The life of St. Francis de Sales—1567-1622, still within the afterglow (or the penumbra) of the Renaissance—covered a very remarkable period in the Church’s history. Luther had been dead twenty-one years and the Counter-Reformation had gathered great strength in the interval, to which St. Francis himself later contributed in no small measure by his amazingly successful missionary excursions into the Savoyan province of Le Chablais. The Council of Trent, which embodied the true principles of reform within the Church, had held its final session four years before he was born, and these principles had been, and were still being, practically exhibited and illustrated by the astonishing galaxy of saints that adorned this new era of her history. The lifetime of St. Francis de Sales was contemporaneous with, or at least overlapped at one end or the other, that of nearly a score of the most illustrious figures in the annals of sanctity. St. Pius V, the Dominican Pope, from whose white habit the now established dress of the Supreme Pontiff derives, reigned over the Church for the first five years of St. Francis’s life. St. Charles Borromeo, St. Philip Neri, St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, St. Francis Borgia were still living during his early youth, as also were the boy saints, Stanislas, Aloysius, and (a little later) John Berchman. Other contemporaries were St. Vincent de Paul, the three Saints Peter (aptly symbolic name for the day!), Canisius, Claver, and Fourier, St. Jane Frances de Chantal, St. John Francis Regis, and St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi.

Few, least of all the Catholic, will deny that the present social system with its manifest injustice cries out urgently for radical reforms, and it is to this task that some of the best Catholic minds in Spain are now applying themselves. The main problem is to win back the masses to the Church and to convince them that a true remedy for the social ills that afflict society is to be found in the papal encyclicals, and there alone. That the task is a difficult one will be realized from an analysis of Spain’s political panorama as it affects the proletariat. At the present time liberalism, democracy, and ‘reformist’ socialism are engaged in a life and death struggle for survival. A clear-cut alignment of social forces is taking place through the gradual elimination of all intermediary or ‘compromise’ parties. The issue daily narrows itself down to the choice between ‘integral’ Marxism and one of the brands of anti-Marxist Fascism; a Soviet workers’ republic or a strong government able to alter the whole structure of the State and introduce a measure of planned economy. Social unrest is no new feature in Spanish history of the twentieth century, but never has it reached such aggravated proportions as to-day. The introduction of lay education has provided the revolutionary parties with a rich recruiting ground, a none too surprising fact if we consider that no less a person than Léon Blum, the French Socialist leader, once declared in a moment of frankness, ‘Give me the lay school, and I guarantee to provide you with a generation of revolutionaries.’

The Reformation in Wales has until recently proved something of an enigma to historians. It was common knowledge that the new doctrines were at first detested by the Welsh, that there was no nucleus of Calvinism, as in England, to give momentum and drive to the Reform movement, nor could there be a sense of antagonism between national prestige and the political expression of continental Catholicism. The English government, no less than the Catholic powers abroad, were fully aware of the possibility of an armed rising in defence of the old religion, though the extent of the danger was a matter of debate. It has been said of the Celts that ‘they went forth to the battle but they always fell.’ In this instance, however, it was precisely in so far as they did not go forth to battle that they fell. Catholicism withered, and the nineteenth century found Wales the home of a type of Protestantism of whose spiritual and literary qualities the poetry of William Williams of Pantycelyn and Ann Griffiths is sufficient evidence.

The historical causes of this religious and cultural revolution remained for a variety of reasons almost unexplored, so far as the general reader is concerned, until the appearance last year of Fr. David Mathew’s book The Celtic Peoples and Renaissance Europe.’ Not only is this a book of considerable penetration and brilliance, but it also supplies a need which is at once new and pressing.

To read modern lion-catholic philosophy at the present day one would really think that the world was presented to us ‘on approval,’ to such an extent does the conception of Value seem to dominate the discussions. Mr. C. E. M. Joad in the Spectator of October 6th last, remarks that four out of the five specifically philosophical books reviewed by him since the beginning of the year were to do with some theory of ‘Value. Dean Inge notices the fact in his God and the Astronomers, and has a whole chapter on the World of Values; while Windleband says frankly that what is expected from philosophy to-day is not so much a ‘theoretical scheme of the world. . (but) . .reflection on those permanent values which have their foundation in a higher spiritual reality, above the changing interests of the times.'

One would like to know by what authority Philosophy abandons its proper function so as to substitute appreciation for apprehension, and turn Metaphysics into a mood —be it optimistic or pessimistic. We will, however, make some attempt to discover why this strange, non-rational, man-centred change has come over non-catholic thinking.

In a previous article’ I tried to make clear the distinction between Fascism and ‘Statolatry,’ logically inevitable if we properly understand the twin Fascist principles of the Corporate State and of the priority of civic duties to civic rights. But amongst those calling themselves Fascists there have unquestionably been ‘statolaters,’ avowed or implicit. These may be classed as Demi-Fascists, representing as they do the maximising of one half of the Fascist creed with a corresponding minimising of the other.

From an undue stressing of the corporate idea we may arrive at a worship of the State on a kind of pantheistic basis. If the highest authority is an extension of myself, then both it and myself are participants in the Godhead. But the essential difference between God and a creature is that from the very conception of Divinity it follows that Divine rights have no co-relative duties. Might and right are identified. Thus the true Fascist denial of natural civic rights is neutralized and the result is a mentality extremely dangerous both to the citizen and the world. To the citizen because the condition of his citizenship becomes one of increasing the might, whether it be in wealth or dominion, of the State. To the world because the policy of such a State must be world conquest. It is God's right to exercise universal dominion, and since only your own State is God —or, at any rate, your God, to whom you owe service— it follows that no other State has a right even to exist, save in so far as its existence redounds to your own power.

I ALWAYS read with the greatest interest the pronouncements of the two schools of theatrical critics of the Film, the ‘whole-hoggers’ and the ‘half-and-halfers’ : fairly represented respectively by Mr. St. John Ervine and Mr. Sydney Carrol. Mr. Ervine and the whole-hoggers—with whom I am not going to bother either myself or my readers here—regard a Cinema as exclusively a place for nit-wits to which nobody of the intelligence of Mr. Ervine would ever resort, unless the Film happens to be an exact reproduction of a successful stage play. The only reason advanced for the popularity of the Cinema is that admirably comfortable seats are provided, and that Jack and Jill can spend a much pleasanter evening there than at home. The half-and-halfers treat the Cinema with a benign tolerance, regarding it as the Theatre‘s rather inky baby brother, who requires occasional pats on the back but must on no account be spoiled by over lavish praise. ‘If,’ wrote Mr. Carrol, in an article in The Daily Telegraph some Thursdays ago,

‘you have any regard for the beauty and clarity of English speech correctly spoken, the grace and charm of English manners (in proper exposition), the sympathy and comprehension of English understanding, see that these precious things receive their tribute in the only place where they can be practised and reviewed at their best, the English Theatre.’

Now that may be very true and noble, but it led me to ask the question, is it relevant to the topic of the relations of the Theatre and the Film? The art of the Film should not, so all its greatest exponents constantly tell us, compete with the art of the Theatre; it should be complementary to it.

The essential interest of the ‘Experiment in Biography’ by means of which Mr. A. J. A. Symons tells us’ what his ingenious patience has pieced together about Frederic William Rolfe, the ‘spoilt priest’ who has definitely taken his place in Victorian letters, depends on the fact—presented by Mr. Symons with a mass of accumulated evidence—that he was a congenital Invert. Once this has been realized the course of his wasted life is comprehensible. Without this clue we might well ask ourselves what all the fuss was about.

Born in Victorian London, and received into the Catholic Church at twenty—six years of age, Rolfe presents all the ear—marks of his kind. ‘Bright, attractive, a natural Catholic . . . interested in drawing, music, and the arts, not over given to sport,’ as Mr. Symons says, he might have sublimated his Inversion under the spur and curb of Catholic asceticism to become a useful priest. Yet ‘somehow’ he met ‘squalls’ at Oscott, ‘somehow’ he was expelled from the Scots College, ‘somehow’ he lapsed into vicissitudes at Christchurch and Aberdeen, ‘somehow’ he failed to convince either Franciscans or Jesuits, until ‘somehow’ he became the man of’ many queer friendships ‘who never made a friend, and finished up by purchasing the favours of venal youths in the back alleys of Venice. The ‘somehow’ is not difficult to deduce.