Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 7, 25 February 1925, Page 22

Current Topics

Business Is Business According to a report in Leaves of Healing, Rev. W. G. Voliva, leader of the Dowieites, expects the millennium to arrive almost immediately, if not sooner. Anyhow, it is set down as the next great event, and seven years later Christ will appear for the great settling-up. Mr. Voliva is quite definite on tire subject; the world has run the length of its tether, and it must now listen acutely for the sound of the drums of doom. On another page of the same paper, however, the rev. gentleman advertises real estate in the Dowieite colony, all of it to be had on leases which run for a period of eleven hundred years. Whatever else Mr. Voliva’senemies may urge against him, they certainly cannot accuse him of being a sentimentalist where real estate is concerned. The Church and Salvation Recently an Anglican journal took Dean Inge to task for his wild and senseless attacks on the Catholic Church, comparing this West End Divine to an ordinary Low Church ranter. The Dean gives further justification for the comparison by his late outburst on the Dark Ages, concerning which it is clear that his own mind is indeed benighted. That an educated man could utter such nonsense as this Anglican dignitary writes and speaks would Ibe unintelligible if experience did not teach us that bigotry makes the unfortunate people afflicted by it almost insane. Another instance of this is furnished by General Booth, who is reported by the IT nr Cry as saying that “the Roman Church” damns every .human being who is not subject to the Pope. As it is almost incredible that a person deemed sufficiently responsible to be allowed to wander around without a keeper could have said such a thing, we give his own words as quoted by the Salvation Army organ: “ The astounding claim of the Lambeth Bishops and their Sub-committee, that those only are redeemed who belong to a visible Church, and a visible Church ministering two sacraments, thus shutting out the Salvation Army and the Society of Friends, to say nothing of others—is equalled in my judgment only by the claim of the Roman Catholic Church, first promulgated in 1300, ami reaffirmed in 1871. That claim reads:' ‘ We declare, affirm, define,, and pronounce, that it is altogether necessary to salvation For every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.’ It will not: be by such miserable exclusiveness that the Kingdom of Christ will be extended.” Nonsense of that kind only exposes to the ridicule of people of common sense those who utter it. On a par with such hallucinations are the efforts of a baser type of bigot to make their dupes believe that Catholics take all sorts of wild and wicked oaths.' Old ladies of both sexes, at home and abroad, supply the funds for the printing of leaflets containing bogus Sinn Fein Oaths, Knights of Columbus Oaths, Priests’ Oaths, Hibernian Oaths, and goodness only knows 'how many other varieties of- oaths'. ‘

Contemptible Methods Most of us remember that such methods have been used with deadly effect against a Catholic statesman more than once, and it is, certain they will be used by similar contemptible fighters in the future. That at the present time a campaign of this kind is in progress in England is clear from the following extract from the Catholic Times : “A leaflet, well printed on good paper, but without any imprint on it, is being circulated in Liverpool. It purports to be the‘'•Oath of the Knights of Columbus/ an American Catholic organisation which did such wonderful work during the Great War. It is such a farrago of nonsense and stupidity that it ought to deceive no one. Still, as. people are found to believe at this day that Catholics worship idols, there are some who may think that there is something in it.. It did service in America till one David J.. Gordon was unwise enough to publish it in his magazine, The Crusader, at- the sametime mentioning a member of the Knights,, one David Supple. He was forthwith arrested on a charge of criminal libel, tried in the Superior Court of San Francisco, and convicted. On appeal the conviction was affirmed by the Appellate Court. The oath, as printed in the leaflet is a copy of the one - which was printed in The Crusader. 'We ■would be glad to learn if any of our readers have come across the leaflet in circulation in other districts. One wonders what political or supposed religious motive the circulation of such a scurvy libel is intended to serve at this time.” The Problem of Crime A very strong effort is being made to induce Governments to treat criminals as patients. Needless to say that effort comes from those who are least qualified to express an opinion upon such a complex question as that of the soul’s relation to the body it inhabits. Their reasoning, where it is not transparently foolish, is painfully superficial. It is depressing to hear people who claim to be educated , advancing shallow reasons in support of a thing and ignoring the fundamental truths which lie at the root of it. So-called experts in crime are now talking about the “Irresistible Impulse,” which, they hold, relieves the criminal of responsibility for his wrong-doing. Such nonsense leads straight to the denial of a doctrine that is of fundamental importance in religion as in psychologythe freedom of the will. An English Catholic physician recently discussed so-called irresistible impulses from the Catholic standpoint. After explaining the'irresistible impulses in insane people, he went on to show that if normal persons would closely analyse, their desires, they would find that what was called an irresistible impulse was merely the culminating point or climax in a chain of causes that led up to the said impulse. In plain terms, an irresistible impulse in a normal person is merely an impulse that could have been •controlled in the beginning. It stands to reason that if a person nurses a' desire for

•a thiijg unlawful and allows that desire, to * dominate him, then when the opportunity of fulfilling that desire presents itself,* he will probably yield to the temptation and seize upon the object of his desire. The-" irresistible impulse, therefore, in most -cases is simply the result of failure to resist temptation in its first stages. Occasions of Sin If men, says a Catholic exchange, would study the age-old doctrines of the Church about temptation and occasions of sin, there would be no need of inventing a theory of “irresistible impulses.” With the wisdom of twenty centuries of experience to supplement the teaching which she received from her Divine Master, the Church has "warned her children to shun the occasions of sin, to resist temptations in their beginnings, and to pray for Divine grace to strengthen their wills. The root cause of all such modern theories concerning the nature of crime lies in a materialistic philosophy of life, which traces all evil to physical causes and ignores the spiritual element in man. Materialists and determini,sts arbitrarily set down as irresistible predetermining causes of moral evil, natural forces or influences which are merely hindrances to virtuous action. Natural temperament, -inherited dispositions, vicious environment, may incline the will to evil, but they can never rob it of its native independence. Catholic teaching recognises these influences and allows for them. But it also teaches that in Divine grace, which God gives in sufficiency to overcome these tendencies, man has the corrective and destroyer of such impulses. More attention to old-fashioned teachings of morality and less talk about urges, irresistible impulses, andcomplexes, is what the world needs to cope successfully with the problem of crime and criminals. The Pope and the Tory Press The British yellow press have discovered a great man in Pope Pius XI, the reason being that the latter, in his Allocution issued last December, wrote against Socialism and Communism. The Daily Mail published extracts from the Allocution. Needless to say, the passages quoted were judiciously selected. The half-truth nuisance, which Chesterton identified as England’s greatest evil, was a prominent feature of the Tory press reprints of the Pope’s Allocution. Every word written in condemnation of Communism and Socialism was reproduced faithfully; but the Pontiff s emphatic assertion of the workers’ rights was carefully omitted. The Rome correspondent of the Morning Post , however, made his paper more ridiculous than the others. He gravely attributed the antiCommunist sentiment in the Allocution, “in .its general sense,” to “the Pope’s conversation with Mr. Chamberlain,” and he described it as a “most direct and outstanding statement.” The Irish Weekly thus comments upon the Post correspondent’s absurdity:—“Quite probably Pope Pius XI had heard of Pope Leo XIII before he met Mr. A. Chamberlain; it is indeed, quite likely that the reigning Pontiff had read Pope Leo’s liemm Novamm,- the immortal Encyclical Letter issued from the Vatican on

the 15th of May, 1891 and in that Encyclical Pope Pins XI could have found page after page of reasoned condemnation ,of Socialism as a policy—condemnation as direct and emphatic as his own of a later day. Leo XIII, like Pius XI, strongly asserted the God-given rights of all toilers; but he said that if Socialistic principles were carried into effect, 1 the working man himself would he the first to suffer ’; and he added 1 They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, because they would rob the lawful possessor, bring State action into a sphere not within its competence, and create utter confusion in the community.’ Mr. Austen Chamberlain cannot feel obliged to the correspondent and newspaper who presented him to England as an inspirer of Papal Allocutions in great social questions. He does hot look or behave like a man endowed with a keen sense . of the ridiculous; but he must have intelligence enough to know that his most ardent admirer would laugh if such a claim were put.forward on his behalf.” Evolution Cranks The theory of evolution forms the base of *' » many impossible schemes of social reform advocated by people whose pride in their scientific pose is equalled only by their ignorance of scientific subjects. Modern Communism has its roots bedded deeply in the theory, and this enables it to sneer at morals and the idea of God as “Capitalist done for job-conscious workers.” Cranks of another type look to evolution to abolish gaols in favor of hospitals in which those afflicted with the disease that manifests itself in theft and murder shall be nursed back to health on beef-tea and jellies. It is not a case of honest conviction with many of these people. In order to he convinced of a thing one must know something about it ; but many of the advocates of evolution not only know nothing about evolution, but they are not in a position either to obtain any first-hand knowledge of importance on (he subject or to test the findings of those who are. A few weeks ago we quoted Sir Bertram Windle’s opinion of the mass of rubbish written about pre-historic man. Sir Bertram, who is an authority of note,, showed how impossible it is to determine from a skull the period or state of civilisation in which the person lived who owned the skull; and in addition he referred to several amusing cases in which the so-called scientists allowed their enthusiasm and credulity to cover them with confusion. Last week we learned from a London cable that a fossil skull, representing something between a man and an ape, was found at Taungs, The Anglican Bishop of London jumped for joy at the news. He .felt that he had discovered an ancestor much more to his liking than the commonplace Adam of Christianity. The skull proved, to his satisfaction at all events, that the gaps between man and his apelike ancestors were being bridged. One naturally asks what degree of training in anthropology has the Bishop of London experienced that warrants him opening his mouth about a subject upon which only specialists can speak with authority, and upon which experts are sharply divided.

Evolution and the Mind Father Rickaby warns us to distrust all philosophies which lead up to an absurdity. Professor Mcßride, a well-known biologist, said that “if the doctrine ' of evolution be true, then sin consists of nothing but the tendencies which man has inherited from his ancestors.” “A world without ethics of any kind,” says Sir Bertram Windle, “is surely the champion absurdity.” Sir Bertram then goes on to affirm that God breathed the breath of life into man, and man became a living soul. He then shows that evolutionists fail to account for the supremacy of man over the animal kingdom. What makes man master of the lower animals? Not his strength nor his swi r tnev3 nor any other physical attribute. Then what? Obviously his wits, his mental characteristics, his power to think. As we live to-day we are much more at the mercy of the wild beast in man which exists, and may be terrible when not curbed by the higher side of his nature, than we are at the mercy of the wild beast in the jungle. Yet even primitive man, without weapons to speak of had to face his will beast antagonists to se-ure food. He triumphed, and why? Solely because he had the wits that other things bad not, the wits and something else in him that gave him domination over every beast. of the field. And now, mark again, he had this from the very bebinning of our knowledge of him. If he had not had it from the very beginning he would never have survived to produce a second generation, but would have been exterminated by the wild things around him. The question, then, is: How did he get that way? Evolutionists reply by pointing to the growth of that part of his brain which is thought to be concerned with the intellectual character. But what made this part of the brain grove? Some evolutionists suggest that it grew because man wanted to think and must have something to think with. It is a complete fallacy, however, to say that a function can create an organ. One must first have the organ before it can function. You cannot have bile before you have a liver of some sort. No reasons are advanced as to why man’s brain began to increase in size. One authority says that man began to walk upright (reason for his doing ‘■o unexplained) and in conseq leone lis brain began to grow larger (nexus also unexplained). Another view is that as man’s brain began to grow larger (reason for such growth unexplained he assumed the erect position (nexus again unexplained). Father Ronald Knox says that the most startling discovery which Adam and Eve made in the Garden of Eden was when they discovered themselves, a thing that no lower creature ever has or ever will discover. Professor Sidgwick, a very distinguished nonOatholic biologist, says that we cannot explain man by anatomy. He proceeds:“lf psychical characters were taken into account in zoology the whole of classification would be thrown into confusion, and in the case of man how should we assign the position to be assigned to him? For what a piece, of work is man How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how ’express and admirable ! in action how like an angel!

in apprehension how like a god' And again: ‘ Thou hast made him a little. lower than .the angels apd hast crowned him with glory and honor!” Evolutionists, however, are blind to the spiritual in man, and'in this they show no higher conception than “ Topsy ” who believed that she just, “growed.” The Right to Slave America has been devoting some attention to a question which must frequently intrude itself into .industrial affairs. Our contemporary asks: Has not the worker a right to contract for long hours, even for twelve or fourteen hours a day, carried over a sevenday week? And then it proceeds to answer its own question. If a man wishes to work, why may he not put his wish into effect? His right to do so has been defended by many writers. Whatever may be said for the legal value of their argument, which is certainly slight, it shows no realisation either of the good of society itself or of the worker’s religious and social needs and duties. No State can properly function when impeded by a large body of workers who are mere parts of a huge industrial machine rather than men and citizens. Should these workers marry they would lack the leisure to perform the sacred duties incumbent upon them as heads of families, and with the collapse of the family the State is marked for destruction. No man may enter into a contract which imperils the duties which, as a human being, he owes to the State, to his fellow's, or to his God, and an enlightened State will not tolerate any industrial system which demands or permits a contract of this unlawful nature. “No man may with impunity outrage that human dignity which God Himself treats with reverence,” teaches Leo XIII, “nor stand in the way of that higher life which is the preparation for the eternal life of Heaven.” As to the alleged right of the worker himself in this respect the Pontiff speaks in eloquent language; “No man has in this matter power over himself. To consent to any treatment which is calculated to defeat the end and purpose of his being is beyond his right. He cannot give up his soul to servitude; for it is not man’s own rights which are here in question, but the rights of God, the most sacred and inviolable of rights.” Again, in opening his discussion of the living wage, the Pontiff returns 'to this subject; “In all agreements between masters and workpeople, there is always the condition, expressed or understood, that there should be allowed proper rest for soul and body. To agree in any other sense would be against what is right and just; for it can never be just or right to require on the one side, or to promise on the other, the giving up of those duties which a man owes to his God and to himself.” If the systems of industry which necessitate excessive hours of work daily and the seven-day week can be abolished or reformed by private initiative, much will be gained. But- when capital cannot be induced to acknowledge the evil of an industrial and economic plan which is a menace to the worker, to the home, to the State, and to religion, then, as Pope Leo; has counselled, “recourse should bo had, in due measure and degree, to the intervention of the law and of State authority.” - ‘ - ; j