bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The ‘Adeste Fideles’
Authors: Britten James
Published: July 2007

Every Christmas as it returns brings with it as an inseparable adjunct the Adeste Fideles. To a Catholic, as to an Anglican, Christmas would not be Christmas without it. Yet it can claim no great antiquity: it finds no place in Missal or Breviary, nor has it any liturgical association.

Its origin—whether as to words or tune—is ‘wropt in mistery,’ nor has any definite light been thrown upon either. Both have been discussed at intervals for at least fifty years, with little result—I was surprised, on looking up some of the references in Notes and Queries, extending over fifty years, to discover from one of them that in 1879 I knew almost as much about the hymn as I do now. That the mystery as to origin should apply equally to the words and the music is hardly surprising, for both are, and have always been, so inseparably associated that it is difficult to imagine an independent source for either, although, as will be seen, this has been suggested.

It will probably come as a surprise to many, considering the various periods to which the hymn has been assigned, that our first definite knowledge of both words and music dates from the middle of the eighteenth century and comes from an English source. This is supplied by John Francis Wade, a church student who did not go on to the priesthood, though he is referred to as a priest: he compiled collections of church music, the words and notes being beautifully written, of which four copies are extant—the earliest at Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare, Ireland, dated 17491; the others in the Ewing Library, Glasgow, at Stonyhurst College, and at St. Edmund’s College, Ware, dated respectively, 1750, 1751, and 1760.
St. Paul's Reprehension of St. Peter
Authors: McNabb Vincent
Published: July 2007

‘But when Cephas was come to Antioch I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that some came from James he did eat with the Gentiles : but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them of the circumcision. And to his dissimulation the rest of the Jews consented, so that Barnabas also was led by them into that dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly unto the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas before them all: If thou being a Jew livest after the manner of the Gentiles and not as the Jews, how dost thou compel the Gentiles to live asi the Jews?’

(Galatians II, 11-14.)

The circumstances of the Epistle to the Galatians are these :—

1. St. Paul had preached to the Galatians. He had taught them that Gentile converts need not be circumcised (Jewish converts would be already circumcised); and that the neo-Christians were not bound to observe the Law. ‘Behold I Paul tell you that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing’ (v. 2).

2. A group of Christians, probably quoting the authority of St. James, Bishop of Jerusalem, took advantage of St. Paul’s absence from Galatia to teach that circumcision was necessary for the convert Gentiles. ‘. . . they will have you to be circumcised’ (vi. 13), ‘. . . a little leaven’ (v. 9), ‘. . . some that trouble you would pervert the gospel of Christ’ (i. 7).

3. It is therefore a matter of dispute between one apostle (Paul) and at least the followers of another (James).

In such a dispute the most important element is the tribunal of appeal, without which no agreement between the parties disagreeing can be found.

The appeal—explicit or implicit—seems to have been to the authority or practice of St. Peter.

4. But St. Peter was claimed by both sides. The lovScuoi from Jerusalem could claim that St Peter had allowed St. James’s view to determine his own-course of action. ‘Before that some came from James he (Peter) did eat with the Gentiles. But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself’ (ii. 12).

St. Paul does not deny (a) the authority of St. Peter or (b) the alleged fact. He does not say ‘Peter’s action is of no authority.’
The Authorship of the ‘Cloud of Unknowing’
Authors: Noetinger Dom Maurice
Published: July 2007

After a long period of neglect the English Mystics of the fourteenth century are coming again to the light. Patient workers have provided us with accurate texts and greatly helped to show how valuable are the writings of these mystics. One may perhaps apply to their re-birth the words that St. Ambrose used of the birth of St. John the Baptist: ‘Habet sanctorum editio laetitiam plurimorum, quia commune bonum est.’ This is especially the case with the most original writer of the whole school, the anonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing and of the Epistles connected with it. It is true that Father Henry Collins, so long ago as 1870, edited the Cloud and the Epistle of Privy Counsel; but his text, though sufficient for devotional use, was not very exact, chiefly as regards the Epistle, and it was not till 1912 that the Cloud was issued for the first time in all its genuineness and originality. We must remain very grateful to Miss Evelyn Underhill for her work.

There is room, however, for other editions—as Miss Underhill herself would acknowledge—and Catholics will welcome the news that a new one, containing— I hope—the Cloud and all the Epistles, is now being prepared for the ‘Orchard Books’ by Dom Justin McCann. It will do a great service to contemplative souls, and I believe that there may still be many such among the countrymen of St. Bede, Rolle, Hilton, and Father Baker.

Will this new edition throw light on the question of the authorship of the Cloud and its attendant treatises? That is perhaps to hope too much, for the problem is one that has hitherto baffled every investigator.
The Monks of Unity
Authors: McCann Dom Justin
Published: July 2007

The problem of the Unity of Christendom, and in particular of the reconciliation of the East, has occupied the minds of the Popes, sometimes more sometimes less urgently, since the consummation of the schism under Michael Cerularius in the eleventh century. But hitherto all their efforts have been in vain. The Councils of Lyons and Florence were abortive. The personal efforts of individual Popes have not met with any greater success. In the last century Popes Pius IX and Leo XIII both tried to reopen official relations with the East, but their overtures were rejected. Yet, nothing daunted, the Holy See is now embarked upon another effort after Christian Unity.

It would appear that in this new effort the Holy See is approaching the matter, not with any less courage or confidence, not in any spirit of compromise or dissimulation of the truth, but with a special emphasis on what may be called the psychological conditions of the problem. It would have the apostles of unity set forth the Catholic doctrine in its fullness; but it would have them also approach their enterprise in the spirt of charity and sympathy. It would have them endeavour, before all else, to remove prejudice and misunderstanding, to abstain from acute controversy, to create an atmosphere of peace and mutual sympathy.

For what is the main obstacle to Christian Unity? There are, of course, dogmatic obstacles, reducible finally, at least in the case of the Eastern Churches, to the one point of the Primacy of the Apostolic See. But it appears to the Holy Father that dogma is not the whole difficulty, nor the most immediate difficulty.
On Reading
Authors: Richings Ronald
Published: July 2007

Reading may be a disease or a delight; in either case, there are attendant evils and delicious rewards. From a very early age it has been my greatest pleasure, and I remember one or two occasions when, having been sent to the corn-chandler for pigeons’ food, I was coerced into a display of precocity by being made to read aloud some entirely unintelligible section of a newspaper for the edification of another customer. The merchant took a strange pleasure in my accomplishment; I used to think him amiably eccentric in consequence, especially as he gave me a penny for my pains.

There is much pleasure in reading aloud : I discovered it while I was at a kindergarten school, and exasperated my family by declaiming what was in my own book while they wished to peruse theirs in silence. It was vanity, I suppose, but I didn’t think of that until a man told me frankly, a few years ago, that his chief satisfaction in reading aloud was to hear the sound of his own voice. I was shocked. Honesty is so shocking.

Latterly I have rediscovered the joy of reading aloud : I have been mercifully provided with nephews and nieces who like me to do it, so I have the additional pleasure of renewing very old book-acquaintances in appropriate circumstances.

The worst evil that has befallen me, however, is that I have grown to be a miser.
Signals
Authors: Hagreen Philip
Published: July 2007

Of the hero of this story I know little, but as that little is known perhaps only to me, I record it. It must have been some time in 1915 that I first met him. At a dismal ‘depôt’ in the Midlands, I was sharing a leaky tent with a fellow Second Lieutenant known to his friends as ‘Jimbo.’ As we were endeavouring, by means of a Primus stove, to dry some clothes faster than the leakage of the tent wetted them, we were nowise pleased to hear that a newcomer was allotted to our tent, and to have to make room for the baggage that his batman dropped squelching in the entrance. Its owner soon followed, muttering frightful things about the climate and the Kaiser.

He would have been tall if he had not stooped. He had thick black eyebrows that almost met, and that gave nim a scowling expression belied by the genial smile of his thick lips. We soon learned that he was our senior as an officer, and that he was some kind of engineer oy profession. It was some hours later that I found he was a Catholic. Though naturally silent, he was by no means unsociable, and he dropped into his place in that tent as though he had known us for years.
Ten Vermeers
Authors: Sedgwick R. L.
Published: July 2007

All men fall under the spell of Vermeer’s pictures, although the roads leading to the temple of their adoration are many. This man bends the knee because the Delfter has taught him what colour really is; the man yonder loves them for their charming intimacy. To him Vermeer is the Elia of painters because he can introduce a man to his family and relatives without boring him and at the same time make him feel that he is the one and only friend to whom he accords the privilege. Another may be drawn by the intrinsic genre revealed in the interiors. I think I was first attracted to him on hearing that he paid his baker with his pictures instead of with coin; for there was ever a dearth of the latter in the Vermeer home.

It doesn’t really matter however why you like Vermeer : reasons are not always essential. We all understand the couplet:

‘I do not like thee Dr. Fell.The reason why I cannot tell.’
Gustav Mahler
Authors: Smythe Barbara
Published: July 2007

It was at the end of a pre-war summer holiday in and around Munich—on September 12th, 1910, to be precise—after the Oberammergau Passion Play and the customary feast of Beethoven, Mozart and Wagner, that I first heard a symphony by Gustav Mahler. The concert had not been included in our pre-arranged programme, for, although my companion had heard Mahler conduct Tristan in London many years before, his own music was quite unknown to us, and we did not realise how important an event in the musical life of Europe was the first performance, conducted by himself, of his Eighth Symphony. We were persuaded by a Bavarian acquaintance to prolong our stay for a few days in order to be present at what we were assured would be a memorable occasion, and we were rewarded by hearing a work and a performance (or rather two performances, for the Symphony was played on two successive evenings, and we seized the opportunity of hearing it a second time) which made an unforgettable impression. Performances such as those two were destined never to bq heard again, for Mahler died a few months later, and no other conductor’s interpretation could quite equal his own, but the work remains, and has aroused enthusiasm in many countries. Now at last it is finding its way to England, and is to be performed at the Queen’s Hall, London, on April 12th next. Mahler’s work has been so much neglected in this country that the occasion seems fitting for a slight account of his life and work, more especially as the Eighth Symphony gives final and triumphant expression to ideas that are gradually taking form and developing through his earlier works.
The Duty of the Voter
Authors: Ginns Reginald
Published: July 2007

In view of the General Election, promised for the early summer, political organisations of every colour are girding their loins for the contest and striving to stir up enthusiasm in the electorate. So far, however, it would seem that enthusiasm and even bare interest are lacking among the people in general. Even the possibilities of the increased feminine vote—that uncertain factor which may play such a decisive part in turning the political scales—fail to arouse interest. Nobody seems to care very much what will happen.

Is it possible that this is due, even here in England, to the growth of that contempt of modern parliamentary government which has led several of our Latin neighbours to throw parliaments aside and to set up temporary dictatorships? A very dangerous experiment, fraught with great risks! For, as St. Thomas says, ‘monarchic government is the best form of government; but on account of the great power entrusted to the monarch (whatever he may be called), monarchy easily degenerates into tyranny, unless the one to whom such power is entrusted be a man of perfect virtue.’ However, this is not to say that it is an unjustifiable experiment. Dangerous diseases, whether in the individual or in the body politic, call for drastic remedies; and it is a Gospel principle that ‘if thine eye scandalise thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.’ We are of the opinion that, of the two, a military dictatorship is less dangerous than the financial dictatorship with which we are threatened.
Saints, Sinners and Hospitals
Authors: Ward Maisie
Published: July 2007

In Monsieur Vincent, a book which has been much read of late in France, the author, Henri Lavedan, describing the horrors of the Hotel Dieu or chief hospital of Paris from an eighteenth century document, remarks that conditions were doubtless worse still in the seventeenth century. Why ‘doubtless’? Does he believe, one wonders, in the nineteenth century theory of inevitable progress; is each century really better in every way than the one which preceded it?

Many years ago Lecoy de la Marche, in his Guerre aux Erreurs, Historiques, had shown the weakness of this theory when dealing with the very theme of the help given to the poor in the Middle Ages. Both seventeenth and eighteenth centuries far from marking any sort of advance showed a terrible falling off from the standards and the practice of the past.
The Church and Nationalism
Authors: Erskine R.
Published: July 2007

I suppose that most of us have been reading of late, and reading with keen enjoyment, the excellent translation of M. Maritain’s Three Reformers, which Messrs. Sheed and Ward have published to our common debt. For my part, I have read the book twice already, and I hope to read it again; for good literature resembles fine wine, which no man of sense gulps down in a hurry as does a barbarian, but lingers over lovingly, sipping it contentedly whilst he distinguishes its different merits. I have also read some of the reviews which the remarkable treatise spoken of has occasioned in the press; and it is on one of these—namely, that which appeared recently in The Times Literary Supplement—that the following observations are based. The critique I mention is on the whole a very just one. The writer of it seems well qualified for his task; but there is one remark of his which seems to me highly debatable.

Speaking of Luther, he says : ‘He separates faith and reason (which M. Maritain shows that Luther feared and detested), God and man. Imbued with the spirit of Church discipline and authority, in which he had been trained, he produced the immediate effect of an autocratic Erastianism throughout Germany, and was thus one of the ancestors of political nationalism.’
The Emancipation Debt to O'Connell
Authors: Jarrett Bede
Published: July 2007

Though the history of Catholic Emancipation in England is a long one, and though the names of those who helped forward its achievement are many, the actual passing of the Bill was due entirely to oiie man, Daniel O’Connell. It was his plan that was accepted by the Catholics, his form of Bill that was accepted by the Government and Parliament, and his personal energy and political sagacity that carried the movement and guided it, till its success was attained. To him more than to any single man these Centenary celebrations should do honour.

Born in 1775, he was a humble Catholic lawyer, with a burning enthusiasm and a stirring and inflammatory eloquence; he lived through and watched carefully the events that preceded and followed the troubles of 1798. From his consideration of these, he learnt as his own lesson, a disbelief in physical force, a hatred of the French Revolution, and a distrust of secret conspiracy. Hence, his own methods were founded upon a very different philosophy than that of the heroes of ‘98. His political plan was to concentrate upon every sort of agitation, as violently as possible, but without bloodshed. His eloquence was able to produce the agitation and his personal dominating power was able to keep that agitation perfectly within bounds.
Charles Butler and His Friends
Authors: Gwynn Denis
Published: July 2007

It will be very regrettable if, in this centenary year of Catholic Emancipation, some one competent does not undertake to write a Life of Charles Butler. The full story of his work for the advancement of the English Catholics should illuminate the whole condition of the Church in England in the last critical years of the penal laws, when an increasing number of Catholic families had abandoned the Faith, and when the prevailing philosophical tendencies brought new dangers to the small remnant that still remained steadfast. In Ireland, the persecution of the Church had been so thorough and vindictive that the Catholic population had been deprived of almost everything, and had practically nothing left to lose. But in England, the fact that the few Catholic families were mostly of the propertied class was a continual source of temptation to surrender.

Almost every year, as the second half of the eighteenth century wore on, some new case of apostasy would reduce still further the small number of devoted Catholic families, who still kept the faith alive and had gathered round them groups of dependents and retainers who attended Mass in the private chapels of the great houses. ‘In this year alone,’ wrote the Rev. Charles Berington in 1780, when Charles Butler had just reached his thirtieth year, ‘we have lost more by the defection of the two mentioned gentlemen (the heirs of the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Teynham) than we have gained by Proselytes since the Revolution.’
General John Burgoyne, 1730-1792
Authors: Gumbley Walter
Published: July 2007

English Anti-Catholic legislation reached its climax in the first year of the reign of William and Mary, when it provided that, in future, all recruits, before enlistment in the army, should be forced to take the attestation oath forswearing the Catholic religion. This stupid piece of bigotry prevented Catholics from engaging in the defence of their native land, and drove many ardent young spirits amongst English, Scottish, and Irish Catholics into foreign military service. Thus England was robbed of men who would have led her armies with the same brilliant success that attended them in their foreign commands. Every student of European history is confronted, from time to time, with the names of Brown, O’Donnell, Blake, MacMahon, to mention but a few. Perhaps the best known of these were the two Browns, Count George Brown, who held a high command in the Russian army, and his brilliant nephew, Ulysses Maximilian Brown, Count of the Holy Roman Empire and Field Marshal of Austria, who, after checking the victorious Frederick the Great on the field of Lobositz, 1756, fell in the battle of Prague (1757).
Democracy and The General Election
Authors: de la Bedoyere Michael
Published: July 2007

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

This Election is bound to be of historic importance, as it marks the end of that movement for the reform of the franchise, which was started with such excitement and trepidation by the Whigs in 1832. The years 1867, 1884, 1918, and 1928 are so many steps the nation has taken with a slow but unhesitating stride along a road as inevitable as any in her history. ‘We have opened a door which can never again be closed,’ moaned the young Tory, Newman, proving himself a much wiser prophet than the introducer of the bill himself, Lord John Russell, nicknamed ‘Finality Jack,’ because of his belief that the reform of 1832 was to be final.
The Pope's Foreign Mercenaries
Authors: Gibbons John
Published: July 2007

The arresting phrase occurs in one of the rich crop of paragraphs called up by the recent return of Italian recognition of the Temporal Power. The pre-1870 Papal Railway, the old Papal Coach, the States of the Church Navy, and of course the famous Foreign Legions of the little Roman Army, each has served as a convenient peg on which to hang some sort of an article. Wonderfully interesting many of them have been. Only if we get some real facts down in black and white, they may prove scarcely less interesting.

Let us begin, then, with’ the Papal Army of to-day. First comes the famous Swiss Guard. Only it hardly concerns us English. For nobody but a Swiss may join it, and incidentally no Swiss may outside his own Army join anything else. It is his Government’s solitary exception to its Foreign Enlistment Act. Next comes the Noble Guard, the Corps to which Pope Pius IX was in his youth refused admission through a bodily weakness. With the exception of the war years, enlistment has always been rigorously confined to the Roman aristocracy, and our only thought for it need be that next to our own Life Guards at Whitehall it provided until recently the world’s last remaining instance of a mounted guard. There used to be five— at Petrograd, Potsdam, Paris, the Vatican, and Whitehall. To-day, our pageant of a guard over a Palace which is not there stands magnificently solitary in its class. Next in the Papal Army comes the Palatine Guard of Honour, a force of volunteers, whose only function is a parade order on occasions of great ceremony, and last of all we have the Pontifical Gendarmerie, really the Vatican Police.
Dr. Gore's Bible Commentary
Authors: Pope Hugh
Published: July 2007

Including the Editors, some fifty-six writers have contributed to this bulky volume. Their object is thus stated : ‘Though the historical and archaeological importance of the books is immense, it is the spiritual use of them which is their proper use, and it is principally to this spiritual use of the Bible that we intend our Commentary to minister.’

The commentary itself is, in general, brief and to the point. But the prime feature of the work lies in the various Prefaces, beginning with Dr. Gore’s opening chapter on The Bible in the Church. Needless to say that in the space of a brief review we can but single out certain points for consideration, and we shall confine ourselves to the Old Testament.

First of all let us take at random some of the pronouncements formulated in these pages : ‘Chronicles is very bad evidence for the truth of what happened in the reign of David, but it is excellent evidence for the opinions held in priestly circles at the beginning of the third century b.c.’ (p. 19). Again, Chronicles is described by Wellhausen—and his words are endorsed in the Commentary—as a transparent mutilation of the original narratives as preserved for us in the Books of Samuel.’ And the Commentary adds: ‘He (the chronicler) gained his objective at the cost of historic truth, and Nemesis followed on his success. Certainly we do not find here the gift of inspiration at its highest,’ but, ‘in spite of his lack of the sense of historical veracity (he), must be recognised as really inspired to write’ (p. 275).
The Homecoming of the Dominicans
Authors: Gasparri P. Cardinal
Published: July 2007

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

The Master General of the Dominican Order was represented by Father Louis Nolan, O.P., and the Dominican Provincials of Paris, Belgium and Ireland, and many other friars were among the visitors. The Mayor of Oxford represented the City, and the University was represented by several Catholic Dons.
Sermon Preached at the Opening of the Prlory of the Holy Ghost, Blackfriars, Oxford, 21 May, 1929
Authors: Goodier Alban
Published: July 2007

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

This year, 1929, has already been a year of happy thanksgiving for the Catholic Church in this country. But let us not forget that we rejoice not for ourselves alone; indeed, perhaps more we rejoice for the sake of others. Another centenary falls this year, of which we do well to remind ourselves. In 1529, exactly four hundred years ago, the then King of England, for his own ends, first began the process of severing the Church of England from the Church Catholic. In that process, deliberately, and defying the consequences, he cut this land adrift from the rest of Christendom. In that sense, more than in any other, the intellect of Europe at that time interpreted the deaths of Fisher and More. We read in contemporary records that their execution ‘staggered Christendom’; it was staggered, not so much because in a Catholic country, at the hands of a Catholic monarch, who had but recently been honoured with the title of ‘Defender of the Faith,’ for the defence of that same faith these heroes had been put to death; rather it was staggered because the two brightest lights that shone from England over Europe had been so wantonly extinguished. It was a blow not only to the unity of the Christian faith; it was also a blow to the unity of Christian mankind.
The Academy, 1929
Authors: Sedgwick Russell L.
Published: July 2007

This year’s Academy was awaited with unusual interest. A new President is always something of an excitement, and Sir William Llewellyn’s frequent intercession for the expressionists and post-impressionists led some people to cherish expectations of a change in policy. But no epoch-making innovations are apparent, and, indeed, hopes of the sort indicated must inevitably remain chimerical, it seems. Once again we can rejoice in the high standard of technical achievement permeating the whole exhibition. But we shall find very little Art in the proper sense of the word. Academy artists are hopelessly provincial despite their undoubted talent and sensibility : and provincial art does not count. The real tradition on which art lives is ignored, and in losing touch with the European current we are weighed down by the slough of suburbanity. It is not as if an independent art was being worked out in a grand and isolated fashion. There can be no deus ex machina about art . . .; it grows—often up the wrong tree—but it must draw its life blood from ‘influences.’

There is a considerable improvement this year in organisation. Black-and-white drawings, etchings and engravings now have Gallery VI to themselves, and we are spared in some measure what has hitherto tended to mar previous exhibitions—namely, the somewhat indecent association of sculpture with mural paintings in a decorative ensemble—The Picnic of the Borejoisy—as an aesthetic butcher was once heard to describe the general effect produced. In any case, the combination was never really successful. In spite of this arrangement, however, certain discontented exhibits have strolled into the fields to frolic.
Was St. Paul Successor to St. Peter?
Authors: McNabb Vincent
Published: July 2007

In other words, was St. Paul the first Pope after St. Peter?

The arguments for thinking that St. Paul succeeded St. Peter as Pope are manifold and cumulative. The arguments against are almost entirely the later lists of Roman Bishops, which do not mention St. Paul.

1. It is significant that every writer before the third century who mentions St. Peter as related to the Church of Rome invariably couples the two names ‘Peter and Paul.’

2. According to competent critics, such as Professor C. H. Turner, the tradition of coupling the names of St. Peter and St. Paul begins with St. John the Evangelist. The eleventh chapter of the Apocalypse contains a detailed description of the ‘two witnesses’ (μάρτνσíν = martyrs) and the ‘two olive-branches and two candlesticks that stand before the Lord of the earth.’ The allusion to the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul under Nero is almost irrefutable.

3. In the first letter of Pope St. Clement to the Church of Corinth the coupled names of St. Peter and St. Paul are used to hearten the somewhat cowed Corinthians.

4. St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing a little later to the Romans, speaks of St. Peter and St. Paul laying commands on them. The Church of Rome could be commanded only by a Bishop of Rome.
The Hierarchy and Catholic Principles on Education
Authors: McNabb Vincent
Published: July 2007

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(7) Thus a teacher never is and never can be a civil servant, and should never regard himself or allow himself to be so regarded. Whatever authority he may possess to teach and control children, and to claim their respect and obedience, comes to him from God, through the parents, and not through the State, except in so far as the State is acting on behalf of the parents.’
‘The Origins of the Franco-German War’
Authors: Wilkinson Maurice
Published: July 2007

A war between Prussia and France would succeed that with Austria in the logic of history.

I did not doubt that a Franco-German war must take place before the creation of a united Germany.

At the root of it (i.e., the war) was a clerical conspiracy.

Prince Bismarck.

If a united Germany and France can fight in a ring fence victory is virtually assured to us.

von Moltke.

Better the Prussians in Paris than the Sardinian troops in Rome.

But this is my war.

Empress Eugenie.

A war provoked by Prussia would be hailed by many as a welcome relief from internal troubles. So far as I can judge, Ollivier is not a man to shrink from it.

Lord Lyons (May 6th).

Peace has never been better assured.

Ollivier to the Chamber (June 30th).

Never has the political sky been so clear of clouds.

Mr. Hammond (Permanent Under-Secretary to Lord Granville) when he succeeded the Earl of Clarendon (July 5th).

If the King will not advise the Prince of Hohenzollern to withdraw, it is war forthwith, and in a few days we are over the Rhine.

de Gramont (July 12th).

This is the most national war in which France has been involved. I can only rule if I lead, and I am borne away on a torrent which I am powerless to stem or control.

Napoleon III (July 15th).
Judge Parry on ‘The Bloody Assize’
Authors: Balfour M. C.
Published: July 2007

When it was known that His Honour Judge Parry had written a new volume on The Bloody Assize, it seemed that at long last we should have a really judicial and temperate record of events that until now had been presented from no satisfactory point of view. Writers hitherto have generally been biassed by party feeling or swayed by modern prejudice; they have regarded the seventeenth century through the eyes—and the conventions—of the nineteenth, and they have been content (worst sin of all in a historical writer) to reproduce earlier statements without any honest endeavour to authenticate them or trace their origin. That they were clever men only made matters worse; who of us has not been swayed by Macaulay or Campbell, till we began to examine their ‘facts’ and enquire into their authorities? We find in them—and still more in lesser writers copying them—the same old suggestions, the same old stories, the same old accusations repeated time and again; often without acknowledgement, generally without question, and almost always without any judicial balance. But now that not only a lawyer but a judge, a man of our own days of cooler tolerance and understanding, was to tell the story once again it seemed that we might hope for a very different treatment. Unfortunately, in the book that lies before me now, we do not get it.

It is a pleasantly-written volume, light enough to interest the casual reader, serious enough to deserve attention. It is intended to appeal to a wide public, and is, therefore, the more dangerous. Frankly, it contains no new matter, and does not, I think, fairly or judicially present the old; once again we are given what we know already—and once again we are given it all on one side.
The Father of Modern Doubt
Authors: McNabb Vincent
Published: July 2007

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

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

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

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

Moreover, since man can act deliberately some of his defective acts may be deliberate. But as man is master of his deliberate acts by his will, man’s deliberate defective acts, of body or soul, are moral faults. Acts attributable to the will are chargeable to the will.
The Revival of Daniel O'Connell
Authors: Gwynn Denis
Published: July 2007

If a year ago anyone had ventured to predict that the name of Daniel O’Connell could have aroused real national enthusiasm in Ireland, and among the Irish population of Great Britain, even in connection with the centenary of Catholic Emancipation, he would almost certainly have been told with complete conviction that O’Connell’s popularity in Ireland was dead for all time. Yet the demonstrations during the past few months in Ireland especially have shown such a sudden and overwhelming revival of his fame and of the deep affection with which he will always be regarded as long as the Irish tradition endures, as has amazed everyone who has watched the progress of the centenary celebrations.

I can speak only of what I saw myself during the week of celebrations in Cork, which, coming after the immense celebrations in Dublin, could scarcely be expected to repeat the extraordinary enthusiasm that the Dublin celebrations had aroused. Yet the demonstrations in Cork were on a scale which it is not easy to imagine. The High Mass in a great open space surrounded by hills attracted a vast concourse of people, which not only overflowed the two great fields which had been thrown into one, but filled all the slopes of the heights that overlooked the scene. The whole city was decorated with flags and banners and religious emblems, to an extent scarcely ever seen even in towns on the Continent, with centuries old traditions of public decoration. The large theatre was taken for three nights during the week, and on each of the three evenings the house was packed with people who paid for their seats, since the gallery only was open to free admission. On each occasion the chief event was a lecture on some aspect of Daniel O’Connell’s life’s work.
The Roman Aristocracy Since 1870
Authors: Ferrante Giulio Marchetti
Published: July 2007

With the signing of the Lateran Treaty, the two parties of the ‘Blacks’ and the ‘Whites’ have disappeared from the Roman aristocracy. When, in 1870, the temporal power of the Popes over Rome ceased to exist, the Roman aristocracy could not forget its origin, and maintained with dignity an attitude of fidelity and respect towards the Papacy. The princely families of that time—and nearly all of them still exist—owed, with very rare exceptions, their own rise to the Papacy. It is certain that already in the seventeenth century the feudal nobility of the Middle Ages had disappeared. The few families which descended from them, such as Colonna, Caffarelli, Orsini, Conti, Massimo, Savelli, Publicola-Santacroce, while unable to consider themselves created by the Popes, had received from them in later times so many benefits that they were much on a level with those who owed their greatness exclusively to the circumstance of having seen one of their own blood on the Throne of St. Peter. Such was the case of the greater number: Borghese, Barberini, Aldobrandini, Odescalchi, Ottoboni, Altieri, Boncompagni-Ludovisi, Rospigliosi, Chigi, and Braschi. There were Papal families who did not live in Rome, such as the Corsini, returned to Florence, the Carafa, and the Pignatelli, re-established at Naples. In the list of the Roman Princes one also found the Ruspoli, Antici-Mattei, Lante, Cenci-Bolognetti, Sforza-Cesarini, Giusiniani-Bandini, Doria-Pamphili, and Del Drago, promoted from the marquisate to the principality on the occa-sion of a conspicuous marriage, and finally the Torlonia, the last-comers, who had gained the coat-of-arms and the closed coronet by services rendered to the Pontifical State.
Louvain and the American Gift
Authors: O'Hara Valentine
Published: July 2007

Last September I had occasion to refer, in an Irish paper, to certain impressions a recent stay in Belgium had left in my memory. At that time Belgians were particularly interested in the so-called Louvain Controversy, which centred round a Latin inscription that the American architect of the New Library in Louvain, with singular lack of restraint, desired to impose on the building to the confusion of all wicked Germans and to the greater glory of all good Americans. The grandiloquent inscription was meant to crown his labours on this field of Flanders ten years after the close of the Great War. I noted some extraordinary features in the reactions of Belgian public opinion in this connection. The controversy, I had then reason to believe, was at an end. I was mistaken. According to the latest information from Belgium, the inglorious struggle has been renewed, to the disgust, we may be sure, of all true lovers of culture, not only in Belgium, but in America and the world over. One would like to know more of the reactions of public opinion in America on the issue that has quite recently been the subject of legal proceedings in Louvain, which have resulted in the American plaintiff being non-suited. But to come back to my own impressions of Belgium last year.

How Belgium has changed with the times. What, no doubt, will especially strike the traveller, who has known Flanders before the War, will be the rapid transformation that has taken place, not merely in the face of the country but in the very mind and spirit of the people. True, Bruges remains unchanged. Under the shadow of her belfry, lulled with sounds of sweetest melody, dreaming only of the past and heedless of the future, she slumbers to-day as peacefully as ever.
The Religious Education of Children and the Law
Authors: Bell P. Ingress
Published: July 2007

It has been said that on the whole it is more important that the law should be certain than that it should be just. Perhaps it is by a similar process of reasoning that criminologists are led to aver that it is the certainty of punishment following the crime in a short space of time rather than the amount of punishment which provides the chief element in its deterrent effect.

The law prior to 1925 relative to the authority of the father over the religious education of his children was certain. It was also, on the whole, just. Difficulties arose from time to time in its application, but at least there was some fixed law to be applied. It will be well, therefore, to consider this law and afterwards to attempt to understand what alterations have been made by the Guardianship of Infants Act, 1925.

The Law of England may be classified under two headings, Common Law and Statute Law. Common Law is the Law of decided cases—case law. It finds its authority in the fiction that such law always existed and to such pre-existing law the judges appeal. In fact, of course, case law is judge-made law.

The position of the father at Common Law was peculiar. The absolute dominion of the father, the ‘patria potestas’ of Roman Law, was not given to him. He had no power over life and death. But almost every other power was his. Moreover, such paternal rights were not counter-balanced by corresponding duties.
Christ and The Profiteers
Authors: Ginns Reginald
Published: July 2007

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

It is not our intention here to discuss this exegetical problem, or to give the arguments for and against a double or a single cleansing of the temple. Our purpose is simply to present certain historical data which throw light on the circumstances contemporary with the life of Christ, especially in relation to his attitude towards the buyers and sellers in the temple. These historical data will enable everyone to solve the problem for himself, not only with regard to the genuineness of the incident but also with regard to the likelihood of a repetition of the incident.
The Rich Fool
Authors: Essex Edwin
Published: July 2007

St. Luke, xii, 16-20.

Ah, One there was who thought within his heart,

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

This will I do : destroy them one and all,

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

And to my soul will I speak secretly :

Thou hast much goods laid up for many a year,

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

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

When swift upon his boast, death hovered near,

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

This night do they require thy soul of thee!’

Edwin Essex, O.P.