bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A Catholic Daily Paper
Authors: Curd T. W. C. 
Published: July 2007

In the April number of BLACKFRIARS the Editor was good enough to print in full a letter in which I advanced the opinion that the time has come for the establishment of a Catholic Daily Paper. The suggestion has, of course, been made before, more than once, but has always been opposed on the ground that Catholics are not sufficiently united to support such a venture. This has always seemed to me to be putting the effect before the cause; surely a Catholic Daily would produce that unity as no other organisation could ever hope to; and so what is put forward by many as being an argument against is, in effect, one of the most powerful arguments in favour.The question cannot fail to be of interest, not only to Catholics, but to many others, and as the course of events, almost from day to day, only serves to give strength to my conviction, I will state briefly my case for the establishment of a Catholic Daily in the hope that it will at least bring the realisation a stage nearer.I will deal with it under two headings: (1) Is it desirable? (2) Is it feasible?(1) Is it desirable?It is scarcely conceivable that any Catholic should be found to answer ‘No’ to this, but the arguments in favour of its desirability are so powerful that their consideration may lend strength to those who would hesitate on the question of feasibility.The average man unconsciously forms his outlook on life very largely from the columns of his daily paper.
Far from the Land
Authors: Curd T. W. C. 
Published: July 2007

I have just finished reading Father Vincent McNabb’s inspiring book The Church and the Land, aptly described by the author as a ‘bugle-call,’ and in die May number of BLACKFRIARS the Editor asks the question, ‘Wherefore sound the bugle if there be none to answer the call?’I believe that there are many only too anxious to answer, not only amongst the unemployed, but amongst those also who are ill-employed, working at any sort of a job in the cities because a living must be made somehow for men and wives and children. Since the war, how many men have been forced by sheer want into taking on work of this sort, quite apart from the fact that they, no more than the ‘practical objector’s’ unemployed, are fitted for it neither by temperament, training nor inclination?Amongst these city workers in uncongenial jobs in factories and offices, there are many who suffer acutely from the pangs of land-hunger, men and women who have the love of the earth in their very blood, whose ancestors—in many cases not more than two or three generations back—were farmers, and whose keenest desire is to get back to the soil and toil to which they feel themselves called almost as powerfully as a priest to his vocation—for surely, save that of the priest, there can be no labour nearer to God than that of the land worker.By reason of these, then, the bugle does not sound to deaf ears, but to hearts to whom it comes as the call of hope and life itself.
The French Hierarchy and the Franc
Authors: Gwynn Denis 
Published: July 2007

Not the least embarrassment of the French bishops, in the present political crisis of France, has been to decide whether Catholics should be called upon to forget the constant annoyance and petty persecution to which they are still subjected—even since the fall of M. Herriot’s deliberately anti-Catholic Government—and to respond generously to all appeals made by the Government, as though the union sacrée which M. Herriot brought to an end were still really in existence. It is true that, since M. Herriot’s downfall, the open challenge to the Church on the question of the Vatican’ Embassy has not been officially renewed. The threats to the religious communities which have settled in France in defiance of the laws proscribing them, have not been carried out; though the inquisition into their numbers and their status throughout the country, which was set up by M. Herriot’s Government and methodically organised, has placed full information in the Government’s hands, which may at any time be made use of by an anti-clerical Government. And the attempt to compel Alsace and Lorraine to accept the same educational system as the rest of France has also been suspended.But all over the country minor incidents have continued to provoke violent resentment. The Ministry for the Interior, which controls the whole local government of the country, and through the distribution of patronage arid by more direct means ‘makes’ the elections in a manner calculated to ensure the permanent success of the Left, has always been jealously kept in the hands of anti-clerical Ministers even during the war; and the Prefects nominated by them have been using their powers to prohibit religious processions, and to interfere in various other ways with such liberties as the Catholics still possess.
The Friars-Preachers in Russia II
Authors: Bennigsen George 
Published: July 2007

IIThe two centuries of Tartar domination brought on radical changes in Russia. Whilst the South or Ukraine, temporarily occupied by Lithuania and Poland, remained open to Western influence, a new Power was gradually and steadily growing and strengthening in the densely wooded territories of Central Russia. In the early fourteenth century the thrifty and hardy rulers of Moscow, an insignificant and poor principality, began slowly and laboriously to extend their domain at the expense of other impoverished principalities, to ‘gather the lands,’ according to old Russian chronicles, until towards the middle of the fifteenth century, Muscovy became an important State under Ivan III, who shook off the last vestige of the Tartar yoke. For centuries cut off from Western influence, Moscow was strongly conservative in every way, and considered herself the natural heir of By-zance, a belief which Ivan Ill’s marriage with Sophia Paleologue, descendant of the last Emperors, only strengthened. Moscow claimed to be the ‘Third Rome,’ and the depository of the sole true faith. Her attitude towards Catholicism and everything coming from Rome was uncompromisingly hostile. The Union of Florence was rejected by Vassili II, Ivan’s father, and the Metropolitan Issidore, who was charged by the Pope with the mission of obtaining Russia’s adherence, was imprisoned, but eventually succeeded in escaping and leaving Russia. This anti-Catholic hostility was actively fostered by the Greek clergy. Despite such a seemingly hopeless outlook the Popes repeatedly tried to enter into cordial relations with the Great Princes and Tsars of Muscovy, though all their efforts remained fruitless.
The Pagan Press
Authors: Curd T. W. C. 
Published: July 2007

For my sins I am condemned to read several papers every day. During the strike my normal supply of reading was cut off, and the only news beyond the usual crop of rumours was that sent out by the British Broadcasting Company and the strike items contained in the various news sheets.As the strike and its effects constituted the one important topic of news, to the exclusion of the doings of the various notorious personages of no interest, it is probable that the strike news sheets came nearer than Fleet Street would care to admit to fulfilling the true function of a newspaper. When read in conjunction with the official ‘correctives’ and a due allowance for what could be found between the lines, a very fair estimate of the day’s news was available.On the Tuesday after the settlement, one of my papers joyfully announced that it was able to supply ‘all the world’s news again’ ; on Wednesday another paper reflected that the strike had provided a lesson in ‘what can be done without at a pinch,’ and, remembering that for the period of the strike we had been without any of the usual scandal, crime, divorce, film-star vagaries, fashionable news and eccentricities of the dull people who seek publicity on the back pages, many people will agree.Now that the newspapers block the letter-box and litter the mat once again, we are expected to rejoice that the indispensable daily printed sheet is once more with us, yet it is difficult to conjure up enthusiasm when the average daily is subject to analysis.
Thomas Hood
Authors: Eden Helen Parry 
Published: July 2007

Thomas Hood, ‘true poet and true humorist,’ was born in The Poultry, London, in the tail-end of the eighteenth century. He died at Devonshire Lodge, Finchley Road, in the middle of the nineteenth. He lived, to be precise, from May 23rd, 1799, to May 3rd, 1845. I was a shortish, sickly life, and had to be beaten out, as it were, very thin to last for forty-six years.On Hood’s birthday George III, aged sixty-one, and for the time being in his sober senses, rested after the levee of the day before. Queen Charlotte held a Drawing-room. News came that our noble allies, the Russians and Austrians, under Marshall Suwarrow and General Hohenzollern, had taken the best part of the Milanese from the French; that General Buonaparte had met with a check near Acre in consequence of which the Sultan had ordered a solemn thanksgiving in the seraglio; and that the Success frigate had fallen in with the French fleet passing the rock of Lisbon, and an engagement was hourly expected. On Hood’s birthday the second reading of a bill to restrict slavery was fiercely opposed by the Liverpool merchants in the Commons. Mr. Castlereagh and Mr. Ponsonby fought a duel near Dublin. Carriages waited at the Bull, Bishopsgate, to take the friends of Mr. J. Frere to the Norwich election to vote on the whole policy or impolicy of the war. A highwayman with crape on his face, mounted on a bay mare, stopped a post-chaise on Uxbridge Common.
The Friars-Preachers in Russia III
Authors: Bennigsen George 
Published: July 2007

IIIDuring the reign of Alexander I the position of the Catholic Church in Russia was a peculiar one. Not only did the Government consider itself called to rule the Church, but also to safeguard the purity of her faith from any alien influence, including the Pope’s. Thus, in 1822, the Emperor decreed the expulsion from Russia of Fr. Lindl, Rector of the Church in Odessa, for ‘preaching a creed which was not in accordance with the dogmas of the Latin faith,’ but at the same time the Russian Ambassador Italinsky was admonished for accepting from the Vatican a confidential note, demanding Lindl’s expulsion.The Russian Dominicans figured in another example of this solicitude of the Government for the Catholic Church. As we have seen previously, the Monastic Orders were compelled to participate in the cost of primary and higher education and other useful institutions, having, however, little to do with religious life. A Conference of representatives of the Catholic Church was convened by Chatzky, visitor of the schools of Volhynia, Podolia and Kiev, in Luck, on October 20th, 1803, at which the expenses of maintaining the schools in these provinces were divided amongst the Orders. The Dominicans had to support (a) one district school in Staro-Constantinov; (b) twenty primary schools; (c) three scholarships in the Vilna University for preparing teachers; (d) pay 1,000 zloty for the maintenance of the botanical garden; (e) maintain two metereological stations; (f) hand over to the Ministry of Public Education the foundation for the education of pupils in Rome; (g) print in their printing office in Luck a hundred books for the Volhynia secondary school, also give to the same school four copies of every book which had been published there.
Empire and Papacy—A Modern Problem
Authors: Isham Gyles 
Published: July 2007

Sir John Marriott has suggested that to cut out of of an English history book all the pages that concerned the relation of Church and State would leave but a few pages in the book. That the problem is no dead one is testified by the present conflict in Mexico. In its widest, most universal form, the problem arises in the relations of the Empire and the Papacy—a problem which, I think, can be shown to continue long after the break up of the mediaeval system, and, recently, to have received a fresh emphasis.In a side group from the Lateran Mosaic (appropriately reproduced by the Temple Edition of Dante’s Latin Works) are shown Peter and Constantine receiving the symbols of their authority from Christ, while Peter alone gives these symbols to Leo and Charlemagne—an apt summary of European history from the start of the Christian era to the Reformation. But it represents even more than that. Napoleon was content to refer to ‘Charlemagne, my august predecessor, Emperor of the French’! This statement (however false historically) was used as a bludgeon against the Pope.Always has there been a conflict between Caesar and Peter. And yet, always, Caesar has been forced to confess his indebtedness to Peter. Charlemagne was crowned at Rome by the Pope : Charles V as near Rome as possible, at Bologna: and Napoleon— though he brought the Pope to Paris, kept him waiting in the Church, and snatched the crown from his hands—was unable to bend him to do his will. Even Bismarck had to go half-way to Canossa.
Hymns
Authors: O'Connor. John 
Published: July 2007

The young are not expected to be wise: there is something uncanny about old heads on young shoulders; but there is so much foolishness uttered about hymns, even by those old enough to know better, that one wonders why the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Undergraduates did not interfere to stop this essay, and the fact that the subject was set for a prize essay is sufficient proof that wisdom in hymnology does not necessarily come with age. You have a form of composition in which the greatest fail, and the second best quail, to wit, the Hymn, the religious hymn, and the next class in order, the academic arbiters, toss it for a bone of contention to the unblooded. What boots it them? What reck they? They are sped.Doubtless the subject was set to provoke thought and discussion, and thereafter experiment, effort, and practical results. This prize essay scarcely carries out the intention, and incontinent one asks, What were the others like?In the first place it excludes, with the aid of Sir Oliver Lodge, the central fact of all religions that have ever been. You must not mention Blood. One immediately says, Hell. And sure enough the essayist not only rails at the Dies Irae, but even bridles (on page eleven) at Bernard of Morlaix and his translator, Neale. Note well the objection to the famous lines,Hora novissima, temfora pessima sunt,VIGILEMUS.The world is very evil,The times are waxing late,Be sober, and keep vigil.
Some Hampshire Relics: A Grandison Ivory
Authors: O'Mahony. D. 
Published: July 2007

A few months ago a Southampton lady, a recent convert to the Catholic Faith, showed us an ivory triptych, about nine inches high, which appears to have been in the possession of her family since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and proves to be a fourteenth century ivory with the arms of John Grandison, Bishop of Exeter (1327-1369). In the centre piece (slightly damaged) are carved the Crucifixion in the upper compartment, and in the lower the Madonna and Child. The wing on the left has standing figures of St. Peter and St. John the Baptist; and that on the right corresponding figures of St. Paul and St. Thomas Becket. The authorities of the British Museum have arranged to secure this ivory for their collection of mediaeval antiquities.There now exist but comparatively few English ivories of the later Middle Ages; doubtless their rarity is due to the Reformers’ fanatical zeal for the wholesale destruction of sacred images. In the British Museum have been for some time two ivories with the arms of Bishop Grandison : one of them is a triptych somewhat similar to the one mentioned above, and the other a panel of a diptych of which the other leaf is in the Louvre at Paris. There also is a mediaeval English diptych in ivory in the Salting Bequest at South Kensington. Such ivories now have a market value of nearly ;£ 1,000 each.St. Thomas Aquinas in Art.Perhaps not many are aware that there is in the Manor House, Mottisfont, a curious antique painting, which represents two events in the life of St. Thomas Aquinas, and is said to have belonged to the ancient Priory of Mottisfont.
Brokenborough
Authors: Gray John 
Published: July 2007

What of this or that, as you move through a county or two, which has appeared to modify the face of the land for the good of those who live upon it; the new bridge, as perhaps at Witney, with curves and gradient indicated by all laws, or nearly all, and not unworthy balustraded parapets; a new expression of stateliness in what should now be called motor-gates, abolished railings and screens, treeless drives and cunning choice of building site; house-shortage houses; long-legged concrete water-tanks; circus-like pump colonies; or what time has consecrated : the built mass, intricate in unity, upon its green plinth, the close such service ennobles; structures, age on age agglomerate, heterogeneous, like the glorious tangle of Winchester; an agricultural tessellation, if you wish the fields by thousands, seen from the precipitous foreground of Lord Hereford’s Knob, lying north and south between Radnor Forest and the dim heights of Brecon; man’s motive in changing his natural surrounding by adaptation and addition, that is the question ever present to the meditative, seldom answered conclusively.Or the mind rests willingly from irritated criticism, as of a man’s own house, be it ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ or neither; or that in which he gives thanks to God. Its consecrated purpose is assumed to release any usual building from the thraldom of time; that it exists and is for the present indispensable answers sufficiently all but impertinent questions. It need be neither cowardice nor languor which admits that the church is pleasing in which indeed there is nothing to please.
St. Francis in Recent Journalism
Authors: Bonnar Alphonsus 
Published: July 2007

I approach this subject much in the spirit in which Tertullian wrote against the heretics of his day. We might adapt the words of the powerful, if acrimonious, apologist. ‘We must first see to whom the Saints belong lest they be claimed by those who have no right to them.’ As the gnostics of Tertullian’s day claimed a right to the Scriptures, so the agnostics and other misguided folks of our day claim St. Francis. As the self-constituted teachers of those days interpreted Scripture according to their own fancy, and suppressed such parts of it as did not please them, so modern non-Catholics admire their own views in St. Francis and shut their eyes to those aspects of his personality—often fundamental aspects—which do not fit in with their views. I wish to summarise in a rough way the recent non-Catholic appreciations of the Poverello. Furthermore, I would like to make Catholics grasp that St. Francis is theirs: that he is a product of the supernatural vitality of Christ’s Church : and that if non-Catholics admire him, they must do so from afar, preferably in sackcloth and ashes. You can only really imitate St. Francis in loving the birds and flowers, if you have fasted with him on Mount Alverna, and approached Confession and Communion at his side. Let Mr. Sidney Dark close this paragraph for me:’ Finally, do not be deluded into the belief that St. Francis preached and taught despite the authorities of the Church. There was no difficulty in persuading Pope Innocent III that St. Francis was a saint. The Holy Father realised that great fact the first time that he saw him, and he encouraged him, and guided him with amazing wisdom.’
St. Francis and St. Dominic
Authors: Jarrett Bede 
Published: July 2007

The contrast between the two saints is as obvious as the likeness; indeed, such likeness as there was sprang more from their background, environment, and common century than from personal resemblance in story or work or ideals. Besides the common century there was, of course, the common faith; but apart from these things that are the settings and not the gems, the gems themselves, though equally precious, were singularly unlike. The two succeeded to the long winter of the Dark Ages and the illumination of the twelfth century, and they were caught up in the creative movement of the thirteenth; there was, therefore, a certain community of spirit which their age naturally begot in them. They both started orders of Friars.But remove the age and look at the men. What a perfect contrast! Dominic is of noble Spanish origin, born in bleak and desolate lands, growing up in a feudal tower; his early years are years of study, in the house of a priest, at the University, and as one of a community of Canons. Quietness throws its veil over him, and his companion is learning, and wisdom is his star.Francis comes of the trading stock of Assisi, a city of commerce, but also of rich colouring and crowded wealth, and ripens to manhood in the service of his father’s trade. In the little city, amongst his young companions, he is the leader, gay, joyous, light of heart, a singer of songs with his fingers nimble on the viol and his feet beating time in the dance.
Saint Francis, Apostle of the Blessed Eucharist
Authors: Devas Dominic 
Published: July 2007

Saint Francis studying Holy Scripture : no, it must be confessed, few people ever picture him bent over a book or, with pen in hand, busy over his writing, pausing awhile to pray and ponder, and then taking up his work once more. I should like to see an artist produce a picture of Francis writing, for it would serve to remind us that, though his writings may be all gathered together into the compass of a single slender volume, they contain, nevertheless, passages of unsurpassed beauty. And this was the result not merely of prayer, but of study. Intrinsic evidence makes this plain, even if we had no further proof; but, as a matter of fact, we have the express testimony of Saint Bonaventure, who tells us that, though, prior to the foundation of the Order, he had never devoted much time to study—his early education was slightly above the average, since he knew French, and was well read in romance literature— afterwards he made considerable progress in learning, not merely by prayer, but by study, non solum orando sed etiam legendo.Now, in these writings of Saint Francis, there is a certain subject to which is given an unmistakable prominence. It is not poverty, not the abstract love of God, not preaching, but devotion to the Person of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and as a consequence great reverence for priests and churches. It is the purpose of this paper to illustrate this point and, as a preliminary, it is well to bear in mind that this attitude of Francis was a conscious protest against a widespread neglect of and irreverence towards the Blessed Sacrament,