Front a Special Correspondent
Wise node of approval came from Gerry Sherry, THL Cantoue HERALD columnist, when Dr. Letitia Fairfield told Croydon Catholics on Sunday that Catholic publications are wrong to state that " there is a conflict going on between the State and the individual, that Whitehall is set on robbing each one of us in order to find dollars to send to the 'United States."
And Mr. Sherry said that " too many Catholics think it good Catholic Action simply to attack State Control, and are quite smug about it."
Occasion was when the Knights d St. Columba and the Catholic Social Guild gathered 600 people in Croydon Civil Hall to listen to Mr. Ronald Brech of The Economist, talk about the Economic Crisis, and Fr. Paul Crane, S.J., rise to oratorical heights in telling us he " bitterly and utterly opposed Statism," just as he also condemned "monopolistic capitalism."
Mr. Brech failed to make clear what Catholics were supposed to do in the present Economic Crisis, a subject on which he was, nevertheless, expertly analytical, and Dr. Fairfield, who took the chair. clung on to a remark of the. speaker's to the effect that we " are wrong to think there is any real conflict between Capital and Labour," and then made the comment printed above.
NO RED BAITING Gerry Sherry, with the sincerity and fervour that characterises him, briefly addressed us on "The Catholic Workers' Apostolate," saying that if we don't like Statism, and many of us don't, then we should put forward Christianity in opposition.
And he added/ that he " deprecated Red baiting."
Fr. Crane took him up saying " if Mr. Sherry thinks I'm Red baiting, he's wrong," and went on to denounce Communist philosophy for its atheism, materialism and degradation of man. You can't," he said, " any more sit down to lunch with a gorilla than reconcile that offensive philosophy. which Statism upholds, and the Christian creed of man's paramount dignity as a being made to the image of God. and destined to be happy with God for ever."
All speakers prevented the meeting from slipping into boredom through demonstrating to the audience that they had diverging views on the amount of socialisation they each would be prepared to allow, and that they were not afraid to air them.