In the Church's appeal to common action hardly any sphere of activity has received less attention from either clergy or laity than the universities. This remissness suggests that in the hurried apostolate of our times there is a lack of appreciation of the great importance of university education in the social life of the Church. It cannot therefore be a matter of surprise to those who have had this in mind, to see how in many countries ecclesiastical authorities are now much alarmed by the feelings of distrust and opposition exhibited by the anti-clerical or non-clerical attitude of young intellectuals. As no movement in the Church is more alive to the position of university students than Pax Romana, its annual report may be considered a suitable starting point for some observations on this question.

The administrative secretary, M. Rudi Salat, merely hints at this problem when he says ‘Car pour le travail international catholique futur, la sympathie et la collaboration des théologiens est indispensable.’ The question at issue is, therefore, not only the desirability but even the need of the co-operation of priests and students in catholic activity. That this collaboration is of prime importance can be of little doubt, but it seems that the way in which it should be brought about has not yet been sufficiently discussed.

The days have passed when, on the Continent anyhow, to be on the stage was to be outside the Church. This was brought home by the Master-General of the Dominican Order, at a meeting of the English Catholic Stage Guild last summer, when he, who had been its Director, spoke of the activities and spiritual life of the Stage Guild of France.

The theatre is the prodigal daughter of the Church; she was born of the Church and her first playgrounds were in the churches. Now in a ‘far land’ she is, at least in this country, in spiritual destitution and has hardly the strength to arise and return to her home, but the Church, her mother, has set out on the road to meet her.

In England, it is true, the theatre did not go of her own accord from the Church, she was carried away from it in the arms of public life. We may find in the pages of Shakespeare many traces of the Church’s influence and much hankering for the home that the theatre had been torn from; but since Shakespeare the Drama in England has been purely secular, but not as in countries where it was in active rebellion, and not until our own day, irreligious. The Puritan element in the country looked at the theatre askance and not until late Victorian days was it considered a respectable institution.

The world’s a revolving stage, and the scene changes diurnally. Indeed, the admirer of this era of the machine would say that it is, in effect and appropriately enough, a stage supporting a ‘talkie’ screen, for the flicker of changing terrestial affairs occupies the eye of the remote unsleeping observer throughout the twenty-four hours. At our midnight, the light still shines above the earth’s Big Ben, and discussion or action, charged with immanence of immediate influence on the life of man, is taking place half way, east or west, towards the other side of the globe.

While, as always, we know not what to-morrow will bring forth, we dare no longer tempt fate by forecast. If a state of war does not formally exist in the Far East, war is proceeding in actual fact, tentatively or may be very explosively, with a prompt possibility of louder local repercussions, and a more remote chance of extensive international complications. At the same time two men sit over a cup of tea in Washington, and their talk may decide the fate of mankind for generations and may reinforce or disintegrate the very foundations of our civilization.

The beginning of April witnessed the opening of the Holy Year and the proclamation of the extraordinary jubilee. The Redemption is the chief event in history, not only for Catholics, but for everyone for whom Christ is not merely a name, but a living reality. It is out of the Redemption that ‘has come this civilisation in which we rejoice and on which we pride ourselves.’ This event carries with it ‘a wonderful succession of divine gesta,’ above all ‘the institution at the Last Supper of the Holy Eucharist, entrusted to the Apostles, who saw themselves elevated to the priestly order by these words: Do this in memory of Me; the Passion of Jesus Christ, His Crucifixion and His death for the salvation of men; the Virgin Mary, constituted, at the foot of the Cross of Her Son, Mother of all men; then the wonderful Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the sign and assurance of our own; presently the dispensation to the Apostles of the power of forgiving sins; the true primacy of jurisdiction given and confirmed to Peter and his successors; and, lastly, the Ascension of Our Lord, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and forthwith the prodigious and triumphant teaching of the Apostles.’

In his Christmas broadcast, the Pope had said that although 1933 is regarded as the centenary year in the common opinion of the faithful, and that in this they have scientific support, scholars have not yet fixed the date of the Crucifixion with absolute certitude. As some controversy has lately arisen on this point, it may be well to review briefly the grounds on which the date has been traditionally established.