THE CATHOLIC PRESS

New Zealand Tablet, 23 January 1913, Page 43

THE CATHOLIC PRESS

The Right Rev. Dr. Keating, Bishop of Northampton, in the course of his Advent Pastoral says: Every Catholic family ought to subscribe regularly to a Catholic newspaper. Our Holy Father the Pope, and the Bishops at home and abroad, have repeatedly urged this duty. Reasons are not far to seek. The religious newspaper is necessary if only to correct the innocent errors of the secular press. Unfamiliarity with our beliefs and practices, and astounding ignorance of our history and policy, account for many crude misstatements, which sometimes cause pain and annoyance, and sometimes no more than a smile. But from time to time we become acutely conscious of some malignant influence behind the press, deliberately working to place the Church in an odious light before the public and to provoke a quarrel. The Ferrer incident and the artificial agitation regarding the Ne Temere decree are cases in point. Such situations brook no delay. Only journalism, the modern quick-firing weapon, is able to deal with them. The marshalled battalions of wilful and calculated lying must be shelled out of position before they have time to entrench themselves, and our rank and file reassured before panic has set in. To be late, at such a crisis, is to be useless. A further, but by no means secondary, object of religious journalism is to create and foster our sense of solidarity. A Catholic cannot thrive in isolation. You will recall the familiar phrase of St. Paul (1 Cor., xii., 25). He will tolerate no schism in the body,’ but will have all the members 'mutually careful one for another,’ ‘lf one member suffer anything, all the members suffer with :t: or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it. The vocation of a Catholic journalist is to work for this union of hearts. By his faithful and conscientious labors, the working man in the back streets of our cities, the family stranded in a country village, the recent convert shy and lonely amid unaccustomed surroundings, are enabled to feel, their fellowship with the teeming millions of their brethren, and are gladdened and exalted by the splendid reality of Catholicism. Week by week they are made more and more familiar with the personages of the Catholic world; they are taught more and more clearly the trend of Catholic thought; they learn how to discern the kinship between certain movements at home, and the antireligious conspiracies abroad; reports of sermons and speeches keep them in touch with the intellectual, and parochial news with the practical life about them; their sympathy is enlisted in charitable enterprises; their zeal is kindled for the conversion of the* heathen as well as of our separated brethren; they are touched with compassion for those who are enduring persecution; their enthusiasm is evoked by the countless deeds of heroism, small and great, which constitute the perennial chronicle of the Church. The Catholic journalist has reason to be proud of his profession, and keen to use his opportunities to the full, intent on one sole end—the glory of the Catholic name he will keep his pen clean from political and party rancour, and will never be drawn aside, by such impertinent considerations, to write what will promote disunion rather than union, or hurt the feelings of a fellow Catholic. b And the Catholic public has equal reason to valui and support Catholic journalism. Ten minutes’ conversation is usually enough to discover a man’s habits The regular reader of the Catholic press is alert, well informed, and in deadly earnest about his religion. Thfe man who confines his reading to the manipulated secular press may be a practising Catholic, but will be likely to find himself out of sympathy with public movements which express the living interests of the Church; even if his attitude is not cold, critical, and peevish towards his ecclesiastical leaders, and his opinions a feeble and used ecuo of class and racial prejudice.