Enemies Old and New

...If a new religion is coming, Mr...

...The present reviewer, moreover, finds more serious reasons for disagreement...

...despite his analyses and discriminations it remains an oversimple viewpoint...

...Belloc's superb final chapter...

...His analyses are often as convincing as they are keen...

...Fas est ab hostibus doceri" is a principle which she has ever known how to apply, and her victory over her most formidable foes will be, to a great extent, in proportion to her success in utilizing and adapting the truths which their errors contain...

...Again, is it true that Compulsory universal education clashes with every canon of Catholic social ethics, even in its compulsion, even in its universality, but especially in its choice of what it considers essentials...

...Belloc reaches the conclusion that it will come By the satisfaction of that Messianic mood with which, paradoxically, the despair of the new paganism is shot...

...Yet the question is far more complicated...

...In the Lateran treaty, for instance, the Church has gained pontifical independence, but by means entirely different from the former states of the Church, and quite unpredictable even in the nineteenth century...

...For anti-Christ will be a man...

...The choice and ranking of the forces considered, however, is on the whole well supported by argument...

...Belloc loses all sense of proportion...

...Belloc, like Coriolanus, is "too absolute," with results damaging to his study of the Church's relations to the forces that oppose her...

...Let an individual arise with the capacity or chance to crystallize these hopes and the enemy will have arrived...

...Belloc calls "the Buddhist business," it is infinitely more spiritual than anything in classic antiquity...

...Formidable as it is, this force, with its anti-morality and its despair, does not seem likely to retain its ascendancy for long...

...SURELY there is no kind of book in which the versatile Mr...

...Can one conceive, however, of a future society, capable of requiring at least a modicum of universal education, in which the Church, though satisfied with the nature of the education and the recognition of her own and of family rights, will say: "I prefer that parents should be allowed to leave their children illiterate if they prefer" ? If Mr...

...Factors in The Main Opposition are next considered, including (i) Nationalism, (ii) Anti-Clericalism and (iii) The "Modern Mind," by which is meant an unintelligent and degenerate popular mood, reflecting various phases of more impressive thought...

...The question cannot be decided by noting that in the thirteenth century "education was by choice," since no other arrangement was then remotely possible...

...The Editors...

...It is a pleasure to turn from such criticisms to Mr...

...One has, indeed, only to consider such works as Adam's The Spirit of Catholicism, Martindale's The Faith of the Roman Church, or the admirable little volumes of The Treasury of the Faith Series to realize how abundant, how eloquent, and how modern are the expositions and defenses of Catholicism now being produced...

...The anti-Catholic forces of the present day are discussed by Mr...

...Solutions of the problems of Church and state are surely, in a similar way, dependent on future contingencies with which the universal Church, we may confidently hope, will be capable of dealing...

...Catholic artists, however, have proved their power to use modern tendencies for religious purposes witness the beautiful church of Saint Louis at Vincennes and the superbly religious mausoleum by Mestrovic at Caftat in Jugoslavia...

...If it were true that all outside the Church's walls is hopelessly unassimilable we would, incidentally, have had no Gothic architecture and no Scholastic philosophy...

...Survivals and New Arrivals, published by the Macmillan Company, seems to us of such general interest that we are glad to publish the following paper by Father Riggs, which is an extended review of the book...

...That jazz music can mean nothing to the Church I heartily agree...

...It is impossible, therefore, to accept as it stands Mr...

...The denial that grace is given outside her visible walls, for instance, was condemned when it appeared among the Jansenists, and certainly a great deal of Catholic doctrine is believed, with true supernatural faith, by some outside the Church, notably the Orthodox and the "Anglo-Catholics...

...Certainly the Church denies the state's right to a monopoly of education, certainly she disagrees with the "laic" ideal of such education...

...Will it be replaced by a new religion...

...She does transform it in the process, of course, but still she uses elements originally alien, or rather she echoes the "humani nihil a me alienum puto" of the Roman poet...

...Surely no future relationship between Church and state, however completely expressive of the Catholic ideal, is likely to be of the same kind as those of the past...

...To put the matter briefly, Mr...

...Belloc's contention were the true one, the charge of obscurantism would be indeed well founded...

...His failure to grasp the Church's power of assimilation, so eloquently dwelt on by Newman as a criterion of Catholic doctrinal development, is evident in many passages...

...The fact that Mr...

...Belloc and his critic are not in complete agreement merely adds flavor to a discussion that deals with fundamental aspects of modern culture...

...A curious refutation of materialism is found in the following sentence: What we call "experience of matter" is not an experience of matter at all, but something very different, to wit, an experience of the mind which, by some action of its own, presumes a thing called matter and predicates it as a cause...

...The antithesis here made seems to be based on two different senses of the word "of," and to involve philosophic idealism...

...Belloc with great freshness of approach and with characteristic brilliance...

...He calls Catholics to a realization of their duty of letting the world know what the Catholic Church is, for Upon the right conduct of the presentation of the Faith in the next long lifetime surely depends the future of the world...

...The solution of the Roman question could well have been described, five years ago, as "something vague to be aimed at in the future...

...And the courageous optimism of Catholics should be only heightened by the note which is sounded in his final sentences: But if I be asked what sign we may look for to show that the advance of the Faith is at hand, I would answer by a word that the modern world has forgotten persecution...

...Such is the present study of the various forces hostile to the Church, their distinctive features, their relative strength and their prospects for the future...

...These forces are divided into those that have existed for some time and those that are comparatively new...

...But his statement that the antiCatholic hostility of American freemasonry "is prominent in almost exact proportion to the local strength of the Church" is the exact opposite of the facts...

...On the other hand, the soundness of many points made in the book is open to question...

...But she emphatically realizes that, as Saint Augustine said, "there is no false doctrine which is not intermingled with some truth," and she has been characteristically able to seize upon this truth, purge it of its dross, and use it for her purposes...

...Christian Science seems unable to furnish external proof, while spiritualism, though appealing to testimony of considerable impressiveness, has no philosophic unity...

...Once more he has failed to recognize the Church's power of adapting herself to changing historical conditions, once more he predicts her future solely with reference to her past...

...Belloc's remark that "within her walls all is of one kind, without, all is of another...

...Hilaire Belloc analyzed this situation with his customaryr verve and directness...

...The new force to which the author devotes most of his attention is neo-paganism...

...Here as elsewhere, Mr...

...His conception of her nature is too static and too exclusive...

...Belloc's epilogue is at once a masterly discussion and a clarion call to action...

...That the Church "has no borderland of partial agreement with error" is true if the error be considered simply as error...

...Here, in his discussion of the Church's opportunity at the present day, he is at his best...

...Bel-loc gives us more of himself, more brilliance and more food for thought, than one about the Catholic Church...

...Belloc could argue ably in their support...

...Belloc actually maintain, as he might seem here to imply, that our consciousnesses do not directly experience matter...

...These flings at parliamentary government are, however, to be expected, and Mr...

...Thus, in dealing with the Catholic ideal of union of Church and state, though he is quite right in stating that this is the ideal for "a homogeneous Catholic society," he goes on to say that this ideal "is not something vague to be aimed at in the future, it is a living historical memory of recent date...

...One may cite the unqualified endorsement given to the Italian and Spanish dictatorships and the description of former European absolute monarchies as governments in which the whole nation was ruled from one centre, supporting the weak against the strong and curbing the influence of riches...

...When that shall be once more at work it will be morning.ork it will be morning...

...Does she, granted her rights and those of parents, combat the compulsion and universality as such...

...Does Mr...

...And as for the art of what Mr...

...First to be dealt with among the former are the Survivals, grouped in order of relative strength, beginning with the weakest, as follows: (i) The Biblical Attack, (ii) Materialism, (iii) The "Wealth and Power" Argument, (iv) The Historical Argument, and (v) Scientific Negation...

...He recognizes very truly "the recovery of the Catholic apologetic," and the fact that "the Catholic case has 'got over the footlights' " in a manner unparalleled since the Reformation...

...The treatment of materialism and scientific negation as separate forces may well be questioned, and surely Communism calls for more than passing mention...

...When neo-paganism is lumped together with African and Asiatic religions, to be hurled like a snowball at the spirit of modern art, Mr...

...Belloc fails to appreciate the Church's power of adaptation and the Church's power of assimilation...

...Future states will be different from past states, and the Church, in her choice of means, is capable of adapting herself to changed conditions...

...If a Catholic artist could give us, transformed and Christianized of course, a colossal Christ with the majesty of the Kamakura Buddha, or a Madonna with the serene loveliness of the Kwan Yin in the Boston Museum, the prospects of an escape from the horrors of most of our religious statuary would be brighter than they are...

...Belloc's indiscriminate damning of everything outside the Church's tradition is illustrated at its worst in his confused treatment of what he calls "the pagan alliance," meaning the influence of non-Christian traditions on that modern neo-paganism which he has in other respects very soundly described, in spite of a curious definition of paganism in general as "natural religion acting upon man uncorrected by revelation...

...The words which I have italicized are, to say the least, highly debatable...