music (sometimes " swing"), arguing, walking.
Anibitions: (a) To get inarrie.c1; (b) To become associated with some form of Catholic action.
It is not difficult to accommodate Sunday Mass and occasional visits to the Sacraments in one's life and still remain no more than nominally Catholic in one's outlook. There is a widespread atmosphere of smugness among Catholics which tends to divorce religion from the everyday problems, and which is only penetrated by Red atrocities.
How far are we going to get with our spirit of intolera.nce? Is it, after all, the best way to deal with the quite often sincere opposition towards the Church? I can see little good in our putting the Catholic point of view unless we are less inclined to look for the had in everything which is against the Church. Rather, we might attempt to find some common ground for discussion. To ignore truth, even in the most violent communist, is sheer Intolerance.
I often wonder why Catholics seem so eager to fulfil the Pope's wishes in all but Church music. Music sung in place of plain chant has little or nothing in common with the Mass, and the people can take no part in it whatsoever. The great point about plain chant is that it has grown inside the Church, and is music which is fitted for the Sacrifice of the Mass.
I have heard it said that plain chant leeks feeling and devotion. If, by that,
it is meant it lacks the sort of sentimentality of Elgar's Ave Verum, then I am in entire agreement. It seems a poor state of affairs when we are reduced to the need of an emotional stimulus for the Sacrifice of the Mass.
I believe that the Spanish War is not a matter of the universal Catholic conscience, and is therefore not a question on which there can only be one side to support. It is surely possible to take a disinterested view of both sides and end up by supporting neither. The sooner peace is established in what seems to me to be a far from " holy war," the better.
The arguments of Christian Pacifism seem to be very strong, and the possibility of a just war occurring (if ever) remote. For my part, I do not consider it likely that I shall fight if there is another war.
Perhaps a greater realization of our duties and potentialities might prevent a disaster which, to say the least, seems to be growing—the possible destruction of religion and civilisation by a world war.