Let the words I shall say be directed and recommended to you by the following weighty principle of St. Thomas Aquinas :—

‘Excellence of the person never diminishes sin; but on the contrary increases it. Therefore a sin is not less grievous in a believer than in an unbeliever; but much more so.

‘For the sins of an unbeliever are more deserving of forgiveness, on account of their ignorance,’ according to 1 Tim. 1, 13. I obtained the mercy of God because I did it ignorantly in my unbelief; whereas the sins of believers are more grievous on account of the sacraments of grace, according to Heb. X, 29. How much more do you think he deserveth worse punishments .... who hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean by which he was sanctified.’

The two previous speakers in dealing with Atheism and Protestantism have been happy in finding that their contributions to our Emancipation joy have not led them into even the shadow of criticism of their fellow-Catholics. Atheism is not a weed within the true fold; nor is Protestantism a mode of Catholic ill-health. Sometimes an ardent Catholic apostle or an over-logical Catholic apologist will ask in irony if his inconsequent Catholic hearers really believe in God or really reject Luther or Elizabeth. But if a speaker at this Congress was to deal with the emancipation of Catholic Atheists or of Catholic Protestants his words would raise a laugh or a protest. Those would protest who had not the wit to avoid taking his words literally; and those would laugh who saw in the speaker’s exaggeration a sally of burlesque wit.

‘In view of the approaching General Election, the Archbishops and Bishops of England and Wales deem it well to remind all Catholic voters of the following principles which underlie the Catholic attitude on Education, so that in giving their votes such electors may act in conformity with Catholic teaching and tradition in this matter of vital importance.

(1) It is no part of the normal function of the State to teach.

(2) The State is entitled to see that citizens receive due education sufficient to enable them to discharge the duties of citizenship in its various degrees.

(3) The State ought, therefore, to encourage every form of sound educational endeavour, and may take means to safeguard the efficiency of education.

(4) To parents whose economic means are insufficient to pay for the education of their children, it is the duty of the State to furnish the necessary means, providing them from the common funds arising out of the taxation of the whole community. But in so doing the State must not interfere with parental responsibility, nor hamper the reasonable liberty of parents in their choice of a school for their children. Above all, where the people are not all of one creed, there must be no differentiation on the ground of religion.

(5) Where there is need of greater school accommodation the State may, in default of other agencies, intervene to supply it; but it may do so only ‘in de-fault of, and in substitution for, and to the extent of, the responsibility of the parents’ of the children who need this accommodation.

(6) The teacher is always acting in loco parentis, never in loco civitatis, though the State to safeguard its citizenship may take reasonable care to see that teachers are efficient.

(7) Thus a teacher never is and never can be a civil servant, and should never regard himself or allow himself to be so regarded. Whatever authority he may possess to teach and control children, and to claim their respect and obedience, comes to him from God, through the parents, and not through the State, except in so far as the State is acting on behalf of the parents.’

At a meeting of the French Academy in Paris at the end of November, two pronouncements were made concerning the renewal of diplomatic relations between France and the Holy See which are so remarkable that they deserve quotation in some detail. The occasion was of unusual importance, for it coincided with the recent troubles in French politics which had compelled M. Poincaré to reconstruct his Government, as the result of attacks by the Radical Party, directed very largely against his proposal to encourage the French foreign missions. M. Herriot and his colleagues had been compelled to retire from the Ministry, and M. Poincaré had to form a new Government drawn very much from the same elements which composed the old Bloc National. Once again, during November, the old controversy over the relations of Church and State had cut across party politics in France; and M. Poincaré, after going to the furthest possible lengths in concession to the old sectarian spirit, had decided to trust to his own prestige and persuasive powers to carry the Chamber with him.

Rousseau once ridiculed the British Constitution by declaring that the Englishman was only really free during a General Election, and that then he used his freedom so badly that he deserved to lose it, A great number of Rousseau’s most cherished ideas have perished long ago, and yet our ‘ridiculous’ Constitution remains, fundamentally the same. Very soon every elector will be asked to exercise that political freedom, which, apparently, is so rare a privilege, and the time may be ripe for a little hard thinking as to what that power really involves. The world now offers a variety of political systems, all claiming to be more genuinely democratic than our own, the old-fashioned mother of them all. How does the power of the British citizen compare with the newer developments in the power of the people in the U.S.A., or even in the U.S.S.R.? What is involved in this declaration by each elector every five years? These are questions which those rare electors who have either the time, leisure, or interest to read the less sensational periodicals may well bother to inquire into during these last few weeks before the Election takes place.

This Election is bound to be of historic importance, as it marks the end of that movement for the reform of the franchise, which was started with such excitement and trepidation by the Whigs in 1832. The years 1867, 1884, 1918, and 1928 are so many steps the nation has taken with a slow but unhesitating stride along a road as inevitable as any in her history. ‘We have opened a door which can never again be closed,’ moaned the young Tory, Newman, proving himself a much wiser prophet than the introducer of the bill himself, Lord John Russell, nicknamed ‘Finality Jack,’ because of his belief that the reform of 1832 was to be final.

In view of the approaching General Election the J. Archbishops and Bishops of England and Wales deem it well to remind all Catholic voters of the following principles which underlie the Catholic attitude on Education, so that in giving their votes such electors may act in conformity with Catholic teaching and tradition in this matter of vital importance.

• (1) It is no part of the normal function of the State to teach.

• (2) The State is entitled to see that citizens receive due education sufficient to enable them to discharge the duties of citizenship in its various degrees.

• (3) The State ought, therefore, to encourage every form of sound educational endeavour, and may take means to safeguard the efficiency of education.

• (4) To parents whose economic means are insufficient to pay for the education of their children, it is the duty of the State to furnish the necessary means, providing them from the common funds arising out of the taxation of the whole community. But in so doing the State must not interfere with parental responsibility, nor hamper the reasonable liberty of parents in their choice of a school for their children. Above all, where the people are not all of one creed, there must be no differentiation on the ground of religion.

• (5) Where there is need of greater school accommodation the State may, in default of other agencies, intervene to supply it; but it may do so only “in default of, and in substitution for, and to the extent of, the responsibility of the parents” of the children who need this accommodation.

• (6) The teacher is always acting in loco parentis, never in loco civitalis, though the State to safeguard its citizenship may take reasonable care to see that teachers are efficient.

• (7) Thus a teacher never is and never can be a civil servant, and should never regard himself or allow himself to be so regarded. Whatever authority he may possess to teach and control children, and to claim their respect and obedience, comes to him from God, through the parents, and not through the State, except in so far as the State is acting on behalf of the parents.

The following words will be an attempt to analyse the cause of the Cartesian Doubt, which, in our opinion, still lives as an intellectual disease in some of the noblest minds of our age.

1. It is our conviction that the universe and man are wholes or unities. Indeed each in its own way and both when united are such wholes or unities that any separation of a part is fatal to the whole. To exemplify: the laws of ethics will be found to be, in the end, sound economic laws. Theft, if not repressed by a commonwealth, will in the end destroy the commonwealth. Or again, the laws of mathematics, if denied, will mean the denial of the laws of psychology. Or the denial of ‘Thou shat not commit adultery’ will spread contagious disease. Or again, voluntary individual poverty will increase communal wealth.

2. Moreover, as man is a moral unity as well as an intellectual unity, man’s intellectual acts may be moral acts. Hence what is intellectually possible may be morally wrong; even as some acts, such as deliberate drunkenness, which are physically possible, may be intellectually harmful.

3. Man, like every other created being, is an imperfect being. Not only is he imperfect in being but in acting.

Moreover, since man can act deliberately some of his defective acts may be deliberate. But as man is master of his deliberate acts by his will, man’s deliberate defective acts, of body or soul, are moral faults. Acts attributable to the will are chargeable to the will.

Whitsuntide, 1929, will always be memorable in the annals of the Dominican Order for the happy events of the re-establishing of a formal Priory and House of Studies, and the consecration and solemn opening of the Priory Church at Blackfriars, Oxford. On Monday, May 20th, the Church, dedicated to the Holy Ghost, was consecrated by his lordship the Bishop of Alexandria, Canada, the Rt. Rev. Felix Couturier, O.P. After the ceremonies of consecration and dedication High Mass was sung by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P., the English Dominican Provincial. On Tuesday, May 22nd, Bishop Couturier sang pontifical High! Mass in the presence of His Eminence Cardinal Bourne. His Grace Archbishop Goodier, S.J., preached a sermon, the full text of which, by His Grace’s kind leave, we are able to present to our readers in this current issue. His lordship the Bishop of Northampton, Dr. Cary-Elwes; the Abbot of Ampleforth, Dom Ecjmund Matthews, O.S.B.; the Rt. Rev. Abbot Sir David Hunter-Blair, O.S.B.; the Rt. Rev. Mgr. Barnes; the Father Provincial of the Jesuits; the Father Provincial of the Servites; the Father Provincial of the Salesians; Father Cuthbert, O.S.F.C.; Fr. McCann, O.S.B.; Father Vignaux, S.J.; Father Leo O’Hea, S.J.; Father Ronald Knox and many other priests were present.

The Master General of the Dominican Order was represented by Father Louis Nolan, O.P., and the Dominican Provincials of Paris, Belgium and Ireland, and many other friars were among the visitors. The Mayor of Oxford represented the City, and the University was represented by several Catholic Dons.

The cleansing of the temple by Our Lord described by all four evangelists presents many problems, exegetical, moral and historical. Some reject the whole story as a fabrication, laughing at the idea that the money-changers and other traders in the temple would have so meekly borne the insult with hardly a protest. And of those who accept the story at its face value many are in difficulties because St. John puts it at the beginning of Our Lord’s ministry while the other three Gospels put it at the end, that is, just before the Passion. Hence it is said that either St. John or the other evangelists have changed the chronological order, some saying the former, others the latter. Finally, there are still others who say that both St. John and the other evangelists are right, because there were two cleansings of the temple, one at the beginning, the other at the end of our Lord’s public life. But many raise strong objections to this on account of what they call its extreme unlikelihood.

It is not our intention here to discuss this exegetical problem, or to give the arguments for and against a double or a single cleansing of the temple. Our purpose is simply to present certain historical data which throw light on the circumstances contemporary with the life of Christ, especially in relation to his attitude towards the buyers and sellers in the temple. These historical data will enable everyone to solve the problem for himself, not only with regard to the genuineness of the incident but also with regard to the likelihood of a repetition of the incident.

It is thought in certain circles that these two words are the exact antithesis of each other. The persecution of Catholics is called ‘kulturkampf’; and people do not hesitate to say that the prosperity of certain countries dates from the time when they repudiated the Catholic Faith. We are too used to such opinions to be roused by them. Ignorance of Catholic doctrine, usually involuntary, thus once more gives rise to an error, which becomes an injustice. We may surprise certain people when we say :—

(i) That Catholicism insists on civilization and progress as a duty;

(2) That the Catholic Church is the most effectual instrument, and most sure guarantee for progressive civilization.

What is Civilization?

Philosophers and sociologists are on the horns of a dilemma when they consider the nature of civilization. They have complicated the problem by indictments on the subject of ‘Kultur’ and civilization. They say that civilization is nothing else but the help that social man is always giving to nature so that man can live better and better. The expansion of life—by man’s government of nature, by the enriching of his intellectual life, by his artistic, economic and industrial works, by the close connection of the finite with the Infinite—these are the ends and the limits of civilization.

Civilization is a religious duty.

It is enough to have defined civilization, to see that continual effort towards a higher civilization is not only a tendency of human nature; it is equally a religious duty.

God created us. He created us for Himself. We exist for God. He is the only end and explanation of our life. All our efforts should be towards God.

The Scandinavian countries, and not least of them Norway, have long remained strongholds of Lutheranism. That is, in outward appearance, for the Norwegian State Church counts among its members an unusually large proportion of formal adherents, people who are baptised and ‘confirmed’ in the Lutheran State Church, but who remain for the rest of their lives totally indifferent in religious matters, never attending Church services, or otherwise manifesting any interest whatsoever.

This general apathy has now begun to react on the State Church in a marked degree. Methodists and other Free Church sects have steadily increased their influence and numbers, and have drawn over a large proportion of members, who are recruited from the same classes as in England, namely from among prosperous tradesmen and the best section of the working class population.

Catholicism, on the other hand, here as elsewhere, makes her primary appeal to the intellectual section of the community, but as the first movement broadens and deepens, she sweeps with her people of all ranks and conditions.

The first establishment of the Catholic Church in Norway was made in 1856, in Oslo, then Christiania, under the patronage of St. Olaf, the saint who brought Christianity to the heathen Norsemen. Since then Churches and chapels have sprung up in the larger towns throughout the country, and Norway numbers at present nineteen Catholic churches and twenty chapels.

St. Luke, xii, 16-20.

Ah, One there was who thought within his heart,

‘What shall I do, my barns are all too small A room wherein to store my goods apart?

This will I do : destroy them one and all,

And build them greater, safely then to hold My grain and fruits in plenty, so shall be Rich competence assured when I am old,

And to my soul will I speak secretly :

Thou hast much goods laid up for many a year,

Eat, drink, and make good cheer, take thy repose,

O Soul, for whose but thine shall these things be?’—

When swift upon his boast, death hovered near,

God said, ‘Thou Fool! Whose shall they be—who knows?

This night do they require thy soul of thee!’

Edwin Essex, O.P.

The second volume of the Autobiography of Johannes Jorgensen contains an intimate account of his conversion to Catholicism in 1895, his reception into the Church in February 1896, and the subsequent adventures of soul and body. The genius of this distinguished Danish author illuminates the story of his conversion, so that all who care to pursue processes of the mind and spiritual stirrings—hopes and despondencies—will read the tale to the end with avidity. ‘Internal history is the brain stuff of fiction, wrote George Meredith. It is certainly the mark of great autobiography, separating it from the reminiscences and recollections—capital reading, too, in their way, many of these—that are concerned with the busy, bustling life of persons of importance in the world of affairs.

Conversion to Catholicism is an event that through the ages holds the interest of mankind. It seems that men and women, whether they be of the household of the faith or stand without the fold, are for ever fascinated when the story of the convert is told. The very rarity of the story no doubt to some extent accounts for the attraction. For the vast majority of converts are inarticulate; to describe the wonders of God is not for them. The event must be set out in literary form to enjoy the lasting attention of mankind. The flash that blinded and revealed on the road to Damascus, the Passionist father knocking on the door that autumn night at Littlemore, the hour when Augustine saw truth clearly and the old errors fell away, these things are written, and as long as books endure will be read.

Monsieur Fernand Gastebois, Mayor of St. Anonyme, was a Catholic and a Liberal. This feat may cause no flutter in the Nordic hearts of those for whom this story is intended, no quandaries in Nordic minds accustomed to distinguish between the claims of Peter and Caesar with untroubled equability. But in Lower Normandy in the years before the Great War, it took some doing to strike the balance between religion and politics of this particular shade; and the Mayor of St. Anonyme undoubtedly did it, with one unfortunate lapse which it is my business to relate.

A historian versed in the internecine bickers of France would doubtless be able to acquaint you with the springs of the situation. I, a mere looker-on, am not so fortunate and can only guess at the source of my hero’s difficulties. On the political side a Liberal is undoubtedly a fiercer beast in France than elsewhere. Horrid implications of Revolution hang about him. The rustle of innumerable Trees of Liberty is ever in his ears. In other lands such symptoms are tactfully given a Catholic turn and in the Liberty of the Sons of God your Nordic Liberal finds refreshment, light and peace. In France he is merely relegated to the left and kept there in the name of consistency, a false Latin god who did one of his worst pieces of work when he established as an anticlerical the kindly, pious and lovable Monsieur Gastebois.

A quotation from the fearless and original thought of Baron Friedrich von Hugel will be our justification with those who may consider our praise of St. Thomas Aquinas unjustly superlative. He writes : . this Norman-Italian Friar Noble, a soul so apparently derivative and abstractive, is more complete and balanced and penetrates to the specific genus of Christianity more deeply than Saints Paul and Augustine, with all their directness and intensity. .... No one has put this point better than Professor Troeltsch : “The decisive point here is the conception peculiar to the Middle Ages of what is Christian as supernatural.”’

Whilst I hesitate to give my master, St. Thomas, the praise of this latest panegyrist, I feel that his words will be a clue to my attempt to deal with St. Thomas and Law. Indeed, the names mentioned in the quotation are more akin to the subject of this paper than, perhaps, the writer thought. In the life of St. Paul the idea of Law had played almost the major part. The seeming opposition between Law and faith, or works and faith, had, for a moment, led him into opposition with a section of the Church; and even with St. Peter. Augustine, too, like St. Paul, had come to an intellectual and practical rejection of Manichean Dualism by the master-vision of a creative Law which was, at the same time, one, good, and all-powerful; indeed so powerful in its goodness as to be able to turn evil to good.

I knew a Catholic who married a non-Catholic, and they had three children. One of the children married a convert, one married a bad Catholic, and the third made a mixed marriage. There were seven grandchildren, of whom six were brought up as Catholics, and one, the issue of the mixed marriage, was not. Of the six Catholic grandchildren, one lapsed, one ceased to practice his faith for a number of years, and one nearly lost his faith, but was saved by a miracle of grace.

Five of these grandchildren married, and only one of the five married a Catholic. The lapsed Catholic abjured his faith and married outside the Church. Two marriages were mixed marriages made by the Catholic partners with the best intentions of running the home on Catholic lines, and of bringing up children as fervent Catholics. The grandchild who was born of a mixed marriage in the previous generation, and who had never been brought up as a Catholic, naturally married outside the Church.

The fourth generation numbers eight great-grandchildren, of whom only three are being brought up as Catholics.

In the case of two of the Catholic marriages, the husbands were converts during the period of the engagement. In no single case of mixed marriage did the non-Catholic partner become converted after the wedding had taken place.

We hear and read a great deal about the ‘leakage.’ Here we have a deplorable instance of it. Of the twenty-four descendants of one mixed marriage, fourteen are Catholics and ten are non-Catholics . . . and the tale of fourteen Catholics is only made by including one bad Catholic and two slack ones.

‘And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me. That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.’ (John xvii. 20, 21.)

This year, 1929, has already been a year of happy thanksgiving for the Catholic Church in this country. But let us not forget that we rejoice not for ourselves alone; indeed, perhaps more we rejoice for the sake of others. Another centenary falls this year, of which we do well to remind ourselves. In 1529, exactly four hundred years ago, the then King of England, for his own ends, first began the process of severing the Church of England from the Church Catholic. In that process, deliberately, and defying the consequences, he cut this land adrift from the rest of Christendom. In that sense, more than in any other, the intellect of Europe at that time interpreted the deaths of Fisher and More. We read in contemporary records that their execution ‘staggered Christendom’; it was staggered, not so much because in a Catholic country, at the hands of a Catholic monarch, who had but recently been honoured with the title of ‘Defender of the Faith,’ for the defence of that same faith these heroes had been put to death; rather it was staggered because the two brightest lights that shone from England over Europe had been so wantonly extinguished. It was a blow not only to the unity of the Christian faith; it was also a blow to the unity of Christian mankind.