On October the 4th, 1957, the world was startled by the announcement that the Russians had put a satellite, Sputnik I, successfully into orbit. The launching, coupled with the relatively large size of the satellite, caused widespread alarm in the United States. The Americans had already announced their intention of launching a number of small satellites as part of their contribution to the International Geophysical Year, which began in July 1957. Practically the only hint that the Russians intended anything similar was given by an article in a Soviet magazine for Radio amateurs, which in July 1957 asked enthusiasts to prepare receiving systems in the 20 and 40 Megacycle Bands for satellite reception, laid down the form in which observations should be taken, and gave a telegraphic address, Moskva-Sputnik, to which they should be sent. This article passed unnoticed in the West.

Five years later, with more than too successful launchings of satellites and space probes, it is possible to attempt some assessment of the scientific contribution made by these experiments. In some fields it has been very significant, in others disappointingly small, serving mainly to confirm what had already been inferred by indirect methods. The number of spectacular discoveries has been very small indeed.

Sputnik I was a sphere, about 23 inches across, and weighing 184 lbs. Its rocket carrier, weighing four tons, went into the same orbit. It carried two radio transmitters of fairly high power, which continued to transmit for about three weeks. As far as is known, it had no scientific instruments apart from those which monitored conditions inside the satellite, and the only scientific publications resulting from this flight have been those concerned with the satellite path, and the effects of atmospheric drag. Sputnik II, which went into orbit on November 3rd, was heavier and more sophisticated.

I said at the end of my first article that what was needed at the present time, in order to restore a proper sense of tension between the Church and the World, was a deeper theological understanding especially in the moral field. But theology is a practical as well as a speculative activity: and moral theology must always bear upon practical life if it is to have any value. This is why the most important developments in moral theology have come from people with immediate and practical interests in the central moral issues of the day. Above all this nowadays means an interest in the problem of modern warfare and its prevention. I think one must single out, in this context, Père Regamey’s Non-Violence et Conscience Chretienne as one of the most important pieces of contemporary moral theology, though it bears little resemblance to the usual books on morality. I think the challenge of Pè Regamey’s book is its stress that, as a response to the colossal issues confronting us, a minimal ‘code’ morality (Is it licit to do this? Am I forbidden to do that?) is no longer adequate. This is not to say that a code morality is no longer necessary: but it is no longer enough to suppose that the avoidance of sin is all that we can expect from the average Christian. The average Christian, not only the exceptional one, must become morally heroic if the world’s problems are to be solved. By going to Gandhi for his inspiration, Regamey is able to sketch the requirements and the possibilities of such a Christian heroism.

In the recent collection of essays entitled ‘Nuclear Weapons and Christian Conscience’, Elizabeth Anscombe asks how it is that Cathohcs have been able to accommodate themselves with so little strain of conscience to modern war; and the answer, in her own telling phrase, is ‘double think about double effect’. We all know what she means; but perhaps it is not always easy to see just where double effect thinking becomes ‘double think’.

The principle of double effect is in itself by no means so mysterious and subtle a doctrine as it is sometimes thought. It is no more in fact than a rational and systematic explanation of what goes on in our minds when we wonder whether or not to perform a certain action which we see will have both good and bad effects. Thus a man who sells sporting shotguns in a district where there is a danger of violence many wonder whether to carry on with his trade. If he does, he will be carrying on his normal and legitimate occupation, and supporting his family; but at the same time, he will be adding to the danger of human injury. How is he to make his decision? Catholic tradition would suggest four principles (though found with many variations) to help him make his choice. An act with two effects, one good and the other bad, is lawful, according to this tradition, on four conditions. First, the action, viewed in itself, must be good or at least indifferent; secondly, the agent must not intend the evil effect, but only the good; thirdly, the good effect must be produced as immediately as - that is not by means of - the bad; and, fourthly, there must be a sufficiently weighty reason for permitting the evil effect. Now if we apply the principles to the case of the man selling shotguns, they begin to look like ordinary common sense.

Perhaps no other state can exhibit the variety in organization represented by English educational institutions at the secondary school stage. Within the boundaries of a single local authority may often be discovered public and private schools, direct grant grammar schools financed by the Ministry of Education, and their municipal counterparts governed by local councils, in whose care would also be found secondary modem and technical schools. The religious bodies, particularly the Church of England in the countryside and the Catholic Church in the industrial areas, have their own parallel foundations.

Nevertheless, irrespective of the constitution of the Governing Board or the section of the population served, the majority of them will probably echo in their studies and administration the prevailing educational philosophy. According to this theory there exists in the nation an intellectual elite with inborn mental superiority - although its protagonists differ as to its extent. Professor Cyril Burt estimates five per cent as specially gifted and requiring a separate academic course, while the present Minister of Education considers as many as thirty per cent of the senior pupils ought to be in attendance at grammar schools. All adherents are agreed, however, that one of the chief tasks of the administrator is to discern the elite by an examination at the age of eleven or thirteen years and, thenceforward, to provide them with the best available facilities for an advanced academic course. To such philosophers the examination also reveals those, the hapless majority, with mental ability of a lower order: these they assign to a school where a practical course forms the main staple of the curriculum. At such secondary modem schools there would be a minimum of abstract academic study and no attempt would be made to prepare the scholars for external examinations.

The major moral problems to be tackled on film - seriously tackled, not exploited for commercial or publicity expedience - are, as might be expected, problems that affront the social conscience rather than the religious. And to those who frivolously take this to be a reflection on the immorality of the cinema, it might be useful to consider whether it is not rather a reflection on the lack of real charity among the conventionally religious. These major moral problems can be, I think, most easily explored under a few broad headings, though these are necessarily fluid and some films could as easily fit under any of three and some, perhaps, fit uneasily under any. I would suggest then, that it is convenient to survey them under the headings of war, justice, society and the individual, and what one might almost call ‘conscience and religion’ or perhaps more accurately ‘conscience and God’. There is even, I think, a faint embryonic shaping of a category which might almost be called ‘conscience and sex’, though most of the films I myself would put here could probably be just as well placed under the category of the ‘individual’, because the situation explored is nearly always conveyed in terms of limited personal relationships rather than in wider implications of the moral law as it is understood by classical theologians.

War. The theme of war in the cinema is, roughly speaking, treated in two quite different ways and it is important to realize this because it is, after all, one of the most constantly recurrent themes in the film output of nearly every nation that played an active part in the last war.

It is a difficult task to attempt a survey of the Congo, because in doing so, one can easily make mistakes. This is due to several different factors, as the natural condition of the country, the speed with which the history of the Congo is building up, the originality of the Congolese experience, and the fact that everybody wants to deal with the Congolese problem.

The area of the Congo is 905,400 square miles. In such a big country whose population is estimated at about 14,000,000, towns and important villages are but scattered islands in the deep forest and the exuberant grass of the savannah. Thus, one can hardly pretend to speak competently about everything which is going on throughout the country. Besides, there are so many contradictions among reports and eye witnesses that one must reflect carefully and sift newspaper reports and radio-messages. Misleading tales, issued from personal interest or wrong interpretation of the facts, lead people to doubt even the value of the objective reports which he has succeeded in distinguishing from wrong ones.

In the Congo, matters are developing so fast, and the evidence is so shifting that people find it difficult to follow the events and give a sane judgement. Moreover, the political life of the Congo is so new and original that one scarcely knows where it is leading to. And the fact that everybody deals with the Congolese problem and each wants to solve it according to his own point of view, contributes no less to create confusion of mind. In spite of these difficulties, I would like to outline some few points of our drama, as I have seen it myself, or have heard from various people some of whom have been victims or actors in the game.

In the Congolese crisis, the Catholic Church was the organism which presented most stability, and whose European members resisted better the panic of July 1960.

It was with a certain sense of guilt that in the depths of this cruel winter I abandoned, briefly, both London and the cinema to take off for Monte Carlo and television. A new kind of festival altogether for me, this, though the sixth actually to be organized by UNDA, the international co-ordinating body for Catholic television; and one which in the event turned out to be both rewarding and salutary. Five to six hours of television a day, however, proved to be considerably more taxing to the eyes than an equivalent amount of the larger screen; and since the entries were divided into three categories there was, inevitably, a certain sameness within each category. The shortest programme lasted eight minutes and the longest sixty, though most of them fell between twenty-five and forty minutes; it certainly seemed, on balance, that half an hour was the ideal length from the spectator’s point of view, though this may well be frustrating to the producer. Three out of the five prize-winners were programmes of precisely thirty minutes, it is relevant to note.

A few factual details may be of interest. Twelve countries, mostly from Western Europe, though the United States and French Canada were also represented, submitted entries for the competition and each competing country had one member on the jury, though this was not necessarily the head of their delegation. Entries were limited in number and selected by a preparatory commission; different production companies from the same country could compete in the same section - thus there were two German companies, and from this country both BBC and ITV put in programmes. Countries with autonomous hierarchies, like Scotland, were entitled to separate delegations and entries.

The peculiar and precarious balance between elegance and brutality which is the hall-mark of the eighteenth century took many forms, varying widely according to country and society; but basically the intelligence, the vitality and the ruthlessness inherent in its self-confidence are instantly recognisable, whether in Versailles or the vernacular. By one of those curious coincidences endemic in the muddle of the film-exhibitor’s world, adaptations of two of the great classics of the period have reached the London screens within a few weeks of each other this summer, one British, the other French.

Fielding’s Tom Jones appears in a full-blooded Woodfall production, directed very much in the mid-century manner by Tony Richardson from a first-class script by John Osborne, in variable but, on the whole, beautiful Eastman Colour adorning the camera work of one of Britain’s best operators, Walter Lassally, and a score byjohn Addinsell. Optimus quisque, as you will note. The coruscating collection of stars studding the cast list means, in the event, that even the smallest parts are so well acted that the whole film has a homogeneity of style that is only too rare in historical pictures. Voltaire’s Candide, on the other hand, retains its eighteenth century style but not its manner in the modern version directed, produced, adapted and scripted by Norbert Carbonnaux. Though to be sure this black and white picture begins neatly enough by getting the best of both worlds (even if neither is demonstrably the best of all possible ones) with its credit titles set wittily against dissolving toile deJouy backgrounds; moreover the film opens with a fancy dress dance for Cunegonde in which everybody (except Candide himself) makes a first appearance in eighteenth century costume.

‘Come to Nigeria to die’ was not the specific call that the missionaries of the last century answered when they flocked to Africa. But the Christian ethic of their times and the demand that they go and teach all nations spurred them on to face hunger and death in the service of an ideal. Today the ethic has changed and the cry is for the technocrat to help the underdeveloped and newly free countries find stability, security and material welfare. As then the rich countries of the world provided the teachers and priests, so today only the rich countries can spare the skilled men that are needed. The Churches are being supplemented by the Peace Corps and the VSO Committee. It is the work of the latter, more precisely called the Committee on Service Overseas by Volunteers, that this article is to examine.

The Committee is a co-ordinating body, overseeing four different organizations (their addresses will be found at the end) who are all working towards roughly the same ends and using roughly the same methods, and the discussion concentrates on the ends and methods of VSO itself, as the largest of the four.

It is rare for a volunteer to go out for more than two years, or for less than one. Both cases are known, but they are exceptional and the standard period of service is about twelve months. The variety of the work is impressive: the five heads listed in the official handout comprise teaching, agricultural production, medicine, engineering and administration. In fact, what is wanted are those people who might be described as the architects of society. The countries to which the volunteers go are the new countries, countries in every imaginable stage of advancement and voracious for anyone with the requisite skills.

We know much better today than before what the needs of mankind are—one of the great developments of modern times is this consciousness of human needs and of our duty to do something to meet them. A little over a hundred years ago needs were in a form that you would think would inevitably appeal to all Christians and humane people, and much close to us than now—in the great famine in Ireland for example —none the less, churchmen, politicians, economists and ordinary decent people considered not only that there was nothing that could be done about the famine, but also that it was wrong to try and do anything about it. It was upsetting the laws of economics, and if economics taught us that half the population of Ireland had to starve, that was just too bad.

Now we don’t think that any more, and I believe this is a great advance. But apart from what we think, the facts are different. The facts are that we are now in a position where—in respect of material needs, in respect of what might be called the simple Gospel needs of feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked and so forth—the means to relieve these needs for every human being are not only to hand now, but have been to hand for at least thirty or forty years. Nevertheless the hungry are still there, and very little effectively is being done to feed them. It’s not because the food isn’t there or that it couldn’t be brought very easily to those who need it.

The sixth London Film Festival was held as usual in the National Film Theatre at the end of last October, but on a wet day it looked and felt more like the Western Front in 1916 than the South Bank in 1962. The demolition around the Royal Festival Hall had to be seen - and heard - to be believed. Nothing, however, could damp or deafen the enthusiasm of the crowds who wished to see the films so briefly available to them; during the fifteen days of the Festival just over twenty-one thousand people paid to see the thirty feature films and fifty shorts presented in the framework of the fortnight, and a full house stayed the whole course of an all-night show on the first Friday. This was a marathon indeed: four feature films - Bunuel’s Exterminating Angel, Tony Richardson’s Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, Gregoretti’s I Nuovi Angeli and Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water - were shown between 11.30 p.m. and 8.15 a.m. the next morning, with intervals for hot soup and other refreshments; one can well beheve they were needed.

Of the films new to me which I was able to see during the festival two stood out head and shoulders above the rest, though I am ready to be persuaded that they might have had close competition from two which I did not catch - Commare Seca and Les Oliviers de la Justice: but my two winners were the Polish Knife in the Water and the Italian II Mare. No one who saw Two Men and a Wardrobe is likely to have forgotten it; this brilliant, imaginative and enigmatic short was made by Roman Polanski as a technical exercize while he was still a student at the Lodz state film school.

After the millennial celebrations of the founding of the Polish state and the conversion of Poland to Christianity, the Poles may look back with some pride and with some horror. In modern times they have been perhaps the least favoured of European nations, with a recent past consisting of dismemberment, unsuccessful rebellion, two great wars, and the suffering of the worst imaginable crimes; under the Nazis there were about twelve extermination camps in Poland, of which Auschwitz was only the most well-known. This was followed by the poverty and oppression of the post-war and Stalinist period. Being poised between east and west has not been in Poland’s favour, however interesting the phenomenon; only in the last seven years has it turned strangely to their advantage. October 1956 was the great moment in the history of modem Poland; they look back on it now as ‘The Polish October’ and ‘The October Springtime’. The bitter but concealed intrigues in the back-streets of Warsaw, by which Wladyslav Gomulka came to power and bloodlessly achieved a change of régime that deserved the name of revolution, demonstrated the political genius, and reversed the destiny of Poland. So did the glowering crowds, assembled in imitation of the earlier Poznan rioters and with no clear idea of what action they were going to take; when, rather to everyone’s surprise, they accepted Gomulka’s assurances quietly. They stood in the background as a lever for Gomulka against the Russians, but without committing any indiscretion which might have incited Russian reaction. (The Polish adage has it that in 1956 the Poles behaved like Hungarians, the Hungarians like Poles, and the Czechs like pigs).

Downside symposia are high-powered affairs. The papers (later to be published as a book) are closely related to a single theme. They are listened to by the rest of the speakers and a few more invited experts: after other Catholic conferences there is a welcome absence of lunatic fringe. We took the seventeen talks at the rate of three a day, each followed by close discussion; the BBC were busy with their tapes (a Home Service programme goes out on August 18th). Yet this, we began to see, was what a retreat might be like: listening and thinking and talking about a serious topic, and each mid-day celebrating mass together in die room where we had worked.

This year we were discussing the problem of Catholic entry into university theological faculties for study and teaching. Up to now in England theology has been done outside the context of university cultural life, and without the help of the special contribution which lay-people alone can give. Clearly it would be a great gain if we could work in the open universities, instead of behind seminary doors, and if our teaching could be directed as much to the formation of theologically literate laymen as to that of clerics. Above all so much would be gained if we could work in collaboration with Anglicans and Free Churchmen; those of them present made it clear that we would be welcome, that we had something to offer as well as to receive. America has Catholic universities, even Europe separates theology faculties by denomination; for the first time in the ecumencial age England, we realised, could give the world a lead.

‘Ancient tragedy, ancient tragedy’, insists Cavafy somewhere, ‘is as holy and wide as the universal heart’. Of late this holiness has demonstrated its universality beyond the printed page, beyond the stone amphitheatre or the wooden stage, to make its impact all over again from the cinema screen; an impact, moreover, which is surprisingly unweakened by its transference to so unfamiliar a medium.

The process has not long been at work: Medea and her children, it is true, made a fleeting appearance in Never on Sunday when, Melina Mercouri explained, in spite of all appearances to the contrary they were really on their way to the beach. And when the bodies Uttering the stage rose to acknowledge the applause it was not easy for Dassin, as the American professor, to prove her wrong. The first serious example, however, of the new wave of adaptations from the great Greek dramatists (though not the first to reach this country) was probably the Electra of Michael Cacoyannis, which won a prize at Cannes in 1962; then came another Electra, that directed by Ted Zarpas, which was shown in Venice in 1962 and in the London Film Festival later last year; these two, together with Antigone, directed by George Tzavellas, seen earlier this spring in London, are straight-forward presentations of the original tragedy. Phaedra directed by Jules Dassin, is a modern transposition of the play, with details of the plot significandy manipulated to suit the twentieth-century setting and the geographical expansion of the action.

I have not, unfortunately, yet been able to see the Zarpas Electra, which stars the famous Greek classical actress, Anna Synodinou, as Electra and is, it is widely agreed, a revelation. This film avoids any personal angle - it is simply a magnifi- cendy photographed version of an actual performance of the play by the Greek National Theatre in the great stone amphitheatre of Epidauros; the same stage, incidentally, where Melina Mercouri saw Medea and which she so assiduously haunted that the sign ‘Closed owing to Greek Tragedy’ was hung on her door for the duration of the festival.