The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-05-26
Catholic Thought And Opinion
By REV. JOSEPH F. DoNNELLY

Christ that Els Church will never be completely destroyed, 1t may be that the teachings of the Church will continue to be frustrated by the audacity of the wicked and the timidity of the, virtuous.
 MONsEGNOR BENSON
 READ THE SIGNS
 More than generation ago Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson wrote two books of them remarkable in pic- turing the two opposite possibilities. In the first, Lord of the World" which he called "a terribly sensa- tional book" he pictures the Church as pushed aside by Q world current of organism, reduced to an intense ly devout handful of the faithful and returning as In the days of its origin to . wandering band with the Pope at the head of the Twelve. The setting of the book is at the beginning of the twenty-first cen tury. Rome has been destroyed, Christianity Is the declared enemy Of man, and as the old statesman says in the prologue. there is no hope until Our Lord comes back" The book was written tlairty.five years ago.
 In the second book "TFe Dawn of All'' Msgr. Benson pictures the other possibility. The year of its setting is 1873, thirty years in our future. He pictures in that day Q full restoration of the Church. Our civilization has been reestablished and re-nyigcrated by a new and full application of the teachings of Christ. The GallileaIn has again con- Quered and the law of Gcd rules the world. This book written to offset the distressing picture of the first was written thirty years ago.
 One of these books holds the pic- ture of the Catholic Church in @ rapidly approaching future. To-day the world stands at the threSt1old of a new era. Today we are face to face with fundamentals. A few years ago 8 middle course was possible but there is no middle course today. In the approaching future there are but two possibilities: either the Church will follow the pattern of the first picture and be all but com pletely destroyed, or the Church will arise with the full exercises of the power with which it has been en- dowed and bring the whole world to Christ.
 AND HTLAERE BELLOC
 In his excellent work entitled '"The Great Heresies" which he wrote Q year before the present war, Hllaire Beloc, the English apologist and historian, sees the future with the same two possibilities. He speaks of the latest phase of heresy as "the Modern Attack" on the Church and he maintains that this attack is far more advanced than most of us re- alize. In fact 1t has now advanced so far that we can now affirm "one all-important point quite clearly: of two things one must happen, one of two results must become definite throughout the modern world. Either the Catholic Church will be reduced by her modern enemies to political impotence, to numerical irl- significance, and,> so far aS public appreciation goes to silence; or the Catholic Church will in this case as throughout the past, react more strongly against her enemies than her enemies have been able to re- act against her; she will recover and extend her authority, and rise once more to the leadership of the civil- iZation which she made, and will thus recover and restore the world.
 "In word either we of the faith shall become a small perSecuted and neglected island amid mankind, or we shall be able to lift at the end of the struggle the old battle cry, "Christus Imperatl'" Thus MT. Bel loc
 LOOKING AHEAD
 Today we face an unknown future. We are moving toward an unknown world. What it holds God alone knows and in our day of fast mov- ing events only the rash will hazard an opinion. One thing is certain. A new order, a new conception of hu- manity is struggling to be born. It will be born. Who will guide N? What will be the position of the Church?
 We live on the eve of an era which will see either the restora- tion of the Church as the guide of the civilization of which she Is the author, or the destruction of the Church in the degree In which that destruction is possible. Exaggera- tion? It is impossible to exaggerate ! the fatal i1nnnrt If 0Slp day