RIGHT TURN TO CATHOLICISM

Sometime after I was baptized a Catholic, I wrote a piece about it in a Dominican publication and it was reprinted in a popular Catholic magazine. Months later, a Negro magazine requested me to state, "Why I Became a Catholic?" I did, for I am specially interested that Negroes should know what it means to be a Catholic. Nevertheless, I am no propagandist of Catholicism. The Church has men and women trained for that work. Furthermore, religion to me is an intimate and individual thing and it will take all that I have to give personally to be a true Catholic.

However, it does appear strange to me that any Protestant should enquire why one becomes a Catholic: for to my mind there is no parallel between Catholicism and Protestantism. To me Catholicism is the authentic mother of Christendom; Protestantism is a wayward foster child. Even when I was an agnostic, my intellectual sympathy was with Catholicism: for I could not imagine Christendom without Catholicism.

Yet I was born and raised in an atmosphere of Protestantism and Agnosticism and it was not until I visited Europe that I became aware of the greater glory and grandeur of Catholicism. It was particularly in Spain, as I came to know and understand the people and visited the marvellous cathedrals, that I fell in love with Catholicism. Spain uncovered to me the fact that not only is there a 'Catholic way of salvation, but also a Catholic way of life.

Towards the end of the nineteen-thirties I became interested in Catholic Friendship House and its work in Harlem. In 1943 I became seriously ill and a Catholic couple loaned me the use of their summer cottage in Connecticut. It was a lonely, isolated

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place and I had plenty of time to read many pamphlets and books on
Catholicism. When I returned to New York in the Fall, I continued
my reading in books and encyclopedias at the Public Library.

Mainly I was interested in the history of Catholicism and in-
tensely in the period of the early Fathers of the Church, ~~the 2nd~~
~~by that is the period of~~ embracing the lifetime of St. Paul to
the Fourth century, in which the Bible was first translated into Latin
by the Catholic Church. I felt that my education had been sadly neg-
lected. Why should I know so much about the Greek philosophers and
so little about the Christian Fathers, when, even though a pariah in
the United States, I was a son of Christendom?

During the war years, from '39 until '43, I had many
visitors, colored and white: Communists and their fellow travellers,
chiefly artistes, artists and writers, members of the C. I. O.,
Negroes of the upper tenth working for the anti-defamation League.
Almost all were anti-Fascist propagandists. I bluntly said that I
was neither pro-Fascist nor pro-Communist and that I saw little
difference between the two, except that one proclaimed the deification
of the State, while the other while acting on the same premise, pre-
tended to be the only way of salvation for the working-class. Both
were dictatorships and I believed in neither. At that time, also,
everybody was spouting, Democracy, Democracy and I said that Democracy
was what you make it and not what you say it is.

The world of New York, then, was pretty well divided be-
tween pro-Communists and pro-Fascists. The Communists were rabid,
and ruthless and reckless in persecuting and vilifying individuals
who did not accept their point of view. And by hook or crook they
had corraled the majority of "liberals" to work with them. I was

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never a joiner type. But now I felt the necessity of belonging to
something in which I could sincerely believe. I was on the road to
Catholicism. In Catholicism there was room for any individual, poor
or rich, any people who had faith in Jesus Christ and His Church.
In it there was freedom without license. And one could have faith
and hope and still believe in humanity.

Some of the critics of Catholicism think that there is
too much of ancient paganism preserved in it, such as the garments of
the priests, the use of Latin, the mass etc. They say that such
things were never sanctioned by Jesus Christ. But it seems to me that
as life, both corporeal and spiritual, is growth, so it seems natural
to me that the Church of Jesus Christ had to be organized and built
by the Apostles and the Fathers. There is not grandeur only, but
wonder also in the fact that the Church stands as a link between
modern man and his past. And perhaps, if human beings were taught
more of the past with the present, they might be humbler and less
bellicose and savage towards one another.

When I was a boy and agnostic I remember reading
Matthew Arnold's "Literature and Dogma" and a statement in it which
said that the Catholic Church possessed the secret of Jesus Christ,
while the Protestant had the method. Not being a savant, with know-
ledge of the esoteric, I would not presume to say I understand
this, but I can say: I prefer the secret. Perhaps Matthew Arnold
meant that the Catholic Church stands for restraint in human affairs,
that while administering to the spiritual, it possesses also a fund-
amental understanding of the materialistic nature of the human kind.
Thus, it has particularly stressed the virtues of humility, loving-
kindness, compassion, obedience and self-sacrifice.

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My study of the Catholic Church led to the discovery of
important facts of which I was not formerly aware. For example,
when Catholicism conquered Rome, in its infinite wisdom it abolish-
ed the tribune and usury. It put priests in the place of the
tribunes and as Jesus Christ had chased the money-changers out of
the temple, the Catholic Church, following in his footsteps, did
likewise. But fifteen hundred years later the money-changers were
apotheosized and permitted to rule the world by the Protestants.
As I continued to get enlightenment, it just flashed upon me that
Agnosticism, Atheism, Modernism, Capitalism, State Socialism and
State Communism were all children of the Pandora Box of Protestant-
ism. And my new knowledge was informed by my travelling in Europe
and North Africa, especially in Spain. Spain appeared to me not only
as a link between Africa and Europe, but also between Asia and
Europe.

I started to visit Spain in 1928 and for seven years I returned every year, once spending a year and a half. I saw Spain under the regime of King Alfonso and Dictator Primo de Rivera and also that of the Republic. And except for a little exaltation under the Republic, I could see very little or no difference in the lives of the people under any of the regimes. It was Spain (not France where I had lived five years) which gave me an insight into the importance of life in a Catholic country and the significance of the Catholic faith. In France when I visited a church or a cathedral, I saw women only worshipping. In Spain there were as many men as women.

Although the Spanish-Moroccan war had just recently ended, there was no trace anywhere of hostility towards colored people, brown or black. A Spaniard will accept any man as a human being unless he shows himself unworthy. It is a country

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til he shows himself unworthy. It is a country where the dignity
of the individual is more highly regarded than in any I know. One
night in Madrid I was invited to a party, which was held for a
popular Negro musician. And a Spanish lawyer who was with us
asked me not to mention that he was a lawyer. Almost the ident-
ical thing happened in Barcelona, except that the lawyer there
asked me not to tell the girls. Naturally, I was interested to
know why. I was informed that as a group lawyers were not respect-
ed; they were just like school-teachers! They said that there were
few successful lawyers in Spain, that the successful Spanish law-
yers were in France, where they specialized in obtaining divorces
for wealthy South Americans. I thought of France, Britain and
especially America, where the lawyers ruled by hair-splitting
arguments, setting criminals free, releasing corporations from
their obligations, protecting the rich in their cruel exploitation
of the poor, becoming legislators and finally getting themselves
elected and appointed to the high seat of judges. But in Spain
there were no lawyers of any social or political importance. Just
as there are no procurers, or more precisely, gigolos and pimps,
as they call them in France, Britain and the United States. For
there is nothing more degrading to a Spaniard than a man who exists
on the immoral earnings of a female.

I happened to be in Spain, when the Revolution of 1931
removed Alfonso XIII from the throne. It appeared as if all the
people were happy over this event, Although I was informed that
the grandees, some of the high officers and members of the hier-
archy were opposed. From Cadiz I hurried back to Tangier, where I
was living and on to Tetuan. From the majority of Spanish houses,
hotels and cafes, Republican flags floated as if by magic. All the

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appeared glad to see Alfonso go: workers and soldiers and sailors, bank clerks, parochial priests, socialists and syndicalists. In Tetuan Moslem women paraded the streets and sang for joy with Spanish workers. And the Moslem men said: "Indeed, it is a revolution." The people hated King Alfonso for the Primo de Rivera dictatorship (which was mild enough, compared to others I know) and also for the Spanish war in Morocco. For although the Spaniard lives with blood in the bull rings every day, he is not blood-thirsty, perhaps not as much as other peoples who prefer boxing. The Spanish complained that the flower of Spain's youth had died in the mountain fastnesses of Morocco. They blamed King Alfonso for this, because of his high-handed action in overruling the high command and changing generals, when he knew nothing about the science of warfare.

The majority of the Republican members of the Cortez were professors. As I heard and deciphered for myself in the Spanish newspapers, there were about five urgent things which the people desired done and which the Republican Government promised to do.

(1) Land Reform: either expropriating or purchasing of the large estates and cutting them up into small holdings for the peasants.

(2) Army Reform: The Spanish Army was top-heavy, with the sons of the wealthy crowding into it as officers, like as in the bygone years,

Educational Reform;

when Spain was a great colonial power. (3) This too was stressed with the desire to create secular schools. (4) Wages: The wages of all workers were crying to be raised, for the peseta was sharply tumbling. At that time an American dollar was worth about six pesetas and in some regions workers received 2 or 3 pesetas per day.

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(5) The Spanish Colony of Morocco: All the republicans, from the centre to the left, wanted Spain to quit Morocco. However, unlike the French Moroccans, the Spanish Moroccans did not want to sever the union with Spain. The native leaders welcomed the Republic and declared that they wanted not independence, but reform, such as native representatives, municipal councils, the teaching of Arabic as a primary language, changing of the obsolete Pacha courts and higher wages for the natives. While I was in Morocco and Spain they sent two delegations to Madrid to press their demands. They were well received by the government and the Spanish. In their flowing robes their group photograph decorated the Spanish newspapers. But actually nothing was done for the Spanish people or for the Moroccans. I was in Tetuan when Minister of Education, Fernando de los Rios arrived there and spoke to the natives, saying that Morocco was their country and that they soon would be masters of it. And the natives replied that they wanted to co-operate with the new Republic, not to break away from it. Yes, as I remember something was done. A huge sum was borrowed from the Radical-Socialist government of France to peg the peseta.

There had always been much more friendliness between the Spanish Moroccans and the Spanish people than between the French Moroccans and the French people. For example, at the beginning of the beginning of the nineteen-thirties, the French Moroccan government proclaimed a "Dahir Berbere", which prohibited Moslem preachers and teachers from carrying Islam to the Berbers of the far regions. The French had discovered a little difference in customs between the Berbers of the interior and the Arabs of the towns and from that pretended that they were two different people. As if a scientific