Objector, with Fr Illtud Evans, O.P., as Moderator

moderator: I think it may be useful to begin our proceedings by saying a word or two about the form they are going to take. Tonight’s discussion is described as a ‘Medieval Disputation’, which may seem to suggest that its interest is only historical: the subject, I think you will agree, could hardly be more up-to-date. It is true that the Disputation was the normal method of formal argument in medieval universities—for that matter it still takes place every week as an ordinary academic exercise in every theological college of the Order of Preachers, to which Order, tonight’s disputants belong. The procedure is that a thesis is proposed, its terms of reference explained and an argument in defence of it is indicated. This is the work of the defender. The objector attacks the thesis in strict logical form, and so the argument proceeds—the defender conceding what he must and denying what he can. And all this is done with a strict regard for the rules of logical argument. At a later stage informal objections are put forward, and once more the defender’s business is to inspect them in terms of his thesis.

It is important to remember that a Disputation is not a debate. This is not a matter of two people arguing in defence of personal opinions: you must not suppose, for instance, that Fr Ian Hislop thinks that atomic war is justifiable and is prepared to go to any lengths in saying so. Nor is a Disputation a dispute: the courtesies that traditionally govern it are genuine and are a reminder that the passions are not meant to be engaged in objective reasoning.

The members of‘Pax’ begin by accepting the Communist revolution as an accomplished and permanent fact. Nothing is going to alter that fact. The people of Poland, of whom more than 90 per cent profess the Catholic religion, will remain indefinitely under a Communist government. Can all these people so arrange their thoughts and behaviour as to be able to live Christian lives in a Marxist regime? The members of ‘Pax’ believe that such an arrangement is not only possible but eminently desirable. Catholics should do more than give acquiescence to the new society; they should be the willing, joyful, joint-creators of it. They should joyfully co-operate for three excellent reasons: because in such co-operation lies the Church’s best chance of survival; because the Government’s social and economic work is praiseworthy in itself and historically necessary; because co-operation in the new social order could be a sublime manifestation of true Christianity. In the past, Polish Catholicism had been narrow, a matter of personal experience, based on pietistic sentiment and the fear of Hell, without thought for one’s neighbour, without social conscience, without indignation against the evil conditions that were tolerated by the clergy. Here is a glorious opportunity to change all that.

To all the obvious objections they have shrewd answers. ‘Without any doubt whatever’, says one of their official documents, ‘there is no room for the conception of God in the intellectual system of materialistic socialism.’ But they make a careful distinction. There is an atheistic humanism which has always been in conflict with Christian humanism, and the conflict will probably endure until the end of time; it is a civilized argument which can be maintained by men who are friendly in every other respect and can agree about one another’s sincerity.

The Welshman’s premium as a music-hall joke is at a low ebb. Instead he is becoming a curio, an oddity to be discovered on a walking holiday in the Welsh mountains or during a stay at one of the remoter resorts. Strange things emanate from the land of Wales—the hidden meanings of a Dylan Thomas, the mystic spirit which captures the soul of a David Jones even before he sets foot in the country, the suspect magic in the oratory of a Lloyd George, the religious fervour of a rugger crowd swaying on the touch-line. For those who have the courage to penetrate there might be a glimpse of a woman in a tall Welsh hat (specially provided by the Tourist Board), the music of miners going to their work, the lilt of a language as old as Taliesin and as dark as Eryri. There is a growing feeling that there are strangers in our midst—their very name of Welsh means that.

The attitude of the outsider is normally one of two extremes— it is either an unstinted adulation based on an acquaintance with the great names of Wales or else one of a slightly contemptuous indifference based on a few unpleasant encounters with Welshmen and an impatience with a nation which has no right to survive beyond a quaint desire to preserve an archaic language and a tradition which, rich and picturesque though it might have been, is now only of use to the antiquarian.

The right of a nation to have its tradition and its culture recognized is a fundamental Christian value. Belief in the Incarnation does more than breed a respect for the sacf edness of the individual, for the individual implies the context into which he is inserted, the society in which he lives. Salvation is worked out here and now. It is dishonest to want to be someone else—and being ‘me’ means being me as member of this nation with its tradition and temperament, its culture and character.