Influence of Papal Letter

Catholic Herald Reporter
IN the first year since its publication, Pope John XXIII's social encyclical Mater et Magistra has influenced government policies. drawn tributes from leaders of all races and creeds — notably Moslems — and secular authorities, social scientists and newspapers have given it unprecedented attention.
Its principles have coloured new policies in several LatinAmerican states, notably Venezuela, where the President declared his new land reform programme to he based specifically on Mater et Magistra. It has been praised by Mr. Nehru, the Indian Premier, by U.S. Labour Secretary Arthur Goldberg, by the Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, and by the Orthodox Primate and by the Jewish Committee of America. European Lutheran Ministers have hailed the encyclical as the basis of collaboration between Catholics and Protestants in the social field. The powerful National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S spent a whole evening discussing it.
In Britain; the Catholic Truth Society has sold 48,000 copies of the encyclical since its English translation appeared in January and a reprint is in hand.
The secretary of the Catholic Social Guild, Mr. Maurice Leahy, told the CATHOLIC HERALD this week that the Society's summer school this year, based on Mater et Magistra, had drawn the biggest attendance for a long time. This picture shows rebuilding In progress in the convent of La Retraite High School, Clifton, Bristol, where it was recently discovered that all the timbers down to the first fluor of this historic Georgian house had been infested by deathwatch beetle. The wooden joists, which were fastened with hand-cot nails. are to he replaced by prestressed concrete. The community has decided to take the
opportunity offered by the renovations to add another floor to the previously three-storeyed house.
La Retraite is one of the largest girls.' schools in the Clifton diocese and has about 600 pupils. The community, moved to this house in 1924; the school now occupies four large houses and several extensions have previ ously been built.
Photograph by courtesy of Bristol Week-end.