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IMPRIMATUR

� JOANNES GREGORIUS MURRAY
Archiepiscopus Sancti Pauli
Paulopoli die 5a Julii 1951

COPYRIGHT 1951

by the
RADIO REPLIES PRESS

Printed in U.S.A.



By the Convert from Anglicanism
REV. DR. L. RUMBLE, M.S.C.

The. Missing Millions

Lknow the thought that the title.�f this little book will
at OI1:ce bring to your mind. you will think of the broken
families, murdered· people, . and displaced ,persons trans­
ported to only God knows where by ruthless tyrants in com­
munist-occupied countries. And there would be good
'grounds of your. thinking in such a way. For the number of
missing Catholics in that sense of the word is almost beyond
human calculation.

All the same, this booklet is not concerned with the

tragedy that has overtaken them. It is concerned with the
- Catholics who are missing in our own country. And that,

too, is tragedy both for the Church and for the victims of
the prevalent 'atmosphere....-almost the epidemic-s-of relig-
ious indifference.

.

Again and again it. has been noticed that, in response
to a compulsory census, whether civic or military, ever so
many people will put themselves down as Catholics who
are missing from the statistical returns compiled by Church
officials. And there is little room Jor doubt that the. maj.ority
of these missing Catholics are missing Mass, missing their
prayers, missing a host of blessings and consolation which
they. try- to peruade themselves they don't miss at all in this
life; and they seldom advert to their danger of missing all
prospects of eternal' happiness in the next life. ,

Now if y?U, who happen to be reading this. booklet, are
1



one of the missing ones, it is -. to you that I wish particularly
to speak. I want to remind you of things you have too
easily forgotten; or to which, perhaps, you have never given
any real thought at all. For if you are a "should-be" Catho-.
lie, there is a glorious inheritance which is rightfully yours,
even though at present you do not claim it. It has obliga­
tions, of course, as well. as privileges; and maybe you feel a
sense of relief from the obligations in waiving your claim
to the privileges. But in reality the privileges far outweigh
the obligations, and you are missing far more than you
realize in just letting yourself drift. .

ALWAYS A CATHOLIC

That is easily said, I know. But we'll see more about that
I as we go along. For the moment, let us begin where every­
thing began for you in jhis particular matter. If you describe
yourself as a Catholic, it is because you were at least bap­
tized or christened a Catholic. That means that you can
never really cease to be a Catholic. For baptism is an in­
delible and irrevocable action which cannot be undone. It

literally marks one off, sets one aside, branding the very
soul as the property of Jesus Christ and a member of the
Catholic Church.

At one time firms used to paste labels on the bottles in
which they marketed their products. But labels are easily'
removed. For greater protection, therefore, enterprising
firms got the bottle manufacturers to mold their name into
the very glass, making it part of the bottle. Then it could

. never be removed so long as the vessel itself continued to
exist.

It's 'rather like that with baptism. Once a Catholic, always
a Catholic. However we may forget, however far we wan­
der, we are still Catholics. Were a Catholic to die an� be

2



brought back to life again, he could not be re-baptized.
He is still what he always was-a Catholic. Even the taunt,
uttered in bitter hatred and anger-I have heard it­
"You're a Catholic and you'll never be anything else," is but
expressing the literal truthe

'.. • Of course there is a differencee between "being" a
Catholic and "living" as a Catholic. By our baptism we
become simply Catholics; not good ones; not bad ones.
Once baptized we are all equally Catholics. But the kind
of Catholic each one is, good, bad, or indifferent, will
be determined. by the way in which each one lives. That's
why Catholics vary so greatly in quality. By physical birth
we became children' of our natural parents. 'But that did
not. compel us to become what our parents would have
wished us to become. So by baptismal re-birth we became
children of God. But that also could not compel us to be ...
come what God wanted us to become. We have freewill,
that we may make of ourselves .and of our baptismal in­
heritance what we choose. However, of that we shall see
more later.

BEST OF RELIGIONS

One thing we do know. If we are Catholics, whatever we
ourselves are making of our religion in practice, ours is
the best of all religions on the face of the earth. "Yes, I'm
a Catholic; but- not much of a one, so don't judge the
Catholic religion by me!" How often that has been said!

The truth is that the Catholic religion is the most per­
fectly balanced and beautiful religion the world has ever
seen; the religion given by God for the eternal salvation
of mankind; the religion which history shows to have been
the greatest of all influences for good through the twenty
centuries of our civilization; the religion in which millions

3



have found peace of soul, and which the saints of every
age declare with one voice to have been the secret of the
heroic lives all the world has been compelled to admire.

I'm not saying that because I happen to be a Catholic.
Others who are not Catholics have paid their tributes to
the beauty and power of Catholicism. Writing in the "Hib­
bert Journal," of July, 1930, the', Rev.. Lloyd Thomas, a
Protestant minister of Birmingham, England, said, �'We can
all Qe magnanimous enough to recognize that Rome is the
steward of the moral witness of the Christian Church. The
supreme attraction of Rome is to be found in ,its ethical
rigorism. She represents the last loyalty of the human race

,

to its own highest moral standards. She is the steel barrier
of Christianity against the overwhelming. invasion of the
corrupting neo-paganism of our times.."
l had lunch recently with a prominent Freemason, the

Grand Master of his Lodge. He is a relative of, mine, a
Protestant, who was 'divorced and remarried. On one occa­
sion he had said to me, "I know you're right, old chap,
and I'll probably become a Catholic some, day. But not
yet." However he was not lost to all sense of justice. And
at the lunch I have, mentioned he told me of this incident. '

"I was talking to a fellow Mason one day," he said,
"when he, began to voice his objections to the Catholic
Church, declaring that he could not stand her intoler­
ance."

"I dislike the Catholic Church for the same reason as

yourself," I said to him. "Do you know why we dislike her
so much?"

"Why?" he asked.
"Because," I answered, "she tells us we musn't do the

wrong things we want to do. Let's get the record straight.
No one ever leaves the Catholic Church in order to become

4



better. And if a man drops His Catholic religion because it
forbids his own rotten conduct it is because he himself is no

good, not because there's anything wrong with his religion.
I have never known anyone to abandon the Catholic reli­

gion and be the better for doing so, whilst no one has ever
sincerely. become a Catholic except for higher ideals than
he had before. And if we can't bring ourselves to admit
that, we can at least have the grace to be silent on the
subject."

)

My friend's fellow Mason did not pursue the conversa­
tion. But it is not difficult to understand the impression
non-Catholics have of the intolerance of the Catholic
Church. If they haven't the Catholic Faith, what else are
they to think? Take the position.

The Catholic Church knows that she is unique, the one
divinely-authorized custodian of the Truth revealed by
God in Jesus Christ. People are shocked by her claim to be
the one true Church; but she makes that claim-she is the
only one that does-and she is ready to prove it by the
evidence of Sacred Scripture, of history, and of reason.
Logically, she. makes equally uncompromising claims upon
the lives of her members. She demands that, as men went
from God in the first place by disobedience, so they will
retrace their steps by obedience. If religion is to get us
back to God, that must be the very essence of religion. It
was certainly the very essence of the life of Christ Himself
whose motto had been written in advance, "Behold I come
to do Thy Will, O God."

It is this Catholic religion which has been, and is, to mil­
lions of people the light of their minds and the pledge of
their salvation. For Catholic worship is all to one purpose­
to make us better, to unite us to God, to console and
strengthen us in the trials of life, to ensure our happiness

5



in heaven. It's the only philosophy worth while-religion
perfecting the complete human being, body and soul, mind
and heart.for time and eternity.

That is the religion to which all baptized Catholics be­
long, the missing ones as well as those who have refused to
drift.

GLORIOUS TRADITIONS
The missing ones, who have never known any other reli­

gion than that of their baptism, and who perhaps know
very little beyond the fact that they ought to be Catholics,
owe even that much to the heroic and unswerving fidel­
ity of a long line of Catholics before them. For if you are
one of the missing Catholics today, you are at least a
descendant of those who kept the Faith in the past, often
enduring incredible sufferings and privations rather than
forsake it. They are the non-Catholics who are the de­
scendants of those who abandoned their religion under
the stress of persecution. That story, of course, could lead
us a long way back.

The early Christians, during the first three hundred
years when it was death to be a Catholic, braved all penal­
ties and took all .risks rather than desert the same Faith
as that which we profess.

Nearer to hand is the Protestant Reformation period. In
the face of the most violent measures of repression, con­
fiscation of property, and threats to their lives, nations like
Ireland and Poland, large sections of Germany and HoI·
land, though only a handful, alas, in England and Scot­
land, . remained true to their Catholic inheritance. Their
fidelity to their religion did not mean less loyalty to their

. country, generosity and devotedness in its service, and
courage in its defense. But they had a loyalty to God and

6



to their conscience which they were determined also to
maintain; and the faith of succeeding generations of Cath­
olics was a legacy made possible by their fidelity.

I am very conscious, as a convert, when speaking to those
whose forefathers remained true to the Faith, that I myself

.

am a descendant of those who deserted it. Who is the

son of renegades, that he should urge the children of the
martyrs to stand firm? Yet I do not often presume to do

that. This particular booklet is quite exceptional. For my
life-work has been almost invariably directed towards those
still in the ranks of those from whom I came, the ranks of

those born of non-Catholic parents and who, through no
fauIt of their own, have neither known Catholicism nor

dreamed that there they might find the Truth.

APOSTOLATE TO NON-CATHOLICS

For over a quarter of a century now my main duty has
been that of replying by radio to inquiriesabout the Catho­
lic religion submitted by the general public. And that, of
course, ties one down to the isolated and disconnected

problems each listener wants to hear discussed. However,
I have also been able to undertake many missions to non­

Catholics when a much more comprehensive presentation
of the Catholic religion has been possible.

It is in such missions above all that one can enkindle a

hunger for Catholicism in the hearts of those who have
never known it, a new desire which gives them no peace
until they too ·possess this greatest of all God's blessings to
mankind. Catholics attending such missions have bene­
fitted greatly from them. How many of them have said,
"Father, I have learned more about my religion hearing
it explained to others than I ever knew before!" But such
missions are not primarily for them. They are for the

7



"other sheep" whom Our Lord wills also to be brought
into the one fold of the Catholic Church. And hundreds
of converts have resulted from them. As one of them
put it, "I went away feeling that I was missing ever so
much by not being a Catholic!"

To instruct and receive converts into the Church is a
source of perpetual edification, and often of astonishment.
They come so humbly. "Father, I don't know what I have
ever done to deserve so great a grace as this," one will
say. Or again, "I don't know how I lived all those years
without being a Catholic.',' Or another, "Now I must set
to work and make up for lost time. I'll never overtake your
good Catholics who have had the Faith since childhood
and have been able to receive Holy Communion all their
lives !'"

These converts firmly believe they have discovered a joy
which has been the life-long experience of the born Catho­
lic; as it could and should be, were every Catholic to take
his religion seriously. Read what some of them have had
to say!

JOY OF CONVERTS
"Every hour," wrote Frederick William Faber, "so aug­

ments inward peace that I cannot but yearn that those I
love should enjoy the same privileges with myself. A new
light seems to be shed on everything-a light so clear as
to surprise me."

"From the time I became a Catholic," Cardinal Newman
wrote in his turn, "I have been in perfect peace and con­
tentment. It was Iike coming into port after a rough
sea."

Father Maturin said, of his own experience, "There has
been an ever-deepening sense of security, with moments

8



of intense realization of the glory and strength of the City
of God, whose walls are salvation and whose gates are

peace."
"The Church promises a great deal," exclaimed Robert

Hugh Benson, "but my experience is that she gives ten
times more. The Catholic Church is supremely what she

promises to be. She is the priceless pearl for which the
greatest sacrifice is not too great."

"The Church is fairer than we dared to dream," de­
clared Kegan Paul, "and my first fervor was as nothing
to what I feel now. Day by day the mystery of the Altar
seems greater, the unseen world nearer, God more a Father,
Our Lady more tender, the great company of the Saints
more friendly, my Guardian Angel closer to my side."

IMMENSE SACRIFICES

"No sacrifice is too great," said Benson. Thousands of
converts have had that conviction, I have seen staggering
sacrifices made by converts I myself have received into
the Church; relatives alienated, friends lost, legacies for­

feited, business prospects ruined. With St. Paul, as Mon­

signor Knox gives us his words, they have said, "There is

nothing I do not write down as loss compared with the

high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For love
of Him I have lost everything, treat everything else as
refuse, if I may have Christ to my credit." Phil:, III, 8.

How many times I have said to careless Catholics, "If

you had had to make anything like the sacrifices to keep
your faith which so many converts have made to become

a Catholic, you would not throw your religion away as

though it were worthless! But you have not appreciated
it, you have just taken it for granted, because you got it too
easily, too cheaply."

9



So often they are those who have been without it who
know how to make the best use of it when they get it. But
surely everyone bearing the Catholic name would agree
that it shouldn't be so, and that those who have had the
Faith all their lives should be the ones who have grown
into the greater appreciation of it!

HOSTILITY OF UNBELIEVERS

The enemies of the Catholic Church certainly do not
take her cheaply! They are not indifferent to her, and
wanting in enthusiasm in their efforts to bring about het
destruction. Throughout the world atheists, secularists,
and communists wage continual war against her. Com­
munists, of .course, wherever they are in power have come
right out into the open.

A Catholic girl, recently escaped from Hungary, tells
how she went to church one Sunday morning -in her
entirely Catholic village. But, with all the other Catholics
arriving for Mass, she found the doors of the building
closed, a Communist guard lined up to prevent the people
from entering, and on the door of the church a great
placard: "THIS CHURCH IS CLOSED-BECAUSE
THERE IS NO GOD."

But in our own democracies secularists, unbelieving mate­
rialists, are no less active. In season and out of season,
in books, newspapers, and from public platforms, they
seek to undermine Christian principles and practices, con­
centrating their attention on the Catholic Church which
they instinctively recognize as the last stronghold of the
Christian religion in this world.

Theirs is the new paganism with which Catholics have
to contend, as the early Christians had to contend with
the paganism of the ancient Roman world. It is not a

10



conflict between morality and immorality-a conflict with
people accepting Christian teaching but not living up to
it. It is a conflict between two different moralities, secular
and Christian. The one holds that man is but an animal,
with no future beyond this life, and no obligation to live
as if he were not a mere animal. The other holds that
man is a child of God consisting of a body and of a soul
made in God's image and likeness, a soul immortal of its
very nature and destined to live on forever in a state of
eternal happiness or eternal misery according to the way
in which he has behaved during his time of probation on
earth.

'

But the fight against the sheer and dreary, yet very
militant irreligion of the secularists is not the only battle
to be fought.

RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY

Unfortunately, sympathizing with the attack upon the
Catholic Church by complete unbelievers, religious pre­
judice and bigotry have joined forces with them. If ever
people knew not what they were doing, they are those
non-Catholics who, whilst professing to be Christians, seek
in every way to discredit and destroy the Catholic Church.
For if she goes, their churches go also.

What can one say of them? Is their hatred of the Catho­
lic religion so much greater than their love for Christ that
they are willing to become friends with the enemies of all
religion in the hope of wrecking the Catholic Church?
Inevitably one thinks of Herod and Pilate, who became
friends as Christ Himself went to His death!

After his conversion, G. K. Chesterton wrote a book on
the things that would have made him a Catholic, if he
had not already bècome one. Certainly the diabolical hatred

11



of the Catholic Church, whether on the part of secularist
unbelievers or of those who are the victims of. unreasoning
religious prejudice and blind bigotry, would have been
sufficient to make me suspect the truth of the Catholic
Church had I myself not been moved by other considera­
tions to become a Catholic.

In the early Church many converts from paganism owed
their conversion to the very sight of the violent and irra­
tional hatred for the name of Christ. They were led to
study His life and claims. They found that He was good­
ness itself, and incapable of speaking anything but the'
truth. Only the rebellious principle of evil which abomin­
ates God could explain the infernal hatred of which He
was the object. They were shocked into taking sides. And
being men of good will, on the side of decency and virtue,
they felt that they had no choice but to become Christians.

The same thing is happening today. There are those who
have se�n that the same forces which have given rise to a
hatred of Christ through all the ages are directed in a
peculiar way against the Catholic Church as against no
other' institution in this world. This phenomenon has
started them on their enquiries. And they have ended by
becoming Catholics.

THE MAN WHO CAME BACK
But not only non-Catholics have reacted in such a way.

Many a careless Catholic has been driven back to the
fervent practice of his religion by a sudden advertence to
the issues at stake.

I remember the case of one Catholic man, a railway ern­
ployee, who had been transferred away from home to a
country center as a machinist fitter in the railway depot
workshop there. In his new surroundings he dropped his

12



religion in practice, neither making himself known to the
local priest, nor attending Mass. None of his fellow workers
was so much as aware that he was a Catholic. No letters

of mine, written to him at the request of his parents,
seemed to have any effect upon him.

One day, however, during the lunch hour, the Catholic
Church came up for discussion; and such a tirade of abuse

against Catholics and their religion, such a stream of vile
calumnies against priests and nuns, poured from the lips
of one of the men, that the Catholic was shocked out of

his lethargy and indifference. He told the offender what
he thought of him. He told the others what lying calumnies
they had just heard. He professed himself to be a Catholic
-a bad one till then, but not henceforth. The next week­
end saw him at confession and Mass and Holy Communion.
And he has never looked back.

"In that moment," he wrote to me, "I was made to
realize that I was either a Catholic or a traitor; as much
an enemy of the Church as any other-even worse. I

had to take sides, arid I wasn't going to be one of that
crew. So I've returned to the Sacraments-to stay. I've had

my lesson."

GREAT RESPONSIBILITY

We Catholics have a responsibility. To us has been en­
trusted the interests of the Kingdom of God on earth, in
the face of a world hatred of us Christ predicted and in

spite of the opposition of even religiously-minded people
misguided enough to think they do God a service by hin­

dering us in every possible way.
We can't get away from that responsibility. We have

been baptized as Catholics. Just as we have been born into
human society and must accept our social duties, so we

13



have been born into that great spiritual society known as
the Catholic Church by a supernatural re-birth, and must
accept the duties proper to that society also. We walk in
two societies, the nation and the Church, with two sets
of duties to be fulfilled.

It was an infidel who said, "Did I firmly believe, as mil­
lions say they do, that the knowledge and practice of reli­
gion in this life influences destiny in another, religion
would be to me everything. It would be my first waking
thought, and my last image before sleep sank me into
unconsciousness. I would strive to look upon eternity alone,
and on the immortal souls around me, soon to be everlast­

ingly miserable or everlastingly happy."
Certainly if the Catholic Church is to do her work the

first thing necessary is for her own members to equip
themselves and stand firm. The Church desperately needs
Catholics who take their religion seriously, and who are
militant in their fight against unchristian and antichristian
influences, zealous in their positive efforts to observe
Christian principles in their personal conduct, and !o dif­
fuse them in the home circle, in commercial, professional
and national life.

"The Barque of Peter," said an old sea-captain who

happened to be an excellent Catholic, "is no tourist ship,
but a freighter. She has no room for passengers; only crew.
And it's a case of all hands on deck."

The "love of Christ urges us," said St. Paul. By His good­
ness to us He has placed us under an enormous obliga­
tion which it is for us to try to realize-and to repay.

SWlMlV.IING UPSTREAM

No one could pretend for a moment, of course, that all
Catholics even attempt to fulfill their obligation. I com-

14



menced this booklet by speaking of the "missing" Catho­
lics. They, alas, are legion. In all our big cities, and scat­
tered �p and down the country, are hosts of Catholics
known to be such only by themselves-and God. They are
missing from their Church, unacquainted with their priest,
unrecorded in diocesan statistics.

What are the causes of this tragedy? .To put the ques­
tion directly to missing Catholics, why have you. drifted
away from the practice of your religion?

There is, I know, the paralyzing influence of the secular
environment in which we live. The external changes in the
world are as nothing compared with the change that has
come over men's souls.

We live in a world of "shaking foundations and dis­
solving loyalties." Secularism has swept through the ranks
of the society in which we live and move and have our
very being. National and international authorities ignore

-

religion. Books, newspapers, films-all conspire to promote
the struggle. for and enjoyment of material welfare to the
forgetfulness of God. The wave of popular indifference to
religion creates the impression that destiny doesn't' really
depend on religious considerations; that they are not essen­
tial; that one can take them or leave them as one pleases.

Well, it's easier, undoubtedly, to go with the current than
swim against it. But to deplore the moral and spiritual
breakdown of our civilization-as so many even amongst
the missing Catholics do-and also forsake the practice
of one's religion is surely no way to make things better.

it may take an effort; but the only thing to do is to
turn' and swim against the tide sweeping so relentlessly on
towards the abyss of irreligion and despair.

15



KNOW YOUR RELIGION!
"But I don't know anything about my religion" has often

been said by missing Catholics.
I must confess that I have never heard that plea with­

out a good deal of sympathy for those who make it. There
are thousands of people in this country whose-parents had
enough faith to get them baptized, but not enough faith
to bother teaching them their religion. And to be sent to
state schools where religion was expressly excluded from
the subjects taught did not help, to say the least. 80 it can
easily be that many a Catholic has left school and set out
on life with little or no real knowledge of his religion, and
still less training in its duties.

But such a boy or girl still remains a Catholic. And there
is no reason why one's lack of knowledge of religion should
not be made good in later years. We try to improve our
knowledge of ever so many things inadequately taught us
at school. Why take it for granted that a child's knowledge
-such as it is-should be enough to see U,s through life
where our religion is concerned?

Surely the effort to remedy ignorance of our religion
would be well worth while. A Catholic boy, after many
years of study to fit himself for the priesthood, leaves home
and country to go to the foreign. missions. There he has
to set to work to learn a new and difficult language. Then,
in a climate that is bad, and fever rampant, with barely
the necessaries of life provided for him, certainly with no
worldly advantages, he devotes all his energies to spreading
a knowledge of the Catholic Faith amongst pagan tribes.
If he is prepared to endure such self-sacrifice that others
may obtain a knowledge of the Catholic religion, should
not ill-instructed Catholics at home go to the much less
trouble of securing a sound knowledge of it for themselves?

16



Or take another case. A young and good-hearted Protes­
tant lad, of about eighteen years of age, met a blind
Catholic man and offered to visit him occasionally in order
to read to him. One day the blind man wanted a pamphlet
about the Catholic religion read to him. So impressed was
the Protestant good Samaritan by the contents of that
one booklet, that he obtained and read for himself every
Caholic booklet he could lay hands upon. He sought in..
struction from a priest, was received into the Church, and
went on with his studies until there were few Catholic lay­
men who had anything like his knowledge of their religion.
They envied him his knowledge, his fervor, and his en­
thusiasm for it. But it did not seem to enter their heads
thatthey could become equally proficient in their religion
did they take the same interest in' it.

Why should not the born Catholic re-study his religion
in his adult years, with the greater understanding of it
which is then possible, just as every convert has had to
study it? I have even heard Catholics say wistfully that
converts make the best Catholics. But there is no earthly
reason why that should be so; and it would not be so-if
it is so-had all Catholics made the same efforts to know
and understand their religion as converts in their efforts'
to get it.

nIF THAT'S WHAT RELIGION MEANS!"
There are, of course, many other reasons given by miss­

ing Catholics for their neglect of religious duties. But we
all know, even as they themselves-in their heart of
hearts-s-know the answer to them.

For example, there are those who point to the poor lives
and the bad example given by many who regularly attend
church and fulfil their religious obligations of worship. And

17



they will say, "Tf that's what religion means, I don't want
it." But they know quite well that that's not what the
Catholic religion means.

During the years before I became a Catholic I had often
said that Catholics are a pretty poor lot in practice, and
that the history of their Church is a quarry from which
scandals can be unearthed almost at will. And I still say

it, though now without losing sight of the other side of
the picture.

One who knows the teaching of Christ and the proverbial
weakness of human nature soon gets over the shock of dis­

edifying lives. It was Christ Himself who said, "It must
needs be that scandals will come." But He did not forget
to add, "Nevertheless, woe to that man by whom the scan­
dal cometh." Not for a moment would He sanction the

scandals. Nor does the Catholic Church. However gentle
she may be towards sinners, she is adamant in condemning
the sin. Meantime, she knows what the Catholic religion
can do in the Saints. Where that religion fails to secure
such results, it has been held in check by the evil propensi­
ties or the human frailties of those who have resisted its

influence.
But how unfair is the attitude of those who make the

faults of others an excuse for their own laxity should be
evident. No man refuses to join even a political party be­
cause he happens to like or not like someone who belongs
to it instead of examining the party's program.

Let us take the Catholic religion as it is in itself. On
the twentieth anniversary of his reception into the Church,
Monsignor Ronald Knox answered the question as to
whether he was disappointed with the Catholic Church
after having made its closer acquaintance. And his reply
went something like this: "Am I disappointed? With my-

18



self, yes; for when 1 was received into the Church it seem­
ed that there was nothing left for me now but to become a
saint, and I'm far from that yet. With Catholics, yes; for
they are not half as good as they ought to be with so won­
derful a religion; with priests, yes; even as they are all
disappointed with themselves. With the Catholic Church,
no; she is the one true Church she has ever claimed to be."

Missing Catholics ought to ask themselves, in turn, some
questions, If the reality at times does not seem to correspond
with the ideal, are things improved by our abandoning
the Church also, and helping to make the contrast still
more glaring? And whom does one hurt by the neglect of
one's own religious duties? Not those of whose conduct we
complain. Their sins are not remedied by our sinning too.
They are not converted by our sharing in their infidelity.
The only ones we hurt are Our Lord, our own souls, and all
whom our own bad example helps to lead astray. The
wrong ones are being punished-and fruitlessly?

"MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!"

One excuse not uncommonly heard is: "I don't attend
church any more, because the priests are always asking for
money."

Well, for whom do they ask it? For themselves? Or for
the poor, for our children in the schools, for foreign mis­
sions, for works of charity, for the glory of God's House?
They have to let us know what is needed, for that is their
responsibility. But if we give of the possessions our life
makes possible, the priest gives still more, himself, his
life, renouncing an earthly career and family affections.
Moreover, everyone knows that no Catholic is asked to give
more than he can afford.

But if there were anything in this excuse, it would be as
19



valid for good Catholics as for the careless ones; and the

good ones have never made this charge a reason for neg
..

lecting fidelity in their religious duties to God. In a spirit
of deep faith and with spontaneous generosity they have

delighted in supporting their Church.
"I've never been the poorer for giving to God, Father,"

said an old Catholic working man to me one day, "and
I've certainly never yet heard of anyone going bankrupt
through doing so."

There is something in casting your bread upon the
waters!

"I'M NO GOOD!"

To the credit of most missing Catholics it must be said
that they refuse to fall back on the shortcomings of others
as an excuse for their own neglect. More often they will

say, "What's the use of going to church? I can't live up
to it, and I'm not going to be a hypocrite and pretend
I do." One has at least to admire the honesty and humility
of the admission that die fault lies in oneself.

But to go to Mass is not to pretend to be a saint! Nor
need there be a trace of hypocrisy in such an external
fulfilment of religious duties. The Pharisee may have
been a hypocrite; but the publican wasn't; though both

equally went into the Temple-"the publican to pray,"
as St. Augustine remarks, "the Pharisee to praise-him­
self!"

I know what you will say. "The publican was repentant
and didn't intend to go on with his sins; and I can't break
with mine." Even so, you would not necessarily be a hypo­
crite by continuing to attend Mass. Hypocrisy depends on
one's motive. If you did go to Mass in order to pretend that

you were good, you would be a hypocrite; but not if you
20



went without any such pretense, moved only by the desire
to fulfil God's law as far as you could.

The Catholic Church has always refused to become
the Church of the "elect." Arnold Lunn remarks some­
where that if a Methodist keeps a mistress he ceases to
attend his Church; but a Catholic in a similar position.
would still go to Mass even though unable to approach
the' Sacraments. He knows that the Catholic Church is for
all, sinners as well as saints.

The Catholic Church never forgets her Divine Founder's
words, "I come to call, not the just who need not re­
pentance, but sinners." So she bids sinners come, not be­
cause they are good, but because they should want to be
good, and because she knows how to deal with their
sins. If they don't become good quickly enough, and she
is reproached for the low standards of so many who fre­
quent her services, she has her answer in the legion of saints
through all the ages.

I remember an old priest going 'round his parish taking
the census. He came to the house of a man who at first
denied that he was a Catholic. But the man didn't do it
too convincingly and the priest pressed the question as to
his religion,

"Well, Father," the man, said, "if you must know, I'm
a Catholic-or supposed to be one. But you may as well
wipe me off. I'm no good."

The old priest's eyes softened at once. "For that matter,
I'm not much good myself," he said, "but if we can't do
what we can't do, that's no reason why we shouldn't do
what we can do. I'm trying to do what" I can do, and
that's why I'm looking you up. And you can at least come
to Mass, even if you can't do everything else. And you
can say your prayers. You know, if you're breaking one

21



commandment, that's no reason why you should break the
lot. There's no point in telling God that you might as
well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. Be as generous
as you can with God, and He'll find a way to be generous
to you in the end, believe me."

The man believed him, and went regularly to Mass
after that; and the day came when he made his peace
with God, returned to the Sacraments, and more than
experienced the generosity of God upon which the old
priest had promised. him he could rely.

THE GREATEST INJUSTICE
Does the fulfilment of our religious duties matter?

Of course it matters! More than anything else. What we
do about it is the most important fact in our human exist­
ence, Our religious duties are the most valuable of all the
things we do. For they alone enable us to transcend an
ignoble self-love; and upon our acceptance or rejection of
them our very eternity depends.

A man may sin through human frailty in other ways­
a frailty for which God is prepared to make every possible
allowance. But the omission of religious duties is a cold,
calculating form of injustice which can make no claim
to such consideration. And if, as Holy Scripture says, the
very pagans were guilty because they did not worship God
as they should; if the Jews were guilty-guilty to the
extent of forfeiting their inheritance; how much more
guilty are Catholics who today claim that inheritance as
their own, yet neglect the greatest of its obligations-to
render due and fitting worship to God?

It is not that God needs our worship. But not to render
. that worship is the greatest possible injustice on our part;

and God cannot want us to be unjust. If we pay butcher
22



and baker and grocer for the food by which we maintain
life, how much more ready we should be to make a due
return to God for the life that food maintains?

Religion is the highest form of justice, inspiring us to
render due acknowledgment to God. That is why, in
giving us the ten commandments in the right order of im­
portance, God Himself devoted the first three of them to
our obligations towards Himself. He insists that we ac­
knowledge Him to be the one and only true God t that
we hold Him in due reverence; and that we regularly
fulfill our duties of religious worship.

To have no religion, then, is a very evil thing, the great­
est of all dishonesties. And is it not a striking fact .that
even irreligious parents would not take from their own
children what they expect God to take from them? What
parents, would permit their children to ignore them com­
pletely and treat them as if they did not so much as exist?

THE CAUSE OF CHRIST

Look again at what our religion means. After all, we
are Christians. We believe that "God so loved the world
as to give His only-begotten Son:' "Man," said St. Augus­
tine, "owed God so great a debt that he could not pay;
therefore God became man and as man paid man's debt."
It meant a life of suffering, ending in His death. It seems
almost incredible that any Catholic could believe that the

Eternal Son of God went to so much trouble on our be­

half, yet not even go to the trouble of taking his religion
seriously.

Remember who Christ is. You have but to grant a single
point-that He was not the greatest liar and blasphemer
who ever set foot in this world. For, if not, then He was
what He claimed to be-God; and all that He declares

23



will happen is going to happen. He will come to judge
the living and the dead.

To His Church we Catholics belong. And that Church
is not merely a mechanical machine of cogs running under
a single central motor. She is a living organism, of which
we are living cells, every cell contributing to her health
and vitality,

But there are degrees of life, spiritually as well as
physically. After the last war, Europe was swarming with
orphaned and vagabond children, living by scavenging .

.

But they were only just alive, poor, thin, emaciated, un­
dernourished, with no glow of health, no vigor of life.
Spiritually, also, there are Catholics like that, with no glow
of fervor, no desire of virtue, no taste for the things of God,
no longing for heaven. They are spiritually ill, half-dead.

Well, God pas given us the Faith; but He won't compel
us to live it. And no one else can live our lives for us.

It is for each one of .us to do his part. And how neces­

sary it is that each should do so! True, the Catholic
Church cannot die. Our Lord has promised that. But she
can lose power as life and vitality fail in anyone of us.
She can be weaker in one age than in another. And she is

weaker when slothful and careless Catholics abound.

The cause of Christ is, then, the cause of every Catho­
lic without exception. Every missing Catholic lets Him down
and weakens the Church.

BEGIN· HERE

The rrussmg Catholic may ask, "But where shall I

begin?" To that I would say, "At least begin by taking up
the duty of prayer." It may need an effort at first, because
you have got out of the habit of it. But you will grow into

it. We learn to pray by praying, as a child learns to walk

24



by walking. If you have forgotten your prayers, get a
prayer-book.

One thing is certain. Prayer is absolutely necessary. God
has made the welfare of our soul depend upon it, even as
He has made our bodily life dependent upon the air we
breathe. "Alas for the man too busy to pray," exclaimed
Cardinal Manning, "for he is too busy to save his soul."

Christ Himself 'both set us the example of prayer and
taught us the necessity of it. Whatever else He Himself
did, He prayed. "Rising early, He 'went to a desert place
and there He prayed." "He ascended into a mountain
alone to pray." He spent "the whole night in pray;er."
"Being in an agony, He prayed the longer." And to us He
says, "Watch and pray." "Ask and you shall receive."

Secondly, if you do not already go, resume your attend­
ance at Mass at least on Sundays and Holy Days of obliga­
tion. The fulfilment of the religious duty of assistance at
the public and corporate worship of God in our churches
is essential. It is by such attendance that we publicly
acknowledge the duty of religion, publicly profess our
belief as Catholics, make public admission of the need of
God's help. To neglect Mass is to give our vote that God
shall be forgotten.

The mystery is that any Catholic can ,bring himself to
miss Mass. We know the price our Catholic ancestors paid
rather than allow themselves to be robbed of it. At the
time of the Protestant Reformation in England, _ St. John
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, challenged Cranmer-with the
protest, "He who would abolish the Mass plots no less a
calamity than would be the destruction of the very sun
from the heavens."

Even a non-Catholic of our own times, Augustine Birrell,
wrote in the "Nineteenth Century" magazine, "Nobody

25



nowadays save a handful of vulgar fanatics speaks ir­
reverently of the Mass. If indeed the Incarnation be the
one divine event to which the whole creation moves, the

miracle o� the Altar may well seem its restful shadow
cast over a dry and thirsty land for the help of man . . .
It is the Mass that matters; it is the Mass that makes the
difference."

Thirdly, let us read all we can about our Faith, and im­
prove our knowledge of it. And let us do our best to live
up to its ideals in our personal daily lives. In that, of
course, we shall. be only more or less successful. We are
not saints. We have our human frailties. But we must

try. As the old priest I have mentioned earlier said, "If
we .can't do what we can't do, we can do what we can
do," and if we are faithful to our personal prayers and
to our assistance at Mass, these religious practices will
gradually emancipate us from slavish subjection to tem­
poral and passing material things, help us to recover our
sense of true values, and let into our lives the light of
spiritual realities.

THIS WORLD NOT ALL

The more we think, the more we see the necessity of this
recovery of our sense of true values.

It may be that our civilization will perish unless people
turn to God. But the real reason for a return to God is

that He wants us and we need Him. In Him alone will

we find a purpose great enough to satisfy the innate long­
ings which are part of our very nature. Man lives by
bread, but not by bread alone. He hungers for faith and
hope and love. And his faith must be faith in something,
in someone.

Communists speak of the Christian hope as "Pie in the

26



sky when you die." But everyone knows that to be a
caricature; that it's not "pie," nor in the "sky," that awaits
us. However there are many who are not communists, yet
who refuse to look beyond this life at all. "Give me enough
to eat and drink, a decent home, and a wife or husband
as the case may be; and a certain amount of enjoyment,
and that's all I ask of life."

But that's all an animal asks-food, shelter, a mate, and
a bit of play when young. And we are not mere animals.
The man who lives like that may say, "Well, I'm happy;"
but he is not half as happy as he is meant to be. He is
neither putting into life nor getting out of it anything
like what he could. He is missing the real meaning and
direction of life, and will end having had no serious pur­
pose, having done no particular good, and having a judg­
ment to face for having rejected the one hope of his salva­
tion.

AND THEN THE JUDGMENT.
The eternal truths are realities, whatever we choose to

do about them. Thus all admit that death comes to every­
body, and that they too must die. But many refuse to be­
lieve this in practice and behave as if they were going to
live forever and never die. Yet the shadow of death is

always there; and the dread of what lies beyond it is
never really lifted from us, however little we can bear
to think about it.

So, too, the great facts of the Incarnation and of the
Catholic Church remain the same, whether we take notice
of them or not. But to behave as if the Incarnation had
never happened, and as if Our Lord had' never gone to the
trouble of establishing His Church .at all; to behave as' if
these things had nothing whatever to do with you, is a very

27



great sin. "When the Holy Ghost is come," Our Lord said,
"He will convince the world of sin, because they believed
not in Me." It is true that people whose eyes are dim to
God are little concerned about their sins. Conscience can be

repressed so that its voice is scarcely heard. People can
even pretend to themselves that what is wrong is right,
when they wish to do it. But God's law is still there, and
is still what it is.

Can we help asking ourselves whether God is satisfied
with us, and whether it matters whether He is or not?
He is going to ask us some day what we have made of
our religion; what our religion has meant to us, and we
to it. And there is a judgment, with a possible sentence of
eternal condemnation. If you say, "I don't worry about
the next world," then spare yourself having to worry about
it when you're in it. Use this life as a preparation for it­
a brief period during which you are free to ensure for your­
self eternal happiness, instead of the loss of it and all
that that will mean.

DAY-DREAMS WON'T DO

Every Catholic-even the missing, Catholic-finds himself
thinking at times along these lines. For things happen that
bring home to him the fact that his faith is not dead yet.

A young garage hand, who had been coming to me for
instructions during several months, on hearing that I was
to go away to a distant place for quite a time, begged me
to receive him ·into the Church before I went. The only
opportunity was on the following Tuesday morning, which
would mean his being late on the job that day.

"I'll manage it, Father," he said. "The boss isn't a
Catholic, and we're very busy. But I think I'll be able to'
get around him."

28



The lad turned up at the appointed time and was duly
received into the Church. Afterwards I said to him, "The
boss didn't mind?" "Not in the end," he said.' "But
when I first mentioned it to him, he just exploded. Liter­
ally shouted that we were behind with everything, that
he wasn't going to have any slackers hanging· around his
shop, and that he wouldn't hear of it. When I could get
a word in, I told him that I was going to become a Catho­
lic, that the priest was going away, and the only chance
he had to receive .me into the Church was this morning.
You should have, seen the change that came oyer him. He
stopped as if somebody had hit him on the head with a
hammer. Then he put out his hand and said, 'God bless

you, Bob. You can, have a week off for that if you need

it. I only hope' you'll be a better .Catholic than' I am'.
Then he just turned awa.y and left me breathless. No one
in the place had ever guessed that he was a Catholic. It's
wonderful where they turn 'up, Father, when you come to
think of it!"

That boss was a typical missing Catholic; faith enough to
be happy in the thought ot others becoming Catholics, yet
not conviction enough to live up to his religion himself.
Or maybe there was nothing wrong with his convictions.
He had just drifted away, 'still hoping that all would come
right. in the end-a hope very near to presumption, ever
liable to fall into the other extreme of despair.

Cardinal Manning has well described such types. "Men
are ever beguiling themselves," he writes, "with a dream
that they shall be what they are not now; they hope one
day to be different; they balance their present conscious­
ness of a low worldly life, and of' a mind heavy and dull
to spiritual things, with the lazy thought that some day
God will bring home to them in power the realities of faith

29



in Christ. So men dream away their lives in pleasure,
sloth; trade or study. Who is there that has not at some
time secretly indulged this soothing flattering, that the
staid gravity of age, when youth is quelled; or the leisure
of retirement; when the fret of busy life is over; or, it may
be, the inevitable pains and griefs which are man's in­
heritance, shall one day break up in his heart the now
sealed fountain of repentance and make at last his religion
a reality? Who pas not allayed the uneasy consciousness
of a meager religion with the hope of a future change?
Who has not been mocked by the enemy of mankind,
the enemy of every 'man? Who has not listened, all too
readily, to him 'who would cheat us of the hour that is, and
of the spiritual earnings which. faith makes day by day
in God's service, stealing from us the present hour that is,
and leaving. us a lie in exchange?"

How well Ì remember being called to the death-bed of
a military officer who had abandoned the Protestantism
of his youth for a life of complete irreligion! In his last
lingering illness from cancer of the lungs and throat, due
to his having been gassed during the first World War, he
had taken up the study of the Catholic religion. As a re­
sult he asked to be received into the Catholic Church. But

the new realization of the things that really matter drew
from him the remark, "Well, Father, I'm saving my soul,
but' I've lost my life. That life I used for myself as long
as it was any good to me. But now it's of no use any more,
I'm giving God the dregs. I wish to God I had been a
Catholic as a boy. Things would have been very different
then."

30



THE ONLY CHOICE

Surely the only sensible choice is to take up our religion
and to make the most of it whilst the opportunity is ours.

We are living in the midst of a serious emergency, a
time of economic and social troubles both national and
international. And there are those who' say that these
anxieties are more than enough to occupy their thoughts­
that .it will be time enough to think about religion when
things get better. But what made the emergency? Not the

.

things we see. "Evil dispositions in the souls of men have
been the main cause of all the troubles. And the problems
will be there until we put our souls right=-which can only
be when our souls are right with God.

.'

How to go about that, we Catholics know. The Catho­
lic Church still lives, and is the one true Church. She is
the Church of the centuries, ,from which the Western
nations departed with anything but a blessing to themselves,
and in drifting from which no individual Catholic has
yet found true happiness.

Faith in his religion, attendance at Mass, reception of
the Sacraments, personal prayer,' efforts to live up to the
commandments of God and to, the ptecepts of the Church
-these are the things that alone dm give happiness to
the soul of the Catholic; and even in this life, not to
speak of the next.

So we come to the end of this little' book, in the writing
of which I myself have been æprey to many varied senti­
ments in 'turn.

For a Catholic cannot dwellon the thought of the Catho­
lic Church to which he belongs without pride in ail that'
she is in herself, indignation that her enemies should utter ·
such vile calumnies against her and seek only to do her

31



injury, a renewed love for the high ideals she ever puts
before him, shame and a sense of guilt that in his own life
he should fall so far short of them, and 'a wistful longing
for those loftier standards' in practice which his better­
self cannot but approve.

And is there a missing Catholic who has read these pages
unmoved in any or all of these ways? I do not believe it. I
have mentioned the taunt: "Y0!l're a Catholic, and you'll
never be anything else." .That is' true; though it" is not an,
insult, as bitterly 'prejudiced people imagine, but a com­
pliment. We appreciate it as such. But can one be a Catho­
lic, and not respond to all that has been said in thisIittle
book?

Then, I would say, for the love of God, do something
about it. Determine to improve your knowledge of your
religion. Read all you can find on that subject. We all need
to do that, for the teachings of our religion will not remain
automatically alive in out memories. We need constantly
to remind ourselves of them. Take up your prayers and

your regular attendance at Mass. Go to see your priest,
and .if there are any obstacles in your way, talk them over
with him. He will explain ways and means. They may be
much smoother and easier than you at present imagine.
And the happiness awaiting you will be beyond all the, ex­
pectations with which you set out on your new program of
life as a practical Catholic,

32



BOOKLET QUIZZES TO A STREET PREACHER.
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WHAT IS THE CATHOLIC FAITH ANYWAY?
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THE MASS AND THE SEVEN SACRAl\ŒNTS.
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MAKING MARRIAGE CLICK. 15c

WHY YOU SHOULD BE A CATHOLIC. 15c

I MUST OBEY THE CHURCH, 15c

THIS WAY TO THE TRUE CHURCH, 15c

CLEAN LOVE IN COURTSHIP. 25c

FRANK YOUTH QŒZZES ON SEX. 15c

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