From Our Radio Correspondent
Catholic regret that pre-Advent Sunday broadcasts by the B.B.C., now announced, and having for theme " The Nature and Work of the Church," are to be handled by six speakers. none of whom is a Catholic, is somewhat balanced by the consciousness of the delicate situation a Catholic would in fact he in, were he asked to contribute to the series.
Take, for instance, the aim expressed by the organisers of the forth coming talks. " We will try," they explain. " to make clear the threads that have made the best and the worst of Christian life and influence through the centuries: " We shall begin with the great ideals and hard realities of life in the Early Church during the first 300 yearsthen the tremendous opportunity that opened up when the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the ' established ' religion of the Roman Empire then the periods of corruption and revival that followed one another throughout the Middle Ages. showing that the Church could
fall to the lowest level of slackness and 'corruption. and yet revive itself front within -then the steady expansion of Christianity all over the world in the last 200 years then the life of the Christian family to-day. with the question of how far it is. and can he, a real community-and finally the great question of the future, and whether there is any future for the Christian bodies comparable with the greatness of the past."
NEITHER MALICE NOR FORGETFilLNESS
The nature of the Church and its work is, of course, a great bone of contention, and one can well imagine the disparity of views that would be evident among the advertised speakers (Canon F. A. Cockin, the Res'. Charles Smythe, of Cambridge, Professor C. H. Dodd, of Cambridge, Professor John Forster, of Birmingham. the RCN'. Kenneth Matthews, and the Rev. Eric Fenn. Assistant Director of Religious Broadcasting) and any other Catholic broadcaster you care to name. The B.B.C., in preparing the series, must have been well aware of this, and in accordance with their policy of treating all denominations as fairly as they can, must obviously have sounded Catholics on the matter. I don't think At the absence. of our people should be attributed to malice or forgetfulness.
The series, which will take the place of the usual Sunday services in the Home Programme. begins on November 12 and ends on December 17. A novelty is that the addresses will include " dramatic interludes." and listeners will be treated to " flashbacks " --scenes in the past which illuetrate what speakers try to bring out.
St. Joseph's Society
Rev. Alfred floods, of St. Joseph's Society for Foreign Missions. has been appointed to Kisumo. Kenya Colony, and will leave here at the end of the month.