Answering Paul Blanshard mwemg PAUL BLANSHARD Dale Francis has refuted Paul Blanshard before ... in his astute pamphlet American Freedom and Paul Blanshard. Reviewers say it strips bare the intellectual preten- sions of the man whose book American Freedom and Catholic Power has unhappily gained so wide a readership. AVE MARIA PRESS^ 10 Cents. Answering Paul Blanshard by DALE FRANCIS AVE MARIA PRESS Notre Dame, Indiana NIHIL OBSTAT Rev. Felix D. Duffey^ c.s.c. Censor Deputatus IMPRIMATUR ^ Most Rev. John F. Noll^ d.d. Bishop of Fort Wayne Nov. 1, 1951 Copyright, 1951, AVE MARIA PRESS Answering Paul Blanshard by DALE FRANCIS Paul Blanshard has written another book. It was to be expected. The financial suc- cess of American Freedom and Catholic Power was certain to drive him to new at- tacks on the Catholic Church. The new book, Communism, Democracy, and Catho- lic Power, is not likely to be his last attack against the Church, either. Paul Blanshard has a good thing and he will drain every last red cent from it, even if the only re- turns be religious hatreds. Communism, Democracy, and Catholic Power is a more vicious attack on the Catholic Church than Blanshard’s first book. It is filled with greater distortions and de- ceptions. But, like his first book, it will receive a good press from a certain segment of society. The secularists will praise it as another great scholarly work. The enemies of Christianity will recognize it as an ally in their constant battle. The intellectually blind will urge that it be read by all the nation. 3 The problem in talking about Blanshard’s books is in knowing where to begin. One lie can be told in a sentence but it might take a thousand words to refute it. A distortion might be made in a word but a page can be required to show why it is a distortion. So Blanshard, as is true of all professional hate- mongers, has the advantage. Hitler in his hate campaign against the Jews needed only to speak a few lies to raise the passions of people against the Jews. Yet to counteract his venom would have taken books — and then, of course, no one likes to read the defenses against attackers. The attacks are always so much more sensational, so much more interesting. Blanshard’s Methods Perhaps the best way to start is to show a typical Blanshard trick. On page 64 of his new book, Blanshard discusses what he calls the “subjection” of the Catholic people to their clergy. In making his point he lists the people who find the Catholic approach appealing. Here are his words: “Peasants, nuns. Brothers, slum-dwellers, mystics, monks, illiterates, priests, dreamers, find in the Catholic approach to life a comfort and an inspiration.” Now examine Blanshard’s words and you will discover the secret of his intellectual dishonesty. Actually, he has not told a lie. 4 It is true that all the classifications he lists can find “the Cathohc approach to fife a comfort and an inspiration.” But Blanshard lists only these; he allows his readers to be- lieve that from these classifications come the bulk of the satisfied Catholics. \Vhile he has not openly Ued he has Hed in the truest sense of the word. This is typical of Blan- shard’s methods and it demonstrates just why it is difficult to counteract his poison. It is Hkewdse difficult to teU exactly what Blanshard believes. A rninister of the Uni- tarian church wTOte in a Springfield, Massa- chusetts, newspaper that he didn’t care what Blanshard believes or what Blanshard has done. “Whether or not he beats his grand- mother has nothing to do with whether or not what he reports is true,” this minister said. Now whether or not Blanshard beats his grandmother may be of little importance m this particular case but it would be of utmost importance if he were wTiting on the subject of how to treat grandmothers. Blanshard and Freedom In his books Blanshard’s thesis is that the Catholic idea is in conflict with American democracy. Since this is his thesis the reader has not only the right but the necessit\^ to tr\" to find out exactly wffiat Blanshard means by American democracy. If Blanshard criti- cizes the Catholic stand on various issues, then the reader has the right to ask Blan- shard what he proposes in such cases. In his latest book Blanshard says the fun- damental thesis on which our whole way of life is based is “that the majority of the people have the right to determine our fu- ture by free choice based on free discussion, with certain inalienable rights guaranteed to minorities.” Now that is high-sounding and with some clarification it would probably be an accept- able definition to American Catholics. But at the same time it can mean a great many different things and it would be interesting to know what it really means to Paul Blan- shard. In an article he wrote several years ago for the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science he said some- thing that sounds very little like what he says today. Then he was talking about what he would do if he could gain control in the United States. Then he wrote, “ ... we would abolish the Constitution altogether and give the national congress the power to interpret the people’s will, subject only to certain general principles of free speech and assemblage.” There’s a difference between what he says now and what he said then but it would be interesting to know how much of the same basic thought of yesterday is concealed by 6 the slightly higher-sounding words of today. For one thing today Blanshard speaks of “inalienable rights.” Presumably^ if he means what the Founding Fathers meant— and, of course, super-patriot Blanshard would — then he means that these rights are inalienable because they are Gk)d-given. Yet it is difficult to find any indication that Blanshard believes there are any God-given laws or rights. The Right to Live Blanshard seems also to have forgotten that the first of those inalienable rights is the right to life. Blanshard is openly a sup- porter of legalized euthanasia, the deliberate destruction of people who are considered “incurably” ill. While supposedly this le- galized murder would require the permis- sion of the ill person, anyone with a mini- mum knowledge of human psychology would know that a painfully ill person could not possibly be in rational enough state to make such a decision even if there was not the added fact that suicide is no more morally right than murder. On this problem of God-given rights Blanshard makes some revealing comments in his criticism of the Catholic Church. He critically cites a couple of sentences in Pope Pius XPs denunciation of communism in which the Pope said, “In man’s relations 7 with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, re- jecting all hierarchy and divinely constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font.” Blanshard obviously believes that this part of the condemnation of communism by the Pope is false. All right, what does Blanshard believe? Apparently he disagrees with the Pope, apparently he believes that “authority and subordination is derived from the com- munity —as its first and only font.” If he does, then, what happens to God-given rights? Where are the inalienable rights Blanshard mentions? The answer is obvi- ous. When Blanshard speaks of inalienable rights he doesn’t mean what most Amer- icans mean. He has his own concepts. They happen, at least in this case, to be quite close in essence to what communist totalitarians believe. Blanshard the Theologian As in his first book, Blanshard denies that he is discussing the Catholic Faith. It is “political Catholicism,” he is interested in, he says and adds he is not speaking of “Catholicism as a theory of relationship between man and God. . . .” That’s what 8 he says but in his first book he went so far as to call the Real Presence of the Holy Eucharist a magic device of control over the people wielded by the priests. In his latest book he also demonstrates that his protestations mean nothing. Again he becomes Blanshard the theologian. Again he attacks belief after belief of Catholics on the basis of his own theological opin- ions. Despite the fact that he is intellec- tually unequipped^ he doesn’t hesitate to make dogmatic, theological statements. A few examples will illustrate this peculiar confidence Blanshard has in his own infal- libility as a theologian. ‘‘Many of the most important doctrines,” Blanshard writes, “have no clear sanction in original Christianity.” He lists among these Purgatory, opposition to birth control, Papal Infallibility, indulgences, the Sacra- ment of Marriage and condemnation of divorce. “In fact,” he writes, “they have nothing more to do with original Chris- tianity than Stalin’s taste in philology with original Marxism.” He then invites his readers to check these doctrines with their Bibles. Of course, Blanshard expects that if they check them at all they will check them in the King James version, which omits some parts of the Bible. But then you’d think 9 that an all-wise theologian like Blanshard would be aware that there was a consid- erable period during which the Church was without the Bible and that in this period before the Bible the Church had guidance. But then Blanshard’s theological knowledge doesn’t include such basic facts. Support for Birth Control He knows all about the theological facts concerning birth control, though. He writes, “The priestly fiction, which has been used so extensively against birth control — that Jesus Christ is opposed to contraception — is just as clear a distortion of fact as the Kremlin doctrine that acquired biological characteristics are inherited.” That is interesting, isn’t it? Of course, Blanshard the theologian knows all Christ knows. It would not do to talk to him about the Trinity. His Unitarian publish- ers would not allow him to discuss such theological ideas. He would not be able to understand that what God the Father condemns certainly God the Son condemns. Blanshard also discusses the Catholic in- sistence that all abortions are against the law of God. He says it is another “manu- factured dogma.” This is the same Blan- shard who is so strongly for legalization of mercy murders. The Catholic insistence 10 that euthanasia is morally murder is an- other case of what Blanshard would prob- ably call a “manufactured dogma.” This is the same Blanshard who, in an article in the New Republic, reported Soviet Rus- sia’s legalization on abortions for such trivial reasons as inconvenience, as a pro- gressive step. This is the same Blanshard who in his first book protested so vigorous- ly against such sinful activities as bingo games. Bingo is evil and Blanshard fights it, but murder of unborn babies and the aged and infirm is quite all right and Catholic insistence that it is not, just shows that Catholics don’t really understand the- ology at all. Blanshard’s theological pronouncements enter into the subject of whether or not Our Lord made Peter the head of His Church. Blanshard quotes the Biblical verse and then, after a little double talk, says . . . “it is clear that the words of Jesus are broadly symbolic and not defi- nite.” Theologians can stop discussing this passage. Blanshard, the infallible, has spoken. Freedom of the Press Sometimes Blanshard makes tactical mis- takes. For instance, he writes: “All Catho- lic publications, of course, are edited and 11 written by men who are dependent for their livelihood on the organizations which own the publications.” Actually^ this is true of all publications. The men who edit and write the New York Times are dependent on the owners of the Times for their livelihood. That doesn’t mean that their freedom is ham- pered. Blanshard is dependent on the own- ers of the publications and the publishing houses for which he writes. Does that necessarily mean he is hampered in his freedom? Well, the answer to that is to be found in examining the publications for which he works. Blanshard writes primarily for The Na~ tion. He was listed as an associate editor, he was their correspondent in Rome dur- ing the Holy Year; his articles are a major feature of the magazine. All right, what is The Nation like? The Nation^ s reputation has been fairly high in liberal circles in the past. Today it has forfeited any claim to being even a liberal publication. Under the editorship of Freda Kirchwey it has become an anti- Gatholic, unliberal-minded magazine. Evi- dence supports such a judgment. Clement Greenberg was formerly the art critic of the magazine. He still had an in- terest in The Nation and wrote for it occa- 12 sionally. But as The Nation became in- creasingly an apologist for the imperialism of the Soviet Union, Greenberg felt called upon to protest. He wrote a letter, criti- cizing the editors and their columnist J. Alvarez Del Vayo for what he felt were consistent pro-Soviet stands. Naturally, he expected his communication would be printed and that the editors would explain their position. Instead he got the answer of totalitarians. He was told that The Nation would not only refuse to print the letter but that if he attempted to publish it in any other magazine or newspaper The Nation editors would sue him and the mag- azine for libel. Refusing to be intimi- dated, Greenberg sent the letter to the New Leader. That publication printed the letter and was promptly sued by The Nation. How to Get Along That is the magazine for which Blan- shard works. You can be pretty certain that Blanshard knuckles down to the editor. He writes what The Nation wants to print. It may be, however, that they are in basic agreement and so The Nation doesn’t have to intimidate Blanshard. Blanshard also brings up the subject of books, and here it is interesting to take a 13 look at his publisher. The Beacon Press is an Unitarian publishing house. The Uni- tarians are committed to disbelief in the Divinity of Christ. Since the Catholic Church is the bulwark of belief in the Divinity of Christ the Unitarians recognize the Catholic Church as the greatest enemy to their belief. So Blanshard’s attacks serve the religious purposes of his Unita- rian publishers. You can be quite certain that the Beacon Press would never publish a book that defended belief in the Trinity and you can be quite certain that so long as he is writing for the Beacon Press^ Blanshard will never offend them by sug- gesting belief in the Divinity of Christ. Blanshard has made a tactical error in bringing up the subject of freedom of the Catholic press at all. Actually^ the Catholic press has considerable freedom. To bring in a personal note, I have written for and edited Catholic publications and so I can speak from first-hand experience. As the editor of a diocesan weekly, I was never once in my two years as editor told to print or not to print any news item. I had complete freedom — greater freedom than I had had working on secular news- papers. To give an example, I have in Catholic publications taken the following stands — I came out against banning the 14 communist party in 1946; I criticized the Catholic War Veterans for their anti-Red campaigns in which they demanded that certain Catholics state whether or not they had made their Easter duties; I criticized the campaign against the movie “The Bi- cycle Thief”; I criticized Cardinal Spell- man’s letter to Mrs. Roosevelt; I have criticized Franco; I have criticized other policies of Catholic leaders. I’m not cer- tain how wise I was in all of these cases^ but the point is that in official Catholic publications I published these articles. If it were true that there is no freedom in the Catholic Press you can be certain that I would have found it out. I’m not one to sidestep a controversial issue. Pressure Against Freedom As a matter of fact, in some twenty years of writing for newspapers and mag- azines on controversial issues I have only had pressure exerted on me once. I’ve written exposes on politicians, administra- tors; I’ve discussed red-hot subjects; yet only once did anyone try to pressure me out of printing something I had written. In this single incident, the question wasn’t whether or not what I’d written was true or false. I had merely quoted from the writings of a man who had said 15 some things that seemed to me in serious conflict with American democracy. The man didn’t want me to print the article because he happened to be posing as a great patriot. He threatened me with a libel suit, then failing to scare me with that he tried to threaten me by pressuring my employer. Strange thing it was indeed that the man who tried to pressure me was none other than that great freedom lover and defender of the right of men to speak their minds — Paul Blanshard. When asked about this at a public meet- ing in Chicago, Blanshard told the audi- ence of 5,000 persons that he had threatened suit because I had told him the pamphlet was to be called “Paul Blan- shard —The Fascist.” Blanshard not Fascist No one with any knowledge of Blan- shard’s career would suggest he had ever been a Fascist party member or sympa- thizer. But the fact that he had not does not mean that he hasn’t ideas in harmony with fascism. What I had said I planned to do was to show the essential fascism in his thinking. I believed then and I believe now that Blanshard gives an all importance 16 to the state that is to be duplicated only in fascist concepts. But even if Blanshard had from my first letter been confused and thought I planned to call him a Fascist party member^ he could not have thought this after my sec- ond letter. I even informed him of every point I was going to make against him — an unheard of thing —^ so that he would have every opportunity to correct me if I was in error. What is significant is the fact that his letter to the president of the university for which I work was wTitten not only after he had been informed he was not going to be called a fascist but after he had been informed of every point I wais going to make against him. Blanshard was for several years a paid propagandist for the Socialist party. When he was forty years old he wrote for the Annals of the American Academy of Po- litical and Social Science an outline of the pattern of government as he would have it be. Blanshard’s Blueprint “If we gained control of the American government, we would probably begin with a complete revision of the national gov- ernmental system. We would do one of 17 two things. We would write an amend- ment to the Constitution giving the federal government the right to regulate all private business and to enter into any business which it deemed proper, or we would abolish the Constitution altogether and give the national congress the power to inter- pret the people’s will, subject only to cer- tain general principles of free speech and assemblage.” This was the political blue- print of Paul Blanshard. Is it his blueprint today? Blanshard says it is not, that at the very time this was published he had already renounced his views. Yet more than a year later Blan- shard wrote a letter to the pro-Socialist magazine. World Tomorrow, in which he protested being called an “ex-socialist.” “No one doubts your sincerity,” Blan- shard wrote to them, “but most intelligent radicals in America will question the rather sophomoric and arrogant way in which you dismiss veteran Socialist workers who hap- pen to disagree with you in regard to po- litical technique in the present confused and uncertain American situation.” In other words, Blanshard was publicly ad- mitting that his so-called renouncing of so- cialist views was just a political technique and that he had not surrendered his old opinions. 18 What about today? Has he really changed his ideas or is he just using a political technique that requires he appear to have changed? No one but Blanshard can answer that question^ but no one can fail to notice the sly propaganda that he inserts in his writings. For example, Blanshard in the role of Church historian, announces, “The spirit of the Church during that period (the first three centuries) was not wholly unlike the spirit of the first Utopian socialists who de- spised the conventional forms of worldly power and attempted to realize a dream of economic equality.” Throughout his book he definitely indicates an admiration for all degrees of socialism. Blanshard claims to have studied the Catholic Church with some thoroughness. If he has then he certainly should have been able to get some understanding of what is meant by Papal Infallibility — even if he couldn’t accept it. But Blanshard’s book demonstrates that he either has no understanding of the meaning of Papal In- fallibility or that if he does, then he is de- liberately attempting to mislead his readers. Blanshard tries to create the impression that Catholics think the Pope is divine. Here are a few sentences from his book dealing with the subject: 19 “In spite of the doctrine of infallibility, the Vatican has tried to impress the fact upon the world that Catholics do not wor- ship the Pope. . . . Regardless of its pro- fessions, the whole machinery of the Church is geared to exalt the personality of the Pope to the divine level. . . . He is in practice one of the plural gods of the Catholic system of power. . . . Ostensibly his every act in public ceremonies is a tribute not to his own divinity but to the divinity of the God he serves. . . . But in practice he is himself the god of all St. Peter’s pageantry, and the Catholic people are the slaves who come to worship him as the Church’s divine agent on earth.” Ignorant or Bigots? This is absolute and complete nonsense. It is difficult to tell whether Blanshard really has no understanding or whether he is deliberately and maliciously trying to mis- lead his readers. A man doesn’t have to accept Papal Infallibility in order to under- stand what is meant by it. If he has really made a serious study of the Catholic Church it seems impossible that he could so completely misunderstand — unless, of course, he is mentally incapable of grasping the idea. Blanshard repeats many of the old 20 charges against the Church. He mentions Pius XPs condemnation of communism but adds that the Pope ‘'revealed no compar- able indignation over the subordination of his country to the fascist ‘community’.” It would hardly seem necessary to remind a “student of the Church” of Pius XI’s encyclical^ Non ahbiamo bisogno, which was a condemnation of Italy’s fascism and which preceded his encyclical on com- munism by some six years. Of course^ Blanshard may not think that this shows “comparable indignation” but Mussolini would certainly not have agreed with him. Mussolini thought it was so severe that he did everything in his power to keep it from the people. This was no theoretical blast at fascism either. It was made right within the nation then in the grip of fascist lead- ers. Later, again before the encyclical condemning communism, the Pope issued the famous encyclical Mit brennender sorge, which condemned Nazi Germany. The Pope Against Fascism Blanshard would have his readers believe that the Church was silent about or co- operating with the fascists and the nazis. The truth of the matter is that before the Pope ever spoke out against communism he had already condemned the practices of 21 both Mussolini’s fascists and Hitler’s nazis. But then, of course, Blanshard isn’t a man who can be pleased with papal action. No matter what the Pope may assert Blan- shard will interpret it his own way. For example, Blanshard thinks the present Pope wants war. Of course, there are countless papal allocutions that denounce war. Of course. Pope Pius XII has constantly urged men to find ways to maintain peace. But Blanshard doesn’t think the Pope means what he says. Said Blanshard, “The clerical appeals for war against Russia are always dressed in spiritual phrases and embroidered with the cliches of peace and prayer, but the intent is unmistakable. When the Pope issues an appeal to pray for the Russians, and the Catholic press of the world simultaneously features every act of Soviet aggression and every hysterical denunciation of Soviet pol- icy, the meaning of the papal supplication is self-evident.” This libel against the Pope shows more about Blanshard than it does about the Catholic Church. As every Catholic knows the prayers for Russia have been said after Mass in churches all over the world since June 30, 1930. As every Catholic knows the prayers said for Russia are said “in order that peace and freedom to profess 22 the Faith may be restored to the people of that country.” The type of mind that sees a plea for war in these prayers is strangely perverted. Incidentally, is there something wrong in featuring “every act of Soviet aggression”? Is Blanshard trying to say that editors shouldn’t record the imperialism of Soviet Russia? If he is, then why is he so anxious that the public be not informed? If he isn’t, then why does he mention it at all? About Nuns As in his first book, Blanshard is worried about nuns being separated from the world. He again shows a complete ignorance of the meaning of vocations and explains vo- cations in a way that again reveals a great deal more about Blanshard than about anything else. “Recruiting,” he writes concerning Reli- gious Orders, “is largely based on the guilt feeling of youth and adolescence about sex, and the conviction of sin is systematically exploited to induce a commitment to the Religious vocation. After commitment, celibacy is skillfully associated with devo- tion in such a way as to sublimate sexual energy into institutional channels. Many commentators have pointed out that for male celibates the figure of the Virgin 23 Mary, and for female celibates the figure of Christ, are used as agents for the re- direction and sublimation of thwarted sex- ual energy. Religious Orders for women carry the sexual symbolism so far that they dress their postulants in bridal costumes when they are sworn in to full membership as ‘brides of Christ’. The psychological re- sult of such a substitution upon a commu- nity of sex-starved young nuns has been brilliantly described by Rumer Godden in her book, Black Narcissus/^ Blanshard, in this self-revealing para- graph, doesn’t mention that Rumer God- den’s book is a novel, but then it isn’t unusual to find Blanshard using fiction to support his arguments. What is strange is that Blanshard doesn’t mention that the nuns in Black Narcissus are not Catholic but Protestant nuns and that their outlook is bound to be both psychologically and essentially different from that of Catholic nuns. Blanshard complains that “the life of the Catholic Religious is almost totally devoid of personal freedom.” What Blanshard means, of course, is that their lives are totally devoid of the things Blanshard thinks they should want to do. It is ap- parently beyond his comprehension that a Trappist monk should choose a life of si- 24 lence or that a cloistered nun should choose a life of prayer. Blindness at ‘‘Newsweek” Those persons who claim, as did the Newsweek Magazine reviewer, that the man is not basically unfair to the Catholic Church should have some difficulty in ex- plaining Blanshard’s condemnation of con- templatives. He writes, “ . . . the so-called contemplative orders are scarcely above the level of juvenile escapism.” For sheer stupidity it is difficult to top that statement. For sheer bigotry it is even more difficult. Blanshard, whose own little mind is unable to fathom the depth of the contemplative life, thinks that because it doesn’t fit into his own little twisted mold that it is therefore, as he calls it in an- other place, “social stupidity.” How do you attempt to convince a man with so little concept of the meaning of re- ligious life? Totally devoid of any idea of the meaning of prayer, Blanshard is there- fore totally unable to understand how a life of prayer could serve the world. Blanshard discusses Catholic and Prot- estant relationships. He doesn’t like the Catholic attitude because, as he says. “ . . . Protestants worship the same God and the same Christ ...” 25 Blanshard’s Publisher Again this is a good place to look at Blanshard’s publishers. The Unitarian church sponsors the Beacon Press. The Unitarians hold that Christ is nothing more than a good man, that he is not God. Does Blanshard think that this attitude is in any way similar to the Catholic recognition of the Divinity of Christ? It should be evident even to Blanshard that the denomination that publishes his work is in direct opposi- tion to the Catholic Church, and that the Church can not logically cooperate with them in religious worship. Blanshard then lists some of the points in which Catholics can not cooperate with Protestant religious organizations. He winds it up by saying, “There is, of course, no corresponding anti-Catholic policy in the Protestant system.” The fact is that Protestant publications are almost without exception anti-Catholic. It is difficult to pick up any Protestant pub- lication without finding some attack on the Catholic Church. It is equally difficult to find any Catholic publication that in any way criticizes or attacks Protestant groups. Where the Tom Watsons and the Paul Blanshards have long published articles and books opposing the Catholic Church there 26 have been no writers among Catholics who have attacked Protestant denomina- tions. A large collection of anti-Catholic material could easily be compiled but it would be difficult to find anti-Protestant material from Catholic sources. Blanshard calls attention to some attacks that have been made against Protestants in predominantly Catholic countries. Such at- tacks have occurred and Catholics regret them but the fact of the matter is that many Protestant evangelists in Catholic countries have invited such attacks by open- ly insulting Catholic beliefs. In one Latin- American country it was learned that a Protestant missionary who had complained at being attacked had publicly destroyed a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The remarkable thing isn’t that this man was attacked but that in a country where the people honor Jesus and His Mother he was able to come out of the affair as well as he did. God in Education Blanshard’s high respect for his own opinion is shown throughout the book. For example, in his discussion of the public school question it apparently never occurs to him that education without God is in- complete. It does occur to many outside of 27 the Catholic Church. Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen, president of the faculty of Prot- estantism’s Union Theological Seminary^ has called for a return to religion in edu- cation in a book, God in Education, issued almost at the same time as Blanshard’s new diatribe. Said Van Dusen, “Religion ... is the queen of the sciences. . . . This is its rightful position, not because the churches say so . . . but because of the nature of reality —because if there be a God at all. He must be the ultimate and controlling Reality through which all else derives its being; and the truth concerning Him . . . must be the keystone of the ever-complete arch of human knowledge.” But it never occurs to Blanshard to ques- tion whether or not Catholics are right in their protest that public school education does the job of educating incompletely. Blanshard, who is a product of public schools, is convinced that only in public schools is the answer to education to be found. Yet Blanshard soon after complet- ing his education in public schools was making statements that most Americans would feel were far from the American ideal. While products of other schools were among those who were fighting for their country, young Blanshard in World War I was already a socialist and in a 28 public statement after the war said, “The difference between one capitalist govern- ment and another is not worth dying for.” This is not to say that the public schools do not turn out as patriotic Americans as do the parochial schools — that would cer- tainly be untrue — but it is to say that Paul Blanshard is hardly the public school product to point to with pride. Sower of Disunity Blanshard is currently touring the nation urging Protestants to fight against permit- ting any Catholics on public school boards. He says that since the Catholic Church has its own schools and requires children to attend them that Catholics therefore have no right to be public school board members. This is typical of this man’s meager knowledge of the meaning of democracy. This country’s first beginnings came when the people rose up to fight against taxation without representation. Catholics pay taxes for public schools and if not a single Catho- lic school child ever attended a single public school the very fact that Catholics are taxed to pay for public schools gives them a just right to participate in the de- cisions made in spending that money. Blanshard’s totalitarian reasoning should be logically carried on to exclude childless 29 persons from serving on school boards. Blanshard shouts he believes in democ- racy but it would take a blind mind to fail to see that what he says is far from democracy. As a logical outcome of his rabble-rousing tour of the nation a com- pletely non-Catholic school board in Boone, la., dismissed a Catholic teacher solely be- cause his children attended parochial rather than public schools. If Blanshard is right, then they were right but fair-minded non- Catholics raised up in protest against this violation of liberty and even the POAU, which supports Blanshard, hurried to make some feeble protests, realizing their propa- ganda had carried them too far too fast and that the people weren’t ready for such bigotry yet. Blanshard the Incomprehensible Blanshard’s methods are sometimes as in- comprehensible as they are reprehensible. An example is his dissection of Cardinal Spellman’s letter to Mrs. Roosevelt. Now whether Cardinal Spellman’s letter, which was written in righteous indignation, was prudent or not is questionable but Blanshard doesn’t discuss this phase at all. Here is an example of what lines his attack takes. He quotes the following sentence from Cardinal Spellman’s letter: 30 “ . . . you could have acted only from misinformation, ignorance or prejudice, not from knowledge and understanding.” After which Blanshard makes the follow- ing peculiar observation: “This type of attack, from a man who has never been a lawyer, legislator, parent, or educator, is worth noting.” Actually, the Cardinal’s sentence is po- litely worded and certainly not an attack, but even if it were it is impossible to understand why the fact the Cardinal was not a legislator, parent or educator, would enter into the discussion. What is true about the controversy is that Cardinal Spellman was rightfully irri- tated by the fact that Mrs. Roosevelt in a column on Cardinal Mindszenty had used without verification charges made against the Hungarian Cardinal by George Seldes, whose little news sheet. In Fact, consistent- ly over a period of years sneezed whenever Stalin had a cold. Mrs. Roosevelt fol- lowed this injustice — and if Blanshard had ever been a working newspaper man he would have known that you are not justi- fied in using material without checking your sources — by commenting on the school question at the time a specific bill was being discussed without acquainting herself, as she admitted, with the provi- 31 sions of the particular bill. Her comments which she meant to be general were nat- urally applied to the specific bill and she was pulled into the specific discussion whether she wanted to or not. Incidentally, Blanshard used the same Seldes statistics in his insinuations against Cardinal Mindszenty. Blanshard has never been a working newspaperman. His entire career has been spent propagandizing or writing articles with what he called “as much zip and spice . . . as possible.” He, therefore, never follows any of the rules newspapermen would consider necessary in assembling his so-called facts. Blanshard the Intellectual Blanshard, the intellectual, in a discus- sion of miracles, says that Catholics “have an unbalanced diet of too much sentiment and too little science, and the result of their cultural malnutrition is that they are kept permanently immature because they have never learned the art of mental growth of freedom.” Now it is certainly true that all things that have been called miracles are not nec- essarily miraculous but it is equally true that there are valid miracles. Although he doesn’t actually say so, you get the idea that Blanshard does not believe in mir- 32 acles at all. So naturally, a great deal of the Catholic Faith appears to him by his own lights as superstition. Blanshard, who of course was only going to discuss the political power of the Church, goes into a discussion of whether or not Catholic dogma changes. Blanshard says it does and he cites as his prime example the recent pronouncement of the Assumption as dogma. This is to Blanshard a ‘'manu- factured dogma” and although he admits that dogmas “have long traditions behind them” he adds that the Pope shapes the in- terpretations of these traditions or that he can even invent a ilew tradition at will. Of course, being convinced of his own capabilities as a theologian Blanshard adds there is no proof of the truth of the As- sumption. As a matter of fact, he goes on to say, “The truth is that the whole structure of Vatican power has virtually no support in biblical literature in spite of the papal claim that it has.” Again, Blanshard the theologian ignores the fact that the Church preceded the Bible and that for a long pe- riod of time there was no other guidance than the Church. The New May Be Old In another part of his argument that the 33 Church constantly changes he points out that the Pope may^ as he puts it, “create a new rule against artificial insemination . . It should be apparent even to Blanshard that the problem is a new one and that while the direct application of the moral law might be new, the moral law that condemns the practice is certainly not. It is certainly true that new problems require new answers but the answers are not in- vented out of thin air but are founded upon laws always believed by the Church. For example, euthanasia is condemned by the Catholic Church — and, praised by Paul Blanshard. The Church’s condemna- tion may seem to be fairly new but the fact is that the need for it only arose when men so completely lost their moral sense that the murder of the ill and aged seemed like mercy instead of murder. Blaiishard’s Demands Blanshard winds up his book with a list of three immediate demands he would like to see made. First, that the Catholic Church cancel its rule that Catholics should attend Catholic and not public schools. Second, that Catholics be allowed to study any side of every social question. Third, that the Catholic Church recognize all marriages of Catholics that are legal as 34 being valid and accept divorce as well. It is somewhat difficult but it would be worthwhile to examine these points with- out anger. As for the first demand, the Catholic Church has a perfect right in our American democracy to require that members of the Church attend Catholic schools. Of course, those members can disobey the rules set down by the Church, but if they do, then it is the right of the Church to declare they are no longer in good standing. As for Catholics being allowed to study both sides of all social questions, when study is the purpose, the permission exists already. Catholic students do study both sides of questions like birth control and divorce. What Blanshard really means ir that Catholics should permit moral an- archy so that nothing would be taught as being either true or false. The difficulty with that is, there are things that are true and there are things that are false. As for the marriage and divorce problem, it is quite simple. Marriage is a Sacra- ment. Most Protestant denominations do not recognize this but it is true. Catholics are, if they are to continue to be Catholics, required to marry in their Church. As for divorce, despite Blanshard the theologian, it is against the law of God and Blanshard 35 the Biblical scholar should be able to dis- cover that. If someone with the totalitarian ideas of Mr. Blanshard were to come into power in the United States and force all people to conform to what he believes to be right, divorce would not be made sud- denly right in the eyes of God. He’s Against Communism Oh, yes, about half of Blanshard’s book was devoted to communism. It isn’t a very brilliant analysis and the condemnation could be more severe but it probably is good protection for Blanshard, whose past utterances made it necessary for him to take a present stand against communism or else be under suspicion. What is interesting about this is the fact that while The Nation carried in its col- umns a great deal of the bitterly anti- Catholic material that appears in this book^ it carried none of the anti-communist ma- terial. As Blanshard says, speaking of some- thing quite different, ‘‘Fortunately for America’s self-respect, there are still in the nation a number of courageous publishers who are more interested in freedom of thought than in conformity and success.” The sad thing about Paul Blanshard is that thousands of poor, deluded people 36 listen to him and believe him. Ignorant of facts, they allow Blanshard’s half-truths to pass as truth. This doesn’t mean that his followers are the uneducated or the poor. Quite the opposite. Some of his most enthusiastic supporters are men with college degrees. His followers don’t wear hoods and they don’t burn crosses. They are respectable bigots who are shocked to be called bigots. They are people who think Blanshard is perfectly right when he says that Catholics should be kept off public school boards but would be shocked if anyone suggested that there was anything objectionable about the fact that in most public schools commence- ment addresses are given by Protestant ministers. Yet I feel certain that the most of the Protestant people will eventually rise up against Paul Blanshard and men of his kind. After all, it is their problem. Blan- shard isn’t a Catholic problem, he is a problem for non-Catholics. We can only protest when his club of hate falls on us. They can disarm him. I say I believe they will, too. When I wrote a pamphlet on the first Blanshard book I got a letter from a Presbyterian minister in Kansas. He said that while he disagreed theologically with Catholics he 37 recognized Paul Blanshard as the bigot he is. This minister distributed copies of the pamphlet to his congregation. An Episcopalian rector of a Kentucky church, echoed the Presbyterian minister’s charges. He purchased copies for distribu- tion, too. In Ohio a ministerial associa- tion read the pamphlet and afterwards passed a resolution condemning Blanshard. Dozens of bulk orders came from Prot- testants. All had seen through Blanshard. More and more non-Catholics are going to do the same thing. This book is worse than his first one. His speeches are often coarse and even bordering on the obscene. The non-Catholic people of the nation are too good, too deeply democratic, to be long fooled by Blanshard. 38 K r..f *r^ •/J. PAMPHLETS Published by AVE MARIA PRESS ACHIEVING HAPPINESS IN MARRIAGE—O’Brien ANSWERING PAUL BLANSHARD—Francis AMERICAN FREEDOM AND PAUL BLANSHARD- Francis THE BLASPHEMOUS THING—Cavanaugh CHOOSING A PARTNER FOR MARRIAGE—O’Brien THE CHURCH, THE CONSTITUTION AND EDUCA- CATION—Corbett THE CHURCH, THE STATE, AND MRS. McCOLLUM —Manion CONVERSION OF RUSSIA—Denissoff DEMOCRACY AND LASTING PEACE—Pius XII FALLING IN LOVE WITH OPEN EYES—O’Brien FINDING CHRIST—O’Brien THE FpUNDING FATHERS AND THE NATURAL LAW Manion GOD AND YOU (What Every Atheist Should Know) — Lahey HOW YOU CAN CONVINCE TRUTH SEEKERS— O’Brien LOVE ENOUGH TO GO AROUND—Arnold MAKING MARRIAGE STICK—O’Brien OUR LADY’S WARNING AT FATIMA—Lahey PREPARING FOR MARRIAGE—O’Brien SINGLED OUT—Robinson SOLVING MY RELIGIOUS PROBLEM—Staunton STRATEGY IN COURTSHIP—O’Brien VOCATIONS CONCERN ALL CATHOLICS—Carroll WE THE PEOPLE—Mussio WHY NOT EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL CHILDREN? O’Brien WHY THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL?—O’Brien 10 Cents Each • 15 cents for single copy by mail (Orders for 10 or more copies sent postpaid) AVE MARIA PRESS — Notre Dame, Indiana from AVE MARIA PRESS on democrdcy democracy and lasting peace... Pius XII A great document restating the creed ot democracy in language everybody under- stands. Know democracy to defend iti the founding fathers and the natural law Clarence E. Manion. Political evolution of our Constitution and legal philosophy of Bill of Rights outined by Dean of Notre Dame's College of Law. Shows need today of Founding Father's principles. we the people... Bishop John King Mus- sio, D.D. America is her people, and if they stay asleep while the enemy works, she cannot survive. It is time to stand up and be counted, to awaken to danger. 10 cents each • 15 cents for single copy by mail (Orders for 1C or more copies sent postpaid)