Here and There

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 14, 22 April 1925, Page 45

Here and There

Secret Societies.—The ‘London Tablet comthus in a review of A Dictionary of Secret and ‘ Other Societies, by. Arthur Preuss : —Secret Societies, like Port and Y Good Manners and Cheshire Cheese and many y other things, are not what they were. Our y, own .first ~ secret society— a boy in it <C clearly knew what it was all —used to < meet in a cellar where every initiate had to X sign the Scroll of the Seven Seals with a quill I pen dipped in his own blood. To-day, <>■ secret societies nearly all have brass-plates v on their front doors and their telephone numbers .in the Directory ; and when you write 4* to them (as did Dr. Preuss) for an account X of their aspirations and activities, nearly all L of them send you courteous and copious reX plies. The Dictionary which lies before us deals with hundreds of societies established •> in the United States, a country, which has f- had bitter experience of secret organisations. £ That the danger from such bodies is not a. imaginary is proved by the fact that a V strongly Protestant “National Christian AsX sociation” exists to deal with the evil, so J, that Catholics are not alone in opposing it. > It is important to note that American Free- >. masonry is of the Continental type, n.d is “a , religious sect diametrically t pposed to Christianity.” In forty-nine States there are nearly 3,000,000 Freemasons. Dr. Preuss does not say much about them in his Dictionary, because he has already dealt with them fully in his well-known book .4 Study in Aemrizan Freemasonry. As well as the secret societies properly so called, Dr. Preuss treats alphabetically many open organisations. For example, he tells us about the Y.M.C.A., and the reasons why the Holy Office in 1920 warned the American bishops against it. Catholics have duly praised much ■• of this association’s purely philanthropic work ;■ but we cannot overlook the fact that, ' after the War, the Y.M.C.A. started a campaign of religious “reform” in the “benighted” Catholic countries of Europe, to show “young minds” how to escape from .“the darkness in which the old Catholic faith had enveloped them.” We are sorry to tell Dr. Preuss that the Y.M.C.A. on this side of the, Atlantic, despite many excellent social activities, gives too much scope for the proselytising efforts of rather muffish young men who are always talking about “my Bible” and are prepared to teach “the Gospel” infallibly, any time of day, in an anti-Catholic spirit.- Dr. Preuss, while never failing to .* | pillory f any secret society which is a danger , to faith and morals, is no mere censor or prude. He has a sense of humor, and is never ill-natured in his comments. 3>v n ■ « « *■' > w- * ft 1 - * * * • John; Richard Green’s Historical Library. , —Mrs. Stopford Green, widow of the great V English historian, has generously presented ' ttj University College, Dublin, her library, 1 including her late husband’s fine historical Collection. - In her letter to the Governing

TBddy, she says "The library represents the -,.-.. _ e i, i i i enthusiasm of a young scholar, lonely, poor, • and accustomed to ill-health. -Many volumes of the Acta Sanctorum were only bought by

sacrificing dinners. Nearly every book in the whole" collection must have implied genuine hardship. . ~ I, formed hope that they might be the foundation of a worthy historical research library in your University, among my own people. ’ * * * Priests in the War.—During the Great War no less than 32,699 French priests (23,418 seculars and 9,281 regulars) answered the summons of mobilisation. As most of them served -as ordinary soldiers the casualties were heavy. There were 4953 priests killed (3101 seculars and 1517 regulars) and 14,000 were honorably mentioned in dispatches. Even after the Germans had violated Belgium, expelled monks and friars flocked to France by every land-route and sea-route still open to them. Benedictines, Carthusians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits were all there. , The splendid record of what French priests did and suffered is being prepared under the auspices of that excellent and accurate periodical La Documentation Catholique, with M. Jean Guiraud, editor of La Croix, giving invaluable help. It is to be in two volumes, each containing 1250 pages, and there are to be 2000 photographs. The first volume of this ‘Golden Book” has just appeared. Apart from its intrinsic merits, the work is timely. No honest reader who lingers over its pages can have a moment’s further patience with the old slander that Catholics* are not good Frenchmen. Some of the gallant acts recounted are as thrilling and splendid as anything in the annals of the Crusades. * * * Oldest English Jesuit Dies. England’s oldest Jesuit, Father John Moore, has just died in his 90th year at the Jesuit house at Roeharapton (says Catholic News Service, London, for March 9). Father Moore was Irish by birth, and brought up as a Protestant. He became a Catholic in his youth, and at the age of 22 joined the Jesuits. Forty-four years ago he visited Canada and the United States to recuperate his health, but almost the whole 57 years of his priestly career were spent on the English missions. Father Moore was a religious of considerable versatility. His speciality was physics and mathematics, and for some time he was director of the famous Stonyhurst Observatory. But ho was also a musician of parts, and there are several settings to liturgical offices composed by . him. » * « Westminster Conversion Statistics. The Jesuit church at Farm Street heads the list for the number-of conversions in the Westminster diocese for the last statistical year, with 133 adult conversions. The last recorded year shows a falling off. in conversions for the metropolitan diocese, the number being ( 1675 . . which is 371 fewer than in the preceding year. The church of the Orator-

ians, the Brompton Oratory, follows Farm Street, with an annual total of 76 conversions.l But Westminster Cathedlal; which records only 58 conversions during the year,?

stands fourth in the.list. Taken by themselves, the Westminster figures are no standard: by which to estimate the conversion movement ,in London. Greater London spreads itself out through three great Catholic dioceses, those of , Westminster, Southwark, and Brentwood; and the total for these three dioceses, which is the real total for London, shows an increase in numbers rather than a decrease. As Cardinal Bourne said recently, as regards his own diocese, there is sufficient scope for a body of priests to devote their whole priestly career to the instruction and reception of converts.