Communications
October 9, I929 THE COMMONWEAL 589 COMMUNICATIONS MR. DELL ON THE PAPAL FASCIST ALLIANCE San Jose, Cal. O the Editor :--Mr. Robert Dell, in the July 3 issue of the Nation, answering my...
...David and his singers might be astonished and perhaps disedified at the Twelfth Mass, even when well rendered...
...The sole test of truth is objective evidence, and in history this comes from three sources: tradition, written records and relics...
...He cannot quote a single word from the concordat or its official interpretation to prove his statements...
...LITURGICAL MUSIC ONCE MORE Staten Island, N. Y. O the Editor :--May I be allowed to add one more to your list of inquirers as to what the faithful shall sing...
...On page 315 the Abbot writes: "The 'conversion of England' cannot be claimed as a Benedictine work...
...I got my inspiration for this from the story of a boy who boasted that the king had spoken to him once...
...As to being "unliturgical people" that is not what ails us at all...
...DoivI BEDE GRAY, Obl., O.S.B...
...His proof is drawn from a single clause of the article on marriage stating that questions having to do with the nullification of marriage are reserved to the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical tribunals...
...I quote these instances merely to illustrate his bias, which leads him to generalize, to overstate, to misstate and to misconstrue in writing of an institution whose greatness and record of service (to say the least) deserve for her a more accurate interpretation to the modern readers...
...In answer to Count Giordani's rejoinder of August 28, [929, let me say: if the only historical evidence for the existence of our Lord Jesus Christ in Palestine, or of Saint Peter in Rome were analogous to the Maurist, Placidian and Augustinian traditions, I for one would be inclined to suspend judgment...
...I am not sure that the old Irish woman wasn't right who said that it seemed to her that singing at all during Mass was in shocking bad taste...
...We are only like rather bad children, quite outspoken in our Father's house, where we are very much at home and sure that we love its glory...
...The Lateran Accord, by the Foreign Policy Association, July Io, I929...
...We of the people are liberal, and if anyone wants to express their religious feelings in song, far be it from us to cramp their style...
...From his monastery on the Caelian he [Saint Gregory] sent Augustine, who with forty companions set foot on English soil in 596...
...A man is murdered before your eyes...
...Saint Placid was sent to Messina...
...What did he say...
...Pope Leo does state clearly that the Church is a perfect society, independent of the state...
...59 ~ THE COMMONWEAL October 9, 1929 Mr...
...With bleeding feet and bowed backs they plodded on, and that is perhaps one of the reasons that we never acquired a cultivated taste in Church music...
...Could Mrs...
...Perhaps Mrs...
...We know no other home for our people did not take a "detour" when the roads became rough down through the centuries...
...I think not...
...Clark Gable as the host, accused of the murder due to a practical joke of his own, Elaine Temple as a helpful sea captain's daughter, and Mary Fowler as the reck...
...The concordat declared that its purpose was merely to extend to secondary schools the religious instruction already given in primary schools...
...This religious instruction in primary schools was not compulsory for all students...
...I much fear that when she arrives in the October 9, x929 THE COMMONWEAL 59 x world to come, she will not find herself at liberty to indulge in the pleasing pastime of flinging flowers at her equally selfwilled companions, until she has, at least, offered a very humble apology to those Pontiffs whose commands she flouted, and perhaps performed some little penance, to show she really feels her unworthiness, instead of merely singing the words, which is quite a different matter...
...Jack Lee as the murdered man does perhaps the most sensational bit of acting seen in a long time--and for a reason you can appreciate only after seeing the play and knowing its strange secret...
...He himself stops in amazement and wonders by what principles she will proceed in this task...
...Dell carefully refrains from any reference to the words used by the distinguished Pontiff a little later on in the encyclical, in which he declares: "The Church alike and the state, doubtless, both possess individual sovereignty...
...Dell declares that many Italian teachers will be deprived of liberty of conscience, because only those able to give religious instruction will have any chance of promotion...
...He would impose on the Church the very unwelcome duty of nullifying the marriages of unbelievers, Protestants and Jews...
...In spite of my battered condition I still have a conviction that we may expect "good taste" from the majority of the people...
...The Action Fran~aise constituted not merely a political party but a school of thought, led by men like Maurras, who had renounced the Catholic faith...
...Has not this inquirer quite misstated the matter in hand...
...Still I raise my head, neatly bandaged of course, to say that I got something out of it anyway...
...Now when people speak of Theodore Maynard, I will say: "A clever fellow...
...Since Catholics have been told plainly and repeatedly just what they should sing, would it not express a more loyal attitude to ask, "How shall the faithful learn to sing plainchant, since they have been told it is their duty to sing it...
...Hielscher but attend one of the great national pilgrimages at Lourdes, she might hear the plain-chant sung to perfection, together with a wonderful variety of vernacular hymns...
...He interprets this clause of the concordat not merely as reserving to the Church the nullification (hereafter recognized by the state) of the marriages of her own subjects, but as giving her power to nullify all marriages entered into by any and all persons...
...hence in the carrying out of public affairs, neither obeys the other within the limits of which each is restricted by its constitution...
...he was asked...
...Nor can she allow to go unchallenged principles which so undermine human rights as those often enunciated by Socialists denying or unduly limiting the right of the individual to possess private property...
...The singing of plain-chant would by no means interfere with the singing of the vernacular hymns, deservedly dear to most of us...
...I was just having a little fun for myself and the rest of us who are ignorant in the matter of music, and behold what has happened to me l It was never a steam-roller that squashed and mangled me like this--it must have been a tractor with lugs...
...Yet you not only fail to see who murdered him, but discover in time that he was not murdered by the shot you saw fired but in another way and several minutes before the shot itself...
...Thirty or forty people were in the car at the time...
...Is any one of these sources sufficient grounds for rendering a historical judgment...
...It creates and maintains its illusion throughout...
...Neither can the Church stand by indifferent and allow her children to associate themselves with those more radical forms of Socialism (I fear, however, that Mr...
...MONTE CASSINO Brooklyn, N. Y. O the Editor :--In The Commonweal for June I2, I929, Count Giordani told us: "Saint Maur introduced monasticism into France...
...Ever so little reflection would have revealed to Mr...
...October 9, I929 THE COMMONWEAL 589 COMMUNICATIONS MR...
...Subway Express, written by Eva Kay Flint and Martha Madison, and staged, with an exceptionally competent cast, by Chester Erskine, is the kind of play that makes its novelty serve a genuine dramatic purpose (as distinct from novelty for its own sake) and that mixes all its elements of humor, horror and suspense with an almost infallible sense of fine theatre...
...Dell dec.lares that I suggest rather than say that he is wrong...
...Undoubtedly...
...The circular did not say "for all students...
...Mankato, Minn...
...I had a controversy with him once--" this rather reminiscently...
...That was an addendum made by Mr...
...The entire action of Subway Express takes place in a New York north-bound subway car...
...It has only one fault (shared with four-fifths of the current plays) and that is the use of blasphemous expressions...
...The clear and simple purport of Article 34 of the concordat is not to place all marriage in control of the Church, but to give to the Church's marriages what had heretofore been denied them, the same value before civil law as state marriages...
...I myself have heard singing in the cathedral in Florence which the sons of Core might not have approved of as a form of worship...
...Erskine's masterly stage direction of the crowds, nor than the acting of a gigantic cast, led by Edward Pawley, Dorothy Peterson and Edward Ellis...
...REv...
...Dell might have learned to state correctly the Catholic conception of Church and state...
...In the context immediately preceding, Pope Leo has been speaking of matters of faith in which all Catholics must agree and in which the Roman Pontiff is the supreme teacher...
...Few specific statements of fact were to ,be found in his article...
...Dell construes as "blind obedience even in political matters...
...In historical investigation we have a choice of three things: I. To say a statement is true, 2. To affirm the statement to be false, or 3. To withhold our decision until we have sufficient evidence for saying yes or no...
...Certainly the Church ordains silence for the most solemn part...
...Other people, other manners...
...Hielscher herself, might become one of its foremost promoters, were she willing to look into it a little...
...I can do more than "suggest...
...E. VON RYCKEN WILSON...
...The passion for realism seems to overlook the simple fact that these expressions are offensive to many in a way that has nothing to do with prudishness but a great deal to do with courtesy, finer feelings and reverence for the religious instincts of others...
...He told me to stand out of the way," replied the boy proudly...
...HELI~N HUGHES HII~LSeHI/R...
...Such a statement would itself have answered his attacks in which he construes statements of the Church's liberty and rights into usurpation of civil rights and prerogatives...
...Once more he generalizes in favor of his thesis that the Catholic Church is aiming at the usurpation of civil authority...
...Granting the truth of these facts, they form a ridiculous foundation for so sweeping a charge...
...The obedient minority who have already tried to master it, have been abundantly rewarded...
...Let me say quite categorically that he is wrong in his interpretation of the concordat with references to the points in question, viz., religious instruction and marriage...
...Yet the leaders of the Action Fran~aise were appealing to the supposed royalist sympathy of French Catholics and were making of their organization a Catholic party, making religion serve a party which would mislead the Catholic youth of France in matters of faith and moral principles...
...And he goes on in the context that follows treating the same subject...
...The greater part of the country was converted by the Hiberuo-Scottish monks of Saint Columba from Iona, and by independent missionary bishops from the continent, as Birinus and Felix...
...Is a combination of any two of them enough...
...History is not built on historians...
...It is not a mystery play, since the audience knows everything that happens...
...might we not paraphrase that: "IUiterati non habent obedientiara...
...that the Church is superior to the state, not in claiming sovereignty over the state (Pope Boniface VIII in making a claim of this kind was merely using a principle of international law received in his day among states entirely Catholic) but more excellent by reason of her domain, which is concerned with things spiritual and eternal...
...Hawk Island ONTINUING the inventory of crime, Hawk Island, by Howard Irving Young, presents a murder on a lonely island off the New England coast during a house party at which a writer of detective fiction is the chief guest...
...Ddl can find no ground either in text or context for his distortion of the teaching of Pope Leo XIII, when he makes him declare that Catholics "in their capacity as citizens" owe complete submission of will to the Church and the Roman Pontiff as to God Himself...
...With regards to two specific matters dealt with in his reply, Mr...
...Never do you lose the sense of the crowd and the interplay of emotions under stress, with minor characters touched off here and there in instantaneously revealing lines and actions...
...It is distinctly above the average in construction and suffers chiefly from overexaggeration in the attempted comedy relief...
...It was optional for non-Catholics...
...But it is a tense and mysterious situation for the characters in the play...
...The Pope is not speaking in this passage of Catholics in their capacity as citizens (the term is not used or implied) but in their capacity as Catholic believers receiving from the Church doctrine and direction in the things that pertain to salvation...
...For instance, its idea regarding the relations of Church and state is that the Church is merely a support to good order in the state and not an independent divine institution...
...See Declaration of Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops of France, March 8, 1927...
...The voluntary acceptance by Catholics of the authority of the Church directing and restraining them in these matters, wherein politics and civil laws conflict with their religious and spiritual interests, Mr...
...His charge is wholly gratuitous and he offers nothing to prove it...
...Dell maintain that this same religious instruction, when extended to secondary schools, is no longer optional for non-Cathollcs but becomes "compulsory for all students...
...This setting and these effects, designed and painted by Cirker and Robins, have a vast deal to do with the final result, but not more than Mr...
...It is impossible for even a Mabillon or a Gasquet to let his natural partiality "enslave his judgment...
...that the Church is not indifferent to political movements and civil laws when they encroach upon the rights of the Church, "not in so far as they refer to the state," says the Pontiff, "but in so far as, passing beyond their due limits, they trench upon the rights of the Church...
...Robert Dell, in the July 3 issue of the Nation, answering my protests against his article, The Papal Fascist Alliance, claims to stand unchallenged as to statements of fact...
...I am not singling out Subway Express for this comment, but intend it for all plays indulging in the same habit...
...Dell is wrong again when he declares that the concordat gives the Catholic Church control of marriage...
...By what sort of logic, then, does Mr...
...As a background to all this, you have the mechanical perfection of a setting which not only gives you the realistic interior of a subway car, but provides all the illusion of motion, of jolting halts, of stops at stations and of resumed pace...
...His proof rests on Signor Belluzzo's circular declaring that "religious instruction is compulsory...
...And from this time Saint Benedict seems to have taken possession of England as his own...
...Dell assumes withoutthe least trace of proof that these diplomats were appointed at the instance of the Catholic hierarchy and for political ends...
...A police detective boards the train, and, as it speeds on its way uptown, begins to unravel the amazing events...
...At the Liberty Theatre...
...Rather, after the Action Fran~aise had been proscribed by the Pope for Catholics because of its danger to the interests of faith and religion, those refusing to obey the Holy Father's condemnation used as their pretext the principle "that Catholics are not bound to obey the ecclesiastical authorities in political matters...
...O the Editor :--"I did but taste a little honey on the end of the rod that was in my hand and now I must die...
...It was made up largely of broad general statements to the effect, for instance, that the Catholic Church is reactionary, that Italy by the concordat is handed over to the Pope, that the Papacy and Fascism will stand or fall together...
...It is a matter that can be remedied in half a minute and with one blue pencil--which makes the nature of the fault all the more blatant...
...And so, as the French hierarchy declared, "the intervention of the Pope in this matter is perfectly legitimate, for his power does not cease in matters of faith and morals merely because they are mixed up with politics...
...The quite simple conclusion reached from a study of this Article by scholarly and unbiased laymen, such as those on the staff of the Foreign Policy Association, is that "the situation created in Italy does not differ from that in the United States, where both or either the religious and civil ceremony are legally effective...
...For instance, in proof of a very broad and damning charg that the Catholic Church is seeking to get control of the diplomatic service of Great Britain, his facts are that, until recently, the Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign Office and the Assistant Under Secretary were Catholics (to which he adds the broad statement, with no proof, that the Foreign Service is packed with Catholics) ; and then that an anonymous student at Oxford was advised by an unnamed Catholic publicist to maintain his contacts with the Catholic chaplain at the University, because, "as he was entering the diplomatic service it would be a great advantage to him to be known as a good Catholic...
...I feel certain that a reasoned appeal coming to managers from high authority, and resting the case on courteous instinct alone would go far to wipe out the abuse...
...Individual Catholics, or even individual Protestants for that matter, could not stand by indifferent to a law such as that enacted some years ago in the state of Oregon, which would take away from parents the God-given right to educate their children in schools of their own choice...
...On the contrary, the point has been made clear beyond cavil in a statement by Mussolini himself, and also in a law recently admitted to the Italian Parliament (with no objection on the part of the Pope) by which parents professing religions other than the Catholic may request that their children be excused from attending courses of religious instruction in the public schools...
...Since I refuse to take my history on authority, I hoped to draw forth from Count Giordani some contemporary documentary or archaeological proof with regard to Saint Maur's supposed mission to Gaul, Saint Placid's pseudo-martyrdom in Sicily, and Saint Augustine's following of the Regula Monachorum of Saint Benedict of Nursia in Saint Andrew's monastery, Rome...
...From an unbiased study of the encyclical letters of this same distinguished Pontiff, Mr...
...Abbot Butler, in Benedictine Monachism, page 354, definitely rejects the legends with regard to Saint Maur and Saint Placid...
...and it had for its foundation principles which the Holy Father calls "a religious, moral and social system" irreconcilable with Catholic doctrine and morality...
...Dell that the Church imposes her laws only on those who voluntarily accept her authority, and would naturally refuse the impossible task of imposing them on others...
...Lactantius is quoted as saying, "Literati non habent fidem...
...If she had said, "I am sorry for Popes Leo XIII, Plus X and Plus XI, who with several of their predecessors, have not only entreated but positively commanded the faithtul to sing plain-chant at Mass...
...A cultivated taste is something else again, and it is not always good...
...I might as validly assert that in our public high schools only those able to teach Latin will have any chance for promotion...
...but Popes being in the minority, a majority of the laity whose tastes agree with mine will continue to sing what 'it liketh us,' Rome and Roman Pontiffs to the contrary"--would she not have presented her case more truly and dearly...
...Recently an inquirer expressed herself substantially to the effect that she was sorry for the Theodore Maynards, etc., who advocated the singing of plain-chant by the faithful, but that those like-minded with herself being in the majority, they would continue to sing their favorite vernacular hymns (specifically, "O Lord, I am not worthy") both here and in the world to come...
...THE PLAY By RICHARD DANA SKINNER Subway Express HE best constructed, the most ingenious and the most novel murder mystery of this season, or of many seasons for that matter, is now on exhibition under the sponsorship of Edward A. Blatt...
...He is wrong first in declaring that the concordat makes "religious instruction compulsory for all students in all schools...
...Dell will look in vain for an excommunication "ipso facto" either by Pope or bishops against such association) which attack her and all organized rdigions for teaching obedience and respect for civil authority to such a degree as to retard the revolution of the masses against their oppressors...
...even children soon come to love it...
...Dell is again wrong in his statement that "the heresy-that Catholics are not bound to obey their ecclesiastical superiors in political mattersmwas the theological ground of the recent condemnation of the Action Fran~aise by the present Pope...
...DELL ON THE PAPAL FASCIST ALLIANCE San Jose, Cal...
...The Pope says merely "that it is not permitted to Catholics to adhere to enterprises and in a sense to the school of those who plate the interests of parties above religion and wish to make the latter serve the former...
...it rests exclusively on evidence...
...JOHN" MeGAton...
Vol. 10 • October 1929 • No. 23
