Emancipation

One hundred years ago in England, Roman Catholics could not be seated in Parliament without taking oaths that meant the renunciation of their faith. Then Irish Catholics of County Clare elected Daniel O'Connell to Parliament, threatened to elect him repeatedly until seated. Fearing civil war an unwilling Parliament and unwilling King George IV passed the Emancipation Bill, giving Catholics equal political rights with Protestants.

Last week to London went many Catholics for the National Catholic Congress and a simultaneous celebration of the Centenary of Emancipation. First came a speech by His Eminence Cardinal Francis Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster and head of the Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain.

Cardinal v. Sex. A congress of sexperts was meeting in London simultaneously to discuss another kind of "emancipation." Incensed, Cardinal Bourne attacked this other congress.

"What," asked he, "in reality is the ground of the demand for extended facilities for divorces, birth prevention and the like? Simply that these instincts and passions are entitled to self-gratification, though in seeking it they contravene Christian or even natural law. . . . How can those who deliberately interfere with the natural processes of life preach purity to women? . . . Their evil books are studied by the young whom matrimony never joined. Writers, painters, and actors on the screen and stage, women by the fashion of their dress, who render self-control more difficult and thereby make natural craving for sinful self-gratifications more imperious than it would otherwise be, are doing more evil and committing a sin in the sight of God."

Shaw v. Pope. Just as Irish Samuel O'Connell was an emancipator in his day, so Irish George Bernard Shaw poses as an emancipator nowadays. Not unaware of the Catholic Congress and of Catholic views on sex, he addressed them obliquely from the sexperts' congress. Excerpts:

"The consequence is that if you had a general congress of all such reformers--not merely members of a particular society but all the people who are demanding sex reform--there would be a curious cross-party organization. Probably the Pope would find that on nine points out of ten he was warmly in sympathy with Dr. Marie Stopes. And all of them would probably disagree on such a question as the age of consent. . . .

"A priest always rushes in and demands to be accepted as an authority on the subject. . . . The Pope represents the priests in this matter. The Pope is the chief priest of Europe and speaks very strongly on the subjects of sex appeal. I, of course, should never dream of appealing to the chief priest of Europe."

Chesterton v. Wells. On the second day of the Catholic Congress, up reared the portentous bulk of Gilbert Keith Chesterton. England's three greatest publicists are the Messrs. Shaw, Chesterton and Herbert George Wells. Instead of replying to the Shavian sex sarcasm of the day before, Mr. Chesterton elected to assail Mr. Wells, evolutionist. He began by talking about atheists, of whom, he said, the world has very few. "An atheist," he boomed, "is much more difficult to emancipate than any one else because he is, above all people, the narrowest and most completely captive." But Mr. Wells is not even an atheist, explained Mr. Chesterton. He is merely antiChristian, which requires less logic, courage or consistency than being an atheist. "They [the Wells type of thinkers] talk about believing in a purpose in things and then tell you they don't believe in a divine person in whom a purpose resides. I cannot imagine anything like a purpose wandering about the world without any person to belong to.

"H. G. Wells used a phrase like this: 'Life will use me for its purpose.' That appears to me exactly like a man jumping from the top of Westminster Cathedral and saying, The force of gravity will use me.'"

During the week came word from Cardinal Bourne that Amanullah, deposed king of Afghanistan, had given up war-exalted Mohammedanism and was converted to Roman Catholicism. Reputed converter: a Jesuit priest.

Fact & Farce. Another speaker, the Rev. Owen M. Dudley, called Dean William Ralph Inge and the Rt. Rev. Ernest William Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, "very ignorant men" because of their part in the movement against Anglo-Catholicism. The Church of England, said Mr. Dudley, is "fast becoming a farce. Numerically we [Anglo-Catholics] have just as much right to be the national church."

The Congress ended with a massed march to Westminster Cathedral* and a giant open air Mass, London's first.

* A Byzantine structure near the western end of Victoria Street, not to be confused with Gothic, Protestant Westminster Abbey at the eastern end.