Dialogue between Marxists and Christians is no longer surprising. It seems to me, however, that it frequently takes place on far too wide a plane. Marxism and Christianity are juxtaposed as two competitive all-embracing ‘philosophies of man’, and the discussion is conducted in ultimate, cosmological and metaphysical terms. I realize that this is all very well, and probably very necessary too; it does not, however, seem to me to exhaust all the interesting and important questions that Christians and Marxists, or Marxist Christians, should explore.

I write now for Christians who, in their understanding of society, social change and political controversy, recognize that Marx has made a fundamental and essential contribution to our diagnosis of social ills and our prescription for their cure. Along with these positions, they (probably necessarily) accept Marx’s criticism of the repression, physical and psychological, which have at times been perpetrated and justified in the name of Christianity.

I will assume, then, that if my reader has any quarrels with Marxism, it is not on the broad issues that I have just mentioned. We will then be able to look at another kind of question, which I think is equally interesting and important.

It is now some time since Christians tried to find a point of agreement on the Eucharist. The ‘Agreed Statement’ was the result of discussion between the Catholic Church and the Church of England. Catholics have always been rather cynical about the idea of the Church of England being able to speak as one body, but in this case it appears that there is some doubt as to whether the Catholic Church, in England—never mind the world, was speaking for the whole Catholic body. But that is not a point I wish to pursue. As I see it the terms of reference were too narrow, and the whole issue totally irrelevant in the context of the needs of the world of today. Both Catholics and non-Catholics could and should have used a broader front which would have led to some statement appealing to the needs of all men, Christian and non-Christian alike. For if the ‘Agreed Statement’ has a Barchester remoteness about it, the Eucharist has not. Today, more than ever, it can have a meaning and relevance; it can offer to man, if not a solution, then the symbol of a solution, to his problems and questionings. We may group these under three headings: (1) Human Dignity; (2) Love; (3) Hope.

Chapter 6 of St John’s Gospel begins by relating a miracle of the feeding of 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes. It was an action of the kind that would appeal most to the Jews of Christ’s day, and the account of it least to men of today.

Leonard Woolf, in Downhill all the Way, remarked of his wife that ‘the idea of a party always excited her’, and though it is true that on 11th November, 1918, ‘Virginia and I celebrated the end of a civilization’ by ‘eating, almost sacramentally, some small bars of chocolate cream’, for Virginia Woolf, as for the rest of us, eating was generally a celebration of the continuing value of life, where, as at the restaurant meal of The Waves, ‘here and now we are together’ drawn into ‘this communion’, and making ‘something that will join the innumerable congregations of past time’.

Talk of that kind about eating is an open invitation for those Christians who would engage in ‘Theology and Literature’, but a man should guard against any quick transition from Virginia Woolf’s talk of sacramental chocolate creams and congregations of past time to his peculiar Christian understanding of meal and communion. It should give us pause, for example, that the chocolate creams were eaten at the ‘end of a civilization’, and that in The Waves the meal is created around a hero who, described in Christ-like terms certainly, is finally ineffective.

It has almost become platitudinous to state that the controversial literature at the time of Catholic Emancipation illustrates the fact that the expression of radical political opinion had been muted as a result of the events of the French Revolution. On the whole, it is argued, the controversy tended to be theological or apologetic rather than political and the usual arguments in favour of Catholic emancipation were those of expediency rather than principle. The Roman Catholics themselves, it is argued, would not wish to associate their claims with more radical political demands, while their social and political isolation during the previous century would be reflected in their reluctance to seize the opportunities which became possible after emancipation. As the future Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman himself wrote, the ‘shackles were removed, but not the numbness and cramp which they had produced’.

However, the point of this article is simply to show that the most cursory reading of Catholics periodicals at the time would demonstrate that none of these historical claims are necessarily supported by the evidence. In fact, it would be more surprising if the political awareness of the Cisalpines at the end of the eighteenth century had so quickly disappeared; after all, the political tradition of English radicalism did not completely disappear after 1789. Furthermore, Bernard Ward made the interesting point that there were eight English Catholic M.P.s in the Parliament of 1831—a number which was only exceeded in the twentieth century. Of course, not all English Catholics wished to be associated with political radicals and most of them were not prepared to ‘seize their political opportunities’ after the grant of emancipation, but there were significant exceptions.