THE FAITH: THE NATION:PRIME PRINCIPLES OF SURVIVAL

These items could be separate and distinct. Aftera fashion a place could be regarded as holy, and yetit could be deficient in regard to spreading the Faith.There is such a thing as a selfish Faith and there isalso a Faith which does not understand that it mustcommunicate itself. Both of these types lack life andsurvival power.

It is also possible for a country to possess littleFaith and at the same time play a remarkable part inevangelisation. A case in point would be the Franceof preceding centuries which has vied with Ireland asthe leading missionary land. Devoted missionariesthronged out into the mission-field and did wonders,while at the same time there was no converting spiritat work in France itself and the people were allowedto drift away. Pope Leo XIII describes this as aghastly tragedy.

So it would be possible in theory for Ireland to beholy in itself but neglectful of the world; or alter-natively to be rnissionizing in great style and to rotat home. It is to be remembered that a moderatenumber of good Catholic families can produce a con-siderable band of missionaries; that is how France hasmade such a brave show in that department. '

But in the third place, it would be possible, and amuch more natural phenomenon, for Ireland to betruly holy, that is possessed of a multitude of holyfamilies out of which would proceed a host of mis-sionaries who would convert on a grand scale. In thatwould be none of the anomaly which has charac-terised France, and surely it must be our goal that theholiness of Ireland should evangelise the whole world.

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There is a further element in the up-to-date positionwhich must be reckoned with because it is the mostsignificant of all. It is the presence of the Legion ofMary. Why is this so important? Because it couldtransform the domestic position and the missionaryone. I feel that without the full play of organisationsuch as the Legion the future is going to be worsethan the present position which is most unhappy.

I fear that the majority of our people have but amechanical goodness. They attend Sunday Mass andthe Sacraments but have' no depth in their religion.They do not know it properly nor live their lives ac-cording to it. They can be quite undutiful, neglectfulof the principles of honour, devoid of apostleshipwhich the Vatican Council has proclaimed to be abasic element of Catholicism. We are bringing forthlittle better fruits than respectable paganism would.Drinking has now become the new deluge. We arenot being protected from the slaughter on the roadsnor from the criminal. Many aspects of life are ashambles. It is no answer to say that the same appliesto other countries. We would be doing better if ourreligion were real.

It has always been imagined by us that the Irishpeople have a unique regard for the Mass. Thereforeit is a shock to encounter proofs to the contrary. Ihave now covered a good deal of the surface of thecountry and I tell you our experience in regard todaily Mass, which surely is the test of appreciation.The attendance is miserable in proportion. Yet in thesmaller places there is nothing doing at that time andthe majority could attend. I specify one case wherewe had a priest with us and offered a week-day Massto a village which normally has one on Sunday only.Not a single local person turned up for it. Otherplaces would be better but not much better. Doesthat sort of thing afford justification for our allegedlove of the Mass?

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Quite evidently that degree of religion is not goingto stand up to the adverse influences which are everyday thickening and marshalling themselves. Thereforewe find ourselves at a crisis point of religion. Thethought forces itself upon me: Is it possible that thetragedy of France and so many other countries isgoing to reproduce itself in Ireland? We are walkingon a slippery slope at the moment. That cannot con-tinue. It improves or it deteriorates-usually the latter.

It was not possible to save France, Portugal, Spain,Italy, Holland, all of which have lost the Faith in themain. Acute French observers, coming here soon afterthe Second World War, declared that they saw a re-markable likeness between the Ireland of that timeand the France of two hundred years previously: thesame characteristics and the same weakness. Twohundred years ago would have been the period inwhich France would have prided itself on being themost Catholic country in the world, that is immediatelypreceding the French Revolution. The Revolution didnot create all the hollowness and the hatred of religionwhich then appeared. It only revealed what was there.It was like taking off a mask.

Spain and Portugal spread the Faith over greattracts of the world's surface, but those supreme ser-vices to the Church did not mean that the keeping ofthe Faith was guaranteed to them in perpetuity. Theyplunged into the most hideous phase of anti-religionwhich could exist and set themselves to propagate itover the world. It could not be said that the peoplein those countn •..s put up any fight worth while againstthat horror. After a little flurry of resistance theyabandoned themselves to the irreligion which theirgovernments decreed. Even though the more violentaspects of atheism have worn off, the percentage ofbelief and practice there is negligible and it cannot beclaimed that things are improving.

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Does that likeness of conditions discerned by theFrench observers suggest that we will in due courseslide into what they have become? We would be in-sane if we just shrugged off that possibility.

In the first place, let us see how those calamitiescould happen; how Catholic peoples can let theirheritage of faith pass away from them and sub-sequently prove impervious to re-evangelisation. Iwould fear that the explanation is that they neverreally had a proper measure of the Faith. It was away of life into which they had been born and whichtouched their inner core but little. They were readyto abandon that possession under comparatively mildpressure.

But why? Were they not receiving the Catholicteachings and maintaining a practice of some sort?Yes, but these things are not enough, as history soconsistently shows. They can keep a people in ap-parent fidelity if the general circumstances and atmos-phere are propitious and act as a cushion. Otherwisethey will not preserve the people. To contend other-wise would be to deny the universal lesson of history.Yet, throughout the past the folly has always beencommitted of being content with that cushionedCatholicism and the result has always been the same.After some time the cushion was taken' away; religionbecame the target for hostile forces and did not havethe quality to stand up to them.

To this the retort will be made in the case of Ire-land that it withstood the longest and most intensereligious persecution of all history. But this argumentis not valid. As I have already contended, past ser-vices provide no guarantee for the future. In the secondplace, persecution could be a safeguard. It was in ourcase a perfect insulation for the Faith: in addition towhich the faithful bearing of persecution is in itselfmost high virtue. But that is not at stake now. Thepoint is that the insulation of persecution is no longer

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there and the cushioning against the current evils hasremoved itself. What really corrodes the Faith arethe materialisms, the sophistries, the alleged science,the sneers which search out the weak spots and dothe deadly work on people whose appreciation of theFaith is not .sufficient,

The old pastoral formula cannot be expected tocope with those sophisticated conditions. That for-mula is the shepherd and the big flock of sheep. Theshepherd could manage to keep the fold intact in asimpler order of life. But when wolves and robbersare multiplied, that formula is no longer effective.Then the fold can only survive if the sheep areren-dered able to defend themselves. That toughening ofthe sheep was not part of the old pastoral formula.It could not be, for the pastor could not establishwith each soul under his care the degree of contactnecessary to turn sheep into warriors and evangelists.He could only bestow general care and tuition whereasit is essential that each individual be nursed andformed. That general treatment may seem to be ade-quate in some conditions. It is almost useless in thecurrent situation where every person is subject toanti-religious solicitation of some description. Recentlyon the occasion of a visit of a large U.S.A. party, itwas stated by them that the American problem todayresolves itself down to this: that every family, includ-ing the Catholic ones, is a problem. It would be foolishto suppose that Ireland is not maturing towards thelike. Accordingly, each family and each one in it mustbe given such degree of individual inoculation as willfit him to withstand the modem germs.

It would be wise to regard that formula of the oneman and his flock as being insufficient in any state ofthings. It is positively preposterous in what we mightcall advanced conditions. That formula has to besupplemented. A teacher in a class would only beconsidered able to deal effectively with, say, twenty

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pupils. How could a priest build up fifty times thatnumber in religion, which has many more facets toit than secular education? Knowledge is only one ofthose facets.

In what way is the priest to be supplemented?By something in the nature of the gearing system

which accommodates engine-power to the need of themoment. That is the function of the Legion. It is agearing system for the priest. It places at his disposalhuman cogs which enable him to reach out to all theaspects of his task of shepherding. But unlike theordinary cogs, these human ones are spiritualised inthe process and add their own quota of power, mean-ing that multiple purposes can be covered. If the priestdespises that supplemental aid-as can happen-it willbe at a dismal price, that of not fulfilling the pastoralduty of bringing souls to maturity in Christ, thussowing the seeds of future problems.

The Monks of the Peregrinatio, though limited innumbers, re-built the Church which had fallen withthe collapse of the Roman Empire.

But we also know what took place when thatwonderful wave spent itself. The shepherding was notadequate; decline Set in and a new downfall was stagedfor some future group of saints to deal with. Thatis the unhappy experience of the ages in all places.The Church is happily built up and next thing it istumbling down on us. Why must this imitation of thetides afflict us thus, bearing in souls to salvation butthen changing and carrying them off to destruction?Grace is always there for the asking. God gives with-out stint. So there must be serious fault in Us that wedo not draw it down. Surely we should be helpinggrace to flow evenly and cumulatively so that in eachplace it will tend to overflow its own banks and goforth fruitfully to other places.

But of course our problem goes beyond that ofinability to hold on to weak material. There is the

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question of grvmg Catholicism to the whole world.This can only be realised if every Catholic is madeinstrumental in the process. Supposing that everyCatholic did lend himself energetically to such a cam-paign, it would mean that eighteen per cent of theworld population would have to convert eighty-twoper cent. Having regard to the fact that hardly anyCatholic ever attempts to convert, that would be alarge order. But things are far more difficult thanthose figures suggest. A very large proportion of thateighteen per cent are children. Then a further im-mense proportion are non-practising, not concernedabout their own salvation and still less about theirneighbour's. There remain the practising ones, butI have just said that the ordinary Catholic neverthinks in terms of making a convert

Where does all that leave us in regard to a pro-gramme of evangelising the whole world? The answeris that it only leaves us at the starting post.

The formula for the mission-field has, likewise,been that of the one man facing the millions. Dealingwith simple populations, it did gain commendableresults. It could convert pagans but it did not do so'well against the more formal religions such as Islam.Buddhism. Hinduism. Protestantism. And it lostground wholesale against organised materialism. Amere handful of atheists were able to sweep away theold religion of Russia and to keep it from the peopleever since.

It is now a long time since the crest of the wave ofChristian advance was passed and the Catholic pro-portion of the world's population continues to fallsteadily. The statisticians say that we will have sunkto five per cent by the end of this century-withoutassurance that this fall will not go on. So religion facesa crisis.

A special phenomenon shows itself universally. Itis that the industrial classes tend to abandon religion.

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This is a major problem because the world is marchingsteadily into industrialism. It is certain that themoment an industrial class creates itself, it will besubjected to the play of proletarianism, that is theexploiting of the grievances of the working people.In more modem times this has been effectively or-ganised under the auspices of Communism. Classwarfare is deliberately created and religion is pre-sented as the tool of capitalism. The Church is parad-ed as the ally of the enemy and its teachings as mereopium to keep the masses quiet.

Possibly the first human instinct is that' of takingsides, so it will be realised how deadly this campaignwill be. Unquestionably it will secure acceptance.Those who hold on to religion will be systematicallyderided. Faith enjoys a poor chance in those circum-stances. Only a devoted section will hold fast, andthose do not even seek to exert an influence. In suchconditions there is the tendency to abandon a purelyreligious approach to the lost sheep, and to substitutea policy of out-Marxing Marx. The idea is to showthat the Church is really as radical as they and there-fore that they should return to religion. The childish-ness of this should be evident. To hope to convert bykeeping religion in the background and talking socialscience and radicalism is just senseless. But there itis: that plan is being earnestly tried. .

We can make another mistake, that of relying onthe mass media or mechanical means for the gettingof religion over to the people. Those media play aneffective part in moulding opinion today, so why notenlist them in aid of religion? To put it thus soundslike common sense. But it would be wrong to pinone's faith to short-cuts of the kind. Use it as an in-cidental aid but do not. depend on it. Look at thepast. First came the universal diffusion of printedmatter: then the radio: and then television. Theseeasy ways of giving the truth to the multitudes have

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now been put into the service of religion for a cen-tury. Likewise 'that century has been a time of re-ligious shrinkage. One hears' of very few conversionsas due to reading, and I have never known of oneproceeding. from the radio or TV. Whatever those,mass media have done in regard to secular subjects,I cannot see them as having produced any religiousinfluence. St. Paul says that faith comes by hearing(Rom. 10, 17), and it looks a little as if the conservingas well as the spreading of the Faith is a matter ofhearing in the narrow and particular sense of onespeaking and another listening. However that maybe. it is evident that direct religious approach mustbe the centre of any system of evangelisation.

Formerly the notion of using the ordinary peoplein the process of evangelisation would not have beenthought of. The advent of the Legion has shown itto be a practical proposition and absolutely withoutlimit as to the extent of its development. The legiona-ries are quite typical of the communities in which theylive. It is doubtful if the Vatican Council would haveinsisted on the universal duty of Catholics to beapostolic if the Legion had not been there to prove.that it was possible.

Moreover, that legionary method was pointed to inadvance by Pope Pius X when he insisted that a spirit-ed nucleus was the pre-eminent and essential meansof leavening the community. He was but echoingOur Lord's own words on that subject. The Legionis not merely an assertion of that principle. It isalso a pattern of Catholic doctrine and practice. Itis, likewise, a mechanism for weaving that patterninto the lives of the people. It shows Catholicism asa working proposition, and it is as a practical andnot merely an intellectual proposition that Catho-licism will prevail.

The Legion has done more than prove that theordinary Catholic can -be apostolic. It has shown46t>

that the ordinary people can convert and can copewith the problems. It is going not only to pagans butto all the formal religions in the world and de-monstrating ability to make conversions on a largescale.

The purpose of this Conference of ours is theaudacious one of measuring up the crisis of religionwith a view to making a stand against it and of re-versing drastically that fasling Catholic' percentage,In other words, in the. spirit of faith in Jesus andlove of Mary we aim at world conquest. But the rootsof such an enterprise lie in our own soil. The im-pulses which could achieve it must represent a totalnational mobilization and nothing less. In otherwords we must reduce to reality that slogan of ours:We must seek to evangelize the world by makingIreland holy,

So let us take stock of ourselves, not yielding tothe inevitable tendency to exaggerate. But neithershould we avoid that extreme by going to the op-posite one of suggesting that things are really not sobad and that we will come through nicely somehow.To be optimistic in that way would amount to sheerrecklessness in regard. to the Faith.

Perhaps our worst feature lies in the neglect ofcommon duty. People do not fulfil duty. They donot' give value for their lives. Therein they disregardthe solemn' ordinance of God laid on man as thepenalty for sin. He said to Adam: "With labour andtoil shalt thou eat all the days of thy life" (Gen. 3,17). "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread"(Gen. 3, 19). In spite of the solemnity of that, dutyis not being done; value is not being given. Thatprimary law is being deliberately and systematicallytransgressed. This cannot be done with impunity.For it was given at the very beginning and might becalled the human charter. Man has offended by sin;man must repay by work. "Take what you want" is

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an old saying put on the lips of God, "but pay forit." You must 'not steal; you must give value. Yetthe direct dishonesty of theft and the indirect theftof idling is universal practice, encouraged as a guar-antee against unemployment. But that is folly evenin the human order because it sets in motion a vi-cious circle of increasing costs of production and theculmination known as 'pricing oneself out." Mar-kets are lost; prices rise and then everyone is hardput to it to live. Necessary public works cannot beundertaken because of the cost, and the prohibitivecost is due to the fact that the work output of a manis far below easy capacity.

Count de Montalembert in his masterly work onthe Monks of the West ascribes the fall of the Rom-an Empire to the overwhelming taxation which re-duced the people to the level of State slaves. Res-ponsibility and effort died and resentment againstthe Government became universal So that it. couldnot get the co-operation without which governmentis impossible. The Empire was strangled by taxation.

God is economic in His nature. He must get valueout of everything He has created, and this is whyeven common waste assumes a grave complexion.It is not getting value for God out of the things Hehas given us. Yet waste is the very principle of theday. Waste so that the wheels of industry may bekept going to replace what was thrown away! Thisnot only reverses God's idea but it turns commonsense against itself: Throwaway in order that youwill have! Leon Bloy used to wonder why buildingscontinued to stand which had been constructed indefiance of the Lord's command that the Sabbathbe kept holy. We might extend this thought andhave fears in respect of the lives of those who dis-obey that other command of God that they honestlyearn their bread.

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Obviously all this constitutes a danger signal forus in Ireland. We have arrived at the point whentaxation has become oppressive and We know it isgoing to get heavier. At what stage will it amountto a taking over of our ,entire lives by the StaterThen there will be no more effort; no more initia-tive. An eminent man of our own times has said thatit is impossible for a dishonest people to become agreat nation. :I would amplify this thought and saythat a people which does not give value cannot hopeto keep the Faith.

The mere contemplation of such a nest of prob-lems is enough to paralyse. Solution must be at-tempted in a spirit of pure faith. The crisis is asgreat as any of the classic ones of the past. So Leg-ionaries of Mary will, quite naturally, turn to herwho is the help of Christians, the destroyer of allheresies, the woman of perpetual succour, to whomrecourse has never been made unavailingly.

The place of Mary in the divine order must berecognized. History no less than doctrine testifies tothis. Every great saving of Christianity from whatseemed to be a destruction was in some fashion ac-complished under her auspices. We are entitled tosuppose that what has always proved to be the casewill continue so. Therefore we may presume thatthe future rescue of the Faith will not be otherwisebrought about. This is a roundabout way of sayingthat it would invite failure to face the present crisiswithout her. .

But what does bringing her into the crisis mean?Surely it means that we must know her place in thedivine scheme. But what proportion of the people ofIreland know her in that sense? 'True, there is stillplenty of sentimental devotion to her but this is notenough. Should not every Catholic in Ireland knowwhat is set forth in the Legion Handbook about her?

The Handbook depicts Mary as the- Vsrican Coun-469

cil has done. What. then. of those who show her asless than that? The Council professedly set out withthe intention of proclaiming no new doctrine. There-fore what it did teach about M~JY is what had beenestablished as her position in the 'Church; it is notnew. It coincides precisely' with what the Handbookhas been transmitting to you. Is that picture ofMary. which the Holy Father declared to be the veryculmination of the -legislation of the' Council. beingexhibited to the people of Ireland? I do not thinkit is. Then there is a vast discordance. For that teach-ing represents the first time that Council or Popehas attempted to synthesize Our Blessed Lady. Allthe previous pronouncements on her have been inrespect of her privileges. Now the higher step hasbeen proceeded to of displaying to us her extraordin-ary position as the Co-operator in Redemption.Mother and Mediatrix of all graces. Mother of, allmen. Therefore' it fits into our programme that shemust be fully valued in Ireland. It is imperative thatevery Catholic should absorb that teaching in itsfullness for it is part of the Faith. Within it Catho-lic doctrine would not be completely presented andcertainly only partially understood. The whole ideaof the Redemption is. the reversal of the Fall. In thatreversal the parts played by Adam and Eve in theoriginal disaster are precisely filled. by Jesus andMary, the new Adam and the new Eve. Thoughthe human race did not fall in Eve but in Adam, andthough man rose again in Jesus and not in Mary,nevertheless the co-operating parts of Eve and Maryrespectively were such that they cannot be separatedfrom the .sequels which ensued. Eve and Mary werebrought in by God as essential participants.That idea which has always been proposed in the

Legion represents likewise the earliest method of pre-senting. Our Lady's role; it belongs to the apostolicera. Yet manv persons took up the line that the Leg-

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ionary devotion Was an exaggeration and for thatreason withheld support from the Legion. Now theDe Ecclesia Decree demonstrates that the Legionfaithfully reflects the authentic Catholic doctrine on thesubject of Mary the Mother of God and the Motherof men, and furthermore that it (effectively unites thatdoctrine to its apostolic method, rendering a visibleexposition of the Doctrine of the Mystical Body.

It is essential that the people of Ireland be PUtinto possession of what the Council has thus taught.I think that for this reason alone they should under-,stand the Legion which is probably the simplestshowing forth of that teaching.Abose I have been stressing the Mariology of the

Legion, but the same considerations would apply tothe other aspects of Catholic doctrine whichneces-sarily enter into the Legion and which receive at-tention in the Legion Handbook. I think it can beasserted that there is not one unnecessary word inthe Handbook. I mean this literally., The first ideaat work in the Handbook was that of compression.On the one hand, everything had to be explained andon the other hand the resulting document wouldhave to be of a size which would make it availableto the multitude. The book which is there is' the re-sult. In less than 300 pages it describes the Legionof Mary. It is intriguing to find that, incidentally, itis giving a description of the Catholic Church whichcovers its doctrine, its devotions and its apostolatein a way which will not be so readily accessible else-where. What is in the Handbook has been deemednecessary knowledge for the Legionary. The latteris not supposed to be a special type of Catholic butonly a person who is aiming at living on the levelwhich seems to emerge from the Council legislation. Itwould be outrageous to regard this standard of normalCatholicism as beyond the reach of the people ofIreland.

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It follows from this that legionaries simply musttry to get over to the people the same degree ofknowledge that has been deemed necessary for them-selves, and which every legionary is found declaringto be so useful to him.

By way of contrast between the legionary Catho-licism and that possessed by so many in the or-dinary community, I give you the following accountof a discussion held between two legionaries and twoprofessional or whole-time Mormon missionaries. Itoccupied an entire evening.

At the end the Mormons declared' that theywere overwhelmingly impressed by the faith of theLegionaries; that they had never encountered'>any-thing like it in their visitation of Catholic homes.They stated that the Catholics know hardly any-thing about their religion and were incapable ofarguing about it or even replying to simple questionsabout it.

That is a sorrowful indictment. It is not enough toreply to .it by saying that the Catholics have prob-ably been warned not to enter into controversy withthe sects, because in fact they had done so and werediscussing religion with them.

Our first thought is that there is a dire need forthe Patricians which would teach Catholics to makesome sort of show in such circumstances.

But the main thought is one of shock. Is thatwhat the average Catholicism of Ireland amountsto? 'Quite evidently that degree of .knowledge wouldnot provide a stable foundation for faith. Faith must

.have something to stand on. If it has nothing suffi-cient, it is like the house mentioned in Scripturewhich is built on sand. We must realize that in thecircumstances pictured by those Mormons their visit-ation of the Catholic homes was ploughing a furrowof devastation-like what a bulldozer would drivethrough ruins which it is demolishing.

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I think it would be unpardonable to proceed tofind excuses for such a Catholicism and to bluff itout that really everything is just all right. It is not allright. It is a deplorable fact that Catholicism meansvery little to a large proportion of our people andthat for them it. is on its way out. It is terribly likethe position which preluded the fall of the Faith inthe other European, countries. I have already in-voked the image of the house built on sand. I nowpropose the image of' the ostrich which hides itshead in the sand because it does not want to seewhat it fears. and because' it thinks that it abolishesthe danger by not seeing it. We must not imitate thefolly of that witless bird.

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