Catholic Women at Work
CATHOLIC WOMEN AT WORK very recently the press of France reported a splendid feminine achievement in the interests of economic peace. A strike in the Paris garment trades had led the Christian...
...Its official publications are wholly without that melody of self-congratulation which so often sings organizations into a sound and inactive slumber...
...It is part of the daily liturgy of the Orthodox Church to pray that all may be one...
...They cooperate with feminine societies in these churches, and attempt to destroy barriers and prejudices that prevent concord...
...We shall mention only one—Frau Agnes Neuhaus, founder of the great Fiirsorgeverein for girls, women and children...
...The social welfare work of the league is now entrusted, for the most part, to paid workers...
...But we may note that when they joined hands with their male co-workers, in the Confederation Frangaise des Travailleurs Chretiens which was established in 1920, they brought not only their numbers but also their experience and valor to aid in a gigantic redemptive enterprise "No matter what religious or philosophic opinions one may profess," writes M. Henri Joly, "it must be a source of gratification to know that the work of women has been lifted from a brutish level, and that it has sought of its own accord to raise professional standards and to carry on constantly more valuable relief work...
...It is a publisher faithful to the Church who has established the Cahiers Feminins for books by women and for women, and his list is already brilliant...
...A strike in the Paris garment trades had led the Christian syndicates of workers to arrive at a form of collective bargaining with their employers which virtually brought the trouble to a close...
...And today the work of rescuing girls, of relieving the poor mother, of safeguarding the conditions and awards of feminine labor, and of welcoming the stranger within our gates, is done best under her auspices and in memory of her consecrated life...
...In a very particular way these have for their goal the reunion of the orthodox Eastern churches with Rome...
...in battling with the advocates of birth control...
...and one of the great objectives for the future is to escape the necessity for leaving the duties of girl guidance wholly in the hands of charitable volunteers...
...Cardinal Piffl, of Vienna, summoned the women's groups to join with men in a common Volksbund, to stand for a certain definite program and to take its cue from a journal especially created for the purpose...
...After all, it is not strange that those from whose bosoms the race gathers life and strength should possess a special and marvelous residue of fortitude for the achievement of beneficence...
...And it would be a pleasure to introduce, if there were time, at least the names of some of the valiant women who have done excellent work on behalf of the principles sponsored by German Catholic womanhood...
...We must see in this good work, however, only one success gained by the Catholic plan for organizing female workers which has been developing slowly and steadily during more than forty years...
...Nor is it wonderful that so many of the saints raised to the altars of the Church should have been women of whose sanctity a pity for the haplessness of the life they saw around them was an abiding characteristic...
...n8 THE COMMONWEAL December 9, 1925 Though the task has never been easy and may well have appeared hopeless at times, great leaders have never been wanting...
...Gifted and loyal women are the very backbone of that organization for the renaissance of a spiritual theatre which Henri Gheon, its founder, has called Les Compagnons de Notre Dame...
...And yet there is a happy tendency not to waste time and energy serving the mirage of "ideals," but rather a firm determination to do some little things as well and patiently as possible...
...and it safeguards the unworldliness of its motives by making room for annual retreats so arranged as to make it possible for all members to attend without great inconvenience...
...But each little prejudice removed, each token of charity or esteem between Catholic and Orthodox, must be counted a gain in the great cause...
...Leontine Zanta...
...The vision of motherhood is seen not only under the Bethlehem stars or within the gloom of Calvary...
...The work of the feminine unions has been a demonstration...
...The neighboring Slovak nations also have their energetic leagues of Catholic women...
...Their story is truly heroic...
...There is more than sentimental significance in the fact that the spiritual upatroness" of the United States of America is Mary Immaculate...
...and as we read the accounts of those encouraging assemblages in the interest of Catholic social principle which France calls the "semaines sociales," we come upon their names as the traveler passes great ships bringing priceless cargoes...
...FRENCH LITERARY ACTIVITIES But economics is not the only social terrain of importance...
...Nor have any of the arts which fringe upon literature been neglected...
...During 2,000 years our fathers took the miracle of charity from Mary's fingers as naturally as they accepted food from an earthly housewife...
...Therefore the league is busy in a thousand ways: in founding scholarships at the Catholic Workers' College, Oxford...
...The results of this cooperation have been most promising in a time of general depression and doubt...
...And of course they are not neglecting the fortress of home...
...Its annual congresses are models of their kind, and have led to a much deeper understanding of common problems and purposes...
...and united with their Catholic sisters in this great thought, the Orthodox sisters are unwittingly but steadfastly carrying out the wishes of the Holy Father expressed in that far-reaching encyclical, Ecclesiam Dei...
...Germany is fortunate in having a number of women distinguished for achievement in public life, academic research, and literature...
...and acting on the same principle of cooperation, workers' representatives once more entered into relations with the employers' agents...
...Catholic France has realized how necessary it is to introduce the spirit of Christian faith into the work of letters, thereby counteracting the subtle poisons which have so long corroded and corrupted it...
...The Catholics of the nation know that their practical labors in the cause of social reform do not lose, but gain immeasurably in force and cogency through having and owning as their ideal her who, in Wordsworth's inspired phrase, is "our human nature's solitary boast...
...Aroused by personal contact with misfortune while she was holding public office, this remarkable woman has built up an organization which is active in all Germany and has done incalculable good...
...in answering the call of the clergy for aid in rescue work...
...THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND England's Catholic Women's League is characterized by that intrepidity and sense of practical values which seem to have been bred in the British bone...
...What we have said here of France might well lead to some passing homage for the excellent artistic achievement of Catholic women elsewhere...
...Lourdes, Orleans, Lisieux, are three bright satellite stars in a world which sorely needs stars as its guide to the haven of the City which, however shadowily, may be built on earth...
...Perhaps there used to be such a thing as "Victorianism" in England, but these Catholic women of the twentieth century know where they are living and what must be done about it quite as well as the most emancipated "up-to-dater...
...The matter at issue was successfully arbitrated and industrial peace was not disturbed...
...These women take a large share in many prominent movements, notably the affiliation of Austrian Catholic literary workers, for mutual aid and improvement...
...GERMANY WELL ORGANIZED Germany has what is, perhaps, the most efficiently organized body of Catholic women in the world...
...Through all these years of hardship, Austria has been confronted and encouraged in a very especial way by excellent Catholic women of noble birth, several of whom are internationally famous as authors or artists...
...Nor would it be proper to suppose that the efficiency is the result of a strain in the national character: hard work was needed to separate the good housekeeper of the Rhineland from her domestic duties, but when she realized the obligation imposed by changing political institutions and social habits, she rose to the occasion with a remarkable good will...
...We may note, by way of example, the spirited journalistic endeavor of Henriette Charasson, whose analysis of Porto-Riche was a gallant task somebody had to carry through for the profit and solace of us all, and whose stirring poetic sequence dealing with the privileges of motherhood is both a literary event and a challenge...
...Nowhere are the moral problems engendered by industrial living so acute and formidable as in England, where the "catalogue of artificial stimuli to instinct," as someone has called the vast commercialized system for arousing the passions, is constantly turned, leaf by leaf, before throngs of young people hungry for respite from the gruelling life of factory towns...
...This was made necessary by the development of a severe struggle for the control of educational principles, the issue being religious instruction...
...It has helped to show women that they can combine fidelity to domestic affairs with courageous effort to do their share for the national well-being...
...We are all one—one mighty thought and one goal, one body and one spirit, one future and one pathway—in one God and one firm faith...
...It is necessary that woman should remain woman, even while not neglecting to defend herself...
...But as the cost of living advanced, it became apparent that the stipulations in the contract were no longer satisfactory...
...Civilization is dependent upon the motives which people preface to their actions—the visions, or dreams, of what they desire that life should be...
...uThe road towards Eastern reunion," Miss Christitch has recently reminded us, "is long and painful...
...and so we may, perhaps, call literature the economics of dreaming...
...AUSTRIA'S STRUGGLE Catholic feminine activity in Austria has come to figure very prominently in the contemporary endeavor to weld the non-Socialistic population of the country into a solid and influential group...
...While demonstrating always their entire fidelity to the great tradition of western civilization, they have proved themselves masters of their time and interpreters of the contemporary mood...
...We cannot avoid calling attention to a passage which seems basic in an address by Frau Helene Weber—UI am not merely I. I am part and parcel of a great communion of souls...
...If there were a Catholic Nobel Prize for charitable achievement, it might well acquire lustre from being awarded to her...
...The wisdom and effectiveness of this step have already been proved, just as the loyalty and resourcefulness of Austrian women has once more been enthusiastically praised by the leaders in the fight...
...CATHOLIC WOMEN AT WORK very recently the press of France reported a splendid feminine achievement in the interests of economic peace...
...and the task of preparing the Catholic mothers for civic duties, to the accomplishment of which even such busy men as the Due de Broglie have thought it well worth the while to give their attention...
...The Katholische Frauenbund has enrolled more than 300,000 members, distributed in many hundreds of local groups and deDecember 9, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL 119 voted to enterprise of varied character...
...When some day we in America come to summarize what has been said and done about the education of children by English women, we shall learn to recognize that it is quite as valuable and noble as the work done elsewhere by such leaders as Montessori...
...But enough has been said to indicate how universal is the acceptance by women of the beautiful ideal of a communion that transcends earth, by the light of which those who are militant for the sake of final peace and the legacy of good to our children, go on hopefully with the daily task of clearing up the world's muddles and mistakes...
...and the work of creating a worthy religious literature, at the head of which is inscribed the benignant name of the Little Flower...
...its program gives as much attention to vigilantly supervised branch work as to more pretentious national projects...
...The story of how the various original groups came into being, organized as they were by heroic women who recognized the needs of the hour much better than many influential men, is too long to be told here...
...And, of course, it is a pleasure for Americans to know that in the midst of the many women associated with the movement to vitalize the relations between religion and the fine arts, is our own delicate and masterly painter of domesticities and heroisms, Miss Elizabeth Nourse...
...THE SPIRITUAL IDEAL There is a great deal more that might well be included in this rapid sketch of the ways in which Catholic womanhood has realized the old meaning of "orbis terrarum...
...and in suggesting a more rigid supervision of entertainment which, like the movies, tends to become socially dangerous...
...the novels of Colette Yver and her sisters of a slightly younger generation...
...The prestige of French feminine literary activity is not, however, limited to a single throne...
...This suggests the truth that the activity of women knows no national or social boundary...
...The influence of these upon their sisters, particularly in Catholic circles, has been far-reaching...
...In very many ways women of talent have lent almost invaluable aid...
...And of course there are ramifications : the work of inducing women to live upon farms in the country, as undertaken by such brilliant speakers and writers as Mile...
Vol. 3 • December 1925 • No. 5
