We can neither number our dead nor compute the measure of our ruins. And
what would it be if we turned our sad steps toward Liege, Namur,
Audenne, Dinant, Tamines, Charleroi, and elsewhere?[7] And there, where
lives were not taken, and there, where the stones of buildings were not
thrown down, what anguish unrevealed! Families hitherto living at ease
now in bitter want; all commerce at an end, all careers ruined, industry
at a standstill, thousands upon thousands of workingmen without
employment, working women, shopgirls, humble servant girls without the
means of earning their bread, and poor souls forlorn on the bed of
sickness and fever, crying, "O Lord, how long, how long?"
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