Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 17, 13 May 1925, Page 22

Current Topics

fnl: . ' . '’^lowin^ Without Comment :: AVe publish without comment the k. tress Association message which appears in the daily press last week: SUDDEN DEATH. London, May 5. f; : Mr. George' Whale, when presiding at a Nationalist dinner in connection with the Huxley cehtenary, fell dead after delivering a' .speech’ in which he attacked Christianity. Mr. bale’s sallies caused milch laughter among the seventeen guests, but a few moment's after he had finished only hushed whispers were heard,' for he collapsed in his chair. Artificial respiration was tried, but it failed to restore him —A. and N.'Z. Cable. [Mr. Whale was the bon, chairman of the Nationalist Press Association.] • The French Persecution At the close, of their annual Lenten meeting in Paris the French Cardinals and Archbishops issued a joint message to the Catholics of France in their Declaration against the so-called “Lay Laws,” which were resurrected by the Grand Orient’s French agents masquerading as a French Government. It is true that the Herriot Ministry, who made the resurrection of the “Lay Laws” one of its first official acts, has been displaced since the Declaration was issued; hut the fact that the traitor Caillaux, whose perfidy was too nauseating to permit even the daily newspapers to give him a coat of whitewash sufficiently thick to conceal his true character, is a power in the new Ministry leaves us no room to doubt the.identity of its masters. The fall of the Herriot Ministry did not mean that France had chosen new rulers: it meant only that the Freemasons had chosen new servants. The Declaration of the French Cardinals and Archbishops is spoken of as the most important document issued by the French Hierarchy during fifty years. It points to the iniquity of these “Lay Laws,” which involve the Law of Separation with its breach with religion; the godless education law; the laws of divorce and the laicisation of the hospitals, depriving the sick and dying of the consolations of religion. Slid laws are not “laws” in the true sense ol the. word. They are what St. Thomas calls acts of violence rather than laws. The Declaration goes on to discuss the means whin I Catholics ought to employ in the aholitioi of laicism ’ and its principles. It ermine rates the means under three heads: (1) Ac : tion 0,1 public opinion; (2) Action on tin legislators (3) Action on the Government Under the first head Catholics are urged t< propagate truth by public* lectures am V meetings, conversations, the press, and am other.legitimate avenue which may he openei for this purpose. Action on the legislator is to he carried on by forcing the matter oi the attention of individual members of tin

|gS ber and the Senate, by correspondence i^ : and bv addresses and protests from organused bodies of groups of Catholics. Similar , action is to bo. brought to hear on members

of the Government and the 'administration,' ; prefects, mayors, councillors, and tho rest. The Catholics are already organised to make his persistent agitation, effective/ “Public cl 11 says the Declaration, “takes the opinio*., QQ w^lo make a good fight. It part of the,*. n '^ throw up their own abandons those case. ■ Catholic Organisation in Franc*- -.d The Declaration of the Cardinals a*. Archbishops is not a mere collection of Vords issued on principle as a futile protest against overwhelming opposition. There exists to-day in France a Catholic organisation capable of translatng into deeds every suggestion contained' in the Declaration. As soon as M. Her riot announced life antiCatholic policy General do Castelnau, One of the famous soldiers of the Great Wat, called on the Catholics of France 16 organ fee 1 a “National Federat'ibiP ’ ‘ .for the protection of their rights. The response to the General’ appeal has been so loud and da rib g that the daily press outside France has seen’ fit to enter into a conspiracy of silence regarding it. The Federation movement is almost exclusively in the hands of laymen. Meetings are being held all over France, in city, town, and village. There have been many gatherings and parades of 50,000, 00,000, and even 80,000 men, and in all these vast gatherings thousands of war veterans wearing their decorations held a prominent place. The organisation was founded chiefly upon four points—the pledges given to Alsace-Lorraine, including their right to religious freedom and schools in which religion would be taught, must be observed ; the maintenance of the French Embassy.at the Vatican, not only because so many Crouch people are Catholics, but because the Vatican is a centre of world-wide influence, where even Protestant and non-Christian States consider that they must be officially represented ; the right of association, recognised in common law, must protect the existence of the religions Orders in France on the mere grounds of justice quite apart from claims based upon their services to the nation; freedom of education, enabling Catholics to have their children educated in the faith they profess and secured from the godless ; education of the secular schools. The organisation is independent of all party ties and traditions. This latter is a wise proi vision. In the past many Catholic French- . men believed in the policy of letting sleeping - dogs lie; they did not care to agitate for ; the repeal of repressive laws so long as those , in power were not disposed to put the said ) laws into operation. Recent history, howl ever, has shown that the dogs ma'v wake up r at any old time and proceed to mischief. I The Herriot Government, for example, would 5 have found it much more difficult to introi duce new anti-Catholic laws , than to resur- ■. rp/>+, tlmcft nlmn-rlv in oyisi+oupo r rim T?or1o_

ration, therefore, was wise in deciding that its members should not be tied .to any political group hut should stand on their feet as Catholics, claiming their rights as citi-

zens of the French Republic, asking for no special privileges, but insisting that they suffer no disabilities on account of the fact that they were true to their faith: A Paris journalist, usually unfriendly to Catholics, contrasted the militant spirit showri by Trench Catholics to-day with their passivity n! during the persecutions of Combes . and ” Briand more than twenty years ago: “The Catholics since the war,” lie wrote, “are not . just what they were in pre-war times. M hen men have fought for their country without counting risk or cost, and when they feel that they have’ been amongst the best soldiers of the waT., they are not so dy in times of peace tc* submit to being 1.-OTfflPa’.’ >nd 0,1 account of their mast sacred h*.'®*' lhere >"» * Py«Mogi«-l element to ho count vitl > !>«« botl > imprudent and unjust W disregard.* The Cloven Hoof The atheistic Government in France is - determined to fasten .secularism upon Alsace. That it meets the strenuous opposition of Alsatians with a crafty compromise is not a’ sign' of wavering on its part, but only an indication that it has decided to adopt a mote' insidious method to gain its end.Quito recently M. Herriot opened at Colmar' what' he described as an interdenominationalschool'. Pupils of various religions beliefs ■ are invited to attend with the reassurance that facilities will lie' given to religionsteachers from Outside to give religious instruction to classes of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. It was also announced that similar establishments would he opened in other towns after Easter. Mgl‘". Hitch, the intrepid Bishop of Strasbourg, is not' deceived by the Government’s gesture. He lias declared that Catholics must not attend these school!?, tike purpose of which is to pave the way fort the aggressively anti-Christian' education! ■which is a marked feature of the secularschools of France. The compromise, however, shows the dangerous character of the Government. No doubt the . Ministry feltthat Alsace was an extremely delicate problem to handle. The militant spirit of theAlsatians made it almost impossible for theGovernment to establish the lay schools successfully by arbitrary moans. Moreover, a.-, quarrel in Alsace might he attended by nn—

pleasant effects upon other interests of the Government quite apart from education. By offering to admit religious instructors to the schools the Government sought to disarm opposition by appearing fair and reasonable. A reputation for tolerance would be . useful if the Grand Orient later decided to suppress the religions schools by force. The Catholic leaders, of course, were not deceived by the guile of M. Her riot. They know that an hour’s religious instruction per day would he a poor antidote for five hours spent in an atmosphere hostile to religion. Religion is not a subject like geography which has little to do with arithmetic. It is a subject which must permeate the whole system of secular instruction.

Christianising the Drama mi- -p • , .. J' y- ■ tells flint 1 le^, 011 t f °.. 16 . holic eminent of Franco'are 1-0 enc f Goveminent ot France are busy paganising the

schools, a number of earnest people are tak- 1 ing steps towards Christianising the drama. The journees d’art rdhjieux, the days of ,religious art, that have taken place recently Paris, under the patronage of the Cardinal Archbishop, were interesting, opening ?--us they did a vista upon the activities of -.. certain Catholic artists whose object it is to create a Catholic theatre. They are, as a rule, young men, enterprising, full of initiative and ideas, who would fain introduce a Catholic element into all the branches of art. One of the best known is M. Henri Gheon, a convert of the war, who for the last four years has written for colleges, study classes, and schools Christian dramas that 1 have had a well-deserved success. AI. Gheon •y' , believes in creating between the actors and their audience a bond of sympathy that must contribute to the development of both. He now is prepared to extend his action beyond its original sphere and to produce his i -... works before larger audiences. Given his well-known talent and knowledge of human nature, his success seems probable. M. Henri Gheon has founded a dramatic company to forward his views, the object of this company being to “serve art in .a Catholic spirit.” The Companions of Our Lady, as the group is called, proclaim their object at starting: they are “founded to glorify God and His Saints by means of dramatic art.” They are not and must not be professionals - it ., : but volunteers; they are practising Catholics and their work is purely gratuitous. They are told in their rules to consider their art as a manifestation of their Catholicity, to practise humility and self-forgetfulness. Their first representations will be given in >dParis, at the theatre of the Vieu-x Colombia', ..’f. then, according to possibilities, in the Provinces. Of course, they can give only a

limited number of representations every year; besides some original plays they will revive many medieval and foreign plays. M. Gheon does not ignore the difficulties he must face, but he hopes that, with the grace of God the inevitable little miseries of human frailty will bo merged into a generous effort to secure the object in view. He believes that be will in time be able to create a popular theatre, full of healthy sentiment, dramatic sense, and sane merriment, and both the Cardinal Archbishop and other notable Catholics have encouraged his initiative. In touch with the Companions of Our Lady, M. Gheon lias founded a group of their yC“Friends,” who by their yearly subscriptions and their influence undertake to serve the object of the Association —“the diffusion of Christian dramas.” The Lure of Secrecy George Ade, the famous humorist, suggests the passion for “dressing up” as the reason why so many men join secret societies. He thus describes the “Joiner,” who was the “G.K.” of one Benevolent Order and the VvoT shipful High Guy of something else and the Senior Warden of the Sons of Patoosh, mdftd a lot more that his wife couldn’t keep track of. He believed that anything done in a secretive and mysterious manner there- , by became important. It made him happy 'to know that he was the custodian of . “inside

stuff,” which would never be divulged to one who had not taken the Oath. He carried at least twenty rituals in his head, and his hands were all twisted out of shape from giving so many different grips. Night after night ho was off to a hall up a dark stairway to lead some unfortunate into tho Blue Lodge of the Commandery or else over the Hot Sands. If he had not spent all his money going to conclaves and Grand Lodge meetings, he paid dues and assessments and brought uniforms. His wife complained that she could use on groceries some of the money he was spending on velvet regalia and emblematic watch charms, but ho consoled her with the insurance money she and the children would get from these organisations, and continued to revel in uniforms and paraphernalia. He had one suit in particular, with frogs and cord and gold braid strung round over the front of it, and then a helmet with about a bushel of red feathers. When he got into this rig arid strapped on his jewelled sword, he wouldn’t have traded places with John Pershing. The real joiner loves to sit up on an elevated throne, wearing a bib and holding a dinky gavel and administering a blistering oath to the wanderer who seeks the privilege of helping to pay the rent. To a man who does not cut very many lemons around his own house, and where they are , on to him, it is a great satisfaction to get up in a lodge hall and put on a lot of ceremonial dog and have the members kneel in . front of him and salute him as the Exalted Sir Knight. You take a man who is plugging along on a salary and who has to anl swer the ’phone and wrap up tea all day, and lot him go out at night and be a High and Mighty Gazookus, and it helps him to t feel that he isn’t such a Nine-Spot after 11 J 5

all.” Fantastic Stories The business of the Home representatives of the daily newspapers seems to consist chiefly of collecting and transmitting to their papers ridiculous fabrications concerning the Vatican. Last week we published the exposure of the press story of the Spanish dancer, who claimed to have sung to the Pope and the whole Sacred College of Cardinals a. song which the Archbishop of Paris was said to have condemned as offensive to religion. Headers will recall a recent cable message which told of a prize lighter who was represented as having chatted with the Pope on' matters connected with the ring, just as if the bruiser had had the privilege of a private audience with the Holy Father. From reliable Catholic sources we learn that the whole thing was a fake invented deliberately either to supply copy to the journalists or to give the bruiser an advertisement. What happened was that the man was allowed into a collective audience in the Pontiff’s presence, i.e., an audience in which one or two hundred persons are ranged round a hall. In this kind of audience the Pope passes slowly by the kneeling lines, present- ; ing to each person, his ring to isk. Occasionally one may address a word to him by way of request. But this is only a word . or two to ask a blessing for some absent

ones, etc. This is the kind of audience accorded to the prize fighter, who got admitted to the audience as any other mortal, so that not a .word passed between the Holy Father and himself. Evidently the journalists take us all for marines. ? Protestant Saints A writer in the Statesman comments on the House of Clergy’s attempt to create Anglican saints for the English Calendar.. On the candidature of John Wesley, Florence Nightingale, Charles I, and Henry VI, he drily remarks: “If these are the best that can be found the matter may as well bo dropped.” He then develops a few difficulties tho Anglicans will inevitably experience in making saints there is none to decide their claims, and Government would get hold of the machinery for making saints. The Catholic- Herald of India suggests as a, third impediment to the creation of Anglican saints that there are none. Our contemporary goes on to say that “Protestants can undoubtedly ‘ boast of sanctity’s understudy, the hero of charity, but sanctity in the good old Christian meaning of the term, is not there. Florence Nightingale was a charily heroine of a very commendable type, but far too much of a bully to be a credit to the calendar of saints. There was a time when, wo thought that General Gordon would bo an excellent candidate for canonisation until wo read in that iconoclast, Lyttou Strachey, that General Gordon in moments of depression shut himself up in his tent and drank. Not a saint there either. What seems to be the matter with Protestant candidates for the calendar is naturalism. They are all very decent people, charitable, godly, pious, and all that, but none of them bitten by the folly of the cross. They do not seem

to be able to go beyond the heights of vegetarianism and teetotalism. When a Catholic saint abstains from meat, be does so because he loves meat intensely and loves God still more; whereas a Protestant vegetarian abstains from meat because he hates the thing or does not believe in it. If a. Catholic saint hated meat with the hatred of a vegetarian he would never be a vegetarian ;he would take meatto mortify himself. Protestant heroes of charity will bandage ulcers with great skill, relieve the patient, ami feel nobly happy; but the saintly type will kiss the ulcer before bandaging it, perhaps not very skilfully, and Christian instinct gives him the laurel - of sanctity. Natural humility is silent because it is silly to boast; saintly or supernatural humility is silent to give all the glory to God. Natural chastity is pure because it is hygienic and conducive to health; supernatural chastity is pure because it is a sacrifice to God. . / . Gordon and Nightingale were excellent materials for sanctity; . they actually were the stuff of which saints were made; it was in them, but it wasn’t in the Book of Common Prayer, which has been carefully expurgated of all that savors grace and supernaturalism. It remains to be seen how long Christian instinct will submit to starvation, as an ever growing number of choice souls in Protestantism are turning to Catholic ascetism on the sly.”