bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
War in Tradition and Today
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: July 2007

Since the later middle ages the Church has commonly taught that five main conditions must be fulfilled before a war may be entered into with justice and therefore graciously. These conditions are that the war has to be undertaken only as a last resort when all other methods of retaining or achieving peace have failed; that there are serious prospects of success; that the war must be waged only for a grave and just cause proportionate to the evils of war; that it must be declared and prosecuted only by the legitimate authority; and that the whole prosecution of the war be guided by the right intention. There is no need to discuss this tradition; it is sufficiently well-known and in certain circles has been discussed at such length as to become wholly complex and unreal. What is urgently needed is an objective view of the application of the principles involved in this tradition to the modem scene of international strife; in other words, we need to discover the full stream of Christian life and thought as it meets the ocean of the present at this point.

Tradition teaches—and we will accept it without argument— that war may be undertaken only as the last resort. As things exist today we can say that if and when a country suffers armed aggression and she is forced into a defensive war, then war is permissible under this heading because there is no alternative; but that international politics are so complicated that it is often extremely difficult to discover who is the real aggressor.
Medieval Christendom: Two Presentations
Authors: Smalley Beryl
Published: July 2007

Scholarship and reflection go together all too seldom. Two new books about the Middle Ages combine them in a quite exceptional way. It is no accident, but a sad commentary on present historical teaching, that one book was written by a professor in retirement, the other by a college tutor in a period of enforced rest. Both convey the rare and delightful impression of learning recollected in tranquillity. One remembers that the great Belgian medievalist, Henri Pirenne, wrote his Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe far away from his books and his students in a German prison camp in the First World War.

The Thirteenth Century (1216-1307) by Sir Maurice Powicke falls into two parts; the change in method and treatment is easily discernible. The first part covering the reign of Henry III draws on the author’s earlier book, Henry III and the Lord Edward, published in 1947. This large-scale work in two volumes summarized the findings of recent studies including the author’s minute researches into the reign of Henry III. Here he condenses it into a crisp and exciting narrative. A few details are new, since the first book provoked discussion, and some fresh studies have appeared. But the main difference is that judgments stand out more sharply and the characters have clearer outlines. If Henry remains very much the same, a naive, changeable, but ‘fundamentally decent’ person, his great friend and antagonist, Simon de Montfort, has become more sympathetic and intelligible. The incalculable trouble-maker, while still ambitious and erratic, now stands in closer relations with the knights and freeholders of the shires who supported his cause through their mistrust of royal promises.
The Claims of Sound Broadcasting
Authors: James David Lloyd
Published: July 2007

As newly discovered television ‘stars’ blaze into incandescence, or at least into headlines, and as one parlour game succeeds another, radio programmes begin to sound a defensive note. The strong emotions which are revealed when the House of Commons debates the future of television colour most discussions by the professionally engaged of the claims of sound broadcasting in a world which is rapidly switching from loud-speaker to screen. In the Autumn 1953 number of the B.B.C. Quarterly Louis MacNeice made ‘A Plea for Sound’. The word ‘plea’, with its overtones of advocacy and partisanship, suggests some of the passion which this controversy can provoke. And one of the unfortunate results is that the opposing sides in this pointless warfare have resorted to that most tedious of stratagems which forbids the praise of X without the condemnation of Y. Not that I think Mr MacNeice guilty of this. ‘Television, obviously’, he says, ‘is an exciting and fertile medium in which many fine things can be done that sound could never attempt. The point is that sound can do many fine things that will never be possible in television. We should all therefore hope both that television may develop to the utmost and that sound broadcasting may survive.’ In which future directions are these fine things likely to be found?

Imagine a future in which sound and television are equally available to most people, in which several alternative television programmes are transmitted for the greater part of the day, and in which the present technical limitations of television have been to a considerable extent overcome.
Newman and Politics
Authors: Kenny Terence
Published: July 2007

Since Newman’s death in 1890 there have always been those who have pictured him as being in some way cut off from his age, so that, although his life traversed the nineteenth century, they think it would be difficult to gather evidence from his writings of the precise period to which he belonged. Now this opinion has been held not only by those out of sympathy with Newman, who have held it as a kind of reproach against him that contemporary secular affairs seemed to interest him so little, but has often been held also by many who were so convinced of the sanctity and otherworldhness of the great Oratorian, that they thought it quite too much to suppose that mundane matters, like a war in the Crimea or a Trust Bill in Parliament, could succeed in gaining his attention. The limit in this direction has been reached, now that a recent writer has portrayed, in a brilliant and informative book, a Newman, saintly indeed, but quite oblivious of the political world about him, or beyond his shores; a man, in fact, who would best be represented, at the time this author was writing, by a churchman of eminence who did not seem aware of the war in Korea. With this judgment what before was a matter of over-emphasis, or misconception, becomes a definite mistake, which as long as it lasts makes an adequate understanding of Newman impossible.

Now in trying to arrive at the truth about Newman’s attitude to contemporary events, it is not necessary to take into account the social and political philosophy which can be found in his works, though the value of this would be lessened if it were decided that Newman had simply no interest in social or political matters; but what is essential to bear in mind is the peculiar standpoint from which Newman viewed the social and political world.
Towards Innocence Regained
Authors: Scott‐Moncrieff George
Published: July 2007

There is such a thing as Progress, even with a capital P. The word has been discredited by those whose concept is superficial; who see plumbing as of the essence of progress, or a higher school-leaving age a gain regardless of what is taught in the schools. Over a short span progress is hard to plot. Fifty years ago people died of starvation in British slums: today no one need starve in Britain. Yet the majority are perhaps less happy in their work. Again, fifty years ago Russians who were sent to Siberia were at least treated as men: today in their slave camps their descendants are treated like beasts, and valued as such. British children are now kept longer at school: yet juvenile delinquency has increased and seems at the moment to become more vicious. In many ways do we see both progress and retrogression active in society, until there appears to be no constant direction, only a heaving flux in men’s affairs. Seeing it, some of us turn cynical or irresponsible, others turn to a brutal materialism, an idealism that condones diabolism as a means to an end that it poisons.

‘We are not islands’, we cannot dissociate ourselves completely from our fellow-men. The sons of Adam are one, although individual. That is perhaps why efforts to found ideal communities, cut off from the rest of the world, fail. Men are of their nature missionaries, they must share and pass on what they possess. Only in a very special way, by abnegation and withdrawing from normal social life, can religious communities survive:
St Augustine as a Preacher
Authors: Hill Edmund
Published: July 2007

There is to my mind little doubt that St Augustine regarded preaching as the most important of a bishop’s duties. It is the pastoral work par excellence, to feed the flock, to break the bread of the Word to the hungry. It is the bishop’s proper mode of almsgiving, of investing the talent which the Lord has given to him. ‘To lead a carefree life of leisure’, says Augustine, ‘little force would be needed to make me do that. There could be nothing more enjoyable than rummaging about in the divine treasure chest, with no one to plague me. While preaching, arguing, rebuking, building God’s house, having to manage for every one, who wouldn’t shrink from such a heavy burden i But the gospel scares me’—namely, the parable of the slothful servant. He also preached on that text, once when ‘the lords my brethren and fellow-bishops have been good enough to visit us and encourage us by their presence; and yet for some reason or other they refuse to give tired me a helping hand, and you a sermon when I ask them’. A short sermon, and very pointed. Poor blushing bishops in the apse!

Besides preaching tirelessly himself, he also provided in the De Doctrina Christiana what really seems to be a manual on preaching for the clergy. Most of this work, it is true, is concerned with how to interpret Scripture; but this means, for Augustine, how to acquire the matter for your sermons.
About the Italians
Authors: Foster Kenelm
Published: July 2007

The Italians are used to visitors. Once over the Alps, as the train runs down to Turin or Milan, you are in a country that is vividly different from every other, but which nothing from outside ever seems to surprise. Italy, after all, has been civilized longer than any land to the north or west of her; and though many centuries have passed since Europe was governed from Rome, she has remained in a sense the continent’s centre of gravity, if only as the common focus of historical memories. Is she the world’s most visited country? At any rate the foreigner has been coming here since Rome was Rome: pilgrims, priests and conquerors, students, soldiers and tourists, marching up and down the peninsula, roaming, ravaging, ridiculing and revering it. If countries can be revered, there is only one more reverend than Italy. Yet politically she had no national existence until less than a hundred years ago, and has not had a very secure one since. She achieved national unity too late (apart from other considerations) seriously to rival other western nations in the political field, and the fall of Fascism only confirmed this situation. Obviously, the greatness of Italy has little to do with political or military power: indeed her historical achievement, her culture, is not national in the sense that English, French, Spanish or even German culture is national. It has never been centred in one capital or one court.

In an interesting recent study of Manzoni, Mr Bernard Wall notes this cultural regionalism of Italy, together with another effect of the absence of a strong national focus.
Crime as an Alibi
Authors: Evans Illtud
Published: July 2007

The bus conductor knew where the prison was, of course. ‘I suppose you’ll be a visitor’, he remarked, with the beginning of a smile. ‘I see them every day, lots of them— visitors, I mean. I reckon there’d be a good deal less nonsense in the papers if the reporters had my job. Crime doesn’t just mean blokes behind bars: it’s mothers and brothers and wives. We’re all of us in it one way or another, I reckon.’

The bus conductor was right. The frowning walls of a Wandsworth can be society’s final alibi: the publicly condemned, out of sight, out of mind unless there’s a riot or an execution, are hostages to many of our miseries and reflect much more than the crimes they have committed. This is not to deny their responsibility nor to condone the violence that, since the war and especially among young criminals, has become so grievous a social problem. And sentimentality is in this context the worst of counsellors. Yet the isolation of crime, of which the very structure of a prison is the symbol, can mask its further meaning. To arrest the wrongdoer, to demand his exclusion from society, satisfies the natural need of society to be protected from its aggressors. And punishment must remain a sanction to vindicate the claims of law. Yet for a Christian conscience the crimes of the member are the affair of the whole body. ‘All mankind is in Christ one man, and the unity of Christians is one Man’, St Augustine reminds us, and the shared life of the Body does not cease when the members rebel.
Catechism for Adults: IV. ‘Born of the Virgin Mary’
Authors: Hislop Ian
Published: July 2007

The section of the creed introduced by the words ‘conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary’ consists of a relatively long Christological statement. This statement is an essential part of the original proclamation of the Gospel, and indeed, is found both in the Epistles of St Paul and the Acts of the Apostles. The reason for its inclusion in the creed is both because the Gospel cannot be expressed without it, and because it serves to refute any view of our Lord’s life and suffering as only apparent and not real. The whole section is a witness to the historic reality of his words and actions. By the emphasis it lays on this section, the Church refutes the most pervasive of all heresies, Docetism. The term ‘Docetism’ is derived from the Greek word for ‘suppose’ or ‘seem’ and the heresy suggests that Christ only apparently possessed a human body or that only some of the events recorded in the Gospels are salvific. All Docetism pre supposes an idea of what salvation should be like, of what divine action cannot involve. From this ready-made standpoint it proceeds to select the elements in the Christian Gospel that it finds congenial and to reject the rest. The Christological section of the creed serves to remind Christians that it is the Gospel that judges the man and not man the Gospel. The article ‘conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary’ is introductory to this Christological section.
An Educational Centenary
Authors: Beales A. C. F.
Published: July 2007

At long last the educational work of the religious Orders in the modern world is coining into focus. The days are gone when, for example, one still had to depend, for the educational pioneering of St Augustine, upon contemporary and sub-contemporary Lives. With the rise of research-schools in Education in our modern Universities the ‘field-work’ on original documents is being done, for Order after Order. Some of these dissertations, notably that of Dr Mary O’Leary on the Society of the Sacred Heart, have been published. Others, such as the monographs by Mother Mary Philip on Mary Ward, Fr Patrick Walsh on the Society of African Missions, or Mother M. Dominic on the schools of the Assumptionist Nuns, are to be seen only in the libraries of the Orders or of the Universities for which they were written. As time goes on and the field-studies multiply, a coherent picture of modem Catholic education will at last emerge. It is very much to be hoped that the present Lasallian celebrations will stimulate in other fields the trained research students without whom the full picture will never be possible.

It is remarkable that, until only a few years ago, the work of so outstanding a pioneer as St John Baptist De La Salle himself, which is being commemorated in London this month, on the occasion of the centenary of his Institute’s arrival in England, was known only through such tributes as the standard historians of education had been able to cull from the pious but undiscriminating early biographies. The life of De La Salle by Blain was for generations the source.
Edith Stein
Authors: Tomlin E. W. F.
Published: July 2007

No form of biography is more difficult to write than the life of a man or woman credited with sanctity. If the account is to be uniformly honest, the impression of transcendent goodness must inevitably be marred: the smallest fault is enough to invalidate the claim to perfection. If the picture is deliberately edifying, the impression conveyed is too remote to command admiration, still less affection. The conventional Lives of the Saints possess an advantage over modem essays in hagiography in that they are concerned with persons sufficiently long dead for their faults to have sunk into oblivion. If the subject happens to be near-contemporary, however, certain imperfections are bound to loom large. ‘God protect us from living saints’, wrote an ancient ecclesiastic. In the first biography of Edith Stein to appear in English, the author makes a genuine attempt at objectivity. She does not minimize a certain stiffness of character in her subject, while admitting that this gradually mellowed; and there is much criticism of her theological views. If the book suffers from one major fault, it lies in its refusal to allow us sufficient opportunity of judging the woman for ourselves. For every little fact we are given a disproportionate amount of comment. And this liberal comment, however fair in intention, is apt to come between us and the extraordinary woman about whom we feel we can never know enough on the factual plane alone.

This stricture apart, Miss Graef’s book is of compelling interest: one hopes that it will-be both widely read and vigorously discussed.
Claudel and Dante on Trial
Authors: Foster Kenelm
Published: July 2007

Dr Ernest Beaumont in his new book examines the ways in which two major Christian poets relate human love to the salvation of the soul, so that the former appears as a means, under divine grace, to the latter. Of such interrelating Dr Beaumont is rather suspicious; he smells heresy in it. He finds excuses however for Dante, reserving most of his disapproval for Paul Claudel, who is blamed both for misrepresenting (in his Ode Jubilaire for the Dante centenary, 1921) the role of Beatrice in Dante’s work, and for adding, in his own dramas, a series of more or less explicit expressions of a false idea of human love. The falsehood seems to consist chiefly in Claudel’s thinking (a) that if human (erotic) love could be ‘satisfied’ with its object, God would be ‘excluded’; (b) that since it cannot be so satisfied, this love implies a longing which only God can satisfy; and (c) that, this being so, lovers who refrain from carnal satisfaction may become, providentially, grace-bearers to one another and so, in a sense, mutually ‘necessary’ in a process of producing, reciprocally, ‘the child of God in each other’. This last ‘error’ is the more glaring in that the love in question is made to contrast with married love to the disadvantage of the latter.

Since I am far less acquainted than Dr Beaumont with the dramatic work of Claudel, my feeling that his critique of the French poet is somewhat partial is not in itself of much interest.
Anglicanism and the Church of South India
Authors: St John Henry
Published: July 2007

Catholics have been hearing, during recent months, of the prospect of something like a crisis in the Church of England, and even of the possibility of a schism. The trouble has arisen from the anxiety, mainly of Anglo-Catholics, caused by the growing desire amongst Anglicans in general for the acceptance in full communion, as soon as may be, of the newly constituted Church of South India. Most Anglicans, and even many Anglo-Catholics among them, would be ready to extend to this venture the completest possible recognition compatible with maintaining the unity of Anglicanism as a whole. The anxiety of Anglo-Catholics arises from doubts as to how far this may itself be compatible with the integrity of their own particular principles of Faith and Order, which they hold to be an essential element in the Anglican contribution to work for unity.

Any understanding of what all this means, in the context of ecumenical ideas, and that of course is its main interest for Catholics, depends first of all upon a knowledge of what the so-called South India scheme involves, and secondly, less easily attained, upon the understanding of what Anglo-Catholics mean by the maintenance of Catholic Faith and Order in the Church of England, and of the fears they entertain of its infringement by too hasty a recognition of the Church of South India, as it now is in its formative stage.
The Authority of Doctrinal Development
Authors: St John Henry
Published: July 2007

During the past half century, throughout the Christian world both Catholic and Protestant, great progress has been made in the scientific and critical study of the biblical text, more particularly of the New Testament documents, and, in continuation of this, of the history of Christian origins. The Encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu of the present Pope bears witness to the multiple sources of progress in biblical studies and gives directives concerning it which envisage and prepare for still greater progress to come by Catholic scholars in this field. The appearance two years ago of A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, to cite only the most comprehensive instance amongst much other evidence, is witness also to the fact that in England Catholics are taking a share, fuller than hitherto, in this general movement of Christian scholarship, and that in doing so they are able gratefully to acknowledge and make use of the fruits of much of its labours.

One of the most striking effects of progress in biblical scholarship and the study of Christian origins has been a deeper realization of the fact and extent of doctrinal development down the centuries, and its bearing upon our conception of the nature and function of that Tradition by which such development has been brought about. The view one takes of the nature and function of Tradition in the development of doctrine is inevitably bound up with one’s view of the nature and function of the Church, as the receptacle, so to say, and guardian and interpreter of God’s revelation concerning his means and method of redeeming mankind.
Two Theologians on Jung's Psychology
Authors: White Victor
Published: July 2007

Two more theologians have recently responded to Professor Jung’s invitation to collaborate with his work. Both of them are priests. One belongs to the Belgian Province of the Society of Jesus. The other is a German Jewish convert to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Their respective books contrast sharply. Father Hostie’s book, despite its restricted (and rather baffling) title, is the more comprehensive and ambitious. It attempts a complete exposition and critique of the whole of Jung’s work, at least to the extent that it impinges on religion and philosophy. Dr Zacharias’s book is more limited in scope, and treats of some particular questions which arise from Jung’s more recent work only; but what it loses in breadth it gains in depth. The contrast however lies mostly in their respective attitudes and manners of approach. Fr Hostie expressly restricts himself to a review of Jung’s published writings. Although he is convinced that ‘repeated personal contact with Professor Jung and his closest collaborators is absolutely necessary to grasp the exact meaning of the texts’, he deliberately confines his study to Jung’s ‘official publications’. This restriction is not without its value: it is, after all, from his writings, and without the benefit of personal contact and vocal interpretations, that Jung must be most widely known and judged. Moreover Fr Hostie has conducted his examination of these official writings, comparing and collating the various editions, with scrupulous care; and has incidentally added the most complete bibliography yet made of them—it includes several early opuscula which even the editors of the Collected Works seem to have missed.
Catechism for Adults: XIII
Authors: Hislop Ian
Published: July 2007

The triumph of Christ for St Paul was most clearly shown in the resurrection. Being dead, he was buried and the third day rose again. The risen Christ was seen and St Paul lists the occasions (i Cor. 15). The resurrection is the supreme point of the triumph of God’s grace in the world, for it demonstrates that the flesh is redeemed. This does not merely mean that the corporeal, the quantitative element in man, is redeemed. It means a conquest of all that is alien from God in man’s hfe.

It is, of course, true that body, the whole sphere of sensation and imagination, becomes through Christ an instrument of salvation. Each sacrament is an occasion of the redemption of the whole man, and in each sacrament the physical and sensory is the sign of God’s action. Body is, therefore, not something inimical to the action of grace; far from being a poison or the instrument of corruption, it is of its nature made for God. The flesh as alien to God means something more complex. It is the whole man closed to God, feeding on his own resources. Man as independent of God and hence the victim of his illusions. Man the idol maker, cut off from the Creator, yet still creative. The symbol of his creation is no longer marriage: union with the ground of existence, hfe in the garden of controlled fertility: the symbol is adultery, the burning of the child, the jumping and slashing before the altars of Baal—creation and fertility run riot, become malignant because of sin.

This is overthrown by Christ: body is no longer evil flesh, but the carrier of resurrection. Because the Son condescends, subjects his body to the powers of evil, he redeems flesh. In the flesh the victory is won by the Word made flesh.
Pax: ‘Progressive’ Catholics in Poland: II
Authors: Delargy Hugh
Published: July 2007

The members of‘Pax’ begin by accepting the Communist revolution as an accomplished and permanent fact. Nothing is going to alter that fact. The people of Poland, of whom more than 90 per cent profess the Catholic religion, will remain indefinitely under a Communist government. Can all these people so arrange their thoughts and behaviour as to be able to live Christian lives in a Marxist regime? The members of ‘Pax’ believe that such an arrangement is not only possible but eminently desirable. Catholics should do more than give acquiescence to the new society; they should be the willing, joyful, joint- creators of it. They should joyfully co-operate for three excellent reasons: because in such co-operation lies the Church’s best chance of survival; because the Government’s social and economic work is praiseworthy in itself and historically necessary; because co-operation in the new social order could be a sublime manifestation of true Christianity. In the past, Polish Catholicism had been narrow, a matter of personal experience, based on pietistic sentiment and the fear of Hell, without thought for one’s neighbour, without social conscience, without indignation against the evil conditions that were tolerated by the clergy. Here is a glorious opportunity to change all that.

To all the obvious objections they have shrewd answers. ‘Without any doubt whatever’, says one of their official documents, ‘there is no room for the conception of God in the intellectual system of materialistic socialism.’ But they make a careful distinction. There is an atheistic humanism which has always been in conflict with Christian humanism, and the conflict will probably endure until the end of time; it is a civilized argument which can be maintained by men who are friendly in every other respect and can agree about one another’s sincerity.
Religious Translation: Four Examples
Authors: Hill Edmund , McCabe Herbert
Published: July 2007

In our January number we published an article on religious translation. One of our readers, the Rev. J. B. O’Connell, who has himself collaborated in a fairly recent translation of the missal, asked the writer of the article to provide some examples which would embody the principles of translation he had formulated. This seemed a very just request, and so we are printing here four pieces of translation, two from the breviary and two from the missal. The extracts from St Leo and St Augustine were chosen for the contrast of style. These two, and the translation of the prayers from the missal, are by Fr E. Hill, O.P., the writer of the aforementioned article; the translation of the Consecration Prayer is by Fr H. McCabe, O.P. It will be observed that there are some small points on which they differ, for example on the use of ‘thou’ or ‘you’ in formal prayers to God. They would both welcome the comments and criticisms of readers.

Pilate’s guilt was certainly surpassed by the wickedness of the Jews, who made use of Caesar’s name to overawe him, and so drove him to carry out their villainy. Yet he did not come out of it guiltless either, since he forsook his own judgment and lent himself to other men’s wrongdoing. But that Pilate allowed Jesus to be ignominiously ridiculed and maltreated, that he had him flogged and crowned with thorns and dressed up in the trappings of mock grandeur, and then paraded him in such state before the gaze of his persecutors; all this he reckoned might soften the animosity of his foes and glut their hatred; it might perhaps make them think that there was no point in persecuting any further a man whom they saw so variously misused.
A New Book On The Dead Sea Scrolls
Authors: de Vaux Roland
Published: July 2007

The Dead Sea scrolls are still, and for a long while yet will continue to be, a matter of major interest. And now Penguin Books have devoted a volume by J. M. Allegro to this subject. The author is Lecturer in Comparative Semitic Philology at Manchester University, took part in the editing of manuscript fragments which are assembled at the Palestine Museum of Jerusalem, and has already published some of these fragments in technical journals. Up to now it has been his broadcasts and the resultant controversies that have made him known to the general public. These alone would suffice to draw attention to this book which, further, is well-written, lively, pleasant to read. As it is published at a moderate price in a series of wide circulation, the book is straightway sure to be a success. I may say that the success is deserved by reason of some real qualities in presentation and facts. But this very success may unfortunately give credit to some conclusions which are hazardous or quite simply erroneous.

The first half of the book covers the history of the Qumrân discoveries, the work of editing, and the excavations (pp. 15-93); this part is generally excellent despite some small errors which we need not dwell on here. Mr Allegro furnishes us with new information from reliable sources on the long-drawn negotiations which enabled certain lots to be bought; yet this new information needs to be correlated with the narratives of other writers. It will be found to complement rather than contradict. The four appendices (pp. 163-184) on John the Baptist, on ancient finds related to the Qumrân documents, on Murabba’at and the other caves outside Qumrân, on the copper scroll, are all useful and only have a few inexactitudes.
Sidelights on Electronic Computers
Authors: Hoskin Michael
Published: July 2007

Electronic digital computers or ‘brains’ were originally designed, as we saw previously, for use in the computations which occur in business and in scientific research; they carry out at great speed ‘programmes’ of elementary arithmetical and logical instructions which have been precisely formulated in advance. But there are many scientists, from linguists on the one hand to neurologists on the other, who are not confronted with heavy computation but who are keenly interested in other applications of electronic computers. In this article I shall discuss briefly a few of these applications, because although they are of less immediate practical importance they are fascinating in themselves, and in one case at least they have helped in the formation of a new discipline, that of cybernetics, which is helping to break down a little of the excessive specialization which is the curse of modem science.

Machines which play games. The mathematical theory of games which has been developed in recent years can be applied to much more serious matters such as economics and even military strategy. The possibility of similar applications of game-playing machines may help to justify the time and money which have been spent on programming a computer to play such games as noughts-and-crosses, draughts, chess and two-handed whist.
The State of Israel in Biblical Perspective
Authors: Congar Yves M‐J.
Published: July 2007

Christians cannot look at Israel from a purely human point of view, for they must see Israel as an essential part of God’s plan for men. In a sense, of course, every nation is a part of God’s plan; human history is governed, or at least supervised, by God, and all the national groupings that arise in the course of history fall under his Providence. But Israel belongs to the plan in a unique way, not just as one people among others, but as the People of God. Israel has no significance as a nation except in a divine perspective. For Israel is the Chosen People, chosen as a people, loved by God as a people.

The life and destiny of Israel then is a mystery in the strict sense. This is a word which is often abused, but I am using it as the Fathers of the Church used it to mean ‘that which plays a part in the realization of God’s plan’. This is the sense in which the Fathers could call the events of the Old Testament mysteries; the episode of Jacob and Esau, David’s flight from Saul and later from his sons, the sufferings of the prophet Jeremias. All these were stages in the realization of God’s plan, types and figures of fulfilment to come, types and figures of Jesus Christ. Christian thinkers have always been aware that Israel was a mystery in this sense. But in the last two decades our attention has been increasingly directed to the fact. We have realized, for instance, that anti-semitism has a theological significance for us: it is an attack upon God, upon charity, upon the continuity of biblical revelation ; an attack in fact upon the roots of Christianity itself. Must we not also say then that the recent establishment of a free Jewish state, the re-emergence of a Jewish nation—and that in the Land promised to them by God—is theologically significant? an answer indeed to the innumerable prayers addressed to God by the Jews since the occupation of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 A.D.? There is no valid reason to think that such fervent and continuous prayers should remain forever unanswered.
Dorothy Sayers on Dante
Authors: Foster Kenelm
Published: July 2007

It is eight years since Miss Sayers brought out her ‘Penguin’ version of the Inferno, to the surprise of some readers of her other thrillers. Yet it need not have surprised anyone that she was interested in Dante and perfectly capable of writing competent footnotes to the Comedy. The long Introduction to her Hell was, however, a remarkable manifesto in praise of Dante and in justification of her own rendering of his verse—at once a declaration of love and a statement of method. But the most remarkable thing was the translation itself, a real tour deforce—five thousand lines rhyming in an intricate pattern, the terza rima, which I should have thought an extraordinarily difficult one to handle in English, though Miss Sayers herself speaks of the task with noticeable sans gêne. It had been attempted before, notably by Binyon for the whole Comedy and by Professor Bickcrsteth for the Paradiso; both commendable efforts, especially the latter. Then came Miss Sayers’s attempt; and then, a little later, the quiet voice of Mr Eliot was heard, off-stage, to observe that it would be better not to try to reproduce in English, with its less copious and ‘in a way more emphatic’ rhyming words, the ‘light effect’ of the more easily rhyming Italian. Mr Eliot did not refer, in the lecture from which I quote, tc Miss Sayers; he was talking, with characteristic modesty, about his own Dantean pastiche in Little Gidding; but his judgment is relevant, of course, to any rhyming English version of Dante. Meanwhile Miss Sayers, undeterred and unwearied, forged ahead with hers. Hes Purgatory appeared in 1955; and though for the moment, I believe, she has turned aside to deal with the trifling matter of the Chanson and Roland, no power on earth, we may be sure, will prevent her from crowning her labours, in due course, with a Paradise.
A Casting Out of Beams
Authors: Hill Edmund
Published: July 2007

The casting out of beams is inevitably a more ponderous process than the discerning of motes. It has about it the heavy-handed inelegance of fly-swatting, in contrast to the darting agile dancing of dragon-flies in the sunlight. God forbid that anyone should wantonly swat a dragon-fly, or that I should attempt to toss a caber at the dexterous mote-discernment of Fr McCabe. I would, in any case, almost certainly miss. But dragon-fly antics, while they delight our gaze, are liable to leave us a trifle dizzy; and the virtuosity of Fri McCabe’s logic, sound and brilliant though it is, may easily reduce the holders of the opinion he attacks to a sad confusion. Now the confusion of the enemy is a legitimate object only of military, not of didactic, attack. Accordingly, in the hope of disentangling some of this possible confusion, I intend to poke about among a few of the fine threads of Fr McCabe’s weaving with my clumsy beam.

He establishes the wholly blameless position that it is possible to judge people’s morals by their actions, that we can say not only ‘That was a wicked thing to do’, but also ‘It was wicked of you to do that’, and even, though less often and with less assurance, ‘You are a wicked person for doing such things’. He does so in terms of two gospel texts, ‘Judge not, etc.’, and the one about discerning the mote in thy brother’s eye. Let us set out in full the passage from the Sermon on the Mount in which these texts occur. I give them in an unauthorized translation in order to avoid the incantation-like quality the well-worn words have acquired, which so insidiously blurs their meaning. ‘Do not judge, in order not to be judged yourselves; for by the judgment you judge by shall you be judged, and the measure you measure out shall be measured out to you. But why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, while you do not notice the pole in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother “Let me get the speck out of your eye”, and just look at the pole in your own eye! Hypocrite, first get the pole out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to get the speck out of your brother’s eye’ (Matt. 7, i ff.).
Psychology—An Alibi for Sin?
Authors: Strauss E. B.
Published: July 2007

I wonder whether the subject which is under discussion could best be tackled by the psychiatrist, the lawyer, the philosopher or the moral theologian, for it seems to me that it is only the old question of determinism versus free will over again, even if it is presented in somewhat modern dress. Therefore, to prevent the discussion developing on too abstract lines, may I assume that free will can never be proved philosophically, any more than can the existence of God, for instance; but that, unless it be admitted as a valid operative factor in the human situation, the whole debate would become woolly?

Our Common Law depends entirely on the axiomatic acceptance of the principle which accords a large measure of freedom of choice in matters of conduct to adult members of society not deemed to be insane or grossly mentally defective.

Is the whole applecart to be upset because certain psychologists of the unconscious come along and say that our behaviour is ineluctably determined by the emotionally significant experiences occurring in the first four years of life? In other words, is the modem psychiatrist, especially the psychiatrist with a psychoanalytical bias, undermining society by destroying man’s belief in his capacity for making moral choices? Or is he perhaps to be regarded as an angel of enlightenment bearing a new concept of justice by relieving man of an intolerable and crippling load of guilt which he has carried unnecessarily over the millenia of his organized existence? It seems to me that both points of view have something to be said for them; nor are they necessarily mutually contradictory.
Muhammad at Medina
Authors: Daniel Norman
Published: July 2007

This book is intended to be read both by the specialist and by the more enterprising general reader. From the point of view of the specialist it reviews and makes new use of familiar material and also exploits the field of social anthropology in an experimental way. At the same time it is written clearly and readably and, together with the same author’s Muhammad at Mecca, constitutes a very full guide both to the life of Muhammad and to his social, political and religious background, for any reader who is already interested in, or is at least not put off by, themes and settings outside the European tradition.

In Muhammad at Mecca Dr Watt presented the prophetic call as a response to the individualism of the tribal system in decay. In his new book he shows himself particularly aware of two aspects of the Prophet’s reforms: of the individualistic trend of the legislation, and of the institution of the religious community. It is the sense of this community which has always been so characteristic of Islam, and this aspect appears especially clearly in the chapters on the ‘Unifying of the Arabs’ and on the ‘Character of the Islamic State’. Dr Watt expressly sees the whole of Muhammad’s work as a ‘building on religious foundations’, equally when it is political, social or economic. The early unifying of the tribes under Muhammad prefigures and leads onwards to the later unity of the Islamic world under the Caliphs. The section on the character of the ummah is one of very great interest. The community (ummah) to which a prophet is sent, and which may reject him, develops as the Qur’anic revelation continues into the ummah which is itself the religious community.
The Word in the Liturgy
Authors: McCabe Herbert
Published: July 2007

The people who write in English about the liturgy have mostly read about it in French or German. The great movement of reform in the Church which has as its centre the revival of the liturgy is arriving in England rather late and with a noticeable foreign accent. There are important studies in the liturgy by English writers but none of them are by Catholics. The Catholic who is dissatisfied, as any educated and normally critical man must be, with what was taught him as Religious Instruction at school gets in touch with the new life in the Church usually through translations of continental books or else through second-hand works based on continental originals.

Readers of Blackfriars will presumably not need a detailed account of the manifestations of this new life. Like every other movement of reform within the Church, it has been essentially a return to sacred Scripture. There have been a good many other motives and movements, some good and some not so good, connected with the change: there has been a concern for the reverent and meaningful performance of the ceremonies of the Church; there has been a certain nostalgia for the past—whether the thirteenth or the fifth century—there has been a weariness with a certain kind of seminary textbook theology in which the great rivers of the Fathers and the Scholastics have been reduced to so much damp sand; there has been a characteristically twentieth century emphasis upon the social and communal as against the private. But in the first place it has been a matter of the Scriptures.
Time and François Mauriac
Authors: Moloney Michael F.
Published: July 2007

Probably no major Catholic writer has been the subject of more controversy among his co-religionists than Francis Mauriac. The generally acrid atmosphere of the novels, the darkly pessimistic view of human nature (‘Why must he write about such unpleasant people?’), the spiritual perturbation of the so-called ‘pre-conversion’ period—singly and conjointly these have inspired an abundance of searching debate concerning the validity of his Catholic position. Yet, it is almost certainly true that Mauriac is the most widely accepted among that gifted group of Catholic men of letters of this century who have gained for Catholicism in France a hearing and a respect unknown since the century of Bossuet. Consequently, it may be relevant to point out one aspect of Mauriac’s work in which his unquestionable Catholic orientation sets him sharply apart from the leading writers of fiction of his day.

If there is a single theme more than any other which has attracted the major novelists of the past third of a century it is that of man’s relation to time. Proust in France, Joyce in Ireland, Virginia Woolf in England, Thomas Mann in Germany, Faulkner in the United States, to name only the most eminent, have all been centrally concerned with the time problem. A contemporary critic has even suggested that Herman Melville anticipated these writers by half a century in the development of a metaphysic of time. But leaving Melville aside as representing the possible premonitory intuition of genius, the virtual simultaneity of impact of the time thesis in the works of the foremost practitioners of the contemporary novel in the western world is a striking phenomenon.
The Problem of Christian Democracy
Authors: Langdale James
Published: July 2007

The rise of Christian Democracy is, as Professor Fogarty rightly says, ‘one of the major social movements of modern times’, yet it is surprising how little has been written about the subject up to now. The ‘People and Freedom Group’, the only Christian Democratic society ever to exist in this country, of which Professor Fogarty was a distinguished member, did a great deal before and during the war to make known the aims and ideals of Christian Democracy, then very much discredited. Apart, however from the excellent study of Christian Democracy in France and Italy, by Francois Goguel and Mario Enaudi, published in 1951 by the University of NotreDame, Indiana, nothing further has appeared in English on the subject, and Professor Fogarty’s scholarly and exhaustive study is therefore particularly timely and welcome. It should do a great deal to dispel the astonishing—and indeed disgraceful—ignorance of both Catholics and non-Catholics in this country regarding the political history and beliefs of Catholics in Western Europe.

Those who consider Christian Democrats to be ‘right-wing clerical reactionaries’ as well as those who are honestly if naively convinced that Catholicism flourishes best under an authoritarian regime, have a great deal to learn from Professor Fogarty, and his book should not only find a place on the library shelves of every educated English Catholic, but should also be made compulsory reading in every Catholic Secondary and Public School.

Professor Fogarty’s definition of Christian Democracy is very wide and far-reaching. He emphasizes in his introduction that his book is not particularly a study of the political parties or even of current political and trade union tactics. The Catholic social movements and the movements of Catholic Action are in his view the weightier part of the Christian Democratic iceberg.