THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ENGLAND

New Zealand Tablet, 9 August 1917, Page 39

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ENGLAND

ITS APPEAL TO INTELLECTUALS.

One hundred years ago the Catholic Church was looked upon as a corpse in England. She was too hideous to be noticed, and too small to be taken seriously. Then came the great Irish famine, and the sons and daughters of Erin flocked to England, and planted the ancient faith. The Oxford Movement gave a new impetus to this new movement of Christianising England. At last oppressed and loyal (■Catholics went on dreaming dreams. They saw West "End ladies flock to Farm Street Church, to attend Mass, and they noticed that the sweated workers of the East End of London crowded St. Mary's and St. Michael's Church. These old Catholics were amazed. They had so often heard the solemn dirge being sung over Catholicism, and now they live to see the ancient become modern, and the much-abused become passionately loved. And as they read they heard of more striking facts of the Church's progress. Just half a century ago, there was one small church at Portsmouth (with its population of a quarter of a million people), and now that city numbers four, dust ten years ago a Catholic priest would be stoned if he dared preach Christ Crucified in Hertfordshire, and now a beautiful new church and a growing Catholic community flock around the pretty church which marks the resting-place of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson.

Truly, Catholics have been giving away their faith: for, unless each one gives it away he cannot keep it. It was because Francis Xavier gave it to the Indians that he himself held it so firmly and enthusiastically, and it was because Abelard refused to give it away that he lost it. For, this "giving away of your faith and keeping it" is the most supreme and convincing paradox in the New Testament. Yes, look at the structures reared by the sweat of the brow, the brawn of the muscle, and say if they do not tell you something of that vivifying power of love. To have seen London, and watched the enthusiasm of its people during the memorable year of the Eucharistic procession was only to have realised that Catholicism in a land where it was supposed to have been dead—really livesas dying, and behold she lives. The Catholic Church, then, has made wonderful strides in modern England. There was never a time in its history when its priesthood was so sacrificing and zealous. It has had spiritual giants like Robert Hugh Benson, Croke-Robinson, and others, from within, and apologists, like Gilbert Chesterton, from without. Even but a few weeks ago a prominent English weekly said : "It would be interesting to know the exact number of people of great intellect who were received into the Catholic Church in England in recent years. The result would cause great surprise."