Communications
212 THE COMMONWEAL December 29, 1926 COMMUNICATIONS
T CHRISTIAN UNITY West Point, N. Y. O the Editor :--Because the daily newspapers have lately announced the resumption of the Malines...
...We have a year before the arrival of Christmas, I927...
...Our economic system belongs to the moral order, not to the physical order, and wage statistics show that there is far too large a number of workers receiving less than a living wage under our present system...
...214 THE COMMONWEAL December 29 , 1926 T CONCERNING FASCISM Washington, D. C. O the Editor :--Father Bandini's letter in The Common-weal of December I5, seems to be based upon confusion of thought...
...I do not think Father Bandini will, after mature deliberation, deny this specific assertion of mine...
...His analogy of faulty plumbing in a house which can be repaired with a half-yard of piping is evidently fallacious...
...Finally, they ask of their neighbors the privilege of deciding on this matter without interference...
...A living wage has often been defined by Catholic teachers of economics and the social sciences...
...As I recollect the discussion at Cleveland, it was agreed that the employer in Mr...
...For the purpose of discussion, let us admit Dr...
...I was certainly, therefore, in no contentious mood when I pointed out this fact and I did not feel called upon under these circumstances to solve what I believed to be an insoluble difficulty inherent in the present economic order...
...As for the assertion that Mussolini has not violated human rights "to the extent that certain communistic legislation does in this country"--well, it may be left to perish by spontaneous internal combustion...
...Raymond Pearl's Alcohol and Longevity...
...On October I5 and 22, 1926, reunion meetings were held in Constantinople, at which were present the apostolic visitor and locum tenens of the Armenian Catholic patriarchate (who presided) the bishop of Gubbio, the vicar-apostolic of Egypt, the vicar-general of the apostolic delegate at Constantinople, the Melchite patriarchal vicar, the pastor of the cathedral, the protosyncellarius of the Greek diocese, the dissident metro-politan of neo-Cesarea, many religious superiors and pastors of Latin and Eastern parishes, the Orthodox metropolitan of Imbros and Tenedos, the Orthodox titular bishops of Irenopo- lis and of Elea, the Archimandrite Dorotheos, chief secretary of the Phanar patriarchate, the pastor of the Russian parish in Constantinople, and the prior of the Russian monastery of the Holy Trinity at Galata...
...Du Brul is seeking merely an honest man, may I in all humility suggest that the need of his lantern is ended ? He may think that I am terribly mistaken, but I assure him I am entirely sincere...
...and let us further consider whether it is an economic asset or liability...
...Nor do I think he will contend that a "good Catholic" can accept those Fascist propositions to which I have above applied the epithet, "monstrous...
...It by no means follows that because I refuse to offer a solution for what I think is an insoluble problem I am thereby forced to refrain from criticism of the solution offered by Mr...
...The economic order is established for the purpose of providing an adequate and decent livelihood for people and it is therefore a valid indictment of the economic order to prove that large numbers of workers do not receive a living wage...
...212 THE COMMONWEAL December 29, 1926 COMMUNICATIONS T CHRISTIAN UNITY West Point, N. Y. O the Editor :--Because the daily newspapers have lately announced the resumption of the Malines conferences--as well as further preparations for the 1927 World Confer-ence on Faith and Orders---it seems timely to recall the Roman Pontiff's deep interest in all non-Catholic attempts to regain organic Christian unity...
...Do not forget that the Anglicans, the organizers of Anglo-Eastern union, are troubled...
...BEaT~ C. A. WIMPLE...
...From July 31 to August 3, 1924, the fourth reunion con-ference took place in Velehrad, Czecho-Slovakia, in which Catholics and Orthodox participated...
...I was attempting to set forth its underlying theory or doctrine...
...I feel it is unnecessary to warn you not to accept the offer...
...A. A. NOVAJOVSKu A CORRECTION Toronto, Canada...
...Whether we can do something practical to improve the quality of Christmas cards or not, can we not at least make a loud protest, and a concerted act of reparation ? MARTHA GENUNG STEARNS...
...It is quite true, of course, that the scandalous lives of certain "prominent historical personages" identified with the Church is no argument against the divinity of the Church for the simple reason that the Church was established to teach divine truth...
...T CHRISTMAS GREETING CARDS Worcester, Mass...
...The first one was seeing a "greeting card" in a reputable shop's Christmas collection, in the shape of a donkey with jointed legs and a holly wreath about his middle, with the caption: "Here's a Merry Muletide with a kick in it...
...These are the things about Fascism which, I specifically said, make it con-tradict Catholic doctrine...
...God save us all...
...Placards in the savings banks tell us that 95 percent of men over sixty-five are dependents, i.e., economic losses...
...yet he says that the United States may some day need "a like discipline...
...Kerrish's letter (same issue) is based on the assumption that the end justifies the means...
...As Hilaire Belloc said in a recent article, "Already the little monuments of Christian Christmas . . are half forgotten, and the doctrine itself upon which such things were based is dissipated and gone...
...Have not they a right to our brotherly intercessions...
...I regret that he thinks the bread I offered him was a stone because I intended to feed him abundantly with the very nourishing bread that "industrial democracy" affords...
...He questions the data used as a basis for the author's conclusions and holds that prior life insurance and laboratory studies "must stand as the only dependable basis for a public message on this question...
...Should Mr...
...Kerrish's lifetime, would he, as a "business man" perhaps, give a particular welcome to that "discipline" by which workingmen are denied the right to form genuine labor unions...
...c) that she can recognize no unity of doctrine save on the basis of the acceptance of the whole of her teaching...
...Mr...
...A lady near me was looking over some Italian cards with colored reproductions of famous Madonna pictures, and said to the attendant: "I don't think you ought to have these cards displayed...
...I used the word reputable above, because I honestly believe that the firm who ordered and displayed the card did not realize the atrociousness of it---did not think what it might convey to a chance passer-by...
...They have no desire to be "Old Man Minnicks...
...In the article from which he makes an insufficient quotation, I was not discussing Fascism as a "form of civil society," much less as a "social system...
...Du Brul thinks I took a slightly aggressive attitude in my reply to his first communication...
...A renewal of faith, of love, and of longing for Catholic unity will show itself among non-Catholics of good will, fol many of the promoters of the World Conference have a spiritual horror of heresy and schism...
...By implication he concedes that Mussolini "violated fundamental human rights...
...We are convinced that from a correct knowledge of the facts there will arise a just appreciation of men and likewise will flourish an honest love of mankind that, nourished in the charity of Christ, will greatly serve religious unity...
...MICHAI~L MACGREGOR...
...Can't we begin to notice it now...
...It is a good example of what the late W. S. Lilly was fond of calling "wild and whirring words...
...Fisk's inferential premise: that alcohol, even in moderate amounts, does shorten life...
...The question: How old must a man be before he becomes a non-producer...
...Du Brul's hypothetical case might be allowed to pay low wages for s short time providing there was reasonable hope that the industry would soon become self- sustaining and capable in the future of paying living wages...
...Never, even in my most pessimistic moments, have I ever thought that employers were so impervious to sound ideas as his attitude implies...
...and Ice Ages Recent and Ancient, by A. P. Coleman, published in The Commonweal of November 24, the sentence appears: "The last, or pleistocene [age] which came to an end about twenty thousand years ago on this con-tinent, covered with ice about four thousand square miles of North America...
...It is worth remembering that during the Russian revolution Pope Benedict XV offered the summer-place of the apostolic delegate at Constantinople to the Russian Orthodox metropolitan of Kieff...
...Included in that doctrine, as I showed from Signor Rocco's address, are the monstrous propositions that the state is an end in itself, that it is justified in using any means to attain its objects, and that it is the source of all individual rights--in other words, that the human person has no natural rights...
...REv...
...The present-day reunion conferences are altogether in accord with the wishes of him whom the Orthodox Byzantines call in Lauds for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul the "foundation of the Faith," for His Holiness told us in the encyclical Ecclesiam Dei: "Just as it is necessary that the dissident Easterns, laying aside old prejudices, should seek to know the true life of the Catholic Church without attributing to the Roman Church the faults of private individuals--faults she is the first to condemn and seek to correct, so also the Westerns must strive to know better and more profoundly the history and customs of the Easterns...
...My letter, therefore, cannot be December 29, I926 THE COMMONWEAL zI3 called, "a naive example of ignoratio elenchi," because I was so well aware of the point at issue that apparently I was able to turn it on Mr...
...If, like Diogenes, Mr...
...This congress had pre- viously received papal approval by the following words: "One of the main ends of this meeting will be the acquisition of new knowledge of the history and afflictions of the Eastern peoples...
...And undoubtedly more tempting offers will now be made...
...Countless individuals prefer a fuller life to a longer life...
...Du Brul refuses to consider any argument of the least value which does not in some way defend the existing industrial order and suggests that it is because arguments of this kind are not used all the time at the Catholic Conference on Industrial Problems that Catholic employers are conspicuous by their absence...
...I am certain that his explanation of the reason why diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Prague, for example, have not yet been resumed, would not correspond with the former Nuncio Mar- maggi's...
...In other words, Mr...
...It would, however, be a tremendous argument against the Church could it be proven that some Pope speaking ex cathedra had taught error...
...To destroy the American Fed-eration of Labor would possibly be an efficient short-cut to certain "results...
...Industrial democracy is not based upon the total elimination of these vices, but it will reduce the evils consequent upon them and the opportunities for indulgence in them...
...Du Brul and have "pinked" him in a sensi- tive spot...
...I am quite sure that Mr...
...Will they succeed...
...Du Brul attempts to draw between the Church and our present economic system is also fallacious...
...REv...
...Du Brul is too good a logician to have used it...
...Dr...
...In such a case he would have no right to the diamond and as an honest man should forego his desire for it...
...We are now passing through the Christmas season of I926...
...T O the Editor :--In the Saturday Review of Literature of November 20, I926, Dr...
...Consequently, her ideal of unity is not that of gathering up and uniting the divided portions of the Church, but a return of all heretical or schis- matical bodies to the one Church...
...Maybe...
...the Editor :--In my review of Our Mobile Earth, by T O R. A. Daly...
...The secretary of the legation, I believe, would be one of the last persons in the world capable of giving an unbiased opinion on the political and religious conditions in Czecho-Slovakia, which is at present in the hands of an administration inimical to Catholicism and opposed to the just aspirations of the Slovaks, 80 percent of whom are Catholics...
...When the great modern apostle of truth and unity, Cardinal Mercier, passed to his reward, Metropolitan Eulogios presided in the Russian Church in Paris at a "pankhida" sung for the soul of the late Cardinal...
...Du Brul's contention that an employer is committing no injustice in offering to pay what he can because his men are under no compulsion to accept it, is evidently sophistical, because most workingmen must work or starve...
...Or perhaps his explanation of the government's favorable attitude toward schismatic bishops and national churches would be far different from that of the Church...
...It is being commercialized by non-Catholic and anti-Catholic producers whose only interest in it is to take advantage of our pocketbooks...
...D. T. POWELL...
...those are holy pictures and it is in very poor taste to have them on greeging cards...
...O the Editor:--I regret very much that Mr...
...Du Brul question this, I shall be very glad to furnish abundant proof that large numbers of wage-earners today are not receiving a living wage...
...Our desire,' says the encyclical of I9O2, 'is that all heterodox shall come into the bosom of the Orthodox Church of Christ, which only is able to give them salvation.' " Bishop d'Herbigny, S.J., president of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, tells us: "With their colonies, with the help of American Episcopalians, with the Old Catholics, Jansenist and Mariavite bishops, the Anglicans hope to gather together a conference of seven or eight hundred titular bishops...
...The sentence should have read as follows: "covered with ice about four million square miles of North America...
...Frank Gavin, professor of ecclesiastical history in the Episcopal Theological Seminary in New York, gives the fol- lowing conclusions: "In summary we may state: (a) that the Orthodox Church claims to be the whole and only Catho- lic Church...
...The answer to this riddle is that people are forgetting what Christmas is about...
...They may be unable to find employment elsewhere...
...At the risk perhaps of having to admit mental obtuseness, I must confess I am unable to follow Mr...
...And Providence in some way will bless their efforts for the good of the Church and sincere souls...
...Was there not once, in the ages of faith, a caricature in which figured an ass's head, which has been the occasion of many prayers of reparation...
...And the reason I believe this is involved in the second thing which happened...
...J. W. R. MAGUIRE, C.S.V...
...JoHN A. RVA...
...I meant to be all sweetness and light, because I was quite delighted that he had discovered and stated so dearly one of the practically insoluble problems of the existing economic system, a problem which in the last analysis is a serious indictment of this system...
...Mr...
...If "a notoriously low wage" is a living wage, will Mr...
...Aside from the economic phase of the matter, the question as to whether one may desire to live to the ag~ of threescore years and five with alcohol, or over that age without alcohol, is essentially a matter of taste...
...Eight years ago, Masaryk and his clique made certain promises to the Slovaks, in writing, and the Popular party which represents the great majority of Slovaks will not be satisfied until these promises are fulfilled...
...I grant quite cheerfully that a certain measure of selfishness and dishonesty will always prevail in humanity...
...The ex-Metropolitan Anthony of Kieff sent to the Holy Father through the nuncio in Belgrade a message in which was revealed the fact that Metropolitan Anthony had lighted a taper and said a prayer for the deceased Prince of the Roman Church in the Roman Catholic cathedral at Karlovitz...
...It is true that pourparlers took place and two insignificant ministries were used as a bait, but no unwitting applicants could be found...
...b) that as such she daims infallibility...
...Even if he were capable of giving unbiased opinions on this question, still he could not be trusted for his accuracy, judging from a sample of information he gives regarding the entrance of the Slovak Popular party into the government...
...We firmly hope that the good under- takings of such meetings will help much to drive out the mis- trust and misunderstanding that has taken root in the West in matters that concern the history and piety of the East...
...Du Brul in his distinction between "not paying a living wage, but a notori-ously low wage...
...Such a condition cannot be answered by a sophistical comparison between a plumbing system and a leaking pipe...
...REv...
...In an address to some cardinals on March 24, I924, His Holiness said: "We shall look with favor on all Catholics who, moved by divine grace, shall strive to help their separated brethren to obtain true faith, prepar- ing the way for them by dissipating deeply-rooted prejudices, by teaching the whole Catholic doctrine, and above all, by showing forth in their lives that charity which is the mark of the disciples of Christ...
...Should that day arrive in Mr...
...T EXISTING ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES Bourbonnais, Ill...
...I would dissent very sharply from the doctrine that an indus-try might, with a clear conscience, continue indefinitely to pay low wages...
...A Russian protopriest, Father Izvolsky, attended the funeral of the Belgian prelate and walked in the cortege...
...Du Brul...
...and without anybody noticing it...
...Eugene L. Fisk, Medical Director of the Life Extension Institute, reviews Dr...
...Had he continued to quote my argument instead of stopping short when he did and had added, "if we had a social or political system which as a necessary condition of existence at times compelled men to murder or commit any other crime, all right opinion would oppose it and Catholic opinion would be unani- mous," the falsity of his analogy would have been evident, and Mr...
...This presents the inescapable conclusion that alcohol, in shortening the time this 95 percent may live after the age of sixty-five, is an economic benefit...
...You will secure a better grasp of the manners and customs of the Easterns and a deeper appreciation of the dig- nity of their church services and of the value of their ecclesi- astical institutions...
...T CONDITIONS IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA Tarrytown, N. Y. O the Editor :--In The Commonweal of December 8, the secretary of the Czecho-Slovakian legation at Wash-ington objected to some inaccuracies which, he alleges, ap-peared in your editorial comments on November 24, and makes a generous offer of his services in furnishing you with "authentic" material regarding conditions in Czecho-Slovakia...
...Du Brul would not argue that he would commit no injustice if he took advantage of the financial necessity of someone who owned a valuable diamond and purchased it from him for only $Ioo when the diamond was worth $i,ooo, even though Sxoo was all he felt he could afford to pay for it...
...In answer to their prayer, Our Saviour will make it possible for them to regain His truth, His supra-national charity...
...O the Editor :--May I tell you of two things which happened to me recently...
...Du Brul please tell me what he regards "not a living wage...
...I challenge him to name the two ministers and the posts he alleges they accepted...
...His opinions would probably be as reliable and accurate as those of Consul- General Elias on the Mexican situation...
...In that time, cannot something be done to protect the most central and holy fact of our religion from this public desecration, to remind people that it is still a holy day...
...The analogy that Mr...
...No less an authority than Pope Leo XIII has defined a living wage as a wage suf- ficient to maintain a workingman and his family in decent and frugal comfort...
...ALCOHOL AND LONGEVITY Norwalk, Conn...
...d) that she can- not admit the existence of any 'members' or 'branches' of the Church, since it is constituted of herself alone, nor the valid- ity of any sacraments save her own...
...To expand on this it may be said that a living wage is one that is sufficient to maintain a workingman and his family in the standard of living generally maintained by his class in society, and affords him enough for the proper education of his children, allows him occasional periods of vacation and recreation, and provides him with insurance against old age, sickness, and death...
Vol. 5 • December 1926 • No. 8
