Death at the Beda

AM grateful to Fr.
Charles Lynch for writing in this week; his righteous indignation is also rightful. But fortunately things are not quite so bad as they seem: and I'm glad he mentioned our move to Charterhouse Street, as it is particularly relevant.
In the established routine of the Fleet Street office it would have been well nigh impossible for uncorrected galleys to get confused with corrected ones. So freakish an accident, however, has proved not to be impossible in our new surroundings, where everything is not yet in its proper place. I can only hope that good will come out of evil; vigilaniibus non dorrnientibus servit lex.
Being only "technically" guilty is often little consolation. And it does not in any case displace the need, emphatically felt, for contrition and restitution.
Some years ago at the Beda College (which enjoyed the generous hospitality of Up Holland during the war) news was received of the death of a distinguished Archbishop, and former Becht student. A solemn Requiem Mass was duly said, but several days later the Archbishop in question turned up for lunch.
The Rector of the day, a humble and sensitive man, was profoundly upset. The Archbishop, on the other hand, was not in the least put out. I4e was, luckily, a man of both big heart and big mind.
That it is easier to forgive than ask forgiveness may, 1 gather, be a theme which will loom large in this week's various functions connected with the Church Unity Octave. The difficulty arises partly in not admitting that there is anything to ask forgiveness about. I am thus looking forward to attending as many as possible of the lectures which Fr. Herbert Keldany has arranged for his new 'ecumenical "term", starting next month.
There will be eight Wednesday evening lectures (held in the library of Cathedral Clergy House, 42 Francis St., S.W.1.), commencing on February 2 with a talk by Bishop Clark. The time allotted for lecture and discussion is from 7.30 to about 9 p.m. As Co-Chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. Bishop Clark, in opening the series, will be able to elucidate much that is still a cause of worry and speculation to many.
Future guest speakers at these lecture-discussions will include Canon Bernard Pawky of the Lambeth Commission on R.C. relations; Rev. John Hallburton of St. Stephen's House, Oxford; Fr. John Coventry, S.J.; and the Rev. Ernmanual Sullivan. of the Atonement Ecumenical Department in London.
As Fr. Keldany himself says of this course of lectures: "with the help of Anglican experts, and we hope Anglican fellow students, it will carry the dialogue one step further towards the unity in truth, for which Christ prays."
THE bidding prayers for the first day of the Unity Octave were certainly auspicious and encouraging. This at least was true as far as one of the churches in Chelsea was concerned.
Use was made of one of the "intercessions" suggested in the "Prayer for Unity" leaflet issued by the Westminster Council of Churches. In this it is prayed "that we may know a true communion beyond all differences of opinion. of background or taste, and that this communion may result in real action. in real service of the workl."
This week's leader commends the often neglected practical and social aspects of ecumenism, while trying to assuage fears of a theological
"sell-out". Gerard Noel •