To many Catholics the condemnation of the Action

Franfaise by the Holy See has brought a sharp awakening, firstly to the dangers of dependence on a movement of alien spirit, and secondly to the need for a political theory giving full and adequate expression to the Catholic ideal.

In view of this a study of the work of Don Luigi Sturzo is of especial interest, a work of which the informing principle, constant and invariable, has been the effort to permeate the political and social life of his country with the religious, moral and social elements of Christianity.

If as a theorist this distinguished Sicilian priest ranks among the foremost political thinkers of the day, it is impossible to dissociate his theory and his practice, for he has invariably translated his ideas into action.

His early education was classical and literary, with aesthetic tendencies, giving a large place to scholastic philosophy. Having completed his theological studies with the Jesuits of the Gregorian University of Rome he became professor of philosophy and political economy in the seminary of his native Caltagirone. Rerum Novarum was then four years old and the Christian Democratic movement in the ardour of its first youth. Under its influence his free hours were given to work among the peasants and workers whom he organised in co-operative, agricultural banking associations and trade unions, helping them in their fight against usury and exploitation.

These activities, the charitable institutions and municipal bodies of which he was administrator, his work for afforestation, his position as Mayor for fifteen years of a city of 50,000 inhabitants, as General Vice-President of the Association of Italian Municipalities, as Secretary General of Catholic Action, as founder of the National Foundation for War Orphans, of the National Emigration Association, and institutions of kindred nature, make him appear more the man of action than the student.

In The Dublin Review of July, 1893, Abbot Butler,

O.S.B., writes : ‘The first impression made upon our minds by the foregoing extract is that the arguments advanced in it are one and all quite familiar to us; they have been in common use for three centuries. Whence we gather that Bishop Lightfoot had really nothing to add to the case his predecessors had made out. This is, beyond doubt, a fact of no small importance.

‘But on second thoughts we realise that these arguments are here made to do a different duty from that assigned to them in their traditional use among Protestant controversialists. These latter denied that the Petrine texts had conferred any primacy on St. Peter; and in these circumstances the argument of equality drawn from the passages in St. Paul’s Epistles have had some weight. But unbelieving critics in Germany —men with no higher interests at stake than those of pure scholarship and accurate exegesis—have forced scholars of Bishop Lightfoot’s quality off the old Protestant ground. Now, therefore, that it is recognised our Lord did give St. Peter a primacy, these same arguments are put in evidence of the temporary character of that primacy. There has been a complete shifting of the ground’ (pp. 511-512).

This brief comment of Abbot Butler will help the reader to see the following extracts in their true light:—

I.

Bishop Lightfoot of Durham made a name for profound scholarship by his edition of The Apostolic Fathers, especially St. Clement (1889-1890).

In a very recent volume, entitled Present-Day Thinkers and the New Scholasticism, an American professor, Dr. Zybura, put together a very miscellaneous and highly informative collection of opinions of contemporary professors in America and Great Britain on the attitude of modern schools towards the Neo-Scholastic or Thomist movement, together with a number of statements by prominent Neo-Scholastics and Thomists in regard to their attitude to modern philosophy. The aim of the book was largely to call attention to the need, if not for a rapprochement at least for intercourse. It is intolerable that the scholastic movement should keep itself in isolation from contemporary philosophy. Modern schools have much to learn from acquaintance with Thomists. Dr. Zybura very rightly complains of this mutual ignorance. It is remarkable that this very book makes only a passing reference in a footnote to a series of lectures delivered in Oxford and London in 1916 under the auspices of so well-known a foundation as the Hibbert Trust, and published in 1920 and recently re-issued.a

Dr. Wicksteed’s works on Dante are well-known. He approaches St. Thomas by way of Dante, and aims not at criticism, but at exposition. He is concerned here with the Summa contra Gentes, and with apologetic and, to some extent, with the Philosophy of Religion, rather than with philosophy proper or with theology.

1 (B. Herder, London; 12/- net.)

2 The Reactions between Dogma and Philosophy illustrated from the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas. By Philip H. Wicksteed, M.A., D.Litt. (Constable, 1926; 10/6 net.)

In this new edition of Abbot Butler’s book there is a two-fold change. The text itself is the same as in the first edition, except that the Epilogue is placeid at the end of the first part of the book instead of at the end of the second part. But for this minor change of distribution the text of this second edition is a reprint of the first.

There is, however, a valuable addition to the book of some eighty pages, which is called ‘Afterthoughts,’ and with this addition the book opens. These ‘Afterthoughts’ are due to further reading and reflection, and in some degree are due to criticisms of the first edition.

I. The Text.

In the March number of Blackfriars, 1923, we reviewed the text of the book. We made certain criticisms which still hold good; in brief they are the following:

(1) St. Augustine’s theory of the Divine Illumination (text 49-55). The theory that God is the intellects agens was most certainly not admitted by St. Thomas to be tenable and quite probable. This is a question of fact; in the Summa I, Q 77, Art. 4, St. Thomas says: ‘It is impossible . . . .’ Wherever then St. Augustine speaks of ideas being perceived in the light of God, in order to have a right meaning, such passages must be explained according to the doctrine of St. Thomas.

In the Summa I, Q 79, Art. 4, St. Thomas says : ‘According to the documents of our faith the intellects agens separatus is God Himself .... whence from Him the human soul participates intellectual light, and this is the intellectus agens.’

Cider is vile stuff. This is not demonstration, but abuse. So is bottled eider. So is cider. No matter which kind of cup it is drunk from; whether the blue and white decorated mug, with only one handle; or the other, with tall stem and shallow calix, used at weddings. Spelling its name with Y or Z does not enhance the beverage. Yet the drink exists.

Philips and others have blown up the subject to the limit of elasticity; but all good evidence points to the truth that it is radically the drink of the thirsty labourer.

Robert Bloomfield had reason to know what he was writing about; and is a credible witness that sturdy Mower will soon want a drink. If we assemble all the conditions, and have patience to adumbrate the sort of fluid called for, we shall approach the definition of cider. Not water; for the thirsty is not yet in pain and resisting despair. Like the seaman at the capstan or halliards, his cheerfulness is to be kept at due pitch. Enjoyment, such as it is, is already possessed; and has not now to be sought. The state of those who hope to

is outside the desires of the moment. A brewage with the two properties of allaying and discouraging thirst is indicated.

The Church has witnessed within the last three decades a great revival of interest in the liturgy and in things liturgical. The great Pope, Pius X, whose motto it was ‘to restore all things in Christ,’ gave a powerful impetus to this movement. The eleven years in which he occupied the See of Peter were years full of achievement, and they have left a lasting impress on the Church. He drove out Modernism and raised the standard of traditional studies. He set up the Biblical Commission and the Biblical Institute, and inaugurated the revision of the Vulgate. The codification of the Canon Law was taken in hand, to be finished under his successor. But greatest and most fruitful of all his efforts, as it appears in the issue, were those which he devoted to the liturgy.

At the beginning of his pontificate he declared that ‘active participation in the most holy mysteries, and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church, is the primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit’ (Moiu Profrio, Nov. 22nd, 1903). The liturgy (he said again) is ‘the fountain head of Christian life.’ He regarded liturgical renewal as the direct road to his goal of restoring all things in Christ. And so we find him revising the breviary and the missal and the calendar, fighting vigorously for the restoration of the Gregorian Chant, and preaching early Communion for children and daily Communion for all. His object was to revive in the Catholic consciousness a practical belief in the mystical life of the Church, a genuine realisation of their fellowship with one another and with Christ.