THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT

In the month of December, 1939, His Eminence Cardinal Hinsley stirred England with a broadcast address, which he called ‘The Sword of the Spirit.’ The address was published and had an immense circulation. In the month of August, 1940, His Eminence inspired the Catholic laity, and, one imagines, a great part of the clergy also, by launching the movement which he likewise called ‘The Sword of the Spirit.’ This movement, like the addresses from which it takes its title, may be said to be, or at any rate is intended to be, the response of the soul and mind and will of the Catholic body in England to the spiritual and intellectual and moral necessities of the time. These necessities were, for those who had eyes to see, plain and evident enough in time of peace. They became clamant with the outbreak of war. England had inherited from the Middle Ages with all their traditions an admirable series of Christian institutions—for example, the great Cathedrals, the great Universities, and the Common Law—and the whole body of theological and philosophical and moral principles that gave life to these institutions and to the civilisation that they served. During the century that followed (shall we say?) Catholic Emancipation, the life of England and the institutions that served it at first gradually and then more and more rapidly ceased to be Christian. Take one example: In the year 1829, I believe it to be true that each of the Fellows in each of the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge was not only expected to be a Christian, but was also required to be a celibate and in Orders.