A number of recent books and articles have drawn attention to the emergence in Britain of a Catholic group of left-wing thinkers and writers who have a noticeable influence on Catholic life and thought today. In this article I propose to sketch the origins of this movement, and then to consider the kind of argument that is now going on—and which will go on more intensely in the future—concerning the significance of a Catholic Left.

Anyone hardened to the foot-stomping, carnival atmosphere of American nominating conventions can only be amazed at the sobriety of European party congresses. At the 36th Congress of the Italian Socialist Party (P.S.I.), held in Rome between November 10 and 14, 1965, there were in evidence no funny hats, no jiggling cheerleaders, no carefully rehearsed floor demonstrations. Indeed, the-book displays in ,thc lobby, the style of the speeches themselves—closely reasoned arguments concerning the policy options open to the Party—the decorous absence of hecklers or interjections from the floor, all combined to lend the five-day meeting the air of a professional association conference.