The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1908. MAKING OURSELVES KNOWN

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 21, 28 May 1908, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1908. MAKING OURSELVES KNOWN

N his ' Present Position of Catholics in England ', the late Cardinal Newman penned some words which apply as forcibly to our co-religionists in Great Britain and in these new countries to-day as they did to the England of the stormy times, over half a century ago, when they were first written. Hesaid :—

' Oblige men to know you ; persuade them, importune them, shame them into knowing you. Make it so clear what you are that they cannot affect not to see you, nor refuse to justify you. . . Wherever Catholicism is known it is respected, or at least endured, by the people. . . A religion which comes from God approves itself to the conscience of the people wherever it is really known. I want you to rouse yourselves to understand where you are, to know yourselves. I aim primarily at organisation, edification; cultivation of mind, growth of the reason. It is a moral force, not a material, which will vindicate your profession and will secure your triumph. . . What I desiderate in Catholics is the gift of bringing outrwhat ■ their religion is '. The ground of controversy has shifted vastly sinceNewman penned his great exposition of the Catholic position amidst the c Sturm und Drang '—the whirk wind of sectarian passion — that produced the Ecclesiastical Titles Act. The sober sense of the British' Par^ liajnent made haste to ' repeal that blot upon'" its statutes when the volcanic fires had burned- : themselves out. But our times are marked' by a phase of sectional propaganda compared with which the - stridulous and" 1 acutely hysterical polemics of the No-Popery days of theearly fifties might almost be described as wholesome. We refer to the growth and spread of rationalistic and anti-Christian socialistic literature— of publications

which (as a recent circular of -the Catholic Truth Society well says) ' assail religion- in every shape, and advocate in one form or another a social revolution, entailing consequences which no man of sober judgment can contemplate without" • dismay '. This rationalistic literature, says a writer in the ' Month ', is being pumped wholesale over the working classes, and it will have its effects unless^w'e do something to counteract it."'" We beiieve a *that~many 3 of those wh.6 propagate such literature are by no means aware of the passions which they are unchaining, and the forces of destruction which they are' letting loose. But the Church well knows the outcome of such work. It is to be seen to-day in France, with its swelling list of broken marriage bonds, suicides, juvenile crimes, and the rest '. Much might be done among our people, to provide an antidote to the poison by spreading the excellent (and now very cheap) works of Father Gerard, and the admirable publications of the Catholic Truth Society, that expose in a clear and popular way, the un-facts and fallacies of the rationalistic position. This is one effective way of carrying out Newman's idea. The appeal made by the Society for funds for the production and circulation of anti-rationalist literature is one that should appeal with special force to the clergy and to all the members of the laity who are in a position to assist. 'No doubt ', says the writer in the ' Month ', 'it is a pious and consoling act to bequeath money for the purpose of perpetuating one's memory in a stained-glass window. But just at present we seem to be drifting towards a state of society in which stainedglass windows will be none too safe. It would be well to devote some part of our means to a Society which might do much to stem the rising flood of secularism and lawlessness \