The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1908. 'NOT YET UNDERSTOOD '

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 14, 9 April 1908, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1908. 'NOT YET UNDERSTOOD '

§HE irodern world h a s produced few more acute critics of men and things than Russell Lowell. He noticed in his daly the tendency to debilitate journalism by making 'it to an undue extent a record of chit-chat, fantastic [ trifling, and -mere gossip and .' mig<ae canorae '. 'We cover the continent ', wrote he, ' with a cobweb of telegraphs to inform us o£ such inspiring facts" as that a horse belonging to Mr. Smith ran away oil Wednesday, seriously - damaging a valuable carry-all ; that a- son of Mr. Browa - swallowed a hickory nut on Thursday ; and that a gravel bank cavetl in on Friday. This is the Mud of news we compass the globe to catch press from Bunp'towh centre '. But beyond this exaggeration of trivialities, there is another feature of modern secular journalism to which we have more than once made regretful" rreferr r ence— the tendency to nose and snuflle about for titbits to tlcklfe the jaded palate of readers, and the extent to which the daily press is -in our time made a record of crime. -Throughout' the British Empire, it is true, the criminal is not placed ' in excelsis ' to the same extent as is done ' by journals under the Stars and Stripes X

Still 1 , even-under- the -triple- cross of ~ Si*. George, St. Patrick-; and- Si. Andrew, the is>en*hroned' (las the* • IVaiijr. Ghronicle ' put it sojne years ago)- as the* - 1 hero-4nrch*eff ' .of the- newspaper* The t; Chr-onid©-' <se : t out- some . twelve or- fourteen years ago, under' 'Mr: 'Ma^ singham, to dethrone him, and- to- depend less J-han- itscontemporaries for its circulation, on the baser side of life— 1 scabfrous divorce cases,'^yulgar scandal, aad the great betting madness.'. : The effort was. well, meant. But it seems to have achieved*? but little. In the matter of enthroning the criminal, most daily papers are tarred ,with the same brush — although there is,, of " course, a difference in the number of coats." .And "6he upshot of the matter is, that, for youth of both sexes, a steady course of daily- paper is (as a great"Englishman has said) *a , liberal education in depravity .and crime '. . ' * "''■-- " 4In these days of omnivorous reading, the Catholic newspaper is, humanly speaking, an indispensable' tuan'oh of the Church's work. It furnishes the readiest means of instilling the' antidote to the poison that may ; lurk -• in the' secular organr, of expounding and - defending Gatholic truth and Cafiholi'tf interests. In the course -'of -- an audience recently accorded to a Catholic journalist,- the Holy Father Said-: — • - ' Ah', the press ! Its importance is not yet understood. Neither the faithful nor the 'clergy make- itse of. it ias they should. Sometimes' people will tell you\ that the press -Is an innovation, and- that souls used to be saved without newspapers in other times. In, othertimes ! In other times ! It is easily said, but do « they not rememiber the -poison of the bad press was not spread everywhere, and that, therefore, the antidote -of' the good press was not equally neoessaxy. We ar<T no longer in those other times — we are lin the times of today, , and to-day it -is a fact that the Christian- people; is deceived, poisoned, destroyed by bad newspapers., .c^ In, vain will you build churches, give •missions,- found-> schools. All your works, all .your efforts, will-'be'de-stroyed if you are not able 'to /wield the defensive and offensive weapon -of a loyal and sincere 'Catholic press;! * The persecution .in France has left the , Catholic .leaders in that country with, one remorseful memory^ the memory of their neglect of the potent weapon J a bold, able,- and aggressive Catholic newspaper mighV have been to them in their day 'of need. . On a ~recen>t.... occasion this revised sense of the power and place-pi" : tK©- - Catholic paper in the work of the Church found express - sion in the following remarks- by M. Bandon, - President of the St. Vincent 'de Paul Society:— . - • - - CCi 1 In my opinion, the" great importance -.of the, press •is not sufficiently understood by the faithful. - Vm arethinking about building churches, founding concregationsfCmultiplying asylums for the .orphans and the poor-r-all of them necessary. But we ..forget that besides allj ifiese-* jneeds there is one wliich. by the force. of things /'sue— passes all the rest.; that -is, the diffusion of the Ca.th---press. If the Catholic newspaper is, not su.ffi-.-t ciently supported, encouraged, raised -to the- position Aifr* ought to occupy, .the v charches, if -.they -be 'not-burned, will be deserted, the congregations- Yttll be- multipliedonly to be driven ,out, and the charitable .institutions.-, and the "schools themselves will be taken away frtfrerth'tf religion that founded them. . . If the Catholics put at the head of- -all their works- that of" the" press, as da .being done "in Germany, if -they devoted two three .millions of francs to it every year, it is safe to say -that everything would change; at once v . and that', the /faith would' spring up- again irii hundreds of thousands of intelligences. ' _. • , ' ■ " Unless j>he clergy had the science of angels and, the voiceTof : tihe lasjb tirumpe't, they could not oVertatoe'the? -hirm that s is acme' in 'homes by the; J exclusive 'p;6rtlsat' of. secular news-sheets, and by Ihe false conceptions regard-; ing^Catholic' faith- and 'practice th a t from' -timer :to "time^ jare printed— hot necessarily -with any intent td' mteleajaV 1 '— mi' their columns, The Catholic pap s er is the priest -ijf the household. And "we trust that the" day ~ is neat athand when it will be- as intimately and as formally a part of the,. Church's many-sided activities as her churches, schools," and institutes of charity. Meantime,

the true Catholic paper is doing a duty towards the Catholic public as re a l as- . any of these, though of a different kind. The Catholic public, too, have a duty towards • the Catholic paper. The nature of that duty is sufficiently obvious. TMs is. a" case in which, to the wise, a word 5s sufficient.