The brilliant conclusion of the African campaign can compare with any of the major military victories of history. The Allies have a right to be proud of the achievement, and a duty to thank God for his all-planning providence. Events may in fact prove that Providence has so designed this to be the greatest step of the war towards ultimate victory and the beginning of peace. Even Peace News, which as a rule can be depended upon to adopt the gloomiest views, admits that this may be the beginning of the end of present hostilities. The Allied spirit has been greatly strengthened, and the Te Deum has been sung in many churches, and the gratitude to the Allied leaders and generals who have exorcized Africa so effectively also plays its part in this renewal of hope.

One might expect a certain slackening of effort with this realisation of success; the price of victory is so often presumption and false security. But there is little sign of such a relaxing, and all are anxious to press on to the goal. It therefore becomes increasingly urgent to recognize that the cleansing of Europe by force of arms can only be the prelude to a gradual process of spiritual cleansing if any sort of peace is to be won. This process of bringing health to a diseased continent will not be completed by the exorcism of fire and the sword, though the sooner that is done and the less wanton the present destruction, the sooner will the true exorcism be able to begin its work. To expect Europe to be righted at once is certainly foolish; that means that we should at once prepare ourselves for perseverance over a long period in trying to bring true peace.

Since, at the beginning of this century, Pius X. called the faithful to the restoring of all things in Christ, and indicated as the chief means of such a restoration the active participation of all in the public worship of the Church, much has been done to bring about what he desired. Popular editions of the Missal have been multiplied, courses and conferences, for priests and lay people, have been organized, and in some ways the effects have not been scanty. Yet, in spite of all this, the priest at the altar and the people in the pew seem often entirely separated, notwithstanding all the efforts of zealous pastors to instruct their people to ‘pray the Mass.’

We are only just beginning to realize that much that has been done in the name of the Liturgical Movement has been liturgical only per accidens. People have been persuaded to use a Missal, sing plain chant even, but without understanding. They have followed where they were led, blindly. At last some of this is being realised, and more emphasis is being placed now on the fundamentals, the Mystical Body, the dogmatic truths of the Faith, our re-incorporation with Christ, and the living of the life of the Church through the Liturgy.

But this fuller realization of the true implications of the Liturgical Movement has brought its own problems with it. Now that it has at last been understood that the possession of a Missal is not an entirely necessary passport to the gales of Heaven, that the life of the Church is for all and not an élite, that it must be possible to live this life, not only if one does not understand Latin, but even if one cannot read, the question of the language of the liturgy becomes obviously of the greatest importance. Some people have even gone so far as to suggest that a course in liturgical Latin should be added to the curriculum of the elementary school.

French Personalists, in condemning the totalitarian ideologies and decadent individualism, elaborate at length the distinction between person and individual. Their solution of the whole social problem is based on this doctrine.

In his Revolution personnaliste et communitaire, Emmanuel Mounier has set out the considerations which necessitate the distinction. The individual is definitely inferior : he is a prey to selfish complacency, to the inordinate love of his own singularity. Enclosed in the fortress of his own egoism, he is deaf to the importunities of social claims. The person, ‘by way of contrast, represents man’s triumph over this ignoble self. According to the exposition given in his Personalist Manifesto, the person embodies the nobler elements of human nature: generosity, self-possession, individual vocation, renunciation and self-sacrifice even to the point, of heroism. Such a being enjoys autonomy and spiritual liberty in its true sense (pp. 76-80).

The considerations by which Mounier seeks to reinforce this contrast are purely psychological in character. Thus, he argues that the person is ‘open,’ while the individual is ‘closed.’ Here the individual is credited with a psychological complex orienting all his activities towards his own selfish ends. The person, on the contrary, recognises his social duties; he is open to social intercourse, to the divine attractions of love, etc. But these psychological descriptions can in no sense replace the metaphysical doctrine of personality. If they have any intelligible sense, they must be interpreted in a broad Christian sense. Thus, man is destined to a transcendent end, in the light of which we must evaluate all his being and his activity.

The New York Times in June 1942, published the ‘Charted Results of a Survey on College Study of U.S. History,’ with a commentary by Benjamine Fine under the heading : ‘U.S. History Study is not required in 82 per cent, of Colleges’ and again, a sub-heading : ‘72 per cent, do not list it as an entrance prerequisite.’

For a European like myself, brought up in the cult of history, Italian and foreign, ancient and modern, this seemed so strange as to surpass belief. I asked myself, if this was what happened to the history of the United States in United States colleges, what must be the unhappy fate of the history of other countries, and ancient and classical history.

The ‘Results’ have naturally amazed Americans too, leading to an animated discussion of the problem.

As easily happens, the general, educational problem was made to slide at once to that of war morale. The young man who does not know his country’s past cannot appreciate its institutions, cannot love its great figures, cannot be thrilled at the national name since the nation is unknown to him in its birth and development. It is easy to exaggerate on this theme, whether in order to show that history is necessary or to assert, as some have done, that it neither adds to nor detracts from patriotic feeling.

As Vicar-General of the diocese of Nimes in southern France, as founder of the Assumptionists, and above all as helper, adviser, and often guiding spirit of nearly all the great religious enterprises of his day in France, Fr. Emmanuel d’Alzon was one of the most influential leaders of French Catholicism in the XIXth century. His Writings, with their frequent allusions to contemporary events, would serve as a penetrating and supremely interesting commentary on the passing of the Third Republic. Thus, in 1835, writing to a friend, he crystalised his thoughts on the Church’s part in politics :

... I assure you, have made up my mind about politics, my most intimate conviction being that Christianity must be separated from parties . . . in order to dominate them all by spreading through society the so often stifled seeds of justice, order and charity. Christianity is destined to be the foundation of society : belonging to no particular fraction of the body, it must embrace them all, link them together, and force them to forgive one another.

In the light of this principle, the co-operation of the spiritual and temporal powers for their mutual benefit, he would almost certainly have welcomed the fall of the Third Republic, whose rise he watched wistfully for ten years before his death : much as he, the descendant of some of the noblest families in France, would have regretted the circumstances of that fall, he would, as a far-sighted, optimistic, and Christian thinker, have considered the actual passing of the Rousseau-inspired system, which had so largely betrayed the Catholic traditions, the ‘soul ‘of France, as a providential stepping-stone, a link in the long chain of historical events, from the worst threads of which God is forever weaving greater good.