The Problem of Evil, as we all understand it, is a Christian problem. It does not in fact arise till we accept a sovereign reality, at once absolutely good, or rather loving, and at the same time infinitely powerful, behind the diverse realities of the world. Now this supposition has never really taken root in men's minds outside Christianity. It is when this conception comes up against the unhappy facts of human experience that the problem of evil—at first a scandal—arises; ‘If there is a God all-powerful and all-loving behind this world, how can he make his creatures suffer so?’ But it is important to add that even inside Christianity the problem has taken two profoundly different forms. One was quietly ignored by the first Christian centuries, yet modern minds now seem to know no other and it is this that, we believe, is the problem of evil. That Christian theory of evil which seems to have finally prevailed since the XVIth century regards evil as an abstraction, as opposed to the Manichean doctrine which made of it a thing. But, in distinction to both, the older Christian idea rather denounced in it a person. I should suggest that the phrase ‘problem of evil’ does not in fact suit the older form of thought; it should be rather ‘problem of the Evil One’; and it is quite significant to recall that the ‘Libera nos a malo’ of the Our Father which we translate now as ‘deliver us from evil’ used to be translated always as ‘deliver us from the Evil One’. (In some European languages the struggle between the forms still continues.)

By the ‘Widows of God’ I mean those people whose marriages have gone wrong and who cannot marry again because of the validity of their first marriage and the fact that the partner of it is still living. If Newman could call his celibacy widowhood the state of these people, at least of those in good will, doubly deserves the name. It suggests the desolation of their state, both men and women, and it is by an act of God, by the eternal law of one man one woman, that they are condemned, or called, to celibacy.

As Catholics marry non-Catholics who see no wrong in divorce, and as Catholics themselves adopt the standards around them, and as wars and migration increasingly interfere with marital fidelity, there is a growing percentage of Catholics in this position. It would be interesting to get the statistics of parish priests on it. But whether it is ten per cent or twenty it represents a very great pastoral problem in the Church. And one must not forget the growing number of those outside who might become Catholics were it not for this impediment, that they have a broken marriage somewhere in their history and know they could not become Catholics and remain with the partner they now have. Most priests have at one time or another come across such cases where they would be hesitant to encourage a potential convert and think ‘non sunt inquietandi’.

A large number of people in this position were innocent of the family break-up that led to their present state, as far as human judgment can see.

Every nation worthy of the name produces its prophets, and by prophets I mean men who claim to speak to their fellow countrymen in the divine name and with divine authority. For that is the true essence of the prophetical character: not merely the ability to foretell future events, but the claim to speak as an ambassador of God. Miracles and predictions are chiefly the confirmatory signs of the validity of that claim. Of course there are prophets and prophets, false claimants and true, and there have been many who claimed unjustifiably to speak in God’s name.

But if every nation has had its prophets, no nation has ever produced any that can compare even remotely with the prophets of Israel, of whom Dr Allen writes with so much understanding and sympathy in his Prophet and Nation, a book that deserves to be classed with W. R. Smith’s great Prophets of Israel, published half a century ago. He begins with a chapter on the distinction between those who have come down to us approved as genuine prophets and the now-forgotten throng of their fellow Israelites who belonged to the prophetical caste. Many of the latter were temple officials or hangers-on at the royal court, men who were venal and prepared, like the fortune-tellers of all ages, to adapt their utterances to their income’. The former were outstanding exceptions, few in number, always unpopular in their day, often in prison and generally dying a violent death.

When the Cistercians decided to establish themselves in the wilds of Yorkshire and set about cultivating the waste land at ‘Fountains’, building their cells, offices and Abbey Church, the outward sign of their faith was in Labour, and hard at that. The uncultured country men of the neighbourhood were soon drawn into this great activity; not only stonemasons and tillers of the soil but tradesmen of all kinds gravitated to the site, caught up in the exuberance of those who were setting up a home they purposed to share with Almighty God. It followed that in the course of two or three generations the buildings were finished, the pictures of adornment painted, the images of veneration carved and on their pedestals, the vestments woven—and an understanding of Peace born in the midst of this now large community so that even the young men, whose great grandfathers and great great uncles had begun the work in a previous century, began to realise why God had rested on the seventh day in the Creation of the world. The stones continued to cry out, the statues and capitals to shine their benediction, the choir to echo with the prayer and praise of the Religious, but the sense of urgency and achievement was no longer reflected in the lives of the people as when the great stones were being quarried and carted, shaped and lifted into their appointed places for him who was to be their daily bread for ever and ever. Amen.

Most men and women choose marriage as their road in life. They can and ought to sanctify themselves in their love and . through it, by using their rights as they would use any other holy thing and faithfully fulfilling the duties of their married state out of love. For Christians, marriage is a sacrament, a sensible and effective sign of the grace conferred for the needs of the baptised couple. Their union is sacramental.

One of the principal tasks for Christian schools and Catholic Action to do is to make the splendour and sanctity of marriage intelligible to everybody, to prepare and help people to live the married life of holiness. . . . Nevertheless, obstacles to sanctity, or at any rate hindrances to the easy and prompt exercise of the love of God, abound in this state of life. I am not speaking of the abuses and sins properly so-called to which married people succumb when they are unfaithful to the graces of their sacrament, when they despise the laws of human nature and the commandments of God. These sins turn men completely away from God and of themselves lead to eternal death, unless repentance intervenes. What I am speaking of is a married life that respects the rights of God. Husband and wife—and precisely those most in love with each other—run the risk of taking too much natural pleasure in each other, of monopolising each other and not thinking of God as much as they ought if they are to sanctify themselves and advance together in the love of God.