Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 39, 14 October 1925, Page 22

Current Topics

Slow Poison Bread is the staff of life, and therefore every precaution should be taken against its adulteration. According to the Catholic Times the practice of using chemicals to bleach flour was condemned as injurious to the health of consumers by the Conference of Operative Bakers, which was held recently in Nottingham. The chemicals used in this process were held responsible for a skin complaint known as the “dermatitis,” which is one of increasing frequency among bakers. It begins on the hands, and one speaker averred that some of the operatives suffered from it for eighteen months, while others were working with their arms swathed in bandages. This is reminiscent of a chapter in Upton Sinclair’s The ■Juinjlc, in which men are described as walking bare-footed In the brine pits among the carcasses in pickle, their legs covered with running sores. If the chemicals used to bleach the flour will irritate the hands and arms, what may they not do to the stomachs of consumers? However, this is a matter which at present chiefly concerns (he well-to-do, for with so many millions ol the workers subsisting on the dole and short rations generally they are not likely to be menaced with broad-poison-ing. The Troubles of Mexico The sun does not always shine in Mexico lor the Catholics. The Church for many years has suffered much persecution at the hands of godless Mexican Governments, and it is expected that before the end of this year the persecutions will he intensified. The root of the trouble seems to lie the non-rep-resentative character of government in Mexico. The Congress is virtually in the; hands of the President and is bis absolute fool. Charles Phillips writes in an American exchange that in the entire history of the Mexican Republic there has been but one bona, tide popular election. This was in the tune of Madero, following (he Diaz regime The men elected then, however, were" not allowed to take office. The ballot l.ox-s "ere openly confiscated by the military, and a new “election” was announced.’ It is estimated that over 1000 churches and church buildings have been confiscated nr despoiled ■ v Alex man Governments during ;1 K past 100 years. And during the past year the Mexican Government has been industrious in robbing and proscribing the Church, t atholic schools by the score have been raided nml closed, iirobes have been confiscated priests and religious expelled ami exiled th'•"being of Mass bells prohibited the’ administration of the sacraments restricted Mexico., cursed with a rotten constitution uluch is really an instrument by which a handful of scheming anti-Catholic politicians aided and abetted by'Protectant agitators' fan work their will, upon the country. This constitution, places in the hands of State Governments, which are virtually appointed by the dictator, the power to fix the number

of priests that shall be in any given district or diocese. • They have judged in some cases that one priest is sufficient for 6000 people. At the present time Catholic schools, convents, colleges, seminaries, and orphanages are functioning illegally. The celebration of Mass or any other religious rite may be stopped under an Article which provides that no public religious act may be performed except exclusively under the supervision of Government authorities. Tf the Government ceases to “supervise,” legal public worship ceases also. Another Article in this precious constitution declares that no priest, bishop, or religious can legally live in a house that is church property, for there is no such thing in Mexico as church property—it is all Government property. No priest can own or acquire property by purchase or inheritance or in any other nay. Should he attempt to do so he may be denounced by anyone and the property confiscated. In such cases there is no redress. films, everything depends upon the will of the dictator. Mexico provides ns with a splendid example of what is almost certain to happen '.'lien a country permits itself to be governed not by laws but by man, Continuity and Authority Lord AAilliam Cecil, Anglican Bishop of Exeter, raised a point in his Diocesan Gazrtfe which the Anglo-Catholics will find difficult to reconcile with the Continuity theory, ,1 In* Anglo-Ga bold that the entire Church of Christ is divided into branches, of which the Anglican Church, dating from the time of St. Augustine, is one. They say that- the Pope as head of the Roman branch lias no title to authority over the English branch. A dispute has arisen among the Anglican Church authorities over the question of the reservation ol the Blessed Sacrament for the sick. The Anglo-Catholics, spunking in favor of the reservation, held that the Church of England had no power to alter the decision in this matter. The Bishop of Exeter very logically replies that if the Church of England has no power to alter this decision she has no power to alter the decision with regard to the (elihaev of the clergy. But let the Bishop state his ease in his own words: It it is nil nr vice. s and beyond the power in the English Church to alter the decisions of the medieval Church, not only reservation must he allowed, but many other things that wore similarly enjoined: for instance, nearly every provincial Synod put upon the clergy the duty of celibacy. If the Church of England lias no power to alter the decision with legai-d to reservation, she has no power to alter the decision with regard to celibacy, and so a small number of clergy who value consistency and who maintain that the findings of the Church of the West cannot be altered hy provincial Synods of Canterbury ami York maintain in their own lives the duty of celibacy ; but a- large number accept the authority of the English Church on the

question of celibacy and wisely marry, but'" they refuse to acknowledge the English. Church has the same authority,, namely, the power of altering the decision of the Western Church in the matter of reservation. No medieval writer would he able to understand how a logical man could draw such a line as to make a difference between the two decisions. Either the authority of die United Western Church is binding, in which case reservation is permitted and celibacy is enjoined, or the English Church lias power to alter the decisions of the Western Church, in which case reservation, is forbidden and marriage allowed. A yet more serious difficulty lies beyond. The universal doctrine of dm Western Church was that the Pope was supreme. One cannot find any medieval writer before the first Protestant writers who doubts the spiritual supremacy of die Pope, though some doubted bis infallibility. fifin' doctrine of the primacy, as apart from supremacy. of the Pope is one which, as far as I can read, had no authority at all in the Middle Ages, though it was the doctrine of the first four centuries. The Western Church never thought of the Pope merely as the first among equals, but as supreme in jurisdiction. fam afraid it we accent the authority of the medieval 'Church we shall find ourselves committed (o the doctrine of the supremacy of the Pope." American Non=Catliolic Universities A complete education must do much more than impart knowledge; it must supply also a training in good habits, good conduct,” good thinking. This fact : s brought out very clearly by Father Heithaus, S.J., who, in a breezy article in America, shows the deplorable condition to which materialistic education has reduced the students’at nonCatholic universities. In 1918 he spent three months in an army camp with about three thousand students from all the colleges and universities in the middle-west. The first thing that impressed him was their talk, which was not merely vulgar and foul, but there was something morbidly eager about it that reminded him of the Rowings of swine. The State universities are gorgeous buildings, hut the private rooms of the students -were disfigured with the vilest collection of pornographic prints lie had ever seen. He had occasion to examine some of the publications emanating from non-Catholic colleges and he declares them to he too filthy to he allowed in any Catholic home. The Chicago Tribune is quoted as saying. “The fraternity men stated they had three pastimeskeeping dates with questionable women, getting drunk, and failing to attend university functions. The letter of .a Catholic girl student to her uncle tells a sorry story. After thanking God that she was born into a. good, wholesome family in which she imbibed the elements of decency she proceeds: “I’m getting a fine chemistry course and my professors in that department seem to be rdM men but it’s when I come home that I g^ “ simply disgusted. There, are about thirty girls in the house—only two Catholics, the , others I don’t know what— but the twelve J ;

on my floor are terrible — positive atlieW- ists and proud of it — some of the others with Jg such disgustingly loose morals that they can v in earnest uphold free love because of its advantages as a path to their utter freedom. . . .” Father Heithaus says he has a letter- • from the judge of the Juvenile Court in a State University town in which he states that during the past two years some twenty of the students were tried in his court mostly for sexual offences against girls under eighteen (legal minors), some of them hardly more than children. These were the reported. cases coming within the jurisdiction of his court. The others constituting the great majority are never heard of. The writer then goes on to contrast this state of affairs with the conduct in Catholic universities. During the whole six years -which he had spent in a Catholic high school lie had never heard a single vile story, for the students are trained to consider an obscene story sinful and degrading. The Cause In seeking a cause for the disconcerting characteristics produced in the halls of secular education Father Heithaus puts the position thus: “Take a crowd of young men and women at the most dangerous period of life when the imagination is inflammable and passion runs high, and crowd them together, elbow to elbow, in a classroom. Give them a history professor who undermines the historical foundations of Christianity, give them a biology professor who teaches them that they are simply mammals in human clothing, give them a psychology professor who teaches them that the thing called the sold is neither spiritual nor free nor responsible for man's misdemeanors, give them a sociology professor who teaches them that the Ten Commandments are a code of etiquette, man-made and useful in the past, but outworn and fit to be discarded in the twentieth century— turn them free in a college town, without- check or safeguard, without a. relative to watch them or a friend to advise them, and be prepared for anything.” Irish Dance Halls A few weeks ago a cable appeared in our daily papers to the effect that an Irish bishop had placed under the ban of excommunication those who frequented all-night dance halls in the territory within his jurisdiction. This cable furnished a number of silly people with an excuse for writing to the papers condemning the bishop’s narrowmindedness, and warning all and sundry that he did not know what he was talking about, for dancing was a- harmless pastime with which no one could find fault. The fact that all-night dance halls were specified in the cable as the objects of the bishop’s wrath did not give the anonymous scribblers a hint that he was not launching a general attack on dancing, but only on dancing carried on in certain places and under certain condi‘s tions. We now learn from the Very Rev. ' Canon Donnellan why the bishop decided to adopt the strong measures which made our anonymous spiritual guides rend their garments. The Canon denounced in very strong language dancing at Biackrock. He 'described

certain halls as “low, vulgar, vice dens, which are attracting the roues and the rakes of the countryside, and very often profligates of the worst type.” They were also attracting females of a class the name of which could not be mentioned in the House of God. He did not mean to say they were attracting the down-at-heels ; rather they were attracting the swankswell-dressed ladies going about in motor cars. Not long ago the whole countryside was scandalised with the numerous retirements from these halls in the early hours of the morning into the solitudes of Clermont Park. In the County Home he had met the hack-wash of those places. He reminded his hearers that twenty-four years ago Cardinal Logue was obliged to place those frequenting the ballrooms of Biackrock under a ban of excommunication. He appealed to parents to look after their children and keep them from those places, and asked the congregation to pray that the evil might he rooted out of the parish. Catholic bishops the world over are singularly free from the kill-joy spirit which makes so many wouldbe social reformers intolerable busybodies; hut when something comes up from hell to min their people they do not let public opinion turn them from their duty. A “ Dress=up ” Order Widespread ridicule is fatal to a body or movement such as the Ku Klux Klan, whose chief stock-in-trade is a pose. As long as it was shrouded in mystery and could inspire the public with awe the Rian could keep going comfortably; hut when the mystery faded and the Unseen Hand was plainly visible reaching out for filthy lucre, when the rank and tile were identified as barbers and shop assistants and the like who had parted with ten good dollars for the childish whim of dressing up like the bogey man, sensible people just shrugged their" shoulders and smiled a little. The New York Nation expresses the opinion that even the ridiculing stage is past, for “ when the Klan announces its parades in time to sell concessions in. advance to hot-dog vendors, when it charters trains and has itself photographed flaunting the star-spangled banner on the Capitol steps, it ceases to be either a fascinating mystery or a threat to society. It has settled down to be just one more in the long list of shrines templars, tall cedars, veiled prophets, red eagles, white rats, western bees, blue geese, and other dress-up orders which serve in their solemn way to let loose the repressed play instincts of grownup men who have forgotten how to play naturally. Gone is the sudden drama of the flaming cross at midnight ; gone the passion to regulate other people’s lives and habits in picturesque disregard of the law. The Klan is no longer even one hundred per cent, white, Protestant, and Nordic. Its chiefs confer with “good” negroes like Marcus Garvey ; it denies class, race, or religious prejudice: it buys its klaverns from Locus and Woolfs and sells to Fabians and Klotzmans. It still thrives and takes in membership fees; but for that matter the National Anti-Horse Thief Association, founded in 1854, still boasts 36,000 members. The Klan has become safe and uninteresting.”

Rome and Russia | Leontyn Worodiu, a jion-Catliolic Russian writer, after eight years of experience and direct observation oi atheistic Communistic attack on the Russian Church, is convinced, that there is no other help for Russian Christianity but reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church. “It is no longer a secret,” he writes, “that the eyes and hearts of all true Christians in Russia, of many thousands of representatives of the clergy— and priests alikeand of intelligent Russian laity, are turned toward Rome, toward the same Mother Church from which, separated by artificially-! differences rising from purely worldly rivalries of the Byzantine patriarchate, the Russian Christians have had to live. Of Rome, and of Rome alone, the mother, protectress and leader of the true Church in Christ, the dying Russian Church is hopefully expecting help and rescue. Many thousands of the intelligent lay classes who did not leave Russia, hut to this day are doing what they can to care for the Russian people, are deeply impressed with the conviction that only from > a union with the Roman Catholic Church may soul-saving Christianity be expected to re-apnear in Russia. What is wanting is only an energetic initiative for the first step; the feelings of the people have long been prepared for it.” How a Rumor Grew According to the Catholic Herald of India an extraordinary rumor was wafted. through Iturope earlier in the present year to the effect that the Holy See was organising a gigantic lottery with dazzling prizes, the object being to assist one of the educational works of Propaganda. The rumor was promptly denied, hut the tale grew, and pro-' sently all kinds of details were quoted. There wore to be three drawingsone at Easier, 1925. a second at Christmas, and the third at Easter, 1926. Each ticket was to bear the Apostolic Benediction. The first prize was to lie ten million dollars; there was to be one of three million dollars, others of a million, half million, and so on down the scale. America, so it was said, was about to Americanise the Church. The thing went on and on until it began to look as if the vast organisation of the Universal Church, centred in the Vatican, had been turned over to “big business” in the organisation of this monster lottery which was to handle funds to the extent of a hundred million American dollars. At this point some patient and truth-loving investigator followed up the mat- 1 ter to its source, and discovered the modest origin from which the whole flimsy structure came. It was nothing more than that Car-; dinal Gasparri. whose personal generosity is well known, had handed over a very fine pectoral cross to be sold for the benefit of the missions. The cross realised 50,000 lire, that is, about £SOO. The Cardinal also gave , a 1 layer piano with 50 music rolls, which was also sold for the benefit of the missions! But from this simple act of generosity on the part of Cardinal Gasparri, was built upg the elaborate fiction of the mythical lottery;! that was to handle a hundred million dollars! |