I address myself to you as a man and a Christian, and entreat you to put an end to the executions and reprisals. I have been informed time after time that several villages have been destroyed, that persons of note, some of whom were priests, have been shot; that others have been arrested, and that all have protested their innocence. As for such as are priests in my diocese, I cannot believe that a single one has been guilty of acts of hostility towards German soldiers. I have visited several field-hospitals, and I have seen that wounded Germans there are cared for with the same attention as the Belgians. They admit it themselves. If soldiers of the Belgian army, stationed at the outposts, fired on the Germans entering Belgium, is that a crime to be imputed to the civilian population ? And even if some civilians had helped the soldiers to drive back German scouts, can the entire population, women, children, and priests, be held responsible for it ?
But I do not wish to discuss past acts; I only ask you, in the name of God and of humanity, to prevent reprisals upon unoffending populations. These reprisals can have no useful end, but will drive the population to despair.
I shall be happy to discuss this subject with you, for I am confident that you, like myself, wish to lessen the evils of war rather than to increase them.
At the last moment I hear that the cure of R. has been arrested and taken to the Chartreuse. I do not know of what he is accused, but I do know that he is incapable of committing an act of hostility towards your soldiers : he
is a good priest, gentle and charitable. I will be answerable for him, and I beg you to restore him to his parish.
Yours, etc.
(signed) M.H. Rutten
Bishop of Liege
This letter received no acknowledgment, but the same protests were renewed, on August 21, to General von Kolowe, who had meanwhile become Military Governor of Liege.
The same protests, strongly put and energetically urged, were renewed on August 29, in an interview with the Governor-General of occupied Belgium, von der Goltz Pasha, then residing in the episcopal palace with his staff.
(signed) M.H. Rutten
Bishop of Liege
Source: Rev. Joseph Stillemans (biographer, editor and translator), Cardinal Mercier, Pastorals, Letters, Allocutions 1914-1917, New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons 1917, p.65
