Continued from page 1.
solid body of learning among the clergy, is always a distinction and a power to a church. The Catholic clergy in England contains in proportion to its nurrsbers, few scholars, and of those few the majority either belong to the Religious Orders or are converts from Anglican i sm.
"The question is where the fault lies, how far we are being short sighted, whether our basic Catholic education, upon which so many millions arc being spent, is really achieving what it is meant to do ?
" There are quite a few who would point at the leakage problem, and then point a finger at the schools. If we are educating our children in the Faith, Why does it not stand up to the assault of the intellectual world, when they leave the school walls and the more sheltered atmosphere of Catholic principles?"
Canon Denis Hawkins had some trenchant remarks about the dichotomy 'between the seminary training in scholastic philosophy and the fact that " the undergraduate in this country is initiated into a style of philosophising which takes little account of past history and may seem to make impossible or meaningless many assertions which as a Catholic he is bound to make . . . few Catholics are likely to hold that philosophy as now presented in British Universities offers an ade
quate diet for the Catholic undergraduate.
"At its worst it beckons him quite definitely in the directon of sceptcsm. At its best it drives a gulf between reason and faith and leaves him, as a Catholic, in a position like that which was called fideism a century ago."
Bishop Beck in the introductory paper to the Conference put much of his stress on the burning issues stated by Newman in 1856: "I want the intellectual layman to be religious and the devout ecclesiastic to be intellectual."
This, in the Bishop's view meant: "There can be no real education unless it is a Catholic education. For this purpose the ideal would be a Catholic University, enabling Catholics to achieve full intellectual development."
He made some concrete suggestions, which from their very nature bring hot controversy. He not only wanted the co-ordination of the work and influence of the Catholic Chaplaincies but suggested: " There are possibilities, more particularly in the provincial Universities, for the building up of Catholic centres, whether in the simple form of Halls of Residence, or the development of Catholic colleges, The establishment of Catholic colleges at the older universities should not entirely be ruled out."
The Conference, which lasted for three days, was welcomed to Strawberry Hill on the first evening by Archbishop Godfrey of Westminster.