The progress of Catholicism in Africa is so amazing that only the divine character of the Church can explain it. Yet we realize how much remains to be done when we recall the millions of coloured people still untouched by Christianity. And the need is urgent not only amongst indigenous negroes, but also amongst those of such a country as the United States, where live many millions of negroes crying out for the religion of God made Man. In the centre of New York is Harlem, the negro quarter, a town in itself well-nigh cut off from the neighbouring boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, whilst in the southern States live many millions of negroes in far worse poverty and distress than in the days of slavery. These people want religion, for their simple nature is a religious one. But they are unwilling to accept the Christian religion as they see it practised, or rather distorted and falsified, by the whites. They want rather the riches and power that go with modem materialism and irreligion.

The story of the negro in U.S.A. is a sad one. Every year waves of horror and anger shake the whole of the negro population as fresh lynchings occur with a brutality that is unsurpassed by any other age in the history of this world. The Chinese torture of a thousand slices cannot be more cruel than the white southerner’s use of a blowlamp on a negro suspected of crime.

Are Catholics in the United States, or in the Union of South Africa, caring for these people, influencing them, as they ought? In the days of the Roman Empire there existed slavery, and that slavery was ended by the Catholic doctrine that by nature and birth all men are equal before God.