The Catholic Truth Society.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 22, 29 May 1902, Page 1

The Catholic Truth Society.

It is gratif) ing to note from the report presented at the annual meeting, just held, of the English Catholic Trut'i Society that this important institution has had an excellent year's work and is, in every direction, making steady and continuous progress. During the year the memberbhip has considerably increased, a sound financial position has been maintained, and there has been a steady increase in the number cf the publications issued by the Society. Amongst the works which are announced as being soon to be issued by the Society are two which appear to us to be of special interest and worthy of special mention. The first is a cheap volume, brought up to date, of Encyclicals dealing with Social questions, which is to be republished under the title of 'The Pope and the People.' There are few questions so important and yet so difficult as the social questions that are everywhere exercising men's minds at the present time, and every intelligent Catholic should welcome a work which gives in a cheap and handy form a clear and authoritative statement of the Church's attitude on such questions. The other work, which is to be issued almost immed ately, is the first volume of a publication entitled 'Tie Antidote,'the object of which is to bring together from current literature the corrections of misstatements, the exposure of falsehoods, and the clearing up of mi- understandings which appear from time to time in yariois publications o( the day. Everycne who has taken any interest in controversy must have noticed that there are certain forms of misrepresentation and mis-statement as to Catholic doctrine and practice that are constantly recurring, and ' The Antidote' should prove invaluable as furnishing both clergy and laity with a ready means of promptly and effectively replying to the sort of running fire thus kept up against the Church.

Besides increasing the number of its publications the Society has aho enlarged both the area and the scope of its operations. The area has been extended in late') ears by the establishment of similar societies in Scotland and Ireland, and of quite a number of branches in America, and all these offshoots of the parent Society are reported* to be making excellent progress. It will be remembered also that at the great Australasian Catholic Congress held recently in Sydney a resolution was formally and unanimously adopted to the effect that the time had now arrived for starting a branch of the Society within the Commonwealth. The scope of the Society's usefulness has been, enlarged in two directions. In the first place, the need of books for the Catholic blind, especially those in woikhouses and infirmaries, has been receiving attention, and a start has been made with the formation of a lending library of Catholic books written in Braille for the benefit of the Ijlind. In the second place the Society has made a new depaiture by preparing and supplying sets of slides for magic lanterns with suitable lectures to accompany the views. Thus there is a set giving inteiestmg views of Rome, another set on the Jubilee, and another set of about 80 slides illustrating Italian religious art, and the demand for these shows that this departure is proving extremely popular and attractive. Alto-

gether, it is clearly evident from the present and preceding reports that the carter of the Catholic 'lYuth Society is one of ever-increasing usefulness, and both for the quantity and the quality of the work it is doing it deserves the cordial support of all who have the best interests of the Church at heart.