bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Autonomy in Catholic Education
Authors: St. John Henry 
Published: July 2007

During the latter half of the nineteenth century the Catholics of England entered upon their long struggle to maintain their schools in a condition of material and professional efficiency equal to that of the wholly state-supported schools in the national system. Both in primary and in secondary education the price of monetary aid from the Government has been increased control by the local or central education authority, and in consequence the chief pre-occupation of our struggle has been to safeguard the principle of Catholic teachers in Catholic schools, and to ensure the integrity of the teaching in doctrine and morals given during the hours devoted by law to religious instruction.
In the matter of the curriculum of secular teaching we have been content in past years to follow the lead set by the non-Catholic schools, and have adopted their general educational policy and conformed ourselves as best we could to its varying demands. Even those schools which have always been independent of government control have been forced, during the last forty years, by their acceptance of the external examination system to abandon their autonomy and the traditional system of education which they had inherited from the continental schools of pre-penal days, and to conform their syllabuses and teaching system to the dictates of the external examining boards. Thus it has come about gradually that the curriculum of secular teaching, with its attendant syllabus of books to be read and periods or matter to be studied, has ceased to be chosen by the authorities of the school and has been imposed by an impersonal external authority which has little or no understanding of the purpose and needs of Catholic education.
‘The Figure of Beatrice’
Authors: Foster Kenelm 
Published: July 2007

On his first page Mr. Williams tells us what he has undertaken to study in this book. It is a good statement and may be quoted at length. ‘Beatrice was, in her degree an image of nobility, of virtue, of the Redeemed Life, and in some sense of Almighty God himself. But she also remained Beatrice right to the end . . . . Just as there is no point in Dante’s thought at which the image of Beatrice in his mind was supposed to exclude the actual objective Beatrice, so there is no point at which the objective Beatrice is to exclude the Power which is expressed through her. But as the mental knowledge or image of her is the only way by which she herself can be known, so she ... is (for Dante) the only way by which that other Power can be known—since, in fact, it was known so. The maxim of his study, as regards the final Power, was : ‘This also is Thou, neither is this Thou.’I say ‘the only way,’ but only to modify it. There were .... many other shapes—of people and places, of philosophies and poems. All these had their own identities. . . . But in his poetry Dante determined to relate them all to the Beatrician figure, and he brought that figure as near as he could to the final image, so far as he could express it, of Almighty God. It is, we all agree, one of the marks of his poetic genius. But it is something else also. It is the greatest expression in European literature of the way of approach of the soul to its ordained end through the affirmation of the validity of all those images, beginning with the image of a girl.’
‘The Man Born to Be King’
Authors: Foster Paul Urban 
Published: July 2007

During the industrial depression of the early Thirties a certain man faced, through no fault of his own, bankruptcy. One of his acquaintances, until then not a particularly close friend, wrote to him saying : ‘Count upon my assistance to the full extent of my bank-balance.’Until 1937 Miss Dorothy Sayers was known to the English-speaking world as one of the most brilliant of its writers of detective stories, that new form of the novel which will excite the interest of future literary commentators. They were extremely interesting novels as well as most ingenious detective problems that Miss Sayers wrote. The mysteries were really absorbing, the clues were fair game, the characterisation was realistic and covered a very wide range of human types, while the literature of the hemispheres was laid in tribute to add piquancy to the plot. A deeper strain was also present. Like the great majority of detective-stories, those by Miss Sayers were strongly moralistic; they proclaimed the necessity of a moral order and depicted in friendly terms the activities of those who maintain it. Clouds of Witness showed the devastating despair induced by a grande passion; The Documents in the Case was a fearful indictment of adultery; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club revealed the appalling effects upon the soul of great scientific intelligence which does not bow down before the Creator of that which science investigates; Murder must Advertise was concerned with the drug traffic; Busman’s Honeymoon revealed the sordid effects of avarice, Strong Poison and Unnatural Death the corruption of the human character by sheer selfishness. The moral effect was the stronger because no one could be aware that it was being inculcated as they pursued the fascinating course of the detective story.
The World of Ideas of Don Luigi Sturzo
Authors: Carter Barbara Barclay 
Published: July 2007

In the space of a single article a survey of Don Sturzo’s world of ideas can be merely indicative, a throwing into relief of certain fundamental conceptions which give his thought so particular an originality and potency. Even so, selection is not easy; his mind embraces so many planes. Behind the political thinker is the sociologist, seeking the constant laws of human relationships; behind the sociologist is the metaphysician, the theologian, whose contribution to the shaping of Catholic thought is gaining increasing recognition; behind the theologian the mystic, for whom all human fellowship receives its true meaning in the fellowship of man with God, and Christianity is seen as a cosmic fact, irradiating the whole of human existence, throughout history and throughout the world. Such higher reaches, however, were best left to more competent pens than mine. I propose here to deal mainly with certain aspects of his sociology where it converges on political philosophy, the philosophy that at once inspired his active life and drew from it confirmation and vital elements.Did space allow, it would be illuminating to illustrate this marriage of thought and action : how, as a young priest, intending to devote himself to university teaching and music, he was swept into active public life under the inspiration of Rerum Novarum, on the crest of the Christian Democratic movement of the nineties, to become the organiser of trade unions and peasant co-operatives, a leader in municipal activities and reforms, then founder of national institutions, and finally, in 1919, the founder and leader of a great political party in which his ideals found practical embodiment.
The Idea of a University, Reconsidered
Authors: Reeves John Baptist 
Published: July 2007

In its beginnings the thing we call a University ran ahead of its idea of itself. It grew, not unintelligently, but with little, if any, reflection on itself. Subsequently, and especially in the last hundred years, there has been much speculation about what a University should be; and there have been many experiments in erecting theory into fact. The palm for the best theory unquestionably goes to John Henry Newman, and so to the Catholics of England, whom he claimed, and is now allowed, to represent. No theory, anywhere, remains more remote from fact than this remains in England.This may be blameworthy, but there is some excuse for it. The English are not idealists, their genius is practical. They do not proceed from ideas to action : they act first and think afterwards, with a tendency, stronger in each generation, to think that what they have done or left undone was rightly done or left undone because ‘twas they themselves that did it or did it not. On this general ground, and on the ground of its particular application to education, especially University education, the claim of English Catholics to be truly English cannot be denied. In this characteristic the Irish amongst them are thoroughly anglicized. As a body Catholics in this country are not at all dissatisfied with what they have done or not done for themselves in education these last hundred years. Their dissatisfaction is almost wholly with what others have done or not done for them. Exceptions there are: mostly converts like Newman himself, and idealists like him. Like him they love the life of the mind, and follow it even to its own surrender in faith; and like him, until they are safely dead, they become generally suspect of not being quite English. All this, though irritating, is excusable in England. Even the Universal Church finds it, though vexatious, tolerable.
The Royal University of Malta
Authors: Armstrong A. H. 
Published: July 2007

It is not my intention in my description of the University of Malta in any way to suggest that this institution is a model, or even a particularly good example of what a Catholic University should be. It is, however, very well worth studying for two reasons. First, because it is unique of its kind, being the only Catholic University (I suppose) in the world which is also a State University supported and controlled by a non-Catholic government. Second, because its history and present state show very clearly that in order to secure a thorough and adequate intellectual and spiritual Catholic formation it is not enough to establish an officially Catholic University, with statutes which make the Catholic religion the basis of instruction and a staff of teachers who profess the Catholic religion. That is only the beginning. It is still necessary to give the body a living and reasonable soul, to make the University a real University and its Catholicism a living and productive faith. The University of Malta never seems quite to have found its soul.It was founded by Grand Master Pinto de Fonceca of the Sovereign Order of Malta in 1769, and endowed with the buildings and property of the College of the Society of Jesus which the Grand Master had suppressed in 1768. Perhaps something of the atmosphere of Baroque Erastianism has clung about the University from its beginnings. Certainly the Founder, Grand Master Pinto, was a typical enough representative of that pompous and spiritually barren autocracy. From 1769 to the present day the University has continued to exist and function without a break except for a short period during the French occupation of Malta in the time of Napoleon.
The Catholic University of Lille
Authors: Fitzsimons John 
Published: July 2007

Lille was at one time the capital of Flanders, and from the early Middle Ages has held an important place in both the religious and military history first of Flanders, then of France. In the early nineteenth century it became the centre of a great industrial area, largely due to its climate and to the coal and iron deposits in its neighbourhood. The nearest parallel that one can find in the rise of industrialism in England is Lancashire, and one may well call the department of the Nord, including as it does Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Fives, Bethune and Lens, the Lancashire of France.Due to the efforts of a few industrialists and manufacturers, a beginning was made in 1874 with a Catholic University; subscriptions poured in, so that in 1875 the four faculties of law, science, letters and medicine were inaugurated. These, with a more recent addition of a faculty of theology, have remained the nucleus of the University, which is usually styled the Facultés Libres to distinguish it from the secular Facultds d’Etat. It is of interest that as early as 1897, following the lead of Oxford and Cambridge, University Extension lectures were established throughout the regions around the city. Perhaps the most striking manifestation of these was the annual Ecole Normale des dirigeants ouvriers chrétiens, which lasted a fortnight, was attended by the leaders of the Christian working class movements of the whole of the north of France and was addressed by professors from the Catholic University.It was only natural that the University, set in the midst of an industrial area, should specialise in technical subjects; and there were founded successively an institute of higher industrial studies, and a school of industrial arts and crafts. Later came a department of Social Service and a school of Journalism.
What is a Jew?
Authors: Mattuck I. I. 
Published: July 2007

The question presents difficulties. It would not be asked if the answer was obvious. But the answer is not obvious because the name Jew seems to be used with diverse meanings both by Jews and others. Some give the name primarily a racial significance; a Jew is just one who is born of Jewish parents. Others give the name primarily a national significance; a Jew is one who belongs to a distinctive nation which has a culture of its own, a language of its own, national characteristics of its own, and, they would add, needs a national home or political state of its own. Others give the name Jew a religious content; a Jew is one who is an adherent of Judaism.These diverse, and divergent, uses of the name Jew arise out of the Jews’ long history. The definition of a Jew must be related to the definition of the Jews as a group. What constitutes a Jew obviously depends on the basis and nature of the collective life of Jews. There are, in general, three categories of human groups— races, nations and religions. Into which of these do the Jews fit? Or, to put the question the other way about, which of these descriptions fits the Jews?No one of them fits the Jews exactly. For one thing, Jews began their collective existence at a time when these categories were undifferentiated; they simply did not exist in the ancient world. They are comparatively modern divisions. There were separate human groups which included in their collective life all, or nearly all, that is now included under the terms race, nation and religion. That is still largely the case in the part of the Eastern world where the Jews originated; though the influences of the West are producing a growing distinction between religion and nation. The conception of nationality is, however, new.
The Problem
Authors: Quinn Edward 
Published: July 2007

It is not a problem, but a mystery : a mystery, that is, as sin is a mystery, and the redemption. In fact, the so-called Jewish problem is an aspect of the mystery hidden from eternity, the divine plan for man’s salvation, made known by the prophets and by Christ, worked out in history but not fully accomplished or revealed in all its grandeur until the end of time. There is therefore no solution of the Jewish ‘problem’ without the intervention of grace, no understanding of it apart from supernatural revelation. It belongs to ‘those things which proceed from the will of God alone and are beyond all rights of the creature ‘and, therefore, according to the sound principle of St. Thomas, ‘can only be known to us as far as they are handed down in Sacred Scripture, through which the divine will is made known ‘(Summa Theologica, III, q. i, a. 3).To this theme of salvation, even with the emphasis on the place of Israel in it, the whole of the Scriptures are devoted ; but the locus classicus is the Epistle to the Romans ix-xi. Leaving aside all the details of interpretation, concentrating on the clearest and most generally accepted sense of St. Paul’s words, three facts arc certain :1. The Jewish nation once possessed a unique—and, in fact, the highest—vocation among the nations of the earth ;2. They failed, as only the noblest can fail, terribly and—but for God’s grace—without hope of restoration ;3. Before the end they will return, and their restoration will be as glorious as their failure was shameful, for it will correspond to the grandeur of their first calling.
The Root of Bitterness
Authors: Day A. F. 
Published: July 2007

Christians have, during the last nineteen centuries, talked and written a vast deal about the Jews and Jews have talked and written a fair amount about Christians : in both cases the percentage of rubbish has been considerable. It is comforting to think that in this special number of Blackfriars the usual proportion will be reversed and sense will predominate greatly over nonsense. Indeed, the nonsense will probably be, if at all, in a very mild and inoffensive form. Naturally the present contribution is not included in the last remark.For thirty years at least I have been a frequent talker and writer on this subject. Few have pronounced or written the word ‘Jew’ as often as myself. That word, lovely in itself and in its meaning— it derives from ‘Judah’ (the ‘praise of Jehovah’)—has at times, as the result of repeated use, lost something of its sweet aroma.In the early months of what the blurb of a recent modest publication kindly calls my ‘campaigning,’ my conscience accuses me of having made several silly utterances on the subject, for which there lingers in my sub-consciousness a smouldering sense of shame. Some extenuation of guilt may be found in the fact that Judeology—to give it a high-sounding name—is a difficult science, presenting problems comparable almost to those that beset the hapless wight who tries to understand Predestination or Bimetahsm. Anyone who would expound its mysteries must qualify for the task by a course of what Virgil, ni fallor, styles ‘labor improbus.’ As a preliminary, he must, as far as may be, purge his soul of prejudice—a most insidious and deep-rooted disease—and beware also of every form of sentiment that savours of sentimentality. He must endeavour to be objective, concrete and scientific. Let him make sure of his facts and rigorously test his conclusion.
England's Political Future
Authors: Foster Paul Urban 
Published: July 2007

When General Simuts delivered his much-discussed Thoughts on the New World, he gave utterance to some home-truths which badly needed enunciating. As he warned his audience, his remarks were intended to be stimulating, lacking in ‘diplomatic ‘qualification, not to be an expression of carefully-balanced policy. Especially have his remarks about France provoked reaction. ‘A nation,’ he said, ‘that has been overtaken by a catastrophe such as she has suffered, reaching to the foundations of her nationhood, will not easily resume her nationhood again. We may talk about her as a Great Power, but talking will not help her much.’
There have been protests against these blunt, almost brutal, words, by those who love and long for the culture of France. But these protests are not to the point; the culture of a nation survives and is of influence long after that nation has ceased to be a political reality, and French culture will be no exception. But to be a political reality a nation must have a State-will which can be made effective both for national life and for external preservation, and such a State-will demands at least a measure of national unity. The prospects of French unity—and this General Smuts must have had in mind—fill her friends with dismay, if not despair. News from Algiers does not suggest the development of a wide national coalition of French statesmen and the prospect is more easily foreseen in the words of a charming French actress, depicted in Picture Post of Nov. 27th, 1943, as saying : ‘After the war there will be a lot of people to be shot in France. Then we will start again.’
Mystici Corporis: The Fullness of Catholic Life
Authors: Vann Gerald 
Published: July 2007

Is the Church a democracy? It is a question which cannot be answered by a simple yes or no, and without preliminary definition of the term. Democracy does not necessarily imply the rule of all by all; it does imply first of all a society in which the citizens are complete individuals, persons, whose life and destiny the State must not subjugate to its own purposes, but serve; and it does imply, secondly, that the individuals contribute, according-to their different gifts and therefore their different functions, to the shaping and growth of the life of society. And is the Church a democratic society in this sense? There are many, catholic as well as non-catholic, who would be inclined to answer no. Information, direction, power, they would say, all alike come from above ; for the rank and file there is nothing to do but to receive what is given and to do what is commanded.It is easy to find solid arguments for this view. Faith and law and power are indeed given from above; the Church, the ecclesia docens, has the office of guarding and giving them ; you find in the Gospel the picture of the sheep and the Shepherd, and what have the sheep to do but to obey, and be fed by, the Shepherd? What has the ordinary catholic to do but obey his pastors and so make his way to heaven?
Trends of Catholic Thought on The Continent
Authors: Hennig John 
Published: July 2007

Amidst the turmoils of the war, of which the Eternal City itself has become one of. the centres, the Holy Father has issued two Encyclicals devoted entirely to subjects interest in which is apparently confined to theologians. These are the Encyclical oh biblical studies and the earlier Mystici corporis Christi. The encouragement given through the first of these Encyclicals to the study of Holy Scripture is of the greatest significance with regard to countries which, in that respect, still labour under ideas formed during the Penal times. But what interest to these is the refutation of certain theological errors as given in the Encyclical Mystici Corporis? Where, in English Catholic literature, have the excesses of the liturgical movement or the exaggerations of the teaching on the mystical Body of Christ, referred to in that Encyclical, been advocated?The passages in which the Encyclical concerns itself with those errors clearly refer to the Continent, in particular to Central Europe. If we regard the spiritual position of German-speaking Catholics as one of the most important points in the reconstruction of Europe and its Christian tradition, those errors gain in topical significance. The history of Catholic theology and philosophy of the 19th century reveals two main influences. The one, mainly concerning philosophy and dogma, originated from the philosophical movement known as German idealism. Far from being confined to Germany, however, it comprised, in its very origin and foundation, at least France as well. It influenced not only German Catholics whose teachings the Church condemned, such as Hermes, Guenther, Frohschammer and in later years Schell, but also French and Italian thinkers including Lammenais, Bautain and Rosmini.
A ‘Common’ Life
Authors: Pepler Conrad 
Published: July 2007

Many tributes have been paid to the exceptional character and gifts of the late Fr. George Fressanges, who met his death so tragically at the height of his powers in the Ilford train crash in January. He has been the subject of a sermon preached in Norwich Cathedral; the leader of the Nonconformists in Norwich has written of him as a ‘Man of God,’ a saint; and the Catholic recognition has been widespread. But the breadth of Fr. Fressanges’s character and accomplishments was so extensive that no attempt has as yet been made to convey a whole portrait of the man,, nor could it be for several years. But while we hope that eventually some worthy biography shall appear to assist Catholicism in England, it may be of value not only to the future biographer but to those who will be built up or ‘edified’ by the example of a great priest to outline one aspect of Fr. Fressanges’s life.He was ordained by Bishop Youens in the last days of 1936, so that his life as a priest lasted just over seven years. The first six months were spent as a curate at Sheringham, where there was not very wide scope for his inexhaustible vitality; the remaining six and a half years he spent at Norwich. During that time he was never more than a curate, being on the eve of receiving a parish of his own when he met his death.