THE CATHOLIC PRESS A Growing Force In Britain

A feature of the Catholic Press Exhibition in the Vatican City has been the addresses on various aspects of the Church's
journalism. This country had attention recently when the Rev, Henry L. Hughes, of the Fides News Service, read a paper on " The Catholic Press in England.
It was an interesting but limited survey which engaged Fr. Hughes's attention.. In se far as his paper touched past history, he went no further back than the time of Catholic Emancipation; thus the lively Catholic journalism sponsored in England before that period, by Andrews and other writers, was not touched upon, and it is to be hoped that nobody in the gathering, unversed in knowledge of what was done in pre-Emancipation days to sustain a Catholic press in the land, will have supposed that our first Catholic periodical was the Dublin Review. Nor was Fr. Hughes concerned with organs dead and gone, or he would have found a considerable list of Catholic newspapers in proof of activity since that quarterly was launched. one of them, the Weekly Register, long-lived.
The present. not the past. was the subject of the lecture. Retrospect had its place only to the extent of naming, in their order of seniority, the five existing newspapers mentioned and commended by the Bishops in their recent letter: the Tablet (1840): the Catholic Times, developing from the Lancashire Free Press and Catholic. News (1859); the Universe (1860); the Catholic Herald (1884); and in the last place the modest little monthly Catholic Worker, started only a few years ago.
A First Line of Defence At the outset, after a few introductory remarks, Fr. Hughes quoted from an article in The Sower in proof of the importance attached, by the Hierarchy, to the Catholic press as one of the most valuable adjuncts to Catholic Action, a first line of defence. Our papers, he showed, filled that position in consequence of the large increase in the reading public. Quoting figures of circulation. he was able to demonstrate how great had been the strides made. during recent years, by the Catholic twopenny weeklies.
English Catholics were today taking more interest in their press than was the case in the past: and this had a reflection in the greater attention being paid to the Catholic press by secular journals. There was every indication that the influence of the Catholic press tended to increase.
After painting a somewhat unduly dark picture of the position of the Church in England a hundred years ago, and sketching the successive steps represented by the birth-years of our existing weeklies, Fr. Hughes proceeded to explain the char acter of each paper in turn. For all of them he had words of praise. If there are carping critics of the Catholic press in this country, the Fides-serving priest is not of their number,
The Five-Fold Force There was a passing reference to the Month, compared, in character. to the Civilta Cattolica. and mention also of the Dominican organ Black friars: but Fr. Hughes thenceforth confined his paper, as the limits he had set himself required, to the five newspapers named in the Bishops' letter, and he showed, with words of appreciation, how each of these is strong in its own particular way. He praised the Tablet for its special articles and its book reviews. A dominant note in the Catholic Times was the pursuit of social justice. The Universe he commended as a non-party popular journal which, while appealing in general to the masses, had also an intellect
ual side by the work of many well-known writers.
To the Catholic Herald Fr. Hughes devoted a lengthy examination and eulogy. There was a brief glance at the paper as it stood before it came into the hands of its present conductors, since which time, said the lecturer, it had completely changed in character, that change being due to the initiative of two converts to the faith.
Coming from a non-Catholic milieu, these converts had realized that, given Catholic progress and the greater interest which the logical consequences of Catholic premises evoke today, at the periphery of Catholic life in England, there had been slowly formed new sectors of readers which the other organs of the Catholic press did not touch, precisely because these sectors were outside their traditional sphere.
Today the paper penetrated all atmospheres, and was concerned not so much with events of which the interest was almost exclusively local, but rather with Catholic doings throughout the world, and with economic and political events which it examined and commented from the Catholic point of view. All the complexities of contempory life were passed in review before its readers.
The " Herald's" Progress
Like all innovations, it was pointed out, this one needed time to make its appeal felt; but during the past months, Fr. Hughes said, the Catholic Herald had made progress justifying the most roseate hopes of its promoters. The directors were confident that they could reach a circulation of 50,000 copies without hurting the interests of any of the other Catholic weeklies. The present sale of 23,000, representing an increase of eighty per cent. in eighteen months, showed that they had not been mistaken in their calculations.
The Catholic Worker, a title which Fr. Hughes found commendable on account of its direct appeal, was extolled for its good work of putting before the masses the Church's social teaching as an antidote to Communism.
In the concluding part of his paper the lecturer urged that, since each of the four weeklies had its own particular strength and character, the reader who would keep fully abreast of everything that was going on in the Catholic world had need to read them all.
Emphasis was laid upon the importance that nowadays. when the masses of the people of England have a larger understanding of their position in the country's social life, they should be instructed as to the true and authentic social doctrine of the Church.
What of a Daily ?
On the oft-debated question of a Catholic daily, Fr. Hughes wisely pointed out the difficulties standing in the way of any such enterprise in present circumstances. The last twelve months, he said, had seen intense journalistic activity—instances were quoted of what Catholic papers had done in the way of supplying correctives to antiCatholic statements regarding Abyssinia and Spain.
The evil influence of a spirit of apathy and indifference in matters of religion constituted, perhaps, the lecturer said, a peril for English Catholics more grave than that of the Communistic menace. The Catholic press was combating that spirit, and that it was not fighting a losing battle was proved eloquently by the continued increase in the circulation of the four weeklies. A future day might even bring the hour of the Catholic daily paper.