Words & Works

P:The Vatican announced that Giuseppe Sarto, who as Pius X was Pope from 1903 to 1914, will be canonized next May the 78th Pope to achieve sainthood, and the first since 1712.* P:The Rev. Hubert Thornton Trapp, vicar of London's Anglican Church of St. Mary. Magdalene, challenged the Archbishop of Canterbury to "come out into the open" about Freemasonry. Declaring in his parish magazine that "the Christians' God and the Masons' God are not one and the same . . . the two loyalties are in conflict," he announced that he would bar any clergyman who is a Mason from preaching or ministering to his congregation. At Lambeth Palace it was announced that Dr. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Mason and Archbishop of Canterbury, "does not wish to reply to the article." P:According to Ecclesia, official publication of Catholic Action in Spain, 353 Spaniards are well along the road to sainthood--among them, 186 priests and monks killed in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). The announcement ended speculation on whether all 7,227 churchmen killed in the civil war would be canonized at once. Explained Ecclesia: "In the eyes of the church, martyrdom is obtained only when a life is given in defense of faith or Christian virtue." P: In Nashville, a group of leading executives organized a movement called "Businessmen for Religious Action." With the slogan "Worship God More in '54," they set about plans for selling religion like a new product, with film strips, pamphlets, window posters and car tags, speeches to civic clubs and printed inserts for electric and telephone bills.

-When St. Pius V (1566-72) was canonized. Ascetic Pius V, a friar of the Dominican order, and Inquisitor General for all of Christendom before he became Pope, is chiefly remembered by historians as the Pontiff who made the break between Rome and the Church of England irrevocable by excommunicating Queen Elizabeth.

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