The Catholic Peace Program
Sands, William Franklin
OPEN associations for the discussion of the problems that press upon us in these distracted days are highly desirable. All responsible citizens have some fund of common principle. It is...
...William F. Roemer, and Reverend Moorhouse I. X. Millar, S.J...
...The members of the Procedure Committee were: Mr...
...at this meeting...
...In Colonel Francis Riggs, it possesses a secretary who is not only a soldier but a man whose experience in international affairs is of a very practical order...
...For its first president, the eminent jurist Honorable Martin T. Manton has been selected, while the honorary presidency has been accepted by Bishop Shahan, rector of the Catholic University of Washington, within whose walls the first day's sessions were held, and who welcomed the delegates to their first meeting...
...The Eucharistic Congress gave occasion for the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference to raise the question of organization...
...No body of people within the Catholic communion has the slightest right to commit the general Church to their opinion or ideals, no matter how sound and orthodox, by implying in their name a general Catholic doctrine...
...It is intended, however, that when the work of this conference shall have been thoroughly digested, its activity shall continue soberly, carefully, steadily, it may well be said prayerfully...
...The third sub-committee, under the chairmanship of Dr...
...Frederic R. Coudert...
...Frederick Kenkel...
...That point was very clear to the minds of the par ticipants in this first meeting, and was part of the subject of debate on the report of the sub-committee on International Ethics, as was the essential need of clarifying the terminology in use by expounders of the moral law and of positive international law...
...Everywhere in the eastern states, societies crowd each other for the study of current International events, and of actual international problems...
...sometimes suggestions are formulated or action Is urged upon our government...
...It Is essential that any such group of men identify themselves to the public as Catholic citizens...
...Any plan set up for that purpose bristles with difficulties...
...The universal body, the Church, is jealous of the liberty of thought which Is its right...
...Opening without any blare of journalistic publicity, and with the full consciousness that most of its work lies before it, the executive body of the Association is of a sort whose dignity and impressiveness needs little added comment to recommend it to American citizens...
...The first meeting of the Catholic Association for International Peace was designed to secure, first of all, and as an essential without which further proceedings will lack actuality, this analysis...
...William Franklin Sands, Dr...
...It is equally essential that the title of their organization convey no false impression to anybody that in what they are doing they speak for the Catholic Church...
...Right Reverend Monsignor Michael J. Grupa...
...The feature wherein these associations fail, without exception, Is in the discussion of principle...
...This was the object of the recent meeting at Washington of a provisional committee of Catholics interested in international relations from all over the country, which is now finally constituted under the title, Catholic Association for International Peace...
...These critics take It to mean the reverse of what it actually does mean...
...Catholics are not restrained from the fullest Hberty of thought and action...
...A great world war lies immediately behind us...
...Lecturers swarm on every platform...
...Reverend Cyprian Emanuel, O.F.M...
...Edward Keating...
...Reverend J. P. Donovan, CM...
...but in all the large and eminently respectable audience who heard him, no one challenged it but a Catholic priest, Father Edmund Walsh, regent of the Georgetown Foreign Service School, who required, from the floor, immediate substantiation or retractation...
...and Mr...
...Opinion Is offered, "background" and "foreground" are discussed, procedure is criticized or denounced...
...Reverend Moorhouse L X. Millar, S.J...
...To them it signifies a tendency to suppress free thought and liberty of action...
...They only may not contradict that which is laid down by their Divine Founder and definitely pronounced to be such by His appointed guardians of His teaching, under the most stringent safeguards against error...
...Reverend Leo Charles Gainor, O.P...
...Parker T. Moon, of Columbia University...
...The people who make up "the public" in these matters do want to know what are our relations with other countries, but they have learned to fear "secret diplomacy...
...This is a very serious statement...
...Bishop Dowling's warm support gave powerful impetus...
...But never is principle analyzed...
...Charles J. Fenwick, of Bryn Mawr, reporting on Conditions and Means of Furthering International Friendship, had, perhaps, the lightest task...
...Reverend Linus Lilly, S.J...
...Yet they must be touched, exposed, examined, if the sources of international enmity are to be analyzed honestly and helpfully...
...and Reverend Charles Miltner, C.S.C...
...and, with Dr...
...It is most important to consolidate that common fund, and to clarify the issues upon which there is real and proper and respectable divergence...
...But, before everything else, it is necessary that principles themselves be clarified and stated...
...Prompt suppression follows any such attempt, conscious or unconscious, a fact which more often than not Is completely misinterpreted by Protestants—and many Catholics...
...Benedict Elder, Reverend Gregory Felge, Mr...
...Hornbeck referred) the annual meeting of the American Academy of Political and Social Science was told by a speaker that Secretary of State Hughes, in his official policy toward Russia, had been influenced by some former connection, in his private capacity, with "the Standard Oil Company...
...They are conscious of lack of historical knowledge and of present information...
...The first lies in the very name of any organization taking shape out of such a gathering...
...Quite recently (and It Is the incident to which Dr...
...Consequently, with such wide liberty permitted, the general body of the Church must see to It that no group of citizens within It arrogates to itself the right to speak for all...
...It was considered that, in view of the importance of the whole subject, publicity should not be premature...
...A second sub-committee, that on Sources of International Enmity, was equally conscious of the perils of its subject...
...The sub-committee on Sources of International Enmity was composed of the following members: Dr...
...This subcommittee consisted of: Reverend John A. Ryan, of the Catholic University...
...for without advocating the superior merits of any particular organization, institution or group movement for furthering peace, it could point out the gratifying steps, the strides forward, that have been made in this direction by nations and groups within nations...
...Charles Bruehl...
...A meeting was called at Cleveland by the National Council of Catholic Men and National Council of Catholic Women...
...The universal body will allow no group within it to wear even the appearance of speaking for It as a whole...
...Sensibilities of all kinds lie very near the surface...
...Its program, as stated in the preamble, was "to participate in formulating plans for a permanent Catholic movement in the United States to study relations between nations...
...American public opinion is healthy, it is sanely conservative, but it Is uninformed and at the mercy of propagandists and theorists against whom it does not know how to defend itself effectively...
...These various societies for the study of international relations, foreign policy, higher politics, etc., are formed under the Impulse of a strong desire for knowledge upon which to base an intelligent and helpful attitude toward the control of war and the security of peace...
...A committee on Procedure was appointed to assemble all these reports and the debates thereon for presentation with recommendations to the Executive Committee...
...Judge Manton of New York, Colonel P. H. Callahan of Kentucky, and Reverend R. A. McGowan set up a provisional program which was then opened for discussion most appropriately at the Catholic University and under the patronage and honorary presidency of the Right Reverend Bishop Thomas J. Shahan, its rector...
...Herbert Wright, Mr...
...This meeting wisely decided that all reports be considered as reports to the general body, not yet as reports by the conference...
...Gustave Kosik...
...Great numbers of Americans still live under the shadow of political, religious, and social disabilities arising out of those wars...
...Hornbeck of Harvard, one Is "amazed at the statements, not of fact, but of opinion" which are advanced and which are seemingly swallowed whole by Intelligent audiences...
...That is symptomatic of that kind of audience...
...William Franklin Sands...
...Our country was settled under the memories of the devastating wars of Europe, religious wars, dynastic wars, revolutionary wars, wars arising from growing national consciousness...
Vol. 6 • May 1927 • No. 1
