thirty-four 



POISE 



The Catholic Doctrine 

 of Peace 



( Continued from page 30) 



to promote and develop these traits when- 

 ever possible. They are not a source of 

 disruption; they should enrich the human 

 family. But above all these things stands 

 the brotherhood of man. Racial prejudices 

 are foreign to the Christian teaching as 

 stated by St. Paul : "There is neither Gentile 

 nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, 

 Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. But 

 Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3, 11). All 

 are of common origin, redeemed by Christ, 

 and national interests must recognize these 

 facts. In all these questions, it must always 

 be remembered that the rights of different 

 peoples are not contradictory but comple- 

 mentary. The Church aims at unity, not 

 uniformity. As a consequence it follows that 

 just as the commonwealths have individual 

 rights, so do they also have obligations, and 

 if they are to live at peace with one another 

 the first requisite is mutual confidence. This 

 confidence in turn must be based on some- 

 thing higher than national aspirations or 

 armed force. It must be based on the uni- 

 versal brotherhood of man, which rests upon 

 the doctrine of the love of God. These two 

 doctrines, the solidarity of the human race 

 and the dependence of man's laws upon a 

 source outside of man, have formed the 

 basis upon which the popes have addressed 

 the entire world. Pope Pius XII recently 

 affirmed this important doctrine: "The fun- 

 damental condition of a just and honorable 

 peace is to assure the right to life and inde- 

 pendence of all nations, large and small, 

 strong or weak. One nation's will to live 

 must never be tantamount to a death sen- 

 tence of another. When this equality of 

 rights has been destroyed, injured or im- 

 periled, juridical order requires reparation 

 whose measure and extent are not deter- 

 mined by the sword or selfish judgment, 

 but by the standards of justice and recip- 

 rocal equality." 



World conditions today, however, are 

 almost the exact opposite. What Pope 

 Benedict XV wrote at the time of the first 

 World War accurately describes the situ- 

 ation : 



"Far different from this is the behavior 

 of men today. Never perhaps was there 

 more talking about the brotherhood of man 

 than there is today; in fact, men do not 

 hesitate to proclaim that striving after 

 brotherhood is one of the greatest gifts of 

 modern civilization, ignoring the teaching 

 of the Gospel, and setting aside the work 

 of Christ and of His Church. But in reality 

 never was there less brotherly activity 

 amongst men than at the present moment. 

 Race hatred has reached its climax ; peoples 

 are more divided by jealousies than by 

 frontiers; within one and the same nation, 

 within the same city, there rages the burn- 

 ing envy of class against class ; and amongst 

 individuals it is self-love which is the 

 supreme law over-ruling everything. 



"You see, Venerable Brethren, how neces- 

 sary it is to strive in every possible way 

 that the charity of Jesus Christ should once 

 more rule amongst men." {On the Outbreak 

 of the World War.) 



This should be the object of all men, but 

 especially of Catholics, "that the charity of 

 Jesus Christ should once more rule amongst 

 men." To accomplish this, however, all 

 sentiments of hatred and revenge must be 

 banished. The mistake of twenty-five years 

 ago must not be repeated. Peace cannot 

 rest on a "forest of bayonets" or the deter- 



mination to crush the vanquished once and 

 for all. Instead, men must be animated by 

 a faith in a personal God to whom one day 

 they will have to render a strict account. 

 Legislators must realize that the work of 

 Christ was to unite men and that true peace 

 and happiness are based upon justice and 

 charity. Any other foundation is unstable 

 and destined to crumble. 



Catholics undoubtedly have the obligation 

 to study these problems and to promote a 

 Christian solution of them. But work and 

 study alone are insufficient. We have a still 

 more powerful weapon, prayer. We must 

 rely upon Almighty God to inspire men 

 with true principles; we must teach the 

 entire world that recourse to the Giver of 

 true peace is the only way out of our pres- 

 ent difficulties. In conclusion, I can think 

 of no more fitting prayer than that of our 

 present Holy Father: "The peace amongst 

 men which Thou wouldst give is dead. 

 Raise it once more to life, Divine Conqueror 

 of death. Let the love of Thy Divine Spirit 

 reign and conquer so that a right and 

 ordered peace may be given once more to 

 peoples and nations." 



Choosing a Career 



( Continued from page 1$) 



specialist in some field; she should also 

 train herself for a state in life. When we 

 use the word "vocation" in this latter sense, 

 we have in mind the three states : religious 

 life, marriage and single life in the world. 

 To prepare for a profession and to prepare 

 for a state in life are not identical; for to 

 make a living is one thing, and to live in 

 the fullest sense of the word is quite another. 

 For instance, the girl who plans to enter a 

 teaching community as soon as she finishes 

 college has her path of preparation clearly 

 marked out for her. She will qualify herself 

 in two ways : intellectually for the teaching 

 profession, and spiritually for the religious 

 state. 



The girl who elects to stay in the world 

 may marry, or, remaining single, she may 

 follow a professional career. In either case 

 the best general preparation is a liberal 

 arts education. In college there are many 

 cultural opportunities which have little 

 bearing on making a living but which have 

 a most important bearing on life taken as 

 a state. A married woman, as G. K. Ches- 

 terton asserts, must be a universalist as 

 distinct from a specialist ; that is, she should 

 be an artist who can make her home attrac- 

 tive, a teacher who is able to instruct her 

 children, a citizen who is interested in social 

 and civic movements, a member of a parish 

 who promotes the cause of religion, and 

 an individual who grows intellectually and 

 spiritually by employing her leisure to the 

 best advantage. In other words, sexual 

 attraction, while it is required for marriage, 

 is not enough for the marriage state. People 

 cannot live on love, nor can sexual attrac- 

 tion alone be a guarantee of happiness. Sex 

 is only a part of life, and those people who 

 attempt to make it the whole of life are 

 headed for shipwreck. As a rule, a man 

 has a wide range of interests apart from 

 his duties as a husband and a father; he is 

 interested in his work ; he likes politics ; 

 he belongs to clubs; he takes up sports. 

 In the early years of marriage a girl will** 

 be mainly occupied with the making of a 

 home and the rearing of children, but as 

 she grows older she too must be able to 

 fill her life with cultural and religious activ- 

 ities. In college a girl has a chance to train 

 her mind, to broaden her outlook, to culti- 

 vate a taste for reading and art, to acquire 



social graces — all of which will enable her 

 to live in the strict sense of the word. 



This line of reasoning applies even with 

 greater force to the girl who leads a single 

 life in the world. She may be intensely 

 interested in her occupation, but she will 

 not be on duty all the time. Her great prob- 

 lem is to employ her leisure with profit. 

 She needs to know how to fill the time when 

 she is off duty with intellectual and artistic 

 pursuits. A girl who leaves college with a 

 love of serious reading need never be bored, 

 and she is also equipped with a natural 

 means of warding off temptations to evil. 



If a liberal arts education is a general 

 preparation for one's state in life, what is 

 the special preparation? The girl who 

 intends to stay in the world should acquire 

 some skill in household crafts. The manage- 

 ment of a home is preeminently the work 

 of a girl, and no girl should leave college 

 in utter ignorance of this ancient and honor- 

 able art. As a minimum essential, a girl 

 should know how to cook. Of course, it 

 may be objected that any intelligent girl 

 can learn how to cook after she is married. 

 A young married woman once told me that 

 she was trying to make up for lost time by 

 taking lessons at a cooking school. She 

 asserted that the only practical equipment 

 which she had brought to the high and holy 

 state of matrimony was a can-opener. She 

 was a clever girl and I have no doubt that 

 she developed into a good cook. But the 

 process was hardly fair to the young man, 

 who was the victim of her culinary experi- 

 ments. 



Of course, the art of cooking is only a 

 particular example. It stands for all those 

 essentially feminine accomplishments which 

 every girl should master. A girl will not be 

 successful or influential in life if she refuses 

 to train herself in the things which she can 

 do supremely well. It is senseless for her 

 to attempt to blot out the differences 

 between herself and a boy. The world does 

 not set a high value on an effeminate man; 

 nor does it set a high value on a mannish 

 woman. 



Firecrackers — 



( Continued from page 31 ) 



on the summit of Corcovado, the high- 

 est of the encircling hills. There is 

 scarcely a street corner from which one 

 cannot look up and see that compassion- 

 ate figure, its head bent ever so slightly, 

 its arms stretched wide against the sky. 

 At night the statue is flood-lighted, and 

 shines high above the twinkling city 

 lights, undwarfed by height or distance. 



One of the tourists on the ship, des- 

 perately homesick and unwilling to 

 admit that there was anything good 

 outside New York City, confessed that 

 he had been impressed by the statue of 

 Christ in Rio. 



"Do you know," he frequently said 

 in awed tones, "that there are five tons 

 of concrete in the head alone}" 



And I still remember one of our 

 friends, who lived in Rio, giving us 

 directions for reaching his house at 

 night. 



"You can't miss it," he told us. "We 

 live right at the feet of the Redemptor." 



Which, had he been mystically in- 

 clined, was a good place to live. 



