LENTEN PASTORALS

Continued from page one
mitt in the city of Birmingham and has been working for about a year. Its members reoeive a course of Christian doctrine and it they satisfy the examiners appointed by the Archbishop. they are given a licence to catechise. Thly help parish priests in the work of instructing peodle, and are particularly useful in difficult cases. such as the instoiction of those who are in valids cis deaf or blind or mentally backward, and also of course in catechising children in parishes where there is no Catholic school.
JOHN, BISHOP OF PLYMOUTH
" Misgivings on a God-less Peace"
Whilst the.war drags its weary length many people. especially amongst those who have personally suffered severely, are perplexed and are inclined to ask what it is all about, or what it has to do with them as individuals..
There is set before them the spectacle of the United Nations solemnly binding themselves to carry out a beneficent programme for humanity. They are vaguely soothed because the aims proposed are to good, and set themselves to carry on with grim resignation to the hardships involved.
But others are not quite satisfied, hecatise they see the flaws in the machinery for producing universal wellbeing. They doubt whether everything will work smoothly in the application of the good principles laid down. They feel a certain amount of uneasiness in regard to the solidarity of purpose because they learn or occasional bickeringl between the United Nations even before their victory is won; and they see already legislative measures pro
posed which seem to fall short of that full justice for all which is so loudly proclaimed. They are not quite convinced of the complete ingenuousness of the mutual political pacts, and even granting it, they have grave misgivings as to whether a benevolent international political scheme which is based ultimately on armed force can achieve soccess in the face of human passions, inclinatiotts and ambitions.
ARTHUR, BISHOP OF BRENTWOOD
"Rome On the Rates"
Here is our first resolution this Lent —to pray and to pray oftem and to use the Rosary as our instrument of prayer, so that every Catholic child in this our Lady's Dowry may have reasonable facility of access to a publicly provided and maintained Catholic sehobl, whether primary or secondary.
One would think that after a hundred years' proof of the willingness of Catholics to sacrifice themselves in the C31/StE of separate Catholic education while paying their share for the education of children who do not need this education, the lime hail come to dispense altogether with the disgraceful cry " Rome on the rates" from our current vocabulary.
tro BISHOP OF NO RT H A MPTON "Looseness of Morals" Abnormal conditions have broken up family life, Hasty marriages are taking place, the stability of which one may fear for; many voting people enter marriage for motives rather of good comradeship than through recognition of the vocation to rear 8 Christian family and co-operate with the Creator in His creative work. In our own flock there is a grave tendency to regard as a dead letter the Church's law that Catholics should marry Catholics; a tendency, too, to regard a passionate love as constituting irk itself the exceptional circumstances for which alone the Church will sometimes, reluctantly, permit a mixed marriage.
We do not wish here to mention in detail what is always a deplorable concomitant of war--a looseness of morals: discernible particularly to-day In the grievously sinful use of methods to frustrate natural functions, and a widespread dishonesty and disregard of truth; all of which things shame our nation and alienate God's blessing front the cause of the Allies. These are somesof the things we should watch during Lent and determine to have no part in; though we can and do thank God for the courage and endurance and good fellowship which only times like these bring out in our national character.
AMBROSE, BISHOP OF SHREWSBURY
"For the first time rights of parents are taken away" For the first time in modern history the lights of parents to decide to what school their children shall go, or for what trade or vocation their children shall be prepared, shall be taken away and given to the Board of Education and the local education authority. The President has said that he reckons on the help and co-operation of parents and then takes away their natural rights sis citizens. In all disputes the Minister's decisien is to be final, and there is to be no appeal to the High Courts of Justice which have always been the guardians of our rights. This surely has a distinct likeness to the ideology of Germany and Fascist Italy which we are now lighting.
I can now only urge that all representative bodies of Catholics, trade unionists, members of the C.Y.M.S., Union of Catholic Mothers, and all Catholic parents and voters should write to their local Members of Parliament insisting that our grievances he considered and amended during the committee stage or the Bill.
DANIEL, BISHOP OF MENEVIA
"Ignoring the Lord's Day" One cannot notice without apprehension how there is an increasing tendency in the modern world to ignore the holiness of the Lord's Day. Even before the present war there were signs that the Sunday Observance, traditional in this land, was being gradually undermined by the introduction of secular pastimes and pursuits.
Some of these, it is true, ate quite innocent and harmless in character: for example, visits to the seaside as an escape from drab surroundings after a hard week of toil ; or attending meetings of a political character for the redress of wrongs, under which certain sections of the Community feel they are sma rting.
Others, however, are either dangerous in themselves or may easily become an occasion of sin. Such are the frequentation of clubs where intoxicants are supplied ; spending much time in perusing the Sunday newspapers or listening unduly to secular programmes over the wireless. The opening of cinemas on Sunday in some places constitutes a new threat to the religious observance of the Sabbath.
Things have not improved in this re (Co/aimed at loot 01 00X1 column)