RELIGIOUS ORDERS

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 291, 18 November 1931, Page 5

RELIGIOUS ORDERS

BIG INCREASE IN NUMBER POSITION IN ENGLAND VISITING FATHER EXPLAINS . SCOPE OF COMMUNITIES' WORK ("Post" Special.) CHRISTCHURCH, To-day. Growth in the number of religious orders in the Church of England at Home in the past 50 or 60 years, communities either active or devoted the life of prayer, was spoken of by Father Tribe, director of the Society of the Sacred Mission, to a reporter. Father Tribe's community is an active one, its members . serving under the threefold vows of poverty, obedience and celebracy. He described them as.storm troops at the disposal of the Church. "We are not monks," he said. "The term'is reserved really for the communities of the cloisters. They generally call us regulars, clergy living under rule, as opposed to the secular clergy who compose the bulk of the staff of the Church." The biggest work of the Society of the Sacred Mission is carried out at the (Society's Mother House at Nottingham, in England, where students are trained for the secular priesthood. The society's own novices are trained with the secular students. The House of the Sacred Mission is the largest theologocal college in England. The community has also a South African province, arid does extensive native mission work in the Orange Free State, where it has 50 or more stations. One of the members of the community looks after lepers, and another has a very large native parish in Basutoland. The rest of the men are concentrated in groups of two, three and perhaps four, to do their work among the natives. In Great Britain, the members of the Society of the Sacred Mission, besides conducting the theological college, are what might be termed free lances. Always working under the bishops, they are frequently asked to handle difficult or unusual tasks. It might be the care of a derelict parish, which could not support a married clergyman, or any of a number" of tasks out of the ordinary run. Then they do prison work, and attend to retreats and missions. ' One of the members is Diocesan Missioner in the home diocese of the House of the Sacred Mission, and another is doing similar work in British Columba. "We go wherever men are wanted free of home ties and responsibilities," Father Tribe explained. "We are really a supplement 10 the parochial system in England, or wherever else it exists. Our work in itself can only be built up on a life surrendered in that way, and backed by a life ot strong prayer and meditation. "We'are about 40 years old, and only one of a number of such communities more or less recently established. There are other groups of men experimenting along generally similar lines. This increase in the communities is a mark of the spontaneity of the Church, and the eifervescing life within the Church." The the community, he went on, were "trained to become experts in some kind of manual labour, but never undertook the actual priestly side of the life. They, were printers, carpenters, electricians, gardeners, farm workers, and the like. Some came to the community already trained. They took the same vows, and had exactly the same standing and privileges a& the priest members.

"It is a very interesting experiment in democracy, really," remarked Father Tribe. "We take care that the lay brothers in no way become like domestic servants—in fact, so far as the House work is concerned, the priests come under the lay brothers. In conclusion, Father Tribe discussed the immense value of the communities of older times, remarking on their civilising power. The communities were the first to found hospitals and leper asylums, for instance, and were the great agricultural innovators at tlje end of the Dark Ages. They had led not only in science and civilisation, but in arts and architecture. Many of the things to which the communities turned their attention were now carried out by the State, municipalities and local bodies.