bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Widows of God
Authors: Synnott Finbar
Published: July 2007

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.
The Prophets' Approach to God
Authors: Ginns Reginald
Published: July 2007

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.
The Word in Action
Authors: Pepler H. D. C.
Published: July 2007

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.
Some Notes on the Development of Kafka
Authors: Birrell T. A.
Published: July 2007

It is obvious that Kafka is a ‘difficult’ writer; his work demands the closest attention before any kind of account of it is possible. Attention involves looking at, not looking for, and the inherent danger and temptation in Kafka criticism are to look for ‘clues’ and ‘keys’, or to fix all one’s attention on some particular subjective element in his work, and to offer an account of that as a substitute for a criticism of the artistic whole. Ideally, of course, the Kafka reader should be a philosopher, a psychologist, a student of comparative religion, and a literary critic, all rolled into one. In practice, however, such an ideal combination is rarely found, and in practice, too, it must be admitted that the critic or reader who does not possess any specialist qualifications is very limited in the range of his discussion of Kafka. The general reader does need help from the specialist, but the specialists who are not prepared to involve themselves in literary judgments must be prepared to offer their findings as footnotes to the study of Kafka, and not as in any way final judgments on his work.
Catholics and Modern Politics
Authors: Graham Aelred
Published: July 2007

It is said that the onlooker sees most of the game. When, however, what is to be surveyed is the dimly lit and sometimes treacherous field of inter-action between religion and politics, only the most confident of observers would lay claim to any privileged insight. And yet these musings at a monastery window, which is all they can pretend to be, may not wholly lack interest; they are an attempt to glean something of the significance of the contemporary scene in the light of ultimate principles. But the process will demand of us a certain corporate self-scrutiny, and of this a word must be said.

The divine constitution of the Catholic Church, indefectible in its essence and hierarchic in its structure, necessarily precludes any criticism by its members of the Church itself. It is not our business— nor, if we are wise, should it be our wish—to call in question what God has ordained. But the mental attitude engendered by this state of things, one of unquestioning acceptance, can sometimes extend beyond its due limits .and so lead us to leave unexamined what in fact has every claim to searching attention. It is important to know, for example, to the extent that the thing can be ascertained, how far the Church in this or that particular country embodies all that is implied in Catholicism, or how far circumstances of time and place, not excluding the personal limitations of its members, seem to hamper the flowering of the full Christian life.
St Thomas in European History
Authors: Foster Paul U.
Published: July 2007

The ruined Parthenon, as it stands in the lucid splendour of the Athenian sky, enshrines for us not the adolescent worship for which it was designed but the philosophy and art of ancient Greece. It stands as their symbol. In the grove of Mambre, four millennia old, is the tomb of Abraham, our father, where obedience to the one high God lies sleeping until we are all gathered to his bosom. The Roman wall, the arch at Trier, the inscription on the Iron Gates of the Danube, the temples at Baalbek and Timgad, the aqueduct at Segovia, are adequate representatives of the militarism, sanitation and civic creed of Rome. Together these three influences built up the background for the Christian revelation; the basilica of St Peter is reared upon these mighty foundations and transcends them. Europe, as we understand it, is the work of the Catholic Church, and we can ask ourselves today . . . where, then, is the abiding memorial of the greatest of the Church’s intellects, St Thomas Aquinas? Where is the temple of the Solomon of the West?

As the eye looks eastward from the cliffs of Dover to embrace the territory of Europe, it picks out certain well-defined characteristics. The first is the appropriateness of the Roman boundaries, the Rhine and the Danube, with a possible extension to the Carpathians. Beyond these rivers and mountains stretch the vast plains which run into Asia, where Confucius and Mahomet and the Buddha rule instead of Abraham, Socrates and Justinian.
A Brazilian Conference
Authors: Bigley A. J.
Published: July 2007

The Third Inter-American Conference of Catholic Social Action was opened at Rio de Janeiro on 22 August by His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop, Dom Jaime de Barros Camara, in the presence of delegates from twenty-one countries of the western hemisphere, including Canada and British Guiana. Representatives of several national and international organisations in Europe and North America attended the meetings in the quality of observers. Among these were the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, and the International Christian Social Association of Switzerland.

After referring briefly to the earlier meetings, held at Washington in 1942 and Havana in 1946, the leader of the American delegation, Bishop D. Karl Alter, of Toledo, Ohio, explained the objects of the present conference. These may be summed up as follows: ‘To study the social problems common to all countries of the American continent, and apply to them in a practical manner the principles of social justice, as set forth in the Encyclicals of Popes Leo XIII, Pius XI and Pius XII’.

The first day’s discussions were almost exclusively occupied with the situation in rural districts, where primitive conditions and a low standard of health call for action in the majority of Latin-American countries. Attention was directed especially to the asphyxiating effect of the big estates, relics of colonial times, which stifle initiative, restrict agricultural development and maintain the inhabitants of the countryside in poverty. The Brazilian Constitution of 1946 authorises the expropriation of private properties in the interests of the community, and the authorisation has been invoked in recent schemes for improving conditions in the interior.
Custom in St Thomas's Political Thought
Authors: Nicholl Donald
Published: July 2007

In the introduction which he wrote to the proceedings of the Malvern Conference the late Dr Temple compared the works of Maritain and Niebuhr upon political subjects, and suggested that despite the skill and rigorous reasoning of the former his scholasticism prevented him from attacking the real, everyday difficulties of our present situation in the way which Niebuhr does. A similar complaint was made by Mr Lewis in a recent number of Philosophy where he spoke of the new scholasticism as having ‘missed the vital creative forces of our age’. If this deficiency is characteristic of the new scholasticism, if it be true that our modern schoolmen are really spinning webs of ratiocination in order to deceive, then the accusation is indeed a serious one; we hope to be able to show by a consideration of a somewhat, neglected aspect of St Thomas that the accusation, if proved, would convict modern schoolmen of treason towards their master.

Professor d’Entreves was expressing the conventional view, and the views which Dr Temple and Mr Lewis put into the dock, when he spoke of St Thomas’s theory of law as ‘the highest expression of an “intellectualist” as against a “voluntaristic” theory of law. It is the key to a proper understanding of that “rationalistic” bent which is one of the distinctive features of Thomistic philosophy’.
Catholics and Politics
Authors: Woodruff Douglas
Published: July 2007

I wonder that the Editor of Blackfriars is not afraid that the formidable figure of St Thomas will appear to disturb his slumbers with reproof, for he set great store by accurate definition and precision of language. What accuracy or precision is there in the March editorial when the Editor writes: ‘French Catholics crossing the Channel are amazed to find that while the numerical majority of Catholics vote Labour and consider themselves as leaning towards the Left, the Catholic voice in journalism, etc., is almost without exception “true blue” Conservative, and, therefore still wholly immersed in the politics of a past age’. Really? ‘Wholly-immersed in the politics of a past age.’ While he was writing that, I and my colleagues were preoccupied with that most immediate contemporary question, whether and how Europe can be saved, and restored, were writing about the Brussels Conference and the Atlantic Pact.

We might even claim to have shown a little prescience. In domestic politics, which were presumably more in your mind, so far from being immersed in the past, we are preoccupied with the future, with the later developments implicit in the present changes. Whether people agree with us or not, they must admit that we are preoccupied with the future, with the direction social change is taking and the direction we hold it should take. It would be a more substantial criticism to say that we are too far ahead for the public to follow us, that we have got up very early and we have gone out before the milkman, not that we have stayed out too late and come home with the milk.
The Christian Leader in Politics
Authors: Fitzsimons John
Published: July 2007

Bertrand Russell stated the fundamental problem of polities succinctly and in practical form at the beginning of his Reith Lectures with the question: ‘How can we combine that degree of individual initiative which is necessary for progress with the degree of social cohesion that is necessary for survival?’ It may be that the distinction that he makes is too clear cut and that there are circumstances where individual initiative is not anarchic or where the particular form of social cohesion imposed carries in itself the seeds of nihilism. Nonetheless, one cannot but agree with Russell when he suggests that the three primary aims of government are security, justice and conservation.

A far too simpliste approach to world polities, of which Russell himself is to some degree guilty, would equate the system in which individual initiative predominates with ‘the American way of life', and the system where social cohesion is created and maintained by unparalleled means of force with the U.S.S.B., and indeed with most of the satellite countries of Eastern Europe. The latter system, almost ex hypothesi, is stable with the monolithic rigidity of fanatical adherence to a doctrine, a messianic doctrine, that must be made to work out in practice. On the other hand, the American system is constantly undergoing changes which bring it nearer to being a balance between the two extremes. (It must not be thought that I am concerned to defend the American way of life—I would merely point out that it is constantly undergoing modifications, and cannot be reckoned static as is the doctrinaire Stalinist position.)
The Genius of Chesterton
Authors: Hamilton Robert
Published: July 2007

However we define genius, power and originality are inseparable from it. A genius often has more faults than the merely talented or competent. But power of thought and expression, and originality (not to be confused with novelty which can be manufactured) are always there. Now in Shaw’s words ‘Chesterton was a man of colossal genius’. Though he had many faults, in power and originality few writers have surpassed him. In some cases genius grows slowly: in others it develops suddenly late in life: in a few cases, such as Mozart, Keats, and Dickens, it emerges at once. Chesterton’s genius, his thought and style, was born complete in his earliest work. It matured; but there was no great increase of power, and the originality of style was there from the start. Perhaps the upheaval that took place in late adolescence, when he entered a period of doubt and depression and emerged triumphant, was the flame that fired the train of his genius; for his work was intimately bound up with his character—unlike so many men of genius whose characters are in pitiable contrast to their work, Chesterton’s mind and work were all of a piece.

The humility and charity and love of life that distinguished him, and impressed all who met him, were integrally one with his work. His humility, his sense of thankfulness for all creation, gave him a clarity of vision that can exist only when the ego is reduced to the fine point needed for sharp focus.
Mr. Belloc, Historian
Authors: Crichton J. D.
Published: July 2007

A Writer in the Times Literary Supplement (29 January, 1949) devoted the whole middle page to a study of Hilaire Belloc, and gave sufficient praise to his prose but seemed to think his historical writing of little importance. The writer is generous in his appreciation of Mr Belloc as a man and of much that he stood for: ‘It was an old joke against Mr Belloc that he not only spoke for Europe but he wrote as if he was Europe. Where is the joke now? The Europe he spoke for is shrinking fast, as he warned us. We may still reject his remedies: but Catholics and Protestants both now contemplate with dismay the threat to displace the icons of the Faith for the icons of the Kremlin, the Bible for Das Kapital.’ That is finely said and is worth repeating. He concedes that Mr Belloc had ideas, whether we think them right or wrong, and ‘Ideas are rare and become rarer, especially when they are based on experience, on a strong sense of fact’. That, too, is generously said, and is true. The writing of so many modern historians suggests nothing so much as the regurgitation of sawdust. But, the writer seems to think that Belloc’s History of England, his books on Wolsey, Cranmer and Cromwell are of little account: ‘ (they) have all the thrill that vigour of presentation can give to conviction. Still, they throw more light on their author than on the subject.’ (It is odd that the writer nowhere mentions Belloc’s French Revolution studies).
Distributism
Authors: Todd John
Published: July 2007

An avowed and open defence of Distributism is not often seen in the Catholic press, and yet there is in this country a larger number than ever before of convinced distributists, people convinced that our attempt to concentrate on the mass-production of secondary commodities in return for food from abroad, to remain the workshop—or at least one of the workshops—of the world, and to treat the world as our farm and garden is doomed to failure—and indeed to disaster. The time is ripe, then, for a re-examination of distributism as a Catholic thing; but beforehand it will be worth while to look at some recent developments in the non-Catholic sphere. For the situation is very different from the time, forty years ago, when distributists might have been confused with the more or less unpractical followers of William Morris, broadly labelled ‘arts and crafts’. The situation is even very different from that of ten years ago. The theory and application of distributism have not changed but the situation of this country has changed so as to reveal not only the practical nature of this social idea but the necessity of it.
Frustration
Authors: Zacharias H. C. E.
Published: July 2007

Has there ever been such a general sense of frustration as the world is suffering from today? I think not. In Pagan times this state of mind was certainly unknowm. People had bad luck, no doubt quite often, and keenly regretted it: but they never felt frustrated, for there was no basic, fundamental expectation which had got the bottom knocked out of it. Pagans knew that the gods were jealous and that a run of good luck and success was sure to break sooner or later. Or else, as the Hindu would put it, if he had a rough time, it was just his bad Karma; he was now merely paying in this life for the ill deeds he had committed in a previous’ one. Bad luck or bad Karma in neither case admitted of a sense of frustration.

In Christian times obviously there was no room for frustration either. What was this life but a vale of tears, a pilgrimage to one’s true home in another world? And if one did not expect anything better, how could one feel frustrated? Even when Christendom came to pieces and life became more and more secularized and paganized, the concept of frustration was absent. The eighteenth century witnessed the discovery of steam power and the ushering-in of the machine age: soon God was declared to be a hypothesis, which was no longer required, and man, instead of waiting for a better world beyond the grave, now began with his newly discovered powers to construct a better world right here.
The Death of a Wandering Scholar
Authors: Pick J.B.
Published: July 2007

When a man dies we reflect that he might have lived otherwise and attained to a Times obituary. W. W. Coupe, one of the more reverent of outcasts, would not have been more than mildly amused by a tribute to his spirit in the columns of The Times. But his death should not pass entirely unnoticed. In these days of ‘self-expression’ and gross over-publication we fail to realise just how many unpublished and unpublicised near-geniuses may live and die under the noses of the eminent and accepted arbiters of culture.

Coupe’s work was thinking. He was, in his way, a fine scholar and an interesting philosopher, yet when he died a short while ago only a handful of people knew of his work and were therefore able to recognise the extraordinary brilliance of his analysis. There are many reasons for this, the main one: Coupe. He had no talent for self-advertisement and made little effort at publication. Perhaps he would have enjoyed fame and notoriety, and gained a little happiness from academic distinction, for he was, I imagine, a reckless and ambitious fellow in his youth, and retained to the end an acute sense of humour. But he was by nature observer, analyst, commentator, even perhaps a bird of prey. He did not seek praise, he sought the response of understanding and exchanged ideas. He cared little for the mass, whether of scholars or of newspaper-readers, though he cared always, as every religious man must, for the innocent.
Statistical Truth
Authors: Gledhill A. W.
Published: July 2007

The natural sciences, especially physical science, have made very great strides in this century. I refer especially to Einstein’s theory of relativity and the quantum theory. There can be no doubt that these theories are valid; that is to say, either they are true, or they are abstractions bearing such a relation to truth that they systematise observations and lead to correct predictions. Among scientists theories are no longer regarded as true but have come to be recognised as abstractions, as a result of the teachings of Mach, but even more so as a result of the impact of relativity and quantum theory. The naïve realism of Newtonian physics is dead. But at the same time nobody has succeeded in building up a system of natural philosophy showing exactly how theoretical science is related to reality. The effect of this has been, on the one hand, to move scientists towards scepticism or even a kind of Kantian idealism, as in the case of the late Sir Arthur Eddington, doubting or denying the validity of the concepts of reality and truth. On the other hand it has prevented the Thomist arguments for the existence of God from resting upon the conclusions of natural science through the mediation of natural philosophy. Instead they rest upon the nature of common-sense.
The Master of the Life of the Virgin
Authors: Shirley M.
Published: July 2007

The realisation of the honour and devotion that are due to our Lady in Mediaeval and early Renaissance times, engendered a corresponding increase in pictorial representation of scenes from her life and the childhood of our Lord. It is not infrequent that the source of the inspiration and the materials are to be traced to the Apocryphal legends. The heretical trends they contain and the dubious authenticity of many of the accounts have long rendered them suspect in the eyes of the Church. Notwithstanding this, the mind of the mediaeval artist was particularly susceptible to the graphic and imaginative nature of some of the stories, besides they served to satisfy the desire for a greater knowledge of the small intimacies of the life of the Holy Family.

The arrival in London of the collection from the Munich Alte Pinakothek affords a unique opportunity to see the treasures for many people in this country; they will remain on view until August the 7th. The collection contains, among other things, part of a fifteenth century German altarpiece by an anonymous artist called ‘The Master of the Life of the Virgin’, this series being his greatest known work. It consists of eight panels representing ‘Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate’, ‘The Birth of the Virgin’, ‘Her Presentation in the Temple’ and the ‘Marriage of the Virgin’ in the upper row; ‘The Annunciation’, ‘The Visitation’, ‘The Presentation in the Temple’ and ‘The Assumption of Our Lady’ in the lower row. The unity of the series is now lost because of its dispersal—part permanently remains in England.
Peter Maurin, Agitator
Authors: Day Dorothy
Published: July 2007

Peter Maurin was 72 years old when he died on May 15th, 1949. He was born in a small French community, 200 miles from Barcelona, one of a family of 28 children. His own mother died after giving birth to five children, and his father married again and there were eighteen more children. Amongst them now there are four teachers, three carpenters, some farm hands. Some of his sisters are nuns and some of his brothers are members of religious orders.

Some years ago Peter gave the following facts:

‘My mother’s name’, he said, ‘was Marie Pages. She died in 1885. Of her five children only I and Celestin, a brother who was eighteen months younger than I, and my sister Marie, two years younger than my brother, were left. My whole name is Aristide Pierre. Pierre was my grandfather and my godfather. He died at the age of ninety-four and he was never sick. He worked in the fields until he was eighty-five, and after that he could not because of his eyes. So he stayed home and made baskets and recited his rosary. He liked to work. He knew it was good for him.

‘The last I heard of my brother he was the, head of a school in Paris, St Clotilde’s, a parish school. He had been a Christian Brother, but when they were secularised they no longer wore the garb but went on teaching just the same. One of my half-brothers taught for the Christian Brothers’ school and he was married to a school teacher who taught in the public school.
The Church and Capitalism
Authors: della Torre Count
Published: July 2007

The meetings and conferences of May 1st and the coming anniversary of the encyclical Rerum Novarum make this subject one of actual up-to-date interest, because of what has been said of the Church as allied to capitalism and of the contrary statement issued in that well-known document which set all Catholic thought and action in motion against this social malady.

We refer to that economic organism, independent of and superior to business and businessmen, which arises out of the accumulation of fortune and an ever-increasing concentration of wealth, stretching over four centuries, and which has resulted in modern capitalist enterprise as distinct from that enterprise which united capital and labour. Here—according to the most authoritative scientific definition—we have ‘the reign of capital represented by money and securities, which can be quickly concentrated anywhere’; in almost every country the predominance of this phenomenon as a basic rational form of economic life’; here we see a distinct cleavage between those who provide capital and those who contribute to production solely by their work—a double-faced thing, one side of which shows a system of economic relations in which the upper classes who possess the means of production are predominant; while the other side shows an illicit function of capital, evil in its origin, disproportionate in its realisation, harmful in its effects—a veritable social cancer: the formation of a non-specific cellular proliferation, its continuous and progressive growth governed by laws of its own, differing from those of normal tissues, independent of the organism in which it grows and develops, and on account of this independence and expansiveness, parasitic and deadly.

The teaching and attitude of the Catholic Church concerning this fearsome phenomenon, as in respect of peace and against war, may be seen throughout history.
The Report on Population
Authors: Harper Thomas
Published: July 2007

The Royal Commission on Population was appointed in 1944 to investigate the significance of demographic trends in Great Britain which during the 1930 s had caused widespread anxiety. Although the population figures had continued to grow between the two world wars at the rate of about 180,000 per year it was suspected that the birth-rate had fallen below replacement level even to the extent of ‘a substantial margin’ (p. 60).

The main factors influencing the natural increase (excess of births over deaths) of a population are the death-rate and birth-rate. The vast majority of births are to married women and therefore this factor is dependent almost entirely upon the number of marriages and the size of the family. The causes of the changes in the demographic trends in this country over the past seventy years may therefore be sought in four main contributory factors: migration, mortality, marriage and the size of the family.
The Profits of the Press
Authors: Derrick Paul
Published: July 2007

The most important recommendation in the recently published report of the Royal Commission on the Press is the establishment of a General Council of the Press with the object, among other things, of encouraging ‘the sense of responsibility and public service among all engaged in the profession of journalism’. Apparently it is to do this by ‘censuring undesirable types of journalistic conduct and by all other possible means to build up a code in accordance with the highest professional standards’.

A considerable part of the report was devoted to censuring undesirable types of journalistic conduct, but by itself this is not, perhaps, likely to have very much effect upon the press. Those papers which find they can build up the largest weekly and daily circulations in the world by methods which may not, in the opinion of some, be in accord with the highest professional standards are likely to do so in spite of any General Council which may or may not be set up. If they find they can make good profits by ‘giving the public what it wants’ they are likely to do so in spite of the criticisms of the Commission and the doubts that are expressed from time to time by individuals.

In this connection it is interesting to note that three of the more responsible national newspapers, the Observer, the Manchester Guardian and the News Chronicle, are owned by trusts. These three more or less Liberal newspapers are not run by ordinary commercial companies for the profit of stockholders. They are run on a non-profit basis; that is to say they are run in the interests of their readers.
The Christian Peasants of Albania
Authors: Wyatt Colin
Published: July 2007

One of the most frightening happenings in the last few years, and one from which we should take the greatest warning, is the complete subjection of Albania to Communism. Communism is alien to all the spiritual and social traditions of this small mountain people, which in 1939 was one of the most honest and hospitable, if backward, of Europe.

Although Albania is almost 80 per cent Mohammedan, there exist in the wild mountain valleys of the north two tribes of Christians, the Miridits, who somehow had managed to survive the centuries of Turkish rule when the country was part of the Ottoman Empire, This they doubtless owed to their rugged mountain barriers, and we must hope that these same barriers will enable them to preserve their simple faith against the new onslaught. During the War they fought to the bitter end with our Commandos against the Communist partisans, who, although they accepted the arms and supplies, which we dropped to them in the belief that they were a democratic force solely desirous of expelling the Germans, lost no opportunity to insult and humiliate our men. In fact, towards the end, when the Germans were already in full retreat, they openly turned against us. That the few men we had left there escaped was due to the heroic efforts of the Christian tribes under their feudal chieftains; many of these paid for their faith and honour with their lives, while some managed to escape and follow their king into exile in Egypt.
The Early Christian Attitude to War
Authors: Davis H. Francis
Published: July 2007

Our Lord thought fit to send Christians into the world without a detailed code of moral theology. He had told them to love God and their neighbour, and left them under the guidance of his Holy Spirit to apply these principles to the very complicated details of the Jewish and pagan world around them. It was obvious they could not admit sorcerers and astrologers and the like, unless they renounced their manner of living. It was universally accepted at the beginning that the Roman stage was no life for a Christian. But what about Roman civil and military service? They did not have to decide at once since the members of this service were not thought likely to become Christians immediately. They were merely officers whom Christians were pledged to respect as holding their authority from God. It was to be for long almost unknown for Christians to have any part in an insurrection. Before any decision had been made about these professions soldiers were asking for baptism. At the beginning the only worry of the Church appears to have been as to whether or how long Christians could avoid taking part in the pagan religious rites or other questionable duties associated with the army and civil service. If Christians could avoid compromising themselves in such matters, it seemed that it would be good enough merely to demand of them a pledge to follow the warnings of St John the Baptist: ‘Do not use men roughly, do not lay false information against them; be .content with your pay’. (Lk. 3, 14.) Jesus Christ had praised the centurion without asking him to change his life.
Of the Christian Church
Authors: Long T. E.
Published: July 2007

In a previous article (Our Catholic Heritage, February 1949) the present writer made reference to the generally poor standard of Catholic art in this country and pointed out how very unrubrieal are the majority of our churches. It is not a question of lack of means—many of our churches suffer from over decoration in fabric and fittings—but rather an ignorance of, or at any rate an indifference to, the mind of the Church as expressed in her clearly defined rubrics. Before the advent of the Gothic Revival in the nineteenth century our churches, though usually unpretentious and often poverty-stricken, emphasised the essential purpose of a Christian place of worship to a degree to which too often their more imposing successors have failed to attain. It should always be remembered that the primary purpose of a church is to provide a shelter for the altar upon which is offered the sacrifice of the Mass. A church should be built for the altar, not the altar for the church. The failure of so many churches of the past century to create the right atmosphere is due largely to a confusion of ideas. The mediaeval Gothic church with its screens and spacious chancel belonged to an age when virtually everyone was of the household of the Faith and all were content to accept the Church’s teaching as a matter of course.

The atmosphere, though rich and beautiful, was usually restrained. With the rise of Protestantism in the sixteenth century the authority of the Church was no longer unquestioned and she was compelled to adopt a more aggressive attitude, seeking to impress the senses by emphasising the dramatic side of divine worship.
Post‐War Education in Germany
Authors: Meyer K. E.
Published: July 2007

The end of the war left the whole educational system in Germany in chaos and its rebuilding has had to start from scratch. This is obvious as far as external conditions were concerned; buildings were ruined, teaching material destroyed, teachers dispersed and in part forbidden to follow their profession. The children themselves were involved in the maelstrom of evacuation and in the disorderly flight from the bombed west to the east, and from the Eussian invader in the east the return again to the west. All this is clearly appreciated by now. Equally one understands the loss of a sane religious background that followed the breakdown of Germany’s former educational system and the scepticism shown by both teachers and pupils against any alternative system (and even against the re-introduction of pre-war arrangements), whether it was inspired by German teachers themselves, by the Church, the German authorities or the inter-allied military government. These problems are appreciated, in paid at least, everywhere. Their solution is seen to lie only in a very gradual and by no means as yet wholly satisfactory rehabilitation. This is the natural result of the various factors involved in the present situation in Germany, but more recently two new and somewhat unexpected elements have emerged to influence post-war development in a disturbing manner.

The division of Germany into four zones has had an immense bearing on the political and social life of the country, but no less has it had its repercussions in the educational field. This is most marked of course in the division between east and west; but it is true also of the division of government within the west itself.
The Crisis in German Protestantism
Authors: Fechter Adam
Published: July 2007

On 11th July, 1948, exactly fifteen years after the dark day on which Hitler founded the ‘German Evangelical Church’, Dr Martin Niemoller was present at the founding of the ‘Evangelical Church in Germany’ (EKD) on the Wartburg near Eisenach, which had once been Luther’s stronghold; there he coined the shattering phrase, ‘the solidarity of the helpless’ on the same occasion as the aged Bishop Wurm described this new structure as a ‘temporary shelter’. These words were sign enough, even for the uninitiated, that this emergency organization was a long way removed from that source of grace, the upper room at Jerusalem. Rendered indispensable by the sheer stress of chaotic political conditions, the new ‘Church’ was attempting to reassert its legal continuity with the past and to affirm the ‘unity of Evangelical Christianity’ in all the occupation zones, especially to bind together the East and the West. Was its motive, therefore, political?

Whilst these lines were being written Wilhelm Niemoller, the pastor of Bielefeld issued an open letter to Germany which ends with the cry: ‘The crisis is upon us!’; and the Reformed Church in north-west Germany has resolved not to attend the EKD conferences any more until they are again animated by an evangelical spirit. What does this signify?

The downfall of the Nazis and their ‘Reichs-church’ means that, for the first time in 400 years, German Protestantism has been given the opportunity to free itself from the state and to give itself a constitution ‘in accordance with the New Testament’ as an earlier conference expressed it.
Polish Christmas Customs
Authors: Kreuza B.
Published: July 2007

Generally speaking, we may say that it is the conviction of the ordinary people of Poland that no country has been more entirely Christian from the beginning than their own. Our Lord was born in Poland, they might say, in the midst of a snowy winter and in a thatched cottage such as we still see today, and resembling those found in Ireland, in some isolated place in a distant forest. Although there are caves in certain rocky and mountainous regions in Poland, nevertheless they are remote from the; daily life of the majority of the people, and so scattered as to pass unnoticed. Moreover these caves have horrible stories attached to them. Either they are the more or less magical property of the devil who hides in them treasures of uncertain origin, or else they were used by the notorious brigands of the Tatras Mountains who have such a romantic history.

So then the infant Christ came into the world in the heart of the Polish winter and in a thatched cottage or perhaps under the tumbledown roof of a barn or in the stable of some poor peasant Szopka, a classical word meaning ‘Christmas Crib’ or a marionet theatre proper to the Christmas season, comes from szopa, a stall. The word seems to be connected with the French échoppe—like the word ‘shop’ in English for the pronunciation is the same, ‘sz’ being pronounced like ‘sh’. At any rate, in the Quo Vadis of Sienkiewicz, the giant Ursus in speaking of Christ ejaculated: ‘Oh, if only our people had been at Golgotha, they would have soon rescued the Son of God!’ Now we know that Ursus and Lydia, although unmistakeably borrowed from English tradition, represent the people of Poland.
Fra Angelico and the Quattrocento
Authors: Shirley M.
Published: July 2007

The National Gallery has recently exhibited some of its earlier Italian paintings that have been inaccessible since the outbreak of war. Amongst these are two works, both by anonymous artists of the Florentine Quattrocento and members of the school of Angelico. One represents the ‘Adoration of the Magi’ and the other tells the story of our Lady conferring the habit of the Order of Preachers on Reginald. Although not of the highest artistic endeavour they offer a commentary on the aesthetic position of the great Dominican painter. Exhibiting a difference that is significant, they bring out very clearly the divergent aspects of the master’s style. Unquestionably the demands of the two subjects are not identical; even so the treatment accorded to the latter is more directly in conformity with the affinity that Fra Angelico showed with earlier traditions, and the painter of the ‘Adoration of the Magi’ displayed a greater sympathy with the new naturalistic trends although they were still in an experimental stage.

The composition of the legend of Reginald is notable for its simplicity and the absence of ornamentation. The picture is divided into two main groups by the device of placing a pole a little to the right of the centre of the composition, but it might be more accurately described as being subdivided into three areas. This division of the picture into several distinct masses owes a certain amount to the system employed by Fra Angelico’s master, the Camaldolese monk, Dom Lorenzo Monaco, as can be seen in the painting of ‘Legends from the Life of Saint Benedict’ which hangs in the same gallery.
The Cinema is the Highest Form of Art
Authors: Domino Benedicamus , Gratias Deo
Published: July 2007

Cyril Cusack: If walls have ears and windows seem like eyes, the ancient oak panelling and leaded panes of this Old Hall of Lincoln’s Inn, where we are gathered by the courtesy of the learned Benchers, have stored up a memory of many a legal inquisition into strange territories of human thought and behaviour. If a tongue could be added to them, they could tell of very diverse causes heard and judgments given upon them. But surely they have seldom if ever witnessed a stranger occasion than this, when that very modem example of human ingenuity and skill, the Cinema, pleads its cause as an art through the medium of a medieval disputation. Such a subject might well seem very far removed from the thinkers of the middle ages and their method of enquiry might well appear ill-chosen to examine its claims. In the sphere of visuals it is surely a far cry from the modern film to the crabbed manuscripts and theological preoccupations of the thirteenth century.

Yet, after all, there is a certain fittingness in the occasion. The Cinema, with all that it stands for, is undoubtedly a great force in modern life, and opinion is very divided as to whether it is a force for good or evil, for the advancement of civilisation and culture or for its impeding and destruction. It is well, therefore, that it should be brought to the bar of judgement and, in that case, it is most fitting that its cause should be heard in this Old Hall of one of the oldest Inns of Court in this ancient city of London. For the Cinema is now on trial as to its claim to be an art, and even the highest form of art; and the canons of art, according to which it must be judged, are laws as firm and as ancient as the true laws of human behaviour.
The Church, Science and the Common Pagan
Authors: Hunter Guy
Published: July 2007

Note: The following article by the Warden of the Residential College for Adult Education at Urchfont Manor, Devizes, was occasioned by the writer being invited to open the discussion after the lecture on science as a substitute for religion by Dr Sherwood Taylor, published in the last issue of Blackfriars. Writing quite evidently from a non-Catholic standpoint the author makes his suggestions with the authority of experience, for he deals constantly with the average man-in-the- street whose suspicions of religion and whose faith in science have turned the present era into a post-Christian age. There are forty million, or 80% of the population of England and Wales, who accept this point of view without question, so that the suggestions on how to meet them in such a way that they may be willing to listen to the Christian point of view are among the most urgent of the day. Catholics still seem a little dazed at the immense avalanche of desertion from Christianity and they often lack experience of the other point of view since they hold on to their own faith with such praiseworthy tenacity. It is therefore with gratitude to the author and with a plea to the Christian reader to consider his words deeply that we present the article as a continuation of the discussion begun by Dr Sherwood Taylor in the last issue of Blackfriars.—-Editor.

A Good deal of time has been spent in the last few years proving that the central doctrines of Christianity are not in conflict with the main theories of modem science. There has, of course, been much genuine conflict between Christianity and the social or philosophic implications, usually materialist, which some scientists have read into their work.
Europeanism
Authors: Synnott Finbar
Published: July 2007

Not long ago General Smuts made a very significant statement about U.N.O. He pointed out that the ‘world vote’ instituted by the United Nations may come to be a coloured majority vote. Already the Nations which administer coloured dependencies are beginning to feel the draught. Britain and Belgium and France are indignant about the ‘back-seat drivers’ of colonial administration. South Africa has felt half a gale already. It is only a matter of time until someone notices, and makes a case of, the treatment of American Negroes, which is legally so sound, but actually leaves so much to be desired. If U.N.O. is going to turn on those that founded it, it is principally in matters of colour. If Western Liberalism as a whole is to lose the confidence of its multi-coloured following, it will be on this question. Nor would a triumph over Russia in war leave things any better—possibly rather worse. For each time the coloured peoples are asked to co-operate in a war they expect additional recognition after it, and anxious war-time promises are then evaded until the coloured peoples lose patience.

This is a very serious matter for Christianity, since the West claims, in a general manner, to represent Christianity. Unless there is a very marked change in the colour situation of the whole world the same process as that which has discredited Christianity with the working class of Western nations will take place in connection with colour bars. Just as the ‘workers’ were taught to identify the Church with capitalism, the enemy; so the coloured peoples will be urged to identify it with colour superiority prejudice. And both have just sufficient grounds in facts of the conduct of Christians, Catholics included, to make the accusation really dangerous.