The Pope demanded the conversion of all the Jews when Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism and the first president of the World Zionist Organization, approached the Vatican to support Zionism. This was revealed yesterday by Heinrich Yorksteiner, Herzl’s companion, on the occasion of the celebration here of the seventieth birthday of the founder of political Zionism.
Yorksteiner declared that Pius the Tenth told Herzl, during the audience, that “we must never favor Jewish settlement in Palestine, although it is impossible for us to prevent it. In any case, when the Jews come to Jerusalem we will furnish priests to convert all of them.” He also said that other Vatican dignitaries told Herzl that the Holy Father saw an easy remedy for Jewish persecutions and Jewish need when all Jews were converted.
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