As we go to press the Daily Mail publishes an extract from an allocution delivered by His Holiness Pope Pius XI at a secret Consistory held on Thursday, December 18th, 1924. The Pope is reported to have said, inter alia, ‘Certainly nobody has thought that we, by our relief of the Russian people, have wished in any way to favour a system of government which we are so far from approving. Indeed, we feel it is our duty, in the name of the Redeemer, to warn and exhort all men, especially the heads of governments, all who love peace and public welfare, all who believe in the sanctity of family and in human dignity, to make a unanimous effort to ward off from themselves and their fellow-citizens the most grave dangers and certain injuries coming from Socialism and Communism.’ The press comment on this is that ‘Pope Pius XI has definitely entered the lists against Socialism and Communism in general and against the Soviet Government in particular, uttering the severest condemnation of a foreign government or of a political movement ever made by any Pope in recent years.’

It is evident from the startling headlines which appear over the Holy Father’s words, and the sentence, ‘definitely entered the lists against Socialism and Communism,’ that the Daily Mail was in some doubt until the present as to the attitude of the Church towards the vital questions of Socialism and Communism, and welcomes the statement of the Pope as an indication of the mind of the Church in these problems. But surely, since Leo XIII gave to the world his Encyclical Rerum Novarum, so long ago as 1891, there could be no doubt about the policy of the Church in these important questions.

Last month we had occasion to call attention to the needs of the reading public, and our remarks provoked some scathing comments on the general tone of Catholic weekly papers. For the enlightenment of those who are responsible for the production of these ‘weeklies,’ it may be worth while setting out this criticism in some detail.

‘WTiy is it,’ said the candid critic (himself a Catholic), ‘that our Catholic papers are so unattractive in appearance, to begin with appearances? They either look dull and uninviting to one who wants to read, or repel one from reading by their cheap and vulgar aspect. The other day I picked up a paper that did duty in a certain midland town. The paper on which it was printed was of the cheapest and very unpleasant to handle, and the type wretched. I felt ashamed to think that this was one of the “organs” of the great Catholic body. There was nothing about it to suggest the dignity and beauty of the Church it was intended to represent; it might have been a propaganda “rag” issued by the irresponsible leaders of some popular movement. No thinking Catholic could be anything but offended with, and ashamed of, the general appearance of this weekly paper.

‘What is responsible for this vulgarity? Besides bad paper and printing, the advertisements are often to blame. If advertisements are necessary, and they certainly are, cannot some effort be made to insert only those that will not at any rate look out of place in a paper that reflects Catholic thought and reports Catholic news? But no process of careful selection is apparent.

The past year has been one of intense anxiety for the Catholics of France, and although, after steering a bold course through great dangers, they can for the moment regard the situation with much more confidence than was possible even three months ago, it is too soon to say that their trials or their dangers are yet at an end. Their leaders have at any rate shown themselves capable of making the utmost use of their tactical advantages, which have given them, in the present time of national crisis, a strength out of all proportion to their numbers in relation to the rest of F ranee. And so long as the present critical conditions continue, the Catholics, as a powerfully organized and coherent minority, will be able to exert constant pressure on any Government which contemplates a policy of internal discord.

Yet less than six months ago M. Herriot was still in power, fulminating against the usurpations of the ‘clerical reaction’ during the years of the war and threatening to carry out a whole programme of anti-Catholic legislation. He had already decreed the abolition of the Vatican Embassy. His Minister for the Interior had carried out a thorough investigation all over France to discover how many members of the proscribed religious communities had come back to France, with a view to expelling them once more. His Education Minister was delivering violent tirades against the Jesuits and the other teaching orders, and was preparing a complete scheme for re-establishing a State monopoly of education all over the country.

‘Give me a paper,’ said the Man with the Weary Eyes, ‘in which there are no competitions, and I will read it. I am tired of lotteries, ballots golden or otherwise, cross-words, and picture-puzzles. Any paper that does not want to give me a fortune for nothing I will welcome as an oasis in this desert of competitive frenzy/

His words were not prompted by disillusionment or disappointment. The re of Tantalus, waiting on Fortune to drop her precious gifts within his aching reach, had never appealed to his mind that hated chance. He would never allow himself to be demoralised by getting something for nothing, or a prize out of all proportion to a casual effort. Too great a principle was at stake to indulge in such a gamble.

Real competition is one of the many salts of life. But as soon as the mere gaining of a prize is allowed to become the aim of all striving, the salt loses its savour. When a game degenerates into a contest for something outside itself, it ceases to be a game. It is at once commercialised into a business with a profit and loss account. That is why professional football is no longer a game, but a gamble. Love of sport for what it is and not for what it can get, has yielded to the lures of lucre.

A game well played is always a ‘striving for the mastery/ but not vice versa. Whether the mastery comes or not, the game’s the thing. ‘If there is anything worse than a battle lost/ it has been said,’ it can only be a battle won/ A man who lives only for results usually has no results to live for.

Work and play well done are their own reward. A favourable result can add but an accidental glory.

Catholic Newspapers.

In The Tablet (October 24th, 1925) we read the following:

‘Bad luck has once more spoilt a good idea. Father Bede Jarrett, our English Dominican Provincial, lately had the bright plan of “taking ten Catholics at haphazard and asking them two questions,” namely :—>

1. Do you buy a Catholic weekly paper?

2. What chiefly do you buy it to read?

Bows drawn at a venture are often drawn in vain, and many a bullet finds a wrong billett. This has been the Dominican Provincial’s fate. His “haphazard” brought him ten pairs of replies, which are mostly so poor that it has required all Father Bede Jarrett’s well-known literary skill to work them up into even a moderately readable article for Blackfriars, the Dominican monthly. Indeed, his luck has been so bad that most of the respondents to his questionnaire seem to be minors. “The usual answer given to Question was ‘No, I don’t buy it myself, but they usually take it at home.’” Here we have the minor’s characteristic mixture of disdain and reverence for the Domestic Powers—for the mysterious “they.” To Question 2 Father Bede Jarrett gives us four or five pages of answers. To be candid, they are hardly worth so many lines. As the whole article is composed on the bad principle of alluding vaguely and generally to the various Catholic papers and their contents instead of giving verifiable references, we cannot say how far the comments are just or unjust, in the main. There is, however, one allusion which we can identify, namely, some words about The Tablet’s article “Of Lenten Pastorals” which appeared on March 1, 1924. The minor who has obliged the Dominican Provincial with his views upon this article turns out to be a man or woman who cannot even read; and therefore we will only say that we sympathise deeply with Father Bede Jarrett on the miscarriage of a happy thought. Perhaps he will try again. It would be useful if “they”—the Philistine plutocrats who put down their tuppences for the sprightly Universe and their sixpences for the ponderous Tablet—’Would give us their views.’

In adjoining columns of The Times (May 12th), Dr. H. D. A. Major, Principal of Ripon Hall, Oxford, and Sir William Joynson-Hicks are reported to have said some interesting things about the doctrinal position of the Church of England. Their remarks are all the more interesting because they set forth entirely contradictory opinions on a subject that must be of the deepest importance to both speakers.

Dr. Major, realising that the English Church is faced with a crisis due to the ‘mediaevalising’ encroachments of Anglo-Catholicism, pleads for a simpler creed that will win the ready acceptance of the modern man. Most of the official theology of the Church of England, he maintains, is out of date in a number of ways, and needs drastic reformation. He believes that great numbers of people are kept out of the Church because of the ‘impossible character of the Church’s theology,’ which lays an ‘absurd and quite un-Christian emphasis upon the importance of assent to a number of intellectual propositions.’ What is wanted is a living theology that will grip the modern mind. This theological reformation, he continues, ‘must be mainly carried on by Christian clergymen, but there is to-day great scope in the undertaking for educated English laymen. Historians, philosophers, scientists of mark could all be of great help to the Church in the effort to achieve theological reformation if they would not only point out where the Church’s doctrines appeared to them to be in conflict with truth, but also how they thought any particular doctrine might be reformulated so as to be in agreement with modern knowledge.’

There is evidently something wrong with the psychology of a nation that offers a public welcome to an American film star and allows its foremost air-pilot to return from an amazing flight of 17,000 miles without a word or gesture of national appreciation. When one read of the Lord Mayor of London offering a public reception to Mr. Tom Mix, and letting Mr. Alan Cobham slip home without any official notice or recognition, it was impossible not to find in these events a parable symptomatic of the spirit of the age. The lesson of the parable is that the majority of people are suffering from a lack of true values: they have lost their sense of proportion. A writer in a daily paper has pointed out that there is no possible comparison between the feats of the two men. No doubt the exploits of the crack rider of Tony are a remarkable exhibition and a delight to the heart of every schoolboy : but who would venture even to think of them in the same category as the airman’s marvellous performance? Yet the film actor is invited to the Mansion House while the airman goes quietly home.

There is something wrong somewhere. It may be a gracious act on our part to extend a cordial welcome to American film stars and keep our modest heroes in the background (they would be the last men to court the limelight), but the truth of the matter lies much deeper than a question of good manners or national politeness. What this attitude of the public mind uncomfortably demonstrates is the fact that while purveyors of mere amusement are hailed as super-beings, almost as gods, men who cheerfully risk their lives in the national service for the security of the public are blankly ignored.

Following the Pope’s disapproval of Russian Bolshevism, as expressed in his recent Allocution, Mr. Stephen Graham gives a detailed account of the organised persecution of Christianity in that unfortunate country (The Times, January 21). He speaks with commendable restraint, but his long experience in Russia and evident love of the people give to his words an authority that adds a further emphasis to the serious nature of the persecution to which Russian Christianity is now being subjected.

One of the foremost aims of the Russian Revolution is ‘the complete destruction of Christianity and its moral code/ To force this policy on the people the practical means is adopted of closing the churches and meeting any opposition on the part of the clergy with imprisonment, exile, or even death. No religious instruction may be given to the children either in school or in private. Rigorous penalties are enforced for the infringement of this law.’ The churches in many of the towns have been converted into music-halls and cinemas, and the Red Flag appears where the Cross has been. The altar vessels and ikons have been confiscated and are now being sold as religious curios in Paris and America/ Religious persecution on a drastic scale is at present the main programme of the Soviet regime.

Another feature of the campaign is the ban put on all who offer themselves as candidates for the priesthood, with the idea that if the seminaries are closed down the Church will automatically come to an end when the old priests die out or are removed from office.

Newspapers and reviews have a great deal in common with individuals. Like men and women they have their peculiar characteristics, their different points of view, their private opinions; they have their dreams and ambitions, hopes and fears. They pass through moods and phases, have growing-pains, succeed or fail in the business of their life.

A great opportunity is waiting for someone to write the biography of any paper. It would be a very human document. If the writer were smitten with the modern craze, he could write it from a psychological standpoint, and reveal to the world the hitherto unguessed complexes that were responsible for its success or failure. He could describe how, while still in swaddling clothes, it was thrown to the critics for their cruel dissection, and how its hyper-sensitive nature never really survived that painful ordeal, with the result that all through its life it showed signs of agoraphobia, and was of such a retiring disposition that if anybody made a noise like a critic, it raised not even a still, small voice in self-defence, and ultimately allowed itself to be submerged into utter silence That would serve as the pathetic life-story of one type of paper. A great deal could be made of the last time it went to press, to emerge unwanted, never to be read.

But the reverse of this might be true. In that case the biography would begin with the paper waking up for the first time in print and finding itself famous. It had the great will to succeed, knew its own mind, and rode rough-shod over the faces of its critics. It did not even know there was such a thing as an inferiority complex, or desire that must be repressed and sublimated into something else.

We are told that the first qualification of anyone who aspires to success in modern journalism is the instinct to know what the public wants; and what the reading public is said to want nowadays is sensational news with a strong human appeal. The news may be trivial, like the publicity accorded to the Prime Minister’s ubiquitous pipe, or tremendous, like the declaration of a world-war. But in every case it must be news that touches in some way the fringe of human life, and it must be presented in a way that people can grasp at once, without any strain being put upon their thinking intelligence and without anything being left to their imagination. And it must be presented in this tabloid form because the demands of modern life leave little or no time for quiet thought, so that people want their thinking done for them and their opinions readymade for them by the press. That is why we have the short leader, the snappy article, and the scare headline. Metaphorically, this is an age of the automatic machine and the penny in the slot. In America it is possible to get a meal by inserting a coin and pulling a handle. The same principle is said to operate to-day with regard to the reading public, which insists on being able to assimilate the maximum amount of news with the minimum of effort; which, by inserting its penny in the slot-machine of journalism, can extract its thoughts and opinions without personal trouble or inconvenience.

Voltaire (or was it Lord Chesterfield?) once declared that human beings should be divided into three classes, ‘Men, Women and Herveys’; while Dr. Johnson was wont to say, ‘Call a dog Hervey, and I shall love him.’ These two celebrated utterances aptly hit off the characteristics of a brilliant family intimately associated with English history and literature. For the Herveys were almost all of them eccentric to a degree, and yet at the same time possessed of a superlative charm.

John, Lord Hervey of Ickworth, the friend of Queen Caroline of Anspach, and the writer of those invaluable memoirs on which every historian of the reign of George II to-day so greatly relies, had for his third son a remarkable being who figures largely in not only the England but the Europe of the eighteenth century. Frederick Hervey, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, the ‘mitred Proteus’ of Horace Walpole, the ‘wicked prelate’ of George III, the ‘episcopal patriot’ of Northern Ireland, the ‘modern Maecenas’ of artists and sculptors, and the ‘man plenteous in good works’ of John Wesley, if he left no mark on his age as author or statesman or courtier, was a cosmopolitan personage whom we meet with in every memoir, diary, newspaper, and letter of his time, and whose memory as a wealthy epicurean, open-handed globe-trotter is still kept alive by the inevitable ‘Hotel Bristol’ found in every continental town. The foreigner’s fixed and traditional idea of the rich, mad, restless English ‘milord’ can be largely traced in its origin to him.

touching his Following the World, and Dissembling in Religion against his Conscience and Knowledge

Right worshipfull: Although your worldly dignity, and the just opinion of your great wisedome, compared with my contraries, might feare me from writing unto you in this bold manner, yet many things moved me, especially my charity towardes you, to whome I am behoulding for causes which you may remember, and my duty towardes God, whose good motion I hope it was that I should tell you rather friendly then finely, plainely then curiously, that which your selfe doe know much better, but have not cause so well to remember: Because, that vexation doth give understanding and man when he was in honour did not understand. Psalm 48. Which difference in estate, maketh that the yonger man for years and more simple for wit and knowledge, may notwithstanding some tyme truely say with the Prophet : Above auncients have / understood, because I have enquired out thy commandments. Psalm 118.

Presupposing then that you are in conscience a Catholike, and seeing that in outward shew you professe the contrary. I am bould to reason familiarly with you, and to demaund : whether you think it lawfull to believe one thing inwardly, and to professe the contrary openly? And how you can avoid these evident Scriptures: With the mouth confession is made to salvation. He that shill deny me before men, I also will deny him before my Father, which is in heaven.

It has been reserved for our own age—the age of wireless telegraphy, of ships like floating towns, of monopoly, of millionaires and of mammoth beauty-choruses, the age in which four out of every five get it and in which no man may afford the handicap of unattractive teeth—it has been reserved, I say, for this age of ours to produce a heresy which eclipses all heresies.

We have seen the savage Puritanism of the Commonwealth, when men denied that the worship and service of God could be other than things of gloom and horror. We have seen the cold, dispassionate rationalism of the age of Voltaire, when faith was contemptuously dismissed as mere superstition and when the continued presence of Our Lord upon earth was spurned as a childish fable. We have seen a revival of Manichaeism, though nowadays they call it Christian Science. A new Puritanism has initiated and directed the Prohibition movement in America; and has made it illegal to sell cigarettes in the state of Kansas and elsewhere. We have seen, at one time or another, every article of the Christian Faith denied by men who called themselves Christians. We have seen God’s Vicar on Earth locked up like a dangerous criminal, ridiculed, insulted and despised. And now the crowning horror is upon us; I have seen it blatant and unashamed in America, though I believe it has not yet crossed the Atlantic. But it will come. For it has behind it the power of American finance.

Few things are more nauseating nowadays than all the modern cant about the Ideals of Big Business, Efficient Salesmanship, Truth in Advertising and all the rest of the nonsense.

‘iE XT’ XPOSITXO fidelis de morte D. Thomae Mori et quorundam aliorum insignium virorum in Anglia Anno mdxxxv.’

This small Latin book, printed in Paris during the very month following their deaths, is interesting from the fact, besides other points, that it is the most contemporary account at any length which we possess of the death of the victims of Henry’s cruelty. It is not exactly a rare book, but is certainly not a popular one, and in any case the story which it gives is worth making more widely known.

The author shows a considerable local knowledge of London, as well as being fairly acquainted with the English judicial system, English titles, habits and so forth. We will leave the question of the authorship of this and one or two related accounts until the end of this paper.

After the usual introduction the author goes on : ‘You will receive, therefore, my dearest Sir, from your far from cheerful friend an account of the death of certain very eminent Englishmen, but especially that of Thomas More, who was during his life a famous baron and supreme judge of the kingdom whom those people call the Chancellor.

‘In the far east (of London) there is a citadel strongly fortified, which in past time the kings inhabited. It is commonly known as the Tower: but now in that building it is the custom to confine noblemen and others of mark who are regarded as guilty of high treason.’ The palace and Benedictine monastery of Westminster are next described:’ both buildings

The growing revolt against British supremacy, political and commercial, among oriental peoples from Egypt to China is causing grave disquietude and anxiety to many people in this country while it rejoices our enemies. .To some of us, however, things are not so black as they seem, notwithstanding the fact that a certain knowledge of the East makes us fully conscious of the grave implications of this revolt. We believe that there is a silver lining e£en to this dark cloud; unless we are greatly mistaken, England is going to gain much more than certain citizens of England (by no means all Englishmen) are going to lose on account of this movement in Egypt, India and China. England stands to win by the success of this movement. Let us not be fooled by the outcry against the supposed Bolshevist instigators of the revolt: it is only injuring our own interests. The Bolshevists are delighted to see themselves saddled with the blame and thus thrown into the arms of these people who consider themselves oppressed. But the revolt is not due to Bolshevist inspiration : it is far too noble in its principles for that, as we shall try to show. It is an endeavour on the part of these oriental peoples to prevent their own civilisation from being swamped by Western civilisation at its worst, namely, commercial industrialism.

The endless wail of the daily press that the Chinese riots are centred in a boycott of British manufactures fails to depress us: but it is symbolic of what lies behind the movement since England is the author of the industrial system.

It is often asked why the Catholic Church, for some centuries past, has apparently ceased to be the Mother of Poets—why, in Francis Thompson’s phrase, whilst retaining the palm of Sanctity, she has foregone the laurel of Song? The fact is scarcely in dispute,: one could easily count upon the fingers of a hand the outstanding Catholic poets of the last three hundred years. All the greatest names are either pagan or heretic. Is there an explanation of this lamenable condition? For it was not always so. Time was when the courts of the Temple outsang the groves of Parnassus, and all the sons of God made joyful melody like birds in the woods of a spring morning.

‘Poetry,’ says Thompson, ‘sinned, Poetry fell: and instead of reclaiming her, Catholicism cast her forth from the door, to follow the feet of her pagan seducer.’ This is true : Poetry became the instrument of evil—the very lovely and effective instrument of a worldly and sensuous philosophy. She lost her good name, and her very beauty only made her the more an object of suspicion.

But how came it that poetry fell from grace? The Protestant Reformation has been rightly blamed for many evils: it must take the blame for this too. Previously, Christendom had been one—not only in faith, but in life also, and in genius. The same warm, vital stream flowed freely through every part of her. But, in an evil hour, the poison of heresy got into that life-stream, causing atrophy here, paralysis there, and everywhere inducing fever and delirium.