Half-Way Houses
HALF-WAY HOUSES KARL ADAM declared recently that "the man its reaction to environment, and environment in this who would have you believe that Protestantism country is frankly pagan. To strike...
...Doubtless there are Catholics for whom no sagacious man would vote when office of high public trust is at stake...
...To go on adding to this testimony would not be difficult, but it would only enforce the same obvious conclusion: that America today is not blind to the nobility of the saints or the beneficent action of the sacraments...
...Wherever religion and politics meet, an faithful should view the activities of the present Mexi-explosion of old covenanter feeling is always pretty can government with resentment and alarm, then ob-sure to follow...
...Francis Greenwood Peabody, a prominent Unitarian and a former professor in Harvard University...
...Of Father Muretti, director of the Little House of Divine Providence at Verezzo, Italy, where boys are cared for with no strings attached and in the noblest Franciscan spirit, the world has heard little enough...
...We have sternly avoided the blandishments of Norwegian Lutheranism, but we are glad to know that the Norwegian Lutherans conduct very good hospitals for the poor...
...The mystical riches of the Church are now particularly coveted, notably by men who—with their age—have grown tired of rationalism and mere accumulated facts...
...They are of especial concern to the layman because they affect very directly the sphere of activity in which his life as a professional or political citizen is cast...
...These are characterized as a whole by what may be termed a new reaction to the Catholic Church...
...Thus he expresses a consciousness of the value of Catholic life and action which probably does not always distinguish Catholics themselves and which is a reliable proof of religious vitality...
...viously we ourselves ought to be charitably sympathetic It is only the hang-over from an antiquated tradition toward the anxiety of various far-seeing Protestants long since buried under the newer currents of historical about the religious education of young Americans, and scientific thinking...
...We have never been within a mile of thinking that the Shaker code could win our allegiance, but the fact remains that sincere Shakers are most unlikely to engage in professionalized murder and arson...
...ligious inspiration was overlooked for a century...
...Organizations like the Georgia Laymen's Association have demonstrated satisfactorily that the defense of religion against current misapprehensions is quite possible...
...Now if all these things are illustrations of genuine Protestant vitality in a nation like ours at present, there are other signs and symptoms which have become more numerous during the past two years...
...Now experience of various kinds has ious life of America, and to work toward the same induced most Catholics to look for evidences of this ends wherever possible...
...And Karl Adam happens to indifference to religion and the moral code, to uphold be, all things considered, the most observant and ex- frankly and uncompromisingly the basic truths and perienced German Catholic student of the contempo- standards of Christendom—this is the only way in rary religious situation...
...No it was assumed for many years, was Christian in char-one need bother to accuse such a man of vitality...
...Peabody, contrasting the simple religious mood of this blessed refuge for needy lads with the methods of social science, says that one might well learn at Verezzo "the perennial and undimimshed effect of a chastened and consecrated character, the redemptive power of the life of grace...
...Writing about the spirit of Saint Francis in the current Christian Advocate, Dr...
...We, for our part, will be sympathetically interested in this vitality...
...Public-school instruction in the United States, Mendel and the historical importance of Mercier...
...If, for example, we feel that vitality in recurrent abuse of and hostility toward all citizens in this country who are honestly of the themselves...
...They imply principles of moral or spiritual conduct inextricably bound up with the imitation of Christ and which are still accepted, at least nominally, by what is called contemporary civilization...
...They can be overheard in numerous places and would be listened to more attentively if the energies of publicity were not so fiercely devoted to setting forth words opposite in character and really unworthy of consideration...
...Therefore it is plainly the business of practice, the effective vitality of at least a number of Catholics to consider the efforts being made by Prot-denominations is nevertheless probably quite as great estant communions to deepen and strengthen the relig-as it ever was...
...One might profitably add to them a great deal of the fine praise of Father Albino Muretti, contributed to a recent issue of The Outlook by Dr...
...In every war, sons of Catholic fathers, in full loyalty to their faith, have shed their blood on all the battlefields of freedom...
...But the question must be decided on the basis of personal character and . . . ability...
...Doubtless there are Protestants for whom no sagacious man would vote when searching demands in respect to ability and character are made...
...To strike at the roots of is dying is an imbecile...
...Lynn Harold Hough, a Detroit Methodist Episcopal pastor, has these pertinent remarks to make: "The spirit of Francis would make it impossible, for instance, for a Christian who is a Protestant to say that he will not vote for a Christian who is a Catholic, for high public office in the United States...
...We have stressed this matter because we feel that, as was implied in the leading editorial of last week, a magazine like The Commonweal can have for one of its purposes—as no other existing publication can have—the discovery of realities in which Catholics and non-Catholics share a common interest...
...Catholicism in everything Catholics do of dishonesty and malignity Mexico was for a long time governed by conditions (after the fashion of Knox or Foxe) is, if he be logical, arising out of the protectorate exercised by the Spanish barred from accepting the great scientific theory of crown...
...Therefore a vast problem is brought into being, the solution of which interests all of us most deeply...
...To The true vitality of Protestantism is manifested by create a satisfactory system of denominational schools 32 THE COMMONWEAL November 17, 1926 is now practically out of the question, unless a definite change in the whole nation's attitude toward education is brought about...
...The spread of crime, for instance, is plainly due in a large measure to the increasing ignorance of religious truths...
...In great patriotic loans, Catholic wealth has been drawn upon with unhesitating eagerness...
...Surely no task could be more imperative or gracious than that of making all this spiritual splendor and truth available to men and women who have not the strength to dig it out for themselves or who are kept aloof by prejudices...
...It is surely clear enough that a man who belongs to a group whose blood has been shed upon every one of our battlefields, and whose purse has been opened to all our national needs, cannot be refused the highest office just because he belongs to that group...
...Religious freedom was the gift of the Catholic colony of Maryland as well as of the Protestant colony of Rhode Island...
...He acter and so the necessity for giving it a definitely re-happens to be a couple of centuries dead...
...But all this is really not vitality at all...
...Today a man who suspects Both problems are rooted in history...
...These words are not, we say gladly, those of a voice crying in the wilderness...
...And therefore it may reasonably be added that The Commonweal looks forward hopefully toward the work it considers one of its own primary objects: the recognition and development of religious vitality in American life, the revival of the spirit of Christendom as the motive power of civilization...
...In the United States, where a which any adherent of Christianity, no matter with variety of social circumstances have combined to what group he may be aligned, can assert himself estrange a very large number of people from religious vigorously...
...These realities are generally civic or social in character...
...Other agencies—in particular the National Catholic Welfare Conference—have made perfectly clear the readiness of Catholic to participate in the solution of social and civic problems...
...Here both cause and effect are reprehensible to all Christians, and all must cooperate to remove them...
...We think it goes without saying that wherever this vitality exists, it is sympathetically interested in Catholic things...
Vol. 5 • November 1926 • No. 2
