In Hoc Signo

Extract

The first reactions of a convert are either to shout (forgetting the time it took to unstop his own ears) or to hide in a remote spot (unmindful of the fact that very few people will be aware of his transfiguration). The tone of the Catholic Press and our more prominent Societies suggest that the shouters are in the majority. As one who was vociferous, anxious to proclaim the new experience, may I at once express penitence? I am now silent. Every outward sign of the faith is abolished in places where my non-Catholic friends and acquaintances are likely to penetrate. If they find me in Church or between the honourable covers of this magazine that is another matter, such places are proper to the faith. The dentist's waiting-room, the grocery store, the lawyer's office are not proper to the faith but to their functions; it is in such place that an aspidistra is preferred before a crucifix!

The absence of Catholic tokens does not mean that the Catholic dentist, grocer or lawyer is ashamed of his faith and lukewarm as to its propaganda. It means that his time is so fully occupied in being a Catholic privately and attending to his business publicly that he refrains from advertizing a fact which he might easily fail adequately to prove or practically to achieve.

In this country the Catholic is allowed out on sufferance, our churches are not stoned and our priests are tolerated only because the general public thinks them harmless. The Holy Father appears in the news as a distinguished foreigner with a sufficient number of friends in this country to justify half a column in the Press.