Crucial questions


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OUr5TlON5

Jamef
the Catiuiic Hoar





CRUCIAL QUESTIONS
by

REV. JAMES M. GILLIS, C. S. P.
Editor of The Catholic World

Five addresses delivered in the nationwide Catholic Hour

(produced by the National Council of Catholic Men, in

cooperation with the National Broadcasting Company)

on Sundays from October 6, through November 3, 1940

Why Are Ye Fearful, 0 Ye Of Little Faith?
What Is It All About?
Why Must The Innocent Suffer? -
Where Now Is Thy God?
When the Son of Man Comes Will He Find Faith

on Earth?

Page
.. 3

.. 12

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.. 42

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1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W.

Washington, D. C.

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Hh JOHN FRANCIS NOLL, D. D.
Bishop of Fort Wayne

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WHY ARE YE FEARFUL, O YE OF LITTLE
FAITH?

(Matthew 8 :26).

Address delivered on October 6, 1940

Everyone seems to be saying nowadays that
civilization has come to a sorry pass. It is true. Too
true. So obviously true as to be a platitude, or what
men used to call in the slang of yesterday a “bro-
mide”. Certain writers and speakers say that here
and now in this second quarter of the twentieth
century, we face a crisis more serious than any
known to our ancestors. Hamlet, the melancholy
Prince of Denmark, exclaimed, “The time is out
of joint: O cursed spite, that ever I was born
to set it right!” But our contemporary pessi-
mists say not that a joint is out of place here or

there in the organism of civilization but that the
whole framework is in a state of collapse; and in-
stead of complaining that they were born to set it
right, they declare that no one can set it right.

They are not merely pessimists but defeatists.

One of them, Hermann Rauschning, formerly
an associate of Hitler, has written a terrifying vol-

ume called The Revolution of Nihilism. There have
been revolutions before, he says, but never such a

revolution as this. Hitherto a revolution had for its
purpose the removal of one form of government and
the substitution of another. But the revolution now
in progress, he claims, the Nazi-Communist revo-
lution, aims at the obliteration of all government
and the substitution of nihilism. The purpose of
Hitler and Stalin, he insists, is not to change the
world but to destroy the world.



4 CKUCIAL QUESTIONS

In the city of Rome, “Immortal Rome,” there
are, it is said, the ruins of seven or eight civilizations

piled one upon another like geological strata, the
present Rome, the one now visible on the surface
of the earth, being perhaps the ninth. A new civili-
zation always rose on the ruins of the old. But Herr
Rauschning seems to say that this time there isn’t
going to be any new civilization. The one we have
is all there is, there isn’t any more. The world will
not rise again like Rome but will remain buried like
Babylon, Sodom, Gomorrah. “All our pomp of yes-
terday is one with Nineveh and Tyre,” says Kip-
ling. All our civilization of today, says Rauschning,

art, architecture, music, literature, manners, morals,

religion will be so thoroughly blotted out that the

next generation—a generation of savages—will see
no sign of it as we see no signs of Ur of the Chal-
dees, or of Zenobia’s Palmyra.

“Apres moi, le deluge,” said Louis XV, or who-
ever invented the phrase and put it in his mouth,
“After me, the deluge.” And sure enough, there was
a deluge, a deluge of blood. But the deluge sub-
sided and a new world emerged, as the mountains
and the plains, even the cities and towns, somewhat
damp no doubt but intact, emerged when the uni-
versal deluge subsided in the days of Noe. But
after this present deluge, if I understand Rausch-

ning, the world, at least the world we call civiliza-
tion, if not the world of land and sea and sky, trees
and rocks and hills and hollows, will never emerge
again. In Genesis we read that at the beginning
“the earth was void and empty and darkness was
upon the face of the deep.” Another word for the
void, empty, dark world is Chaos. Now when the
Hitler-Stalin combination has done its deadly work



WHY ARE YE FEARFUL, O YE OF LITTLE FAITH ? 5

Chaos will have come again. For this revolution is
the Revolution of Nihilism. I make no commentary
upon what Rauschning says the two dictators are
attempting. But I will venture the hesitant remark
that it will be quite a trick if they do it. As for me,
I don’t believe they can do it.

Another philosopher of history equally learned,
Christopher Dawson, in a very stimulating and ex-
citing volume, in spite of its title Enquiry Into Re-
ligion and Progress, says in more measured phrase-
ology, “Western civilization at the present is pass-
ing through a crisis which is essentially different
from anything that has been previously experienced.
Other societies in the past have changed their so-
cial institutions, or their religious beliefs under the
influence of external forces or the development of

internal growth. But none like our own has ever
faced the prospect of fundamental alterations of be-

liefs and institutions on which the whole fabric of
social life rests” (p. 259).

Now who was the simpleton who said that he
had tried again and again to be a philosopher, but
he couldn’t because “cheerfulness was always break-
ing through”? There seems to be an understanding
that you cannot be a deep thinker unless you are
lugubrious, and that if you can still smile or hope,
or so much as say “Cheer up, it may not be true,” it
proves you are no philosopher. But there was in
ancient days a very wise man, in fact they say he
was the wisest who ever lived. King Solomon, whom
Dawson seems for the moment to have forgotten.
“This crisis is essentially different from anything
that has been previously experienced,” says Daw-
son. But Solomon says “What is it that hath been?
The same thing that shall be. What is it that hath



6 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

been done? The same that shall be done. Nothing
under the sun is new, neither is any man able to
say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone
before in the ages that were before us.”

Now it does seem to me that a philosopher of
history should not forget history. Perhaps a little
more history and a little less philosophy would do no
harm. And it seems to me furthermore that the
greatest expert on history is the Catholic Church.
She doesn’t have to read history. She lives history.
She makes history. She doesn’t have to dig it out
of some crumbling tome in a musty library. She
digs it out of her memory. She has the tomes indeed,
and the library. The schoolboy who had a jumble of
history and of physics in his head, confounding
“Vatican” with “vacuum”, produced the boner: “A
vacuum is a great empty space where the pope
lives.” The Vatican is not empty and if it were,
the pope couldn’t fill it. It contains the greatest
library in existence, greatest at least in the records

of what has been going on in this ever changing
world for the last two thousand years. But if the
pope wishes to learn whether Dawson and Rausch-
ning are right when they say there never was a time
like this, he doesn’t have to go poking into those
folios, those incunabula, those parchment manu-
scripts. All he has to do is remember. What the
Church remembers he remembers. She remembers
because she has seen and heard. He remembers be-
cause he has inherited the traditions and memories

of the Church. Her experience has been passed on
to him like a castle or an estate or a family tradition
that is passed from father to son by inheritance for
hundreds of years.

Only two years ago when Spain was devastated



WHY ARE YE FEARFUL, O YE OF LITTLE FAITH ? 7

and unnatural atrocities were done that had not
been done in the memory of living men, the horri-
fied world said “such savagery is unprecedented.”

But the pope, and I may now say all who have in-
herited with him the Catholic tradition and the
Catholic memory, might well have replied : “Savage
indeed, but not hitherto unknown. Have you for-
gotten that more than a thousand years ago Spain
was overrun by the Moors and her children afflicted
with such tortures as only Moslems could de-
vise? Have you forgotten, or did you never know,
that before the Moors the Visigoths ravaged Spain
and France? Even today in such border towns as
Carcassonne and Arles and Avignon the inhabitants
will tell you of what happened to their Christian
ancestors in the Visigoth invasion, and show you
evidences of barbaric cruelties the like of which
cannot be surpassed today.”

As in Spain, so in Hungary, conquered and
occupied for centuries by the fanatical followers of
Mohammed. Across the Mediterranean in Egypt
and Algeria and Tunisia you may follow the march
of the terrible Turk who in the seventh century did
indeed destroy a civilization, devastate a continent,

and strike such a blow at the Church of North
Africa that it has never recovered.

But the high water mark of the Moslem in-
vasion is not Algiers or Tripoli, or Gibraltar or To-

ledo, but far north in France. During the World
War, while men were talking about the Battle of
the Marne and about Joffre and Foch, we Catholics
were saying “How curious ! A Battle at the Marne
once more. But the Battle of the Marne was that
in the seventh century when Charles Martel drove



8 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

back the Mohammedan hordes and saved the con-
tinent of Europe from a fate like that of Asia,
heathenism, paganism, Mohammedanism, stagna-
tion, decay, the death and burial of a civilization.”

Also in the World War when men spoke of
“The Huns”, we said Huns? Hum? These are not
the original genuine Huns. We remember the Huns
under Attila, the Scourge of God who boasted that
the grass never grew again where the hoofs of his
horse had trod—Attila, who came from the borders
of Tatary and cut a swath a thousand miles wide
and two thousand miles long, drenching all the con-
quered lands with the blood of uncountable victims.

That was a Hun, a “savage king of still more savage
men,” hundreds of thousands of them if not mil-
lions, as fiendishly cruel as the Iroquois or the Sioux,

but with a knowledge of organization and military
strategy such as the wild Indians never learned.

With Attila the Hun, Alaric the Goth who cap-
tured Rome and sacked it, giving over the metropolis
of Greco-Roman civilization for fourteen days to
his rapacious bloodthirsty lust-maddened followers.

“Sack of Rome”? Do I say Sack of Rome? I once
attempted to count the times Rome has been sacked,
beginning with the Gauls in the fourth century be-

fore Christ and ending with the sack in 1527. I
gave it up. I don’t know how often Rome has been
pillaged, battered, burned, destroyed. Ask the anti-
quarians. But this I know: Every one of those
catastrophes, those inundations of savages, those

carnivals of rape and pillage and slaughter, has left
its mark in the memory of the Church. She was
there. She saw it. She suffered it. She needs not
read a book. It is graven with a pen of iron on the

fleshly tablets of her heart. That and a hundred



WHY ARE YE FEARFUL, 0 YE OF LITTLE FAITH? 9

similar catastrophes that have happened to Church
and State, to religion and to society, she remembers.
Ours is the Universal Church. Her experiences are
not limited to Rome, to the Italian or the Iberian
peninsula, or to the coasts of the Mediterranean, or

to France or Hungary. She is the Mother of all
European peoples; she cannot forget the calamities
that overwhelmed the Austrians, the Armenians, the
Bulgarians, the Poles who have been at various
times slaughtered by millions, as men slaughter
rabbits in Australia, as if men were indeed vermin.
She remembers not alone the cruelty of heathen to
Christian, but of Christian to Christian; as in the

case of the Irish who had scarcely recovered from
the invasion of the heathen Danes when they were
afflicted by the invasion of the Anglo-Saxon Chris-
tians, and commenced their martyrdom of seven cen-
turies.

In the heart of Asia, also, the Church ventured
as early as the seventh century. She witnessed, and
in her own flesh and blood experienced, the devas-
tating westward sweep of Tamerlane and Genghis
Khan in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Those incredible Mongolians are called semi-civi-
lized, because they were masters of the art and craft
of war, as skillful perhaps as Alexander or Napo-
leon or Caesar; but they were as cruel as raw
savages. Legends have come down to us of their
erecting pyramids, high as those of Egypt, of the

skulls and bones of their victims.

All this, I say, the Church remembers, and
with the Church the pope and all Catholics who are,
as all should be, history-minded. All this and a
thousand other instances of what seemed irreparable
disaster. To mention but one more, there were the



10 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

wars of religion in the sixteenth century, when
fifteen millions died in Germany alone in battle or
of famine or pestilence.

So, when a man like Rauschning—and dozens
who copy him—talk about the imminence of Nihil-
ism, or when more sober-minded, less alarmist
scholars like Dawson, say: “this crisis is different,
essentially different,” we say “Different? Is any-
thing different?” When they say, “Unless this war
ends as we hope and pray, with victory for the side
we favor, civilization and religion will be set back
a thousand years, if not obliterated once and for all,”
we say “perhaps,” but we must be permitted a little
dose of doubt about the annihilation of our Church
and of the civilization that She created. The Church
has been here a long time, and she is due to remain
a longer time. “I am with you all days,” said Her
Divine Founder, “unto the end of the world”. We
often call the Church the Bark of Peter. When a
storm on the Lake of Genesareth threatened to
engulf the Bark of Peter and the disciples in alarm
cried “Lord save us, we perish”; the Master awoke
from sleep, or from seeming sleep, and asked with
divine calm, “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little
faith?”

I dare say that Saint Peter never forgot

that mild rebuke. His faith did not waver again.
Neither does that of his successor, the present

Peter—the Pope. The Holy Father does not grow
hysterical. He does not pace up and down the cor-
ridors of the Vatican, crying “Woe! All is lost! this
is the most serious crisis ever known; there never
was a time like this!” Not that he is apathetic; not
that he blinds his eyes to the genuine gravity of

the situation. He is awake, and alert. He is mod-



WHY ARE YE FEARFUL, O YE OF LITTLE FAITH ? 11

erately alarmed. But if he does not minimize the
evil, neither does he magnify it. He is not only the
successor of Peter; he is vicegerent of Christ. As
such he has taken on some of the calm, the interior
peace, the mental balance, the emotional equilibrium

of his Master. I suggest that we profit by his ex-
ample.



WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?
Address delivered on October 13, 1940

“What’s It All About?” is one of those vague
indefinite expressions that may mean anything,
everything, nothing. At present it happens to be a
slang phrase, flung around indiscriminately, some-
times making sense, sometimes nonsense. I have
heard an impatient listener at a violin recital say of
an incompetent performer, who was floundering
around in a Beethoven Sonata, “He doesn’t know
what it’s all about.” A spectator at a newsreel of a
congressman attempting clumsily to defend some
dubious policy of his party said in a stage whisper,

“He doesn’t know what it is all about.” Listening
to three men of national reputation in a debate on
the Philippine question I felt that not any of them
knew what it was all about. There appeared in the
papers a picture of the great great great grandson of
Paul Revere pulling the string to unveil a statue of
his famous ancestor. The bashful fellow was caught
by the camera with such a timid little smile on his
face that he seemed about to cry. “The poor child
doesn’t know what it’s all about,” said a dear kind
lady. But perhaps, at that, the boy knew as much
about the purpose of the American Revolution as
some of the big wigs on the platform, who in the
interests of political partisanship were ready to
nullify the achievement of Paul Revere.

The best known and best liked playwright and
comedian of the American stage fifteen or twenty
years ago, after dancing and singing and waving a
flag all evening would answer a curtain call with a
monologue commencing “Life is a funny proposition



WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? 13

after all; we’re here today and away tomorrow,”
meaning not we’re on Broadway today and on the
road tomorrow, “but we’re alive today and dead to-
morrow.” It was a semi-serious piece, an attempt
to puzzle out an answer to the question “What’s It

All About?” a sort of Broadway version of Shakes-
peare’s Seven Ages of Man, from the infant, “mew-
ling in the nurse’s arms,” to the “lean and slippered
pantaloon” ending “this strange eventful history” of

human life in “second childishness and mere obliv-
ion.”

“Strange, eventful history” says Shakespeare.

The history of man on this planet puzzles, fascinates,
baffles dramatists, poets, philosophers, all manner
of thinkers, profound and superficial, religious and
irreligious; it thrills the idealists, angers the pessi-

mists, and seems to nauseate the cynics. Shakespeare
returns to it again and again both in his comedies
and his tragedies. Whether he writes of country
buskins like Bottom in “hempen homespun” upon
whom the fairies, that is to say the fates, play prac-
tical jokes, or of disgruntled amateur philosophers
like Hamlet, brooding over “the oppressor’s wrong,

the proud man’s contumely” and all the other griev-
ances listed in that familiar soliloquy; whether he
treats of a poltroon like Falstaff or of a real soldier

“seeking the bubble reputation in the cannon’s

mouth”; whether of the big blackamoor, honest,
stupid, tragic, pathetic Othello, or of some wily devil
like lago or Richard, masquerading in human form,
Shakespeare is forever occupied with nothing else

but that formidable question, “What’s It All
About?” Man is born, grows, matures, works, plays,
sins, suffers, marries, procreates, rejoices, grieves,

sickens, dies. Sometimes he seems like a god upon



14 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

the earth, or an angel; again, as King David says,
“he is compared with senseless beasts and made like
to them.” Sometimes he seems to be master of his
fate, dictator of his destiny, a lord of all creation,

but again he is heard complaining like Gloucester in
King Lear, “as flies to wanton boys are we to the
gods; they kill us for their sport.” Beast or angel,

man or devil, master or slave, victor or victim, he
struts his brief hour upon the stage of life, and
passes off ; he has his entrance and his exit.

Looking upon human life as spectators at some
bewildering play, men ask “What does it mean?
What can it mean? What’s it all about?” All litera-
ture, art, music, poetry, drama and the better sort
of Action—fiction which is not fiction but truth—are
really nothing but an attempt to answer these ques-
tions. “What’s it all about?” asks Shakespeare, and
all that he writes—comedies, histories, tragedies

—

are his answer. Dramatists and philosophers, Sopho-
cles and Socrates, and Seneca and Epictetus, Marcus
Aurelius, and ten thousand thinkers in their tradi-
tion, aim to interpret human life, that is to say
“What’s It All About?” Hendrik Ibsen, Eugene
O’Neill, Thomas Hardy, Schopenhauer, Voltaire,
Mark Twain (the later Mark Twain, humorist
turned pessimist, the Mark Twain who wrote The
Mysterious Stranger), Aldous Huxley, Hector Bo-

litho, author of Twelve Against the Gods, Ernest
Haeckel, curious combination charlatan and scien-
tist, author of The Riddle of the Universe, Robert G.
Ingersoll, probably honest but bombastic and blas-
phemous—But why prolong the interminable cata-
logue? All literature in prose and verse, all art and
drama and the more ambitious kind of music, Bach,
Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, are all concerned with



WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? 16

that seemingly flippant question “What’s It All
About?” Aristotle said, twenty four hundred years
ago, that man is born with an insatiable desire to
know. What he wants to know is the meaning of
life, and what there is, if anything, after this life,
and what is the connection between this life and
the other. It’s a far cry from Aristotle to George M.
Cohan, but the Yankee Doodle Boy who would sud-
denly swing into the monologue “Life is a funny
proposition after all,” was, I suppose, trying to con-

vey to the rather blase Broadway audiences, some-
thing of what Aristotle tried to tell the Greeks on
the Areopagus in Athens.

All thinkers, great and small, since the birth
of thought have pondered the questions “What is
Man?” and “What is Life?” “Is this the Only Life?
If there is no other, what can be the purpose of
this? If life is, as some one has said, a flash of light
between two eternities of darkness, if we emerge out
of one black void and disappear into another, what’s
it all about?”

St. Paul, of course, like all profound thinkers

—

he indeed being the most profound of them all—says
that if this were all there is of life Christians should
be the “most miserable of men.” Undoubtedly : The
higher our hopes, the deeper our despair. But all
other men would be miserable too. No man can be
satisfied with this painful thing we call life. With
his hopes and desires and anticipations and expecta-
tions it would be infernal torture to man to be told
that what he suffers, he suffers to no purpose.

Anatole France, who concealed the deep cyni-
cism of a: Schopenhauer under the shallow flippancy

of a Voltaire, said “L’Univers est enrage,” “the uni-

verse is mad.” The word “enrage” carries, I believe.



16 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

the connotation of rabid. The French use it of a
mad dog. Apparently then, according to Anatole
France, the whole world and all men and women in
it are suffering like a dog with rabies. We are all
mad—not only with ambition, greed, lust, the lust of
the flesh or blood lust, but mad especially with hallu-
cinations of grandeur. We think there is something
else but there isn’t. “Man who elevated himself to
the skies,” says Ernest Haeckel, “is found to be only

a placental mammal, of no more importance in the
universe than the microscopic infusoria,” the bugs

that move blindly in the slime under the murky
waters of a stagnant pond. Haeckel was a Darwin-
ian extremist and I take his cynical utterance to be

the absolute ultimate of the animal theory of man.

But man will not accept any theory of mater-
ialism and animalism offered him in explanation of
himself and of his life in this world. Man knows
that he is man, no matter what the biologists say.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Hora-
tio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” says

Hamlet. And there are more things in the heart
and soul of man than are named and numbered, de-
scribed, defined, analyzed and synthesized, in the

works of Darwin and Haeckel and Freud. The evo-
lutionists go to the animals to learn about man. Why
not go to man to learn about man? Scientists—of
the materialistic stripe—are so intent upon fossils,
fish, serpents, simians, alleged antecedents of man,

that they have no eyes for man himself. “I sought
Thee and I found Thee not because I sought Thee

without; again I sought Thee and found Thee be-

cause I sought Thee within,” says St. Augustine,

speaking of God. These modern materialists are so

sure there is no God that they don’t even look for



WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? 17

Him, without or within. But they do look for man,
and some one should convey to them the elementary
information that the place to look for man is in man,
not in rocks, or pools of slime, not in the depths of

the sea or the heart of the jungle; not in laboratories

or test tubes, not in vats of saline solution; not in

protoplasm, atoms, molecules, ions, electrons—but in
man.

They themselves insist that man has been in the
making for countless ages, and that all the forces
in the universe have been in labor to produce man.
Very well then, why not look at the finished pro-
duct? Don’t ask the rocks, don’t ask the amoeba,

don’t ask the tadpole, or the walrus, or the wolf, or

the orang outang. Ask the Man: What are you?
What do you make of yourself?

And man will tell them. I don’t mean merely
man the philosopher, or man the theologian. I would
not send skeptical enquirers to Aristotle or Imman-
uel Kant or Spinoza or Thomas Aquinas. These were
professional philosophers; scientists are suspicious

of philosophers—suspicious and perhaps jealous. So
jealous that they are forever trespassing out of their

own field of science into the field of philosophy.

But if not to philosophers, why not to the
prophets, the seers, the poets ? These dig their

material out of the heart of man. There is David
and Solomon, and the writer of Job, and Isaias and
John the Divine, and Paul and Augustine and a
Kempis and Dante and Shakespeare (there is ten
thousand times more knowledge of man in Shakes-
peare than in Immanuel Kant) and Wordsworth and
Coleridge and Conrad and Masefield.

Above all, first of all, if the materialists could
overcome their prejudices, their narrow notion that



18 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

man is to be studied in the field and the laboratory
but not in his own heart, I would send them to our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. “He knew what was
in man and needed not that any man should tell
him.”

The poets and prophets know man because like
the pope in Browning’s The Ring and the Book (a
superb revelation, by the way, of human nature)
they “have studied many hearts beginning with their
own.” Ask them and they will answer: “We don’t
know all about man: the subject is vast, profound,
illimitable. Man is a world in himself

;
to study man

is to study the world : He is a- combination of all the
forces that have been at work in this mysterious uni-
verse since the dawn of time; to understand him
would be to know the universe. We don’t know man
thoroughly. But we do know enough about man to
laugh at the ridiculous and obscene idea that man is
only a highly organized intricately constructed ani-

mal. If that were all, man could be as content as a
cow; no more introspective than a hippopotamus
soaking at his ease in the tepid waters of a tropical

stream
; if he were only an animal, he would experi-

ence no more remorse for his sins than a tiger that
has killed a gazelle. If he were only an animal, that
question

—
“What’s It All About?”—would not so

much as occur to him. The fact that he asks it and
cannot rest content until he answers it is the best

of evidence that there is something in his nature,

something in the depths of his being that goads him
like a gadfly, that makes him discontent with what
he has and what he sees, that tells him he was not
born to die ; something that not only stings him and
tortures him but that lifts him up to ecstasy, that
enables him to fare forth—in the body or out of the



WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT ? 19

body, he knows not—^beyond the flammantia moenia
mundi, the flaming ramparts and bastions that mark
the edge of this world ; something that tells him that
he does not belong to this world but to another, and
that his life on this planet is no more like the real
life he is to live than the life of the embryo in the
dark narrow confines of the womb is like life in the
sunshine under the wide sky, surrounded on all sides
by the wide horizon, surrounded but not confined
because that wide horizon expands forever and for-
ever as he approaches.

And so we come upon the answer to the question
with which we commenced, “What Is It All About?”
Why all these torturing thoughts at the roots of the
mind of man? Why all these longings and expecta-
tions of a life beyond life ? Why these “unsearchable
groanings of man’s heart” ? There must be meaning
in the incessant repetition of the drama of life, the
drama that neither Sophocles nor Shakespeare could
write, try as they would. And what is that mean-
ing? Why do we labor and strive and grieve and
struggle? Why are we so tempted? Why do we
sin? When we sin, why can we not be happy? Why
do we repent and suffer agonies of remorse? These
and a thousand more questions arising in the human
soul are the material of which all literature, poetry,
drama, fiction (fiction I have said which if it be
literature is not fiction), all art and music, are com-
posed. Religion deals with these questions and an-
swers them. All human experiences, sufferings,
joys, problems—^though not the essential substance
of religion—are taken into account by religion. The
answer given by religion corroborates the answer
given by literature and art and philosophy.

This life is not so much life as a prelude to life.



20 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

If there were no other life but this, this life would be
horrible, inexplicable, indefensible, inexcusable. The
only explanation and justification of this life is the
other life. This life without the other would be like
one hemisphere without the other. This hemisphere
is in the dark, the other in the light. To die is not
to go from darkness to deeper darkness, but from
darkness to light. “Out of the shadows and the
images into the light.”

“What then, finally, is this life all about?” It’s
about the other life, the true life, immortal life.



WHY MUST THE INNOCENT SUFFER?
Address delivered on October 20, 1940

In religion, as in all other departments of hu-

man life, complete intellectual honesty is indispen-
sable. There is scarcely any worse sin than refusal
to see and to confess the truth. So, in considering
the question which concerns us today, “Why Must
the Innocent Suffer?” we would best commence by
admitting that we do not know. That is to say, we
do not know, if to know means to comprehend. “We
know in part, and we prophesy in part” (I Cor. 13:
9), says St. Paul ; and he adds, “We see now through
a glass in a dark manner” (I Cor. 13:12). We see
not as one looking at a physical object in full sun-

light, but like one groping in gloom. If anyone tells
you that to him the mysteries of religion are as plain
as A.B.C. you may put him down as a charlatan.
Once in my life I heard a. man say “Predestination
is no mystery to me.” “Wonderful,” said I, “you are

more privileged than St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Aug-
ustine, or St. Paul. You must be a prophet

—

more than a prophet.”
In the Catholic religion, at least, mystery is rec-

ognized and emphasized. “What is a mystery?” asks
the Catechism, and the answer is given, “A mystery
is a truth that we cannot fully understand.” That
question and answer should appear in catechisms of
science as well as of religion. There is as much
mystery in a hen’s egg as in the Holy Trinity, said
Huxley. Whether he said it with malice or with
reverence, it is true. Mystery is mystery. One mys-
tery is no more a mystery than another. If you
don’t comprehend, you don’t comprehend. The poet
said that if he understood a flower in the crannied



22 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

wall, he would understand God. Religion has no
monopoly of mystery. The whole universe is cram-
med with mystery. One of the most highly reputed
scientists of our day wrote a volume which he en-
titled This Mysterious Universe. So, if a scientist

declares that he will not accept religion because he

refuses to recognize mystery, you may also put him
down as a, charlatan. There are as many scientific
charlatans as theological charlatans, if not more.

So much by way of warning to those who ex-
pect a too precise answer to the question, “Why must
the innocent suffer?” So much in defense of anyone
who attempts some sort of answer. The greatest
intellect of the last nineteen hundred years, St. Aug-
ustine, was held back from the Catholic Faith in his
early days because, for one reason, he demanded, as
one editor of the Confessions says, “a trenchant un-

compromising answer” to his questions—“such an
answer as young men love.” Young or old, we all like
to have unqualified answers to our questions, abso-
lutely clear solutions of our problems. We feel balk-
ed and frustrated if we don’t get them. But we have
no right to expect them. We live in a world of shad-
ows and images. Plato said so twenty three hundred
years ago, and another man of genius, not much
short of Plato, Cardinal Newman, said that leaving
this life for the next we pass “out of shadows and
images into the light.” Then and not until then
shall we see face to face and know as we are known.

To come to the question : Why must good peo-
ple who have never done any one harm suffer? Es-
pecially why must they suffer at the hands of the
wicked? “Christ,” we say, “is on the cross and
Herod on the throne.” There was blood on that
throne, as on the Cross, but the blood on Herod’s



WHY MUST THE INNOCENT SUFFER? 23

throne was other men’s blood ; the blood on the Cross
of Christ was His own. Why does the man who spills
the blood of others sit in comfort and honor, sur-
rounded by fawning courtiers, while the Man who
pours out His blood for His brethren hangs in agony
and disgrace, surrounded by murderers and blas-
phemers? That’s the question that confronts us.
To answer it we should have to dig down deep to the
roots of reason, and mount to the heights of revela-
tion. Even then we shall not find the trenchant un-
compromising answer that St. Augustine sought.

But one thing we do know : The Crucifixion of
Our Lord is not only a fact but a symbol. From the
day of that supreme tragedy until now the word
“cross” has been used as a synonym for pain, phy-
sical and mental, for anguish of soul, for disappoint-
ment, shame, poverty, disgrace, dejection, despond-

ency, the endurance of injustice, and, in brief, for
suffering of every sort. Our Saviour said, “If any
man will come after me ... let him take up his
cross, and follow me” {Matt. 16:24). “Where I am,
there also shall my minister be” {John 12:26).
“Where I am,” He says. But He was nailed to the
Cross. “Come down,” said the scoffers, “Save Thy-
self.” “Save Thyself and us,” said the impenitent
thief. But He came not down. He died on the Cross.
His disciples, therefore, must be nailed to the cross,
perhaps remain upon it and die upon it. The dis-
ciple is not above the Master.

Christians are not alone in enduring the cross.

Suffering is ubiquitous, perpetual, inevitable. In

ancient days, as in our own, armies have swept
across the face of the earth, making a shambles of
one country after another and deliberately attempt-
ing to annihilate entire races and whole populations.



24 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

When a Persian or a Macedonian or a Roman con-
queror had won a victory, the vanquished were led
away to be enslaved or slaughtered. Some few of
them were guilty (if it be a guilty thing to defend
one’s own land), but for the most part they were
poor innocent peasants, serfs, workingmen, no more
responsible for the calamity that befell them than
the French farmer, the Czecho-Slovakian mill work-
er, the Norwegian fisherman, the Hollander who
grew tulips, milked the cows, made butter and
cheese, was responsible for Hitler. Peasants don’t
make wars. Politicians make wars. The politicians
live, the peasants die. The guilty survive, the inno-
cent perish.

Of old, victors in war led their victims captive,
chained them in dungeons, left them to starve, or
dragged them out to be devoured by beasts in the
amphitheatre, to make a holiday for the mob. Now-
adays, statesmen (save the mark!), “statesmen” at-
tempt to do away with vanquished peoples by econ-
omic strangulation. Then statesmen on the other
side turn the tables and wreak dire vengeance on the
conquerors. The leaders of both peoples. Fuehrers,
Duces, Generals, strut around, proudly laden with

medals, accept the idolatrous worship of the people,

deliver truculent speeches, live in palaces, feed on

the fat of the land. When they die, statues are erec-
ted to them. Around the statues crowds gather to
listen to panegyrics, to scatter flowers, to shout and

to sing, and to wish that another such conqueror
might arise to lead them again to the battlefield for
slaughter, as their fathers and grandfathers and
forebears back to the beginning of history were led

forth to slaughter.

For hundreds of years before William Wilber-



WHY MUST THE INNOCENT SUFFER? 25

force and Abraham Lincoln, the poor black man in
the jungles of Africa who hadn’t so much as known
the existence of the white man and the white man’s
civilization (what irony there can be in that phrase
“white man’s civilization”) were hunted down,
whipped in droves like cattle from the forests to the
sea, crowded into the stinking holds of slave ships,
transported to another continent, sold like cattle,

whipped as even cattle were not whipped. How
much blood was spilled, what rivers of tears flowed,
what poor simple hearts were broken, who can say,
except perhaps the angels who record such things?

White men too, guilty of no worse crime than
that of criticizing a corrupt government, or com-
plaining of a tyrant, were taken from their homes,
condemned with swift terrible injustice to the gal-
leys, chained to an oar, whipped, clubbed, bruised,
compelled to labor in blood and sweat, and perhaps,
in the midst of battle, left to drown like rats in the
sinking hulk.

Others, a whole race of them, guilty of no crime
except that of being born of a despised blood, were
driven under the lash to carry back-breaking bur-
dens, to impossible tasks, building prodigious monu-
ments to a king gone mad with vanity who feared
that if there were no pyramid over his bones some-
one a thousand or ten thousand years later might
forget that he was the illustrious Ptolemy or the
ineffable Pharaoh.

But why attempt a comprehensive catalogue of
the forms and varieties of torture inflicted upon the
innocent by the wicked? Let these few specimens
suffice in place of an encyclopedia of inhumanity.

But just one flnal word about man’s suffering
in our own day. We flatter ourselves that the world



26 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

has grown more humane since the days of Darius,
king of the Medes and Persians, or of Attila or of
Tamerlane and Ghengis Khan. But I am not so
certain of it. Modern war with its mechanical con-
trivances for inflicting death at wholesale, and not
only death—which might be a boon—^but disflgure-
ment, blinding, burning out the lungs with poison

gas, or leaving a victim to grope about maimed
for the rest of his days, or stretching him flat on his
back with paralysis; this modern war is perhaps
more cruel than the torture invented by fiendish
Oriental despots in ancient days, or than the medie-

val rack and thumbscrew. Joan of Arc and Savon-
arola, I think, would have preferred burning alive
rather than choking and agonizing with mustard
gas. Certaan authors of books with sadistic or

ghoulish intent have dug into ancient records and
have written histories of what our Federal Consti-
tution calls “cruel and unusual punishments,” but I
cannot help wondering what the future historians
will make of bombs dropped from the sky upon
dwelling houses, churches, hospitals, kindergartens

;

or flame throwers on the field of battle, of torpedoes

shot at merchant vessels, of mustard gas and per-
haps of some still more ghastly means of torture
newly invented to be inflicted upon people who had
no say about the war and who were no more respon-
sible for what England and France did to Germany,
or what Germany has done to England and France,
than they were responsible for the eruption of a
volcano on the moon.

But now, after this hurried and inadequate
resume of some of the sufferings of the innocent be-
cause of the sins of the guilty, comes the question

:

“Why does not the Infinite Almighty God intervene?



WHY MUST THE INNOCENT SUFFER? 27

Is God indifferent? Is He a sphinx? A sphinx that
hasn’t lifted an eyebrow or moved a muscle in three
thousand years, even though the white sands all
about him have been sprinkled, drenched, saturated
with human blood a hundred times over?

In the Old Testament we find the Psalmist
taunting the heathen with the helplessness of their

idols: “They have eyes and see not, ears and hear
not : they have mouths and speak not.” But it would
seem that the heathen retorted that the God of
David was equally impotent, and with some appar-
ent reason, for the prophet king cries out

:

God of vengeance, Lord,
0 God of vengeance, shine forth!
Arise, judge of the earth.
Render requital to the proud!

‘^How long, 0 Lord, shall the wicked

—

How long shall the wicked exult?
They babble, they speak haughtily.
All the workers of iniquity boast of themselves;
They trample, 0 Lord, on thy people
And afflict thine inheritance;
They slay the widow and the stranger.
And murder the fatherless.
And they say: ‘The Lord sees it not;
The God of Jacob regards it not’.”

But David has his answer to those who think
God blind and deaf and dumb and helpless:

“Ye fools; when will ye be wise?
He that fixed the ear, shall he not hear ?
He that formed the eye, shall he not see ?
He that gives sense to the nations,

shall he not reprove ?
He that teaches men knowledge—

?

The Lord knows the thoughts of men.
That they are but as a breath . . .

“They assail the life of the righteous
And condemn innocent blood.
But the Lord shall be my high tower.
And my God the rock of my refuge.
He will bring down on them their own iniquity
And by their own wickedness cut them off.
He shall cut them off, the Lord our God.”



28 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

Sometimes, as a matter of fact, God did punish
the tyrant swiftly and visibly. In Chapter seven of
the second book of Machabees we may read—if our
squeamish stomachs can stand it—the detailed ac-
count of the tortures inflicted upon the seven broth-
ers and their valiant mother by the incredible mon-
ster Antiochus. But if we go on to the second next
chapter, we And described in equal detail the even
more repulsive account of what happened to Anti-
ochus. But, as St. Paul says, “I spare you.”

Once again the question of unbelievers and of
impatient believers, is “Why doesn’t God always in-
tervene?” “I am willing,” said Adolf Hitler to Her-
mann Rauschning, “to send a million or two million
young Germans to their death for my purposes.” But
when the madman picks up a pen to sign the docu-
ment, why doesn’t God paralyze his hand or strike
him dead? When Pius VII excommunicated Napol-
eon Bonaparte, the great conquerer is alleged to

have said, “Does he think that excommunication will
make the muskets drop from the hands of my sol-
diers?” We used to be told when we were boys in
school that the muskets did drop. But if a docu-
ment from the pen of a pope stopped Napoleon,
would not a thought in the mind of God stop Hitler ?
So it goes: Why? And why? And why?

Remember, I have not promised a perfect ans-
wer. “Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or
who hath been his counsellor?” {Rom. 11:34), ex-
claims the patriarch Job. Certainly this poor sin-

ner makes no such claim. But I can make a guess.
Take it for what it is worth. God does not strike
Hitler dead for the same reason I suppose that he
does not strike you or me dead if we sin or plan a
sin. Every mortal sin is outrage to God, but God



WHY MUST THE INNOCENT SUFFER? 29

does not punish the outrage with instant death and

hell. “Shall we call down fire from heaven?” said
James and John, the “Sons of Thunder.” “You
know not of what spirit you are,” was the reply of
the gentle Jesus. If all who displease God were
dealt with summarily, the earth would be depopulat-

ed. When the sinner opens his mouth to lie or to
slander or blaspheme, God does not strike him dumb.
When a tempter follows an innocent maiden with
lecherous eyes and more lecherous heart, God does
not strike him blind and slay him. When Judas
went out of the supper room to complete his treach-
erous plans with the murderers of Jesus, God did not
strike him dead at the threshold. It is not God’s way.
He is a long-suffering God, plenteous in mercy. He
wills not the death of the sinner. And He is Al-
mighty : He can produce good out of evil. No man
can say how much God can and will endure before
He strikes. If He were to strike at all, we should
probably think He strikes too often and with too
small provocation—especially if He should strike us.

God could indeed prevent even the thought of
sin, but only on condition that He take away our
free will. Then we should be irresponsible animals
or machines in human shape. God seems to think
it better that we be free even if freedom is danger-
ous, than that we should be beasts or mere automata.

Secondly, it is a, matter of faith that physical

evils are not always calamities. “Be not afraid of
them who kill the body,” says our Lord, “and after
that have no more that they can do” {Luke 12:4).
They that die innocently achieve happiness. They
achieve it all the more swiftly in proportion to the
agony they endure. If they are conscious of their
union with Christ as members of His Mystical Body,



30 CEUCIAL QUESTIONS

they may offer their sufferings in union with His;
become in effect martyrs and so help in the moral
and spiritual progress of the race.

Finally, be it said, this is not defeatism. Ours
is not a defeatist religion. We speak much of the
Cross. But the Cross is not all. The Divine Victim
slain on Calvary did not remain in the grave. His
death was not the end. There was the Resurrection.
It is our religion that if we suffer with Him we shall
be glorified with Him. If that be not sufficient
answer to the question, “Why do the innocent suf-
fer?”, I am afraid that those of us who see no fur-
ther will have to wait until the Eternal Light dawns.



"WHERE IS NOW THY GOD?"
Address delivered on October 27, 1940

That question “Where Is Now Thy God?” was
first asked of the Jews by idolatrous heathen. It in-
dicated an exceedingly primitive mentality. The
heathen said in effect: We have gods that can be
seen. The God of Israel cannot be seen. Where is
your God ? Again and again that taunt was flung at
the Hebrews by Philistines, Moabites, Assyrians,
Babylonians, and the dozen other idolatrous peoples
who surrounded them, hemmed them in, threatened
them, fought them, persecuted, exiled them, but most
of all, worst of all, tempted them to abandon the in-
visible Jehovah and accept Moloch or Baal, Isis,
Osiris, Merodach.

But the answer to the heathen came swift and
sure from the mouth of those who had learned the
Law. “God cannot be seen by mortal eyes. No man
hath seen God at any time. God is no stick or stone.
God is no image of baked clay. You cannot pick up
a handful of mud out of the bed of the Nile or the
Tigris or the Jordan, fashion it with your hands, put

it in a kiln like any piece of pottery and bring it out
a god. Your gods—^your heathen gods—are the
work of the hands of man; they are not God at all.
Man does not make God. God makes man.”

Those early Jews knew their Bible as modern
Christians know their Catechism. They had learned
in the synagogue what Moses had been taught on
Mount Sinai, and what the prophets had retold in
phrases ever varying but ever the same, sometimes

in solemn majestic utterance, sometimes in familiar

speech more adapted to the mental level and the



32 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

taste of simple people. In Isaias we find this mag-
nificent passage, “To whom then have you likened
God? or what image will you make for him? Hath
the workman cast a graven statue? or hath the
goldsmith formed it with gold, or the silversmith
with plates of silver ... Do you not know? hath it
not been heard? hath it not been told you from the
beginning? have you not understood the foundations
of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the globe of
the earth ... he that stretcheth out the heavens as
nothing, and spreadeth them as a tent to dwell in.
He that bringeth the searchers of secrets to noth-
ing, that hath made the judges of the earth as van-
ity .. . To whom have ye likened me, or made me
equal, saith the Holy One? Lift up your eyes on
high, and see who hath created these things . . .
Knowest thou not, or hast thou not heard ? the Lord
is the everlasting God, who hath created the ends
of the earth: he shall not faint, nor labour, neither

is there any searching out of his wisdom” (Isaias
41 : 18-28 ).

There are a dozen passages like that in Isaias,

and the temptation is to continue with his superb
descriptions of the One True God. But Isaias was a
versatile and resourceful orator. He did not always
speak in stately measures. A master of many moods
he switches suddenly from the majestic dignity

of a Demosthenes or a Cicero to the caustic irony of

a Tertullian or a Savonarola, as he ridicules the

manufactured gods of the heathen

:

“The smith hath wrought with his file, with
coals, and with hammers he hath formed it ... .
The carpenter hath stretched out his rule, he hath
formed it with a plane: he hath made it with cor-
ners, and hath fashioned it round with the compass

:



“WHERE NOW IS THY GOD' 33

and he hath made the image of a man as it were a
beautiful man dwelling in a house. He hath cut
down cedars, taken the holm, and the oak that stood
among the trees of the forest: he hath planted the
pine tree, which the rain hath, nourished. And it
hath served men for fuel: he took thereof, and
warmed himself : and he kindled it, and baked
bread : but of the rest he made a god, and adored it

:

he made a graven thing, and bowed down before it.
Part of it he burnt with fire, and with part of it he
dressed his meat .... But the residue thereof he
made a god, and a graven thing for himself: he
boweth down before it, and adoreth it, and prayeth
unto it, saying: Deliver me, for thou art my God”
asams 44:12-17).

It is a curious fact—curious and pathetic

—

that seven hundred years later the apostle Paul
was obliged to tell the highly cultured sophisticated
Athenians what Isaias had told the primitive bar-
baric heathen: “God, who made the world, and all
things therein ; he, being Lord of heaven and earth,
dwelleth not in temples made with hands ; Neither is
he served with men’s hands, as though he needed

any thing ; seeing it is he who giveth to all life, and
breath, and all things ; . . . For in him we live, and
move and are . . . Being therefore the offspring of
God, we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto
gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and de-
vice of man” {Acts 17:24-29).

Stranger still, some four hundred years after
St. Paul we find St. Augustine, who in his youth had
fallen under the influence of the Manichees who had
brought to Italy and North Africa the superstitions

of Persia, confessing bitterly that for a time he did

not know how to conceive of God

:



34 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

“Knowing not the true Being, I was so shaken
by quips and quiddities that I had no answer for
these silly deceivers when they asked me whether
God is limited by a bodily form? . . . My eye could
see nothing but bodies, and my mind nothing but
materialized ideas. I did not understand that God
is a spirit, who has no parts that can be measured,
whose being is not a bulk, because bulk . . . cannot be
wholly everywhere like God, who is spirit. And I
had not the least conception in what we are like
God, or whether Scripture was right in saying that
we are in the image of God.”

And again: “I marshalled before the sight of
my spirit all creation, all that we see, earth, and sea,
and air, and stars, and trees, and animals; all that
we do not see, the firmament of the sky above, and
all angels, and all spiritual things, for these also, as
if they were bodies, did my imagination arrange in
this place or in that. I pictured to myself Thy crea-
tion as one vast mass, composed of various kinds of
bodies, some real bodies, some those which I imag-
ined in place of spirits. . . . And Thee, O Lord, I con-
ceived as lapping it round and interpenetrating it
everywhere, but as infinite in every direction; as if

there were sea everywhere, and everywhere through
measureless space nothing but illimitable sea, and
within this sea a sponge, huge but yet finite; the

sponge would be pervaded through all its particles

by the infinite sea .... And I said to myself, ‘Be-
hold God, behold God’s creation’.”

Now it may be a fancy of mine, but I seem to
find in that passage “Not knowing the True Being,

I was shaken by quips and quiddities,” a prophecy
of some very highly educated heathen of our own
day. Fifteen hundred years after St. Augustine,



=WHEEE NOW IS THY GOD’ 35

certain doctors of science, having rejected the True
God, substitute in His place “quips and quiddities.”
They have invented a hundred gods: Gods of the
laboratory, gods of the test tube, gods of chemical

combinations; gods of physical force; the dynamo
god of Eugene O’Neill’s strange terrible play, fan-
tastic imaginative things that do not exist, the Life

Force god of Bernard Shaw, the elan-vital god, the
Creative Evolution god of Bergson, Time-Space, the

hyphenated god (most unintelligible of all). Men
even make god of an abstraction like Auguste
Comte’s Humanity (with a capital H) and I don’t
know whether that be not a cruder superstition than
the gods of the heathen fashioned of wood or stone
or brass. After all wood and stone and brass are
something, and an abstraction is nothing.

A generation ago laboratory workers were
breaking up the molecule; today they are smashing
the atom, looking—whether they know it or not—for
God. “I have examined many systems purporting
to be atheistic,” said James Clerk Maxwell, premier
physicist of a generation ago, “but I have always
found in them a God concealed somewhere.”

Yes, there is a God hidden away in the labora-
tory amongst the Bunsen burners and the test tubes,
out of sight beneath the atoms, the ions, the elect-

rons. “Raise the stone and thou shalt find Me.
Cleave the wood and there am I,” says God, the same
God who said “Seek and ye shall find” (In the Ox-
yrhynchus Logia, Fifth Logion). But the pathetic
fact about science is that so many scientists, with
God under their eyes do not see Him, with God at
the tips of their fingers do not touch Him. “0

Father,” said our Lord, “Thou hast hidden these
things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed



36 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

them to the little ones . . . Blessed are the eyes that
see what you see.” “God,” says the mystic Eckhart,
“is nearer to me than I am to myself: He is just
as near to wood and stone, but they do not know it.”
“They do not know it”—the saddest words of tongue
or pen. “He was in the world, and the world was
made by him, and the world knew him not” {John
1:10). If you ask these pitiable scientific folk
“Where is now thy God?”, they say, sometimes with
scorn but again with wistfulness, “we do not know

;

we do not even know if there be a God.” If a man
without a country is an object of commiseration, if a
Melchisedech “without father, without mother, with-

out descent” be a lonely figure in the world of the

sons of men and women, what shall we say of the
man who in answer to the question “Where is thy
God?” says, “I know not.” “Great God, I’d rather
be a pagan suckled in a creed outworn” than that
most forlorn object in all creation, the man who
knows not whence he came or whither he goes, be-
cause he has caught no glimpse of God, the Alpha
and Omega, the Beginning and the End.

But there are those who after much mental
labor, spiritual anguish, moral struggle, have won
their way through “like the Catholic man who hath
mightily won God out of knowledge and good out of
pain, sight out of blindness and purity out of stain,”

as Sidney Lanier says so beautifully. And perhaps
of all men in any generation who have mightily
won God out of knowledge and good out of pain, the
most conspicuous and the most articulate was St.
Augustine. This most learned of the Fathers of the
Church, east or west, was no stranger to books. He
spent his life with books and he wrote a whole

library of books. But seeking God he did not confine



‘WHERE NOW IS THY GOI)‘ 37

himself to pages of print; unlike the alchemists of

his day (sometimes I wonder if they were really
more foolish or superstitious than materialists of our
day) he did not lock himself in a laboratory with

fire and bellows and copper retorts to wrest from
the chemical elements and physical forces the secret
of being and of motion. Hundreds of years before
our American poet, he had followed the injunction,
“Go forth under the open sky and list to Nature’s,
teachings.” He interrogated Nature and Nature re-
plied to him. Nature does speak if we ask reverent-
ly and await her answer in silence. “I asked the
earth and it said ‘I am not He.’ I asked the sea and
the depths and the creeping things that have life and
they answered, ‘We are not thy God, look above us.’
I asked the breezes and the gales, and the whole air
with its inhabitants said to me ‘Anaximenes is in
error, I am not God.’ I asked the heaven, the sun,
the moon and the stars. ‘We too,’ said they, ‘are not
the God Whom thou seekest.’ And I said to all the
creatures that surrounded the doors of my fleshy
senses, ‘Ye have said to me of my God that ye are
not He: tell me somewhat of Him.’ And with a
great voice they exclaimed ‘It is He that hath made
us’.”

But why is it that if nature speaks to St.
Augustine she does not give an answer, that same
answer, to all who ask her? Some people look upon
the sun and moon and stars and see no sign of God.
Others, poets, saints, mystics, lose themselves in an
ecstasy because they see God in a landscape, a cloud,
a lightning flash, a wave breaking upon the shore.
A sunset to them is a glimpse of the heavenly Jeru-
salem; a path of light from the moon upon the
waters shows the way into another and lovelier



38 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

world. Even philosophers, an unimpressionable
breed, have confessed that the sight of the starry
heavens filled them with awe. But to some—^to not a
few in our own skeptical generation—^the sea and
the sun and the stars speak, if they speak at all, in
vain. Why?

St. Paul, who perhaps is somewhat more abrupt
in his speech than St. Augustine, seems to say that
all men should know God from His creation. “The
invisible things of him, from the creation of the
world, are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made; his eternal power also, and
divinity ; so that they are inexcusable .... Pro-
fessing themselves to be wise, they became fools”
{Romans 1:20-22).

“Inexcusable” is a strong word. “Fools” is a

stronger word. St. Augustine is, in regard to those

who cannot see God in creation, a little more lenient.
He says that religious belief is not capable of proof,
at least to all men. But perhaps we have a solution
of the apparent contradiction of two great saints in
the words of our Saviour Himself. “Blessed are the
clean of heart : for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:S).
A clean heart is one in which there is no impurity of
any sort. Unchastity is not the only impurity. We
often speak of the sin of the flesh as if it were only
one kind of sin. But St. Paul has a long catalogue
of sins of the flesh. “The works of the flesh,” he

says, “are manifest, which are fornication, unclean-

ness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, en-

mities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels,

dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, re-

vellings, and such like. Of the which I foretell you,
as I have foretold to you, that they who do such



‘WHERE NOW IS THY GOD 39

things shall not obtain the kingdom of God” {Gal.
5 : 19-21 ).

They shall not obtain the kingdom of God. They
shall not so much as see God. We see objects in
nature with the eyes in our head. A murderer, a
lecher, an ambitious, selfish, cruel or covetous person
can, I dare say, see a sunrise or a mountain or a
waterfall quite as well as the pure in heart. But
there are eyes of the mind and soul as well as eyes
of flesh. We see God not with eyes fixed in a
socket in the skull, but with the eyes of the spirit.

These eyes of the spirit are dimmed or blinded not
only by adulteries, but by contentions, emulations,
wraths, quarrels, envies, revellings, and the rest. The
pure of heart are those who have driven not some
but all of these vices out of their heart.

And there, my friends, is, I believe, the answer
to the question that has been, during all this talk, in

the minds of many of you, the question which per-
haps you feared would not be answered or perhaps
even so much as asked. I seem to hear you say, “I
have no difficulty in seeing God in Beauty. But
Nature is not only beauty; nature is in some of its
aspects ugly, vile, horrible. Speak not to me of sun-
sets but of earthquakes, not of the glittering stars

in heaven but of cyclones, hurricanes, mass slaughter
by those calamities which the civil law calls ‘An
act of God’. How can I see God in pestilence, fam-
ine, drouth, in a conffagration started by lightning;
how can I see God in tuberculosis, in carcinoma, in
such a plague as syphilis which afflicts the innocent
no less than the guilty? If wars, with all their at-
tendant and consequent horrors, are to be laid at
the door of willful man, is God responsible for pes-
tilence and plague and all the other hideous mani-



40 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

festations of pitiless nature? When my friends,
heathen perhaps as you call them, modern heathen,
ask me after an earthquake or a tidal wave, ‘Where
is now your God T I confess that I know not what to
say.”

In reply to such a heart-rending protestation

as that what can any one say? I have explained in
the talk that preceded this in the present series that

I myself do not feel that I can solve the everlasting

problem of evil. But perhaps I may make bold to ask
if you have entirely purified your heart of all those
obstacles to spiritual sight. Ask of God a clean
heart and you will see God.

Perhaps, furthermore, I may send you to the
book of Job, that incomparable masterpiece, that un-
equalled blending of profound philosophy and lofty
poetry. The author of that book, like a composer of
sublime music, takes as his theme that very question,
“Where is now thy God?” and plays upon it like
Beethoven or Brahms in a superb symphony. I hesi-
tated to introduce Job earlier because I feared I

should quote him and do no more. It is the most
poignant, penetrating, eloquent drama of the prob-
lem that tortures you, and I pray that reading Job

you may conclude with that ancient sufferer, “Al-
though [God] should kill me, I will trust in him“
{Job 13:15).

One thing more I feel that I can do. I bid you
look upon the Cross of Christ. He surely had done
no harm. If no other man was innocent, Jesus was
innocent. He was the loveliest of all the children of
men. Yet there He hangs in agony, a supreme ex-
ample to all the innocent who suffer. Look upon
that Cross. Read it. And learn this lesson ! All who
love God are on that Cross with Christ. “With



“WHEKE NOW IS THY GOD' 41

Christ I am nailed to the cross” (Gal. 2 :19), says St.
Paul. The innocent, like the innocent Christ, ago-
nize upon the Cross that those who are not innocent
may be saved. If you need not expiation for your
own sins, you may offer your sufferings to God in
union with Him who surely needed not expiation for
sin because there was no sin in Him. “Suffering,”
says one writer on the Mystic Life, “plunges like a

sword through creation, leaving on the one side
cringing and degraded animals and on the other
side heroes and saints.” If you look upon the Cross
and learn the Gospel of the Cross you will be not a
cringing and degraded animal, not even a, plaintive
human, but a hero and a saint. Those who have
absorbed the lesson of the Cross, when asked
“Where is now thy God?”, point to Jesus bleeding,
agonizing, about to give up the ghost, and they say,
“There is my God.”

Those who can see God on the cross can see God
in any tragedy, even though it attain to the propor-
tions of a catastrophe. But those who see God on
the Cross have a Grace that enables them to see
God beyond the Cross. The Cross was not the end,
but a means to the end. The end is triumph and
glory. And here in a word is the solution of the
problem of evil. Our answer, therefore, to the ques-
tion, “Where is now thy God?”, is that our God is in
glory, and that the Incarnate God came to glory
through tribulation and death. If we suffer with
Him we shall also reign with Him.



"WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMES WILL
HE FIND FAITH ON EARTH?"
Address delivered on November 3, 1940

When our Saviour’s enemies asked Him a ques-
tion, He sometimes asked them another, and if they
made no answer, neither did He answer them. Even
when friends—not enemies—asked Him a question.
He sometimes put them oif, saying, “It is not for you
to know” {Acts 1 :7). At least on one occasion when
the Lord had first questioned the disciples and they
were silent. He left them to discover the answer.

That is the instance we have for consideration
today: “The Son of man, when he cometh, shall he
find, think you, faith on earth?” {Luke 18:8). That
was all. Those who heard Him, and we, many cen-
turies later, are left to surmise what the answer
should be.

I think, however, that He didn’t propose that
question as a puzzle, upon the solving of which men
should expend their ingenuity for the rest of time.
Our Saviour was not concerned with intellectual
riddles. He left that sort of thing to the peripatetic
philosophers of His day who walked up and down,
back and forth on the Areopagus at Athens, propos-
ing questions, suggesting answers, as if philosophy

were a game—a kind of mental and verbal battle-
dore and shuttlecock. That sort of game is still
played in many an American university by men who
call themselves agnostics. “Of course,” they say,
“there isn’t any solution to the great problems of hu-

man existence, but we keep on puzzling, as a kind of
intellectual gymnastic.”

Jesus was no such trifler. If He asked a ques-



WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMES 43

tion there is an answer. But, like a wise master, He
doesn’t tell us all the answers. He leaves us to
figure out something for ourselves. In the present

instance the answer is not too recondite. We don’t
have to search for it very far. The reply to that
question, “Will the Son of man find faith upon the
earth?” is, I think, rather obvious. Obvious but

tremendous. It’s a startling shocking answer. It

will shake us out of our apathy and complacency. It
will send a shiver of fear through us. Unless our
mind and will are paralyzed, unless we are in a
mental and physical stupor, it will whip us up to
action. The answer to the question, “Will the Son
of man find faith upon the earth?”, is that it depends
upon us! “Without me you can do nothing” (John
15:6), says the Lord. But conversely, without us He
can or at least will do nothing. He did not stay on
earth to build His own kingdom. He left it in the
hands of men. The greatest compliment ever paid
to the human race, and at the same time the most
awful responsibility placed upon man, was when
our Savior said, “As the Father hath sent me, I also
send you” {John 20:21). “As I have done ... so
you do also” (John 13:15). “The Father worketh . . .
and I work” {John 5:17), but now henceforth you
too shall work. The salvation of the world, the pro-
pagation and preservation of faith upon the earth is,
under God, by the Divine Dispensation, in our
hands. And let me hasten to add that when I say
“in our hands” I do not mean in the hands of the
clergy alone, but in the hands of all, clergy and laity
alike. We have had, especially in recent years, a
great deal of discussion and exhortation around and
about the subject of “Catholic Action.” I have heard
people say, “We don’t know what ‘Catholic Action’



44 CEUCIAL QUESTIONS

means;” and I have heard even priests ask, “Now
precisely what does it mean?” I cannot see why
any one should be puzzled. It means that if the
faith is not to die out on this earth, if there is to
be faith on earth at the second coming of Christ,
we must bestir ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln in the ever memorable Get-
tysburg Address expressed hope that government
by the people should not perish from the earth; and
in that brief discussion he found space to say, no less
than three times, that whether it was to survive or
perish depended upon the measure of devotion, of
self-dedication and self-consecration, of American
citizens.

We may say the same of the Faith of Jesus
Christ. Our Lord indeed remains with His Church
all days; He has promised that the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. But He has not said
He will work the miracle of perpetuating the
Church and the Faith without human help. The
fact remains, a fact that may seem to some stupe-
fying, but that is really stimulating, exhilirating,

highly exciting, the fact that the survival of the

Christian Religion is, by God’s Providence, in our

hands.

But the Faith cannot survive if it aims only to
survive. A nation may wisely be content with
its boundaries, for a political organization which
extends its sway to the ends of the earth, may by
that extension bring about its own doom. A far-
flung battle line may be too far flung. A battle on
two fronts or on a dozen fronts scattered over all
the continents and all the seas may be easily lost. A
compact little nation may hold together, while a
worldwide empire falls to pieces.



WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMES 45

But the Church of Christ is no political organ-
ization. We call it Catholic, and so it is. Catholic
is the word for Universal. We are not national, nor
are we international. We do not talk of continents
or hemispheres. Our sphere is the wide world. “The
earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof” (Psalms

23 :1). Our God is not a tribal God or a national God.
Neither is His religion a tribal matter or racial, or

national, or imperial. Worldly conquerors have

great ambitions, excessive ambitions that will be

their ruin, but no matter how far and wide they
aim to conquer, they place limits to their desires.
The one who at the moment fancies himself world-
conqueror has declared that he wants no Jews or
Negroes in the empire he aims to build, and perhaps

he will say, by and by, that he will tolerate no Slavs.

If they wish it that way, let them have it that
way: include some in and, as the malaprop Holly-
wood producer says, include others out. But Christ
recognizes no such limitations . “Going . . . teach
ye all nations” (Matt. 28:19), said He. “Preach

the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). In
prophecy David says of the preachers of the Gospel,
“Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth : and

their words unto the ends of the world” (Psalm

18:5).

For this reason I feel resentful when certain
orators, thinking to do honor to the Church and the
Faith, speak of the Church as a fortress, a citadel,
and of the Catholic religion as a bulwark against
this or that destructive revolutionary force. A cita-
del is something fixed and static. A bulwark sits
heavy on the earth. It is even possible to overwork
the simile of the rock. How many times have we
heard preachers and platform lecturers describe



46 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

the Church—sometimes indeed with thrilling elo-
quence—as the rock that stands forever firm even
though buffeted by a thousand storms? Doubtless
that is all true. The Church is a rock and a bulwark.
But too much emphasis of that fact may lead to a
neglect of something equally true. The Church and
the Faith have an organic life, a life that must
abound more and more, a supernatural life, an
exuberant life. Whatever is good tends to diffuse
itself. The Church and the Faith move on over all
the seas to the ends of the earth.

Similarly it is all very well for priests, preach-

ers, lecturers in the pulpit or upon the platform, to
recite in grandiloquent tones the magnificent story

of how the Apostles, after the coming of the Holy
Ghost in tongues of fire upon their heads, stepped
across the threshold of the cenacle at Jerusalem,

went forth, carrying the banner of the Cross over
all the Empire and beyond, to lands that had never
seen the eagles of the conquering Romans.

But what if some scoffer, skeptic, cynic or even
some realistic friend should say, “Very well, but
what now? How stands the Church today? Did
she not lose North Africa in the Moslem invasion
of thirteen centuries ago? Has not the faith of
Christ been largely extinguished in the very land

where He was born, where He lived and wrought
miracles, and died?” He died and rose again. Must
the Church and the Faith die and not rise
again? He raised dead men to life. Can the
Church repeat the miracle upon nations dead to the
Faith? If not, what comes of His saying, “The
works that I do, [you] also shall do; and greater

than these shall [you] do” {John 14:12)?

What, for example, of Russia? Has it not



WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMES 47

been in schism for a thousand years, and is it not
now engulfed in atheism? And India with its three
hundred and fifty millions; and China with its four
hundred and fifty millions? What incursions have
we made upon these enormous strongholds of heath-
enism? In India we have wrested from Buddha or
from Mohammed or from the Hindu gods some four
millions; in China we have three millions. But
what are seven millions among eight hundred mil-
lions? In Japan we have one hundred and ten thous-
and among seventy million; in Korea one hundred
and twenty thousand out of twenty three millions.

How do these facts comport with the command,
“Going . . . teach ye all nations” {Matt. 28:19)?
“Preach ... to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

For that matter, what of the Latins in Europe
and America? Is the Faith alive in Mexico and
Cuba and Puerto Rico; in the tropic and subtropic
lands of South America?

And the much vaunted English-speaking peo-
ples—are they really custodians of civilization and
Defenders of the Faith?

And this Pan-Germanic empire now in process
of construction: Is it, even in the most attenuated
meaning of the term, Christian? Who dominates
Central Europe? Adolf Hitler or Jesus Christ?
Nazism, like Communism, they say, is a living force
because it is a religion. Isn’t our religion also a

living force? A thousand volumes have been writ-
ten on the portentous phenomena of Nazism and
Communism. One of the books is entitled We or
They? “We” are the Democracies. “They” are the
Dictatorships. We and they are now committed to a
life and death struggle. One or the other will possess
the earth. But if “we” are the Church and the



48 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

Faith, and “they” are anti-Christ, which of us shall
possess the earth?

The greatest scandal of all, said the late Holy
Father Pius XI, is that the Church has “lost the
workingman.” That is a calamity. Before we ever
had a king or an emperor under the banner of the
Cross, we had the working men. We started out and
we were well on our way in the first three centuries
to get the working men of the world. After sixteen
more centuries what has happened? Under the
Soviet hammer and sickle there are one hundred
and seventy million people, most of them poor

—

peasants and industrial workers—who should be
ours. In other lands like Spain and France and South
America other millions of workers have not only
turned their backs upon Christ, but to borrow a
phrase of His own, they have “lift[ed] up [their]
heel against [Him]” {John 13:18). Here in the
United States there appeared a generation ago an
organization which arrogated to itself the title “In-
ternational Workers of the World.” It appeared
and disappeared. But its place has been taken by
a dozen slightly less radical groups which have won
to themselves, by hook or by crook, by facts or by
lies, many thousands of workers who belong by right
to Christ the Workingman.

This hurriedly painted picture, I admit, is not

reassuring. But what we should have in mind is
to be honest, to see clearly where we stand, to esti-
mate how far we have come in nineteen centuries;
what we have lost, what we have gained; and in a
word provide the basis for a rational reply to the
question, “The Son of man, when he cometh, shall
he find, think you, faith on earth?” {Luke 18:8).

Speaking for myself, I have no doubts. The



WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMES 49

Church has inexhaustible vitality. Divine Grace is
not like a supply of oil or water, which being tapped
and drained, becomes exhausted. We can no more
exhaust the Grace of God than we can use up the
atmosphere. Rather let us say, the Grace of God
is like the sun which sends out light and heat and
power but has some miraculous way of renewing
itself, spending but never being spent. So is it
with the Life and Warmth and Power at the dispos-
al of the Church. Grace is not a material some-

thing that lives and dies, grows and declines. It is
energy. The sum total of energy, say the scientists,
remains constant in spite of all that is expended. So
of the Grace of God. Yet more : The Grace of God,
like God Himself, is infinite. We cannot use it up.
We have as much at our disposal as had St. Peter
and St. Paul, as much as St. Patrick, St. Boniface,
SS. Cyril and Methodius, St. Remy, St. Francis
Xavier. Those men converted continents. We can
re-convert those continents and go forth to others

that they did not know, or could not reach. St.
Francis Xavier as he lay dying on Sancian Island,

looking towards China, lamented, not like Alexander,

that there were no more worlds to conquer, but that
there was a world before his eyes which he was not
to live to convert. What he did not do we can do.
We must do. The Son of man may come more
quickly than we expect. When He comes He must
not be disappointed. When He comes and asks the
question, ‘Ts there faith left on the earth ?” we must
be able to say, “Behold, Lord, the miracle of Pente-

cost ten thousand times magnified : ‘devout men, out

of every nation under heaven . . . Parthians, and

Medes, and Elamites, and inhabitants of Mesopo-

tamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,



50 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

Phrygia and Pamphilia, Egypt, and the parts of
Libya about Gyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews
also, and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians’ {Acts
2:5-11), these and a hundred other nations and
peoples of whom they had no knowledge. Lord, as
Thou knowest, new continents have been discovered
and evangelized, and from them all, new and old,
we have brought together to meet Thee at Thy com-
ing, multitudes that outnumber the stars of heaven,
the sands upon the shore of the sea, the drops of
water in the ocean. How then sayest Thou, ‘Shall
there be faith on earth?’ {Luke 18:8). ‘The earth

is [Thine] and the fulness thereof’ {Psalm 23:1).”

Friends, brethren, if this is not to be empty
oratory but substantial fact, we must hear and heed
the words of the prophet, “Rise, thou that sleepest”
{Ephesians 5:14)

!



CARDINAL HAYES STATES PURPOSE
OF CATHOLIC HOUR

(Extract from his address at the inaugural program in the
studio of the National Broadcasting Company, New York
City, March 2, 1930.^

Our congratulations and our gratitude are extended to the
National Council of Catholic Men and its officials, and to all
who, by their financial support, have made it possible to use
this offer of the National Broadcasting Company. The heavy
expense of managing and financing a weekly program, its
musical numbers, its speakers, the subsequent answering of
inquiries, must be met. . . .

This radio hour is for all the people of the United States.
To our fellow-citizens, in this word of dedication, we wish to
express a cordial greeting and, indeed, congratulations. For
this radio hour is one of service to America, which certainly
will listen in interestedly, and even sympathetically, I am
sure, to the voice of the ancient Church with its historic
background of all the centuries of the Christian era, and
with its own notable contribution to the discovery, explora-
tion, foundation and growth of our glorious country. . . .

Thus to voice before a vast public the Catholic Church is
no light task. Our prayers will be with those who have that
task in hand. We feel certain that it will have both the
good will and the good wishes of the great majority of our
countrymen. Surely, there is no true lover of our Country
who does not eagerly hope for a less worldly, a less material,
and a more spiritual standard among our people.
With good will, with kindness and with Christ-like sympa-

thy for all, this work is inaugurated. So may it continue.
So may it be fulfilled. This word of dedication voices, there-
fore, the hope that this radio hour may serve to make known,
to explain with the charity of Christ, our faith, which we
love even as we love Christ Himself. May it serve to make
better understood that faith as it really is—a light revealing
the pathway to heaven: a strength, and a power divine
through Christ; pardoning our sins, elevating, consecrating
our common every-day duties and joys, bringing not only
justice but gladness and peace to our searching and ques-
tioning hearts.



107 CATHOLIC HOUR STATIONS

In 40

Alabama

Arisona

Arkansas
California

Colorado
Connecticut
D. of C.
Florida

Georgria

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa
Kansas

Kentucky
Louisiana

Maryland
Massachusetts

Michigan
Minnesota

Mississippi
Missouri

Montana

Nebraska
Nevada
New Mexico
New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

States, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii

Birmingham WBRC,
Mobile WALA,
Phoenix KTAR,
Safford KGLU
THicson KVOA,
Yuma KYUM
Little Rock KAR’K,
Bakersfield KERN,
Fresno KMJ,
Los Angeles KECA,
Sacramento KFBK,
San Francisco KPO,
Stockton KWG,
Denver KOA ,
Hartford WTIC,
Washington WRC,
Jacksonville WJAX,
Lakeland WLAK,
Miami WIOD,
Pensacola WCOA,
Tampa WFLA-WSUN,
Atlanta WSB,
Savannah WSAV
Boise KIDO,
Pocatello KSEI,
Twin Falls KTFI
Chicago WMAQ-WCFL,
Evanswille WGBF,
Fort Wayne WGL,
Indianapolis WIRE,
Terre Haute WBOW,
Des Moines WHO
Pittsburg KOAM
Wichita KANS,
Louisville WAVE,
New Orleans WSMB,
Shreveport KTBS,
Baltimore WFBR,
Boston WBZ,
Springfield WBZA,
Detroit WWJ,
Duluth-Superior WEBC,
Mankato KYSM,
Minneapolis-St. Paul KSTP,
Rochester KROC
St. Cloud KFAM,
Jackson WJDX,
Kansas City WDAF,
Springfield KGBX,

Billings TTHTTr.'
Bozeman KRBM
Butte Knm
Helena TiTPFA,
Omaha wnw
Reno KOH,

Buffalo WBEN,
New York WEAF,
Schenectady WGY,
Asheville WISE,
Charlotte WSOC’,
Raleigh WPTF.
Winston-Salem WSJS
Bismarck KFYR,
Fargo ;;; WDAY^

980 kc
1380 kc
620 kc
1420 kc
1260 kc
1420 kc
890 kc
1370 kc
580 kc

1430 kc
1490 kc
680 kc

1200 kc
830 kc

1040 kc
950 kc
900 kc
1310 kc
610 kc

1340 kc
620 kc
740 kc
1310 kc
1350 kc
900 kc
1240 kc
670 kc
630 kc
1370 kc
1400 kc
1310 kc
1000 kc
790 kc

1210 kc
940 kc
1320 kc
1450 kc
1270 kc
990 kc
990 kc
850 kc

1290 kc
1500 kc
1460 kc
1310 kc
1420 kc
1270 kc
610 kc

1230 kc
550 kc
780 kc
1420 kc
1340 kc
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1380 kc
1180 kc
900 kc
660 kc
790 kc

1870 kc
1210 kc
680 kc
1310 kc
550 kc
940 kc



107 CATHOLIC HOUR STATIONS
In 40 States, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island
South Carolina

South Dakota
Tennessee

Texas

Virginia

Washington

Wisconsin
HAWAII
SHORT WAVE

Cincinnati
Cleveland
Columbus
Dayton
Lima
Toledo
Zanesville
Oklahoma City
Tulsa
Medford
Portland
Allentown
Altoona
Erie
Johnstown
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Wilkes-Barre
Providence
Charleston
Columbia
Florence
Greenville
Sioux Falls-
Chattanooga
Nashville
KingS’port
Knoxville
Amarillo
Beaumont
El Paso
Fort Worth
Houston
San Antonio
Norfolk
Richmond
Seattle
Spokane
Madison
Honolulu
Schenectady, N. Y

WSAI, 1330 kc
WTAM, 1070 kc
WOOL, 1210 kc
WING 1380 kc
WLOK 1210 kc
WSPD 1340 kc
WHIZ 1210 kc
WKY, 900 kc
KVOO, 1140 kc
KMED. 1410 kc
KEX. 1180 kc

- WSAN, 1440 kc
WFBG, 1310 kc
WLEU, 1420 kc
WJAC, 1310 kc
KYW, 1020 kc
WCAE, 1220 kc
WBRE 1310 kc
WJAR, 890 kc
WTMA. 1210 kc

WIS, 660 kc
WOLS, 1200 kc
WFBC, 1300 kc

.. KSOO-KELO, 1110-1200 kc
WAPO, 1420 kc
WSM, 650 kc
WKPT 1370 kc
WROL 1310 kc
KGNC, 1410 kc
KFDM, 660 kc
KTSM, 1310 kc
KGKO, 570 kc
KPRC, 920 kc
WOAI, 1190 kc
WTAR, 780 kc
WMBG. 1350 kc
KOMO, 920 kc
KHQ, 690 kc

WIBA, 1280 kc
KGU, 760 kc

WGEO, 9.63 meg

(Revised as of November 5, 1940)



CATHOLIC HOUR RADIO ADDRESSES IN
PAMPHLET FORM

OUR SUNDAY VISITOR is tne authorized publisher of all CATHOLIC
HOUR’ addresses in pamphlet form. The addresses published to date, all of
which are available, are listed below. Others will be published as they are
delivered.

Quantity Prices De Not Include Carriage Charge
“The Divine Romance,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 80 pages

and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 6 more, 10c each. In quantities,
$8.00 per 100.

“The Moral Order” and “Mary, the Mother of Jesus,” by Rev. Dr. Geo.
Johnson, 64 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities', $6.00 per 100.

“A Trilogy on Prayer,” by Rev. Thomas F. Burke, C.S.P., 32 pages
and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 6 or more, 8c each. In quantities,
$5.00 per 100.

“The Philosophy of Catholic Education,” by Rev. Dr. Charles L.
O’Donnell. C.S.C., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 6 or
more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Christianity and the Modern Mind,” by Rev. John A. McClorey, S.J.,
64 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Moral Law,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 88 pages and
cover. Single copy, 20c ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $9.50 per 100.

“Christ and His Church,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Joseph M. Corrigan, 88
pages and cover. Single copy. 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In
quantities, $9.50 per 100.

“The Marks of the Church,” by Rev. Dr. John K. Cartwright, 48 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, lOc each. In quantities,
$5.50 per 100.

“The Organization and Government of the Church,” by Rev. Dr. Fran-
cis J. Connell, C.SS.R., 48 pages' and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 6
or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Moral Factors in Economic Life,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Francis J. Haas
and Rt. Rev. Msgr. John A. Ryan, 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c
postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Divine Helps for Man,” by Rev. Dr. Edward J. Wals'h, C.M., 104
pages and cover. Single copy, 25c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c each. In
quantities, $11.00 per 100.

“The Parables,” by R’ev. John A. McClorey, S.J., 128 pages and cover.
Single copy, 30c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c each. In quantities, $12.00 per
100 .

“Christianity's Contribution to Civilization,” by Rev. James M. Gillis,
C.S.P., 96 pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c
each. In quantities, $10.00 per 100.

“Manifestations of Christ,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 123
pages and cover. Single copy, 30c postpaid; 5 or more, 20c each. In
quantities, $12.00 per 100.

“The Way of the Cross,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 32 pages
and cover (prayer book size). Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more, 5c
each. In quantities, $3.00 per 100.

“Christ Today,” by Very Rev. Dr. Ignatius- Smith, O.P., 48 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50
per 100.

“The Christian Family,” by Rev. Dr. Edward Lodge Curran, 68 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities,
$7.00 per 100.

“The Dublin Eucharistic Congress,” by His Eminence William Car-
dinal O’Connell. An address rebroadcast from Dublin, 12 pages and cover.
Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 5c each. In quantities, $3.75 per 100.

“Rural Catholic Action,” by R’ev. Dr. Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., 24
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 5c each. In quan-
tities, $3.50 per 100.

“Religion and Human Nature,” by Rev. Dr. Joseph A. Daly, 40 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,
$5.50 per 100.

“The Church and Some Outstanding Problems of the Day,” by Rev.
Jones I. Corrigan, S.J., 72 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid;
5 or more, 10c each. In quantities. $8.00 per 100.

“Conflicting Standards,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 80 pages



and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 6 or more, 10c each. In quantities,
$8.00 per 100.

“The Hymn of the Conquered,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen,
128 pages and cover. Single copy, 30c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c each. In
quantities, $12.00 per 100.

“The Seven Last Words,” by Rt. Rev. M&gr. Fulton J. Sheen, (prayer
book size) 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 5c
each. In quantities, $3.00 per 100.

“The Church and the Child,” by Rev. Dr. Paul H. Furfey, 48 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,
$5.50 per 100.

“Love’s Veiled Victory and Love’s Laws,” by Rev. Dr. George F.
Strohaver, S. J., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more
8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Religion and Liturgy,” by Rev. Dr. Francis* A. Walsh, O.S.B., 32 pages
and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities*,
$5.00 per 100.

“The Lord’s Prayer Today,” by Very Rev. Dr. Ignatius Smith, O.P., 64
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $6.00 per 100.

“God, Man and Redemption,” by Rev. Dr. Ignatius W. Cox, S.J., 64
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $6.00 per 100.

“This Mysterious Human Nature,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.
48 pages and cover. Single Copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Eternal Galilean,” by Rt. R’ev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 160 pages
and cover. Single copy, 35c postpaid ; 5 or more, 25c each. In quantities,
$16.00 per 100.

“The Queen of Seven Swords,” by Rt. Rev. Ms-gr. Fulton J. Sheen
(prayer-book size), 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or
more, 5c each. In quantities, $3.00 per 100.

“The Catholic Teaching on Our Industrial System,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr.
John A. Ryan, 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid; 5 or more,
8c each. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Happiness uf Faith,” by Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S.J., 80 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c. In quantities, $8.00 per 100.

“The Salvation of Human Society,” by Rev. Peter J. Bergen, C.S.P., 48
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $5.50 per 100.

“Catholic Education,” by Rev. Dr. George Johnson, 40 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50
per 100.

“The Church and Her Missions,” by Rt. R*ev. Msgr. William Quinn, 82
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Church and the Depression,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.,
80 pages and cover. Single copy. 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In
quantities, $8,00 per 100,

“The Fullness of Christ,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 176
pages and cover. Single copy, 45c postpaid ; 5 or more, 30c each. In
quantities, $16.50 per 100.

“The Church and Modern Thought,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P.,
80 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In
quantities. $8.00 per 100.

“Misunderstood Truths,” by Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, 48 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,
$5.50 per 100.

“The Judgment of God and The Sense of Duty,” by Rt, Rev. Ms*gr.
William J. Kerby, 16 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or
more, 5c each. In quantities, $3.50 per 100.

“Christian Education,” by Rev. Dr, James A. Reeves, 32 pages and
cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities $3.50
per 100.

“What Civilization Owes to the Church,” by R*t. Rev. Msgr. William
Quinn, 64 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“If Not Christianity: What?” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 96
pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid; 5 or more, 15c each. In
quantities. $10.00 per 100.

“The Prodigal World,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 140 pages
and cover. Single copy, 85c postpaid; 5 or more, 25c each. In anantities,
$16.00 per 100.



“The Coin of Our Tribute,” by Very Rev. Thomas F. Conlon, O.P.,
40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Pope Pius XI,” by His Eminence Patrick Cardinal Hayes. An address
in honor of the 79th birthday of His Holiness, 16 pages and 4 color cover.
Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Misunderstanding the Church,” by Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, 48
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Poetry of Duty,” by Rev. Alfred Duffy, C.P., 48 pages and cover.
Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Characteristic Christian Ideals,” by Rev. Bonaventure McIntyre, O.
F.M., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Catholic Church and Youth,” by Rev. John F. O’Hara, C.S.C.,
48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Spirit of the Missions,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Thomas J. McDonnell,
32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“The Life of the Soul,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 96 pages and
cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $10.00
per 100.

“Our Wounded World,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 112 pages,
and cover. Single copy, 25c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c each. In quantities,
$11.50 per 100.

The first six addresses in this series published separately under
the title “Freedom and Democracy: a Study of Their Enemies,”
56 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each.
In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Banquet of Triumph,” by Very Rev. J. J. McLarney, O.P., 32
pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $5.00 per 100.

“Society and the Social Encyclicals—America’s Road Out,” by Rev.
R. A. McGowan, 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more,
8c each. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Pius XI, Father and Teacher of the Nations” (On His Eightieth
Birthday) by His Excellency, Most Reverend Amleto Giovanni Cicognani,
16 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 5c each. In
quantities, $3.00 per 100.

“The Eastern Catholic Church,” by Rev. John Kallok, 48 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50
per 100.

“Joy In Religion,” by Rev. John B. Delauney, C.S.C., 40 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50
per 100.

“The *Lost’ Radiance of the Religion of Jesus,” by Rev. Thomas A.
Carney, 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Some Spiritual Problems of College Students,” by Rev. Dr. Maurice
S. Sheehy, 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c
each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“God and Governments,” by Rev. Wilfrid Parsons-, S.J., 48 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50
per 100.

“Saints vs. Kings,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 96 pages and
cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $10.00
per 100.

“Justice and Charity,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen.
Part I—“The Social Problem and the Church.” 96 pages and cover.

Single copy, 20c pos-tpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quan-
tities, $11,00 per 100.

Part II
—“The Individual Problem and the Cross,” 80 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each.
In quantities. $8.00 per 100.

“In Defense of Chastity,” by R-ev. Felix M. Kirsch, O.M.Cap., 72 pages
and cover, including study aids and bibliography. Single copy 15c postpaid

;

5 or more, 10c each. In quantities, $8.00 per 100.
“The Appeal To Reason,” by Mos-t Rev. Duane G. Hunt, D.D., LL.D.,

72 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c pos-tpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In
quantities, $8.00 per 100.



“Practical Aspects of Catholic Education,” by Very Rev. Edward V.
Stanford, O.S.A., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 6 or more,
8c each ; in quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Mission of Youth in Contemporary Society,” by Rev. Dr. George
Johnson, 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c
each ; in quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Holy Eucharist,” by Most Rev. Joseph F. Rummel, S.T.D., LLi.
D., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or mpore, 8c each.
In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Cardinal Hayes—A Eulogy,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 16
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c, postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In quan-
tities, $3.00 per 100.

“The Rosary and the Rights of Man,” by Very Rev. J. J. McLamey,
O.P., 56 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c pos’tpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities, $6.00 per 100.

“Human Life,” by Rev. James M. Gillis, C.S.P., 96 pages and cover.
Single copy, 20c postf)aid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities, $10 per 100.

“Pius XI—A Eulogy,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 24 pages
and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 15c each. In quantities,
$6.00 per hundred.

“Freedom,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen.
Part I—“Social Freedom.” 80 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c

postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities, $8.00 per
100.

Part II
—“Personal Freedom.” 96 pages and cover. Single copy,

20c postpaid ; 5 or more, 16c each. In quantities, $11.00
per 100.

“The Holy Ghost,” by Very Rev. J. J. McLarney, O.P., 56 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,
$6.00 per 100.

“Towards the Reconstruction of a Christian Social Order,” by Rev.
Dr. John P. Monaghan, 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid

;

5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.
“Marian Vignettes,” by Rev. J. R. Keane, O.S.M., 32 pages and cover.

Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.00 per 100.
“The Peace of Christ,” by Very Rev. Martin J. O’Malley, C.M. 32

pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $5.00 per 100.

“God’s World of Tomorrow,” by Rev. Dr. John J. Russell, 40 pages
and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities,
$5.60 per 100.

“The Catholic Tradition In Literature,” by Brother Leo, F.S.C., 40
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8e each. In quan-
tities, $5.50 per 100.

“What Catholics Do At Mass,” by Rev. Dr. William H. Russell, 72
pages and cover, including study club questions and suggestions, and brief
bibliography. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 10c each. In quantities,
$8.00 per 100.

“Prophets and Kings: Great Scenes, Great Lines,” by Rev. James M.
Gillis', C.S.P., 96 pages and cover. Single copy, 20c postpaid ; 6 or more,
15c each. In quantities, $10.00 per 100.

“Peace, the Fruit of Justice,” by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 64
pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quan-
tities, $6.00 per 100.

“The Seven Last Words and The Seven Virtues” by Rt. Rev. Msgr.
Fulton J. Sheen, 80 pages and cover. Single copies 15c postpaid ; 5 or more,
10c each. In quantities, $8.00 per 100.

“1930—Memories—1940”—The addresses delivered in the Tenth Anni-
versary Broadcast of the Catholic Hour on March 3, 1940, together with
congratulatory messages and editorials. 80 pages and cover. Single copy,
25c postpaid ; 5 or more, 20c each. In quantities, $10.00 per hundred.

“What Kind of a World Do You Want,” by Rev. Wilfrid Parsons, S.J.,
40 pages and cover. Single copies 15c pos>tpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In
quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Law,” by Rev. Dr. Howard W. Smith, 40 pages and cover. Single
copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“In the Beginning,” by Rev. Arthur J. Sawkins’. 40 pages and cover.
Single copy 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“The Life and Personality of Christ,” by Rev. Herbert F. Gallagher,
O.F.M., 48 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c
each. In quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“America and the Catholic Church,” by Rev- John J. Walde, 48 pages



and cover. Sinerle copy, 15c postpaid; 6 or more, 8c each; in quantities,
$5.50 per 100.

“The Social Crisis and Christian Patriotism,” by Rev. Dr. John F.
Cronin, S.S., 40 pages and cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c
each ; in quantities, $5.50 per 100.

“Missionary Responsibility,” by the Most Rev. Richard J. Cushing, D.D.,
LL.D., 32 pages and cover. Single copy, 10c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each.
In quantities, $5.00 per 100.

“Crucial Questions,” by Rev. James' M. Gillis, C.S.P., 64 pages and
cover. Single copy, 15c postpaid ; 5 or more, 8c each. In quantities, $6.00
per. 100.

Complete list of 96 pamphlets to one address in U. S., $11.25 postpaid.

Price to Canada and Foreign Countries, $14.00

Address: OUR SUNDAY VISITOR, Huntington, Indiana