WHAT IS WRONG
AND

HOWTO SET IT
RIGHT

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The Catholic Hour



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WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO

SET IT RIGHT

By

REV. JAMES M. GILLIS, C. S. P.

Editor of The Catholic World

Seven addresses delivered in the nationwide Catholic Hour

(produced by the National Council of Catholic Men, in

cooperation with the National Broadcasting Company)

on Sundays from November 2, through December 14,
1941.

Page

Cause and Cure: Deeper Down and
Further Back 3

Tell the Truth and Save the World 12

The Fifth Freedom: From the Mass Mind 21

Local or Universal: Patriotism or

Internationalism? 31

Total Reform or None: Economic, Political,

Moral 41

Dec. 7 Politics in Religion? Religion in Politics 52

Dec. 14 From Christ and To Christ 61

Statement of the Catholic Hour’s Purpose 73

List of Stations Carrying the Catholic Hour 74

List of Catholic Hour Pamphlets 76

Nov. 2

Nov. 9

Nov. 16

Nov. 23

Nov. 30

National Council of Catholic Men

Producers of the Catholic Hour

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C.

Printed and distributed by Our Sunday Visitor
Huntington, Indiana



Nihil Obstat:

REV. T. E. DILLON

Censor Librorum

Imprimatur:

^ JOHN FRANCIS NOLL
Bishop of Fort Wayne



CAUSE AND CURE: DEEPER DOWN
AND FURTHER BACK

Address delivered on November 2, 1941

The general title of this series, “What is Wrong

and How to Set It Right,” may seem ambitious' to

the degree of absurdity. The first reaction in the

mind of the listener may be to ask “Who is this that

thinks himself to hold the secret that has escaped

Kings, Premiers, Presidents, Parliaments, Congress,

Generals, Diplomats, Governmental Experts, Schol-

ars, Philosophers, Statesmen? ‘What is Wrong and

How to Set It Right!’ Such egotism! Such arro-

gance !”

But let me hasten to explain that my solution

of the world problem is not my own. I make no

absurd claims to be a creative mind ; still less would

I be guilty of the sacrilegious pretense of having re-

ceived a private revelation from on high.

But I am a priest of the Catholic Church. The

Church has been in this world a long, long time. She

can recall precedents in the past for all that happens

today. She can say out of her own experience,

“There is nothing new under the sun.” Nothing that

happens, good or bad, can surprise her. She has

seen it all before.

Furthermore, she has not grown old. “Ever

ancient, ever new” describes her. She is neither

senile nor moribund. Communists have a slogan,

“Religion is opium.” They must be thinking of Bud-

dhism. Catholicism is not Buddhism, or any other

system of spiritual stupefaction. The Church is

alive, too terribly alive to suit her enemies.



4 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

I say she knows because she remembers. She

says of one man, “He reminds me of Augustus

Caesar, in the first century”
;
of another, “He is re-

peating the mistake of Emperor Henry IV and of

Frederick Barbarossa in the eleventh century”; of

another, “He seems to be trying hard to be a Nero,

a Caligula, a Peter the Great, or an Ivan the Ter-

rible”
;
of another, “He overruns a continent, destroy-

ing as he goes like Attila in the fifth century, Mo-

hammed in the seventh, Tamerlane in the thirteenth.

They come; they go. I remain and I remember.”

What the Catholic Church remembers she passes

on to her popes, bishops, priests, to any one who

cares to ask. It is, therefore, neither absurd nor

arrogant of a Catholic to offer a cause and a cure

for the evils of the world. He can dip into the

memoirs of his Church and bring forth some samples

of the wisdom she has accumulated. Of old when

skeptics challenged our Savior to say by what au-

thority He taught. He replied, “My teaching is not

my own, but his who sent me” {John 17 :16).

So much by way of preamble, not to this one

talk but to the series of seven.

Let us agree that the times are troubled. Some

say that they are now more troubled than they ever

were before. I don't think so myself, but I am not

inclined to argue the point. Suffice it to say that the

times are bad. The predicament in which civiliza-

tion finds itself is serious. Say, if you will, that

we are face to face with catastrophe; say even not

face to face with it but in it up to our eyes; say

that the hurricane no longer threatens but that it

has struck the European continent and may be ex-



CAUSE AND CURE 5

pected to strike the Americas at any moment. Call it

not a hurricane but a cataclysm ; say that the pillars

that uphold the civilized world are tumbling at the

hands of a maniac as the columns of the temple of

Gaza fell at the hands of Sampson; tell me, if you

think it true, that the world, now partially in ruins,

will be destroyed entirely, that “all our pomp of yes-

terday (will be) one with Nineveh and Tyre”; say

that we have come once again to the days when noble

cities, once centers of art and culture and commerce,

lie devastated, and that the ruins, of them shall lie

forever choked in weed as at Baalbek, or buried in

the sands as at Babylon or Thebes. If you would pose

as a prophet say that once again asps and basilisks

will crawl over the stones of Rome as in the days

of St. Gregory the Great, and, eight centuries later,

of St. Catherine of Siena; say that the day may

come, visualized if not prophesied by the British

historian, when a traveller from “downunder” will

stand “in the midst of a vast solitude” in the heart

of London; say with that other Britisher, a writer

of fiction who fancied himself in the role of prophet

in the 1920’s, who used to reiterate that if we ever

had one more war like that of 1914-18, civilization

would be set back a thousand years; wrap yourself

if you will in the mantle of Jonas; cry “Yet forty

days and Nineveh shall be destroyed”; “yet forty

days, or forty months and all the world—^the world
as we have known it—^will be destroyed.” Be as
pessimistic as you please; let your diagnosis be as

dismal and your outlook as despondent as you think

the facts warrant; I still make bold to say that your

tottering world can be propped up and made to

stand; that even a ruined world can rise again. I

know—^that is to say my Church knows and she has



6 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

told me—^the secret of the Rise and Fall of Nations,
the cause and the cure of the collapse of civilizations.

The cause and the cure. You cannot know the

cure unless you know the cause. In the cause is the

cure. Cause and cure are the same, seen from dif-

ferent angles. The cause of collapse is negative;

something has been taken away. The cure is posi-

tive; something must be replaced.

Now what is the cause of the sorry condition of

the world? The vogue of the moment is to say “Hit-

ler,” or “Stalin” or the twin-monster “Hitler-Stalin.”

That answer simplifies matters. To personify the

sins of a people or of a world saves thought. The

Jews of the Old Testament indulged in that device;

they laid the sins of the nation upon the scape-

goat, and drove the beast out into the wilderness.

“The serpent did deceive me,” said Adam. So today

we find it convenient to make of Hitler the goat,

the serpent and the devil all in one. But the world

was in a bad way before Hitler arose, and it may

be in a worse way when Hitler has disappeared.

There are those who borrow Voltaire’s phrase if

not Voltaire’s idea and cry “Blot out the infamous

thing.” Voltaire’s infamous thing was ecclesiasti-

cism. But it wasn’t ecclesiasticism that was endan-

gering France. It wasn’t ecclesiasticism that

brought on Revolution. The Revolutionists got rid

of ecclesiastics but when the ecclesiastics were out

of the way, Robespierre and Danton had the stage

to themselves, and what a shambles they made of

it!

Those who cry, “Blot out Hitler
!”

“Blot out

Hitlerism!” do not remember. The Church remem-

bers. Hitler is not a cause. Hitler is an effect. The

cause that made Hitler will make something worse



CAUSE AND CURE 7

than Hitler, if you get rid of Hitler and of nothing

else. The same statement applies to Stalin. To get

rid of Stalin and Stalinism will do no more good

than to get rid of Hitler and Hitlerism, unless with

Hitler and Stalin, Nazism and Communism, you

sweep away the things that caused them.

Well then, what is the cause of Hitlerism and

Stalinism and of the general demoralization of the

world? Another easy “out” for those who like short

cuts in thinking is to say “Versailles.” I am no apolo-

gist for Versailles. The treaty could have been worse

;

it should have been better. It was vindictive and

what is vindictive is foolish: “the wrath of man,”

says the Scripture, “does not work the justice of

God”

—

{St. James 1:20). They who tried to punish

Germany, punished Europe. If Versailles is the cause

of Hitler, Versailles is also the cause of the debacle

in France, of the humiliation of Dunkirk, of the

bombarding of London, and of a thousand other

visible and tangible calamities of the last few years.

But Versailles is not the cause, pure and simple, of

Hitler.

Besides, remember that Stalinism existed be-

fore Versailles under the name of Leninism. Lenin-

ism was a more violent and more dangerous form of

Stalinism, and it has been in operation since 1917.

Still another view is that the present calami-

tious condition was caused by World War No. 1.

That theory is plausible. Wars make wars. The

Thirty Years’ War and the Hundred Years’ War

were not one continuous war, so much as a succession

of wars, one leading to another. Nevertheless I do

not think that World War No. 1 was the cause of

World War No. II. Philosophers make a distinction

between cause and effect on the one hand and ante-



8 WHAT IS WEONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

cedent and consequent upon the other. The Scholas-

tics have a principle which may be rendered, “The

cause of the cause is the cause of what is caused.”

If, therefore, you seek the root cause of all our

troubles you will have to go further back and deep-

er down than Hitler, or Stalin, or Lenin, or Ver-

sailles, or the war of 1914.

The cause of the two wars, of the depression, of

the prevalent political chaos, of the Revolution of

Nihilism, is a philosophy. The philosophy that is

taught even now in America, and that has been

taught for two generations in England and the

United States no less than in Germany, is a philoso-

phy from which God is excluded. The idea seems to be

that if you introduce God into a philosophy you make

it not a philosophy but a theology. No more widely

irrational idea ever took possession of the minds

of learned men. Aristotle was no theologian, but he

had a God in his philosophy. Socrates, the father

of philosophy in the Western world, the philosopher

par excellence, would have thought it madness to

devise a philosophy without God. Not to run through

all the philosophies that have been conceived and

propagated since Socrates, be it said that not until

recent times has any system of thought calling itself

a philosophy rejected or ignored God.

When you get rid of God, you no longer have

an Absolute. If there be no Absolute there remains

only Relativity. The root cause of all the calamity

that now exists and that threatens the death of

civilization is the philosophy, or the many philoso-

phies, of Relativism. I speak not of mathematical

or astronomical relativity. What I have in mind as

the cause of mental and moral anarchy is any and

every system of thought which dispenses with the



CAUSE AND CURE 9

Absolute, that is, with God. We often say in sermons

to the people. “No God, no Ten Commandments; no

ten Commandments, no moral law; no moral law,

chaos.” But that is only a hint of the harm that

comes from getting rid of God.

I have read a philosopher who declares, “I will

not hear of the Absolute, the very mention of the

word ‘Absolute’ annoys me.” Very well then, let us

say there is no Absolute. All is relative. Truth is

relative. Justice is relative. Right is relative. If

there is no Absolute, there is no Universal. What

was true in the time of Christ and in Palestine need

not be true here and now in America. What seemed

good to Moses for his people in the wilderness is not

good for our people in a sophisticated urban civiliza-

tion. No code of morals adapted to the temperate

zone is good in the tropics. What is right and good

and true and beautiful in England or the United

States need not be good in Germany.

What next? If there be no Absolute Truth,

Right, Justice, the door is wide open to such a

philosopher as Thomas Hobbes who says “Justice

is what the State says it is.” If Justice is what the

State says it is. Truth is what the State says it is,

and Right and Virtue, Morality, Patriotism; every-

thing is what the State says it is.

But from the day when Jesus Christ stood be-

fore Pilate and Herod, from the day, long before

that, when the Prophets of Israel confronted a re-

calcitrant people, and were stoned to death, the mar-

tyrs have refused to accept the idea that whatever

the State says is true is true indeed
;
that the State

can make or unmake right or wrong
;
that the State

can create or destroy morality with an edict; that

the State can declare an unjust war just; that the



10 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

State can put its official stamp upon fanaticism and

make it patriotism; that the State can permit or

abolish religion at will, or say what religion shall

be tolerated and what religion be outlawed ; that the

State in brief can take possession of the whole man,

body and soul
;
that the State can proclaim its own

Absolute Sovereignty with the words, “Nothing

above the State; nothing beyond the State; nothing

outside the State.”

This blasphemy is the essence of Nazism and

of Communism
;

ultimately, philosophically, they

are one and the same. The two add up to this : There

is no Absolute God
;
the only Absolute is the State.

One step more and you have Hitler and Lenin

and Stalin. Louis XIV did not say, but the dictators

do say, “The State? I am the State.” The State is

personified in the leaders of the State. The leader

is the State.

But the final and supreme result of an atheistic

philosophy is that when you get rid of the Absolute

God you clear the way not only for the Absolute

State, but for the Absolute man. When the Roman

religion was in decay and the idea of a supreme God

waned, ^ the Emperor had himself declared God.

Caesar Augustus was god. Nero was god. Caligula

was god. The early Christians were slaughtered

because they would not offer incense to the emperor-

god.

Now there are documents aplenty, and they are

authentic, to show that the children in the schools

of Germany are taught, and their elders with them,

that the Ultimate Absolute is Adolph Hitler; that

all their thoughts and actions must be inspired by

him and be made to conform to his will. In a word,

the leader of the State takes the place of God.



CAUSE AND CUEE 11

“If there were no God we should have to create

one,” said Voltaire. He might have worded it dif-

ferently. When the philosophers say there is no

God, the people make to themselves a god. When

the people make their own god, it is a monster, a

god of blood and passion, a fiery fanatical god; a

god who flies easily and frequently into a frenzy;

a ruthless, bloodthirsty god, a maniac god issuing

crazy commands, a threatening god breathing fire

like Moloch, a god who dreams and plans to subdue

the whole world and make of all men his footstool.

That’s the kind of god you get when you reject

the One True Absolute God. For mankind must have

and will have a god, some kind of god. If the

philosophers don’t know that, they don’t know man

;

and how can one be a philosopher if one doesn’t

know human nature?

Yet almost every modern philosophy denies

God or ignores God. They who say that there is not

in their philosophy a place for an Absolute, that is

to say a God, are the makers of Lenin and Stalin

and Hitler; they with their philosophy are the cause

of chaos. It rejoices them to see the people and those

who pretend to explain affairs to the people focusing

attention upon some scapegoat. The guilty ones re-

main unnoticed in the general confusion.

Let us repeat: The cause behind the cause of

Nazism and Communism, and of all the evils that

flow from those two poisoned sources, is Atheism.

The cure is to bring back God, the Ultimate

Absolute Truth, Justice, Right. Do that and you

shall have a basis upon which to reconstruct even

this tottering civilization.



TELL THE TRUTH AND SAVE THE WORLD

Address Delivered on November 9, 1941

When Pope Leo XIII opened the Vatican arch-

ives to the world, inviting any and all, Catholics,

non-Catholics, Jews, agnostics, skeptics, friends and

enemies of the Church, to come and make use of

that vast treasury of historical documents, insisting

only upon the one condition that they should present

credentials of scholarship, he quoted St. Ambrose

who had said fourteen hundred years earlier, “Tell

the Truth; God has no need of a lie.” The invita-

tion and the quotation were no mere gesture, but a

splendid demonstration of courage and honesty, an

act of faith in the adage, “Truth is great and it will

prevail.” There were in those archives, records

aplenty of the work of the Church as creator and

director of Christian civilization; records of trial

and triumph
;
but there was also much first-hand in-

formation of the humiliation of the Church because

of scandals arhongst her members and her leaders.

No organization can live for a century, still less

for nineteen centuries, and not discover an occasional

rascal under its roof. “There is a skeleton in every

closet,” and it is often jocosely said that every proud

house if it goes a few generations back will find a

horse-thief among its ancestors. Horse-thief? Aris-

tocracy, royalty, nobility will find among their for-

bears usurpers, regicides, murderers, assassins. The

first barons were robber barons; early kings came

to their thrones generally by killing their prede-

cessors, perhaps their fathers or brothers, and by a

blood-purge of all possible rivals. It would be a

rare noble house that would lay open its family

history to the eyes of the world.



TELL THE TEUTH AND SAVE THE WORLD 13

But the frankest of all historical records are

the Sacred Scriptures. They tell the truth, even

when the truth is horrifying, as in the case of King

David’s being an adulterer and a murderer, or when

it is scandalous, as in the case of St. Peter’s swear-

ing that he never knew Jesus Christ. “It must needs

be that scandals come” {Matt. 18:7), said Jesus,

and “A man’s enemies will be those of his own

household” {Matt. 10:36). Before a half century

of Christian history had passed, St. Paul had to

complain that some of those who belonged to the

Church had been guilty of such vices as were un-

heard of among the heathen. By the fifth century

we find St. Augustine asking and answering in his

vivid way, “Who are the enemies of the Church?

Pagans? Jews? Worse than these are bad Chris-

tians.” Always there is among the great leaders

of the Church this refreshing truthfulness. Only

the lesser and more timorous apologists think it

necessary to conceal truth for the sake of edifica-

tion.

Pope Leo, therefore, was following an excellent

tradition when he said, “Tell the Truth; God has

no need of a lie.”

Now I would not say that political organization,

even our own United States of America, enjoys

miraculous vitality like that of the Church. The

Lord God did not promise that the gates of hell

should not prevail against the government at Wash-

ington. But I do believe that our country enjoys

the blessing and the protection of Divine Provi-

dence. When we sing, “Our Fathers’ God to Thee,

Author of Liberty,” we are enunciating a theological

truth. Also when we find in the Declaration of In-

dependence the statement that the fundamental



14 WHAT IS WEONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

rights of man are “unalienable” because with these

he has been endowed by his Creator, we recognize

a Catholic dogma lifted from St. Robert Bellarmine

or St. Thomas Aquinas and by them deduced from

the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

There was a debate years ago upon the ques-

tion, “Is God in the Constitution?” God is not only

in the Constitution and the Declaration, God is in the

framework of the government, in the courts, in the

legislatures, in the council room of the Cabinet, in

every department and bureau of the Administration.

“In Him we live and move and have our being,”

not only as individuals but as a nation.

Therefore, the State having God’s protection

should not be afraid of the Truth, should not think

to gain advantage with a lie. God deserts the man

or the nation which takes refuge in a lie. God is

affronted with a lie: God is wounded by a lie. If

God could be killed He would be murdered by a

lie. We do not say alone that God reveals truth,
or teaches truth, or enjoins the truth; that He

smiles upon truth, or blesses truth. God is Truth.

Some ancient superstitions maintained that there

were two gods, a good god and a bad god, each try-

ing to destroy the other. That was a superstition

indeed and therefore a heresy, but what is a supersti-

tion or a heresy but the distortion of a truth? Jesus,

True God of True God, says, “I am the Truth,” and

He calls Satan, “Father of Lies and of Liars.”

There, if you can but see it, is the Battle of the

Ages, the battle between the Truth and the Lie.

Whatever other war we are in, or may be in, we

are in that war. We cannot fight the battle for Truth
with a lie. Pope Pius X gave to one of our Paulist
Fathers in private audience a motto which that



TELL THE WOULD AND SAVE THE WORLD 15

priest, Father Doyle, quoted thereafter incessantly,

“We cannot build the Church upon the ruins of char-

ity.” No nor upon the ruins of Truth. Neither can we

build the nation upon the ruins of Truth. There are

many traitors and there is much treason in the body

politic at all times and especially in time of stress

and crisis; but the most vicious traitor is the one

who attempts to serve his country with a lie; and

the most dangerous of all treasons is the idea that

a good big thumping lie, or even a surreptitious lie,

a lie told with skill and finesse, can be of use in the

defense of the nation.

All these declarations, if you permit them to

remain in the realm of theory, abstract from reality,

are platitudes. But transfer those platitudes from

the sphere of theology into the realm of statecraft

and tell me if it is unnecessary to say them.

Who is master of the political world and the

diplomatic world, the world of international rela-

tionships? Christ or Machiavelli? Christ or Talley-

rand? Christ or Metternich? Can you, by any stretch

of the imagination, represent to yourself Christ as

a politician? Or as a ’diplomat? He says, “Let your

speech be ‘yes, yes’; ‘no, no’ ” {Matt. 5:37). How far
would you get in the world of diplomatic negotiation

with that?

I remember to this day a fragment from what

was perhaps the first Good Friday sermon I ever

heard. The priest in the pulpit said, “There met

on the porch of the Pretorium in Jerusalem on the

fatal day of the Crucifixion, two men, face to face,

one of whom was the exponent of the wisdom of this
world, the other was He Who said ‘My kingdom is not
of this world.’ Pontius Pilate was the worldly-wise

man
;
he was a politician. What chance had Christ



16 WHAT IS WEONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

before the bar of a man politically minded? The

political mind believes in shifts and turns and tricks

and compromises. Pilate could not judge the Divine

Victim standing before him, on the merits of the case.

In the back of his mind he had the thought of

Herod. ‘What will Herod say? What will Herod

do? And Tiberius Caesar. What will Caesar think?

What will Caesar do? And my position! And my

career ! And my fortune ! This poor Galilean speaks

of Truth. But what is Truth? What is Truth but an

abstract quality, in the face of things and persons

that are real?’ So the lie killed the Truth.”

The whole world of diplomacy, of political

maneuvering, of the art of influencing the popular

mind, the world of what we have come to call

“propaganda”—a tragic case of a good word gone
wrong—is built upon the Satanic principle that
when a certain end is to be achieved one must not be

scrupulous about the means to the end, and that

a lie can be pressed into service of the truth. The

Man Who said, “This is why I have come into the

world, to bear witness to the truth” {John 18:37),

was surrendered to the mob by the man who said

“What is truth ?” {John 18 :38) . Yea, what is Truth ?

says the politician, the diplomat, the advocate of

expediency, the opportunist, the man who considers

himself “practical” in contrast to dreamers and

idealists and perfectionists. What is Truth? says

the practitioner of Realpolitik. Truth is something

mystical, unreal, unattainable, non-existent; some-

thing at best relative. Your truth is yours; my truth

is mine; Churchill’s truth is true for Churchill,

Roosevelt’s truth is true for Roosevelt, Stalin’s truth

is true for Stalin, Hitler’s truth is true for Hitler,

Mussolini’s truth is true for Mussolini. What is



TELL THE TRUTH AND SAVE THE WORLD 17

Truth? Something elastic; something that can be

expanded or contracted indefinitely. Something

that can be approached but never grasped. What is

Truth? An ignis fatuus, a will o’ the wisp. What is

Truth? A mercurial thing that slips away from un-
der your finger. What is Truth? Truth is what

comes from the tongue of an enfant terrible—to the
mortification of the mother. Truth is what escapes

a man when he is in his cups: “In vino veritas."

In his sober senses he would never permit the truth

to pass his lips. To get the truth from a diplomat

you must make him drunk and if he be a good diplo-

mat he will not get drunk, not that he thinks it a

sin to get drunk, but because he fears that if his

tongue be loosened with drink he may betray him-

self and his vocation and his cause and his coun-

try by telling the truth.

There is a classic passage on this subject from

the Book of Morals of Pope St. Gregory the Great in

the sixth century.

“The simplicity of the just man,” he says, “is

laughed to scorn. The wisdom of this world is to

hide one’s feelings by artifices, to use language to

conceal thought.” (Talleyrand, by the way, gets

credit for that epigram but it was twelve hundred

years before him.) “This is the wisdom,” continues

St. Gregory, “which makes false seem true and

true seem false . . . This kind of art youth acquires

by practice; young men pay to learn it. But the

wisdom of the righteous is contrary to all this. They

seek to avoid deception, to use words to express

their thought, to love the truth because it is the

truth and to avoid falsehood. But again I say this

simplicity is made a matter of derision : the wise of



18 WHAT IS WKONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

this world believe simplicity to be foolishness and

innocence stupidity.”

Obviously the world changed since St. Gregory’s

day, 1400 years ago. Like the Bourbon kings, the

world forgets nothing and learns nothing. It makes

the same old mistakes in the same way forever and

forever. It still utilizes the lie for its purposes. And,

therefore, with other evils, we have wars forever

and forever.

In a radio speech a few months ago General

Pershing said, “I must tell you that we can defend

all things we hold most dear only if we make up

our minds to face the truth without flinching and

to act upon the truth without hesitating.” On almost

the same day the Pope made a fervent appeal for

truth-telling in regard to the war, and Marshal

Petain was explaining to the French people that

their humiliation had been brought about by per-

sistant lying. As for myself, I have again and again

in writing and speaking expressed the conviction

that neither this war nor any other war would have

occurred if premiers, presidents, diplomats, direc-

tors, statesmen, congresses, parliaments could by

some miraculous means have been persuaded to tell

the truth. The cause par excellence of this war and

of all wars is lying.

I say this war and all wars. I am not now foc-
using my attention upon any one crisis in the world’s
history. My remarks are not for particular but for
universal application. I am not examining one phe-
nomenon under the microscope. I am sweeping the
whole terrain with a fleld glass. I quote Pershing, an

American
;

Petain, a Frenchman
;
and the Holy

Father as one who above all others speaks for all

time and all places.



TELL THE TRUTH AND SAVE THE WORLD 19

As it happens, I find also in the words of Salazar

of Portugal an excellent example of the idea I would

convey. That extraordinary man, one of the most

enlightened of civil rulers in our day, follows a few

simple principles of administration. One of these

principles he expresses thus: “I allow no one the

liberty to write falsehoods, but I never prevent any-

one from formulating whatever judgments he pleases

if they are based on actual facts.”

Some call that man a natural born genius ; some

call him a saint. All observers say that he works

miracles—of a sort. One who has studied Salazar’s
plan of government carefully calls it “an applied

resume of Catholic political philosophy and of the

papal encyclicals.” Another enthusiastic admirer of

Salazar, though not of the same religious faith, asks,

“Does not the key to peace depend in the last analy-

sis upon statesmen—whether democratic or totali-
tarian—whose ideal guide, as in the case of Salazar,
is first and foremost the simple rules laid down by

Christ?”

To that question I would reply, “undoubtedly
!”

The key to peace is the Gospel, and the backbone

of the Gospel is truth.

The last war ended in 1918. In the 1920’s came

a flood of books of the “Now It Can Be Told,” “More

That Must Be Told” sort. When war is over, truth

will out. But when the war is on or when the war

is coming on, there are those who hold it is not expe-

dient to tell the truth
;
they think a little shading of

the truth, a little whittling down of the truth, or even

occasionally, when it seems necessary, a good solid

blow in the face of truth, is all to the good. But truth

will out, and when it comes out, those who have used

the lie, propagated the lie, trusted in the lie, will be



20 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

discredited. They may be in their graves, but their

bad repute will follow them.

A more important objection to the use of the
lie is that God is Truth. This is metaphysical. It

smacks of the theological. But it is the profoundest

truth of all. He who lies—in any cause—crucifies
Truth. He who lies does his part in the obliteration

of God, one might say in the annihilation of God.

If a sufficient number of such persons appear in the

commonwealth, if the custom of abusing the truth

prevails, God cannot but desert the nation. The worst

crime against the State is treason and treason is a

form of lie. But treason to the State is less evil

than treason to Truth. Treason to Truth is treason

to God. The State is built upon God; and so is the

world. And so is civilization. To save the State

and the civilized world the first and most important

means is to tell the truth.



THE FIFTH FREEDOM: FROM THE MASS

MIND

Address delivered on November 16, 1941

We may take it for granted that Americans in
general believe in Democracy. We are dedicated to
that belief. We swear to it. We would die for it.
Some of us are so devoted to Democracy that we are

not content to possess it ourselves, but are all afire to

communicate it to the rest of the world as if it were

a gospel or a Divine Revelation. So impetuous is

our zeal that we don’t stop to ask the rest of the

world if it wants Democracy. “My house,” said the

jocular host, “is Liberty Hall: under this roof you

do what you please : if you don’t we make you.” Cer-

tain extravagant devotees of Democracy think that

all the world must value what we value and live as

we live or be compelled to do so.

We live for Democracy. We would die for De-
mocracy, but don’t ask us to define Democracy. Does

it mean, in accordance with the old Latin maxim,

“Vox populi, Vox Dei,” “The voice of the people is the

voice of God”? Does it mean not only that officials

are elected but that justice is determined by major-

ity vote? Does it mean that when the people have

solemnly declared their judgment, that judgment is

infallible? Can questions of right or wrong, true or

false, be decided by vote? Granted that the ques-

tion of war or peace may be decided by majority

vote—majority of the people or majority of the rep-
resentatives of the people—does that vote carry with
it a guarantee that the war is a just war or the peace

a righteous peace?



22 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

Hundreds of critical questions like these

are flung at us by those who prefer a dictatorial

government. They assail what they call “the demo-

cratic principle” of determining matters of infinite

importance by the ridiculous process of counting

noses. If that were indeed the democratic principle

it would be right to ridicule and rail at it.

Now I will not, as the current saying has it, “go

out on a limb” with a definition of Democracy. What

concerns me in this address is not Democracy in the

political sense but the principle sometimes carried

over from the political sphere into the moral world,

the principle that if a sufficient number of people

follow a course of conduct, that course of conduct

must be right and good and true. Whatever be the

correct definition of Democracy, that definition is

fatally wrong. Numbers do not make truth.

When the first Christians came into the West-

ern World from Palestine they were not one tenth of

one percent of the population even of the Mediterran-

ean area, and, if you set them over against the vaster

regions beyond the border of the Empire of the Caes-

ars, they were numerically so insignificant that the

Romans and the Persians and the Indians and the

Chinese might have considered them not worth

counting at all. And yet, as we have been reminded

by the title of an excellent new book borrowed from

the medieval Chanson de Roland, The Heathen are

Wrong and the Christians, be they few or be they

\many, are right. Before the end of the second cen-

tury, however, the Christian orator Tertullian,

declared, “We are but of yesterday, yet we fill

your cities, islands, forts, towns, councils, camps,

. . . the palace, the senate, the forum; we have left

you only the temples of your gods.” It would be



THE FIFTH FREEDOM 23

dangerous, however, to use that argument in proof of

the Christian religion. Later on, Mohammedanism

spread as rapidly ; and in our own day we have seen

in Turkey and in Russia atheism supplanting reli-

gion with incredible popular acquiescence. It would

be a crazy logic that would attempt to prove that

Christianity was true in Russia under the Czar, false

under Stalin, and true again when Stalin goes to his

reckoning. Yet that would seem to be the conclusion

if the maxim that what the majority decides or what

the majority accepts is right.

But that crazy logic and that curious conclu-

sion are in vogue here and now in America, not

perhaps in the political world, but in the social and

moral world. Recently I heard, not for the

first but for the hundredth time, of a woman for-

merly a Catholic—of a sort—who justified her di-
vorce and remarriage on the ground that “times

have changed.” The Gospel says that remarriage

after divorce is sinful. The people of America three

hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, seventy

five years ago believed the Gospel and consequently

accepted the Gospel teaching on marriage and di-

vorce. But now if the majority of the people have

ceased to believe in the Gospels, does that invalidate

the teaching of the Son of God on marriage and di-

vorce?

In the early centuries there was a heresy called

Arianism which denied that Jesus was the Son of

God. Various emperors after Constantine favored

the heretics and persecuted the Catholics with such

violence and such success that as one historian said

epigramatically, “The world awoke to find itself

Arian”
;
and St. Anthanasius, defender of orthodoxy,

was “alone against the world.” But would any one



24 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

say that Christ was God while Constantine reigned

and ceased to be God under Constantins, or that

Christianity was true until Julian the Apostate came

to the throne but that thereupon paganism became

true again?

In a much later century Queen Elizabeth be-

lieved in the Mass; then disbelieved in the Mass.

Was the Mass true in England while she believed and

did it become idolatrous when she changed her mind ?

They say that on and off she was Catholic and Pro-

testant and that there were suspicions that she was

privately an atheist. Now should England be Catho-

lic if and when Queen Bess was Catholic, Protestant

when she was Protestant, and was it proper and

fitting that England should be atheist at heart if its

queen was atheist at heart?

Does truth follow the vicissitudes of kingdoms

and empires? Does Christ go out and Wotan come in

with Hitler? Does religion become “opium” because

Lenin and Stalin say so? Does truth dawn and die

with the day, ebb and flow with the tide? Are truth

and right and justice and virtue subject to the whim

of a ruler? “Justice is what the State says it is,”

according to Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher

two hundred and fifty years before Nazis and Fas-

cisti discovered the idea. But is it? Or is justice as

fixed as the stars above a revolving world? Is truth

also what the State says it is, or has truth an inde-

pendent existence, changeless in spite of the ever-

changing whims of men?

The Declaration of Independence speaks of “un-

alienable rights.” Is that a piece of oratory? Or is

it a philosophical and theological truth that the fun-

damental rights of men remain whether or not kings,

empires, parliaments, congresses acknowledge them.



the: FIFTH FREEDOM 25

To come to the more particular point I would

make. If we deny the right of the rulers of men to

create or to annihilate right and justice and truth

and virtue, shall we concede that right to the people?

If a whole people or a majority of the people ap-

prove the denial of fundamental rights to a certain

race of men, let us say in some places Negroes and

in other places Jews, do Negroes and Jews thereby

justly forfeit “unalienable rights”? If a tyrant

—

man or State—denies the right of Protestant pastors
or Catholic priests to preach the Gospel, as in Nazi

Germany, does the command of Christ, “Go teach,”

“Go preach” cease upon the moment? “We must

obey God rather than men,” says St. Peter {Acts

5 :29). Have times changed so that now we must

)bey men and disobey God?

I use these examples from the world of politics

only as analogies. My primary concern is with the
moral world.

When people speak of “immorality” they usually

have in mind indecency, obscenity, or some other vio-

lation of holy purity. But is there not a deeper

immorality—that which considers moral principle
elastic, evanescent, fickle as the whims of man—or of
woman. La donna e mobile, says the operatic aria,

qual pium al vento: “Woman is fickle as a feather in

the wind.” Justice is pictured as a woman, and so is

Truth. Are Justice and Truth blown hither and

thither with every breeze?

The deepest and most dangerous immorality of

all is the immorality that thinks what was true yes-

terday may be false today or tomorrow; that what

was vicious in our grandparents’ day may be virtuous

now
;
and that a change in ethical principles must



26 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

follow a change in the mind of the majority of the

people. If that be an interpretation of democracy

it is a disastrous interpretation.

The same phenomenon appears in the world of

business and of the professions. I know many busi-

ness men, lawyers, physicians who lament the trend

to the unethical in the special worlds in which they

operate. They tell me that the tide is running against

them, that too many of their rivals have reduced

business ethics and professional ethics to three prin-

ciples: “Everybody’s doing it”; “If I don’t do it

some one else will”; and “You can’t do business now-

adays on old-fashioned principles.” Especially in

metropolitan cities they say the ethical degenera-

tion is obvious. They blame this set of persons or

that, but they all seem agreed that decline if not ac-

tual decay is upon us. “It is easy enough,” they add,

“for you preachers to tell us to stand firm, to hew

to the line and all that. But we have families to sup-

port, homes to maintain, food and clothing to buy.

To do business on the morals of a past generation is

as impossible as to do business with the methods of

the past generation. We must do what the others do
or be sunk. The crowd is running all one way; we

cannot forever buck the stream. They call us fools,

fossils, reactionaries if we don’t swing in with the

multitude.”

No priest or preacher can fail to be aware of

the difficulty of following strict business and profes-

sional morals. But no moralist, unless he abdicate

his position and turn renegade to his vocation, can ac-

quiesce in moral laxity. Right is right if nobody does

it. Wrong is wrong if everybody does it. What the

business man needs and what the professional man

needs is a new declaration of independence. A cen-



THE FIFTH FREEDOM 27

tury and a half ago here in America our forefathers

declared for political independence. It may be that

the day has come to declare for moral independence.

They declared in 1776 independence from the tyran-

ny of a king
;
in 1941 it may be advisable to declare

independence from the majority. As any student of

history knows full well, it is easier to defy a Nero or

a Caligula or an Ivan or a Hitler or a Stalin than to

defy the crowd. Louis XVI was a mild-mannered

gentleman personally, but the mob that came into

power when he had been guillotined was the wildest,

craziest, most bloodthirsty that the world has known,

though they carried banners with the democratic slo-

gan : “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”

To go further back and higher up, Jesus might

have been spared by Herod—Herod didn’t care; or
by Pilate—Pilate wanted to be just; but what sealed
the doom of our Savior was that mad mob in the

streets of Jerusalem. You may ask justice from a

tyrannical king. He may listen. But if you speak of

justice to a raging mob you only infuriate them the

more. Government of the people is a boon and a

blessing when the people are sane and just, but

when the people become a mob, they are more cruel

than Nero or Caligula or Peter the Great.

There remains one other tyranny, social

tyranny, which generally slides into moral tyranny.

In the world of entertainment, public and private,

the world of the theatre, of the dance, of eating and

drinking—especially drinking—it is said to be no
longer possible to follow one’s own will and way, to

plan one’s own life. If a woman refuses to follow

the styles in dress, even though the styles be inde-

cent and perhaps in her case absurd, she must go to

no end of inconveniences and expense, and be ready



28 WHAT IS WROStG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

for ridicule. So in the world of entertainment and

hospitality. If the lady of the house will not do what

others do, if she refuses to conduct a kind of open bar

in her home, in the presence of her children, a bar at

which all visitors may drink, and many will drink to

excess, she is considered fanatical. If she makes even

a mild protest against her adolescent daughter’s late

hours, the frequentation of night clubs, and indis-

criminate companionship, she is denounced by her

own flesh and blood as tyrannical, or cuttingly called

old fashioned. If she declines to go out night after

night, or a dozen times a month to play cards, and

again to drink strong drink, she acquires the reputa-

tion of being unsocial or anti-social. If—now I speak

of conditions in oversized metropolitan cities like

this one of New York—a mother suggests, however
patiently and adroitly, that her boys and girls ap-

proaching manhood and womanhood should as a

rule avoid places of public entertainment and make

their own fun with their own friends in their own

home, it will be well if the young people do not ex-

change significant glances with one another and per-

haps make gestures behind her back to indicate that

they think her “a hopeless poor dear.” Their argu-

ment against all such reasonable suggestions is that

“nobody entertains at home; the old-fashioned sing-

fest around the piano is ante-civil war stuff. It is

not done. Mother : it simply isn’t done ! If we go in

for that sort of entertainment we shall have no

friends.”

A petty tyranny indeed, this last one, but very
real, especially to the young. What they need is still

another declaration of independence; a resolution to

live life sanely and reasonably, to entertain them-

selves with a supreme disregard of the indecencies.



THE FIFTH FREEDOM 29

the shamelessness, the bawdiness, the vulgarity, and

the banality of the night-club world.

. We see in the newspapers that those who ex-
amine drafted men for physical fitness have been

horrified to find so small a percentage of them in

good condition. But I wonder what report we should

have if national boards of examiners were to look

into the question of the moral and spiritual fitness

of young America. Do boys and girls follow the

habits and customs of the world that envelops them ?

Do they accept perhaps at first with a mild disgust

but later without protest the prevalent form and

manner of relationship between the sexes? If the

majority follows a certain pattern in that matter,

must everybody submit to be made over according

to the pattern? Do they permit themselves to be

regimented and standardized, even though regimen-

tation and standardization mean the surrender of

their ideals, their personality, their spiritual inde-

pendence? To put it in a phrase, are they afraid to

call their souls their own ?

I fear that if we—or the young folk themselves
—^answer these questions frankly, we shall have to
confess that like their fathers and mothers, fathers

in the business and professional world, mothers in

the social world, they .are victims of the mass mind.

They do what they don’t wish to do because all the

world is doing it.

I repeat: The greatest tyrant in the world

today is not a Duce or a Fuehrer in a foreign land.

The tyrant here at home, the mass mind, the mob

mind dominates us in a democracy as rigidly in some

respects as the most despotic dictators elsewhere

dominate their victims. It is time that we declared

our independence of the tyranny of the majority.



30 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

There are not Four Freedoms only. There are Five,

and the Fifth is more important than some of the

others—Freedom from mass-thinking : freedom
from mass-action in matters social and moral as well

as political.



LOCAL OR UNIVERSAL:

Patriotism or internationalism?

Address delivered on November 23, 1941

I used to know a man who held that the greatest

menace to civilization was patriotism. He was a

good man and intelligent. He dearly loved to argue

and he was profoundly sincere. He read a good

deal, especially along the line of economics. In that

subject he leaned towards radicalism. But he was

orthodox in religion. He was a good father to

his family and until sickness came upon him

in his latter years he was successful in business.

He was, I should say, what Theodore Roose-

velt used to call a “Desirable Citizen.” Indeed

his concept of American citizenship was per-

haps purer than that preached with such gusto

by the Rough Rider president. Teddy’s Ameri-

canism was a^ggressive, militant, imperialistic,

whereas my friend used to wax wroth at war,

conquest, and the infliction of one people’s ideas of

government upon another.

With that phrase I have given away the case.

What my good man meant by “patriotism” was not

a well-reasoned love of one’s own country, its cus-

toms, its institutions, and its people, but a com-

bative, truculent patriotism, which, pharisaically,

trusts in itself and despises others; an illiberal, in-

tolerant patriotism, the patriotism of the provincial

who goes abroad and comes back home filled with

contempt of foreigners
; the patriotism of the

traveller with a closed mind who, after one visit to

another continent, forever after makes invidious

contrasts between older civilizations and our own.



32 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

always to the advantage of our own; the patriotism

of the ignoramus who visits a European art gallery,

declares in a loud voice that the masterpieces are

ridiculous, and who in a hotel lobby or at a ’sidewalk

cafe tells the world that we do this or that better at

home; the patriotism of the young fellow who saw

in Rome, as he said, “nothing but ruins” and who

considered the Yankee Stadium a greater marvel

than the Coliseum; the patriotism of the vul-

garian American who calls all other peoples by

offensive nick-names
;

the patriotism of the old-

fashioned Fourth of July orator who, red in the face

and dripping perspiration, gesticulates and vocifer-

ates that we are the greatest people on earth and

that we can lick all the rest of the world taken to-

gether; the patriotism in a word of that obnoxious

type of Super-American who refers to our land as

“God’s Own Country” and to all other places as the

land that God forgot.

That, I think, is what my late lamented good
friend had in mind when he denounced “patriotism”

as the greatest menace to peace and to the progress

of mankind; and I think we can all agree with him.

When Doctor Johnson made his famous definition

of patriotism as “the last refuge of a scoundrel,” he

might have added “or if not -a scoundrel,, a fool,”

and it may be debated whether fools or scoundrels

do more harm.

Patriotism in its purity is, after religion, per-

haps the highest and noblest of virtues. But in ac-

cordance with the Latin axiom ‘‘corruptio optimi

pessima,” which we may perhaps venture to trans-

late in the current idiom, “the higher they stand the

harder they fall”—the harder and the lower—-there
is scarcely anything more deplorable than a per-



LOCAL OK UNIVERSAL 33

verted or corrupted patriotism. A true patriot sings
of the land that God gave to his fathers, “I love thy

^

rocks and rills, th^ •woods and templed hills”; and

he adds what the poet omitted, “I love the people

who climb thy hills and worship in thy temples. I

love the earth on which I tread and I love the people

who tread that same earth with me
;
I love not only

the hills and the rocks but the farms and the fields,

the city streets, and the men who till the soil of

those farms and fields and who walk those streets
;
I

love those with whom I touch elbows in the streets

and in public conveyances; at work and at play;

in times of sorrow and of joy; in days of national

humiliation when my country has suffered some

calamity, and in days of jubilation consequent upon

a triumph of war or of peace; I feel these men

to be my brethren, like those with whom I worship

in God’s House
;
almost like those who are my

brothers according to the fiesh, children from the

womb of my mother
;
my heart is too big to be con-

tent with love of myself
;

it pours out its affection

upon my family, my neighbors, acquaintances,

fellow workers, fellow sufferers; all those whose

eyes behold the same landscape as I, the same rivers

and lakes and seas and mountains
;
who draw their

sustenance, with me, from that same earth and

those same waters. The soul within me is not dead.

I do say ‘This is my own, my native land’
;
it is a fact

that my ‘heart within me burns’ when I return from

wandering on some foreign strand. If I have for a

time been, though still within the borders of this

vast country, far away from father, mother,

brother, sister, my heart leaps and there is a catch

in my throat as I approach my home once again;

but an emotion no less spontaneous and scarcely les§



34 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

warm comes over me when I return from travel on

some other continent than my own; and I feel an

electric thrill pass through my frame when my foot

touches once again my native soil.”

All this is natural, and what is natural is God-

given. Next to my religion, indeed part of my reli-

gion, is my patriotism. It is a sentiment, a passion,

part of my being; it comes to me as an endowment

from God Who made me. Quite as much as life,

liberty, and happiness, love of country is a divine

gift and for that reason inalienable.

But the more noble and beautiful the sentiment,

the more degraded and ignoble and ugly it becomes

when perverted. Love, for example—love of man
for woman and woman for man—is so sacred that
Christ and the Church hold it a Sacrament. But

when it is debased it becomes so loathsome that it is

not to be mentioned among us. As with love of

man for woman, so with love of man for God. There

have been those in history and religion who, by some

queer twist of mind, have thought that love of God

involves hatred of man. Forgetting the exclamation

of the beloved disciple, “For how can he who does

not love his brother, whom he sees, love God, whom

he does not see?” (I St. John 4:20), they have

hated and persecuted their fellows
;

they have

driven them out of the synagogue and of other

houses of worship
;
and doing so, have thought they

did a service to God. This is the wildest, craziest,

most cruel of all hatreds, hatred in the name of God

and religion. Not “religion” should it be called but

fanaticism.

As with the love we have for another, as with

the love we owe to God, so with the love we bear

our country. It is in its pristine purity a beautiful



LOCAL OE UNIVEESAL 35

and admirable sentiment. But if a patriot thinks

himself called upon because he loves his country to

hate some one else’s country, he is no patriot but a

fanatic. A man’s love for himself must overflow
upon those around him, “Thou shalt love thy neigh-

bor as thyself”; a man’s love for brothers and sis-

ters germane must overflow upon those whom we

call metaphorically our “brethren,” as Jesus did;

and the love we bear our own land and its people

must overflow upon the whole world and all peoples.

Cynics and “realists” tell us that such a love for

all mankind is impossible. It is indeed impossible

unless in one’s heart there be a great mysticism, a

religion. But as long as it is considered impossible,

so long will the world be scourged with war.

Wars do not arise, as the disciples of Karl Marx

or any other philosophic fatalist tell us, from eco-

nomic causes: we are not caught in “the fell clutch

of circumstance”
;
we are neither dumb-driven cattle

nor are we machines set in motion when some one

at a distance throws a switch to turn on an irresist-

ible current. A man in a power house may take hold

of a handle, thrust it up or pull it down and with

that motion set ten thousand machines in motion or

stop them. But no man, and by the same token no

imaginary god of the heathens, Zeus or Moloch or

Mars or Wotan, can look down over the ramparts

of heaven, like some Tony Sarg looking down from

the flies above the stage, pull a string and make us

mortals dance and play or thrust and stab and kill

as puppets do.

There comes to mind that tremendous word of

Jesus, “You have heard that it was said, ‘thou shalt

love thy neighbor, and shalt hate thy enemy.’ But I



36 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

say to you, love your enemies” {Matt. 6:44). Tre-

mendous doctrine ! Revolutionary doctrine ! “Im-

possible doctrine,” says the cynic. But unless

that sentence from the Sermon on the Mount

is seen to be the basis of a genuine new order,

this poor harrased old world will never have

lasting peace. Hitler’s New Order is, of course, not

new; it is as old as warfare, it is warfare. Christ’s

New Order was new when He spoke it and it is new

to this day, brand new; the nations have never used

it. People are always asking, “What’s wrong with

the world?” The answer is so simple that when we

give it the diplomats say “Too simple.” They love

to complicate matters
;
it is to their interest to keep

things complicated. If international relationships

ceased to be complicated, the diplomats would be out

of a job. So they cry in their favorite lingo, “Trop

simpliste,” “Too simple,” “too naive,” “too unsophis-

ticated,” “too unrealistic,” when we tell Them that

what’s wrong with the world is that the world dis-

agrees with God. But so long as they live by the'

outmoded maxim, “Love your friend, hate your'

enemy,” they shall never have peace.

So far have we drifted from both the letter and

the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount that men, pro-

fessed Christians, tell us that the kingdom of God

on earth must be defended with fire and sword;

that religion banned and routed here and there must

be reestablished with battleships and bombers,

tanks, fiame throwers and perhaps even by a sys-

tematic starvation blockade.
^ .

I beg you to note that if all this sounds like ah
’

argument against war it is only an argument against

war as a civilizing instrument, war as a means fori,

the propagation of the faith. There is and there can



LOCAL OR UNIVERSAL 37

be no valid argument against bona-fide self-defense.

A nation unjustly attacked has a right before God
and man to defend itself, but it does seem incongru-

ous if not blasphemous to declare that we shall defend

the Gospel and protect Christ, the Christ Who died

on the Cross rather than call upon His legions of

angels—to defend Him I say—with bloodshed.
Jesus Christ doesn’t want to be defended by the

shedding of the blood of His enemies. It was not the

blood of enemies but the blood of innocent victims

martyrs spilled upon the earth that was the seed of

Christians, in the beginning, is now, and always

shall be. If we have faith, we shall fight indeed

with the Sword of the Spirit, but the Sword of the

Spirit is not the sword that is plunged to the hilt

into the body of a man to come out dripping wet and

red.

If the doctrine of the Sermon on the Mount is

too highly mystical for us, if we give it lip service

but inwardly disbelieve it, we can at least remem-

ber that less idealistic maxim of the apostle St.

James, “The wrath of man does not work the justice

of God” {St. James 1:20), and St. Paul’s point-

blank declaration that “the weapons of our war-

fare are not carnal,” and the sublime saying

of Pope Pius X quoted once before in this se-
ries, “We cannot build up the Church upon the

ruins of charity.” We cannot reconstruct re-
ligion upon the earth which we ourselves have

devastated. If the enemy lays waste the kingdom

of God we can build it up again; the Church has

done so a dozen times before, after frightful sweep-

ing calamity had come and gone. But if we go into

battle with the Cross in one hand and the sword in

the other, the peoples whom we conquer will deride



38 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

US as hypocrites when the battle is over. They did

indeed do something like that in the days of the Cru-

sades. But conditions were vastly different a thous-

and years ago. Much water has flowed under the

bridge since then
;
much blood has been spilled

;
the

Church, if not the world, has learned the lesson of

bloodshed
;
and great developments have taken place

in our comprehension of the spirit of the Gospel. Be

that as it may, the Pope, Pius XII, has declared no

crusade and I doubt that he would even if the Holy

Land were again in danger. Neither the Holy Fath-

er himself, nor any bishop has advocated the use of

arms to spread the Gospel, to avenge the persecuted,

or to promote the cause of the Church.

And that brings us to the question that must

have been suggested by my earlier remarks to the

effect that patriotism must not be narrow, but must

expand to take in the world. It is the spirit of the

Gospel, and assuredly the spirit of the Church to

favor a true sincere internationalism. The League of

Nations might have been a splendid institution if

it had not ruled out religion and deliberately ig-

nored the claims of the religious bodies to be repre-

sented. Be it well understood—what the poet calls
“the parliament of man, the federation of the

world,” cannot be established or maintained by

physical force. The medieval league of nations,

which we call “United Christendom,” was possible

—though to tell the truth the passions of men and
the ambitions of kings hampered its activity—it
was possible and feasible because Christendom

recognized one head of the kingdom of God upon

earth. But if you have for guarantee and sanction

of the ruling of the League of Nations only a civil



LOCAL OR UNIVERSAL 39

court implemented with arms, it will never succeed.

There is a kingdom of God here in our midst, but

its bond is love. Love is to some a mystical, intan-

gible, unsubstantial, unrealistic thing. It is ridi-

culed by those who advocate Realpolitik. But it is

indispensable, as Adolf Hitler will learn to his cost,

as in fact he is learning now. He cannot hold Nor-

way and France and Belgium and Holland and Aus-

tria and Czecho-Slovakia and Greece and shall we

say, presumably, Russia, by force of arms. Either

those nations will love him and his rule or they will

hate him
;
and you cannot long hold together a vast

empire of heterogeneous peoples with hatred in

their heart, either for one another or for the domi-

nant power.

What Hitler cannot do, neither can any other

do. A League of Nations cannot build itself up and
maintain its authority with what unthinking people

call glibly an International Police Force. Such a

police force is an army. You cannot hold Europe,

Asia, Africa, America together with an army, any

more than you can hold half a continent or a whole

continent together with a Gestapo or a Cheka. It is

love or nothing. If you can persuade the people of

one nation to love their own land and their own

people first, and then expand that love until it em-

braces other nations and finally all nations, you will

solve this problem of patriotism and superpatriotism,

of nationalism and internationalism. But make no

mistake about your method. You shall not bring that

blessed Utopia to pass with arms. It will not spring

up out of the earth when you have smashed a dic-

tator or three dictators or a dozen. St. Gregory the

Great in one of his homilies says in the laconic way

of the early Romans, “Contraria contrariis curan~



40 WHAT IS WEONG AND HQW TO SET IT RIGHT

tur
”—contraries are cured by contraries, intemper-

ance by temperance, hatred by love, anger by pa-

tience, lust by continence. Force will be cured by

gentleness, national and international antipathies

will be overcome by love. It sounds unreal and im-

practicable. But it is the Gospel; the Gospel is

Christ; and Christ the Son of God makes no mis-

take. We shall save the world His way or we shall
not save it at all.



TOTAL REFORM OR NONE: ECONOMIC,
POLITICAL, MORAL

Address delivered on November 30, 1941

The world today is bewildered~not to say be-

devilled—with a multiplicity of problems, political,
social, economic

;
class problems, race problems,

local, national, international. Some say that because

of modern inventions,, which bring the ends of the

earth closer together, all problems are world-wide.

They tell us with some plausibility that we cannot

solve the problems of the farmer who grows corn in

the Mississippi Valley unless at the same time we

solve the problem—or at least grapple with it—of
the farmer who grows rice in the paddies alongside

the great rivers of China. They say also that the

housing problem in the slums of New York and

Chicago is bound up with that of finding room for

the overflowing populations of Belgium and Italy

and Japan. Rather recently, when we were in the

midst of a prolonged financial depression and a

third of the people of our own country were under-

fed, badly housed, and poorly clothed, we were con-

fronted with the economic theory that it was no

use trying to take care of our people unless at the

same time we planned for the welfare of all the

peoples of the world. At the present time we are

told repeatedly that we cannot maintain the four

freedoms, or any one of them, for ourselves unless

we secure them for all the inhabitants of the globe.

Our problems therefore seem to be not only mul-

titudinous and various but universal.

Furthermore, the present crisis has been

caused by the fact that all those problems have



42 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

come to a head at one and the same time. It is an

old adage that troubles never come singly; in a

familiar line Shakespeare says, “When sorrows

come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”

The classic instance of course is that of God’s good

servant Job. But who is there that has not ex-

perienced in his own life or observed in the life of

some one else, the sudden onslaught of many woes

all arriving together or in swift succession—ill
health, loss of fortune, discharge from a job, be-

trayal by a trusted friend, ingratitude and even

treason in one’s own family, and who knows what

other calamities, that fall upon one suddenly like

an avalanche.

It happens to good people and to bad. When

suffering comes upon a good man, he knows how

to deal with it. He has his religion. When it comes

upon a bad man, he is—^to use the same words again
—^bewildered, and as he thinks, bedevilled. He had
said, or at least thought, “Behold I have sinned and

no evil has come upon me.” But his sins catch up

with him, and as likely as not they all catch up with

him at the same moment. He has been extravagant

and profligate, unfaithful in his domestic duties

and to his obligations as a citizen. The crash occurs

and all his sins come tumbling down upon his head.

His creditors refuse him any more time of grace;

his wife discovers his infidelity; his children are

ashamed of him and perhaps disown him
;

his

friends fall away; the government prosecutes him;

those from whom he would seek help hide them-

selves from him; those to whom he looks for sym-

pathy laugh at him. “One thing at a time,” he

cries. “I could stand one thing at a time.” But life

is not like that. The fates are merciless. Enemies,



TOTAL REFORM OR NONE 43

those whom he calls enemies, swarm in on him

from all sides. He has to fight and to suffer or

commit suicide. If he commits suicide his real

sufferings begin.

Our present civilization is like that man. It

has been an extravagant civilization, a profligate

civilization. Like the prodigal in the Gospel the

world has squandered its substance, material sub-

stance, moral and spiritual substance. The world

has been going along without reference to God and

with little or no concern for God’s Commandments.

Popes, priests, preachers, moralists have cried

alarm repeatedly. Look back, for example, upon the

Encyclicals that have issued from Rome since 1878

when Pope Leo XIII came to the throne, and

through all the twenty five years of his pontificate,

and under his successors, Pius X, Benedict XV,

Pius XI, and the present Holy Father Pius XII.

Those encyclical letters make a generous document

of prophetic literature. In them you can see not

only a brief abstract and chronicle of the evils of

the day, but such warnings of impending doom as

might have come from Isaias or Jeremias or

Daniel.

The world paid little attention, went its way

reckless, profligate, heedless. “After all,” said the

worldy wise, “popes and priests are professional

calamity howlers. We need pay no attention to
them. All’s well. We will right ourselves if things
commence to go too badly. We have science, and
education deeper and broader and better than any

that existed before. Education will save us. We
have a department of knowledge unknown to our

ancestors. Sociology, which enables us to detect and

diagnose disease in the social order, and to apply



44* WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

the cure. The world may be wicked but it is re-

sourceful. With the help of universal education,

with the press and radio as well as the schools to

disseminate knowledge we can reach great popula-

tions quickly and set them right if they are going

wrong. We have passed out of the dark ages. We
have light. We see our way. The priests tell us that

we are ‘a wicked and adulterous generation.’ Per-

haps we are, but we are shrewd. We know how far

we can go. When the time comes, we will halt and if

need be turn back. As for those moralizings and

melancholy prophecies in the papal encyclicals, re-

peated from the pulpit, in the religious press, and

over such radio programs as that of the Catholic

Hour—we weary of them. The clergy should leave
us alone. Shoemaker stick to your last, priest keep

close to your sacristy. This world is too big, too

complicated, too busy, too progressive to be com-

prehended by those who got their education in

ecclesiastical seminaries. Let priests and preachers

confine themselves to homilies on the Gospel. What

right or claim or competence have popes or pre-

lates or common clergy to speak to us of economics

as Pope Leo did, or of Social Justice as Pope Pius

XI used to do? Leave us alone. We can run this
world.

Now that the world is face to face with calam-

ity, these same wiseacres still spurn the assistance

of moralists and theologians. They still imagine

that the ways and means and methods that led

them into the predicament will guide them out of

it. They still pursue a form of education from

which God is excluded; they still think they can

construct a workable code of ethics with no assist-

ance from religion
;
they still subscribe to the super-



TOTAL REFOEM OR NONE 45

stitioh that you can set the world right when it

has gone wrong by enacting laws, more laws, more

mountains of laws. Perhaps I may take a slight

liberty with the poet’s lines,

“111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey

Where laws accumulate, and men decay.”

They still place their reliance upon sociplogy and

psychology : A sociology which spurns the assistance
of theology; a psychology, the science of the soul,

which denies the existence of the soul.

Of one thing they feel sure: When they have

dealt with the menace of Nazism and destroyed it,

and perhaps also the menace of Communism, all

will be well for democracy and for our form of

civilization. They are unfamiliar with the works

of so profound a thinker as Christopher Dawson,

perhaps the leading philosopher in England today,

whose writings are richly studded with such provo-

cative passages as these

:

“Never before in the history of the world has

a civilization been so completely secularized, so con-

fident in its own powers and so sufficient to itself as

is our owh. The crude and aggressive atheism of

the Soviet State is but the logical culmination of a

tendency that has characterized the general de-

velopment of European civilization for the last

century 'and a half. Indeed we may well ask if the

tolefatidh which is still shown to Christianity by

the States of Western Europe is not due to the fact

that religion is regarded by them as something

politically negligible, and consequently whether it is

not really more insulting to Christianity than the

open hostility of the Bolsheviks.”



46 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

And this: “The old individualist ideal of the

State as a policeman whose business it is to clear

the field for individual initiative is a thing of the

past. The State of the future will be ... an earthly

providence, an all-powerful, omnipotent human god

—and a very jealous god at that. We see one form
of this ideal in Russia and another in Germany. It

may be that we shall see yet a third in England

and America.”

And this : “European culture had already

ceased to be Christian in the eighteenth century, but

it still retained the inherited moral standards and

values of a Christian civilization. And so it at-

tempted to erect these standards into an inde-

pendent system by providing a rational philosophic

justification for them. This was the Liberal ideal-

ism that was the faith of the nineteenth century

—

not a religious faith, but a quasi-religious substi-

tute for one. But as Liberalism did not create these

moral ideals, so, too, it cannot preserve them. It

lives on the spiritual capital that it has inherited

from Christian civilization, and as this is ex-

hausted something else must come to take its place.

Once society is launched on the path of seculariza-

tion it cannot stop in the half-way house of Liberal-

ism; it must go on to the bitter end, whether that

end be Communism or some alternative type of

‘totalitarian’ secularism.”

There you have it in a phrase
—

“totalitarian

secularism.” With totalitarian Fascism and Nazism

and Communism, the world is familiar. But have

we any statesmen in Congress, or for that matter

any nationally known writers in the press or speak-

ers on the radio—outside of professedly religious
persons—^who warn us constantly and vigorously of



TOTAL REFORM OR NONE 47

the danger of “totalitarian secularism”? Have we

any one in America to tell us as Dawson tells his

fellow-Englishmen (if I may quote him once more)

:

“We can already discern the beginnings of this

paternal-democratic regime in England and can see

how all the apparatus of the social services—uni-
versal secondarfy education, birth-control clinics,

antenatal clinics, welfare centres and the rest—
may become instruments of a collective despotism

which destroys human liberty and spiritual initia-

tive as effectively as any Communist or Nazi terror-

ism.”

Is any one saying those things to the American

people, any one except clergymen whose warnings

are disregarded or discounted because it is thought

that they have an ecclesiastical axe to grind?

This is the fifth talk in the present series on

“What is Wrong and How to Set It Right.” In the

preceding four addresses as in this I have said the

same thing in varying forms. The world has de-

stroyed itself with worldly wisdom. It cannot resur-

rect itself with worldly wisdom. You may find that

simple truth not only in the Gospels but in Mother

Goose. When Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall,

not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can

put him together again. When civilization topples

and falls not all the politicians nor all the profes-

sors can lift civilization up again. When the world

is shattered no one can put the pieces together

again except the One Who put them together in the

first place. The One Who called the world into order

out of Chaos can again make Cosmos to succeed

Chaos. But the world must cry ’to Him to do it.

When you leave out God—out of education, out of



48 WHAT IS WEONG AND HOW TO SET IT EIGHT

scientific progress, out of government and the

affairs of nations, out of private and public life, all

goes to wrack and ruin. If you will but call God

back again. He will come and recreate the world.

We who preach this truth have said it so often
without visible result that I suspect we should be

more specific. Perhaps we have left these things

too high in the sky of abstraction. Let us bring

them down to earth.

I have time for only one concrete illustration.

In that same science of Sociology to which I

have made passing reference, you have the theory of

the solidarity of society. That’s what I had in mind

when I mentioned the unity of interest between the

grain-growers on our American prairies and the

rice-growers in China; between the crowded slums

of our metropolitan cities and the over-crowded

countries of Europe. But how are you to persuade

the American that he must share his competence

and his comfort with the European or the Asiatic?

Can it be done with science? Can it be done with

sociological or psychological reasoning? Can it be

done by compacts, treaties, political instruments?

Can it be done by war? It is the Christian doc-

trine that such a stupendous result cannot be

achieved except by religion. The brotherhood of

man means nothing without the Fatherhood of

God. If there be no God ; if He be not the Father of

all mankind
;
if we are not His offspring ; if we are

not all one race and all one family because He has

created us all, there will be no effective realization

of the unity of mankind.

In St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians there are

two texts in close sequence which seem at first blush

to contradict each other. The apostle says, “Bear



TOTAL REFORM OR NONE 49

ye one another’s burdens” and “let every man bear

his own burden.” It isn’t a contradiction; it isn’t

even a paradox. It is a truth so rich in meaning

that it cannot be comprised in one sentence. If

every man bears his own burden he will help every

other man to bear his burden. We are all members
one of another, so closely unified that the welfare

of one is impossible without the welfare of all.

There—as all Catholics and many others will
see—we come close to the doctrine of the Mystical

Body. It is a beautiful doctrine and consoling. But

it is at the same time a difficult doctrine. “Am I my

brother’s keeper?” If you are not “your brother’s

keeper” you are your brother’s enemy. You may

even be, like Cain, your brother’s murderer. No

man liveth to himself
;
no man dieth to himself. If I

kill another man I kill something within myself. I

slay that man’s body but I bring death to my own

soul.

What is true between man and man is true be-

tween race and race. The white man who is guilty

of injustice to the black man harms himself more

than he harms the black man. If the black man

retaliates and wreaks revenge, he does himself

more harm than the white man has done to him. But

more than that, much more than that: They both. sin

against God Who has made them both. Likewise, if

the Gentile hates the Jew and the Jew the Gentile;

if the Gentile persecutes the Jew and the Jew takes

revenge upon the Gentile, they both sin against the

same God in Whom they both believe.
As between race and race, so between nation

and; nation. Whatever war-mongers and propagan-

dists of hate may say, the English must not hate the

Germans, nor the Germans the English. The Irish



60 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

cannot be good Catholics and hate those who have

wronged them, and (now here enters a curious

psychological fact) those who have harmed the

Irish must not hate the Irish,

Recently there has been discussion here in

America as to our attitude towards Russia and the

Russians. We may hate and loathe the atheistic
Communism that is official in Moscow, but we must

not hate or loathe the Russian people. As a matter

of fact we must not hate even the leaders of the

Russian people. So too of Germany and the Ger-

mans, We may and indeed we must abominate
Nazism, but if we permit so much as a spark of

hatred to remain in our soul for the German people

or for their leaders we disobey Christ and we dis-

honor His religion.

We need not pursue the thought or multiply
the examples. Here is one rule to which there is no

exception. We must love all men and hate none.
But there, as any honest person can see, you are

clean out of the atmosphere of worldly wisdom, of

science, and of secular education. You cannot teach

men that sublime truth of the Mystical Body with-

out reference to religion. You cannot persuade men

to believe it unless upon the authority of God Him-

self. “This is a hard saying and who can hear it,”

said some of the Galileans when Our Lord first pre-

sented the truth of the Blessed Eucharist. “This is

a hard saying,” say those whose education and

mentality are purely secular, “and who can live up

to it.” No one unless his life is charged and sur-

charged with Divine Grace. No one whose conduct

is guided by merely natural reason. For this you

need the supernatural. The supernatural means

religion and God. Seventy million Americans pro-



TOTAL KEFORM OR NONE 51

fess no religion. If seventy millions never speak to

God in prayer and other millions pray but seldom,

you cannot expect them to believe in and act upon

the doctrine that here in this land all peoples and

races must love one another. If some hundreds of

millions of men on the other continents live and

think and move and act in a purely natural atmos-

phere with no mysticism, no religion, no God, they

will never learn to compose their differences or to

cease fighting one another. With God all things are

possible. Without God nothing is possible, least of

all Universal Peace.

There you have but one example of the need of

God and Religion. One out of hundreds. The great-

est calamity to this world is not this or that par-

ticular philosophical system, this or that totalitar-

ian tyranny. What has caused the present crisis is

Godlessness.



POLITICS IN RELIGION? RELIGION IN

POLITICS

Address delivered on December 7, 1941

In almost every platform lecture, radio address,

and after-dinner speech nowadays
;
in the more ser-

ious kind of magazine article and in a multitude of

books, occurs the statement, or its equivalent, “We

live in a world of confusion.” True. So obviously

true that it seems silly to say it. But there are var-

ious kinds of confusion, and the most fundamental

kind is seldom so much as mentioned. I mean mental

confusion, confusion in the realm of reasoning. The

prevalent political confusion and moral confusion

"would clear away promptly if men would only think

straight. Of course there are passionate persons

who don’t want to think. They seem to say, “Don’t

ask me to think. Don’t let me think.” But most

men would like to think if they could. The heart of

man is generally in the right place but his thinking

apparatus is often—as the Russians say—“kapoot,”
“out of order.” Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler made,

years ago, a significant speech on “Thinking as a Lost

Art.” Alexander Pope three hundred years earlier

had put it in one of his unforgettable rhymed

couplets

:

“How few think justly of the thinking few.

How many never think who think they do.”

Not three hundred but three thousand years earlier,

the prophet Jeremias said what the professor and

the poet were to say, and said it more eloquently:

“With desolation is all the world made desolate be-

cause no man thinketh.”



POLITICS IN KELIGION? RELIGION IN POLITICS 63

Enough of that. It is a tempting theme but it is

not now my purpose to develop it. What I had in

mind today is the fact that one evidence pf lame

and impotent thinking by most men is their in-

stantaneous reaction to the title of this talk, “Reli-

gion in Politics? Politics in Religion.” “Keep those

things apart,” they say. “Separate them as day is

separated from night. No, not that, for after all

there is a twilight in which night and day meet and

mingle
;
separate them as the divisions of the hold of

a battleship are separated, with a bulkhead of

steel; separate Religion and Politics with the im-

passable abyss which, as our father Abraham told

Dives, separates Heaven from hell.” Which of the

two. Religion or Politics, corresponds to Heaven

and which to Hell, seems to be a matter of debate.

In Russia they say that religion is hell; in America

we profess to believe that politics is more likely to

be of the pit. But oddly enough, both in the U.S.S.R.

and in : the U.S.A., there is wide agreement that

religion and politics must be kept as far apart as

heaven and hell. Indeed a great many Americans

will tell you that the principle of the separation of

Church and State, involving dissociation of religion

and politics, is a fundamental postulate of our form

of government.

But from the beginning of the world until now

there has never been a kingdom, an empire, a state,

a city, or any form of political society from which

religion was excluded. It has never been done be-

cause it cannot be done. It has been attempted
;

it

has been momentarily and -partially accomplished.

But you can no more take religion out of a State

and keep it out than you can take hydrogen, oxy-

gen, and nitrogen out of the air and keep them) out.



54 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

You can indeed make a vacuum—a small vacuum,
in a laboratory—^but when you produce a vacuum,
Nature summons all her force to destroy it. Nature

abhors a vacuum. So, you can take religion out of a

State, but Nature—^human nature—will put it back
again. The maddest and wildest of all psychological

blunders is to imagine that religion is something

unnatural imposed upon man by priestcraft, and

that therefore it must be kept out of the more im-

portant affairs of men. Nonsense! If some atheis-

tic tyrant were bold enough and strong enough to

kill all priests and lay all temples of religion flat

to the ground with not a stone upon a stone, reli-

gion would sprout anew from the earth, as the grass

and the grains and the flowers grow again on a

battlefield that has been made a desert by shot and

shell and poison gas. Religion comes down from

above but also it comes out of the soil, out of the

blood and bone of man, out of his heart and mind

and soul. To take religion out of human life would

have the same effect as taking the elements of the

atmosphere out of the atmosphere. From time to

time certain fanatics, scientific fanatics or religious

fanatics (one kind is as bad as the other), tell us

that on a certain date a comet, on its way to earth,

will burn out the atmosphere that envelops the

globe. The catastrophe is always going to happen.

It never does happen. God doesn’t let it happen. But

if the atmosphere of chemical elements in which

the body of man lives were suddenly burned away it

would not be so great a calamity as if the religious

atmosphere necessary for the life of his soul were

to explode and vanish.

Another mistake of the opponents of religion is

that they recognize no distinction between good and



POLITICS IN RELIGION ? RELIGION IN POLITICS 65

bad, true and false religion. Atheists in general

reject all religion because some religion is vile. It is

like rejecting all food because some food is poison;

or like the logic of the man who, reading that thou-

sands of persons are killed by stepping on a cake of

soap in a bath tub, resolved never again to use soap

and never to get into a tub; or of the man who

argues that because the vast majority of people die

in bed, one had better not go to bed. Silly? Of

course, but no sillier than a great deal of what

passes for thinking in these irrational times. Have

you not met persons who don’t go to Church because

some who go to Church are hypocrites? “I don’t

make my Easter duty,” said one man to me (a big

man in the business world), “because the last time

I went to Holy Communion I saw at the altar rail

people who owe me money and don’t pay.” The

logic is that of the Chinaman who commits suicide

on the door step of the one who has done him a

wrong. I have also met college students who gave

up religion because they had read in H. G. Wells

or Grant Allen or in James G. Frazer that savages

believe in a savage god. Does any Church ask a

civilized man to believe in a savage god? Is there

not a civilized God for civilized people? If they

don’t like the god of Mumbo Jumbo, or for that

matter the top-hat god, the roll-top desk, swivel

chair god in “Green Pastures,” what about the God

of Thomas Aquinas or of St. Augustine? What

about the God of Jesus Christ? The silliest reason-

ing, the craziest logic seems to suffice the man who

doesn’t want to go to Church, as it does the man

who doesn’t want to take a bath or go to bed.

In getting rid of God the atheists, especially

the Soviet atheists of Moscow, make a god of the



56 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT
"

people or as they say, the proletariat. But the people

can be as cruel as any fabulous god. “The people,

Sir, is a great beast,” said Alexander Hamilton.

Great beast indeed, great monster, like the people

in the courtyard of the Pretorium of Pilate who

howled like maniacs for the release of a murderer

and the crucifixion of Christ. But shall we there-

fore say that the people, all the people, all the

time, is a great beast? Where will such wild logic

lead us?

Now I am no professional apologist for politics

and still less for politicians. But I think it only fair

to say that the science and the art of politics have

been the victims of crooked thinking im the same

\yay, if not-to the same degree, as religion. Some

men—-shall I say most men—when they say “poli-
tics” have in mind degraded politics, debased, cor-

rupted politics. I have in this series of talks used

the word in that sense, but only after explaining

that-T spoke of Machiavellian politics.

-But what is politics? Let’s have a definition.

Not a sarcastic definition, a cynical or a jocose defi-

nition, but, venom aside and jesting aside, what is

politics? Politics, says the dictionary, is “the science

which treats of the principles of civil government

and the conduct of state affairs in the interest of

peace, prosperity, and safety.” And again : Politics

is “that branch of ethics which deals with the rela-

tion and duties of States or social organizations.”

Evidently there is nothing ignoble or debased or

shameful about that kind of politics. Gf course

you may also find in the dictionaries secondary

definitions of politics, “partisanship,” “factional

rivalries” “intrigues,” “wire-pulling,” “trickery.”

But it is a mistake in logic and an unfair procedure



POLITICS IN RELIGION? RELIGION IN POLITICS 57

to lump good politics with bad and condemn all

politics. In the national hymn of Great Britain,

“God Save the King,” occur the lines, addressed to

God, “Confound their politics : frustrate their knav-

ish tricks.” “Politics”—some one else’s politics

—

seems not only to rhyme but to be identified with

tricks. There again you have the fallacy of con-

fusing good with bad, pure with corrupt.

Politics is not only a branch of life. It is an in-

dispensible requisite for the welfare of the human

race. Were there no politics there would be an-

archy. American Communists when confronted

with the cruelties of the Soviet State sometimes

explain that these cruelties are temporary and that

the time will come when the State can afford to

dispense with cruelty and that indeed the ultimate

aim of Communism is the abolition of the State.

Oddly enough, the same objective was visualized by

Friedrich Nietzsche, forerunner of Nazism. He held

that all States and all governments are tyrants and

must finally be done away with. When there is no

State there will be no politics and no politicians,

but when there is no State there will also be

anarchy.

Putting aside fallacious and unreasonable no-

tions of politics and of religion, it becomes plain that

the greatest boon to the human race at any time,

and especially in the present crisis, would be the co-

operation of pure politics and right religion. What

ails the world is the elimination of religion from

politics. Strange that well disposed men and wom-

en cannot see that fact. If a preacher in the pulpit

says to the congregation, “When you leave the

Church take your religion with you. Don’t leave

it in the pew. Take it into your home, into the kit^



68 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

chen, into the bedroom, into all your family life

and social life. Take religion with you when you

go to work. You will need it in the office, in the fac-

tory, in the mine and the mill, more than you need

it in Church. Take religion with you when you go

to a place of entertainment. If there is an incon-

gruity between your religion and your entertain-

ment, seek some other entertainment in which your

religion, your conscience, the welfare of your soul,

will be safeguarded.” And so on. And so on. A
sermon like that will be praised as “Practical” and

“Sensible.”

But shall we then say to a man whose voca-

tion is politics: “Leave your religion in Church or

at home when you go to the council chamber or the

caucus, to parliament or to congress”? It is done

indeed. There are Sabbath Day saints who are

week day villians. But the cure for that condition

is not to separate religion and politics but to com-

bine them. It is not too much to say that the pres-

ent sad condition of the world has come to pass

because of the secularization of politics. Politicians

of the baser type, especially since the French Revo-

lution, have insisted that God be kept out of all

affairs of State. “Let us settle our problems,” they

say, “make our plans and direct our government

without reference to God.”

Those who say such things are not aware of

the implication of what they say. If you leave out

God, you leave out justice and right and truth. It

cannot be repeated too often—^though the more we
repeat it the less some people seem to understand

—

God is Justice, God is Right and Truth. If you leave

God out of politics, out of government, out of trea-

ties and covenants and all political pacts, you leave



POLITICS IN RELIGION? RELIGINO IN POLITICS 59

out Truth and Righteousness and Mercy; you have

remaining only expediency, selfish interest, inter-

national rivalries. If you leave out God you leave out

all chance for lasting peace. There is no hope for

peace in the midst of natural antipathies unless you

turn to the supernatural. The Ultimate Absolute

Supernatural is God.

Those may seem to be, and they are, profound

metaphysical statements and perhaps for that rea-

son politicians have not grasped them. But poli-

ticians worthy to be called statesmen have not ig-

nored them. George Washington declared, “Reason

and experience both forbid us to expect that national

morality can prevail in exclusion of religious prin-

ciples.” Thomas Jefferson did not leave God out of

the Declaration of Independence. All men, he says,

have been endowed by their Creator with certain

rights. These rights were begotten not of flesh

and blood, not of the will of man, but of God. If

the rights of man are from man, man can take them

away. If they are the gift of the State, the State

can withhold the gift or demand it back. But if

the rights of man are of God, no man and no State

can alienate them.

Peace, then, must be negotiated and ratified

in the name of God. In earlier days all great cove-

nants commenced with the phrase, “In Nomine

Domini: Amen” “In the Name of the Lord: So be
it.” I will venture further. War must be declared

and waged, if at all, in the Name of God. If men

do not dare to call God to witness the justice of a

war, it is no just war for them. To leave God out

of war is to admit the Godlessness of war. St. Thom-

as Aquinas lays down as one of the requisites of a

just war that it must be conducted in the spirit of



60 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

justice and love. He justifies war only on con-

dition that it be an instrument in the hand of man

to do the will of God. Today, that high and holy

doctrine is considered by some ridiculous or impos-

sible. But it remains true that if a war cannot be

justified in the eyes of God it is not just. To de-

clare war or to participate in a war without refer-

ence to God is as sacrilegious as to attempt to con-

duct any political function without the sanction and

the help of religion. Rudyard Kipling is not usually

considered a religious minded poet, but he did have

a glimpse of the truth that war without God is a

wicked war. He sings:

“For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard

—

All valiant dust that builds on dust.

And guarding calls not Thee to guard

—

For frantic boast and foolish word.

Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord
!”

In peace, in war, in all the relationships of man

with man, nation with nation, we must remain un-

der the aegis of God, or we shall perish.



FROM CHRIST AND TO CHRIST

Address delivered on December 14, 1941

Seldom if ever in all the addresses I have de-

livered over the Catholic Hour for the last twelve

years have I permitted myself to indulge in per-

sonal recollections. But today, closing this series, I

ask permission to make an exception to my self-im-

posed rule. After choosing the title of today’s talk

“Away from Christ; Back to Christ,” I happened

to remember that such was the topic of my first

formal sermon after ordination a good many years

ago. I had indeed preached brief homilies on the

Sunday Gospels in parish churches; I had preached

a good many times in a jail and a penitentiary while

still a deacon (ignoring the Federal Constitution

which declares that “cruel and unusual punish-

ments” are not to be inflicted upon prisoners)
;
I had

given spiritual conferences to long-suffering nuns in

convent chapels. But my first sermon on an im-
portant occasion was in the great Church of St.

Paul here in New York on the Feast of Saints Peter
and Paul, and on that red letter day in my career I
attempted in a boyish way (I was only twenty-five)

to expound to the people the majestic encyclical of

Pope Leo XIII entitled “Christ our Redeemer.”

That papal document had stirred my mind and in-
flamed my heart, while I was yet a student. Now
after all these years, looking at it in the light of

long experience, I still think it superlatively elo-

quent and true and wise.

If the letter and the spirit of that letter ad-

dressed to all the world had been observed, the

world would not be in its present sorry plight.



62 WHAT IS WEONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

My temptation at the moment is to borrow from

it copiously; indeed to fill up this entire period of

radio time with quotations from that superb defi-

nition of a Christian civilization. But I shall ask my

hearers to listen to only two .paragraphs from Leo

XIII and then proceed as best I may on my own.

Omitting reluctantly many a noble and beautiful

passage, let us come to words which are the theme

of today’s discourse. Listen, but remember that the

translation, excellent though it be, does injustice to

the majestic Ciceronian Latin of the original.

The Pope, speaking of individual persons, had

said, “Never to have known Jesus Christ in any way

is the greatest of misfortunes, but it involves no

perversity or ingratitude. But having known Him,

to reject or forget Him is so great a crime as to be

scarcely credible.”

He continues: “The case of governments is

much the same as that of the individual; they also

must run into fatal issues, if they depart from the

way. The Creator and Redeemer of human nature,

the Son of God, is King and Lord of the world, and

holds absolute sovereignty over men, both as indi-

viduals and as members of society. God His Father

hath given to Him power and honor and dominion;
and all peoples, tribes, and languages shall serve

Him. ... Therefore, the law of Christ ought to hold

sway in human society, and in communities so far

as to be the teacher and guide of public no less than

private life. ... It fares ill with any commonwealth

in which Christian institutions are not allowed their

proper place. Let Jesus be excluded, and human
reason is left without its greatest protection and

illumination; the very notion is easily lost of the

end for which God created human society, to wit:



FEOM CHRIST AND TO CHRIST 63

that by help of their civil union the citizens should

attain their natural good, but nevertheless in a -way

not to conflict with that highest and most perfect

and enduring good which is above nature.”

“The law of Christ must hold sway,” says the

Pope. Jesus our Savior must not be excluded from

human society. He must hold absolute sovereignty

over men and nations. But is He not in fact ex-

cluded from the conduct of national and inter-

national affairs? Is He consulted in the making of

war? Even in the making of peace is He invited to

take part? He or His representatives?

We call ours a “Christian Civilization.” Why?
Is Christ the Cornerstone of the Structure of that

Civilization? Is He the foundation, the frame-work,

the captsone? Is the name of Christ carved upon

every stone of the ediflce, written with a torch of

Are upon the steel of its beams and girders? Is His

Name inscribed or His Image sculptured over the

doors of great buildings dedicated to commerce or

art or law or medicine? True, here and there in our

cities we see the sign of the Cross—^the Sign of
Christ—over certain Churches and other buildings
consecrated to religion. But if ours is a Christian

civilization, why should the distinguishing mark of

Christianity be the exclusive possession of reli-

gion? Constantine beheld the Sign of the Cross

above his banners on the battlefleld
;
in that Sign he

conquered and from that day forth he placed the

Cross upon the banners of the Empire to indicate

that Roman civilization had ceased to be pagan and

was henceforth to be Christian. If ours is a Chris-

tian civilization, why has the custom of Constan-

tine been dropped? In the courts of Europe for a



64 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

thousand years hung the crucifix where both officers

of the law and criminals under the law could see it.

Why was it removed?

Looking upon any great architectural structure,

the educated observer may say instantaneously,

“Gothic,” or “Norman,” or “Moorish,” or “Egypt-

ian,” or “Mayan,” or “Chaldean” or what-not.

Looking upon the political and ethical structure of

our civilization, can one say confidently and with-

out hesitation, “Christian”? Is our jurisprudence

Christian? Is the American educational system

Christian? Is our cultural life, art—the art not of
France or of Spain or Italy four hundred years ago,

but the art of America today—is it Christian? And
music—not the classical music of the great concert
halls, not the music still perpetuated by frequent,

though perhaps less and less frequent, renditions by

Philharmonic societies and Symphony orchestras,

but the music of the masses and of the moment—is it
Christian? Is the operatic music played and sung

at the Metropolitan in New York, the Grand Opera

in Paris, La Scala at Milan, the Colon at Buenos

Aires, or Rio Janeiro—is operatic music Christian?
Is our politics Christian? Both the science and

the art, the theory and the practice, of politics? Is

our literature—periodical literature and book litera-
ture—Christian? Is the theatre Christian? And
radio, especially radio entertainment? And the mo-

tion picture industry—call it art or call it business

—

is it Christian? I refer not to personnel either of

actors or of producers, but to the content, the tone,

the spirit of the pictures. Are the great and power-

ful newspapers of the country, newspapers of in-

credibly vast circulation and of nation-wide in-



FROM CHRIST AND TO CHRIST 65

fluence upon the mind and the morals of the public

—are the newspapers edited in the light of Chris-

tian ethics?

As for the Labor Question, the subject of dis-

pute between employers and employees, or for that

matter between one huge organization of workers

and another organization, or between the labor

leaders and the government—is that subject de-
bated and decided on the basis of the social prin-

ciples of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Was our total entrance into the war settled

by a direct reference to the mind and the doctrine

of Jesus Christ? Do our statesmen study that Mind

and that doctrine? Do they inquire of those who

have made such study a life-work? Have you, for ex-

ample, heard any of our leaders quote Stratmann or

Gigon, or Saurez or Bellarmine or Aquinas, or, as an

authority upon the subject in the first World War,

Pope Benedict XV ? If these names are strange to
radio audiences, if they are not heard in public

forums, is it because public men are not at all con-

cerned about interpretation of the Gospel in the

matter of war and peace? Do they care what the

theologians say? Do they care what Christ said?

If the answer to these questions is a plain and

simple “No !” spoken either reluctantly or con-

temptuously, why do we call our civilization Chris-

tian? If the answer is “Yes, the statesmen are

indeed eager to have the Mind of Christ,” would the

optimist who gives that answer care to make it

good w;ith analysis and demonstration? If the an-

swer is neither “Yes” nor “No,” but “partly Yes” and

“partly No,” what curious and repulsive hybrid can

this be, which is part Christian and part pagan,



66 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

which takes its inspiration partly from the Gospel

and partly from a heterogeneous jumble of Freud

and Haeckel and Nietzsche and Spengler and Sorel

and Lord Byron and Omar Khayyam and Machi-

avelli? Have we pieced together a civilization from

elements left over and handed down from Nineveh

and Tyre and Babylon and Sodom and Gomorrah

and Ephesus and Corinth, wherein flourished the

vices that were hateful to God and that had become

repulsive even to man? Have we inherited or bor-

rowed Mohammedan filth from Port Said and Al-

giers; is there in our Western civilization a dash,

and more than a dash of heathenish immorality? Do

we think that all these survivals or revivals of a cul-

ture that was so rotten that it fell to the ground

and festered, are consistent with a Christian civili-

zation? Can that civilization be an amalgam of

truth and error, of vice and virtue? “If then I be a

father, where is my honour?” {Mai. 1:6) said God

to His people of old. If I am the founder of your
civilization and its Lord and Master, says the Son

of God, what do ye with all these abominations?

“What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?”

{2 Cor. 6:15).

There, I think, we have uncovered the sore that

is wasting away this world of ours. We are half
heathen, half Christian. It we personally are not,

our civilization is. We have not the courage of our
Christian convictions. We speak the Name of God
in certain official documents and certain govern-

mental proclamations. But having spoken His Name

we usher Him out. We make a bow in the direc-
tion of Jesus Christ but when we have performed

the gesture we think it sufficient. “This people,” He

says, “draw near me with their mouth, and with



FROM CHRIST AND TO CHRIST 67

their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from

me” (/sarns 29 :13).

To give but one specific instance out of a thous-

and: When the first World War had come to its

close, and the delegates to the peace conference were

gathering at Paris, some of us clergymen and Cath-

olic journalists—doubtless also religious-minded
persons of other creeds—suggested that in the con-
ference hall and later in Geneva at the sessions of the

League of Nations, a statue of Christ, even perhaps

a crucifix, be set up, and that from time to time the

debates and discussions be halted and that some one

read from the Gospels such texts as these : “A new

commandment I give you, that you love one an-

other” (John 13:34), “You have heard that it was

said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and shalt hate

thy enemy,’ But I say to you, love your enemies,

do good to those who hate you” (Matt. 5:43), “Be

not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”

(Romans 12:21), “Come to terms with thy oppo-

nent quickly” (Matt. 5:25)—or that the whole par-
able of The Good Samaritan be read aloiid. Or the

discourse of Christ on His last night upon the earth.

Or His cry from the cross, “Father, forgive them,

for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke

23:34).

Needless to say, these suggestions were ignored

by the peace-makers, the peace-makers who putting

an end to one war prepared the way for another.

They considered all such proposals pietistic, idealis-

tic, fantastic, mildly insane. They said they knew

what they were to do and how to do it. They didn’t

need prompting from priests and preachers and

popes. As -for Christ, they declared they reverenced

Him, but in their heart they considered Him a poet.



68 WHAT IS WEONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

a mystic, a dreamer, and no more. His Gospel, they

thought, makes pretty reading, but you couldn’t

apply it to the business of governing a world.

In a recent book written by a “hard-boiled”

journalist who had managed in succession three tab-

loid newspapers, there is the report of a conversation

between himself and his publisher. (I omit names

because the one against whom the anecdote tells is

dead and there were no witnesses to the episode.)

“
‘Who, in your opinion was the greatest man

that ever lived?’ asked the publisher. ‘Jesus Christ,’

I replied. ‘That’s where we disagree,’ he said. ‘The

greatest man that ever lived was Nero. He had

the courage of his convictions and used the ignor-

ant rabble to achieve his own ends. He had a crim-

inal mind and he trampled under foot all respect

for natural law and human obligations, but who

hasn’t (done so) in this world, to accomplish any-

thing to make him dominate in history? Where

would this world be if we had all followed Christ’s

teachings to the letter? “Sell what thou hast, and

give to the poor” (Matt. 19:21), for instance. You

will find out, if you want to make any money, that

it is not always wise to be disturbed by what we call

evil. Without using some of it some of our great

people would never have gotten ahead. That’s why

I think Nero was a misunderstood man.
“
‘And as for Christ, let me tell you something

about Him. I don’t profess to know what it is like

to believe in something to the point of being pre-

pared to be killed for it. That must be quite an ex-

perience. Such martyrs as He are the trouble makers

of this world.’
”

The man who is quoted as saying those words



FROM CHRIST AND TO CHRIST 69

always wrote at Christmas time a laudatory edi-

torial on Jesus Christ. His writings were syndi-

cated and read by some thirty millions of Ameri-

cans. He received a salary of more than $260,000.

a year upon which, with shrewd investments, he be-

came a multimillionaire. He was reputed the most

successful and most influential writer, editor, pub-

lisher of his day. He spoke beautifully of Jesus

Christ, but in his heart he preferred Nero. If for

Nero we substitute Richelieu or Machiavelli or Dis-

raeli, or Metternich or Bismarck or Clemenceau or

perhaps even Lenin or Stalin, we shall have the

mind of many who give lip-service on occasion to

Christ and who refer to ours as a Christian civili-

zation, but who in their thoughts and actions pre-

fer some ruthless and irreligious “man of affairs”

to the Jesus of the Gospels. And that’s what is

wrong with our world. We call Christ Master but
we don’t follow His precepts or His spirit in mat-

ters of national and international importance.

Now therefore, let us return to the document

with which we started, let us have the remedy sug-

gested by Pope Leo XIII: “The security of the

State,” he says, “demands that we should be brought

back to Him from Whom we ought never to have de-
parted

;
to Him Who is the Way, the Truth, and the

Life, not as individuals merely, but as human so-

ciety through all its extent. Christ our Lord must

be reinstated as the Ruler of human society. It be-

longs to Him, as do all its members. All the ele-

ments of the commonwealth; legal commands and

prohibitions, popular institutions, schools, marriage,

home-life, the workshop, and the palace, all must

be made to come to that fountain and imbibe the
I

life that comes from Him. No one should fail to see



70 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

that on this largely depends the civilization of

nations.”

Is that doctrine or that admonition unrealistic,

fantastic? That doctrine is hard common sense, and

that admonition, if heeded, would save the world.

Put Christ back into every phase of human life, or

have the courage, the Devil’s courage, to throw Him

out altogether. “Religion’s all or nothing,” says

Robert Browning, and Sidney Lanier has written of

our times and of our world, “0 age that half be-

lievest that thou half believest; half doubtest the

substance of thine own half doubt.” There is our

weakness. We are at odds with ourselves because
we have not had the courage and the consistency to

make ours a Christian civilization. If it were all

heathen it would be stronger than as it is, half

Christian, half heathen. The chief reason why we

appear so weak in the face of a devastating Nazism

is that the Nazis believe what they believe. They

have rejected Christ and His Gospel and have

turned to their ancient heathen deities Wotan and

Thor. They have reverted to heathenism with a ter-

rific enthusiasm. If we cannot turn to our God and

His Gospel with a greater and purer enthusiasm; if

we do not know in Whom or in What we believe,
our form of civilization will be swept away and its

place will be taken by a civilization that though

wicked and perverse is sure of itself and consistent

with itself.

I will venture further. I make bold to declare

—

I hope it will not sound blasphemous—^that a totally
atheistic civilization, if such be possible, would be

better than a civilization which half believes in God

and half disbelieves. If that sounds outrageous, re-

member the prophet Elias, who under divine in-



• FROM CHRIST AND TO CHRIST 71

spiration said to those who called themselves, and

who were, the people of God: “How long do you

halt between two sides? if the Lord be God, follow

him : but if Baal, then follow him” {III Kings 18 :21).

Baal in fact was one of those of whom the psalmist

says. The gods of the Gentiles are demons. So the

prophet was challenging the People of God to make

a choice. God or the Devil. Serve one; don’t at-

tempt to serve both.

Let us then come back to Christ—as individuals
and as a nation. In the days of Savonarola the city

of Florence dedicated itself, and its affairs, to Jesus

Christ. But the fickle people and the crafty leaders

of the people burned Savonarola at the stake and

put the affairs of the city back into the hands of

tyrants. It seems to be ever thus. The Athenians

executed Socrates, the wisest man in their State;

and they exiled Aristides because he was too good.

The Florentines killed their prophet Savonarola and

banished from their border Dante, the greatest glory

of a city that produced more genius than all the rest

of Europe for a thousand years. The Bostonians

who might have had the credit of abolishing slavery

rode William Lloyd Garrison on a rail, tarred and

feathered him and all but killed him because he

favored the abolition of slavery. At the very mo-

ment when Abraham Lincoln was most necessary

to the Republic, he was assassinated, with what

seems to have been connivance or the carelessness

of certain high officials of the Republic. Mad world

!

Stupid world! But the worst of its crimes and of

its misfortunes was that when the Liberator not of

one group of slaves but of all mankind appeared in

the world, “the world knew him not. He came unto

his own, and his own received him not” {John 1 :11).



72 WHAT IS WRONG AND HOW TO SET IT RIGHT

That was the stupidest blunder in history, as well as

the most appalling crime. It is a crime so great, says

Pope Leo XIII, as to be incredible. Still we know

Him not. Still we receive Him not. Still we permit

Him to be deposed from the position of Absolute

Sovereignty that is His. But it is not too late. It is

never too late to rectify a wrong. Restore Jesus

Christ. Make ours in truth and in deed a Christian

civilization, and then we need fear no evil. He has

said, “They shall fight against thee, and shall not

prevail: for I am with thee, saith the Lord your

God” {Jer. 1:19).



CARDINAL HAYES STATES PURPOSE

OF CATHOLIC HOUR

(Extract from his address at the inaugural program in th

studio of the National Broadcasting Company, New Yo>rk
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.



CATHOLIC HOUR STATIONS
In 39 States, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii

Alabama Mobile WALA 1380 kc

Arizona Phoenix KTAR 620 kc
Safford KGLU 1420 kc
Tucson KVOA 1260 kc
Yuma KYUM 1420 kc

Arkansas Little Rock KARK 890 kc

California Fresno KMJ 580 kc
Los Angeles KECA 1430 kc
Sacramento - KFBK 1490 kc
San Francisco KPO 680 kc

Colorado Denver KOA 830 kc

Connecticut Hartford WTIC 1040 kc

District of Columbia Washington WRC 950 kc

Florida Jacksonville WJAX 900 kc
Lakeland WLAK 1310 kc
Miami WIOD 610 kc
Pensacola WCOA 1340 kc
Tampa WFLA-WSUN 620 kc

Georgia Atlanta WSB 740 kc
Savannah WSAV 1310 kc

Idaho Boise KIDO 1350 kc
Pocatello KSEI 900 kc

Illinois Chicago WMAQ 670 kc
Indiana Fort Wayne WGL 1370 kc

Terre Haute WBOW 1310 kc
Kansas Pittsburg KOAM 790 kc

Wichita KANS 1210 kc

Louisiana New Orleans WSMB 1320 kc
Shreveport KTBS 1450 kc

Maryland Baltimore WBAL 1060 kc
Massachusetts Boston WBZ 990 kc

Springfield WBZA 990 kc
Michigan Detroit WWJ 850 kc
Minnesota Duluth-Superior .... WEBC 1290 kc

Mankato KYSM 1500 kc
Minneapolis-St. Paul KSTP 1460 kc
Rochester KROC 1310 kc
St. Cloud KFAM 1420 kc

Mississippi Hattiesburg WFOR 1370 kc
Jackson WJDX 1270 kc

Missouri Kansas City WDAF 610 kc
Springfield KGBX 1230 kc
Saint Louis KSD 550 kc

Montana Billings KGHL 780 kc
Bozeman KRBM 1420 kc
Butte KGIR 1340 kc
Helena KPFA 1210 kc

Nebraska Omaha WOW 590 kc
Nevada Reno KOH 1380 kc
New Hampshire Manchester WFEA 1340 kc
New Mexico Albuquerque KOB 1180 kc

New York Buffalo WBEN 900 kc
New York WEAF 660 kc
Schenectady WGY 790 kc



CATHOLIC HOUR STATIONS
In 39 States, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii

North Carolina Asheville WISE 1370 kc
Charlotte ..... wsoc 1210 kc
Raleigh WPTF 680 kc
Winston-Salem WSJS 1310 kc

North Dakota Bismarck KFYR 550 kc
Fargo WDAY 940 kc

Ohio Cincinnati WSAI 1330 kc
Cleveland WTAM 1070 kc
Columbus WCOL 1210 kc
Dayton WING 1380 kc
Lima WLOK 1210 kc
Zanesville WHIZ 1210 kc

Oklahoma Tulsa KVOO 1140 kc

Oregon Medford KMED 1410 kc
Portland KEX 1180 kc

Pennsylvania Altoona WFBG 1310 kc
Johnstown WJAC 1310 kc
Philadelphia KYW 1020 kc
Pittsburgh KDKA 980 kc
Wilkes-Barre WBRE 1310 kc

Rhode Island Providence WJAR 890 kc

South Carolina Charleston WTMA 1210 kc
Columbia WIS 560 kc
Florence WOLS 1200 kc
Greenville WFBC 1300 kc

South Dakota Sioux Falls KSOO-KELO 1110-1200 kc

Tennessee Nashville WSM 650 kc
Texas Beaumont KFDM 560 kc

Corpus Christi KRIS 1330 kc

El Paso KTSM 1310 kc
Fort Worth KGKO 570 kc
Houston KPRC 920 kc
San Antonio WOAI 1190 kc

Virginia Norfolk WTAR 780 kc
Richmond WMBG 1350 kc

Washington Seattle KOMO 920 kc
Spokane KHQ 590 kc

Wisconsin Eau Claire WEAU 660 kc
Madison WIBA 1280 kc

HAWAII Honolulu KGU 750 kc

(Revised as of December, 1941)



CATHOLIC HOUR RADIO ADDRESSES IN
PAMPHLET FORM

Prices Subject to chancre without notice.

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.

Quantity Prices Do Not Include Carriage Charge

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

and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities,

$8.75 per 100.

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

Johnson, 64 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.

In Quantities, $6.50 per 100.

“A Trilogy on Prayer,” by Rev. Thomas F. Burke, C.S.P., 32 pages
and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$5.50 per 100.

“The Philosophy of Catholic Education,” by Rev. Dr. Charles L.

O’Donnell, C.S.C., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or

more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

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

64 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In

quantities, $6.50 per 100.

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

cover. Single copy, 20c ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $10.50 per 100.

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

pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In

quantities, $10.50 per 100.

“The Marks of the Church,” by Rev. Dr. John K. Cartwright, 48 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$6.00 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 ; 5

or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“Moral Factors in Economic Life,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Francis J. Haas
and Rt. Rev. Msgr. John A. Ryan, 32 pages and Cover. Single copy, 10c
postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Divine Helps for Man,” by Rev. Dr. Edward J. Walsh, C.M., 104
pages and cover. Single copy, 25c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c each. In
quantities, $12.00 per 100.

“The Parables,” by Rev. John A. McClory, S.J., 128 pages and cover.
Single copy, 30c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c each. In quantities, $13.00 per

100 .

“Christianity’s Contribution to Civilization,” by Rev. James M. Gillis,
C.S.P., 96 pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c
each. In quantities, $11.00 per 100.

“Manifestations of Christ,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 123
pages and cover. Single copy, 30c postpaid; 5 or more, 20c each. In
quantities, $13.00 per 100.

“The Way of the Cross,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. P\ilton J. Sheen, 32 pages
and cover (prayer book size). Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 5c
each. In quantities, $3.50 per 100.

“Christ Today,” by Very Rev. Dr. Ignatius Smith, O.P., 48 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00

per 100.

“The Christian Family,” by Rev. Dr. Edward Lodge Curran, 68 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities,
$7.75 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 ; 5 or more, 5c each. In quantities, $4.25 per 100.

“Rural Catholic Action,” by Rev. Dr. Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., 24
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 5c each. In quan-
tities $4.00 per 100.

“Religion and Human Nature,” by Rev. Dr. Joseph A. Daly, 40 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,
$6.00 per 100.

“The Church and Some Outstanding Problems of the Day,” by Rev.
Jones I. Corrigan, S.J., 72 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid;
5 or more, 10c each. In quantities, $8.75 per 100.



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

and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities,

$8.75 per 100.

“The Hymn of the Conquered,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen,
128 pages and cover. Single copy, 30c postpaid; 5 or more, 20c each. In

quantities $13.00 per 100.

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

book size) 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 6c

each. In quantities, $3.50 per 100.

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

and cover. Single copy, 15cf postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$6.00 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; 5 or more

8c each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

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

and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$5.50 per 100.

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

64 page and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In

quantities $6.50 per 100.

“God, Man and Redemption,” by Rev. Dr. Ignatius W. Cox, S.J., 64
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In quan-

tities, $6.50 per 100.

“This Mysterious Human Nature,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.,
48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In

quantities, $6.00 per 100.

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

and cover. Single copy, 35c postpaid ; 5 or more, 25c each. In quantities,

$17.00 per 100.

“The Queen of Seven Swords,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen
(prayerbook size), 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or
more, 5c each. In quantities, $3.50 per 100.

“The Catholic Teaching on Our Industrial System,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr.
John A. Ryan, 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid: 5 or more,

8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Happiness of Faith,” by Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S.J., 80 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c. In quantities, $8.75 per 100.

“The Salvation of Human Society,” by Rev. Peter J. Bergen, C.S.P., 48
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid, 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $6.00 per 100.

“Catholic Education,” by Rev. Dr. George Johnson, 40 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00
per 100.

“The Church and Her Missions,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. William Quinn, 32
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. 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, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In
quantities, $8.75 per 100.

“The Fullness of Christ,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 176
pages and cover. Single copy, 45c postpaid ; 5 or more, 30c each. In
quantities, $17.50 per 100.

“The Church and Modern Thought,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.,
80 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In
quantities, $8.75 per 100.

“Misunderstood Truths,” by Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, 48 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,
$6.00 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; 5 or
more, 5c each. In quantities, $4.00 per 100.

“Christian Education,” by Rev. Dr. James A. Reeves, 32 pages and
cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $4.00
per 100.

“What Civilization Owes to the Church,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. William
Quinn, 64 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10 each.
In quantities, $6.60 per 100.

“If Not Christianity: What?” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 96
pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In
quantities, $11.00 per 100.



“The Prodigal World,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 140 pages

and cover. Single copy, 35c postpaid; 5 or more, 25c each. In quantities,

$17.00 per 100.

“The Coin of Our Tribute,” by Very Rev. Thomas F. Conlon, O.P.,

40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each. In

quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“Pope Pius XI,” by His Eminence Patrick Cardinal Hayes. An address
in honor of the 79th birthday of His holiness, 16 pages and 4 color cover.

Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“Misunderstanding the Church,” by Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, 48

pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-

tities, $6.00 per 100.

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

Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

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

F. M., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each.

In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

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

48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In

quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Spirit of the Missions,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Thomas J. McDonnell,
32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Life of the Soul,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 96 pages and
cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $11.00

per 100.

“Our Wounded World^^ by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 112 pages
and cover. Single Copy, 2^ postpaid; 5 or more, 20c each. In quantities,
$12.50 per 100.

The first six addresses in this series published separately under
the title “Freedom and Democracy: a Study of Their Enemies,”

56 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each.
In quantities, $6.50 per 100.

“The Banquet of Triumph,” by Very Rev. J. J. McLarney, O.P., 32
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $5.50 per 100.

“Society and the Social Encyclicals—America’s Road Out,” by Rev.
R. A. McGowan, 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more,
8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Pius XI, Father and Teacher of the Nations,” (On His Eightieth
Birthday) by His Excellency, Most Rev. Amleto Giovanni Cicognani,
16 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 5c each. In
quantities, $3.50 per 100.

“The Eastern Catholic Church,” by Rev. John Kallok, 48 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00

per 100.

“Joy in Religion,” by Rev. John B. Delauney, C.S.C., 40 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00
per 100.

“The ‘Lost’ Radiance of the Religion of Jesus,” by Rev. Thomas A.
Carney, 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“Some Spiritual Problems of College Students,” by Rev. Dr. Maurice
S. Sheehy, 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c
each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“God and Governments,” by Rev. Wilfrid Parsons, S.J., 48 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00
per 100.

“Saints vs. Kings,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 96 pages and
cover. Single copy, 20 postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $11.00
per 100.

“Justice and Charity,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen.
Part I

—
“The Social Problem and the Church,” 96 pages and cover.
Single copy, 20c postpaid; 5 or more, 15c each. In quan-
tities, $12.00 per 100.

Part II
—
“The Individual Problem and the Cross,” 80 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each.
In quantities, $8.75 per 100.

“In Defense of Chastity,” by Rev. Felix M. Kirsch, O.M. Cap., 72 pages
and cover, including study aids and bibliography. Single copy, 15c postpaid

;

5 or more, 10c each. In quantities, $8.75 per 100.



‘‘The Appeal To Reason,” by Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, D.D., LL.D.,

72 pages and cover. Single cfopy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In
quantities, $8.75 per 100.

“Practical Aspects of Catholic Education,” by Very Rev. Edward V.
Stanford, O.S.A., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more,

8c each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Mission of Youth in Contemporary Society,” by Rev. Dr. George
Johnson, 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c
each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Holy Eucharist,” by Most Rev. Joseph F. Rummel, S.T.D., LL.D.,
32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Cardinal Hayes—A Eulogy,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 16
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In quan-

tities, $3.50 per 100.

“The Rosary and the Rights of Man,” by Very Rev. J. J. McLarney,
O.P., 56 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each.

In quantities, $6.50 per 100.

“Human Life,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 96 pages and cover.
Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $10 per 100.

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

Part I
—

“Social Freedom,” 80 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c
postpaid; 5 or more, lOc each. In quantities, $8.75 per 100.

Part II
—

“Personal Freedom,” 96 pages and cover. Single copy,
20c postpaid; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $12.00

per 100.

“The Holy Ghost,” by Very Rev. J. J. McLarney, O.P., 56 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, lOc each. In quantities,

$6.50 per 100.

“Toward the Reconstruction of a Christian Social Order,” by Rev.
Dr. John P. Monoghan, 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid

;

5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.50 per 100.

“Marian Vignettes,” by Rev. J. R. Keane, O.S.M., 32 pages and cover.
Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Peace of Christ,” by Very Rev. Martin J. O’Malley, C.M., 32
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities $5.50 per 100.

“God’s World of Tomorrow,” by Rev. Dr. John J. Russell, 40 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$6.00 per 100.

“The Catholic Tradition in Literature,” by Brother Leo, F.S.C., 40
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-

tities, $6.00 per 100.

“What Catholics Do At Mass,” by Rev. Dr. William H. Russell, 72
pages and cover, including study club questions and suggestions, and brief
bibliography. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities,

$8.75 per 100.

“Prophets and Kings: Great Scenes, Great Lines,” by Rev. James M.
Gillis, C.S.P., 96 pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid; 5 or more,

15c each. In quantities, $11.00 per 100.

“Peace, the Fruit of Justice,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 64

pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10(? each. In quan-
tities, $6.50 per 100.

“The Seven Last Words and The Seven Virtues,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr.
Fulton J. Sheen, 80 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more,

10c each. In quantities, $8.75 per 100.
“1930—Memories—1940”—^The addresses delivered in the Tenth Anni-

versary Broadcast of the Catholic Hour on March 3, 1940, together with
congratulatory messages and editorials. 80 pages and cover. Single copy,
25c postpaid; 5 or more, 20c each. In quantities, $11.00 per 100.

“What Kind of a World Do You Want,” by Rev. Wilfrid Parsons, S.J.,
40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“Law,” by Rev. Dr. Howard W. Smith, 40 pages and cover. Single
copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“In the Beginning,” by Rev. Arthur J. Sawkins, 40 pages and cover.
Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Life and Personality of Christ,” by Rev. Herbert F. Gallagher,
O.F.M., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities, $6.00 per 100.



“America and the Catholic Church,” by Rev. John J. Walde, 48 pages

and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$6.00 per 100.

“The Social Crisis and Christian Patriotism,” by Rev. Dr. John F.
Cronin, S.S., 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c
each. In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“Missionary Responsibility,” by the Most Rev. Richard J. Cushing, D.D.,

LL.D., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each.

In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Crucial Questions,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 64 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.50

per 100.

“Favorite Texts From The Confessions of St. Augustine,” by Rev.
James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 64 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or
more, 10c each. In quantities, $6.50 per 100.

“War and Guilt,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen of the Catholic
University of America, 196 pages and cover. Single copy, 60cf postpaid ; 5 or
more, 50c each. In quantities, $32.00 per 100.

“The Purposes of Our Eucharistic Sacrifice,” by Rev. Gerald T. Bask-
field, S.T.D., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c
each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Case for Conscience,” by Rev. Thomas Smith Sullivan, O.M.I.,
S.T.D., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Catholic Notion of Faith,” by Rev. Thomas N. Q’Kane, 40 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,

$6.00 per 100.

“Freedom Defended,” by Rev. John F. Cronin, S.S., Ph.D., 32 pages
and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c’ each. In quantities,
$5.50 per 100.

“The Rights of the Oppressed,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Martin J. O’Connor,
40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Practical Aspects of Patriotism,” by Rev. George Johnson, PH.D.,
40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“What Is Wrong and How to Set It Right,’’ by Rev. James M. Gillis,
C.S.P., 80 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c, postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c
each. In quantities, $8.75 per 100.

Complete list of 104 pamphlets to one address in U. S., $13.25 postpaid.
Price to Canada and Foreign Countries, $16.25.

Address: OUR SUNDAY VISITOR, Huntington, Indiana.