" SERVICE BEFORE SELF

Are Rotarians Really Sinister ?
SIR.—As an Anglican and a Rotarian official who regularly reads with profit your excellent and candid paper, I regret that any correspondent should think that our movement as such contains " inherent wickedness." That seems to be Hitler's opinion, since be has seen fit to suppress our clubs in Austria, but Hitler is scarcely an authority on which any Catholic or Christian would rely. Our motto is "Service before self," and our rules forbid discussion of political or denominational differences, bidding us to respect the convictions of those with whom we may dis
agree. Perhaps your correspondent will point out our " inherent wickedness" in fuller detail, so that we may amend our ways.
May I quote an incident which once happened in America? A Catholic priest and a Methodist minister belonged to the same Rotary club. One day the minister knocked at the priest's door in great trouble, begging him to come and say a prayer for his child who was at the point of death. The priest at once complied. There was no sacrifice of conviction on either side, but there was forged a fresh link of sympathy which was never broken.
ROTARIAN.
Error
SIR,—Kindly allow me to correct a typographical error in my letter under the above caption in your issue of the 8th instant. The quotation from Fr. Denis Fahey's book, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, should have read: "Certainly Rotary is not looked upon with favour by the Catholic Church. When we learn of a Masonic Lodge being opened in London, exclusively for Rotarians, and when we recall the means employed by Masonry to secure and maintain control of neutral and naturalistic societies into which non-Masons are admitted, that attitude is not likely to change." Unfortunately, "non-Masons" was printed "you Masons."
CaTticnecus. Dublin.