The Newark Guild

...The expansion of the Villa's plant to accommodate its growing enrolment is now under way, and a mother-house for the community has also been purchased...

...The best approach to the Newark Mount Carmel Guild is through its stated purpose: "To better the spiritual, intellectual and physical condition of all who shall receive its varied ministrations...

...The problems and special methods proper to each are known from long experience and tabulated in the Guild's archives, and the committees are automatically constituted as soon as their desirability is manifest...

...The Trenton Guild is still a growing concern, of increasing importance in the charitable work of its section of the state...

...Not all of them are necessarily in operation in any given centre...

...Others, singled out for special training, are completing their B.A...

...The executive board of each centre comprises the officers of the general committee and the chairman of the special departments...

...Attracted by the needs of the large Italian-American population in some of the eastern American centres, members of the teachers Filippini had come to Trenton considerably before Bishop Walsh's time...

...Its admirable structure, described below, a structure both complicated and flexible, was actually first devised twenty years ago...

...The orders of membership are graded into active, associate, supporting and special benefactors, with a corresponding range in yearly dues from $1.00 to "$25.00 and up...

...This firm routine framework of the Guild's activities makes possible the system, despatch and responsibility without which so large an effort would fall to pieces...

...and in the close material structure of modern life, an effort possessing the scope and balance of the Newark Guild is bound to have a tremendous practical effect far beyond the frontiers of the diocese and even the visible boundaries of the Church...

...In addition, uniform principles are laid down for teaching...

...THE COMMONWEAL July 23, 1930 THE NEWARK GUILD By MARY KOLARS THE recent announcement that the laywomen of the diocese of Newark have been organized by its bishop, the Right Reverend Thomas J. Walsh, into a Mount Carmel Guild, with twenty-six independent and fully functioning centres representing a growing membership that has already passed 35,000, is obviously important news to Catholics...

...Before passing to a consideration of that body's the practical results tend mysteriously to fall below par as the mere technique for attaining them is permake-up, it may be pertinent to note another of Bishop Walsh's achievements in Trenton, which shows illumiJuly 23, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL natingly his ability for supplying practical machinery for the operation of spiritual projects, and his keen sense of the requirements of the times...

...Pro Fide et Patria" are the words which the Guild has taken to signalize its purpose...

...Every unit has, in addition, twenty-five possible sub-committees or departments for, respectively: Americanization, adult reform, boys' clubs, catechetical instruction, cooking, day nurseries, directories, employment, institutional visitors, juvenile reform, legal aid, literature, material transfer, medical aid, motor corps, music, outfitting, parent-teachers associations, physical culture, physical relief, publicity, social centres, social inquiry, travelers' aid and vacation schools...

...The Church today has a group of such leaders, who meet the world with a Catholic friendliness and at the same time without compromise, elucidating her immutable standards and values while taking over what is positive in the world's customs and ideas for her support and service...

...His determination to secure for their postulants and novices the best to be had in modern training led to the drafting of an Italian-American curriculum which is the admiration of educators...

...Following the plan which, twice before, in the dioceses of Buffalo and Trenton, Bishop Walsh has applied with conspicuous success, the Newark Guild will employ to the full the devices and resources of scientific welfare work...

...It is an inspiring privilege to be able to observe and actively feel the influence of men whom native power and character make leaders of their kind...

...Its organization has been the immediate model of the Newark Guild, and some of its expert workers have been drafted as counselors and initiators of the new body...

...In the Catholic field this danger is diagnosed, of course, from the spiritual viewpoint: if the motive of social effort is anything less than the love of souls for the love of God, that effort is counted a failure, no matter what its practical results...

...How completely it is organized, by the most exacting standards of present-day social work, cannot perhaps be realized without studying the Guild's department chart...

...But what is important to grasp is that they are all potential committees, not mere paper departments...

...Those who approach the Guild's plan of organization and ministry from the outside—without knowing the history of its founder's achievements, or even without sharing his faith—will be struck by the way he has actively fused two almost unmanageably big ideals...

...In each of the Guild's centres the catechists are required to attend a summer course of forty lectures on the content and method of their work...

...And among this group it is safe to say there is none more distinguished by energy, hospitality to new ideas and what may be called dedicated intelligence than the bishop of Newark...

...courses at Georgian Court, which will constitute the Villa's college department...

...it also selects and discriminates, assigning particular talents to particular problems...

...There is a nucleus of five or six universally active—those on Americanization, catechetical instruction, social inquiry, vacation schools and physical relief...

...His efforts to provide them a material foundation finally brought concrete results, the chief of which, the magnificient contribution of the late James Cox Brady, made possible the purchase of the Villa...

...The unique educational establishment known as the Villa Victoria, which trains teachers for the Italian-American parochial schools, owes its existence and its status as a qualified state school entirely to him...

...Two years ago the Villa Victoria was put by the state authorities on a high school and normal school basis...

...Almost inevitably they hypnotize workers and public alike to a belief in their complete sufficiency...

...Every one of the twenty-six territorial units has the usual officers of a general committee: the moderator (a priest appointed by the bishop), the president, the various vice-presidents and secretaries required by the committee's size and the scope of its functions...

...It was he, however, who envisaged what a potent instrument they might become for the intellectual and spiritual development of his people, and who became their active helper...

...To his coreligionists, therefore, Bishop Walsh teaches a lesson they cannot too often learn: the lesson of the proper balance between the corporal and the spiritual...

...The active members, of course, are all women...

...The catechetical department, for its part, represents so definite an advance beyond the average standards in this field that it will undoubtedly be widely copied or adapted as an individual feature of parish and diocesan work...

...But in the non-Catholic field, too, there is growing a parallel realization: that even Emphasis placed upon Catholic action during recent months has seemed to not a few purely theoretical in character...

...But have we forgotten that the finest achievements are not those which create a public stir but those which consist of hard work carefully and enthusiastically done...

...It was when he was attached to the diocese of Buffalo that Bishop (then Father) Walsh began, as a pioneer in the field, to develop the principle of fostering and systematizing the charitable aspirations and efforts of Catholic laywomen...

...Each centre was organized, after a definite campaign of instruction, by Bishop Walsh in person...

...The year's lessons in the Baltimore Catechism, and in Bible and Church history, are outlined, and corresponding passages in a classic commentary on the Catechism are marked for study and exposition...

...It is assisted also by the high development of what may be called the Guild's secretariat...

...The others function as local conditions require...

...The general committee has, in addition, its own separate semi-annual meetings, and departmental meetings are as frequent as the nature of their particular problems requires...

...to foster the spirit of true charity...

...The following paper sets forth the purpose and method of this group, which will "have a tremendous practical effect far beyond the frontiers of the diocese and even the visible boundaries of the Church...

...We have already said that the Newark Guild is the fruit of his long and special effort in the field of diocesan charity...

...to promote cordial Catholic relations among its members and all individuals and organizations properly engaged in charitable work...

...He carried that idea to Trenton ten years later, with the same result...

...The formidable body of physical knowledge which the scientific approach to social problems has given us, the tremendous material resources and quite unquestionable material triumphs of modern charitable endeavor, impose their own price...

...Other texts and spiritual manuals are also recommended...

...At the present moment, as has been said, there are twenty-six such centres covering the diocese of Newark and absorbing the charitable energies and abilities of 35,000 women...

...Hence, complete records, accurately compiled data and prompt business reports are insisted on, and as a result the efforts of these trained volunteers might challenge comparison with those of efficient professional secretaries and statisticians...

...For instance, there is the social welfare work now organized in the diocese of Newark as the Mount Carmel Guild...

...In a word, it gives to Catholic women the same opportunity for exercising volunteer charity as the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul gives to Catholic men...

...A special word may be said, even among so much that merits praise, of the departments of social inquiry and catechetical instruction...

...The records of the first, which form the basis for the Guild's labors in both the material and the spiritual field, must of course be reliable and expertly detailed...

...We are fortunate, as contemporaries, in being able to watch the mobilization of that purpose, and in coming under the spell of its example...

...These committees represent, of course, the full list of social needs which must be served throughout the diocese...

...To those outside, who frequently labor from the loftiest human motives, the Guild will present a dynamic example of the external body of charity kept sound and thriving by a vital inner purpose...

...The original plan of training only candidates for the order was widened by Bishop Walsh's express intention, so that lay teachers who feel the call to work in the Italian-American field also are received...

...It is bound to a minimum of ten meetings a year, which ensures that its practical business is kept up to date and, equally important, that its esprit de corps is maintained...

...But it is much more than that...

...The Buffalo Mount Carmel Guild is still functioning vigorously today, a testimony to the soundness of its organizing principle...

...We are fortunate, as Catholics, in the legitimate pride we can feel in this commanding achievement of one of our spiritual leaders...

...The nuns for whom the Villa serves as an educational novitiate— the Maestre Pie Filippini—represent a teaching order which has done distinguished work in Italy since the middle of the eighteenth century...

...Any effort dedicated to charity has implications, in the spiritual realm, that touch all men...

...Yet it is a volunteer organization engined entirely by supernatural purpose and working only for the love of God...

...The Villa Victoria is already one of the most important units in the Catholic educational system, and seems destined for indefinite growth and service...

...Most of its graduates from these departments are already at work in the Catholic schools of the state...

...The Editors...

...Perfunctory or unintelligent work here would be a fatal clog to general efficiency...

...The problem that is general to all present-day organized charity—using the term in its most comprehensive sense—is that of balancing the material means against the immaterial end...

...They are, in actual fact, models of thoroughness and helpful exactitude, which bear the stamp of long and devoted social experience in their formulation...

...It not only invites and accepts the various orders of zeal, capacity and experience to be found among them...

...Incidentally, men are permitted membership in any of the last three or "honorary" categories...

...His career is a continuous record of anticipating the vital needs of his people, and meeting them with a practicality that is compounded of vision and courage...

...The whole constitutes an admirably modernized technique in a department of the Church's labors where the necessity for it can hardly be overrated...

...Those who know the character and have followed the labors of Bishop Walsh will see this new organization, in part at least, as a continuation of those labors and a confirmation of his peculiar genius as a religious administrator and leader...

...External" and "dehumanized" charity is recognized as having some serious weakness, and there is an increasingly generous admission that the Catholic approach, at its best, combats this weakness most successfully...

...The Guild's work is done from separate centres, each a sort of microcosm or Guild in little...

...fected...