I SUPPOSE that a Catholic priest will answer or, anyhow, say something concerning the anonymous Catholic priest who wrote about the Catholic Church in recent numbers of the Atlantic Monthly. There were so many things in his article having to do with seminaries, and presbyteries, and the priest's compartment of the confessional, that only a priest could be expected to deal with such points in an informed and instructive fashion. Whether any priest will believe it is worth while to do so is quite another thing. But meanwhile there are several reasons which incline me to the opinion that a layman may with propriety venture to express his thoughts on some of the many subjects brought forward for consideration in these extraordinary articles.

First, it is a layman, Mr. John Hearley, who introduced and vouched for the anonymous priest; and in doing so Mr. Hearley made some remarkable, indeed sensational statements, which, as it happens, the present writer considers highly questionable. Secondly, there never has been a time when Catholic laymen have not been keenly, and quite often cantankerously, ready to discuss the Church; and therefore, aside from the special point mentioned above, namely, my qualifications to deal with some of the amazing statements made by Mr. Hearley, which I will describe in a moment or two, I deem it fitting that a Catholic layman

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should ask the privilege of being heard when he considers that he has a proper occasion to bear witness to what he deems to be the truth about the most important thing in our world today, which is the Catholic Church. And thirdly but no! And thirdly' twangs too much of a sermon. Let that third point wait; we shall come to it later on, in any case, and the two reasons already given are, I trust, enough to go on with.

As I attempt to do so I find myself facing a distasteful mode of action, which I am constrained, though most reluctantly, to adopt by the fact that this particular discussion is acutely personal one in which abstract facts are less important (not, of course, in themselves, but in the part they play in the discussion) than the somewhat emotional and even dramatic atmosphere created by Mr. Hearley's novelistic 'preface' to the anonymous articles of the priest, and by the priest's own pathetic prelude, or foreword, to those articles. As it happens, I am not in a position consistently to object to this manner of dealing with the subject of religion, having myself written a long book soaked in subjectivism and intensely personal, about how and why I left the Catholic Church and how and why I returned. All the same, I do not like to feel myself obliged to adopt that tone again. When Mr. Squeers asked one of the wretched schoolboys at Dotheboys Hall to spell 'window,' and

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the urchin answered 'w-i-n-d-e-r,' he was instantly, and I think very properly, told to go and clean it. In the book to which I refer, as Mr. Hearley in his preface refers to those of his experiences which are related to his subject, I tried to spell my answer to the questions propounded by the Master of the school of life, and I had hoped that during the rest of my time in that school I might devote myself to the even harder task of cleaning windows - letting in more light, more warmth, more life in a word, trying my best to be a Catholic, instead of making myself painfully conspicuous by talking to other people about the matter. We are all little children in the universal school of the Catholic Church, and all children except the spoiled oneshate nothing more than 'showing off,' or being forced to stumble through their lessons publicly. However, the Head of this school is somewhat more indulgent than the pragmatical Mr. Squeers, and takes the will for the deed when we stumble.

So if I now proceed to trace very briefly an outline of some of my personal experiences, which so curiously coincide with or parallel some of Mr. Hearley's, I hope my lack of reticence is justified under the circumstances. For Mr. Hearley declares that certain things are unquestionably true which I emphatically deny to be true. I do not believe that either Mr. Hearley or I can prove our opposing contentions, either logically or in a law-court fashion. Neither could we possibly grant each other's major premise. Mr. Hearley says not only that the Catholic Church is false, but that it is deliberately false. I say not only that the Catholic Church is true, but that it is divinely true; that, quite literally, God founded it, as Napoleon founded his empire, or Henry Ford his business; and that God sustains and directs it,

to-day as in its beginning, and so onward, in sæcula sæculorum. I think that both propositions are 'unprovable,' certainly in any ordinary sense of that word. The same thing applies to other statements made by Mr. Hearley, and by me, on points of lesser importance, yet very important for all that. It is, then, really Mr. Hearley's word against mine, and mine against his. It might possibly be said that the whole affair is verbal wrangling — but no! There is such a thing as truth, and unless we are in a world of mere madness and chance materialism, — and of course we are not, what is true will prevail, and will last. We must all say and do as best we may what we believe to be true, and truth itself will test our sayings and our doingsthe one fact that justifies religious, and indeed all kinds of, controversy.

least depend upon the evidence he has presented of his own qualifications as a witness in this matter, except at one point where he quotes an unnamed informant, not the anonymous author of the articles. In doing so, I set over against Mr. Hearley's presentation of his experiences and observations a somewhat similar statement of mine. In other words, if Mr. Hearley is an 'expert' in the court of public opinion, in this matter, so am I.

For, like Mr. Hearley, I too am a journalist. I too was born a Catholic. I too, at about the age of fourteen, entered those doldrums of doubt and perplexity traversed by sudden squalls and storms of emotion which most adolescents know in religious matters, and others as well. I knew 'the confusing, baffling influences' of many writers of many kinds, including those listed by Mr. Hearley. I also knew

Rome. And, like Mr. Hearley, I too 'lost my Catholic faith.' In my case, I became a Socialist, after looking for Utopias in many strange places and strange ways, including Helicon Hall. Again like Mr. Hearley, I had my attractions toward Anglicanism. I still, after many years, feel gratitude for the friendly interest in me so generously shown by Dr. Codman, afterward Bishop Codman, in Boston. I recall the incense and the processions at St. Mary the Virgin's, in New York, and how, being deeply though perhaps vaguely moved by Dr. Barry's splendid sermons on mysticism, I troubled him with a letter or two, which were very civilly answered. But I turned into more curious byways in the quest of my high romance, taking more than a peep into the tangled mysteries of theosophy and occultism. Like Mr. Hearley, I too read William James's Varieties of Religious Experience; and followed up my reading by going on a pilgrimage to Cambridge and interviewing the philosopher for a magazine. I remember how moved I was by my meeting and conversation with that fine gentleman and kind soul. (No doubt I bored him rather dreadfully by my immature ideas. 'Yes,' he wrote to me later on, when I had rushed into print with some of them; 'yes, I suppose something of what you say is something like the views I hold; but you say it with a megaphone!') By him I was introduced to Wincenty Lutoslawski, the 'Polish Yogi,' who that year was giving the Lowell lectures and who wanted me to go to Africa with him and help him start a colony of mystics. (Perhaps William James was trying to get rid of me in a way congenial to my own bizarre interests.)

Many other experiences might be mentioned; but surely these are enough; with only this to be added — namely,

that during most of this period, some twenty years, I was (I hope honestly, but am not at all sure about that) convinced that if our poor, suffering, deluded, yearning, questing humanity had one undoubted enemy barring its progress, tampering with its liberty, and obscuring its enlightenment, that enemy, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, was the Catholic Church. But I never held, as Mr. Hearley does, that the Catholic Church was 'deliberately' false, and that in 'Rome, the kitchen of the Pope,' skilled hands prepared the foods of falsity for the world-wide Church.

II

Having thus separated from Mr. Hearley on one important matter, I may drop cataloguing our similarities and proceed to a more particular examination of those points in Mr. Hearley's experiences that are peculiarly his own. As a young man, he was in quest of 'the purest modern reflection of primitive Christianity,' but he found no trace of apostolic footprints in the present-day unevangelical field of Catholic theology.' Having presumably completed his own exhaustive study of the history, traditions, and literature of the primitive period of Christianity, and of the entire field of Catholic theology since primitive times (a fairly stiff task in itself, I should fancy, for a young man, or an old one either; but I suppose there was no help for such a case; a modernist could n't, of course, accept anything on mere authority; he would have to do the job himself to be sure of it), Mr. Hearley reached the conclusion stated above as to the deliberate falsity of Catholicism a conclusion apparently confirmed by his observations at Rome.

After leaving Rome, Mr. Hearley met the American priest whose work

he introduced to the readers of the Atlantic. To this priest he related his story. By him he was assured that 'the God of humanity will set your topsy-turvy religious house to rights.' He was also told by this 'indulgent father' that 'the more highly organized, the more ecclesiastically authoritative the Church is, the less conspicuous the religion of good works among its members.' Mr. Hearley, upon returning to the United States, made inquiries which showed him that this priest was a prominent professor at a Catholic college in the West. For thirteen years his public writings on religious subjects had enjoyed the episcopal imprimatur of approval. To the hierarchy's outer eye he was orthodox, or at least sufficiently orthodox to be tolerated.'

Mr. Hearley's inquiries, he goes on to say, disclosed other 'extraordinary facts.' The priest was one of a growing number of Catholic clergymen 'who in their own consciences were interpreting the Church in terms of personal experience and modern science. The fetish of ecclesiastical authority grew more and more difficult to bear. Some opposed celibacy and advocated marriage for the clergy. Some favored public-school education over parochialschool education. . . . This state of things was kept a close secret until Mr. Hearley lifted the veil. The Catholic 'modernists' have been hoping for a 'peaceful religious revolution. in the Church itself.' If they revealed themselves, they, like Luther or the more recent Loisy, would be forced from the Church. Their Catholic influence would be gone.' They have reconciled this policy with their conscience because they were 'acting not only in the light of reason but according to the instinct of conscience as well. Catholic modernism is nothing but an honest and holy attempt at

the resurrection of the undogmatized Church of the first three centuries.'

Mr. Hearley tells us that during the period of his quest he had spoken with some six or seven Catholic priests about his religious difficulties. He gives as his sole informant concerning the 'modernists' among the Catholic clergy an unnamed 'Catholic physician.' There is nothing to show how many priests he talked or corresponded with on this matter, if any. I do not like to question Mr. Hearley's facts, if facts they are. He himself may have been deceived, wittingly or unwittingly, by his informant. All I can say is that, if true, the facts form an exceedingly startling and important revelation. For nearly fifteen years I have been almost exclusively engaged in Catholic journalism and authorship, or activities connected with the work of the Church as an employee of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. I have met and talked with priests throughout this country, and in Canada, and in Rome. These priests belong to scores of dioceses; they include members of many religious orders, writers, teachers, missionaries, city and country clergy, social workers, scholars, artists, contemplatives (followers of the mystical life), scientists, musicians in a word, priests of all types. I have carried on correspondence with many whom I have never met. I have been the recipient of intimate confidences. I have listened to many, many stories of hardships and difficulties, of misunderstood motives, of troubles with those in authority, of heartbreaking disappointments and failures. I have known, or at least I have known about, one or two 'fallen' priests — namely, unhappy individuals who were barred from the sacred ministry because of notorious personal faults, or who themselves left the Church for such reasons. I have never personally known

My acquaintance also includes necessarily includes, because of the nature of my professional duties as editor of a lay Catholic journal — a very wide acquaintance with American Catholic laymen, of many and of highly various opinions, from those who lay the strongest stress upon organized social-service activities as the most effective means of doing their share of religious work to those who devote themselves almost exclusively to attempting their personal sanctification in what is called the contemplative, or mystical, life. And never, until I read Mr. Hearley's article, have I dreamed that there was even a small group of such priests or laymen as he describes existing to-day in the United States. It strikes me as a ridiculous statement.

So does his statement that he 'marked in despair how the Christlike voice of Dr. John A. Ryan of the National Catholic Welfare Council cried in an American Catholic wilderness.'

Also the statement bewilders me. Dr. John A. Ryan is an honored and distinguished professor at the Catholic University. His successive books on economic and other questions have been well received and thoughtfully reviewed by a large number of American Catholic magazines and newspapers. It is well known that he played a leading part in drawing up the famous statement on 'Social Reconstruction: A General Review of the Problems and

Survey of Remedies,' issued by the four bishops of the administrative committee of the National Catholic War Council, composed of all the archbishops and bishops of the United States, out of which grew the National Catholic Welfare Conference of today- a statement which was not only circulated throughout the length and breadth of the country, but which was advertised in the leading daily newspapers, calling forth a volume of editorial discussion and comment, favorable or adverse, though mostly favorable, which completely filled a huge volume of clippings. If Dr. John A. Ryan's voice is crying in an American Catholic wilderness, it is certainly not the fault of the Catholic Church.

There is no doubt that many Catholic priests, including bishops, do not agree with Dr. Ryan's views. It is also quite true that the Catholic laity as a whole have so far not been deeply affected by his economic opinions. But to insinuate, as Mr. Hearley does, fault to the Catholic Church in the United States, or in Rome, for the indifference or apathy or opposition encountered by Dr. Ryan - who suffers here as all pioneers of new or advanced views inevitably must suffer is so amazing that this fact alone quite shakes my confidence in Mr. Hearley's knowledge and powers of judgment alike. As for his personal views of the Church, so far as they are personal and do not lead him into such extraordinary statements as the two with which I have just dealt, I can only pass them by-sympathetically, I trust, and also sorrowfully. To me there is nothing more deplorable than the loss of faith in the Catholic Church on the part of any of its children. I will attempt to indicate my reasons for so thinking a little later on, after first saying whatever I deem it proper and becoming in a Catholic layman to say about the