FREEDOM

m
DEMOCRACY

A Study of their Enemies

by

Fulton J. Sheen





FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY
A Study of their Enemies

by

The Right Reverend Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen, Ph. D.,

LL. D., Agrege en Philosophic, University of Louvain,

Belgium; the Catholic University of America.

Six addresses delivered in the Catholic Hour, produced

by the National Council of Catholic Men, through the

courtesy of the National Broadcasting Company

and associated stations.

(On Sundays from January 3 to February 7, 1937)

Page

January 3 The Church and the State 5

January 10 Freedom 13

January 17 The Spirit and Unity 21

January 24 Opportunity 28

January 31 Responsibility ... 35

February 7 Spirituality 43

National Council of Catholic Men

Producer of the Catholic Hour

1312 Massachusetts Avenue,

Washington, D. C.

Printed and distributed by Our Sunday Visitor

Huntington, Indiana



IMPRIMATUR:

JOHN FRANCIS NOLL, D. D.,

Bishop of Fort Waynt

Deaddified



TO

MARY IMMACULATE

MOTHER OF MERCY

AND

REFUGE OF SINNERS WHO CRUCIFY





THE CHURCH AND THE STATE
Address delivered on January 3, 1937.

Greetings and blessings to you all. I hope your

New Year will be prosperous, so that being released

from material wants, your soul may be free to pur-

sue those spiritual needs which only God can supply.

It is hard to pray on an empty stomach, but it is

harder to be happy on an empty heart. In order that

both may be easy, may God grant you a Prosperous

and Happy New Year.

We are beginning this year a radio course en-

titled Our Wounded World, which will be concerned

principally with a new philosophy of life which robs

man of his freedom because it robs him of God.

Today we are concerned principally with two

points: (1) how that philosophy arose, with partic-

ular reference to the State; and (2) how
T

it affects

the Church.

How did the new philosophy arise? It arose as a

reaction against what might be called Individualism,

or the theory that man is independent of social or-

der, and therefore devoid of social obligations. Dur-

ing the last few centuries since the break-up of

Christian unity, individualism has expressed itself

in many forms, each of which insisted on the private

interpretation of something. Religious individual-

ism emphasized the private interpretation of Sacred

Scripture, which ended in as many different relig-

ions as there are heads. Economic individualism

insisted on private interpretation of business. Busi-

ness said to the new religion : “If you do not want a

Church interpreting your Bible, neither do we want

a Bible interpreting our business.’’ The result was

Liberalism, which asserted that economic and politi-

cal order is independent of morality and religion.



6 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

There was also Artistic individualism, which assert-

ed the private interpretation of artistic feeling,

with the result that paintings were so very individu-

al that judges awarded prizes even to some which

were hanging upside down. Finally, there was Phil-

osophical individualism which insisted on the pri-

vate interpretation of truth and ended by identify-

ing truth with whatever is useful to the individual.

In all these forms of individualism, the individual

was presumed to be free to decide what was right

and wrong without any concern for his duty to

society.

The effect of Individualism was the isolation of

man from society
;
that is, it set up the individual as

supreme, and denied that any organic society,

whether it be the Church or the State, had any right

to suggest how a man should conduct either his life

or his business. As a matter of fact, any suggestion

of State reform was looked upon as an interference

with individual rights. The net result of this isola-

tion from society was a kind of competitive individ-

ualism in which each man became a wolf to his

neighbor. The State born of such “rugged individu-

alism” was like a policeman, having no other func-

tion than to keep others from muddling in your eco-

nomic affairs, without any regard for social control

or the good of the commonwealth, or much less, the

glory of God.

Such Individualism was selfishness; selfishness

naturally led to economic and political chaos, con-

centration of wealth in the hands of the few, and

the gradual impoverishment of the masses. The

world then reacted against Individualism, but in-

stead of resting in the golden mean, it swung to the

opposite extreme error of Collectivism.



THE CHURCH AND THE STATE 7

The word Collectivism is here used to cover those

new political movements which emphasize the mass,

the collectivity, and the State, and includes all To-

talitarian States. By this term we wish to dissipate

the fallacy which Communism is attempting to

spread, namely, that Communism and Fascism are

opposed as life is opposed to death, and that the

world today must choose between Communism and

Fascism. This is not true. Communism loosely ap-

plies the term Fascism to anything which is anti-

Communistic. It states its major Fascist enemy is

Germany. But it forgets that Communism and

Nazism agree in holding the error that the individ-

ual exists for the State which is controlled by a Dic-

tator, that both agree in the error that the individual

enjoys only those rights which the State grants, and

that both agree in the same intolerance of political

opposition, the same hatred of minorities, the same

denial of freedom of the press and the radio, and

the same insistence on monopolizing the formation

of the minds of the youth. The Fascism of Italy

however differs from the Nazism of Germany in

that it is not inimical to religion or races, and both

differ from Communism in permitting a man to

own property.

The choice then before the world is not between

Communism and Fascism. The choice is rather be-

tween a philosophy of life which respects human

dignity, and a philosophy of life which destroys it.

In political language it is a struggle between Democ-

racy standing for freedom and Communism stand-

ing for dictatorship. From a human point of view,

however, some are more dangerous than others, and

of ail three the one which robs man of every vestige

of liberty is Communism. Nazism and Fascism may



8 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

mutilate or maim liberty, but Communism kills it.

For that reason the Holy Father in his recent

Christmas broadcast characterized Communism as

“the enemy which is attempting to bring about the

ruin of the most fundamental principles of human

society, of the family, and of the individual.”

Note that the Holy Father opposes Communism

not just because it is anti-religious, but because it is

anti-human. And true it is, for Communism has

taken over not only property but souls. Communism

possesses man from the cradle to the grave, by

denying that he has any other purpose than the ser-

vice of the State. It admits of no conscience but

State-conscience, and of no morality but State-

morality. Worship of the true God in Russia, Mex-

ico, and those parts of Spain where Communism is

in power, is therefore nothing short of treason.

Looking back over modern history then, we have

this queer picture: Man who once was free to do

anything he pleased under Individualism, is now un-

der Communism free to do nothing; man who once

could follow any religion he wished, must now follow

the religion of the State
;
and the world which broke

away from the Church because it found it “too dog-

matic”, now finds that under Communism it is sub-

ject not to God’s truths which make us free, but to

State-dogmas which make us slaves.

In summary, the modern world during the last

four hundred years has witnessed two extreme solu-

tions of the social problem. First, Individualism

which isolated man from society, made him like

an arm amputated from the body, and resulted in a

State in which each man was a wolf to his neighbor.

Then came the other extreme of Collectivism, which



THE CHURCH AND THE STATE 9

absorbs a man in society like a drop of water is ab-

sorbed in a glass of wine, which resulted in Commu-

nism in which all are equal because all are equally

slaves of the State.

Permit us here to suggest that the position

of the Church is a golden mean between these two

extremes. She contends that the State is neither

a collection of individuals isolated from organic re-

lations one with another, which is Individualism,

nor a machine for the production of wealth, which

is Communism. The Church says that the State is

a moral organism in which each person and class

has functions to fulfill, and individual rights and

duties in relationship to the whole. Against Indi-

vidualism the Church asserts that a man is a mem-

ber of society in an organic way, as the eye and the

ear, and the hand and the foot, are all members of

the body. A man therefore can no more live apart
from society normally than an eye can live apart

from the head. On the other hand, against Collectiv-

ism, she asserts that human personality has certain

rights of which no State can deprive it. Just as

the heart, for example, by its very nature has a

certain inalienable function in the human body,

which cannot be taken over by any other organ, not

even by the head, so too a man has certain inalien-

able rights of which no State can deprive him. The

proper concept of the State resides in the golden

mean between Individualism, which denies social

control, and Communism, which denies personal

liberty. The State is neither a policeman as In-

dividualism would have it, nor a nurse as Collect-

ivism would have it. Against Individualism, the

Church asserts that man has a duty to work for the

common good of the State, and no one, says the



10 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

Church, is allowed to pursue those individual in-

terests which endanger the harmony of the whole

and the well-being of others. On the other hand,

against Communism, the Church says that the well-

being of the whole is the well-being of free person-

alities, each with his own destiny and with certain

inalienable rights which no State can take away, be-

cause the State is not the source of rights, but God.

This brings us to our final point: namely, how

Collectivism, which absorbs man into the State,

treats the Church. The new Collectivist State is not

always respectful of the true nature of man. And

here mention must be made particularly of Mexico,

Spain, Germany, and Russia, where the chalice of

Gethsemane has been generously dipped to faithful

souls. In these countries, the State is organized on a

purely secular basis, and has set itself up as a

counter-Church, crushing religion by the sheer force

of State-power. It is not indifferent to religion as

was the Liberal State; it is not merely hostile to it

as was the pagan State
;
but it is hostile and posses-

sive. It not only crushes the Church but it takes over

its functions, reduces the spiritual to the political,

and gives the kingdom of anti-Christ a definite poli-

tical form and social substance. This means that the

conflict of the future, if we are to judge from

present facts, is not between Communism and Fas-

cism, for the two are not mutually exclusive, but be-

tween a society which recognizes God and a society

which calls itself God.

The Church has always come into conflict with

the Collectivist State in these countries. She says to

the State: “I will render to Caesar the things that

are Caesar’s, but I insist on being allowed to render

to God the things that are God’s.” The State an-



THE CHURCH AND THE STATE 11

swers to the Church: “We insist that you render

unto Caesar even the things that are God’s.”

The issue is very much like that which brought

Our Lord before Pilate. The charges made

against Him were three : “We have found this man

perverting our nation and refusing to give tribute

to Caesar and saying that He is Christ the King.”

Every word was a lie. He did not pervert the nation.

Rather did He spiritualize it by lifting up weary

souls to the blessedness of the Kingdom of God. He

did not refuse to give tribute to Caesar, for He com-

manded that men render unto Caesar that which

was Caesar’s. He did not call Himself a Political

King, but said that His Kingdom was not of this

world.

These three charges sent Our Lord to His Cross.

The Cross bore an inscription in three languages,

Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, symbolic of the three

civilizations of Jerusalem, Rome, and Athens. And

the false charge in all three was the same. He had

called Himself a King. He was anti-State.

And these same charges, which are urged against

the Church today in Russia, Germany, Mexico, and

Spain, are the direct heirs of the lies urged in the

courtroom of Pilate. The Church is unjustly

accused of perverting the nation, because she asserts

that there is no power in a nation except from

above; she is accused of refusing to give tribute to

the State, because she refuses to worship the State

as a god; she is accused of calling herself a King,

because she asserts that Christ is the King of Souls.

To the cross she is sentenced on the same false

charges. Already four nations have crucified her. It

is not the civilization of Rome, Athens, and Jeru-

salem, but the civilizations of Mexico, Russia, Spain,



12 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

and Germany, which nail her to her modern cross.

How much longer it will continue, only God knows.

But when time ends, what will be the Church’s final

battle? Who will erect her last cross? The

Creed gives the answer. Why, among the four

judges, has the Creed retained only the

name of Pilate? Annas is not mentioned; neither is

Caiphas, nor Herod, nor Judas whose sin was

greater than Pilate’s. Why is Pilate’s alone men-

tioned? Because Pilate is the symbol of the omnipo-

tent State. His name is not only the record of an his-

torical fact; it may also be a prophecy that in the

last and final battle at the end of the world, the

Church will go to her crucifixion in exactly the same

way that Christ went to His—suffering under Pon-
tius Pilate.



FREEDOM 13

FREEDOM

Address delivered on January 10, 1937.

Last Sunday it was suggested that modern States

possessed of dictatorial powers have set themselves

up as counter-religions or counter-churches and have

persecuted the Church which dares assert that God

is above Caesar. In the course of the broadcast we

asked you not to be blinded by Communistic propa-

ganda to the effect that the world must choose be-

tween Communism and Fascism. If Fascism means,

as Communism says it does, the denial of democratic

rights; if it means, as Communism says it does, the

suppression of minorities; if it means, as Commu-

nism says it does, dictatorship and the submerging

of the individual into the State, then Communism is

Fascism gone mad. It is just such Soviet Fascism

or Communism which is threatening the liberties of

the world, and it is that point we would prove today,

namely, that any State which asserts the primacy

of the Divine is a free state, and any state which is

anti-spiritual is necessarily a slave state. In order

to prove this truth, let us begin with a very simple

proposition : the material is the basis of slavery
;
the

spiritual is the basis of freedom.

Matter is always a slave, because by its very

nature it is determined to act only one way and not

another. Fire, for example, is a slave to heat; ice is

a slave to cold. Hence we never praise fire for being

hot, nor ice for being cold. They must be so
;
there is

no ought in their nature.

Now, consider the other principle, the spiritual

is the basis of freedom : Take, for example, the idea

of beautiful. That idea is spiritual; it occupies no



14 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

space or time, it has no latitude or longitude,

weight or color, and yet is applicable to all the beau-

tiful things in the world. But no one has ever seen

the “beautiful”, though he may have seen a beau-

tiful flower, or a beautiful child, or a beautiful sun-

set, or a beautiful face, or a beautiful landscape, or

a beautiful anything. Because none of these things

completely corresponds to and exhausts the spiritual

idea of “beautiful”, it follows that the artist is not

bound to paint any one of them. He is free in his

art because the inspiration of his art is the spiritual

idea of the “beautiful” which is infinite and univer-

sal, while all the concrete realizations are finite, and

the finite cannot force the infinite, any more than a

ten pound pull can force a ten ton pedestal from its

base. The spiritual is therefore the basis of freedom.

Now we can answer the quesction: Why is man

free? Fundamentally because man has not only a

body which is material, but also a soul which is spiri-

tual. The spiritual is the basis of freedom; that is

why God Who is Pure Spirit is also Perfect Free-

dom.

Let us apply this principle to the social order:

The State which acknowledges God and the spiritual

element in man is a Free State, while the State

which is anti-God, and asserts the primacy of the

economic over the spiritual in man, is necessarily a

slave State. Why do we say that the State which

acknowledges God is necessarily a free State? Be-

cause in acknowledging God, the State admits that

the power it exercises over its citizens does not be-

long to it exclusively, but has come, as Our Lord told

Pilate, from God. That means that a State which

accepts the Primacy of the Divine admits that there

are certain rights which man holds not from the



FREEDOM 15

State, but from God; and that therefore the State

can never take them away. Hence man is free and

independent of the State in his right to call (a) his

soul his own and (b) his property his own. Inci-

dentally both of these are guaranteed by our Consti-

tution as God given liberties, or “inalienable rights”.

Let us consider them singly.

A man can call his soul his own in a State which
acknowledges God, because the soul does not belong

to the State but to God Who made it, and to Whom it

is destined to return to give an account of its

stewardship. Man is therefore free to adore God

according to the dictates of his conscience, and no

power on earth has a right to invade or violate that

spiritual sanctuary. To Caesar he will render the

things that are Caesar’s, but to God also the things

that are God’s.

A man can also call his property his own in a
State which acknowledges God, because the right to

own private property is not given to man by the

State but by God. Therefore, the State can not abso-

lutely take it away. As the soul is the spiritual

guarantee of human liberty, so private property is

the economic guarantee of human liberty. Man has

not only a soul, but a body as well. That body must

have a physical expression of its freedom and pri-

vate property is such an expression for a man with

property has responsibility and control which are

the attributes of freedom. Is it not a confirmation of

our thesis that property and freedom go together, to

recall that history knows of no instance of a well-

distributed-property-country ever having suffered

from despotism?

In such a State which acknowledges that man

has God-given rights, man is like a mountain whose



16 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

peak rises above the clouds and storms of the eco-

nomic and material, where he is free to bathe in the

sunshine of God’s glorious liberty. The realm of the

spiritual thus becomes a place of freedom and soul-

relaxation like a home after working hours—an
escape from the materialities of an economic world.

In brief, just as a man’s soul has certain powers

transcendent to his body, such as the power of think-

ing and Willing, so man has certain inalienable rights

and privileges beyond the State, and these are the

fountain head of the greatest liberty of all—the free-

dom to become a saint.

Now consider the other half of the proposition,
that is, that matter is the basis of slavery. Apply

that principle to a State which acknowledges no God

and no soul. Such a State as Mexico or Russia or

Spain where Communism is in power, asserts the

primacy of the economic and the material. It is

therefore a State in which a man cannot call his soul

his own or his property his own.

A man cannot call his soul his own in such a
state, because the soul belongs to the State and there

is nothing above the State. On this theory, the

rights a man possesses are State given; hence the

State can take them away. Such is the law of

Mexico as stated in its constitution of 1917. “Every

person in the United States of Mexico shall enjoy

those rights which are granted to him by the con-

stitution.” That means that the right to educate

one’s family, and the right to adore God according to

the dictates of one’s conscience are not from God

but from the State, hence the State can disposses

man of these rights. That is why in Mexico and

Russia and to some extent in Germany, any attempt



FREEDOM 17

on the part of the citizens to adore and serve God is

branded as “counter-revolutionary”. If the soul be-

longs to the State, then it is treason to the State to

dare offer it to God. That is why Communism per-

secutes religion. An atheistic State knows full well

that it cannot completely possess man as the tool of

the State, unless it unmakes religion which says that

man is also the child of God ; and that it cannot en-

slave man until it enslaves the Church which says

that man is free. The persecution of the Church in

Russia, Mexico, Germany, and Spain is for this

reason the strongest proof that the Church is the

last bulwark of human liberty left in the world, and

this because She is the last and everlasting defender

of the Spirit, which makes us free.

Not only does an atheistic State make it impos-

sible for a man to call his soul his own, but also to

call his property his own. Since private property is

the economic guarantee of human liberty, the athe-

istic State would even dispossess man of that last

remnant, as Communism actually does, for it abol-

ishes all productive private property. The Commu-

nists justify their violence and revolutionary dispos-

session of this human right on the grounds that prop-

erty has been abused and amassed in the hands of

the Capitalists. This is true, to some extent, but cer-

tainly the remedy for concentration of wealth is not

in the confiscation of private property, for what is

that but shifting its control from a few capitalists to

a few Red Leaders? What is this but to make the

State Capitalistic, transform individual selfishness

into collective selfishness, and substitute for the ex-

ploiting and the exploited classes the equally bad

classes of the powerful and the powerless, or the

Red leaders and the led. And there is no better



18 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

proof of this than the fact that in Russia only one

and one-half percent of the population are members

of the Communist Party, and yet that one and a half

percent control by fear, terror, and propaganda,

ninety-eight and a half percent of the people.

To return to the point—Grant that there is con-
centration of wealth; grant that it needs an imme-

diate remedy, the solution is to be found not in dis-

possession but in distribution, not in revolution but

in legislation, not in Communism but in Democracy.

Because there are rats in the barn, the Communists

believe in burning the barn. We believe in burning

the rats.

Stripping private property from man is some-

thing like stealing his clothes. It is the deprivation of

the symbol of his personality, for private property

is the extension of personality. And it is none the

less stealing because the State does it for “Thou

shalt not steal” applies not only to Big Business but

also to a Big State. But what interests us at this

moment is the fact that the denial of the spiritual

and the exaltation of the economic eventually ends

in the denial of private property. It is indeed an in-

teresting proof of this thesis that the anti-spiritual

governments of the world are these which have

most denied man the right to call his property his

own. Mexico, for example, has denied Catholics the

right to own property dedicated to the highest of all

purposes; Germany has made retention of prop-

erty difficult among certain classes, and impossible

for the Jews; Spain has asserted its right to destroy

Church property
;
and Russia whose first principle is

anti-God, has as its second principle anti-private

property. At least under Capitalism, with all its de-

fects, a few owned productive private property;



FREEDOM 19

under Communism no one owns it but the selfish

State.

There is only one force to prevent the growth of

this system and that is the power of Him Who came

to this earth of ours to teach us the Truth which, as

He said, alone can make us free. Nowhere did He

better proclaim the Gospel of freedom than on the

day He permitted His body to be unfurled on the

flagpole of the cross as the Banner of the Glorious

liberty of the sons of God.

His enemies asked Him to come down, but He

refused, because, if He came down, He would have

shown His Physical Power; He would have forced

us to do His will; He would have used the same

power Mexico and Russia are using today ; and that

would have been the end of Freedom. But by hang-

ing on the Cross in an attitude of powerlessness

where no nailed hand could force obedience, and no

pierced foot could pursue the slave, and with only

the look of an eye to bid souls reach His side, He

Who is Almighty taught that man must be free to

love—even God. Above all gifts He craved the free
gift of love, not the obsequious rapture of slaves. By

refusing to come down and show His Power He

maintained, even in His Death, that neither His

Soul, nor His only private property, which was His

Body, belonged to the State nor to Pontius Pilate;

that no one could take these rights away, not even

by death. His soul was His own, and hence He could

give it to His Father
;
His Body was His own, hence

He could give it to us as our Life. He died free,

and from that death we derive our liberty. Against

the background of Calvary, the Church today asserts

against the world that no man is satisfied unless he

is free, that no man is free until he can love, and



20 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

that no man is free to love until he can love the One

for Whom he was made—namely the Christ Who
loved us enough to die for us that we might be free

!



THE SPIRIT AND UNITY 21

THE SPIRIT AND UNITY
Address delivered on January 17. 1937.

Last Sunday the burden of our broadcast was

that only a State which recognizes the spiritual is a

free State, and those States which deny the spiritual

and assert the primacy of the economic are States in

which a man cannot call his soul his own or his

body his own.

Today it is our purpose to show that men

cannot be grouped into the unity of brotherhood or

even comradeship except on the basis of the spiri-

tual.

The modern world, despite its tyrannies and its

dictatorships and its cruel wars, is recognizing the

need of unity and authority. It sees very well that

no nation can endure if everyone is allowed to pur-

sue his own selfish interests, to the utter forgetful-

ness of the common good; it sees, too, that some

authority is needed in order to exercise social control

over avaricious individuals. The ravages of selfish-

ness which allowed every man to seek his own, with-

out any regard for the common good, ended in a

great amassing of wealth on the one hand, and great

poverty on the other. That selfishness had to be cor-

rected. Citizens had to be made to realize that they

were parts of a social order, with mutual obliga-

tions to one another. In order to supply that need

for unity and authority, some nations had recourse

to dictatorships. Their ideal was right, in the sense

that they saw the need of unity and authority, but

their solution was wrong, because they purchased

unity at the expense of liberty. It is one thing to

recognize a need, and it is another thing to know

how to supply it.



22 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

What the world forgot was that there are two

ways of attaining unity and asserting authority : one

from the outside, the other from the inside; one by

force, the other by love; one by Nazism, Fascism,

and Communism, the other by religion. The dogs

that bark at the sheep and drive them into the sheep

fold produce the unity of the sheep fold, but it is a

forced unity. The Saviour who draws us to His

banquet table to nourish us of His substance pro-

duces the unity of Christians, but it is a unity based

on love. Deny this spiritual unity which the charity

of religion brings, and how unite men except by

fear, force, and propaganda, to which all the dicta-

tors of Europe make appeal in varying degrees,

depending on the allowance they make for unity by

religion.

That is why in Russia under Communism there

is no real unity except unity by force. As their offi-

cial organ states: “The sole possibility with Com-

munism is that one party is in power, and all the

others are in jail” (November 13, 1927). Even their

new Constitution forbids the existence of any party

other than the Communist. Such a unity is purely

artificial
;
it makes citizens one by squeezing human-

ity out of them, as one might squeeze juice out of

lemons. It cannot do otherwise; and why? Because

the spirit alone can produce unity. Just suppose

civilization denied God and the spiritual destiny of

man, and set up the economic as the unique goal of

human existence, what consequences would follow

in the economic and the political order?

Consider first the economic order. If there be no

God, if religion be only the opium of the people; if

this world be all, and eternity be only an illusion
;
if

life be only the dream of the moment and an orgy



THE SPIRIT AND UNITY 23

between two voids; then why should anyone accept

his economic lot? Then why should not the poor

man who watches the vain parade of diamonds and

lace, turn into a robber and a thief? Why should

not the rich man seek to exploit the poor man, and

throw his wasted years on the ash heap of unem-

ployment? Then why should not churches be pil-

laged and why should not men incite others to vio-

lence, riots, and even insurrection in the army and

navy, as the Secretary of the Communist Party does

on page 165 of his book. Then why should not Rus-

sia organize unions to develop the Socialist system

as Article 126 of the new Constitution states, rather

than the right of a man to a living wage, of which no

mention is made in the Constitution.

If there be no God, and if men have no souls, no

destiny other than the economic, why should not non-

Aryans be deported? Why should not non-Fascists
be punished? Why should not Catholics be murder-

ed ? Why should not maids steal, lawyers bleed their
clients, bootblacks short-change, the banker em-

bezzle, and the baker rob? What answer can we

give?

If you deny the spiritual and the God Who
searches hearts, there is only one answer why these

injustices and disorders should not be allowed;

namely servants must obey masters, workers must

obey Red leaders, and citizens must obey the dicta-

tors.

But suppose to this the thieves, the doctors, the

lawyers, the employers, the bootblacks, the soldiers

answer: “It is my duty to obey only because you
are stronger than I, and I can do nothing against

you. But suppose I join with millions of other

thieves, ditch-diggers, unemployed, and we become



24 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

stronger than you ! Then the role changes ! Then it

is your duty to obey.” And this is precisely what

we are witnessing in the economic order today:

The law of animality in which the strong devour the

weak; not the law of spirituality, where the strong

descend to the weak to lift them up unto God. It is

by force and display of power rather than by jus-

tice and virtue that we settle our disputes.

Once abolish the future life with its spiritual

destiny and its influence upon our daily actions, and

there is nothing to stand in the way of complete and

total equalitarianism. If the only reward is in this

world, it immediately follows that all classes, all dis-

tinctions in rank and condition, all differences in

position and office are open to attack.

Take God out of the souls of men, and there is

only one way to achieve unity in the economic sphere

and that is by force. Take God out of the souls of

men and the more they demands and the less they

thank. Take God out of the souls of men, and the

more avaricious become the rich and the more en-

vious become the poor. Take God out of their souls

and the more both stretch out itchy palms to receive,

the more you remove all restraint upon illegitimate

desires and all curbs from passions, the more you

unchain all concupiscences and unleash all the furies

of selfishness. Then no one is satisfied; for if this

life is all why should we not have all, even if we

have to get it by force ?

Now consider the consequences in the political

order. Deny God and the spiritual, and it follows

that the authority of the State is not derived, but

absolute. It sets itself up as God, and determines

what is right and wrong by force. Our Lord said the

Gentiles lord it over them, but His authority was



THE SPIRIT AND UNITY 25

based on His meekness and humility of heart and

His love of His Heavenly Father. Modern political

authorities who repudiate religion, base their author-

ity on armies, on soldiers, on guns. That is why it is

doubtful if there is in any of these countries such a

thing as real leadership. Would you call a robber

with a gun who backed ten unarmed men against a

wall, their leader? By what right then can we call

certain dictators leaders?

Take a gun away from Hitler, take tanks away

from Stalin, and let these men stand on their own

moral responsibility with no other power to com-

mand than their honesty, their love of truth, and

their purity of heart, and see how long they could

command. Our Lord has commanded obedience from

the world for 20 centuries with no other weapon

than a defenseless cross, and the Holy Father has

awakened the spiritual obedience of 320,000,000

Catholics scattered throughout the world with no

other arms than his spiritual office. But take terror

away from Red leaders and they could not command

men for four seconds. That is why the new political

unity of Communism is not unity; it is compactness

through fear, mobilization through arms, nationali-

zation through propaganda, but it is not unity. Re-

move that fear, those armies, or that propaganda,

and these nations would break up into thousands of

discordant and warring elements. Only the spiritual

is the basis of unity. Take away the religious in-

spiration and we no longer hear of man helping his

fellowman in need, because he sees in him a brother

in Christ. With the religious inspiration gone, we

hear the need of helping the unemployed only to pre-

vent a revolution. What a sorry commentary on hu-

man fellowship. When Christ reigned in hearts we



26 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

helped the poor to save our soul
;
without religion we

help them only to save our hide.

Society cannot long endure under such an in-

spiration. “Unless the Lord build the house, they

labor in vain that build it”. Unity of mankind is lost

because men have lost their God. As a matter of

fact, belief in Christ is the only catholic thing left

in the world, the only bond uniting men in a spiri-

tual fraternity of love. A Christian in France may
differ politically from a Christian in Germany, and

a Christian in America may differ politically and

economically from a fellow-Christian, but they melt

all difference in the recognition that God is our end,

His Divine Son Our Lord is Our Redeemer, and His

Holy Spirit is our Sanctifier. Outside of this, unity

is ephemeral, superficial, and temporary—a unity
based on a common mechanical technique, on a

common desire to increase exports and decrease im-

ports. In some countries, like Mexico, Russia, Ger-

many, and Spain, the unity is even less; it is based

upon a common hatred of the Church of Christ. Like

Pilate and Herod these nations are one only in their

hatred of a crowned and bleeding Christ.

Thus we come back again to our starting point:

Matter divides; Spirit unites. The Economic as the

end of man is the basis of enmities
;
the Spiritual as

the end of man is the basis of His peace.

The world must choose between two symbols,

one the symbol of the Spiritual, the other the symbol

of the Material; one the symbol of Christianity, the

other the symbol of Communism. The symbol of

spiritual unity is the Eucharist from which Our

Lord extends to all men His invitation to eat and

drink, that they may be one in Him as He and the

Father are one. The other, the symbol of Commun-



THE SPIRIT AND UNITY 27

ism, is the soulless body. When a soul leaves a body,

the body begins to disintegrate into a thousand and

one conflicting elements which can never be brought

to unity again by any process known to man or sci-

ence. When society loses its soul which is God, it

breaks up into millions of conflicting elements which

can never be brought into real unity even by force

and propaganda any more than dust can be revivi-

fied into a living man. That is why I think Com-
munism preserves at the very center of its national

life, as the very symbol of its materialism, and as

the rallying point of its revolutionary armies—

a

corpse—the lifeless, soulless, cadaver of Lenin—

a

perfect symbol indeed of that to which Communism
would lead us all—to Dust, to Dissolution, and to
Death.



28 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

OPPORTUNITY

Address delivered on January 24, 1937.

The radio series up to this point has been a des-

cription of the woes of our wounded world and in

particular of the slavery and class-struggle conse-

quent upon godlessness and the denial of the spirit.

There is always a temptation to rest one’s case there,

and to lay the flattering unction to our souls that we

have done our Christian duty when we have poured

our vials of righteous wrath upon the godless, and

denounced Communism as the monstrous red enemy

of men. Such an attitude makes us other Pharisees,

who feel justified in throwing stones because we

have found the adulteress.

The point we wish to make today is that this

view is wrong and unbecoming a Christian. It is

wrong because we have been sent into this world not

to condemn the wrong, but to make the wrong right

;

not to cry “unclean” but to wash clean
;
not to damn

but to save. As followers of Our Lord, we must

never forget that “they that are in health need not a

physician, but they that are ill”, and that He came

into the world “not to call the just but sinners”.

This means very definitely that it is not simply our

business to prove they are wrong, however satisfy-

ing that might be; it is not even our business to

prove we are right, as if the truth were our making

and not God’s. It is our business to preach Christ

and Him Crucified, and let that Truth conquer by its

own right. When a man is starving you need not go

to him and say : “You must not eat poisons. Poisons

will kill you!” You need not even say: “You must

eat bread. Science has proved that there are vita-



OPPORTUNITY 29

mins in bread.” You need only go to him and say:

“You are hungry—here is bread”; and the laws of
nature will do the rest. And so it is with starving

souls. We need not reprove their error, or show we

are right, but present the Truth of God; and with

the help of His grace it will nourish them unto life

everlasting.

Taking this point of view, how should we

approach atheists and bigots? How should we deal

with Communists who are spreading doctrines so

disruptive of family life, property, culture, and

peace? How did Our Lord and St. Paul deal with

those who practiced Communistic principles in their

day, even though they were not called Communists?

They converted souls by finding a common denomi-

nator between them and the Truth they preached.

Take the case of the woman at the well. Our

Lord, weary from His journey on a hot summer day

said to her: “Give me to drink.” She immediately

reminded Him that the well was deep and He had

nothing wherein to draw. Our Lord said to her. “If

thou didst know the gift of God, and who he is that

saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou perhaps

wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given

thee living water.” And that poor woman who daily

trudged out from Samaria in the boiling sun with

the water pot upon her .head, was most anxious to

find a source of living water which would dispense

her from future journeys. But Our Lord seeing she

did not understand His spiritual message changed

the subject. “Go call thy husband.” The woman

answered “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her:

“Thou hast said well, I have no husband: for thou

hast five husbands
;
and he whom thou now hast, is

not thy husband.”



30 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

Now what possible basis of apostleship could

there be between Our Lord Who is Purity itself and

this adulterous woman with five husbands? What

common bond could there be between virtue and

vice? There was only one common denominator and

that was a common love of a drink of cold water.

From that common starting point, Our Lord drew

the sinner on to an understanding of grace and the

supernatural life
;
and such an understanding it was

that she and her fellow townspeople of the despised

city were the first in history to address Him as “the

Saviour of the world.”

The tactics of St. Paul in Athens were like those

of His Master at Jacob’s well. St. Paul’s spirit was

stirred at “seeing the city wholly given to idolatry.”

He knew they had their gods on the Olympic

heights; he knew that they had a god for every

household; he knew they had the gods that Aeneas

brought from Troy
;
but he sought a common denom-

inator, and he found it in a word—the word “Un-
known.” “Standing in the midst of the Areopagus,

he said: Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all

things you are too superstitious. For passing by,

and seeing your idols, I found an altar also on which

was written : To the unknown God. What therefore

you worship without knowing it, that I preach to

you; God, who made the world. . From that

common denominator of the word “unknown”—we
might also say from a pun—St. Paul led them on to
the knowledge of the true God in Whom we live and

move and have our being. As Our Lord in conversa-

tion with the woman did not spend all His time de-

nouncing adultery, much as He detested it, so

neither did St. Paul before the Areopagus spend all

his time denouncing idolatry, much as he abhorred



OPPORTUNITY 31

it. Both cast about for some trivial thing which

Christianity had in common with sin and idolatry,

and through that common denominator led souls on

to the fullness of the light.

And so it is with us ! We are not to spend all our
energies denouncing Communism; we are to lead

Communists into the camp of the Communionists

by finding some common denominator with them,

even though it be as simple as a common love of

water, or a common search for the great unknown.

In that search for a common denominator one

spirit above all other must prevail, and that is the

spirit of Christ-like Charity. We must be intolerant
of Communism and atheism, but tolerant of Com-

munists and atheists. If we had the same education

they had, if we had been fed upon the same Marxian

lies and half-truths about religion as they have, and

had been stuffed full of propaganda, we would prob-

ably hate the Church ten times more than they do.

They do not really hate the Church; they only hate

what they have been taught about the Church, and

they are right in that hate. We would burn Churches
too if we had been falsely trained to believe that the

Church stood for the very social injustices they

rightly condemn. Our Lord found an excuse for

them on Calvary; can we do less than by echoing in

our lives, “Father, forgive them for they know not
what they do.”

The saints of the Church have always been fond

of repeating that we could catch more flies with a
drop of honey than with a barrel of vinegar. St.

Vincent de Paul in particular has cautioned us : “A
man is not believed because he is clever, but because
he is liked and known to be good. The devil is very
clever, and we don’t believe a word he says, because



32 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

we don’t like him. Nobody will believe us unless we

are loving and forebearing with them.” As it has

been repeated many times: “In necessary things

there must be agreement and unity; in doubtful or

indifferent things there must be charity—giving no
offense to any man that our ministry be not blamed.”

And this lesson of charity the Holy Father has set

for us when he asked that prayers after Low Mass

be said for the persecuted Russians, 99% of whom

are non-Catholics.

Grant that Communists and atheists and bigots

do hate Christ and His Church? They do not hate

Plato or an Oriental sun-cult. Is this not because

only an infinite object can be infinitely hated and in-

finitely loved? Their hatred of Divinity is the

strongest proof of the reality of Divinity. Men do

not hate figments of the imagination. If religion

were only that, the Communists would ignore it.

Their hatred then is but their vain attempt to des-

pise. But all that hate does not dispense us from

praying for them as Our Lord prayed for His exe-

cutioners, and as Stephen interceded for those who

stoned him, and as Our Holy Father prayed and

begged for prayers for the Communists of Spain. It

is well to remember that hateful souls can be trans-

formed in the fire of God’s grace into loving souls.

Our Lord chose His greatest apostles from the weak

and the hateful and the sinful! Peter from weak-

ness; Paul from hate, and Magdalene, who has oft

been called the thirteenth apostle, from voluptuous-

ness, Paul from hate, and Magdalene, who has oft

hence we must see in them not men to be hated, but

potential captives of the Man on the Cross Who died

out of love even for Stalin.

Russia is the home of godlessness, but Russia



OPPORTUNITY 33

could just as well have the mission to Christianize

modern Europe as to give it anti-Christ. Its history

has been full of a Messianic consciousness that it

was destined to give something to the world, and its

present pains could just as well be the pangs of birth

as the groan of death. God in His Mercy often raises

up individuals from great sins, such as Augustine,

that they might declare forth the power of His Love,

for those who have been at death’s door can best re-

veal the glories of health. Why could not God then

not only raise up individuals but even nations from

the darkness of hate to the light of love, so that

there might be as examples of His Mercy, Apostles

of His Truth to them that sit in the superstition of

the Gentiles? Why could there not be social Mag-

dalenes and social Pauls, as well as individual Mag-

dalenes and individual Pauls. No nation is too far

gone as yet to consider it beyond redemption. As the

Holy Father has told us : “Beneath the embers there

still are to be found sparks that can be fanned into

flame.” England, for example, seemed hopeless to

the Faith in the days of Queen Elizabeth, when she

murdered one hundred and thirty-eight secular

priests, six Jesuits, one Benedictine and one Francis-

can; it seemed even hopeless in 1834 with four

bishops and 400,000 faithful. And yet today it has

twenty-seven bishops and three million faithful.

What is true of England in the past can be true of

Communistic Russia and anti-clerical Mexico. They

are not beyond redemption, for they are only

wounded, not slain. This is not a black, dark, dread-

ful, and hateful world bound for the precipice of

destruction; it is a world of infinite possibilities, a

vast quarry from which can still be cut and fash-

ioned living stones into the Temple of God. It is not



34 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

a lost world ! It can still be saved, but saved only by

the Charity of God living in souls who are ready if

need be to come out of other catacombs to save it

!



RESPONSIBILITY 35

RESPONSIBILITY

Address delivered on January 31, 1937.

It shall be our aim today to indicate our respon-

sibility to the social order. Too long has the world

lived on the assumption that religion is a private

affair. Now it has learned that by regarding it as

such, irreligion has preempted the entire social field.

It will no longer do for individuals to preach about

the necessity of personal piety alone, for our lives

are inextricably entangled with all the problems of

civilization. There is not one kind of spirituality for

man, and another for society; there is only one for

both, for the power that builds the soul is the power

that builds the world. The Kingdom of God, it is

true; is not of this world, but as long as time endures

it is for this world. We therefore have not only a
vocation to sanctify and save our souls but also to

expand and diffuse that sanctification to save so-

ciety. The very prayers we say suggest that we

are related to a great social pattern as the cells of a

body are related one to another. We say “Our
Father”, not “My Father”

;
we ask : “Forgive us our

trespasses”, not “Forgive me my trespasses”. Re-
ligion then is not an individual affair

;
religion is so-

cial. We do not save ourselves alone, but only in
conjunction with others.

Quite apart from this Divine injunction there is

still another reason for our responsibility toward the

modern world and its chaos, and that is that that

chaos is partly of our own making. If we are honest

with ourselves we cannot deny that the advance of

secularism, the increase of godlessness, is to a small

extent at least a result of our own unfulfilled Chris-



36 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

tian duty, a failure to live out in our social and eco-

nomic and political existences, the fullest implica-

tions of the cross that was signed on our backs the

day of our Baptism, and on our foreheads the hour

of our Confirmation. The very fact that the world

is a thousand times more scandalized at a bad Cath-

olic in public life than a bad anything else, is only a

proof that the world expects much more of him. To

just that extent that we have colored our Christian

outlook on life with the veneer of worldliness, or

have tried to make the best of two worlds, or have

used our faith only as a consolation and the world as

our luxury, or failed to radiate the light of God's

Truth to those who were groping in darkness, the

guilt of the world’s sin is on our hands and its

responsibility on our souls. Human perversity,

diabolical propaganda, vicious lies, unchained con-

cupiscences, passion, envy, and love of power—all
these have done much to upset the world, but there

is no doubt that it would be less upset if we had risen

to the full consciousness of what it means to be a

Christian. We make the world by living our faith;
we unmake it by falling short of it. We save the
world by loving the Cross

;
we lose it by fleeing even

from its shadows.

If, then, the chaos of civilization is partly the

result of our compromise with the Cross, it follows

that we have an obligation to make reparation for it,

and this can be done only by a renewed sense of

responsibility and apostleship to the world in gen-

eral and to two groups in particular: marginal

Christians and the masses.

By marginal Christians is meant those on the

fringe of religion who are descendants of Christian-

living parents but who now are Christians only in



RESPONSIBILITY 37

name, retaining a few of its ideals out of indolence

and force of habit. What is going to happen to this

group when the challenge is hurled and the crisis

arrives? Within a very short time they must take

sides; they must either gather with Christ or they

must scatter; they must either be with Him or

against Him; they must either be on the cross as

other Christs, or under it as other executioners..

There was a middle course a few years ago, but

there is one no longer. Communism has done with

all the half-way houses: it has brought the world

face to face with fundamentals; it has cleared the

issues by reminding the world there are only two

philosophies of life: Communism which mobilizes

souls for secular ends and dust, and Christianity

which sanctifies them for eternal ends and God.

Which way then will these marginal Christians

tend? Will they trun right, which in Christian lan-

guage is upward to the God of Love for Whom they
were made, or will they turn left, which is down-

ward to class-struggle and the destiny of animals?

The answer depends upon those who have the faith.

Like the multitudes who followed Our Lord into the

desert, they are as sheep without a Shepherd. They

are waiting to be shepherded either with the sheep

or goats. Only, this much is certain: Being human

and having hearts, they want more than class-

struggle and economics; they want Life, they want

Truth, and they want Love. In a word, they want

peace. That is why the advantage is on our side, for

it is ours to give them Christ. If they receive Him

not, it will be only because we have failed.

We have responsibility not only toward mar-
ginal Christians but also toward the masses—what
Communists call the proletariat, the Capitalists call



38 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

labor, governments call the unemployed, and social

agencies call the maladjusted, and what we must

call potential children of the Kingdom of God. These

people have so long been the victims of social injus-

tices that they feel any force which will ameliorate

their economic lot is necessarily their saviour.

Communism, knowing that souls can be bought for

thirty pieces of silver, immediately presents itself

as their champion and the great enemy of social in-

justice. And the significance of Communism and

the power of its appeal can not be minimized. Com-

munism is right in its protests: the masses do have

too many wants and too few rights. But it is wrong

in its reforms. It falsely leads the masses to believe

they have only stomachs, as Capitalism falsely led

them to believe they had only hands. Who will get

to the masses first? Will it be Communism mobiliz-

ing them into a revolutionary force, or Christianity

uniting them into a moral force? The answer de-

pends on how seriously we take our faith. It is here

that our responsibility begins, namely not only to

feed their stomachs and busy their hands, but also

to teach them they have souls as well as bodies, that

the happiness of a man consists not in what he has

but in what he is, not in the quantity of his posses-

sions but in how he uses them. It is our solemn duty

to go down to them and build up just as strong, just

as vigorous a Christian proletariat as others would

build up a Communistic proletariat. It is our duty

not alone because they are unemployed, not alone

because they are victims of social injustice, but be-

cause they are poor, and the poor in spirit re the

stuff from which the future civilization will be built.

The influences making for the new era will come

not from above but from below, not from individ-



RESPONSIBILITY 39

uals with wealth but from groups with holy pur-

poses, not from the well-to-do but from the will-to-

reform. The Church itself even more than civiliza-

tion will draw its strength from them, as Our Lord

drew His apostles from them. By their very nature

they possess a power of cohesion which the rich

often lack, for wealth without religion breeds false

distinctions and snobbery. They therefore possess a

natural solidarity which can easily be woven into the

supernatural unity of the Mystical Body of Christ.

In Spain, in Russia, in Mexico, they have, in fren-

zies of indignation, burned churches; but this is

because they were told the Church was against

them. The Church that was born of the Poor Man of

Galilee cannot tolerate this lie ! It is not enough for

us to shout it down. The shouts cannot be heard

amidst burning embers and falling steeples. It must

be lived down
,
and it can be lived down only by

Catholics taking seriously the Beatitude: “Blessed

are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of

heaven.”

Our responsibility then ultimately resolves itself

down to this : we are not sent into the world to

preach Social Revolution but to be the Revolution;

we are not to envisage ourselves always as cruci-

fied, but sometimes, through our neglect, as the cru-

cifiers. We must realize that it is our duty to be
supermen, apostles of God the consuming fire whose

business it is to enkindle fires in the souls of men

and to give them not only the means of existence but,

what is vastly more important, the purpose of exist-

ence. We must realize furthermore that pacts and
planning are no substitute for moral force, and that

we are not living only to preserve the status quo of

a social order which is already crumbling, but to



40 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

supply the moral convictions without which social

order becomes disorder and chaos. In a word, the

best way to reform the world is to begin by reform-

ing ourselves. The world is in such a state of con-

fusion and panic that it knows not which road to

take. It therefore will do no good for us to shout:

“Take the road that leads to religion. Go to the

Cross. Go to Christ!” The world is so bewildered

that it will not go. But it will follow. That means

we must go first. And that is the way Our Lord led

us. “Come—Follow Me !”
This implies that our responsibility is of a re-

demptive character. An analogy of our redemptive

duty to the world may be -found in the triple vows

of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Why is there a

vow of poverty in the Church? Because wealth is

bad? Wealth is not necessarily an evil, for a rich

man can exchange his wealth for the kingdom of

God. Why then the vow of poverty? Because there

are some souls in the world who seek wealth as the

be-all and the end-all here, and there must needs be

some who will “bend back” in the other direction,

and establish an equilibrium by atoning for those

who have wealth and know not how to use it.

Why the vow of chastity? Because flesh is

wrong? No, the flesh is not wrong; it may be ele-

vated to the dignity of the Sacrament. Why then the

vow of chastity? In order that through reparation

and abstinence from even the legitimate pleasures

of flesh, atonement might be made for those who in-

dulge in its excesses.

Why the vow of obedience? Because freedom is

wrong? There is nothing wrong about liberty. In

fact our will is the only thing that is really our own,

and is therefore the most perfect gift that we can



RESPONSIBILITY 41

give to God. Why then the vow of obedience? Be-

cause there are men and women in the world who

use their will to sin, and they must be redeemed by

those who are willing to surrender it, to purchase

for sinners the glorious liberty of the children of

God.

What these vows are to the Church in particular,

that we are to the world in general—its redeemers,
its leaven, and its salvation by and through the sac-

rifice of Christ on the Cross. We are our brothers’

keepers; willing therefore we must be to suffer for

the sake of the community of souls of which we are

members, and to bear others’ burdens as Christ has

borne ours. Naturally such a spirit of sacrifice and

responsibility toward the marginal Christians and

the masses which make us willing to pray and sacri-

fice for them, requires the spirit of sacrificial forti-

tude—a fortitude which transfigures us into re-
deemers with a small “r” as Christ was a Redeemer

with a capital “R”
;
and which inspires us to bring

our lives as wheat and grapes to be ground and

crushed as bread and wine on the great altar of Cal-

vary.

Such a sacrificial fortitude will not convert the

world
;
it will not abolish all evil

;
it will not entirely

deplete our bread lines
;
it will not do away with all

wars and all injustices; it will not blot off the face of

the earth the blood of the race of Cain; it will not

stop every aching body and console every broken

heart
;
it will not make everyone rich. But it will do

one thing—it will save the world for this generation
—and that is our duty at this moment. The reaping
of the harvest we shall leave to those who come

after us.

The choice is clear: either the world will have a



42 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

Revolution of Violence or a Revolution of Love. The

Revolution of Love cannot just be preached, it must

be lived by souls enkindled by the burning heart of

Christ. Those of us who believe and live the Revolu-

tion of Love have only one objection to the Revolu-

tion of Violence, which means we have only one

basic objection to Communism—it is not revolution-
ary enough. It leaves hate in the soul of man

!



SPIRITUALITY 43

SPIRITUALITY

Address delivered on February 7, 1937.

In today's broadcast, the subject -of which is

Spirituality, it is hoped to prove that the world

crisis can be healed only by forces not directly in-

volved in the crisis itself. A sick man, for example,
must rely on medicine for his cure

;
a ship must an-

chor outside itself; an eagle can fly only by the aid

of something non-eagle, namely, the air. In like

manner, modern civilization cannot lift itself out of

the chaos by the boot straps of the economic and the

political, but only by a power other than the political

and the economic and therefore something not

directly involved in its ruin. Important as the polit-

ical and the economic are, it is still more important

to hearken back to Our Lord’s plan of social recon-

struction through spiritual regeneration. His

method was to make economic and social justice

the by-product of Christian living. He reminds us

that a purely secular civilization cannot save itself,

because natural man has not sufficient moral

strength to sacrifice himself for the common good.

That is why He saved the world by dying for it—to
teach us that without Him and His Spirit of Sacri-

fice we could do nothing. That too is why He gather-

ed around Himself a group of men whom He imbued

with totally different ideals than the world and radi-

cally different means to attain those ideals. “I have

chosen you out of the world”, He said
;
and He liter-

ally lifted them physically out of the world by put-

ting them in a desert place apart, and spiritually out

of the world by imbuing them with a new spirit and

the primacy of things Divine. “Seek ye therefore



44 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all

these things shall be added unto you.” When He

had regenerated them and made them new with

the fires of His Spirit, He sent them back again into

the world—but they were no longer the same men.
They were different men.

That is why He said: “If the world hate you,

know ye that it hath hated me before you. If you

had been of the world, the world would love its own

:

but. because you are not of the world, therefore the

world hateth you.” More than this, He told them

they were to risk everything on His way of living,

to be prepared to be hated by brother and sister,

father and mother, to be dragged before magis-

trates and kings, and even to be led to death. There

was to be no turning back, for no man putting his

hand to the plow and looking back was fit for the

Kingdom of God. The dead were to bury their dead,

but they were to follow Him by taking up their cross

daily, that is, by being prepared to lead an absolute-

ly selfless life for the glory of God and the salvation

of souls.

This whole-hearted surrender to Christ is the

only spirit which will conquer the world today, for

the world is through accepting half-baked philoso-

phies of life and milk-and-water religions. We are
living in days of fire and blood when men want

something that makes demands on them, and pos-

sesses both their bodies and their souls. Only enthu-

siastic apostles and zealous disciples who are will-

ing to sacrifice and even to die will be heard in this

day. That is why Communism is making an appeal

;

despite its enslaving materialism the men who

preach it believe in it. They have taken the word

“Leaven” used by Our Lord and changed it to



SPIRITUALITY 45

“•Cell”
;

they have taken the word “Mass” and

changed it to “Front”. Burning with zeal for their

cause, they ask for only a few men filled with the

spirit of Marx and willing to sacrifice everything for

that spirit, and with this “cell” they threaten to fer-

ment and foment the whole “front”. They say:

“Give us three or four good Communists inspired

with a hatred of Capitalism, with the doctrine of

class struggle and the spirit of revolution, and let

us put them into a labor union and we will commu-

nize the whole union. Give us three or four univer-

sity professors who are on fire for the dialectics of

materialism, and even though their students do not

understand it, we will communize the whole uni-

versity.” Such zeal can be met only with zeal, such

courage only with courage, and such sacrifice only

with sacrifice. No Liberal was ever willing to in-

commode himself for Liberalism, but Communists

are very willing to sacrifice themselves for Com-

munism. In this day of intense loyalties the sleek

repose of Christians who will not sacrifice them-

selves for the things of God cannot meet the new

challenge. It will take a great faith in Christ to put

down faith in anti-Christ; it will take nothing less

than the sacrifice of the Cross to conquer the sacri-

fice of those who crucify.

May it not be that God is, by the mysterious

ways of His Providence, already shifting the wheat

of apostolic souls from the chaff of the indifferent.

As a matter of fact the purging has already gone on

in some countries. God is, as it were, choosing dis-

ciples from the multitude, and apostles from the dis-

ciples, and Peters and James and Johns from among

the apostles. The persecution of the Church in Mex-

ico, in Russia, in Spain, and in Germany has meant



46 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

an increase and a decrease—an increase in the qual-
ity of the Church, and a decrease in quantity. Num-

bers mean little to the Church, but spirituality means

everything. It may very well be then that God is

preparing the Church for the future battle or future

peace by a spiritual purification in which only the

strong will walk with Him. What was true in the

days of Gideon is true in our own day. Gideon, it

will be recalled, battled the Madianites whose army

numbered 135,000 men. Gideon asked if God would

be with him and received the sign through the sign

of the fleece. Sounding the trumpet, Gideon gather-

ed an army of 32,000 men. God told him his army

was too large ; the children of Israel might think

they conquered because of the force of their arms,

rather than the power of God. Gideon then asked all

fearful and timorous men to leave, and 22,000

cowards left the ranks. But even that army was too

large, God told Gideon, and He bade him take his

army to the waters. All who lapped the water in the

hands after the fashion of men of action were to be

placed on one side of the river
;
those who lay prone

on the ground to drink at their ease were to be put

on the other side of the river. And of the 10,000

men only 300 lapped the water with their hands.

With that trivial army of only 300 men Gideon went

out and put to flight the army of 135,000 and Israel

had peace for forty years. The moral is that 300

zealous souls who rely on God can do more than 32,-

000 in different ones who trust in their arms; and

also, that no enemy is too great if God is with us.

It is difficult to convince our contemporaries of

this truth, that our ills are not only political and

financial but fundamentally moral and religious.

They almost identify the moral aspect of the prob-



SPIRITUALITY 47

lem with the impractical. Perhaps this analogy will

help to impress upon minds the primacy of the

spiritual in matters economic and political. Suppose

America were conquered by a foreign power, whom,

for the sake of avoiding odious references we shall

call the Lenites. Suppose a Lenite tetrarch was set

up in Washington; suppose our religion was called

a “barbaric superstition”
;
suppose Lenite soldiers

walked through our streets, collected our taxes, and

now and then induced some American to work for

them and collect taxes from their fellowmen; sup-

pose the capital of the United States was transfer-

red to Lenopolis
;
suppose we no longer had the right

to coin our money; suppose the judges of our courts

had no power of life and death over our citizens, but

only a Lenite court could impose death, and did so

freely; suppose the Lenitians regarded us as men-

tally and socially inferior, despite the fact that we

loved our independence and were fond of our glor-

ious history.

Now, suppose furthermore, the Incarnation had

not yet taken place, and Our Lord was born in some

insignificant Bethlehem in America; and about the

time we are speaking would have reached the middle

of His Public Life. Now let me ask the question : In
the midst of such financial, political, and economic

. woes what do you think would be the first question

Americans would ask Our Lord?

It wTould be without doubt: “Do you think it is

lawful to pay tribute to Lenites?” Or in other

words, “What do you think of the Lenitian ques-

tion?” The economic and the political and not the

need of purging ourselves would be uppermost in

nur minds. And how would Our Lord have answered

the question? Fortunately we need not speculate.



48 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY

We definitely know the answer, for the conditions I

described to you are identically the same as Our

Lord met in Israel. Israel was conquered by the

Romans in the year 63 B. C. Their capital became

Rome
;
their religion was called by Cicero in his ora-

tion against Flaccus “an abominable superstition”;

Roman soldiers policed their streets and induced

some Jews to gather taxes for them; these Jews

called ‘‘publicans”, of which Matthew was one, were

intensely hated by their fellow men. The Jews had

not the power of coining money. It is recorded of

one Rabbi that he so detested the payment of his

tribute that during his whole lifetime he never

looked upon the image of the emperor. The Jewish

judges had no power of life and death—that is why
only Pilate and not Annas or Caiphas could condemn

Christ to death. Finally, the Jews loved their great

national history, but the Romans such as Tacitus

spoke of them as an “abominable tribe”.

Into such conditions Our Lord was born. And

what was the first question of importance to them:

It was the political question
;
the financial question

;

the social question: the “What do you think of the

Romans” question. “Is it lawful to give tribute to

Caesar?”

And how did Our Lord answer it? “Bring me a

penny that I may see it.” The coin is handed to

Him. “Whose is this image and inscription?”

“Caesar’s,” they answer. Then He strikes. “Render

therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s
;
and

to God, the things that are God’s.” In other words,

the important problem is not the Roman problem or

the Lenite problem, but the spiritual problem : “Seek

ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his jus-

tice, and all these things will be added unto you.”



SPIRITUALITY 49

And so He left Caesar on his throne, Pilate on his

judgment seat, Herod in his court, and sent out His

Apostles full of the spirit of God and conquered a

world

!

The social order we build will depend upon how

we answer the question: What is the purpose of

living? If life has no other goal than the dust, then

we will build an order either of individual selfish-

ness, which is Liberalism, or of collective selfish-

ness, which is Communism; for if this Hfe is all,

why should we not have all? But if life is moral,

and the way we live in charity, justice, peace, and

sacrificing, determines our existence in the next

world, then what doth it profit if we gain the whole

world and lose our immortal souls? These two

philosophies of life are the Communistic and the

Christian; one material, the other spiritual. Com-

munists have only one word in their vocabulary and

that is the word “Down”
—
“Down with Capitalism!

Down with the Rich! Down with the Bourgeoisie!

Down with the Wealthy ! Down with Governments

!

Down with Classes! Down with Religion! Down

with God!”

Heavens above ! Is there not another word in our

vocabulary upon which we can build a true social

order? Can one build anything down? Must not

everything that is built be built upwards ? Let there

be another order constructed upon the word “Up!”

“Up from Class-struggle ! Up from Hate ! Up from

Revolution! Up from the material! Up from the

dust! Up beyond the earth, beyond the stars, up to

the ‘hid battlements of eternity’—Up—Up to God!”



CATHOLIC HOUR RADIO ADDRESSES

IN PAMPHLET FORM

OUR SUNDAY VISITOR is the authorized publisher of all CATHOLIC
HOUR addresses in pamphlet form. The addresses published to date, all of
which are available, are listed below. Others will be published as they are

delivered.

“The Divine Romance,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 80 pages

and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid. In quantities, $9.00 per 100.

“The Moral Order” and “Mary, the Mother of Jesus,” by Dr. George

Johnson, 64 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities,

$6.00 per 100.

“A. Trilogy on Prayer,” by Rev. Thomas F. Burke, C. S. P., 32 pages

and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Story of the Bible,” by Rev. Dr. Francis L. Keenan, 64 pages and

cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“Four Religious Founders,” by Rev. Dr. Francis J. Connell, C. SS. R.,

Rev. Benedict Bradley, O. S. B., Rev Thomas M. Schwertner, O. P., Rev.

Sigmund Cratz, O. M. Cap., and Rev. M. J. Ahern, S. J., 56 pages and

cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Philosophy of Catholic Education,” by Rev. Dr. Charles L. O’Don-

nell, C. S. C., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In quantities,

$5.00 per 100.

“Christianity and the Modern Mind,” by Rev. John A. McClorey, S. J.,

64 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Moral Law,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C. S. P., 88 pages and

cover. Single copy, 25c postpaid. In quantities, $9.50 per 100.

“Christ and His Church,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Joseph M. Corrigan, 88

pages and cover. Single copy, 25c postpaid. In quantities, $9.50 per 100.

“The Marks of the Church,” by Rev. Dr. John K. Cartwright, 48 pages

and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Organization and Government of the Church,” by Rev. Dr. Fran-
cis J. Connell, C. SS. R., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid.

In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Moral Factors in Economic Life,” by Rev. Dr. Francis J. Haas and

Rev. John A. Ryan, 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In

quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Divine Helps for Man,” by Rev. Dr. Edward J. Walsh, C. M., 104
pages and cover. Single copy, 30c postpaid. In quantities, $11.00 per 100.

“The Parables,” by Rev. John A. McClorey, S. J., 128 pages and cover.
Single copy, 35c postpaid. In quantities, $12.00 per 100.

“Christianity’s Contribution to Civilization,” by Rev. James M. Gillis', C.
S. P., 96 pages and cover. Single copy, 25c postpaid. In quantities, $10.00
per 100.

“Manifestations of Christ,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 123

pages and cover. Single copy, 35c postpaid. In quantities, $12.00 per 100.

“The Way of the Cross,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 32 pages
and cover (prayer book size). Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities,

$4.00 per 100.

“Christ Today,” by Very Rev. Dr. Ignatius Smith, O. P., 48 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Christian Family,” by Rev. Dr. Edward Lodge Curran, 68 pages
and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid. In quantities, $7.00 per 100.

“The Dublin Eucharistic Congress,” by His Eminence William Car-
dinal O’Connell. An address rebroadcast from Dublin, 12 pages and cover.
Single copy, 10c postpaid. In quantities, $3.75 per 100.

“Rural Catholic Action,” by Rev. Dr. Edgar Schmiedeler, O. S. B., 24
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In quantities, $4.50 per 100.



“Religion and Human Nature,” by Rev. Dr. Joseph A. Daly, 40 pages

and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Church and Some Outstanding Problems of the Day,” by Rev.

Jones I. Corrigan, S. J., 72 pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid.

In quantities, $8.00 per 100.

“Conflicting Standards,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C. S. P., 80 pages

and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid. In quantities, $9.00 per 100.

“The Hymn of the Conquered,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 128
pages and cover. Single copy, 35c postpaid. In quantities, $12.00 per 100.

“The Seven Last Words,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen (prayer-

book size), 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities,

$3.00 per 100.

“The Church and the Child,” by Rev. Dr. Paul H. Furfey, 48 pages

and cover. Single copy, 15e postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Love’s Veiled Victory and Love’s Laws,” by Rev. Dr. George F.

Strohaver, S. J., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In

quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Religion and Liturgy,” by Rev. Dr. Francis A. Walsh, O. S. B., 32

pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Lord’s Prayer Today,” by Very Rev. Dr. Ignatius Smith, O. P., 64

pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“God, Man and Redemption,” by Rev. Dr. Ignatius W. Cox, S. J., 64
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“This Mysterious Human Nature,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C. S. P.,
48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Eternal Galilean,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 160 pages

and cover. Single copy, 50c postpaid. In quantities, $16.00 per 100.

“The Queen of Seven Swords,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen

(prayer-book size), 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In

quantities, $3.00 per 100.

“The Catholic Teaching on Our Industrial System,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr.
John A. Ryan, 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In quanti-
ties, $5.00 per 100.

“The Happiness of Faith,” by Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S. J., 80 pages and
cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid. In quantities, $9.00 per 100.

“The Salvation of Human Society,” by Rev. Peter J. Bergen, C.S.P., 48
pages and coyer. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Faith,” by Rev. Vincent F. Kienberger, O. P., 48 pages and cover.
Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Catholic Education,” by Rev. Dr. George Johnson, 40 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Church and Her Missions,” by Rt. Rev. Ms-gr. William Quinn, 32

pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Church and the Depression,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C. S. P., 80
pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid. In quantities, $9.00 per 100.

“The Fullness of Christ,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 176

pages and cover. Single copy, 60c postpaid. In quantities, $16.50 per 100.

“The Church and Modern Thought,” By Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.,
80 pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid. In quantities, $9.00 per 100.

“Misunderstood Truths,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Duane G. Hunt, 48 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Judgment of God and The Sense of Duty,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr.

William J. Kerby, 16 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In
quantities, $4.00 per 100.

“Christian Education,” by Rev. James A. Reeves, M. A., S. T. D., LL.
D., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In quantities, $5.00
per 100.

“What Civilization Owes to the Church,” by Rt. Rev. William Quinn,
64 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.



“If Not Christianity: What?” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 96
pages’ and cover. Single copy, 25c postpaid. In quantities, $10.00 per 100.

“The Prodigal World,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 140 pages
and cover. Single copy, 50c postpaid. In quantities, $16.00 per 100.

“The Coin of Our Tribute,*' by Very Rev. Thomas F. Conlon, O. P-.
40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100

“Pope Pius XI,” by His Eminence Patrick Cardinal Hayes. An ad-
dress in honor of the 79th birthday of His Holiness. 16 pages and beautiful

4-color cover Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.25 per 100.

“Misunderstanding the Church,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Duane G. Hunt,

48 pages and cover, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Poetry of Duty,” by Rev. Alfred Duffy, C. P., 48 pages and cover.

Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Characteristic Christian Ideals,” by Rev. Bonaventure McIntyre, O.

F. M., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In quantities $5.00

per 100.

“The Catholic Church and Youth,” by Rev. John F. O’Hara, C. S. P.,

48 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Spirit of the Missions,” by Rev. Thomas J. McDonnell, 32 pages

and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Life of the Soul,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C. S. P., 96 pages

and cover. Single copy, 25c postpaid. In quantities, $10.00 per 100.

“Freedom and Democracy,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 56

pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

Complete lot of 58 Pamphlets to one address for $7.25 postpaid.

Address: OUR SUNDAY VISITOR, Huntington, Indiana



Hear and Help the Catholic Hour

Produced by the National Council of Catholic Men,

1312 Massachusetts Ave., Washington, D. C.

Presented by the National Broadcasting Company, and the

following associated stations:

Asheville, N. C. WWNC
Atlanta, Ga. WSB
Baltimore, Md. WFBR
Billings, Mont. KGHL
Birmingham, Ala. WAPI
Bismarck, N. D. KFYR
Boston, Mass. WEEI
Buffalo, N. Y. WBEN
Butte, Mont. KGIR

Cincinnati, Ohio WSAI
Charlotte, N. C. WSOC
Chicago, 111.

WMAQ or WCFL
Cleveland, Ohio WTAM
Celumbia, S. C. WIS
Covington, Ky. WCKY
Dallas, Texas WFAA
Davenport, Iowa WOC
Dayton, Ohio WHIG
Des Moines, la. WHO
Denver, Colo. KOA
Detroit, Mich. WWJ
Duluth-Superior WEBC
Fargo, N. D, WDAY
Fort Worth, Tex. WBAP
Greenville, S. C. WFBC
Hartford, Conn. WTIC
Hot Springs, Ark. KTHS
Houston, Tex. KPRC
Indianapolis. Ind. WIRE
Jackson, Miss. WJDX
Jacksonville, Fla. WJAX
Kansas City, Mo. WDAF

Louisville, Ky. WAVE
Los Angeles, Calif. KECA
Madison, Wis WIBA
Memphis, Tenn. WMC
Miami, Fla. WIOD

Nashville, Tenn. WSM
New York, N. Y. WEAK
New Orleans. La. WSMB
Norfolk, Va. WTAF
Oklahoma City, Okla. WKA
Omaha, Neb. WOW
Philadelphia, Pa. KYW
Phoenix, Ariz. KTAE
Pittsburgh, Pa. WCAE
Portland, Me. WCSF
Portland, Ore. KGW
Providence, R. I. WJAR
Richmond, Va. WRVA
St. Louis, Mo. KSD
St. Paul, Minn. KSTP
Salt Lake City, Utah KDYL
San Antonio, Tex. WO A i
San Francisco, Cal. KPG
Schenectady, N V. WGY
Schenectady, N. Y.

(Short Wave) W2XAF
Seattle, Wash. KOMO
Shreveport, La. KTBS
Spuokane, Wash. KHQ
Tampa, Fla. WFLA
Tulsa, Okla, KVOO
Washington, D. C. W

T

RC
Worcester, Mass. WTAG

(Most of these stations present the Catholic Hour every
Sunday at six o’clock, New York Time [D. S. T. during
summer], though some of them suspend it periodi-

cally because of local commitments, etc.;

YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE CONTINUANCE OF
THESE WEEKLY BROADCASTS OF CATHOLIC

TRUTH IS NEEDED AND SOLICITED.



CARDINAL HAYES STATES AIMS
OF THE CATHOLIC HOUR

(Extract from his address at the inaugural program in the

studio of the National Broadcasting Company, New York

City, March 2, 1930.)

Our congratulations and our gratitude are extended to the

National Council of Catholic Men and its officials, and to all

who, by their financial support, have made it possible to use

this offer of the National Broadcasting Company. The heavy

expense of managing and financing a weekly program, its

musical numbers, its speakers, the subsequent answering of

inquiries, must be met. . . .

This radio hour is for all the people of the United States.

To our fellow-citizens, in this word of dedication, we wish to

express a cordial greeting and, indeed, congratulations. For

this radio hour is one of service to America, which certainly

will listen in interestedly, and even sympathetically, I am

sure, to the voice of the ancient Church with its historic

background of all the centuries of the Christian era, and

with its own notable contribution to the discovery, explora-

tion, foundation and growth of our glorious country. . . .

Thus to voice before a vast public the Catholic Church is

no light task. Our prayers will be with those who have that

task in hand. We feel certain that it will have both the

good will and the good wishes of the great majority of our

countrymen. Surely, there is no true lover of our Country

who does not eagerly hope for a less worldly, a less material,

and a more spiritual standard among our people.

With good will, with kindness and with Christ-like sympa-

thy for all, this work is inaugurated. So may it continue.

So may it be fulfilled. This word of dedication voices, there-

fore, the hope that this radio hour may serve to make known,

to explain with the charity of Christ, our faith, which we

love even as we love Christ Himself. May it serve to make

better understood that faith as it really is—a light revealing
the pathway to heaven: a strength, and a power divine

through Christ: pardoning our sins, elevating, consecrating

our common every-day duties and joys, bringing not only

justice but gladness and peace to our searching and ques-

tioning hearts.