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PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
A CATHOLIC WEEKLY CIRCTTLATING THROUGHOUT THE STATE OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. PRICE THREEPENCE EFTABLISHED 1874. Registered at the G.P.O., Perth, for Transmission by Post as a Newspaper.
Vol. LX
PERTH, SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1934
N . 2,806
Giovanni Papini, the Convert or oac- aeei there appeared a ... . .e.eienication tu American papers lee that Giovanni Papine, the great :emounced the Ca•. :vriter, :hlith. This story fotuid its Aineri, :•riari France. and had eOn in a inis;interpretation of one books ,in which he apparenade a very 'violent attack on re. those who Unfortunately t he stery had Ile. o irelesa of skipping the ietroduction, erein lhieini hat ,een kind et etigh .- o state. test for the beraitit of those tle-t intehe -.eisintrete-
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the thi. in I the very -year aas written a iiistere oi Europe in the Nineteenth .. 1141i::',iecl in Eng1'.51-, Papini yere tptls..- re, marks. we can next exoe, t. :r, rn something to rival Wells' The Oetlint Ifistore keroce s peateo. wo; as his religion, is what he -iileeollism." Tie hilliaelf would probably have some difficulty in defining just what he means by this term. Suffice it. to say here that he looks on the Catholic Church as ,one of the principal enemiea cf. his seetse, • pays i the compliment of although the attack does coaalat largely of a belittling of her achievements in the past and of her influence at present, togethei with a prophecy of her speedy- dissolution Paced with a living refutation cit' this theory in the persons of the n1.1Ine:-01.1S converts that the Church has always made and continues to make in the r anks of thal intelieeteala. he dismisses them with the remark the yerts of the ramanti, per: minate and intaeinative. Church by her "enleers, et.at,.a,.Amp,-
Alfred Schnepp, S.If , in "America.", songs, her old cathedrals, the images momentary brilliance to a steady illuof the Niadonna and ot the saints;" mination. For those of a more serious while those of more recent date (during turn, he has a searchlight which pierces and after the War) are either weak and to the depths of Croce's philosophy and worn-out souls or else unscrupulous ad- discovers there a foundation of sand. But even here his refutation is not of venturers. the dry, theological type, designed This last accusatien was t)bviously rather to give a. sense of satisfaction what aroused Papini himself ,and, in to those who are already convinced fact, it was probably intended princi- t han to convince those who are falsely prilis for him, since he an•-1 Croce are satisfied. He meets his adversary on This grdund he adversaries of long standing. But be- a common ground. fore going on to see what he says in finds in the nature of man, an obvious reply, Ict us comnient a bit on his pelt-- truth of equal evidence to believer and role in '. z.enti7al . ,ts illutratect unbeliever alike. Ile proves that man einnot adore his equal, man: that in a religion men demand some;thing more than a mere intellectualism, something which will appeal to their imagination and to their emotions.
to no something, so that His words might come also to those who did not know them, or who did not understand them, or who despised them.
And so I began to write, alone, in the country, impelled not by desire of gain or of fortune, but by a sincere need to help some of my brethren, the And when it was ' Life of Christ.' finished, there faced me the need of belonging to the society founded by And among the innumerable Christ. churches calling themselves his faithful interpreters I chose, not without internal misgivings and a certain repugnance which I have since overcome, the Catholic Church, whether because she truly represents the central trunk . planted by Jesus. or rather because, despite the weaknesss and human erComing then to the point which con- rors of many of her Knis. she is the cerns him more closely, the matter of one. in my opinion, which has offered to man the most satisfactory condithe converts, he gives proof o-f the tions for an integral sublimation of his breadth of his culture and the extent of whole being, and because in her bosom his historical knowledge by citing offhanrl the names of half a dozen con- alone flourished abundantly and splen, from three nations Germany, didly the type of hero that I esteem :-zance. and -Spairi • ef the yoraantie most: the Saint. . period, together with the motives that A fter pointing out how this direct brought them into the Catholic Church For the present period he selects one statement gives the lie to Croce's accue xample from each of the four leading sation, he indicates even more clearly the primary motive of his conversion: natorts ce Western Europe: Riviere for France, i•hesterton for England. Wust "After my conversion, I have corrofor Germany, and himself for Italy In a paragraph or two he outlines the borated and strengthened my faith by which each of these was led new reasons. especially those of a hiss tep • torical and of a logical character. bet to the fact remains that the first impulse With the first three we are not con- • (Arne_ to me from an overmastering deAs for Papini himself. sire to some my fellow-men, to show Trned here. them, in the best way at my disposal, it is, as he himself remarks, the first time he has told the story, despite my love for them." leech previous solicitation. In such Before embarking an -this little apocircumstances. we ought to let him logia. Papini had in a previous paraspeak for himself: besides. a summary graph, given a few autobiographical of his account is really impessible. details in the third person: -During the War (he writes , and es-Let Mr. Croce know that in them (e, PAPINI. pecially towards its close. I was deeply t Christians) there arise, although al. grieved at the sight of so much ruin ways solved and overcome, doubts and so many sorrows. In those years about the foundations of their Faith: I re-read many of the books of Tol doubts about the possibilit:e of getting i e-re,11 'i" CCt ite reminds us of stoi and Dostoievski. and from them to perfect salvation: insufferable pains h(- stere-e. Fl, deals the same kind was thrown back on the reading of the a t the coarseness or lukewarmness of hiceea deeming almost no G,..-spel. which T had read several times the greater part of their new associunw.lrilly of his purpose. He but always in a diffident and hostile ates: and periods of dryness. dire e ven en the physical peculiari- spirit. quietude . and temptations of every tic. ‘ ,1 his opponent to enliven his Anything but tranquinity ane. " While meditating on the Gospel, and kind. t heme, and he has one sharp little para. quiet fer the indulgence of a hypo, graph in which he pictures Croce as a especially an the 'Sermon on the hetical weakness! The Cbrstian cch‘ futuristic architect, going about town Mount,' I came to think that the only is in earnest is in perpetual war an,' one mankind, and the for salvation and deploring the ground taken up by torment„-ind if anyone claims never txCatholic churches and chapels. and then safeguard against a return of the horhaye ex;aztaen,-ed doubts an.i enaie plodding his way home, "his little rors of the time, could be nothing else ties. let Mr. t-r ,k:e be sure that therepaunch sticking out .and his mouth than a radical change in men's souls, euestion of a iThristian torpid and slow to say, from transition ,that is savthe t wisted to one side" or else, at that moment. insincere." agery to sanctity, from hatred towards 1Te is willing to make fun of his ad. the enemy (and even towards the And. in closing hia article. Giovanni i t vereary in other ways also. The very friend) to love even for the enemy. Papini showed that he himself has actitle of the article. "Mr. e•roce and the Christianity, therefore, at first ap, quired the true spirit ot Christian:, Cross" ("11 Croce e la Croce"), is a pun when he asked pardon croce for ank He ridicules peared to me in the light of a remede t at the Senators name. but. as T iniustiee of which he may have teen him and his pretensions be referring to for the evils of humanity, anxious naele. guilty toward him in the east ;Ind ends him as an infallible little pontiff (port. pursued my solitary and e ith: a prayer for his one-to-seat: for, • I came tatione. to the persuasion that all as Czar of , "Benedict I.. tefichinn saes he "T have at leaA-casons fet the Cultures:" and. with more wit and Christ. teacher of a morality so opposnv:ng him' because he is a man, be. less crudeness as a "bishop in partibus ed to man's nature, could he th, mere man, but God Atal at_ this point 'case he is an Italian. ause he is a infideliem." there inter\ 'eed. I believe. thr secret ccl..olar, because he is unhappy, and finally becaese he is an eneme. . . Even Put this abuse is merely the fire- but infallible workings of grace_ And aetagenisee creates a tie ae.4, eorkato attcalet the crewd. or, at the so strong was in me the love for thi•; tionae to enlighteo those who prefer divine Teacher o love. that I decided
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