The publication of the Wolfenden Report has re-opened an old debate. How far should human legislation enter the field of morals and condemn behaviour reprobated by the Christian tradition? The difference between crime and sin is pretty generally recognized at the extremes; thus a man will admit to a technical breach of the rules and regulations without concluding thereby that it is matter for the Sacrament of Penance. The difficulty is to know where to draw the line between what should be legislated against and what should be left well alone, even though it may be objectionable to many on grounds of ethics, religion, or culture. Let us attempt to mark the frontier, or rather to narrow the marches between the temporal” and spiritual powers in the culpability country.

Among Catholics the guarded approval which greeted the Report was presently followed by dissent. Perhaps their attitude will harden when the proposals come before Parliament, but for the moment it remains unsettled. The ambiguity reflects an oscillation between two opposite charges in the widespread suspicions entertained about our social mentality. Grumbles at one moment about clerical fussiness and intrusion into private affairs are followed at the next by mutters about condoning human frailties which do not interfere with ecclesiastical privileges. We are told of priests with blackthorns scouring the hedgerows for courting couples of a summer evening, of petulant sacristans shooing lightly-clad tourists away from the churches, of orders from the pulpit telling us how to vote: behind all this lurks an archetypal Mrs Grundy—crowned with a biretta.