AUCKLAND NEWMAN SOCIETY

New Zealand Tablet, 28 June 1917, Page 23

AUCKLAND NEWMAN SOCIETY

To the Editor.

Sir, — Before reading the substance of the president’s address in your current issue, I had always regarded the Auckland Newman Society as primarily a kind of study club, and as such worthy of emulation in the other centres of the Dominion. In a subsidiary way, and in consequence of its presupposed primary aim, one had reason to hope that some of the members would eventually become prolific in popularising some of the vast body of Catholic thought elaborated and accumulated by modern European specialists. It seems this was a mistaken view, for I now read that the society’s purpose is to make educated Catholics “a power capable of opposing the modern materialistic tendency in all branches of thought.” For all I know the members may have the conceptions of Gargantua and Pantagrust, but if the shade of Newman paid the club a visit I could well imagine him whispering to the astonished members that he had something to say against such ambitious ideals in his Idea of a University, and elsewhere.

Sir, with all possible tolerance and due moderation, I wish to suggest that the Newman Society, in aiming so high, is taking itself too seriously. “L e Meillevr cst I ennemi du hien.” I might add that it is new to me to learn that “the Church, then, is a guide not an organiser.” I should have thought the Church is herself the very embodiment of organised Christianity, and the greatest organiser in the world in her essential work. Even in non-essentials, as in the case of religious Orders and other self-evident instances, she is an active and fruitful organiser. At least, I always thought so.— l am, etc., M. llorndon. Christchurch, June 23, 1917.