NEWS OF THE GUILDS AND SOCIETIES

The Breakespeare Club
Psycho-Analyses as Dangerous as Spiritualism
Fr. Thomas Gilby, 0.P., was the Chairman of the Fifth Session of the Autumn Conference on " Revolutionary Forces in England " at the Breakespeare Club on December 1. The lecturer, Mr Reginald J. Dingle, dealt with " The Attack in the Realm of Psychology."
Exalting Irrational
The danger inherent in modern psychological theories was particularly the exaltation of the irrational and non-moral forces over the rational and moral ones.
The lecturer criticized analytical psychologies as involving a search into the occult parts of human consciousness where it would 'mutiny be more healthy to direct attention outwards and to objective realities.
He questioned the assumptions on which they were largely based. There was no objective evidence that a patient under analysis who professed to be giving memories of remote childhood was doing anything of the kind.
Nowhere in the New Testament, or in the classical works of Catholic Spiritual writers, were there any suggestions that the analytical method was the right approach; and there was a presumption against novelties of this kind when it was found that their professed discoverers were not only outside the Christian tradition but um:My actively hostile to it.
Without denying some truth in analytical theories, he suggested that the attitude to these investigations should be very much the same as that to the phenomena of the spiritualist seance because of the inherent dangers and the very doubtful benefits. A lively discussion followed, in which the Chairman, Fr. Gilby, expressed an opinion more favourable to the analytical psychologists than that of the lecturer.
Civil Service Guild
Successful Retreat
Nearly sixty women members took part in a day's Retreat preached by Fr. Augustine, 0.S.F.C., at the Convent, Avenue Road, Regent's Park, on Sunday, December 4.
The guild also announces a lecture by Mr Douglas Jerrold on "Historic Spain " for Tuesday, December 13, at Denison Hall, Vauxhall Bridge Road, at 6.30.
C.Y .M.S. Cardiff
Sermon on Mount for worker
Delegates from 18 branches were present at the Cardiff Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Young Men's Society Annual General Meeting held on Saturday last, December 3, at St. Albans, Cardiff.
Canon Quigley, the Chaplain, addressing the meeting, said, " We have hope because we have a certainty, and we have power because we have the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us."
Canon Quigley then went on to give the delegates an idea of what was being done in America by Dorothy Day and how she was helping the unfortunate in her House of Hospitality in the New York slums.
Miss Day is the leader of the Catholic Worker movement in the U.S.A. and a popular speaker on all matters concerning the social teaching of the Church.
It is evident, he concluded, that the world to-day wants to see the work of the Catholic Church and Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount translated to the worker.
The Secretary then read the report of the Executive Committee on the question of setting up within the Archdiocesan Council four district Councils for the better working of the C.Y.M.S. in South Wales.
The Annual Report was then presented by the Secretary and adopted, and fifteen reports from branches were then read, all of them showing satisfactory progress of the movement, The result of the election of Officers was as follows:—President, Bro. J. Daley, J.P. (Cwmbran); Vice-Presidents, Bros. R. O'Sullivan (Merthyr). J. Williams (Asertiiiery) and W. F. Smith (Newport); Secretary, Bro. A. W. Law (Merthyr); and Treasurer, Bro. D. O'Halloran (Downes).
The President then referred to the retiring Treasurer, Bra. E. L. 'Brain, J.P., who had been connected with the Council for thirty-four years as an Official, and he gave fitting praise and the thanks of delegates to Bro. Brain for his untiring and unfailing help in the years he had helped build up the movement in South Wales.
The Lingard Society
Is Italy the same?
On Monday, December 5, at Walsingham House, 28, Bedford Way, W.C.1, Mr Edward Hatton, the author of so many well-known books on Italian history and art, read a paper to the Lingard Society entitled " Picturesque Italy : A Retrospect."
The paper was an evocation of all that Italy has meant to many generations of Englishmen, from those far-off Saxon kings who went to Rome to leave their bones near the tomb of the Apostles down to the innumerable pilgrims, religious, literary and artistic, of modern times.
BUT NOW . . .
Speaking from fullness of knowledge of what Italy has been in the past, the lecturer raised the question whether materialistic ambition would not put an end to all that charm and loveliness.
The militarism, despotism, regimentation, worship of force that prevail today filled him, he said, with the darkest forebodings.
Catholic Teachers' Guild
The History of the Catholic Primary School
The monthly conference and meeting of the Catholic Teachers' Guild was held at St. Patrick's, Soho, on Monday, December 5.
The Rev. John Petit, of St. Edmund's, Cambridge, in his address, said: One thing only could make the Faith in England safe in spite of all attacks, and that was personal Catholic responsibility The State tended to wrest all responsibility from the parent when it undertook to educate children in State schools, but teachers must remember that they were always second to the parent in their responsibility for the children.
At the meeting which followed the conference a most interesting and illuminatini paper was read by Mr A. C. F Beales, M.A., of King's College, on " The Beginnings of Catholic Elementary Schools in the Second Spring."
The speaker reminded his hearers of the interesting fact that St. Patrick's, Soho, was one of the first Catholic parochial schools to be founded. The Faith in England was really kept alive by a nucleus formed of the old-established landed Catholic gentry.
Within a few years of the French Revolution over twenty houses of nuns came to England, and Catholic Emancipation had powerful friends outside the Church in such men as Burke. Pitt, and the Anglican Bishop of St. David's.
But all this did not affect education as it applied to the really poor. This teas inaugurated by personal private charity. Bishop Challoner began the organization with a charity which was
followed by the Benevolent Catholic Education Social', whose first school was opened probably in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Subsidiary societies were formed for after-care and clothing of children, and by the end of the century ten charity schools were in being.
By 1811 the three societies were fused, but by 1813 a deadlock was reached on the question of whether or not Catholic children might attend non-sectarian schools, where Bible reading, without notes or explanation, was done; whether, in short, it was better for a child to grow up entirely illiterate than to incur a risk to his Faith by attending a non-Catholic school; and this question might still arise to-day.
Canon Wood thanked the speaker for his paper, which, he said, had dealt with Catholic matters never touched upon by those books which had been written on the penal times.
Fr. Reardon thanked Fr. Petit for his address and the secretary announced that the date of the next meeting was Monday, February 6.
Catholic Discussion Group, Northampton
About 120 people attended the second of the public discussions under the auspices of the Northampton Catholic Discussioe Group, held on Wednesday, November 30.
The speaker was the Rev. Fr. Leo O'Hea, S.J., M.A., and the title of his paper was " The Church and the Worker" In the course of his speech Fr. O'Hea explained how the Church had the right to speak on Social Questions. He read and explained many extracts from the Rerum Novarum and other Papal encyclicals on social problems. A lively discussion followed.
Mgr. Joseph Tonks was in the chair and was supported by some of the local clergy and by the committee of the Discussior Group.
Chelmsford K.S.C. Squires
The re-erection of K.S.C. Squires Council No. 1O, which has been dormant for some years, took place on Sunday last at Our Immaculate schools, Chelmsford.
The ceremony was performed by the Romford Council in the presence of Canon M. Wilson (Provincial Chaplain) and the Rev. P. Quinn, parish priest of Chelmsford.
This Council, under the regis of K.S.C. Council 302, is the eleventh in the Brentwood Province.
Me.ELLIGOTT.—On December 2, at the Ursuline Convent, Waterford, Mary Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late Gerald Mc.Elligott, of Mount Rivers, Listowel, Co. Kerry. in the 77th year of her age and the 53rd of her life in religion.—R.I.P.