A Great Catholic Work

New Zealand Tablet, 17 March 1910, Page 419

A Great Catholic Work

A visitor at the recent Mechlin Congress might have seen, near the entrance, a bookstand, heralded by certain large posters, and two very energetic priests. Who hustled about everywhere interesting people in that same bookstand and, its. contents (says an exchange). For many this was the j first ’ time-they had heard of the ‘ Action Populaire of Rheims; it will not be the last, if we know aright those same two priests, and if their names are in a certain little notebook. Only those who know the intense sociological interest abroad now .in Catholic Europe can understand the rise of such movements as this one yet it must be of interest as it works .in the .different nations. In 1903 M. I’Abbe Le Roy, a priest working among the people, thought he saw a gap in the social, work of France that needed to be filled. What was it to be? Certainly a place unoccupied up to then but one like the famous German Volksverein ? Yes, and no. It was to be a Volksverein, but not one copied blindly from beyond tho Rhine rather one applied to the needs of France. i Socialism, one solution of the great social ■ question, gainis the people because it understands and sympathises -with their miseries, while good Catholics look on with arms folded, because they do not know 7 the real sufferings of the .people, or if they do know are powerless to do anything because they do not know how. ; , Here is where Abbe Le Roy would step in. He-did it with the foundation of the ‘ AStibn-Populaire.’ It was to be an educational effort — of popular social propaganda; it aimed chiefly at association to found, but to help the founders, to second initiative, and especially to give rise to it; v - ' V -• : The means would be the printers’ ink ; the idea to write and publish tracts, pamphlets, social books of all kinds, spread them over the country, put them into the hands of the leaders in every city, town, and village, force these on to the good work of Catholic social and religious reconstruction in France: this is the aim it has before it, a work of popular social education and information. So much for the idea; hat has it produced? The results are startling. The first tract was published January 26, 1903 since then 210 have seen the light. But the sphere of activity has widened enormously; there are now published, besides the tracts appearing every ten days, four annual books of 350 pages or so, two monthly reviews, a technical agricultural library; a series of social biographs; countless post cards and pamphlets; several books and a monthly series of social documents—a daily newspaper is hoped for soon; in all a library of nearly 400 books; 200,000 sold in 1908 alone, . 830,000 since the foundation six years ago. The staff has increased to ton, six priests and four lawyers, one of them an ex-newspaper .editor; while in all 200 collaborators contribute their writings to the work. As for the moral results they are not counted up in numbers; but who can doubt of their vastness? Already hundreds of testimonials are pouring in bearing witness to what is being done, while all the Bishops of France have highly praised the undertaking. ~