bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Master of the Life of the Virgin
Authors: Shirley M. 
Published: July 2007

The realisation of the honour and devotion that are due to our Lady in Mediaeval and early Renaissance times, engendered a corresponding increase in pictorial representation of scenes from her life and the childhood of our Lord. It is not infrequent that the source of the inspiration and the materials are to be traced to the Apocryphal legends. The heretical trends they contain and the dubious authenticity of many of the accounts have long rendered them suspect in the eyes of the Church. Notwithstanding this, the mind of the mediaeval artist was particularly susceptible to the graphic and imaginative nature of some of the stories, besides they served to satisfy the desire for a greater knowledge of the small intimacies of the life of the Holy Family.
The arrival in London of the collection from the Munich Alte Pinakothek affords a unique opportunity to see the treasures for many people in this country; they will remain on view until August the 7th. The collection contains, among other things, part of a fifteenth century German altarpiece by an anonymous artist called ‘The Master of the Life of the Virgin’, this series being his greatest known work. It consists of eight panels representing ‘Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate’, ‘The Birth of the Virgin’, ‘Her Presentation in the Temple’ and the ‘Marriage of the Virgin’ in the upper row; ‘The Annunciation’, ‘The Visitation’, ‘The Presentation in the Temple’ and ‘The Assumption of Our Lady’ in the lower row. The unity of the series is now lost because of its dispersal—part permanently remains in England.
Peter Maurin, Agitator
Authors: Day Dorothy 
Published: July 2007

Peter Maurin was 72 years old when he died on May 15th, 1949. He was born in a small French community, 200 miles from Barcelona, one of a family of 28 children. His own mother died after giving birth to five children, and his father married again and there were eighteen more children. Amongst them now there are four teachers, three carpenters, some farm hands. Some of his sisters are nuns and some of his brothers are members of religious orders.Some years ago Peter gave the following facts:‘My mother’s name’, he said, ‘was Marie Pages. She died in 1885. Of her five children only I and Celestin, a brother who was eighteen months younger than I, and my sister Marie, two years younger than my brother, were left. My whole name is Aristide Pierre. Pierre was my grandfather and my godfather. He died at the age of ninety-four and he was never sick. He worked in the fields until he was eighty-five, and after that he could not because of his eyes. So he stayed home and made baskets and recited his rosary. He liked to work. He knew it was good for him.‘The last I heard of my brother he was the, head of a school in Paris, St Clotilde’s, a parish school. He had been a Christian Brother, but when they were secularised they no longer wore the garb but went on teaching just the same. One of my half-brothers taught for the Christian Brothers’ school and he was married to a school teacher who taught in the public school.
The Church and Capitalism
Authors: della Torre Count 
Published: July 2007

The meetings and conferences of May 1st and the coming anniversary of the encyclical Rerum Novarum make this subject one of actual up-to-date interest, because of what has been said of the Church as allied to capitalism and of the contrary statement issued in that well-known document which set all Catholic thought and action in motion against this social malady.We refer to that economic organism, independent of and superior to business and businessmen, which arises out of the accumulation of fortune and an ever-increasing concentration of wealth, stretching over four centuries, and which has resulted in modern capitalist enterprise as distinct from that enterprise which united capital and labour. Here—according to the most authoritative scientific definition—we have ‘the reign of capital represented by money and securities, which can be quickly concentrated anywhere’; in almost every country the predominance of this phenomenon as a basic rational form of economic life’; here we see a distinct cleavage between those who provide capital and those who contribute to production solely by their work—a double-faced thing, one side of which shows a system of economic relations in which the upper classes who possess the means of production are predominant; while the other side shows an illicit function of capital, evil in its origin, disproportionate in its realisation, harmful in its effects—a veritable social cancer: the formation of a non-specific cellular proliferation, its continuous and progressive growth governed by laws of its own, differing from those of normal tissues, independent of the organism in which it grows and develops, and on account of this independence and expansiveness, parasitic and deadly.The teaching and attitude of the Catholic Church concerning this fearsome phenomenon, as in respect of peace and against war, may be seen throughout history.
The Report on Population
Authors: Harper Thomas 
Published: July 2007

The Royal Commission on Population was appointed in 1944 to investigate the significance of demographic trends in Great Britain which during the 1930 s had caused widespread anxiety. Although the population figures had continued to grow between the two world wars at the rate of about 180,000 per year it was suspected that the birth-rate had fallen below replacement level even to the extent of ‘a substantial margin’ (p. 60).The main factors influencing the natural increase (excess of births over deaths) of a population are the death-rate and birth-rate. The vast majority of births are to married women and therefore this factor is dependent almost entirely upon the number of marriages and the size of the family. The causes of the changes in the demographic trends in this country over the past seventy years may therefore be sought in four main contributory factors: migration, mortality, marriage and the size of the family.
The Profits of the Press
Authors: Derrick Paul 
Published: July 2007

The most important recommendation in the recently published report of the Royal Commission on the Press is the establishment of a General Council of the Press with the object, among other things, of encouraging ‘the sense of responsibility and public service among all engaged in the profession of journalism’. Apparently it is to do this by ‘censuring undesirable types of journalistic conduct and by all other possible means to build up a code in accordance with the highest professional standards’.A considerable part of the report was devoted to censuring undesirable types of journalistic conduct, but by itself this is not, perhaps, likely to have very much effect upon the press. Those papers which find they can build up the largest weekly and daily circulations in the world by methods which may not, in the opinion of some, be in accord with the highest professional standards are likely to do so in spite of any General Council which may or may not be set up. If they find they can make good profits by ‘giving the public what it wants’ they are likely to do so in spite of the criticisms of the Commission and the doubts that are expressed from time to time by individuals.In this connection it is interesting to note that three of the more responsible national newspapers, the Observer, the Manchester Guardian and the News Chronicle, are owned by trusts. These three more or less Liberal newspapers are not run by ordinary commercial companies for the profit of stockholders. They are run on a non-profit basis; that is to say they are run in the interests of their readers.
The Christian Peasants of Albania
Authors: Wyatt Colin 
Published: July 2007

One of the most frightening happenings in the last few years, and one from which we should take the greatest warning, is the complete subjection of Albania to Communism. Communism is alien to all the spiritual and social traditions of this small mountain people, which in 1939 was one of the most honest and hospitable, if backward, of Europe.Although Albania is almost 80 per cent Mohammedan, there exist in the wild mountain valleys of the north two tribes of Christians, the Miridits, who somehow had managed to survive the centuries of Turkish rule when the country was part of the Ottoman Empire, This they doubtless owed to their rugged mountain barriers, and we must hope that these same barriers will enable them to preserve their simple faith against the new onslaught. During the War they fought to the bitter end with our Commandos against the Communist partisans, who, although they accepted the arms and supplies, which we dropped to them in the belief that they were a democratic force solely desirous of expelling the Germans, lost no opportunity to insult and humiliate our men. In fact, towards the end, when the Germans were already in full retreat, they openly turned against us. That the few men we had left there escaped was due to the heroic efforts of the Christian tribes under their feudal chieftains; many of these paid for their faith and honour with their lives, while some managed to escape and follow their king into exile in Egypt.
Of the Christian Church
Authors: Long T. E. 
Published: July 2007

In a previous article (Our Catholic Heritage, February 1949) the present writer made reference to the generally poor standard of Catholic art in this country and pointed out how very unrubrieal are the majority of our churches. It is not a question of lack of means—many of our churches suffer from over decoration in fabric and fittings—but rather an ignorance of, or at any rate an indifference to, the mind of the Church as expressed in her clearly defined rubrics. Before the advent of the Gothic Revival in the nineteenth century our churches, though usually unpretentious and often poverty-stricken, emphasised the essential purpose of a Christian place of worship to a degree to which too often their more imposing successors have failed to attain. It should always be remembered that the primary purpose of a church is to provide a shelter for the altar upon which is offered the sacrifice of the Mass. A church should be built for the altar, not the altar for the church. The failure of so many churches of the past century to create the right atmosphere is due largely to a confusion of ideas. The mediaeval Gothic church with its screens and spacious chancel belonged to an age when virtually everyone was of the household of the Faith and all were content to accept the Church’s teaching as a matter of course.The atmosphere, though rich and beautiful, was usually restrained. With the rise of Protestantism in the sixteenth century the authority of the Church was no longer unquestioned and she was compelled to adopt a more aggressive attitude, seeking to impress the senses by emphasising the dramatic side of divine worship.
Post‐War Education in Germany
Authors: Meyer K. E. 
Published: July 2007

The end of the war left the whole educational system in Germany in chaos and its rebuilding has had to start from scratch. This is obvious as far as external conditions were concerned; buildings were ruined, teaching material destroyed, teachers dispersed and in part forbidden to follow their profession. The children themselves were involved in the maelstrom of evacuation and in the disorderly flight from the bombed west to the east, and from the Eussian invader in the east the return again to the west. All this is clearly appreciated by now. Equally one understands the loss of a sane religious background that followed the breakdown of Germany’s former educational system and the scepticism shown by both teachers and pupils against any alternative system (and even against the re-introduction of pre-war arrangements), whether it was inspired by German teachers themselves, by the Church, the German authorities or the inter-allied military government. These problems are appreciated, in paid at least, everywhere. Their solution is seen to lie only in a very gradual and by no means as yet wholly satisfactory rehabilitation. This is the natural result of the various factors involved in the present situation in Germany, but more recently two new and somewhat unexpected elements have emerged to influence post-war development in a disturbing manner.The division of Germany into four zones has had an immense bearing on the political and social life of the country, but no less has it had its repercussions in the educational field. This is most marked of course in the division between east and west; but it is true also of the division of government within the west itself.
The Crisis in German Protestantism
Authors: Fechter Adam 
Published: July 2007

On 11th July, 1948, exactly fifteen years after the dark day on which Hitler founded the ‘German Evangelical Church’, Dr Martin Niemoller was present at the founding of the ‘Evangelical Church in Germany’ (EKD) on the Wartburg near Eisenach, which had once been Luther’s stronghold; there he coined the shattering phrase, ‘the solidarity of the helpless’ on the same occasion as the aged Bishop Wurm described this new structure as a ‘temporary shelter’. These words were sign enough, even for the uninitiated, that this emergency organization was a long way removed from that source of grace, the upper room at Jerusalem. Rendered indispensable by the sheer stress of chaotic political conditions, the new ‘Church’ was attempting to reassert its legal continuity with the past and to affirm the ‘unity of Evangelical Christianity’ in all the occupation zones, especially to bind together the East and the West. Was its motive, therefore, political?Whilst these lines were being written Wilhelm Niemoller, the pastor of Bielefeld issued an open letter to Germany which ends with the cry: ‘The crisis is upon us!’; and the Reformed Church in north-west Germany has resolved not to attend the EKD conferences any more until they are again animated by an evangelical spirit. What does this signify?The downfall of the Nazis and their ‘Reichs-church’ means that, for the first time in 400 years, German Protestantism has been given the opportunity to free itself from the state and to give itself a constitution ‘in accordance with the New Testament’ as an earlier conference expressed it.
Polish Christmas Customs
Authors: Kreuza B. 
Published: July 2007

Generally speaking, we may say that it is the conviction of the ordinary people of Poland that no country has been more entirely Christian from the beginning than their own. Our Lord was born in Poland, they might say, in the midst of a snowy winter and in a thatched cottage such as we still see today, and resembling those found in Ireland, in some isolated place in a distant forest. Although there are caves in certain rocky and mountainous regions in Poland, nevertheless they are remote from the; daily life of the majority of the people, and so scattered as to pass unnoticed. Moreover these caves have horrible stories attached to them. Either they are the more or less magical property of the devil who hides in them treasures of uncertain origin, or else they were used by the notorious brigands of the Tatras Mountains who have such a romantic history.So then the infant Christ came into the world in the heart of the Polish winter and in a thatched cottage or perhaps under the tumbledown roof of a barn or in the stable of some poor peasant Szopka, a classical word meaning ‘Christmas Crib’ or a marionet theatre proper to the Christmas season, comes from szopa, a stall. The word seems to be connected with the French échoppe—like the word ‘shop’ in English for the pronunciation is the same, ‘sz’ being pronounced like ‘sh’. At any rate, in the Quo Vadis of Sienkiewicz, the giant Ursus in speaking of Christ ejaculated: ‘Oh, if only our people had been at Golgotha, they would have soon rescued the Son of God!’ Now we know that Ursus and Lydia, although unmistakeably borrowed from English tradition, represent the people of Poland.
Fra Angelico and the Quattrocento
Authors: Shirley M. 
Published: July 2007

The National Gallery has recently exhibited some of its earlier Italian paintings that have been inaccessible since the outbreak of war. Amongst these are two works, both by anonymous artists of the Florentine Quattrocento and members of the school of Angelico. One represents the ‘Adoration of the Magi’ and the other tells the story of our Lady conferring the habit of the Order of Preachers on Reginald. Although not of the highest artistic endeavour they offer a commentary on the aesthetic position of the great Dominican painter. Exhibiting a difference that is significant, they bring out very clearly the divergent aspects of the master’s style. Unquestionably the demands of the two subjects are not identical; even so the treatment accorded to the latter is more directly in conformity with the affinity that Fra Angelico showed with earlier traditions, and the painter of the ‘Adoration of the Magi’ displayed a greater sympathy with the new naturalistic trends although they were still in an experimental stage.The composition of the legend of Reginald is notable for its simplicity and the absence of ornamentation. The picture is divided into two main groups by the device of placing a pole a little to the right of the centre of the composition, but it might be more accurately described as being subdivided into three areas. This division of the picture into several distinct masses owes a certain amount to the system employed by Fra Angelico’s master, the Camaldolese monk, Dom Lorenzo Monaco, as can be seen in the painting of ‘Legends from the Life of Saint Benedict’ which hangs in the same gallery.
The Cinema is the Highest Form of Art
Authors: Domino Benedicamus , Gratias Deo 
Published: July 2007

Cyril Cusack: If walls have ears and windows seem like eyes, the ancient oak panelling and leaded panes of this Old Hall of Lincoln’s Inn, where we are gathered by the courtesy of the learned Benchers, have stored up a memory of many a legal inquisition into strange territories of human thought and behaviour. If a tongue could be added to them, they could tell of very diverse causes heard and judgments given upon them. But surely they have seldom if ever witnessed a stranger occasion than this, when that very modem example of human ingenuity and skill, the Cinema, pleads its cause as an art through the medium of a medieval disputation. Such a subject might well seem very far removed from the thinkers of the middle ages and their method of enquiry might well appear ill-chosen to examine its claims. In the sphere of visuals it is surely a far cry from the modern film to the crabbed manuscripts and theological preoccupations of the thirteenth century.Yet, after all, there is a certain fittingness in the occasion. The Cinema, with all that it stands for, is undoubtedly a great force in modern life, and opinion is very divided as to whether it is a force for good or evil, for the advancement of civilisation and culture or for its impeding and destruction. It is well, therefore, that it should be brought to the bar of judgement and, in that case, it is most fitting that its cause should be heard in this Old Hall of one of the oldest Inns of Court in this ancient city of London. For the Cinema is now on trial as to its claim to be an art, and even the highest form of art; and the canons of art, according to which it must be judged, are laws as firm and as ancient as the true laws of human behaviour.
The Church, Science and the Common Pagan
Authors: Hunter Guy 
Published: July 2007

Note: The following article by the Warden of the Residential College for Adult Education at Urchfont Manor, Devizes, was occasioned by the writer being invited to open the discussion after the lecture on science as a substitute for religion by Dr Sherwood Taylor, published in the last issue of Blackfriars. Writing quite evidently from a non-Catholic standpoint the author makes his suggestions with the authority of experience, for he deals constantly with the average man-in-the- street whose suspicions of religion and whose faith in science have turned the present era into a post-Christian age. There are forty million, or 80% of the population of England and Wales, who accept this point of view without question, so that the suggestions on how to meet them in such a way that they may be willing to listen to the Christian point of view are among the most urgent of the day. Catholics still seem a little dazed at the immense avalanche of desertion from Christianity and they often lack experience of the other point of view since they hold on to their own faith with such praiseworthy tenacity. It is therefore with gratitude to the author and with a plea to the Christian reader to consider his words deeply that we present the article as a continuation of the discussion begun by Dr Sherwood Taylor in the last issue of Blackfriars.—-Editor.A Good deal of time has been spent in the last few years proving that the central doctrines of Christianity are not in conflict with the main theories of modem science. There has, of course, been much genuine conflict between Christianity and the social or philosophic implications, usually materialist, which some scientists have read into their work.
Europeanism
Authors: Synnott Finbar 
Published: July 2007

Not long ago General Smuts made a very significant statement about U.N.O. He pointed out that the ‘world vote’ instituted by the United Nations may come to be a coloured majority vote. Already the Nations which administer coloured dependencies are beginning to feel the draught. Britain and Belgium and France are indignant about the ‘back-seat drivers’ of colonial administration. South Africa has felt half a gale already. It is only a matter of time until someone notices, and makes a case of, the treatment of American Negroes, which is legally so sound, but actually leaves so much to be desired. If U.N.O. is going to turn on those that founded it, it is principally in matters of colour. If Western Liberalism as a whole is to lose the confidence of its multi-coloured following, it will be on this question. Nor would a triumph over Russia in war leave things any better—possibly rather worse. For each time the coloured peoples are asked to co-operate in a war they expect additional recognition after it, and anxious war-time promises are then evaded until the coloured peoples lose patience.This is a very serious matter for Christianity, since the West claims, in a general manner, to represent Christianity. Unless there is a very marked change in the colour situation of the whole world the same process as that which has discredited Christianity with the working class of Western nations will take place in connection with colour bars. Just as the ‘workers’ were taught to identify the Church with capitalism, the enemy; so the coloured peoples will be urged to identify it with colour superiority prejudice. And both have just sufficient grounds in facts of the conduct of Christians, Catholics included, to make the accusation really dangerous.