bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Translation and its Problems
Authors: Shewring Walter
Published: July 2007

The theory of translation is still so undeveloped that any serious study of it is bound to deserve attention. This would be so if the writer touched no more than a few familiar languages; when his experience ranges from East to West and from ancient to modern centuries, the interest is correspondingly greater. Mr. Bates’s new hook is therefore particularly welcome, though in the matter of principles he is less explicit than one could wish, his method through the greater part of the book being to present different modern versions of the same passage (sometimes two, sometimes as many as five) and to leave the reader to draw conclusions. What follows is partly a commentary on Mr. Bates’s positive statements, partly a record of personal conclusions from the material provided. His own endeavour is ‘to provoke thought without unduly provoking the reader’; mine is the same.

In his opening pages Mr. Bates stresses the value of translation as a means to international understanding; few would dispute this, but few again have ever visualised the matter practically. Hence there is aptness in the detailed account of translation in modern Italy, an account which in its knowledge and sympathy is itself an excellent preamble to the renewal of a broken friendship. It is good to find justice done to the intellectual qualities of the Italians and recognition paid to the high standards of scholarship which distinguish much ‘popularisation ‘of Greek and Latin classics. We are given, moreover, an interesting cross-section of Italian opinion (official and unofficial) on the political and cultural significance of translation—a question of particular importance in Italy since so much is translated into Italian and so little out of it. Political propaganda apart, one would welcome signs of a similar concern in this country.
Autumn Thoughts on the White Paper
Authors: Drinkwater F. H.
Published: July 2007

Some unlucky star must have presided over the birth of State compulsory schooling in England; or perhaps we English secretly disbelieve in formal education altogether. It is over seventy years now since the beginning was made, with a special brand of education for the lower orders called ‘elementary,’ having as little vital connection as possible with religion, and staffed by teachers similarly segregated from any of the true educational influences of the country.

The results have been better in some respects than the nation deserved ; the shortcomings have been still more evident, but from 1870 onwards it seems that nothing less than a war will induce England to take a passing interest in educational reform. The Boer War coincided with the 1902 Act which initiated free secondary schools for some at least of the ‘elementary’ children, and made it possible for voluntary schools to survive and teach religion, at the same time handing over educational responsibility to the elected councils of town and county which dealt with the usual local affairs. The First Great War was another time of heart-searching, and resulted in the Fisher Act of 1918, an attempt to widen the narrow ‘ladder’ which was the only way out of the ‘elementary’ system, and to do a little more for the vast majority of boys and girls who would still be thrown into the industrial system at fourteen. It was a very modest bit of planning, but it proved too ambitious for the post-war mood of England; not much of it ever came into action, though the patient administrators managed in time to set going the process called ‘reorganisation,’ designed to produce, within the elementary system, a substitute for secondary schooling.
Autonomy in Catholic Education
Authors: St. John Henry
Published: July 2007

During the latter half of the nineteenth century the Catholics of England entered upon their long struggle to maintain their schools in a condition of material and professional efficiency equal to that of the wholly state-supported schools in the national system. Both in primary and in secondary education the price of monetary aid from the Government has been increased control by the local or central education authority, and in consequence the chief pre-occupation of our struggle has been to safeguard the principle of Catholic teachers in Catholic schools, and to ensure the integrity of the teaching in doctrine and morals given during the hours devoted by law to religious instruction.

In the matter of the curriculum of secular teaching we have been content in past years to follow the lead set by the non-Catholic schools, and have adopted their general educational policy and conformed ourselves as best we could to its varying demands. Even those schools which have always been independent of government control have been forced, during the last forty years, by their acceptance of the external examination system to abandon their autonomy and the traditional system of education which they had inherited from the continental schools of pre-penal days, and to conform their syllabuses and teaching system to the dictates of the external examining boards. Thus it has come about gradually that the curriculum of secular teaching, with its attendant syllabus of books to be read and periods or matter to be studied, has ceased to be chosen by the authorities of the school and has been imposed by an impersonal external authority which has little or no understanding of the purpose and needs of Catholic education.
Confession and Health of Soul
Authors: Vann Gerald
Published: July 2007

‘For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness.’ We see the meaning of the Sacrament of Penance most fully if we see it against the background of the world-struggle between good and evil. The essence of sin is pride, the isolation of the self; the harmony of creation is split into warring fragments; there is no redress until created spirit, responsible for the material world, can emerge from its isolation and return to its Source. ‘The whole of creation is in travail even until now.’ So the Redemption is given us; that man-in-nature may be made whole again by restored oneness with God—a restoration wrought by the Cross and Resurrection and made accessible day by day in the world through the power of the Church. It is for that restoration of the divine order in the world that we pray when we pray for the coming of the Kingdom; but the coming is postponed, the power of the Church to heal and make holy is curtailed, by the persisting presence and power of evil. Nor can we think simply of a struggle between the members (visible or invisible) of the Church, and the world; it is waged by the Church, but it is also waged within the Church. And as there is a communion of saints, so there is a solidarity of sin; and the Church’s power as a whole is curtailed and its victory impeded by the sins of its sinful members.
‘The Figure of Beatrice’
Authors: Foster Kenelm
Published: July 2007

On his first page Mr. Williams tells us what he has undertaken to study in this book. It is a good statement and may be quoted at length. ‘Beatrice was, in her degree an image of nobility, of virtue, of the Redeemed Life, and in some sense of Almighty God himself. But she also remained Beatrice right to the end . . . . Just as there is no point in Dante’s thought at which the image of Beatrice in his mind was supposed to exclude the actual objective Beatrice, so there is no point at which the objective Beatrice is to exclude the Power which is expressed through her. But as the mental knowledge or image of her is the only way by which she herself can be known, so she ... is (for Dante) the only way by which that other Power can be known—since, in fact, it was known so. The maxim of his study, as regards the final Power, was : ‘This also is Thou, neither is this Thou.’

I say ‘the only way,’ but only to modify it. There were .... many other shapes—of people and places, of philosophies and poems. All these had their own identities. . . . But in his poetry Dante determined to relate them all to the Beatrician figure, and he brought that figure as near as he could to the final image, so far as he could express it, of Almighty God. It is, we all agree, one of the marks of his poetic genius. But it is something else also. It is the greatest expression in European literature of the way of approach of the soul to its ordained end through the affirmation of the validity of all those images, beginning with the image of a girl.’
‘The Man Born to Be King’
Authors: Foster Paul Urban
Published: July 2007

During the industrial depression of the early Thirties a certain man faced, through no fault of his own, bankruptcy. One of his acquaintances, until then not a particularly close friend, wrote to him saying : ‘Count upon my assistance to the full extent of my bank-balance.’

Until 1937 Miss Dorothy Sayers was known to the English-speaking world as one of the most brilliant of its writers of detective stories, that new form of the novel which will excite the interest of future literary commentators. They were extremely interesting novels as well as most ingenious detective problems that Miss Sayers wrote. The mysteries were really absorbing, the clues were fair game, the characterisation was realistic and covered a very wide range of human types, while the literature of the hemispheres was laid in tribute to add piquancy to the plot. A deeper strain was also present. Like the great majority of detective-stories, those by Miss Sayers were strongly moralistic; they proclaimed the necessity of a moral order and depicted in friendly terms the activities of those who maintain it. Clouds of Witness showed the devastating despair induced by a grande passion; The Documents in the Case was a fearful indictment of adultery; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club revealed the appalling effects upon the soul of great scientific intelligence which does not bow down before the Creator of that which science investigates; Murder must Advertise was concerned with the drug traffic; Busman’s Honeymoon revealed the sordid effects of avarice, Strong Poison and Unnatural Death the corruption of the human character by sheer selfishness. The moral effect was the stronger because no one could be aware that it was being inculcated as they pursued the fascinating course of the detective story.
The World of Ideas of Don Luigi Sturzo
Authors: Carter Barbara Barclay
Published: July 2007

In the space of a single article a survey of Don Sturzo’s world of ideas can be merely indicative, a throwing into relief of certain fundamental conceptions which give his thought so particular an originality and potency. Even so, selection is not easy; his mind embraces so many planes. Behind the political thinker is the sociologist, seeking the constant laws of human relationships; behind the sociologist is the metaphysician, the theologian, whose contribution to the shaping of Catholic thought is gaining increasing recognition; behind the theologian the mystic, for whom all human fellowship receives its true meaning in the fellowship of man with God, and Christianity is seen as a cosmic fact, irradiating the whole of human existence, throughout history and throughout the world. Such higher reaches, however, were best left to more competent pens than mine. I propose here to deal mainly with certain aspects of his sociology where it converges on political philosophy, the philosophy that at once inspired his active life and drew from it confirmation and vital elements.

Did space allow, it would be illuminating to illustrate this marriage of thought and action : how, as a young priest, intending to devote himself to university teaching and music, he was swept into active public life under the inspiration of Rerum Novarum, on the crest of the Christian Democratic movement of the nineties, to become the organiser of trade unions and peasant co-operatives, a leader in municipal activities and reforms, then founder of national institutions, and finally, in 1919, the founder and leader of a great political party in which his ideals found practical embodiment.
The Idea of a University, Reconsidered
Authors: Reeves John Baptist
Published: July 2007

In its beginnings the thing we call a University ran ahead of its idea of itself. It grew, not unintelligently, but with little, if any, reflection on itself. Subsequently, and especially in the last hundred years, there has been much speculation about what a University should be; and there have been many experiments in erecting theory into fact. The palm for the best theory unquestionably goes to John Henry Newman, and so to the Catholics of England, whom he claimed, and is now allowed, to represent. No theory, anywhere, remains more remote from fact than this remains in England.

This may be blameworthy, but there is some excuse for it. The English are not idealists, their genius is practical. They do not proceed from ideas to action : they act first and think afterwards, with a tendency, stronger in each generation, to think that what they have done or left undone was rightly done or left undone because ‘twas they themselves that did it or did it not. On this general ground, and on the ground of its particular application to education, especially University education, the claim of English Catholics to be truly English cannot be denied. In this characteristic the Irish amongst them are thoroughly anglicized. As a body Catholics in this country are not at all dissatisfied with what they have done or not done for themselves in education these last hundred years. Their dissatisfaction is almost wholly with what others have done or not done for them. Exceptions there are: mostly converts like Newman himself, and idealists like him. Like him they love the life of the mind, and follow it even to its own surrender in faith; and like him, until they are safely dead, they become generally suspect of not being quite English. All this, though irritating, is excusable in England. Even the Universal Church finds it, though vexatious, tolerable.
The Royal University of Malta
Authors: Armstrong A. H.
Published: July 2007

It is not my intention in my description of the University of Malta in any way to suggest that this institution is a model, or even a particularly good example of what a Catholic University should be. It is, however, very well worth studying for two reasons. First, because it is unique of its kind, being the only Catholic University (I suppose) in the world which is also a State University supported and controlled by a non-Catholic government. Second, because its history and present state show very clearly that in order to secure a thorough and adequate intellectual and spiritual Catholic formation it is not enough to establish an officially Catholic University, with statutes which make the Catholic religion the basis of instruction and a staff of teachers who profess the Catholic religion. That is only the beginning. It is still necessary to give the body a living and reasonable soul, to make the University a real University and its Catholicism a living and productive faith. The University of Malta never seems quite to have found its soul.

It was founded by Grand Master Pinto de Fonceca of the Sovereign Order of Malta in 1769, and endowed with the buildings and property of the College of the Society of Jesus which the Grand Master had suppressed in 1768. Perhaps something of the atmosphere of Baroque Erastianism has clung about the University from its beginnings. Certainly the Founder, Grand Master Pinto, was a typical enough representative of that pompous and spiritually barren autocracy. From 1769 to the present day the University has continued to exist and function without a break except for a short period during the French occupation of Malta in the time of Napoleon.
The Catholic University of Lille
Authors: Fitzsimons John
Published: July 2007

Lille was at one time the capital of Flanders, and from the early Middle Ages has held an important place in both the religious and military history first of Flanders, then of France. In the early nineteenth century it became the centre of a great industrial area, largely due to its climate and to the coal and iron deposits in its neighbourhood. The nearest parallel that one can find in the rise of industrialism in England is Lancashire, and one may well call the department of the Nord, including as it does Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Fives, Bethune and Lens, the Lancashire of France.

Due to the efforts of a few industrialists and manufacturers, a beginning was made in 1874 with a Catholic University; subscriptions poured in, so that in 1875 the four faculties of law, science, letters and medicine were inaugurated. These, with a more recent addition of a faculty of theology, have remained the nucleus of the University, which is usually styled the Facultés Libres to distinguish it from the secular Facultds d’Etat. It is of interest that as early as 1897, following the lead of Oxford and Cambridge, University Extension lectures were established throughout the regions around the city. Perhaps the most striking manifestation of these was the annual Ecole Normale des dirigeants ouvriers chrétiens, which lasted a fortnight, was attended by the leaders of the Christian working class movements of the whole of the north of France and was addressed by professors from the Catholic University.

It was only natural that the University, set in the midst of an industrial area, should specialise in technical subjects; and there were founded successively an institute of higher industrial studies, and a school of industrial arts and crafts. Later came a department of Social Service and a school of Journalism.
Contemplation and Community
Authors: Lailavoix Louis
Published: July 2007

The importance of human life is seen from the end towards which it tends. That which gives a human being his unique value and place in the symphony of creation is his possession of an immortal soul made by God, for God, and whose duty it is to become “worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called,” which is the “lot of the saints in light.” This is the dominant theme interwoven throughout the fiery melody of God’s love for the human soul, and the integrating principle for all human activity. The fecundity of the divine self-contemplation is made manifest in His creative love which has ordained all things so that they form a far away reflection, a passing shadow of those riches of beauty and order whose plenitude is in Him. “For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; His eternal power also and divinity.” The social structure, therefore, composed of a community of persons mystically united through charity, one in grace yet diverse in operation, whispers of the Trinity of Persons in God. The very fact that we all partake of the same divine life obliges each, through charity, to serve and participate in the necessary Mass of his brothers sanctification, in order that we may become “a chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation.” And the fundamental unit of this greater unity is the family, natural and supernatural, both motivated by the same principle of love, though differently directed as to the immediate end, and each affording to its members an ideal and natural context for the plenary development of those powers within the person whose need of fulfilment occasions their unity.
What is a Jew?
Authors: Mattuck I. I.
Published: July 2007

The question presents difficulties. It would not be asked if the answer was obvious. But the answer is not obvious because the name Jew seems to be used with diverse meanings both by Jews and others. Some give the name primarily a racial significance; a Jew is just one who is born of Jewish parents. Others give the name primarily a national significance; a Jew is one who belongs to a distinctive nation which has a culture of its own, a language of its own, national characteristics of its own, and, they would add, needs a national home or political state of its own. Others give the name Jew a religious content; a Jew is one who is an adherent of Judaism.

These diverse, and divergent, uses of the name Jew arise out of the Jews’ long history. The definition of a Jew must be related to the definition of the Jews as a group. What constitutes a Jew obviously depends on the basis and nature of the collective life of Jews. There are, in general, three categories of human groups— races, nations and religions. Into which of these do the Jews fit? Or, to put the question the other way about, which of these descriptions fits the Jews?

No one of them fits the Jews exactly. For one thing, Jews began their collective existence at a time when these categories were undifferentiated; they simply did not exist in the ancient world. They are comparatively modern divisions. There were separate human groups which included in their collective life all, or nearly all, that is now included under the terms race, nation and religion. That is still largely the case in the part of the Eastern world where the Jews originated; though the influences of the West are producing a growing distinction between religion and nation. The conception of nationality is, however, new.
The Problem
Authors: Quinn Edward
Published: July 2007

It is not a problem, but a mystery : a mystery, that is, as sin is a mystery, and the redemption. In fact, the so-called Jewish problem is an aspect of the mystery hidden from eternity, the divine plan for man’s salvation, made known by the prophets and by Christ, worked out in history but not fully accomplished or revealed in all its grandeur until the end of time. There is therefore no solution of the Jewish ‘problem’ without the intervention of grace, no understanding of it apart from supernatural revelation. It belongs to ‘those things which proceed from the will of God alone and are beyond all rights of the creature ‘and, therefore, according to the sound principle of St. Thomas, ‘can only be known to us as far as they are handed down in Sacred Scripture, through which the divine will is made known ‘(Summa Theologica, III, q. i, a. 3).

To this theme of salvation, even with the emphasis on the place of Israel in it, the whole of the Scriptures are devoted ; but the locus classicus is the Epistle to the Romans ix-xi. Leaving aside all the details of interpretation, concentrating on the clearest and most generally accepted sense of St. Paul’s words, three facts arc certain :

1. The Jewish nation once possessed a unique—and, in fact, the highest—vocation among the nations of the earth ;

2. They failed, as only the noblest can fail, terribly and—but for God’s grace—without hope of restoration ;

3. Before the end they will return, and their restoration will be as glorious as their failure was shameful, for it will correspond to the grandeur of their first calling.
The Root of Bitterness
Authors: Day A. F.
Published: July 2007

Christians have, during the last nineteen centuries, talked and written a vast deal about the Jews and Jews have talked and written a fair amount about Christians : in both cases the percentage of rubbish has been considerable. It is comforting to think that in this special number of Blackfriars the usual proportion will be reversed and sense will predominate greatly over nonsense. Indeed, the nonsense will probably be, if at all, in a very mild and inoffensive form. Naturally the present contribution is not included in the last remark.

For thirty years at least I have been a frequent talker and writer on this subject. Few have pronounced or written the word ‘Jew’ as often as myself. That word, lovely in itself and in its meaning— it derives from ‘Judah’ (the ‘praise of Jehovah’)—has at times, as the result of repeated use, lost something of its sweet aroma.

In the early months of what the blurb of a recent modest publication kindly calls my ‘campaigning,’ my conscience accuses me of having made several silly utterances on the subject, for which there lingers in my sub-consciousness a smouldering sense of shame. Some extenuation of guilt may be found in the fact that Judeology—to give it a high-sounding name—is a difficult science, presenting problems comparable almost to those that beset the hapless wight who tries to understand Predestination or Bimetahsm. Anyone who would expound its mysteries must qualify for the task by a course of what Virgil, ni fallor, styles ‘labor improbus.’ As a preliminary, he must, as far as may be, purge his soul of prejudice—a most insidious and deep-rooted disease—and beware also of every form of sentiment that savours of sentimentality. He must endeavour to be objective, concrete and scientific. Let him make sure of his facts and rigorously test his conclusion.
England's Political Future
Authors: Foster Paul Urban
Published: July 2007

When General Simuts delivered his much-discussed Thoughts on the New World, he gave utterance to some home-truths which badly needed enunciating. As he warned his audience, his remarks were intended to be stimulating, lacking in ‘diplomatic ‘qualification, not to be an expression of carefully-balanced policy. Especially have his remarks about France provoked reaction. ‘A nation,’ he said, ‘that has been overtaken by a catastrophe such as she has suffered, reaching to the foundations of her nationhood, will not easily resume her nationhood again. We may talk about her as a Great Power, but talking will not help her much.’

There have been protests against these blunt, almost brutal, words, by those who love and long for the culture of France. But these protests are not to the point; the culture of a nation survives and is of influence long after that nation has ceased to be a political reality, and French culture will be no exception. But to be a political reality a nation must have a State-will which can be made effective both for national life and for external preservation, and such a State-will demands at least a measure of national unity. The prospects of French unity—and this General Smuts must have had in mind—fill her friends with dismay, if not despair. News from Algiers does not suggest the development of a wide national coalition of French statesmen and the prospect is more easily foreseen in the words of a charming French actress, depicted in Picture Post of Nov. 27th, 1943, as saying : ‘After the war there will be a lot of people to be shot in France. Then we will start again.’
God, and Analogy
Authors: Ryan Columba
Published: July 2007

God is. A New Order cannot be made without God. To some these things will seem banal; to others, conventionally devout nonsense. Nothing is more important, few things more urgent, than to show they are neither banal nor nonsensical. It needs no showing, once understood the meaning of those first two words, ‘God is’; but we are in unprecedented danger of not understanding. Men have attained such control over the natural order and such sufficiency in the artificial (successful war does but further the process) as to have lost nearly all sense of dependency and insufficiency. With that sense goes the natural sense of God. Ideas of God may survive, but too often notional only, conventional; and sometimes, in journalism almost always, useful. As long as we are not as serious and at as great pains at knowing-and realising God for Who He Is as are secular investigators at planning and reorganising, we have only ourselves to blame that the public be interested in plans and! not in churches. Nor should we too glibly prophesy the ruin of the godless order; planning is not a whit the less efficient and administrable in the short run for being without God; it is merely soulless; only in the very long run is it doomed. But its spiritual poverty as long as it lasts, and its final ruin woud be imputable not to the planners, but to ourselves who failed to plan divinely; who failed to sift the dross of religious sentimentality and convention from the gold of God, and left God to be abandoned.
Mystici Corporis: The Fullness of Catholic Life
Authors: Vann Gerald
Published: July 2007

Is the Church a democracy? It is a question which cannot be answered by a simple yes or no, and without preliminary definition of the term. Democracy does not necessarily imply the rule of all by all; it does imply first of all a society in which the citizens are complete individuals, persons, whose life and destiny the State must not subjugate to its own purposes, but serve; and it does imply, secondly, that the individuals contribute, according-to their different gifts and therefore their different functions, to the shaping and growth of the life of society. And is the Church a democratic society in this sense? There are many, catholic as well as non-catholic, who would be inclined to answer no. Information, direction, power, they would say, all alike come from above ; for the rank and file there is nothing to do but to receive what is given and to do what is commanded.

It is easy to find solid arguments for this view. Faith and law and power are indeed given from above; the Church, the ecclesia docens, has the office of guarding and giving them ; you find in the Gospel the picture of the sheep and the Shepherd, and what have the sheep to do but to obey, and be fed by, the Shepherd? What has the ordinary catholic to do but obey his pastors and so make his way to heaven?
Trends of Catholic Thought on The Continent
Authors: Hennig John
Published: July 2007

Amidst the turmoils of the war, of which the Eternal City itself has become one of. the centres, the Holy Father has issued two Encyclicals devoted entirely to subjects interest in which is apparently confined to theologians. These are the Encyclical oh biblical studies and the earlier Mystici corporis Christi. The encouragement given through the first of these Encyclicals to the study of Holy Scripture is of the greatest significance with regard to countries which, in that respect, still labour under ideas formed during the Penal times. But what interest to these is the refutation of certain theological errors as given in the Encyclical Mystici Corporis? Where, in English Catholic literature, have the excesses of the liturgical movement or the exaggerations of the teaching on the mystical Body of Christ, referred to in that Encyclical, been advocated?

The passages in which the Encyclical concerns itself with those errors clearly refer to the Continent, in particular to Central Europe. If we regard the spiritual position of German-speaking Catholics as one of the most important points in the reconstruction of Europe and its Christian tradition, those errors gain in topical significance. The history of Catholic theology and philosophy of the 19th century reveals two main influences. The one, mainly concerning philosophy and dogma, originated from the philosophical movement known as German idealism. Far from being confined to Germany, however, it comprised, in its very origin and foundation, at least France as well. It influenced not only German Catholics whose teachings the Church condemned, such as Hermes, Guenther, Frohschammer and in later years Schell, but also French and Italian thinkers including Lammenais, Bautain and Rosmini.
A ‘Common’ Life
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: July 2007

Many tributes have been paid to the exceptional character and gifts of the late Fr. George Fressanges, who met his death so tragically at the height of his powers in the Ilford train crash in January. He has been the subject of a sermon preached in Norwich Cathedral; the leader of the Nonconformists in Norwich has written of him as a ‘Man of God,’ a saint; and the Catholic recognition has been widespread. But the breadth of Fr. Fressanges’s character and accomplishments was so extensive that no attempt has as yet been made to convey a whole portrait of the man,, nor could it be for several years. But while we hope that eventually some worthy biography shall appear to assist Catholicism in England, it may be of value not only to the future biographer but to those who will be built up or ‘edified’ by the example of a great priest to outline one aspect of Fr. Fressanges’s life.

He was ordained by Bishop Youens in the last days of 1936, so that his life as a priest lasted just over seven years. The first six months were spent as a curate at Sheringham, where there was not very wide scope for his inexhaustible vitality; the remaining six and a half years he spent at Norwich. During that time he was never more than a curate, being on the eve of receiving a parish of his own when he met his death.
Adveniat Regnum Tuum
Authors: A.B.
Published: July 2007

‘We can all be apostles and we can all share in the work of Christ Our Lord in some way. But the way which seems to be most necessary to-day in England is that we should improve our knowledge of the Faith aqd do our best to explain Catholic teaching and practice to others.’

That was the conclusion of the Pastoral Letter for Lent 1944 of . His Grace the Archbishop of Birmingham ; and arising out of an earlier passage in the Letter which runs :—7” One bright spot in this rather sombre picture (of the present state of religious knowledge among Catholics in this country) is the recent formation of a Diocesan Guild of Catechists,” a footnote added: “Particulars of the Archdiocesan Guild of Catechists may be obtained from the Rev. B. Hodgson, St. Peter’s, Broad Street, Birmingham, or from the Rev. R. H. Nicholson, D.D., Oscott College, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham.” That is, from the Director and Examiner appointed to the Guild by His Grace. It is because His Grace consented to become its President that his chosen device, as it appears on his coat of arms, seemed a suitable title for an account of the origin, aims and methods of the Guild of Catechists to which he has given his blessing as being one of the ways of working for the coming of the Kingdom.
Nuns in The Home
Authors: A.C.M.S.
Published: July 2007

This Modern Age with its Radio, Cinema and extended educational fields has caused the working people to desire increasing improvements in their living conditions. This in itself is good, but coupled with a growing materialism it has become of too great an importance even to Catholics. But the fact is undeniable that we do set a great store by our creature comforts these days. And Catholics should be the last to cry down any attempt, at levelling up as opposed to the all-too-frequently expressed desire for levelling down.

The fulfilment of this desire for a nice home, well dressed children and other amenities of life has, especially among the great and increasing lower middle-class, caused new and exceedingly grave problems to appear. To understand these problems it is essential to understand the mental attitude of those to whom they apply.

These people are the great suburban dwellers, with their small but well appointed houses which they, very naturally, love. The non-Catholic parents of, perhaps, only two children find no great problem. They have raised their families to suit their own wishes and their means, and often not for several years after marriage. The possibility of more children with the added expense and the greatly added work does not. arise. They have the means to prevent any such unwelcome additions to the family, so they live as they have chosen to do, and have the time and the money to bring their children up well, materially at least, and still maintain a high standard of living. Their house is favourably compared to any in the street.
The Playmate of The Universe
Authors: O'Connor John
Published: July 2007

Spirit of understatement, possess us now! This book is worthy of its subject both in size and texture; and complete with bibliography and index, is a bit of ‘orl right ‘as Chesterton’s hansom cabby said when he had driven a long way up a blind alley. The 574 pages are packed well with matter of almost all possible variety and charm, and he who reads it through will want it by him to read in and out of. Labour of love it must have been, for the gifted authoress hints at thousands upon thousands of pages (even of Hansard) carefully perused and sifted, with thousands of letters either judiciously condensed or quoted at length. Indeed no pains have been spared to make it another Boswell, a super-Boswell let us say.

For Johnson’s world was smaller if more impressive than the world of Chesterton, and it did not press so close around him, nor didi Johnson re-act so vigorously or so ubiquitously to every breeze that blew from the great deep. Whether one came from the provinces with the hayseed in one’s hair, or took tea with Chesterton in darkest Yorkshire, one was at a loss for nearly half a day to guess what were biting the big man at the hour of contact. For he had informations from sources unknown, tips from horses’ mouths over and above the mystery of Fleet Street, tips which made him more alive to current events than the whole Press, which after all is but the opium of the people. This serious side of his life is well and truly set forth with growing emphasis throughout the body of the book, and his tragic interest in the Marconi matter is juridically dealt with by the author’s barrister husband, Frank Sheed.
St. Thomas Aquinas and Jung's Psychology
Authors: White Victor
Published: July 2007

Mythology is replete with stories of the childlike wisdom which dares and does where the wise and prudent of this world quail and fail. Fr. Witcutt knows the value of mythology and has learned its lesson. His Catholic Thought and Modern Psychology is no profound and learned academic treatise. It is, on the contrary, a naive book; indeed a spritely book. Neither the depths of the unconscious nor the heights of theological and philosophical speculation hold any terrors for him. From one to the other he passes—we might almost say he gambols—with enviable ease and assurance, unintimidated by any excessive concern for the’ complexities of the problem he has set himself, or any inhibiting regard for pettifogging accuracy.

It would be a great mistake to neglect his book on that account. ‘Some,’ said Aristotle, ‘require exactness in everything, while others are annoyed by it. . . for there is something about exactness which seems to some people to be mean. . . .; hence one must be trained how to take each kind of argument.’ The job Fr. Witcutt has undertaken desperately needed doing. For it is a job which the pundits neither of ‘Catholic Thought ‘nor of ‘Modern Psychology ‘have hitherto attempted to do; a job which they still seem far from being ready to do. From among the Catholics, Dalbiez, it is true, after a magnificent restatement of Freud, and a less satisfying endeavour to free Freud’s psychology from Freud’s philosophy, has attempted a dubious mutual non-intervention pact between psychoanalysis and religion. Alters has modified Adler in a direction more acceptable to Catholics; at the expense, however, of abandoning depth-psychology altogether. There has been a good deal of unprincipled eclecticism. But at co-ordination and synthesis there has hitherto been little or no attempt.
Alfred Loisy
Authors: Pope Hugh
Published: July 2007

Loisy died in 1940 and his devoted disciple, Miss Maud Petre, died in December', 1942. In the pages of this book she attempts to explain the Abba’s religious standpoint by copious citations from his writings, adding her own comments, verily those of a disciple. Just over forty years have elapsed since the publication of L'Evangile et l’Eglise took the ecclesiastical world by storm and, with its sequel Autour d’un petit livre, was condemned by the Holy See in 1903. Loisy declined to submit.

What a tragic story it is ! Nor is the telling of it by his devoted disciple less so. For while endeavouring to preserve her independence, she is plainly in full sympathy with the master’s main contentions. I have read her pages twice if not thrice, and—harsh though it may seem—the word ‘egoist,’ applicable to master and disciple alike, keeps recurring to the mind.

As Miss Petre herself says : ‘Loisy lived by mind rather than by heart, and mental agreement was, for him, essential to friendship.’ Hence the breach, first with Duchesne, then with von Hugel: ‘his Memoires testify to his sensitiveness and inability to endure contradiction patiently.’ Pius X, to whom Loisy had appealed, saw this clearly : ‘I have received a letter from Loisy; but while his appeal is addressed to my heart, his letter was not written from his own heart.’
English Husbandry
Authors: Eden Helen Parry
Published: July 2007

Of all goods which can be privately owned, none is more conformable to the teaching of Rerum Novarum than the land, the plot of earth on which the family lives and from ihe fruits of which, wholly or in part, it draws its livelihood. . . Only the stability which has its roots in the land privately owned, makes the family tne most perfect and fertile living cell of society, causing as it does a coherent continuity between present and future.’—Pius XII., Whitsuntide, 1941.

For one whose training has been mainly historical, to review two books on the land might seem a misapplication of industry. But, as John Selden said, ‘most men’s learning is nothing but history duly taken up ‘; and it is their historical grasp of what agriculture has meant and must mean to civilization that Tenders Sir George Stapledon’s work and Mr. Rolf Gardiner’s important. England to whom agriculture has come to signify merely an industry with a snag in it—the least effective of all the many extant methods of exploiting humanity—must listen to such men or die. Their ‘history duly taken up ‘allies them to that of many papal pronouncements, which they—more than any English Catholics, except a handful of Distributists—have done their best to implement.

Sir George Stapledon, whose reclamation of grass-lands is world-famous, has found time to become one of the land’s foremost evangelists. He now annotates and enlarges on the agricultural programme of one of England’s most far-sighted statesmen. That Disraeli was never in a position to carry out the land policy he urged, was a national disaster which Disraeli and the New Age bewails and explains. The policy, however, is there to be reconstructed. And that is where Sir George Stapledon comes in.
The Polish Dominican Province To‐Day
Authors: Bochenski I. M.
Published: July 2007

The Dominican map of Poland is a queer one. It is true that one can hardly find a town in Poland without a Dominican church and priory (the fathers numbered more than 2,000 and had about 200 houses at the first partition in 1772), but the churches do not belong now to the Order and the priories are being used as schools or prisons. For in the provinces occupied by Russia and Germany in 1772 and 1795, i.c. in 80% of the Polish territory, the religious life was proscribed and the monasteries confiscated. What we see now on the Dominican map is the result of this historical fact, combined with the striving of the new Polish Province to re-occupy its right place in Catholic life of the whole country.

So it happens that the bulk of the priories is situated in the south, in the former ‘Galicia.’ There the Dominicans had eleven out of their 16 houses which were nourishing in 1939—among them the venerable Monastery of Cracow, tlie great tormer ‘studium generale’ of Podkamien with about 300 cells, and the actual seat of the Provincial with its fine baroque church at Lwow. The other priories are small and unimportant relics of the time when the Austrian Government allowed the religious orders to exist only on condition that they occupied themselves exclusively in plain parish work.
Poles Who Are Not Poles
Authors: Attwater Donald
Published: July 2007

The fact that Nazi Germany’s assault on Poland’s independence was the occasion of our declaring war, the bestial treatment of Polish citizens by the occupying'power, and a realization of the outrageous partitions of that country in the farther past have stirred the people of Great Britain to a determination that Poland shall be again restored and justice done in her regard. And In particular the enthusiasm (not unmixed with romanticism and a rather highly-coloured rhetoric) with which over years numerous Catholics have been foremost in upholding the Polish cause has brought to that cause an atmosphere of sacredness and mystique.

It is the more regrettable, therefore, that the people of Great Britain in general should have in certain respects an inadequate conception of the Polish situation : that they should (as so many of them do) imagine that the inhabitants of Poland are an almost entirely homogeneous people, one in culture, religion and history; that they should believe the difficulty about Eastern PoTand to be a straight issue between a united Poland on the one hand and the U.S.S.R. on the other.
A Common Wealth of Peoples
Authors: Bidmead Harold S.
Published: July 2007

Provided we do not blind ourselves to its present defects, nor leave its undeveloped potentialities unexplored, our British Commonwealth system of regulating-international affairs can justly be regarded as an object lesson for those who will shape the peace. General Smuts has described it as ‘this greatest experiment in political organisation, this proudest political structure of time, this precedent and anticipation of what one hopes may be in store for human society in the years to come.’ On the other hand, Lionel Curtis, who shared with Smuts and others the task of creating the Union of South Africa, makes the following criticism in ‘Decision and Action ‘(Oxford University Press) :—

‘In 1914 the British Commonwealth had failed to prevent the outbreak of world war. In 1919 a League was constructed on the model of the British Commonwealth, into which that Commonwealth was incorporated. By 1939 the two together had completely failed to prevent the outbreak of an even more terrible world war.’

If we are wise, we shall study, with equal impartiality, these apparently conflicting but really complementary points of view. Curtis divides political systems into two kinds; organic (states such as Great Britain, federations such as the U.S.A.) and inorganic (confederations, alliances, leagues). The British Commonwealth he regards as a mixture of both, and cites Mr. Menzies of Australia to prove that its effective functioning is primarily due to some degree of hegemony exercised by the Mother country. His book demonstrates that inorganic systems are unstable and that as regards international coalitions for war purposes ‘history, when it comes to be written, always shows how the inorganic bond of alliance hastened defeat or delayed victory.’
The Obscurity of Modern Poetry
Authors: Churchill R. C.
Published: July 2007

To assert that modern verse is needlessly obscure is not to range oneself alongside those who regard Kipling and Mr. Masefield as the standard by which their successors should’ infallibly be judged. Nor is it to be in the (position of the dear old don who, in the early ’thirties, interviewed me for a scholarship, which I did not obtain, at one of the Oxford colleges.

Your answers have so far been fairly satisfactory,’ he said, ‘but have you read any modern poetry?’

The name Eliot’ was trembling on my lips, and would have been uttered had he not bereft me temporarily of speech by adding : Tennyson or Swinburne, for example?’

To come nearer home, I do not share myself the contempt for the poetry pf the ‘Georgians’ that is so fashionable to-day. Gibson, Brooke, Abercrombie, Drinkwater, de la Mare, Blunden, Davies and the rest wrote excellent simple verse on simple subjects. The poets of the ’thirties, and even more, the poets writing since the war, keep to simple subjects, often extremely naive subjects, but wrap them up in a modern, fashionable ‘poetic diction’ which they claim to have been invented by Hopkins, Yeats, Pound, Eliot and Joyce. This claim needs looking into.

The Marxist poets in Britain fell, of course, between two stools. They tried to equate an ingenuous code of politics with the expression in verse of the complexities of the modern world. Their needless obscurity was intended to cover up the confusions they inevitably ran into. They styled themselves the followers of Eliot, until the elder poet (in the comic words of John Strachey) ‘encouraged no doubt by the 1922-9 period of capitalist recovery, left the despair of the Waste Land behind him and took up the position of a highly intellectual reactionary.’ Thenceforward, Mr. Eliot was a ‘pedant,’ to borrow a diatribe from Louis MacNeice.