Our Second Year
OUR SECOND YEAR AMONG Catholic intellectuals—priests, writers, teachers, journalists, artists, and students—in short, those who create or affect public opinion because they are listened to and...
...which brings it about that the same year shall see the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of San Francisco, and the seven hundredth anniversary of the great saint, Francis of Assisi, from whom it takes its name, there is fresh opportunity for Catholics to contemplate and hold before men's eyes the allimportant fact that America owes its founding to men of many races and of many faiths, and that the part played by their own church, in the West no less than in the East, can never be obscured or minimized as long as history remains the record of time...
...There is a school of thought which affects to regard anniversaries and centenaries as arbitrary affairs...
...The abiding presence among men of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar, faith in which is the dynamic force of all the multiform activities of Catholicism, is a fact that means more than the historical events recalled at Philadelphia and San Francisco, great as they were...
...To those who think like ourselves their significance lies in the fact that, like the equally arbitrary division of time into hours and minutes and days and nights, there is hardly one that does not call the attention of the world to some duty that may be no longer deferred, or to some opportunity still to be retrieved...
...How much of the progress of their church in the United States has been due to that abiding principle and its incorporation in the Constitution of their country, they are well aware, and will not forget, when the time of rejoicing arrives, to reaffirm their confidence in it and their determination that it shall endure...
...Providence willed that sixty years before the disabilities under which their brethren suffered in the parent country were removed, the infant republic should be founded on a broad basis of tolerance, which has never been seriously shaken...
...The false news to which La Vie Catholique refers, that Christianity is dead, has often swept through the world, sometimes with much apparent justification, but has always been disproved by a fresh resurgence of the immortal vitality of the Faith...
...THE COMMONWEAL November n, 1925 What has been said above is a paraphrase, indeed almost a direct quotation, from a leading article in La Vie Catholique, that admirably edited and highly effective journal of Catholicism in France, which, by a happy coincidence, is, like The Commonweal, just entering upon its second year of existence...
...The devotion to the principles of Catholicism shown by the work being carried on throughout the world, in such a variety of ways, and productive of such a wealth of intellectual treasure, has begun to strike them as difficult to reconcile with the false news so often spread abroad of the death of Catholicism...
...In that sense, our journal has existed for the benefit of our critics and adversaries...
...In national and general importance, of course, nothing in 1926 will outweigh the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia...
...That the Catholic religion and the Christian ideal which is the illumination of the highest intellects, the comfort of the humblest, and the way of salvation for all, may emerge a little more each week in its fruitful truth, and that in the household of the Faith men may know one another better, and respect one another without distinction of shades of opinion, and that our adversaries, and those larger numbers who do not oppose us but who do not know what we are, may come to feel the reality of the promises made to the Church— such has been our aim, which our readers have enabled us to strive to accomplish, and which we ask them to continue to help us in accomplishing...
...Nevertheless, among our adversaries and among those who care nothing about religion, there are many persons of good will...
...In Mr...
...At the time when the nation will be celebrating its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, the Eucharistic Congress will serve as a reminder of the dependence of all worthy efforts upon faith in God...
...G. K. Chesterton's last book, The Everlasting Man, there is a striking chapter which he calls The Five Deaths of the Faith, dealing with five among the great historical occasions when it seemed that the fire which the Founder of the Church had come to cast upon the earth had flickered out, only to rekindle the beacons of hope and faith and love among mankind...
...That The Commonweal will continue its work, during its second year, under the inspiration of such mighty and hopeful happenings, seems to us an augury that in its own sphere it may be a part of the recreative spirit of Christianity now so active ip the world...
...In addition to furnishing a medium for the expression of some of their activities, we feel that we have brought to their attention the concurrent activities of similar classes in other lands...
...They are a sort of voice by which the secular conscience reminds mankind in the mass, as men and women are reminded by the transience of the hours, that time, which is passing for them, has passed for their fathers and that the civilization in which and on which they live did not come to them by any chance, but through a multiplicity of tasks faithfully accomplished by men and women long dead...
...These last have rarely even given a thought to what Catholics are or what they do...
...Our weekly resume of Catholic activities has served as a sort of barometer for the faithful, the indifferent and the hostile alike...
...In Chicago there will be held another event, the International Eucharistic Congress (the first to be held in the United States) which at first thought would seem to be of interest and value only to Catholics...
...It must be admitted that in Catholic journalism rew organs have addressed themselves to any audience . ve that of the faithful...
...But it will bring to the minds of all something of such paramount importance to humanity that in comparison all other things become secondary and relative...
...Besides the enthusiasm and reverence which they will share with their fellow-citizens of every creed, Catholics have their own special reasons for self-congratulation...
...There is evidence to show that the effect of our publication among such readers has been to produce respect for the opinions and the works of the Catholic intellectual classes, and to lead to the beginning of some study of and thinking about Catholic movements...
...The further fact that the English Catholic colonists of Maryland were the first to establish and practise the fundamental American principle of religious freedom is something that gives Catholics a particular reason to rejoice in the Philadelphia celebration...
...These echoes will let them know, whenever any chill wind of injustice or scepticism blows upon themselves, what an admirable and helpful variety of good results are being effected by such groups as theirs...
...Although by strict calendar reckoning, we are still two months distant from the beginning of a new year, the present occasion is not so far away that it is amiss to take a prospective glance at some of the things for which the year 1926 will be memorable—for Catholics, for members of other communions and for members of none...
...OUR SECOND YEAR AMONG Catholic intellectuals—priests, writers, teachers, journalists, artists, and students—in short, those who create or affect public opinion because they are listened to and because their thought passes from mind to mind, this journal has carried on a special work...
...This fact, which we announced in our first number, and have reiterated ever since, is that the Catholic faith today is exhibiting that marvelous phenomenon which has marked its course for 2,000 years, namely—the phenomenon of a world-wide revival of strength at a time when its enemies were predicting, with what seemed to them to be the supporting evidence of hard facts, its speedy or at least its certain dissolution...
...We have used the words of La Vie Catholique not only because it is a pleasure no less than a fraternal duty to congratulate and take proper notice of the splendid work accomplished by our French contemporary, but also because we feel that the similarity of its work with the work that The Commonweal is trying to do is a striking proof of the fact which is the foundation, in a practical way, of all our efforts...
...The best men among the early discoverers, explorers, and colonists of America were inspired and animated by great ideals and purposes...
...In the coincidence (was it, after all, a coincidence...
...All material things and events stem ultimately from moral or spiritual causes...
...We feel also that we have initiated the general reading public into a sphere hitherto unknown to it...
Vol. 3 • November 1925 • No. 1
