There is a material side to Christianity as well as the spiritual foundation; and it is on the material side, as it affects our daily lives and our national interests, that my thoughts dwell at the moment. Where does Christianity touch the major problems of to-day: bad trade, unemployment, poverty, lack of general interest in public affairs, wide-spread corruption, indifference to crime and dishonesty, and finally slaughter—I might almost call it human sacrifice—on our high roads? I have no ready made cure to offer for our troubles; nor can I believe that there is a simple and easy path leading out of the complicated tangle of difficulties surrounding the individual and the nation. I am not prepared to join with those who lightly attribute all evils to the war; for it seems to me that the war, with its call for self-denial and a realization of the existence of man’s duty as well as man’s rights, nearly saved the nation from spiritual decadence. I do believe that there is a way out of our troubles, and that the key to all the problems is to be found in discipline.

A nation without religion is a nation without backbone; for sincere religious belief is the only form of discipline by which human nature can be trained to healthy growth. The law, to a certain extent, protects the weak man from his strong neighbour (though this does not apply to-day in the realm of finance): religion protects the weak man and the strong man alike from himself.

As articles and comments in Blackfrlars have testified from time to time, Catholic opinion has in some ways become considerably divided. Nevertheless, it seems true to say that there is but one fundamental divergence, of which various controversies are the manifestations. We can group them under three convenient heads: Contemplation v. Activity; Retreat v. Penetration; Authority v. Lay Initiative and Freedom.

We suggest that these difficulties might never have arisen or might more easily be solved, if Catholics were to consider in the first place the practical nature of Truth. It is possible to discover a direction for right action even before considering the circumstances of the particular problem. It seems clear, from historical examination, that in nine cases out of ten an outright opinion or answer cannot be other than suspect. The practical characteristics of Truth are detachment, balance, and synthesis, together with a certain bias towards one aspect. Thus, the Church combines in herself the ideas both of authority and liberty, but with a bias towards authority as the basis and preserver of freedom. This description of the practical nature of Truth is validated in the Orders of Nature and Art. The river is stemmed and its vital movement formed by its banks. In Music, as enclosing the sweep and swing of emotional play, we have the bar and the sonata-form. If, beside the idea of Authority, we place the analogues of Form, Institution, Dogma, and beside the idea of Freedom the analogues of Spirit, Vitality, Creativeness, we can see how Order depends on the latter being conserved and made effective by the former. It is the rules which give zest and meaning to the game. Order is Truth.

Some three years ago, in articles and editorial obiter dicta Blackfriars commented upon the menace of Anti-Communism. It was something of a dissentient note; to Catholics who read, as well as buy, our Catholic weeklies, at least a little unfamiliar. To some indeed the slogan “Anti-Communism is not enough” was positively scandalous. Was there ever a surer title to Election than to be the first to detect heresy in the Left, or the loudest to clamour about the latest iniquity at Moscow?

There was applause, too, from enlightened quarters where it was not believed that to be a Communist you must first be a monster, where people were awake enough to realize that the U.S.S.R. (terrorist bureaucracy that it may be) is not exclusively representative of every evil under the sun. Since then, we have heard at least three Catholics (who go to Mass every Sunday) laugh about the portentous assurance of a tract-writer that the Sinister Thing modern art is, even too, a manifestation of the Bolshevist Leviathan.

Inevitably, however, the Anti's continue to talk most and be the most heard: Anti-Communist, Anti-Anglican, anti-what not. Theirs is a simple school: negative polemic, the disgruntled gibe, the well-worn cliché, the worn-out reference, the same inescapable, infallible authorities, the stock specialists (of whom the most eminent are rarely acquainted with their specialities, first-hand. How many, for instance, of our critics of Russia have been to Russia?). Whence we may be excused for registering relief that Professor Macmurray (the distinguished author of Interpreting the Universe, Freedom in the Modern World, etc.) is one of those who see in Communism by no means unmixed evil— since evil of itself cannot stand—still less, inspire.

Allusion has already been made in Blackfriars (January, 1933, p. 10) to a remarkable movement for reunion among a small but learned and influential group of Lutheran pastors and laymen in Germany. Dr. Karl Thieme and his associates have since been reconciled with the Catholic Church. The documents connected with the events which led to their taking this step have recently been published—significantly by a Protestant firm in Switzerland. These documents are of the greatest interest, not only as indicative of some present tendencies in Continental Protestantism and as showing yet another of the manifold roads to Rome, but also as suggesting possibilities and hopes of a corporate reunion in a not remote future which may go far towards healing the divisions precipitated by the Reformation.

The decision to ‘return home’ to the Catholic Church was announced and explained in the last number of the Evangelical quarterly Religiöse Besinnung towards the end of 1933. In an article entitled Una Sancta Catholica, Dr. Thieme deplored the spirit of compromise in contemporary Christianity to which, he maintained, the German Evangelical Church had, owing especially to the activities of the ‘German Christians,’ completely and formally succumbed. The Evangelical tradition of Luther had, owing to a variety of causes, been completely destroyed in such wise that it could not be resuscitated. The pure Word of God could no longer be preached except under the protection of the successors of the apostles, the bishops of the Catholic Church.

Marsilio Ficino—Savonarola—Machiavelli

Marsilio Ficino was the greatest of the fifteenth century Platonists. His love for Plato was at least equal to his erudition. His influence both as an individual and as head of the Platonic Academy of Florence, extended over the whole of Europe. In an early period of his life he was a humanist and a philosopher of more or less pagan tendency. In maturity of thought and years, he was deeply conscious of the Christian values that many of the learned were too ready to overlook. His ideal was the conciliation of Platonism and Christianity, pagan classicism and Christian thought, the ethics of antiquity and Catholic morals. He was fascinated by St. Augustine, but it seemed to him that the Augustinian synthesis could not appeal to the world of his time. The problems of nature, of ethics, of history were set in other terms. What he sought was to christianize Plato and to platonize the Gospel. This two-fold tendency is to be found in the Theologia platonica, in which he saw a new Summa Theologica, under the aegis of Plato instead of that of Aristotle.

Three elements in the work of Marsilio Ficino render it representative of the period—the sovereignty or autonomy of philosophy as the instrument of reason, as against the criterion that made of it the handmaid of theology; secondly, a concrete realism in respect of the object of knowledge, in nature and history, as against the universalizing abstractionism of the Schools; thirdly, a natural animism, the result of the principle of Third Essences, and which formed the substructure of the astrology of the time, as against the Aristotelian conception of Forms.

To most of us leprosy as a disease is something at once so remote and so repulsive that we put it wholly out of our minds and at best connect it only with R. L. Stevenson’s generous defence of Father Damien, or—more romantically—with the fatal kiss that Violaine, out of sheer pity, bestowed on Pierre de Craon in L’Annonce faite a Marie. Yet, prosaically considered, leprosy is one of the health problems of the Empire, for though practically nonexistent in Europe, it remains a real scourge in several of our tropical Colonies and not least in our Protectorate of Uganda. Here, unhappily, thousands of lepers, calculated indeed as high as four per cent, of the native population, are living to-day, largely untended and uncontrolled, spreading their terrible disease among children and neighbours, the means of coping with the situation being still sadly inadequate.

From a useful little booklet issued by the Uganda Government for the instruction of all concerned, one gathers that leprosy is emphatically a poor man’s disease, the outcome of dirt, drink, ill-ventilated huts, over-crowding, under-nourishment, in brief of a total disregard of the laws of hygiene and sanitation which extreme poverty entails in all countries. Leprosy is not an infectious disease as was universally believed throughout earlier centuries— hence the terrible sentence of isolation imposed on the victims—but it is acutely contagious, especially to children, under conditions of close intercourse in over-crowded dwellings, by a common use of bedding, drinking-cups, etc. If due precautions are taken, such as entering infected huts as little as possible and careful washing of hands immediately after touching infected objects, there need be no special risk for healthy persons in tending leper patients, although the heroic nature of such a vocation remains without question.

“FIRST to respect and regard God and afterwards the King, thy master.”

This “notable and woorthye lesson and charge” was the first instruction given by Henry VIII to Thomas More on the first entry of the latter into the King's service. The occcasion of this entry has a certain historical interest and significance. It happened after the decision of a legal dispute between the Pope and the King concerning a ship belonging to the Pope which the King claimed as forfeit.

“There chaunced a great shippe of his that then was Pope to arriue at Southampton, the which the King claymed as a forfeyture. Wherevpon the popes ambassadour, then resident in the Realme, vpon sute obteyned of the King that he might retaine for his master some Consailers learned in the lawes of the Realme, and that in his owne presence (him selfe being a singuler Ciuilian) the matter might in some publike place be openly heard, debated and discoursed. Among all the lawyers, no one could be founde so apte and meete as Master More, as one that was able to report to the Ambassadour all the reasons and argumentes on both sides proposed and alleaged. Vpon this the Counsailers of either partie, in the presence of the Lorde ChauncelZowr and other the Judges in the Starre chamber, had audience accordinglye. At what time Master More was not onely a bare reporter to the Ambassadour, but argued himselfe also so learnedly and so substantially that he recovered and wonne to the pope the saide forfeiture, and to himselfe high commendation and renowne.”

“Now it appears to me that almost any man may, like the spider, spin from his own inwards, his own airy citadel. The points of leaves and twigs on which the spider begins her work are few, and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting. Man should be content with as few points to tip with the fine web of his soul, and weave a tapestry empyrean—full of symbols for his spiritual eye, of softness for his spiritual touch, of space for his wanderings, of distinctness for his luxury.” These words of a nineteenth century poet are the doctrine of a decadent scholasticism in creative art. Objectivity is passivity to a world that is only a function of oneself—“the innocent eye,” or else it is creation by the self. But beauty is not a measurement of an eye that first blinds itself to the object measured. It has to be conquered and found, and conquest means pain. It requires the effort of a body and soul caught up in life, in the commerce of the wind and the rain. The philosopher approaches truth by several routes, to do justice to its diversity and without prejudice to its unity: similarly the writer must approach beauty actively otherwise his view will be remote and partial. The Pre-Raphaelite aesthetes selected beautiful words from a dictionary and so composed their poems. The Georgians abandoned the dictionary for the countryside, and the late Georgian, Mr. Auden, abandons the countryside for the town. But objectivity requires only one abandonment, and that abandonment neither the nineteenth century nor the twentieth century can countenance: and that is the abandonment of the self. The work of art is not the visual tension, the interplay of convex and concave. It is plastic action.

It is difficult to write about Fra Angelico without rhapsodizing. “He cannot be praised too much”: the beauties of his pictures “baffle description”: “his art was not only inborn and inspired but also exercised with singular care, ability and judgment.” “He perfected the mystic poetry of art.” These and suchlike phrases taken haphazard from sketches of his life, can be found in almost any book that speaks of him. One is almost tempted at the outset to shirk the effort of analysis with a Chaucerian “There is na more to say,” for at the best words are inadequate expressions of the thoughts and emotions inspired by such a painter. Yet perhaps one can be forgiven for joining in the chorus of his praise by judging him from a somewhat unusual angle.

In the first place is the preoccupation, “What can we do about the poor?” It is an encouraging uneasiness even if it is only an uneasiness and not a profound unrest. And it certainly does produce its results; quite excellent results; young men become members of the S.V.P.

In the second place is the intellectual argument that commercial industrialism will not do. It rests on authority. It impresses. We applaud Father Drinkwater and Eric Gill.

Two surface responses. Our sympathy has been stirred, our intelligence convinced of wrong and of the possibility of right solution. We heartily wish someone would implement the right solution. We mention it in our prayers, rather shyly wondering what God thinks of our economic phraseology. After all it is very worrying, but we really have done what we could.

In the first place is the repeated plea of Eric Gill that commercial industrialism has reduced the working masses to a subhuman condition of intellectual irresponsibility. It is a strident plea. You cannot shut your ears to it. But if we are to think of a downright solution it means a downright change in the material structure of society. “Man is matter and spirit, soul and body, both real, both good.” Irresponsibility can only be remedied by responsibility; but to translate this into economics responsibility means ownership, or at least an effective share in the control of the material things which very really involve our destiny. We cannot consider with equanimity any large transference of ownership from one kind of people to another unless it takes place in the usual way through the usual commercial channels. We do not like to think of changes which may involve disturbances in the material order.

Socialist, atheist, revolutionary—Christian, Catholic, defender of tradition—from Papini, the man of paradox, but true Florentine withal, we were bound to hear sooner or later, something new on the subject of the great Florentine poet. This Giovanni Papini has now given in his Dante Vivo}

The subdued light of conventional criticism is hardly to be expected from Papini. His volcanic mind erupts, leaving sometimes his thought buried in the cinders, but when it comes to the surface it is at least original, and holds, if it fails to convince.

By way of parenthesis it is not so extraordinary as it at first appears that Papini came eventually into the Church: a man who had taught himself everything, who had run his head as a battering ram into every form of thought and philosophy, who had tasted the bitterness of human insufficiency, what possible way was open to such a one, but to stoop and enter the lowly portal that leads to peace. But this is only by the way.

In his criticism of Dante, Papini often purposely leaves us in the dark, he is apt to lose all sense of proportion and to overshoot the mark. Then at the moment when we begin to chafe against his methods, he pulls us up by his own shrewd common sense, or else infects us with his own admiration for the poet. It is his aim to depict the man rather than the poet, but the poet often carries him away. The man Dante is his subject, a subject for which he has personal interest and sympathy. Dante with his unparalelled daring appeals to this daring modem Florentine.

‘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.

The Zampognari have come down from their homes in the Abruzzi mountains and day in, day out, the sound of their pipes remind us that Christmas is coming. The soft wailing tunes of the reed and skin pipes are faithful descendants of those the shepherds played in the country round Nazareth on the first Birthday, and few are the houses in Naples where the players are not invited to enter and play the song that tells us of what took place on that “still and holy night.”

It is difficult for those who come from Northern homes to dissociate Christmas from snow and ice, blazing firesides and red-berried holly. Here, the brilliant sun in a sapphire sky is surely more truly reminiscent of the first Christmas Day.

All the world over, alas, old traditions and old legends are vanishing, and Naples is no exception to this rule; one by one the old customs are being swallowed up by modem matter-of-fact life. The few that remain, however, are quaint and interesting, and a stroll round the city on the days immediately preceding the Festival is well worth while, especially after dusk. The dim lit churches are crowded with men, women and children paying a visit to the “Crib” which is to be found in every church, all thoughtfully and lovingly designed, and in some cases brought to a perfection of detail and realism. Little children are lifted in their mother's arms to kiss the tiny waxen feet of the Christ Child, veiled—often with scattered rose petals or some priceless filmy lace—until midnight, when, at the opening words of the Mass, the veil is removed and the candles or tiny electric lights which illuminate the Manger and the figures of Our Lady and St. Joseph, are lighted. The broad incline of Santa Brigida still has its wonderful fish stalls and great tubs of eels, from which, occasionally, an occupant will escape and slither rapidly across the pavement, to the embarrassment of pedestrians.

The zeal which has come over some of us to develop Catholic Action in obedience to the Holy Father’s command is altogether admirable and it is unfortunate that there are still so many yet untouched by it. But there is a danger, which has already appeared in a mild degree, of this zeal developing into a mere passion for external works. The inner spirit which gives rise to Catholic Action gradually disappears and those who have not yet acquired the zeal are still less inclined to take part in the new apostolate. The excesses of the fervent and the criticism of the lukewarm are alike due to the error which consists in thinking that unless we are obviously doing something we are not participating in Catholic Action. To many of us Catholic Action still means principally public demonstrations, protests to members of Parliament, anti-Birth-Control agitation, accompanied by the painful futility of numerous committee meetings. Some of these external effects are indeed produced by Catholic Action, but they are quite secondary to the real movement, which is simply the overflowing of the inner life of the Catholic.

For Catholic Action is essentially Catholic Life, we are told by the Pope, who has done most to inaugurate this movement of modem times. “Catholic Action is justly identified with the Christian life,” said Pope Pius XI to the students of the Mexican Institute on May 29, 1934. It is the characteristic of life to give rise to external works, to common social activity, but these are not the essence of life, nor are they the essence of Catholic Action.

Father Conrad Pepler has done well to emphasize the sacrifice involved in a return to the land upon which more than one of the older hands at Catholic land propaganda has found it necessary to insist, as against the ‘Arcadian Shepherd’ school on the one hand and the ‘Sound Economic Proposition’ enthusiasts on the other.

In the Catholic Truth Society pamphlet on The Catholic Land Movement, the first attempt at systematic public exposition of our aims and motives, the present writer expressed a point of view which he ventures to quote:

‘Now while we believe that, whether in the meanwhile we work for or against it, this [the basing of our social system “on the land whence all our subsistence comes and on the labour of our hands which God has ordained as the means thereto”] is the only possible ultimate development, the continued existence of the vast commercio-industrial organization, with its specious offers of wealth, luxury and “convenience,” its false philosophy of ease, “leisure” and mechanical distractions as the ends of human life, and of work as mere irksome toil to be curtailed as much as possible, must remain as a stumbling block and an irresistible temptation to those not supported by true principles in facing the undoubted physical hardships and inconveniences involved in the return to a peasant life. It has been said that no people has ever voluntarily gone out from the city into the wilderness, save under the influence of a religious ideal. Mere economic considerations are not enough.

In considerations of the way in which commercial transactions during the Middle Ages accorded with moral laws, the significance of the direct economic power wielded by the Church on account of her great material possessions is often disregarded. The early Church accumulated little property; this was to ai certain extent connected with the marked chiliastic attitude adopted during the first few centuries, and the Church was fully occupied in spreading her doctrine as widely as possible. In the late second century Clement of Alexandria not only upheld the institution of private property but declared that it was justifiable for Christians to amass large fortunes. There was a law dating from A.D. 321 allowing anyone at death to leave what property he wished to the Church. Statutes such as this favouring the incipient Church in Constantinople marked the beginning of an acquisition of wealth that in the Middle Ages was unrivalled by any other corporation or individual, and this accumulation of riches by the Church was even more marked in England than elsewhere.

The period of the Crusades brought a great increase in ecclesiastical property, for many raised money from the Church on the security of their lands and as a fair proportion never returned their lands reverted to the Church. This process went on for two centuries. In England for centuries before the Reformation the pious rich had been heaping up treasures for the clergy by gifts and endowments, and this tendency towards accumulating worldly wealth coupled with the policy of never alienating it made the Church a great business as well as religious corporation with interests touching the whole economic life of the people.

Tucked away, among a million other books, there is in the British Museum Library a handsome small volume which must have had quite an eventful history of its own before it reached its present peaceful seclusion, but which must, nevertheless, be wishing that its purport and contents were better known, especially in these days when so much has been said and written on account of the twelfth centenary of the death of Saint Bede the Venerable. Not that there is any secret as to its existence. For many years this particular volume has been there, duly catalogued, for all to find who might chance that way. Yet so few people, apparently, are aware of it, that it seems worth while not only to draw attention to it but to its author and subject besides.

The fly-leaf alone is worthy of notice. It is covered with bold writing in several hands, which in themselves betray a little of the romance that can follow a humble book. These inscriptions read thus:

And the third, which supersedes both the others, apparently, is quainter still:

These three inscriptions leave no doubt about it, that this book did indeed belong at one time to the Dominican Nuns at Brussels, and, from the style of handwriting, it seems at a date soon after its publication, in 1650-1658.

There are many who profess Catholic Doctrine concerning:

the respect due to society,
the rights of property,
the rights and duties of workers
the relation between capital and labour,
the relation between Church and State,
the rights of Christ Our Redeemer over all men,

but these same many in their words, writings and whole tenor of life behave as if the teaching of Leo XII, Pius X and Benedict XV were no more than a dead letter void of all authority.

(Ubi Arcano.)

These words were among the first published by Pius XI and yet the indictment is still as true to-day, despite all that the Holy Father has done in the last thirteen years to make it inexcusable. Quite obviously the trouble is that the majority of Catholics do not even know that the Church has and propounds a specific social doctrine. And of the small minority which is aware of the existence of the encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Casti Conubii, how many consider these to be enunciations of principles rather than practical instructions?

It remains for the few who have mastered the teaching and applied it to extant conditions to disseminate the precious fruit of their study. The task is indeed herculean and would seem to be too great for early realization but for the signs of active assistance from unexpected sources. The most encouraging of these is the curiosity shown by secular experts; for economists, lawyers and politicians who have been impressed by the claims of Catholic authors are beginning to study the encyclicals in both the old and the new world. Whether they be favourable or otherwise, their reactions should prove of great value to sociology. But it will be some time yet before the result of this interest can be assessed, and meanwhile it is imperative that Catholics of every kind, and clerics in particular, should be increasingly well-informed on this most important topic.

The canonization of Blessed Thomas More is extremely significant for many reasons: he was an Englishman, a layman, a man of great learning, a humanist, and he died a martyr to his belief in papal supremacy. More than any other man, perhaps, he was the typical Englishman. His humour, versatility, and literary achievements have endeared him to multitudes of readers in every part of the English-speaking world. His canonization is notable also for the fact that he was a married man—indeed twice married. It is a long time since any married saint has been officially canonized by the Catholic Church. That so few married people have been raised to the Church's altars since the present process of canonization was initiated, raises the query whether sanctity is in any way incompatible with married life.

To answer this question we must first clarify our minds as to what are the constituent elements of sanctity. Many think that a saint is simply one who lives according to high moral standards. But one can live such a life without any conscious relationship with God. A saint is one whose whole life is motivated by the love of God, and who tries daily to do the will of God, as that will is made known to him through vocation and circumstances. According to the degree of sanctity, saints are divided into common and heroic saints.

For obvious reasons it is only the heroic saints that are canonized by the Church. Before any servant of God can be enrolled in the canon of the saints it must be established beyond peradventure that his or or her life was distinguished by the heroic practice of faith, hope, charity, justice, temperance, fortitude and prudence. That is the norm according to which the Sacred Congregation judges in the process of canonization.