Father Bede Jarrett and America would probably appear to most of those who knew him as a natural juxtaposition. Yet it ought perhaps to be rather surprising, for he was so completely and even so typically English. The truth is, of course, that though he was English he was not insular, and he escaped the narrowness of insularity because he was also so typically Dominican. (We call him typical not in the sense that he was like many others cast in the same mould, but in the sense that he was himself a model from which a true mould might well be fashioned.) He was thus tvpically Dominican not merely in his apostolic spirit, but also in his discernment and appreciation of truth and true values. It is this, more than anything else, that explains his interest, and perhaps his success, in the United States. He, who loved youth for its fineness, its enthusiasms, its unaffected (even if sometimes quixotic or unformed) idealism, and all its possibilities of greatness as yet unspoiled nor disillusioned, saw and appreciated these qualities of youth in the American nation. He was big enough, too, not to expect perfection but to overlook the failings which were the outcome of unbounded energy and activity, and not of malice. And if he found there a more eager response than in England, it was because we have perchance grown old and sluggish. He did not cease to love what was old and set, but he saw greater hope for the future in what was young and still plastic. He found this in America; but he found, too, the signs of a fruitful maturity, evidences of a true scholarship, of new-born literature and art, and above all a vigorous and sincere Catholic life. It is still the purblind fashion of many of us to think of Americans in terms of gangsters, racketeers, and go-getters, or of superficiality, hustle, and graft. Perhaps we are not helped in this matter by the American movies or tourists that do not always show us the true American. In any case, it is high time we should remove the beam out of our own eye and stand prepared, as Father Bede was, to find in the United States a new Saul amongst the prophets, a source of rejuvenation for the hardening arteries of Western life and culture, a ‘New Deal’ for civilization at large.

I am not over-assured as to the happiness of my title. For the New World, especially of late, is becoming more like the Old World to which we look for tradition. Indeed, I would venture the opinion that the eagerness on the part of the Old World to shed her ancient traditions is parallelled only by the desire of thinkers in the New World to gather up the best lessons of European history before they perish.

Again, I fear that territorially, at any rate, I am going to be confined to a very small and, if we are to credit authoritative American critics, a very unrepresentative portion of the New World—New York City. Personally I am satisfied with the conviction that New York is American and of the New World; for only America could produce New York City.

Furthermore, centuries before the happenings of the facts which I try to appreciate here, practically the whole of the New World knew Dominic and Francis. It knew these thirteenth century patriarchs of religion through the numerous friars who, together with the intrepid sons of the great Ignatius, preached the faith in Northern and Southern America. Your American high-school child, Catholic or Protestant, knows the associations of the friars with Christopher Columbus even as he knows the history of the civilizing influences of the Jesuits, especially in North America.

As a matter of fact a source of bewilderment to me, after many years spent in the United States, is exactly why the term ‘ New World’ is applied to-day to the vast lands lying on the other side of the Atlantic.

About the year 1528, the parents of St. John, Gonzalo de Yepes of Toledo and Catalina Alvarez of Toledo, were married in the village of Fontiveros on the plateau of Old Castile. It was not a mariage de convenance, but undeniably a love-match. Spanish biographers of the Saint tell us that, whilst Gonzalo was of ‘rich and noble parentage,’ Catalina was of parentage that was not noble nor perhaps reputable. But these same biographers, as if to soften Gonzalo’s misdemeanour in marrying beneath the family, take care to add that the young girl he loved was of rare beauty and virtue. As was to be expected in the Spain of the midsixteenth century, Gonzalo’s choice of a wife was never forgiven by the family. But, on the other hand, it was never repented of by Gonzalo; whose simplicity of mind seemed to think that a wife not only good but good-looking had the makings of a successful life-mate for himself and mother for his children.

We are not to take too seriously what the biographers say about the nobility of Gonzalo’s family. Their noble Castilian blood did not forbid the Yepes family from making their money by trading in silk. When Gonzalo’s marriage with Catalina meant his dismissal from the service of his silk-mercer uncle, love and poverty became the abiding guests of their home.

The most recent biographer of St. John has wisely drawn a picture of this home into which the doctor of Mysticism was born.

Whilst there need be no doubt that the periodical efforts to resuscitate the question of ‘Reunion’ are motived by an earnest desire to re-establish the unity of the Church of Christ under One Head, there is a danger that the very word ‘Reunion’ may be understood in an unorthodox sense, based on a misconception of the Church. To extend sympathy to reunion as something different from Christian unity resting on the firm foundation of Peter would be to hold out a vain expectation calculated to keep those not in communion with the See of Peter away from the true faith. From this point of view stress cannot be laid too heavily on the incontrovertible fact that Catholics and Anglicans are divided on fundamental questions of Faith, and these questions are not solved, and cannot be solved, by conceding that the Reformation was perhaps partly due to the indifference of Catholics themselves. Nor must we run the risk of allowing this essential divergence to be glossed over in the attempt to establish friendly relations with those outside the true fold, even though this be through no fault of their own. If the word ‘reunion’ is taken to imply that the Anglican communion is a branch of the True Vine, or an entity not essentially different from the Roman Church, or that it has a corporate life maintained by Our Lord and His Holy Spirit, then it is a heretical term devoid of orthodox interpretation. In view of possible misunderstandings, therefore, it seems well to offer the following observations.

It is perhaps not without significance that in the several letters and decrees of the Holy See on the promotion of Christian unity the term ‘reunion’ itself, as well as the term ‘Church’ as applied to the Anglican body, is avoided.

We are in danger of misunderstanding the nature of the resistance to spiritual revival if we fall too easily into the mental habit of classifying a position by its philosophic implications. It needs very little proving to show that materialism, commercialism, are opposed to the stress of Christian living, and little more to show that these two definable ’isms are identifiable in the bourgeois position. The point is that the doctrinal analysis discloses not so much the position itself as its doctrinal relations, while the blind force which stands over against us is hardly probed. It is not in the main an intellectual thing that we fight. It is a cunning thing, but that is another matter. Its stubborn resistance is not of the mind. Not so much, therefore, is it belief in the wrong things that opposes the arduous quickenings of the life of Christ; it is rather desire of the wrong things. If you ask the Enemy of the Absolute what he believes in, he is as likely to reply Credo in unum Deurn as anything else. If the most comprehensive statement could be made of the heresy implicit in the bourgeois position, it is doubtful whether you could find one single bourgeois to subscribe to it. A more successful result might be obtained from a table of practical maxims, for the enemy is a practical man. That is his first attribute. He is the man of business, of affairs, the pragmatist. Not that he would tolerate the elaboration of his pragmatism into a philosophy or a religion. His heart has its own reasons for its religious choice, and these do not include the need for intellectual valuations of the acts of living.

‘Another movement,’ one can hear the weary parish priest exclaim. There are so many movements, societies, guilds, and so on, in Catholic parishes that the sensible thing would seem to be to eliminate some of them rather than to introduce new ones. That is a rational point of view, and largely necessary. But it is clear that the process of selection must be made on the grounds of whether this or that society fulfils an essential and indispensable function or not. The J.O.C. which as yet is only in embryo in England claims that its work is indispensable, and since this view has the strong backing of the Pope, it seems worth while to devote a little attention to it.

The radical change in the social system which is the dominating feature of our time compels the attention of religion. The exact details of the future society may be left for imaginative minds to describe. But there are two points about it that may be predicted without undue rashness. The first is that it will be a society in which the working class will have come into its own; the achievement will be difficult; there will be set-backs; but sooner or later it is inevitable that just as the middle class may be taken as the typical, the representative class of the last century, so the workers will become typical and representative of ours. The second point concerns the spiritual character of this new society. We can make some judgment with regard to this by observing the youth of this generation; for the youth of to-day are the citizens of to-morrow. Doubtless conditions here in this respect are less extreme than on the Continent; nevertheless, it is not an imprudent assertion to say that the mass of young workers of both sexes are already very largely secularized.

There is a danger of war in Europe to-day; in spite of peace pacts, conferences and other attempts to establish security one nation does not trust another, and war may arise at any moment. On the other hand, it may never arise, and upright men of all nations are endeavouring to prevent it by every means within their power. In all this Catholics are vitally concerned, for we form a large section of the European community, and are directly concerned about the welfare of that community. We must not be blind to obvious facts, we must know what is expected of us if war should actually break out; at the same time, we must show a practical desire for peace in Europe, and assist in any way possible to secure it. But our actions must be guided by sound principles, clearly understood and appreciated. Without such clear intellectual judgment we may be carried away by sentiment either to glorify war in militarist fashion, or to condemn war absolutely as something of its nature evil, like murder or adultery. Either view might lead to the worst disasters; neither is a view which a Catholic may hold. Popes and Bishops have repeatedly insisted on the evils of war, but they nave never categorically asserted that war is always and inevitably sinful. Rather they have pointed out that war may sometimes be just. Living in the midst of a world crying out for peace we may find this attitude of the Bishops rather disconcerting, and the reasons for it are not always clear. On these reasons, on the principles behind the teaching of Pope and Bishops, the present writer has attempted to shed a little light.