The Irish standard., 1904-01-16
THE CHURCH AND THE PRESS.
The Art of Printing in the Early Days
In EUROPE.

There are many who are not aware
that the connection between Catholic
truth and the printing press is one of
ancient date and closest intimacy. 1t
has become part and parcel of what
may be styled protestant Legend"
that, somehow or another, the printing
press was intimately connected with
the so-called Reformation, and an Eng
lish historian is supposed to have neat
ly summed up this view by styling the
printing press the great hammer of
the Reformers, by which they broke to
pieces the power Of the papacy."
Whatever may be the subsequent
history and character of the art of
printing, in its origin and early his
tory it was an essentially Catholic art
Catholic in invention, Catholic in its
use, and especially for long exclusively
consecrated to the propagation OF
Catholic truth. The invention of the
art of printing from movable types
dates from the year 1441, or 42 years
before the birth of Martin Luther. Its
inventor was almost certainly John
Gutenberg, of Mainz.
1t will be interesting to know with
what sentiments the new invention
was received by the Church and her
ministers at the time. The Carthusian
monk, Werner Rolewincll, grcets it in
these terms in I474: "Thc art OF
printing invented at Maintz is the art
of arts, the science OF sciences,
through whose rapid spread the world
has been enriched and enlightened by
a splendid treasure, hitherto hidden,
of knowledge and wisdom. An end
less number of books which hitherto
were known to only few students in
Athens or Paris or other universities
are now disseminated by this art
through all races, people and nations,
and in every language" The Bcncdic-
tine historian Of Wcstphalia, Bernhard
White, monk OF Liesborn, speaks of the
art of printing as one than which
there hath never been in the world any
art more worthy, more laudable, more
useful, more holy or divine" Another
contemporary, Jacob Whimphciling,
wrote: eve Germans can pride our
selves on no other discovery or intel
lectual production SO much as upon
that Of printing, which has raised us
up to be new intellectual carriers Of
the teaching OF Christianity, OF all
divine and mundane knowledge, and
SO to be benefactors of all mankind"
The old Chronicle OF Koelhoff contains
the following expressions: GLOW many
prayers and numbcrless inward aspira-
tons are drawn from books! What
great profit and happiness are derived
by those who make or help prepare
printed books!"
The new art was disseminated
throughout Europe with astonishing
rapidity and inexpressible religious
enthusiasm; not, be it observed, as a
commercial speculation or for the sake
of material advantages, as the tele-
phone or the typewriter in our own
days, but rather as religious work
and a means of propagating Catholic
truth. From 1462 to 1900 the names of
one thousand printers, mostly of Ger
man origin, have been preserved. In
Mainz itself, during the very infancy
of the art, five printing presses were
established, in Ulm six, in Basel six
teen, in Augsburg twenty, in Cologne
twenty-one; in Nuremburg up to 1900
five and twenty printers had been adj
mitted to the rights Of citizenship. Be-
fore the end of the fifteenth century,
over one hundred German printing