'Robbing' the diocese of vocations . .

DOUGLAS HYDE'S COLUMN
A 100-FOLD return comes to the bishop who spares priests from his diocese for the missions. This was a striking point made by Archbishop Heenan of Liverpool when he addressed the Sword of the Spirit's recent " War on Want " rally at Westminster Central Hall. Archbishop Heenan was speaking against the background of his own experience. In the last few years he has spared priests whom. humanly speaking. he could ill afford to lose, so that they might go to the African missions.
His aft of faith has been well repayed. Last year he had in his archdiocese a record number of vocations—so many, in fact, that he has been obliged to add to the size of his seminary.
The archbishop's experience is not an isolated one. Cardinal Cushing. Archbishop of Boston, U.S.A., has for years thrown open his diocese to practically any missionary body that cared to settle there. They have gone to Boston in their scores.
The whole lot of them work night and day—with his enthusiastic support and with great success—to rob" the diocese of vocations. The result? Cardinal Cushing has so many men passing through his diocesan seminary that he is not only able to meet all his own needs but is pouring scores of others whom he has to spare into Latin America and elsewhere.
The Cardinal works on the principle that an out-ward-turning diocese is less likely to lack vocations than one which turns in on itself.
Problem
THE south Indian State of Kerala goes once more to the polls on February 1. Last time, a Communist Government was returned to power and, as might be expected, it lost no time in starting an attack upon Catholic education. After 28 months of misrule and mounting violence it was dismissed. It was combined pressure from Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Moslems, members of the Congress and Socialist parties which brought about its removal and the substitution of President's rule.
Now those same diverse forces have, rather shakily, again been brought together to try to ensure that the Communists shall not win the election. The anti-Communism (based on cruel experience) of these members, of different faiths and political beliefs brought them together originally; it is that which has united them once more.
But something more positive will be required if a stable government is to be formed from them. A constructive programme will be needed if it is to endure for more than a matter of months.
Here, it would seem, is a job for those of Kerala's Catholics who are active in the surging, turbulent political life of their State. It will have to be able to offer a programme of hope, capable of launching Kerala on the way to social justice and of reducing the frustration of those who have, through Christian education, been given a glimpse of something better, and who then. in too many cases, have been left only with frustration and disillusionment ahead of them.
'The problem is a tough one, and probably too big for Kerala to tackle single-handed. But the hard fact is that all the ingredients for the making of Communists exist in abundance and until they are removed this may well continue to he a problem State.
Fighter
JIMMY O'HAGAN is, 1 learn
from the press, a candidate for the office of North London divisional organiser of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. This is the office about which there was an enquiry by the national executive in 1958. The verdict was that there was no doubt that a concerted and sustained campaign had been carried out by Communists against Mr. Chapman, the present divisional organiser who beat Communist Joe Scott by one vote in the last election.
Jimmy O'Hagan is a hard fighter but he fights clean. He is a zealous Catholic, too. who takes his Christianity with him into the workshop, into the job of shop steward. and wherever he goes.
One of my warmest recollections is of when Jimmy once discussed with me the possibility of helping a member of the family of a Communist shop steward with whom he had been fighting for years.
The cost
WHEN politics dominate the life WHEN
a trade union branch you may be fairly certain that an enormous amount of time will be spent in debating left-wing resolutions on peace, nuclear weapons, Germany, and almost anything other than the business for which the branch was originally . brought into existence. Mitch the same can be said of co-operative societies, too.
When in the past I have returned from helping with the organisation of producers cooperatives among impoverished peasants in Latin, America and elsewhere I have found myself regretting the way in which the co-operative ideal in this country is so often obscured behind a mass of party political activity.
If the main purpose of a cooperative society is to engage in trade, passing on the benefits to its members, then the Leeds Co-op. would appear to demonstrate that less politics means more business and so more dividends.
This society pursues a nonpolitical policy. When Mr. Bernard C. Wallace. president of the society, recently announced a dend of Is. 3d. in the pound (with membership up and a sales increase of more than £200.000) he compared this with the dividend paid by other societies tied to the co-operative political party. He cited these examples: London 8d., South Suburban 3d., Royal Arsenal 7d., Liverpool 9d., Bristol 9d., Reading 6d., Manchester and Salford 7d., Halifax 10d., and Pendleton 6d.
It is doubtful if the Communists have anywhere campaigned harder and longer than in the London and the Royal Arsenal societies. The figures arc revealing. They should be noted, in particular, in Leeds itself where the Communists are currently putting forward candidates for the first time.