bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Essence of Politics
Authors: Leibholz G. 
Published: July 2007

The Christian political consciousness has been deeply stirred by the revolutionary events of our time and many to-day feel the need for its revival. Christians widely recognise in this country that they have to fulfil a necessary function in the political order, and this no matter whether the duty is based on the dogma of the sinfulness of man and his necessary imperfection or on the doctrine of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, according to which man as ‘Zoon politikon’ is essentially interwoven by his nature with Politics. Christians are more or less inclined to accept to-day the fundamental thesis that Politics has its own natural right to exist and its own basis and independent sphere within the framework of the natural aims of a community.This insight has in itself weighty implications, from the political-sociological point of view. For if Politics exists in its own right it cannot be considered a sham or an ideological cloak for the nonpolitical forces of society. This does not mean that economics, or religion, or legal or racial motives, which play so great a part in society, cannot enter the sphere of Politics. On the contrary, they do so to a large extent. But the point is that by entering the political sphere an economic, religious, legal or racial question, from the very fact of its being regarded politically, changes its essential peculiarity. Its former nature remains no longer the same. Aristotle would call this change a ‘metabasis eis genos.’ The question acquires a distinctively political character.
Monastic Economics
Authors: Morson John 
Published: July 2007

It would be too much to claim that legislators would find in the monastic codes and histories of the early centuries adequate guidance for their post-war planning. Yet no student of early monachism can fail to admire the practical economic value of much of the history and teaching which make his sources.The Egyptian monks, both hermits and cenobites, though often supported by alms, probably came as near as the monks of any time or place to adequately self-supporting manual labour. When Palladius visited Nitria, he found that no one was allowed to be idle (not even a guest, as perhaps he learnt from personal experience), and no one was in need. Yet the monks’ liturgical duties were held in high esteem, and those who were qualified had opportunity for intellectual culture. Self-support was not direct, for Nitria throve upon the weaving industry.The same author describes in much greater detail an inspection which he made of the working departments in one of the Pachomian monasteries. After enumerating smiths, carpenters, camel-drivers and fullers, he says that every craft was practised, so that the monks supported both themselves and the convents of nuns. They kept pigs—but the portions of pork granted to sick and aged monks scandalized later generations and the passage disappeared from many MSS. of the history. In a final list of monastic crafts, agriculture and husbandry hold the first place.
The Deficencies of Christ
Authors: Magrath Damian 
Published: July 2007

The following lines are offered with all reverence in an attempt at understanding some of the implications of S. Thomas’s teaching on the sufferings of our Lord, They are meant to suggest the apparent ineffectualness of the theologian’s doctrine in face of the bitter experience of the disciple.You speak to me of the sufferings of Christ; you tell me to think of them in my pain; to bear my own, and’to offer them up with his. They are the penalty of my sins, and Christ's Passion has given them meaning and purpose, if only I accept them as he did for me. Yet what consolation is that to me, for his sufferings cannot compare with mine? You pretend the Passion was a sortof Epiphany : a manifestation of the realityof Christ’s Humanity. But Christ was not like us, not equal to us in all things ! A very human God would be a consolation and a help. Why was not Christ like us in all things: subject to suffering, pain, ignorance, temptation and sin? You have to draw the line because your Saviour was not merely man but God. It seems to me that the Incarnation has failed to reach me in my suffering, just at those points where I need it most—give me my comrade who is mere man and not this pale Sufferer!You tell me to think of the bodily suffering of the Christ upon his Cross: the hanging body, the riven members, the wounds, the thorns, the burning thirst.
The Seventh Beatitude
Authors: Evans Illtud 
Published: July 2007

Rest is the final pattern of all that God has made. In time, in place, each thing has its own mode: it is created thus, and here and now. The singleness of sun and moon, of rock and flower and tiger; the separateness of men, each man a person unique and at last alone—here might seem a broken pattern, each thing good but each thing solitary. But on the seventh day of creation God rests. He blesses and sanctifies the day of his resting, and with it all that he has made: the whole creation is one in that ascription of praise to the creator of all.The sabbath-rest of God is God’s contemplation of himself as creator: in it the unity and goodness of the things he has made are revealed. They are his: they are one in him. So, in the history of his chosen people, the seventh day came to be observed as a day of rest and gladness, a still point in the changing world for man to pause and remember. “See that thou keep my sabbath; because it is a sign between me and you in your generations: that you may know I am the Lord who sanctify you. ... It is an everlasting covenant between me and the children of Israel, and a perpetual sign. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and in the seventh he ceased from work.”“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” This is the seventh of the sayings of the Son of God in his sermon on the mount.
The Light of Life
Authors: Meath Gerard 
Published: July 2007

If has been maintained that with Chaucer a light—we should call it. the light of faith—was extinguished from English letters.Though we may not agree altogether there can be no doubt that modern English writers do lack a sense of assurance. Geoffrey Chaucer is known to us for his good tempered satirising of the evils of his time and his genuine enjoyment of the commonplace things of life. Shakespeare and his contemporaries enjoyed life, too, and in spite of less reputable interludes we are compelled to admire their assurance. Yet both these men ended their lives with a Confiteor and Orate pro me. Chaucer retracts his Tales, “thilke that sounen into sinne,” and begs the reader “that ye preye for me, that Crist have mercy on me and foryeve me my giltes”; and Shakespeare in the person of Prospero appeals to his audience,
A Treatise on the Ineffable Mystery of our Redemption
Authors:   Luis of Granada
Published: July 2007

The admirable proportion found by Divine Wisdom in this Mystery between the atonement and the sin, which deprived the devil of his prey by means of justice.Besides what has been said, in the manner of this remedy the plan of divine wisdom and justice is wonderfully evident, since God ordained that our blessings should come to us in the same manner as our ills, so that as by one man came sin and death, justice and life should come through the sanctity of another man. For it was not reasonable that holiness should have less efficacy as a remedy than guilt had for injury, that mercy should not compete with justice, or that if justice condemned the multitude for one man s sin, mercy should not suffice to save the many by the sanctity of one person.Nor are there wanting other congruities that show how justly sin was exonerated and man redeemed. For as the pride of the first man, who, though but a man, sought to usurp the semblance of God, condemned his whole race, so the humility of the other Man who, though very God, lowered Himself to take on humanity, and saved us all, so far as lay with Him. For no humility could be found so radically opposed to such pride as this. As the man who by the law of nature was subject to God, exempted himself from this duty by his disobedience, thus injuring us all, so the obedience of the second Man, who by the same law was exempt from all subjection, obtained pardon and justification for us all.
St. Paul's Eleventh Chapter to the Romans
Authors: Graham Aelred 
Published: July 2007

St. Paul states the problem in all its poignancy : Hath God cast away His people? Are the Jews, the chosen ones, no longer the People of God? Paul himself was an Israelite of the seed of Abraham; this he could neither forget nor ever wish to repudiate; though he had ‘put on Christ,’ or rather perhaps because of that very fact, a ‘Hebrew of the Hebrews ‘he would always remain. No one could be more acutely aware than he that the coming to birth of the Christian Church appears a refutation by the facts of all the prophecies and the denial of the divine promises. ‘Jehovah had proclaimed himself a hundred times the liberator and saviour of his people : the Messiah was to be first of all the redeemer of the Jews; Sion was designated in advance as the centre of the Messianic theocracy and a bond of union with the unbelieving nations. But now, not only are the gentiles esntering the Church without first passing through the Synagogue, but they are almost the only ones who are entering, while the) Jews, whose rights seem preponderant, if not exclusive, find themselves shut out from it.’In chapters ix and x St. Paul has been occupied with various aspects of the problem, first vindicating the justice and faithfulness of God (ix), than (x) touching on the concrete human situation which has given rise to it; in chapter xi he shows the providential reason for it and points the way to its solution.
Thomism and Modern Needs
Authors: Temple William 
Published: July 2007

Not long ago I was honoured by an invitation to address the Aquinas Society which I gladly accepted, choosing as my subject the title of this article. Since then it has been suggested that I should publish as an article the substance of that address, and I readily do so. It would be impossible to reproduce the address itself, because it was delivered from notes which were no more than headings, and these I destroyed as soon as the address was delivered. That, however, is of no consequence. What is important is not to recover what was said on a particular occasion, but to promote consideration of the teaching of St. Thomas in its bearing on the needs of our time.
I must make clear at the outset the fact that I am not in any serious sense a student of St. Thomas—as, for example, my father was. I have read a considerable portion of his writings with close attention, but without that perpetual comparison of one passage with another which is alone entitled to be called ‘study ‘in relation to any great writer. I speak therefore from a general impression which may be due to interpreters and critics of St. Thomas as much as, or more than, to himself. If so, those who are real students of his work can easily confute me, but may none the less be glad to have their attention called to points at which the current presentations of his doctrine have produced on one mind at least an impression calling for correction.
A New Order for London?
Authors: Irvine Helen Douglas 
Published: July 2007

London was founded for practical reasons on ia gravel terrace, some two miles broad, lying north of the Thames and east of the River Fleet, and almost certainly it stood there before the Roman invasion. The Romans built a wall round it, and are primarily responsible for its commercial importance since they made it the chief centre of their road system. The Romans left London not only defensible but also accessible by roads as well as by waterways. So it became the capital first of the kingdom of Essex and then of England; it was the diocesan town of a see instituted by Pope Gregory of which the first ibishop was ordained by Saint Augustine.
Who were the men who first dared or were obliged to live outside the walls, forgoing the safety and privileges these enclosed, the men who began the expansion of London? The earliest evidence of suburban building occurs in the tenth century when the Danes, whom the Londoners barred at Ludgate, made the settlement along the river strand which was to name the church of St. Clement Danes. Outcasts of one kind or another : such were most of the mediaeval suburbanites. About the eastern and northern gates—Cripplegate, Aldgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate—unenfranchised and poor labourers lodged themselves as best they could. The southern bank, the Borough of Southwark, was a rath'er disreputable quarter, for it contained both prisons and certain areas in which immunity from legal arrest was enjoyed. It-was the Bohemia of mediaeval London, and maintained this character in the sixteenth century when playhouses were set up on the southern bank, the city being inhospitable to dramatic art.
The Teheran Three
Authors: Sturzo Luigi 
Published: July 2007

I do not know if the conclusion that was reached at Teheran, now after three months still holds good : ‘We come here with hope and determination. We have been friends in fact, in spirit and in purpose.’ Nor do I know whether the British and American columnists who so solemnly proclaimed that the Moscow, Cairo and Teheran Conferences, had laid the foundations for the perpetual and peaceable direction by the Big Three or Four (leaving out of count all the other countries) of a future world order are to-day of the same mind. What has happened in these months is so significant and entails so many hypotheses as to the future of the world, that it challenges all the over-simple formulae which have nourished a superficial press.Stalin is in the foreground. He has an active, volitive policy which starts from Moscow and arrives at Moscow. Without stressing historical comparisons too much, he can be considered as a Russian Napoleon, who is as much a Muscovite (a Muscovite of Georgia) as the Corsican was a Parisian. Such types bring to capital cities a certain provincial originality, which cuts them off from tradition, thus facilitating the developments of their inventive spirit. Just as Napoleon transformed the semi-anarchic democracy of the French Revolution, (already at its third phase), into a Directory and then into an Empire, while maintaining the symbols of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, so Stalin has transformed the Leninist Soviet regime into a politico-military dictatorship, while preserving the name and certain structures of Communism.Stalin has dropped the Red International for a more concrete and profitable nationalism ; he has passed from persecution of the Orthodox Church to benevolent toleration ; he has restored a particularist trend to economic life, little by little bringing back private interest.
Responsibility Again (Part I)
Authors: Kelly Bernard 
Published: July 2007

It is nearly twenty years since Eric Gill wrote in Blackfriars, ‘It has remained for one unworthy to put his pen to the word, and therefore to the argument, which shall give Capitalism and its attendant monster, Industrialism, their death-blow. The word is Responsibility.’
The argument, that Capitalism (production for money, in such sense that all things made are means of making money) and Industrialism (production by machinery with the working man as a sentient part of it) both ‘reduce the workman to a sub-human condition of intellectual irresponsibility,’ was not and is not difficult to follow. It was and is so clearly true as to raise at once the scandal of truth. It was received with applause as a brilliant argument, and it was rejected almost universally, by Catholics and non-Catholics alike, as an impractical one. There were also the incidental reactions of those who were ‘sneeped’ (as they say in the Midlands) by the terms in which it was expressed. ‘Sub-human, indeed !’ and so on.
So, if there was a great cloud of dust put up when Eric was here to press home his own arguments, there is danger now that the word, his word, should be altogether obscured. For the social reformers were, in the main, not really interested, and the interested parties, in the main, wanted his word silenced. It is more than time, therefore, for a restatement.
Welsh Saints
Authors: Evans Illtud 
Published: July 2007

In a real sense the history of the Church is the history of its saints. For the Church is a living society, and its life is made most manifest through those of its members who are honoured for the integrity of their faith and the holiness of their lives—the saints. If, then, as Leo XIII. said in a famous utterance, the Church has nothing to fear from a truly objective investigation of its history, the lives of its saints can in no way be dimmed by a scientific study of their sources.But there is a difference. Saints are persons, and persons are loved; round their memory there develops something deeper than documents. The acta of popes and councils are generally available for the study of scholars; their appraisal, while demanding an understanding of the circumstances and persons that gave them expression, is primarily a matter of the authenticity of texts, the chronology of events. In the case of the beatification and canonisation of saints in the modern period, indeed, the Roman decrees, arrived at after a scrupulous examination of evidence, provide an exact account of the reasons for public veneration of these holy ones of the Church. Yet even here there are innumerable factors, reflected in popular devotion, which can scarcely be looked for in a legal document. But in the earlier ages of the history of the Church, and especially in its remoter provinces, the cultus of the saints necessarily lacked that careful regulation which nowadays is taken for granted.
On Poetic Knowledge (II.)
Authors: Maritain Jacques 
Published: July 2007

At the beginning of this essay we noted that what a philosopher, reflecting on poetry, observes first of all is that it belongs to the sphere of Art or productive activity. Now the proper end of Art is not knowledge but production or ‘creation,’ not in the manner of physical nature, as radium produces helium or one living thing another, but in the free manner of the mind; it is intellectual productivity ad extra.Of itself the intellect is expressive; it produces within itself its ‘mental words’ which, besides being the media through which it knows things, are also effects of its own spiritual plenitude, expressions or inward manifestations of the things it knows.Further, this plenitude is a superabundance which tends of itself, naturally, to an external expression and manifestation, to a song. Not only does the mind’s vitality form words within, it tends also to overflow into works; and this with a natural need or desire which reaches out over the frontiers of intellect itself, and which therefore can only be realized with the aid of the will and the other appetites whose movement, whereby the intellect goes out from itself following a desire natural to itself, is initiated and nourished at its source by the intellect, in such a way that, following this start, they predetermine in a general way the primary tendency of the operative intellect in a poetic (in the aristotelian sense) or in a practical direction. Once this original determination has been given, the ‘poetic ‘activity develops along a line that is much more purely intellectual—the human will with its characteristic ends and purposes being far less involved—than is the line of moral activity (Ethics as a mode of the practical).
Reflections of a Refugee
Authors: X.Y.Z.  
Published: July 2007

It is the last hour before Ash Wednesday. Only a little while ago I said the Office of Compline, and the calm of prayer is still upon me. The day has been heavy with many duties, but I was glad to bear them. There is so little we can suffer for him who suffered so willingly for us. The fire on my left is burning steadily. It will have to last the whole night, for we are fire-watching, my companion and I, and it is my turn to wake. She is sleeping peacefully, this dear young girl, and her gentle breathing is a solace to me.I have been thinking of many things to-night, my friend, and>my heart is very full. Here I am fire-watching, waiting for one of my people to come and bring destruction upon-your people, to ruin their homes, mutilate their limbs, even to kill them. The first time was in an air-raid I was lying-flat on my back in a strange bed and the aeroplanes were droning overhead. I knew they had come for a fell purpose, and I thought of the untold thousands who were threatened by a similar danger both here and in Germany. As I opened my heart to their sufferings I could believe for a moment it were possible to embrace both countries with an equal love. For one night at least in the face of that deadly menace, I seemed to bear the agony of both, and there was neither friend nor foe, only a communion of suffering under a mighty cross.
Leon Bloy, the Church and the Bourgeois
Authors: Bethell Ruth 
Published: July 2007

Léon Bloy, who fought in 1870, suffered great poverty all his life, and died in 1916. He knew, as a matter of personal experience here on earth, that the absence of God is Hell.Le Pélerin du Saint Sépulchre, as he called himself, he lived at the loot of the Cross, with infinite longing; seeing in History the great span of God’s holy Will (’ I am going to write a History of the Will of God ‘) stretching from the Fall to the Incarnation and from the Incarnation to the still unrealised reign of the Spirit; and underneath, the horror of godless man, ‘la hideur plus qu’effroyable d’un monde qui a cessé de ressembler à son Créateur ‘(La Femme Pauvre, p. 214). His meditation was all in depth, taking this form:
‘When the ruffians came down from Calvary, they brought to all people the great news that mankind had come of age. In a single bound, Suffering crossed the infinite abyss separating Accident and Substance, and became NECESSARY.‘Then the promises of joy and triumph in which the Scriptures are soaked, appearing in the new law under the brief heading “ Beatitudes,” coursed through the generations, cutting across them like a whirlwind of swordblades. In a word, humanity set about suffering in hope, and that is what is called the Christian era . . . Great souls, Christian or not, long for the outcome of it all . . .’ (Le Désespéré.)
Afterthoughts on Aftercare
Authors: Grosch Alfred 
Published: July 2007

“When I first took up rescue work,’’ wrote Canon J. Bennett, Administrator of the Liverpool Catholic Children’s Protection Society, “the late Mgr. Hudson drew up for my guidance ‘Ten Commandments of Rescue Work’. The last was, ‘If a child fails, examine your own conscience’.”The same Mgr. Hudson also wrote, “The test of good rescue work is aftercare.” It was his view that the best method of aftercare, for boys at any rate, was to be found in a well-conducted Working Boys’ Home. It may be that he was right. I cannot say, for it so turned out in my experience that Working Boys’ Hostels, as they were called, were practically a failure. “A Working Boys’ Home is a most difficult and a most expensive organisation to run. The Superintendent in charge must be a man of deep spiritual instincts, a man of practical faith, a man of refinement and education, a man of business mind who can win the confidence of employers, a man whose very presence is a joy to the boys, one who inspires them with his justice and Catholic character. Given such a man, I can unhesitatingly say that the great majority of the boys will become steady workmen and practical Catholics.” That, also by Mgr. Hudson, is certainly a very good description of the right man for the job.There have been of recent years some half-dozen different attempts in London to run Working Boys’ Hostels under such management, and all ended in failure. I believe there were as many attempts in the past which ended in much the same way. A few years ago, a house was taken in Steele’s Road, Hampstead, N.W. One couple after another went in, and after a few weeks, or months, threw up the job, or were practically thrown out.