A WELLINGTON PRIEST

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 68, 20 March 1936, Page 14

A WELLINGTON PRIEST

LECTURES ABROAD

FATHER J. A. HIGGINS

RETURNING

In August of last year the Rev. Father J. A. Higgins, S.M., who for three years had acted as lecturer in Christian Social Principles to the Catholics of Wellington, left for Washington (D.J.), U.S.A., for further study at the Catholic University in that city.

After some weeks, during which he had several lengthy interviews with Monsignor John A. Rya*) director of social studies at ' the University, he was advised that in view of the knowledge of the subject displayed by him in the interviews with the director, and in lectures to fellow-students at the university, further elementary study on his part would be a sheer waste of time. Monsignor Ryan also intimated that he approved and highly commended a series of Press articles on Catholic social principles, written by Father Higgins and published recently in New Zealand. He urged that, instead of continuing routine study, Father Higgins should use Washington as a base from *'hich to visit leading authorities in other Catholic universities and elsewhere. Acting on this p^an the universities of Fordham, Toronto, Notre Dame, and St. Louis were included in a tour by Father Higgins, and in each he was accorded every facility for observing teaching methods and class work, and for discussion with the professors. In the course of his travels he met, among other well-mown figures, Christopher Hoilis (who toured New Zealand with the Oxford University debating team some years ago), Desmond Fitzgerald (late Minister of Finance in the Cosgrave Cabinet in Ireland), and MM. Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson of the College de France, all of whom were lecturing in Canada and the United States. At Detroit he spent an hour with Father Coughlin. the "radio priest," and at St. Louis visited the Central Verein. a highly efficient social research organisation of German Catholics. In November he was advised by his Provincial (the Very Rev. Father D. Hurley, S.M.), who was then in Rome, that arrangements had been made for him to extend his tour to England, and the end of the month found him installed at the Catholic Workers' College at Oxford. PROMINENT PEOPLE MET. Using Oxford as headquarters he interspersed study with interviewing leading authorities on social affairs, these representing various schools of thought and including G. D. H. Cole (one of the best known Socialist writers and a Professor at Oxford), Christopher Dawson (lecturer in the history of culture at Liverpool University), Father McNabb. 0.P., Father Drinkwater, Dr. McNair Wilson, A. J. Penty, F. J. Sheed, Featherstone Hammond, Gregory Macdonald (editor of "G.K.'s Weekly"), Ernest Oldmeadow (editor of "The Tablei,"), Bernai'd, Wall, of "The Colosseum," and Donald Attwater, of "The Catholic Herald." He spent a considerable amount of time with the editorial staff of "G.K.'s Weekly," with the headquarter staffs of the English Douglas Credit and Henry Georpe organisations. In Ireland he spent most of his time with Father Cahill, S.J.. a prolific writer on social problems, had an hour's chat with President de Valera, and met Erskine Childers and his father-in-low. Robert Barton, a Scotsman prominent in Sinn Fein circles during "the trouble." In London he missed Belloc, who was on the Continent, and Chesterton, who was confined to his bed at his. home at Beaconsfield with a severe chill. Before leaving he hoped to meet Maurice Reckitt. one of the leaders of a brilliant group of Anglicans who were doing excellent work in making England Christiarly social-minded. He visited the Tyneside districts with Dr. O'Hea, S.J., Rector of the Catholic Workers' College, and found conditions there very bad owing to unemployment. SOCIAL MIND OF ENGLAND. According to Father Higgins, the social mind of England is changing, and men who were merr owners of wealth are no longer esteemed on that account, the modern tendency being to appraise a man according to his service to society. This was a healthy sign, and its effect was becoming apparent in certain recent English legislation and administration. Tremendous efforts were being made to secure peace, but it was not sufficiently realised that real social and national peace could only be built on the primary virtue of justice. In the United States he found the nineteenth century, liberal-economic, ideology of "rugged individualism" dying hard. He anticipated that Roosevelt would have strong opposition in the Eastern States, but that the Middle West and South would return him for another term. Father Higgins was due to reach Sydney on the Maloja on March 19, and it is expected that he will resume his duties in Wellington shortly after Easter.