The area of possible controversy among Catholics is of course wide—as wide as the life of the man who is head or member of a family and a citizen. Controversy has been common enough among members of the Church in the past. It is inevitable when essentials of the Faith are concerned, and has rightly gone beyond mere words when schism or heresy raised its. head, as in the time of the Albigenses. More recently, bitter debate has been justified when the implication touched some basic principle and Rome felt called to intervene, as with the Jansenists or, in the more definitely political sphere, with the Action Française. There are lower fields of controversy, aesthetic, literary and purely political, where there is difficulty in finding justification, where the well known dirty-linen metaphor stands as a warning against entry, and where as a general rule debate should be restricted as far as reasonably possible.

There have been one or two examples recently of foolishly provoked controversy among Catholics, and in view, for one thing, of the persistence—the extreme urgency in these days—of the call for Catholic Action which first sounded in Rome, it may be worth while reflecting on the position in general terms and as discreetly as possible.