Light—Or Otherwise—On ‘The Leakage’

Extract

One is somewhat at a loss to know whether the fact that so much is being written on the so-called ‘leakage’ question necessitates an apology for adding yet more, or affords an excuse for so doing. Acting on the latter hypothesis, I propose to hazard on paper a few thoughts on the subject, based mainly on experience gathered when giving Missions,

And to begin with I would ask the question : is the leakage—lamentable as all admit it to be—larger than we ought to expect? In this connection we should surely bear in mind two important factors—firstly, the great increase in our numbers during the last hundred years, together with the evident fact that we are no longer a secluded body, but mingle far more freely than of old with our non-Catholic neighbours; and, secondly, that the non-Catholic world round about us has altered almost beyond recognition so as to merit with some show of truth the epithet pagan so often applied to it. Not so long ago, in days which men of forty can easily recall, certain accepted Christian standards of morality and church-going were as vigorously maintained outside the Catholic Church as within. This no longer holds good, and the young Catholic, in moving outside his own Catholic circle, almost necessarily mingles with militant irreligion; militant because, though seldom avowedly such, to ignore religion is tantamount to proclaiming its futility.