It has become a commonplace to repeat what has been so often said of St. Paul, that had he lived in our day he would have been a journalist. And had St. Dominic been living in our own times instead of in the 13th century, what would he have done? I believe that, for reasons similar to those which moved him to found his Order, he would not have changed any essential point of its Constitutions; but, because of the spirit which quickens them, essentially an apostolic spirit, he would have required his Order to make use of the Press as one of the most efficacious means of its apostolate. These are the two points that I shall endeavour to develop briefly, before referring to what the Order of St. Dominic has actually accomplished in the domain of the Press in order to remain faithful to the apostolic spirit of its Founder.

Why did St. Dominic found the Order of Preachers? For a simple answer to this question it suffices to recall in a few words the religious condition of society as it was then, at the beginning of the 13th century. Admittedly that century was one of faith; historical witness of every kind which has come down from those times will not allow us to think otherwise. But at the beginning of that same century the Faith throughout Europe was exposed to great danger, from two sources, firstly, because of the ignorance of religion prevalent among the faithful themselves, and then because of the spread of certain heresies fostered by this very ignorance.

The fate of the Encyclical Letter “In the Utmost Anxiety,” addressed to the German hierarchy, is in itself sufficient to show the state of affairs in the Third Reich. It was not allowed to be published either in any secular newspaper or in any purely religious paper. The printers who dared to print the Encyclical for the bishops’ official publication were closed down by the police for the time being and the official papers confiscated. All that was publicly known of the Encyclical was a short notice of a severe protest to the Vatican in respect of it. Following this, the letter was rejected by the Nazi leaders, notably by Adolf Hitler himself who on May 1st made some biting references to critics of the Nazis and allusions to the Pope's Encyclical. In reference to the Churches he said: “So long as they attend to their own affairs the State will not intervene. But if they go against us with sermons and encyclicals and encroach on the business of the State, we shall call them to order and we shall force them back into their proper work of caring for the religious needs of the people.”

The very attempt to suppress the Encyclical proves how right the Holy Father was to condemn therein the eluding and violation of the “Reichskonkordat,” for the later, established in 1933, distinctly maintained the right of free publication of pastoral letters and encyclicals.

“The horror of the war of to-morrow is that no fever of collective exaltation, no lyricism of poet or orator, will be able to ennoble it or mark it with the authentic sign of the spirit. The apparent ideological character with which no doubt it will be invested will not long obscure its true nature: the conflict of the selfishness of classes, adding a new complication to the selfishness of nationalisms, will make it wholly inhuman. Not only in its furies, but in its very causes, the war will be wholly barbarous: the bankruptcy of the spirit giving over to the chances of force the care of making a world, the bloody clash of a too numerous population in a too narrow peninsular, the drama of fear and hunger. Such perhaps will be our destiny: to die in a catastrophe, in a medley of causes so confused and of results so dubious for our country itself that we shall really not know for what good we have given our lives” (pp. n, 12). This is perhaps the chief cause of our present distress and despair in face of the future: the knowledge that it is so easy to give our allegiance to a cause which to-morrow may reveal as either wholly or in part the wrong cause: “We are afraid of learning that ultimate bitterness of the dying soldier who does not understand the point of his death; more, we fear lest one day orators stand over our tombs to proclaim us, not what we would have wished but what events have decided for us, or worse still, what the interests of a party will demand should be said” (p. 12).

The Middle Ages will provide a wealth of hymnody, most of which lies unhappily neglected upon the library shelves. The output was prodigious, and was of varying quality. The most outstanding literary form is the Sequence, which found its way into the Mass and was sung immediately before the Gospel. Its originator was a Benedictine monk, Notker Balbulus, the Stammerer or perhaps the Garrulous—he has left most entertaining gossip of his hero Charlemagne. He found it hard, we are told, to commit to memory the long melodies sung on the last syllable of the Alleluia and to counteract this failing he forestalled Mr. Pelman by setting the notes to a simple form of words. In the next three centuries this elementary device evolved into a definite literary form, written finally in metre and rhyme. The Easter Sequence, Victimae Paschali laudes, shows it in its earlier stages and the Whit Sunday Sequence, Veni Sancte Spiritus, shows it fully developed as a recognized form of rhymed composition.

Before dealing with the Sequence, however, we must refer to a series of hymns more familiar in their English than in their Latin form. The original from which they have been quarried is the 12th century production of Bernard of Morlas, a monk of Cluny: Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus: “The world is very evil, the times are waxing late; Be sober and keep vigil, the Judge is at the gate.” It is for the most part a long denunciation of an evil world fast moving towards the abyss of destruction. In it he attacks vice with a savage candour that lacks both restraint and reticence. But from this majestic diatribe are drawn those well-known Anglican hymns: “Brief life is here our portion” and “Jerusalem the golden.”

Baron Von Hugel compared the interpenetration of nature and grace to the movements of a hand inside a glove: “God everywhere but stimulates and supports man whom He has made, and His Hand moves ever underneath and behind the tissue—a tissue which, at best, can become as it were a glove, and suggest the latent hand. The Divine Action will thus stimulate and inform the human action somewhat like the force that drives the blood within the stag's young antlers, or like the energy that pushes the tender sap-full fern-buds up through the hard, heavy ground.” All that can be seen is the outward veil. But the movements of it are of such a kind that they point to a power within, other than, on another plane of being than, the glove.

So also in the history of divine activity among men, the raising of fallen humanity according to those concrete needs which spring from the combined historic facts of original justice, original sin, and Redemption, we see only the race, each individual human being. But as in the movements of the glove, so in the activity of grace-impelled men, those movements, that activity, point beyond the visible fringes of the natural vehicle to a Presence of an altogether different kind, working, planning, for the good of men, things far above what we can conceive, or, having conceived, could achieve.

We have so often heard the cry that Liberty is threatened. Statesmen preach to us of our precious heritage of Liberty which must be preserved from the attacks of foreign-born political absolutisms. In the name of Freedom we are called upon to rally to the defence of parliamentary institutions or Democracy. Why does this appeal fail to carry conviction? Is it not that many feel that the Liberty that they are called upon to save has not yet been won? They are told that they must not allow themselves to be enslaved as are the peoples living under Dictatorships. But is it not true that the peoples living under dictatorships sometimes renounced their parliamentary institutions because they believed that dictatorships would give them greater freedom?

The alliance between parliamentary institutions and freedom is a fiction of political Liberalism, which is already denied by half of Europe. Liberalism is, however, more than a political philosophy; it is a Weltanschauung or general attitude of mind. In England this attitude dominated the intellectual outlook of the nineteenth century, permeating theology, philosophy and economics, as well as politics. The Liberal attitude is essentially relativist, anti-dogmatic and anti-authoritarian. Denying the truth of absolutes it is fundamentally hostile to all systems of thought and institutions which seek to preserve them. In the name of freedom Liberalism has waged war on all absolutism, whether theological, economic or political. For religion it has tried to substitute freedom of thought; for a monopolistic economy, a free economic system; for political despotism, free representative government.

The following scientific reviews have been founded by Dominicans. One of the oldest is the Revue Biblique of Jerusalem dating from 1892. Not only is it the oldest review of biblical studies published by Dominicans, but also the oldest published by any Catholics. Nevertheless it is not our oldest review, for the Divus Thomas of Fribourg, contributed to from its very beginning by the Dominicans, and confided to their sole charge in 1923, was founded by the secular clergy as far back as 1886. The Revue Thomiste, whose first director was Pére Coconnier of the Province of Toulouse and a professor at Fribourg, dates from 1893. These reviews, philosophical and theological, were the first signs of the approaching revival of Thomism in the Church, so gloriously sponsored by Leo XIII. Other reviews of a like kind have been added to the above, and have rendered yeoman service to the Church. I will name the principle ones in their order of age. The Homiletic and Pastoral Review, founded at Washington in 1901, especially intended for the use of the clergy, is a quarterly and has a great circulation. La Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques, directed by the Dominican Fathers of Le Saulchoir, was established in 1907. Owing to the value of its articles and its Bulletins it is unequalled by any other review in Catholic universities or even in the scientific world. We must associate with it the Bulletin Thomiste, founded in 1924 by Pére Mandonnet for the purpose of collating all publications which treat of Thomistic thought or the Thomist movement. La Ciencia Tomista of Salamanca, first published in 1910, has acquired particular renown owing to the valuable work done by its principal contributors.