Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 10, 18 March 1925, Page 22

Current Topics

The State Within the State When the French Premier resurrected the anti-clerical laws, which a former Government had suspended during the war period because the said Government sorely needed the services in France of the Religious Orders then in exile, he was not candid enough to admit that he was merely a servant carrying out the instructions of the Masonic Lodges. He gave several reasons for his policy, but they wore all labored and manifestly insincere. He said that the anti-cleri-cal laws were to be enforced because France needed "moral peace." Some papers described this as a "vague" reason. To us it was not vague at all. It was clear proof that M. Herriot felt that he could not give the real reason with safety, and that he lacked the inventive genius to discover a plausible one. Later, in reply to the protest of the French Cardinals, he said he was bent only on administering the laws as they existed, and, presumably, because they existed. Had he been blessed with a ready wit he surely would have found something more likely to deceive than that. Governments do not resurrect suspended laws unless they have m view a purpose other than gaining a reputation for economy by wasting nothing and making u . se of everything, even a bad law. A contemporary, however, prints a. paragraph which provides a much better reason for the anti-clerical drive of the French Government than any of those evolved within the cranium of M. Herriot. The paragraph is as follows: "The following decree appears in the minutes of the Grand Orient Lodge, 1923, page #>©: freemason members of Parliament who are, so to say, the emissaries of the Order must remain subject to its jurisdiction as long as their mandate lasts. They must accept the Parliamentary directions 'of the General Assembly; in every circumstance of their political life they are under an obligation to obey the principles that guide us • ; • At stated periods they are obliged to give an account of their mandate to their respective Lodges . . . and must within Parliament form groups doing their best to further the interests of Freemasonry ' M Her riot's programme can be read word for word in the same publication of 1923: suppression of the Vatican Embassy; suppression' of religious teaching in schools, even in sat h • suppression of Religious Orders. The reasons cabled by Renter are only eye-wash : a state's' man has still the decency of being ashamed to obey the behests of a secret society." An Example of Co-operation The modern Capitalist is the greatest enemy of Capitalism. The manner in which he works his system is just the special kind of propaganda calculated to swell the ranks of the Communists. As a rule working men become revolutionaries not because they Re sire or even understand the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" or because they believe in the "Materialistic conception' of History" and the "Law of Surplus Values," but because they want decent homes and decent

food and clothes for their families. Communism promises these things. True, it is only a, promise; but while they may entertain a vague doubt as to whether under Communism these things will actually be given them, they have no doubt that under Capitalism these things are actually withheld from them. . The really suicidal aspect of Capitalism is that it is always heard objecting stubbornly to the very thing that would kill Communismnamely, a decent standard of living for the workers. Moreover it is dealing with huge bodies of men and women who have never been able to acquire the faculty of reasoning clearly and logically. To such people there are only extremes. It sometimes happens, however, that the workers are fortunate in having advisors to point out a sensible course.. For example Miss Bonsfield gives in the Social Democrat an interesting account of how the Catholic glass workers in Fougeres (France) went on strike, received a legal decision of the court in their favor, but being unable to obtain redress, built their own factory with capital and loans raised from workers and sympathisers, and for the last two years have run their own concern at a good profit for themselves. Every worker is paid a minimum living wage, so that capital and labor share equally in the profits. Of the total profits 10 per cent, goes to a legal reserve, 10 per cent, for development, 35 per cent. In interest, 35 per cent, to the workers of every grade, and 10 per cent, to the manager. Family bonuses are given, increasing for every child after the second, and a maternity benefit of 325 francs to women employed in the factory. There are no foremen; the manager directs the whole concern, and presides over the industrial as well as over the business side. The final authority is an administrative council of seven members, three of whom are workers, and the chairman is the Abbe Bridel, a Catholic priest, who is the inspirer of the whole scheme. Opium Opium is the subject of much political eloquence just now. Politicians possess a genius for spending money on conferences to discover ways and means of removing evils with which they have no intention of interfering. After much money has been spent, and much breath wasted, and much hope raised in the hearts of the unsophisticated, the holiday makers make public their original intention of not doing anything. It happens in this way. A profitable evil, which calls to heaven for burial, is condemned loudly in the streets. The politicians hear the noise, and they say to one another: "Let us hold a conference to decide why we cannot do anything in the matter." The conference is held, speeches are "swopped," and the. evil remains. Evidently something of this kind happened inconnection with the Opium Conference. A circular, bearing the signature of many public men in England, contains some very plain remarks on the question: "The,truth seems to be that some Colonial

Governments—in particular the Portuguese at Macao, the French in Indo-Ohina, and, unhappily, the British in the Straits Settle- \ ments and elsewhere—derive such large rev-V enues from the traffic—as much as 40 per* cent, of their total revenue in some cases —' that they are reluctant to abandon so lucrative a. source of wealth. Moreover, the Governments of the producing States are in most cases financially interested in the growth of the crops, and, in addition, the producers in some countries are bringing strong pressure to bear on their Governments to prevent them from destroying this very lucrative trade. Finally, tho manufacturers of drugs in some Western countries are also actively working at Geneva to influence the Conference in their favor." A prominent missionary in China has informed Reuter that the military authorities of Fukion are compelling farmers to grow opium, that 1500 Christian families have refused, and that 200 heads of families have been executed. With the Bible in Brazil Last week the daily newspapers of this city interviewed a Mr. Frederick Glass, who is said to have spent the last thirty years of his life in missionary travels through Brazil. We were not particularly interested in Mr. Glass or his travels, but one part of the interview certainly calls for comment. The traveller said that the most successful of all Christian agencies in Brazil has been the Bible Society. He had had close relationship with the British and Foreign Bible Society for the past twenty-five years, and he says that the Brazilians have taken to J the Bible until it has become quite a national book. The Roman Catholic element, the missionary added, had been trying to meet the situation by publishing an edition of the Bible of their own with proper notes. The inference is, of course, that had the Bible Society not invaded Brazil the Catholic Church would have continued the policy, always attributed to her, of withholding the Bible from the people; and consequently, even the Catholics of Brazil are under an eternal debt of gratitude to the Bible Society for the privilege of reading the Bible, which they are now said to enjoy. Now, before we go into the question of the Bible it might not be amiss to repeat what an independent authority says of the Protestant missionary in Brazil. In a book entitled Brazil in 1912, J. C. Oakenfull has some scathing things to say concerning the unscrupulous methods adopted by enterprising evangelists in Brazil. In the introduction to the work the author acknowledges the assistance rendered him in the task of compiling the book by responsible Brazilian Cabinet Ministers, and the history is certainly not written from the Catholic point of view. He refers to the want of discretion, tact, and tolerance on the part of the Protestant colporteurs, and then he goesV■•'■ on:— , ' . ■*v "The majority of these men were drawn V from a class ill-fitted to do pioneer work in I such a country. I remember a case where one occupied rooms in the same house: as. a Catholic Father. He used to enter, the apart- : ■ ment of the latter and place testaments ,on his bed, and lost no opportunity of insulting

the faith and character of his religious enemies. Another fellow, ex-Bible agent, blossomed out into a reverend after a couple of) years in. the country. Another took in paying guests, contrary to the expressed rule of the society. American girls' schools are springing up in many cities, but their Methodist propaganda is not at all judicious at times, and they lose many pupils through obliging daughters of Catholics to submit to their particular brand of Protestantism. The great colleges of the nuns are carried on with much more liberality, Jews, Positivists, or Mohammedans being equally free to practise their own creeds. [ltalics ours.] For the credit of tho Anglo-Saxon race, it is quite time there were a few schools run on non-religious lines." • A Contrast Contrast the foregoing with another passage found in the same book. The author is dealing with the colonisation of Brazil. He gives credit to the Jesuits for what they accomplished, but nn ingrained prejudice against the Order makes him view their motives with suspicion. We are not concerned here with his suspicions: it "s hirfacts that are interesting when placed again -t the doings of the Bible people. He writes - "By 'building Sao Salvador he (do 3omw) gave a central government to the colony, but the honor of settling and extending it, ni.d of making it really useful to the Mo-;h«r Country, was reserved for the Jesuits. These men, by their arts of insinuation and address-, have been surpassed by none, and they - dispersed themselves amongst the savages, and seemingly inspired by peace and charity, succeeded in obtaining their attachment and confidence The obstacles which they bad to encounter were most formidable, bat their fiery zeal and assiduity rose with the difficulties met with, and the most salutary effects resulted from their exertions. Tiny began by instructing the native children in the Portuguese language, and thus whilst fitting the Indians to become : nterpreters they acquired their tongue, and, as we have seen, formed a Lingoa Geral. Nobrega had a school near the city, and the children were taught the elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic, to assist at Mass, to sing the Church service, and were frequently led in procession through the town. . . . The greatest obstacle in the path of the nvssionaries was the cannibal propensities cf the Indians. Their very pride and beliefs were implicated in these horrid orgies. In spite of their curing the savages of drunkenness, of polygamy, and of the custom of the vendetta, they still possessed the propensity to delight in human flesh." . . . Althought the above was certainly not written by a Catholic, but was written by a man who expresses very unfriendly sentiments towards Catholicism, it is at once a tribute to Catholicism and a reproach to "raotestantism. First, he shows that Protestantism as it is propagated in Biazil is anything but edifying. At the same time he pays a tribute to the religious toleranceexhibited by the Catholic Church Authorities; and then he shows that away back in the Middle Ages (the Dark Ages they are called

by those who know little about them* where was the Catholic Church,- represented by brave, zealous, and cultured priests who, having in the name of charity left all things, were to be found educating the savages, humanising them, Christianising them, and bringing into their midst the Kingdom of Heaven. The Church and the Bible Let us now say a word on the subject of the Church and the Bible. The Church is certainly not opposed to Bible reading, and never has been. She does not, however, subscribe to the Protestant doctrine of private judgment, which means that each one who reads the Bible (presumably with the proper intention) is inspired by the Holy Ghost with the truth of what he reads. One conscientious man takes one meaning from a text, while another, equally conscientious, takes a directly opposite meaning from the same text. Now God cannot be held responsible for inspiring those two men with conflicting views about the same thing, for God is infinite Truth. The Church knows that the Bible requires an infallible interpreter, and that interpreter is the institution armed with the authority of Christ to preach and to teach. She believes that the Bible is the Word of God, but she does not believe the Bible to be the whole Word of God. The Bible (not the Bible mutilated by the Reformers and the Higher Critics, but the Bible which she has preserved through the centuries) is only the written Word; but there is also the unwritten Word, which is Tradition. And the Church is the Guardian of Tradition. It is impossible for a man to take up an English version of the Bible and say definitely that the meaning he gives to a text is the meaning intended by the inspired writer who wrote it. The Church is able to preserve the Sacred Scripture in its purity because she is infallible, and because her memory stretches back over the centuries to the days of the Apostles; and what she taught in the first century she teaches in the twentieth. If the written Word were intended to 'be the sole means of salvation Christ would certainly have written the book Himself, and written it in such a way that not only would everyone understand it, but that it would be impossible for anyone to misunderstand it. But Christ never wrote anything. He commanded the Apostles to preach and to teach, but He did not tell them to go about with a book which had not yet been written, and which very few are able to understand now that it has been written. The Church encourages the Laity to read the Bible, but she rightly insists upon proper safeguards against error, and she reserves to herself the right to interpret it. Does Protestantism, however, stand for the "open Bible" within the meaning of the doctrine of private judgment? It certainly does not. Consider the ■ work of the Protestant missionaries among the savages. In the first place the savages cannot read, so that the Bible is useless unless it is interpreted by someone, and that someone is the missionary who distributes the Bibles. The savages, therefore, do not enjoy the sacred right of private judgment: they are forced

to endure missionary judgment. If the doctrine of private judgment were carried to its logical conclusion it would put the Protestant clergy out of existence, for if the Holy Ghost speaks to each individual, what need is there for preachers and teachers? The Church is gravely anxious when she hears of the establishment of centres for Bible distribution among her children, because, by the side of the Bible she sees the Protestant agents, and she knows that the intention is by no means to let the "open Bible" tell its own tale, but to interpret it in the sense which she knows to be utterly false, and, moreover, to spread the customary mis-representations of Catholic doctrine together with the customary calumnies about Catholic history, not omitting, perhaps, to add those temporal inducements to apostasy which have been frequently resorted to with partial success. In addition to providing an authorised text with explanatory notes in her editions of the Sacred Word, she exerts herself to preserve that Word from mutilation at the dictation of merely Rationalistic criticism. The Church in Britain While Protestant "evangelists" float about the world telling how Bible societies are defeating the Catholic Church in Latin countries, one wonders why no serious attempt is made to evangelise Great Britain. According to statistics for 1925 the Catholic Church is growing steadily in the British Isles. Is it that the British are becoming more ignorant than they used to be? or is it that there are no Bible societies in Britain? Here are the figures anyway; they speak for themselves: The Archbishops and Bishops of England and Wales and Scotland number thirty-one; the clergy 4642 as compared with 4606 last year. Churches, chapels, and stations have grown from 2412 to 2458; this increase by nearly fifty new churches must be regarded as a most satisfactory one to have accomplished at a time when building costs have been high and many other difficulties abounding. These statistics are all inclusive of Scotland; but the following apply only to the dioceses of England and Wales. Catholic secondary schools have increased by twentythree, and elementary schools by thirteen; the numbers are now 471 and 1206 respectively, with an aggregate attendance of more than 413,700 pupils, not . counting nearly 10,300 Catholic, children in the schools of charitable institutions. . With regard to.: the Catholic population of the dioceses, the figures given, as the Directory points out, cannot in many cases be accurate; but such as they are, they show, a present population in England and Wales of 2,030,855 Catholics, 33,575 more than last i year. Statistics of conversions are again gratifying. . In 1922 the converts received in England and Wales numbered 12,406 in 1923 the figure was 12,796, an increase of 390. The total number of Catholics in the British Empire is now computed at 14,960,742, an advance of 33,430 upon last year's estimate.