The Henson Journals

[138]

Friday, January 25th, 1924.

Various reasons are given by German observers for the comparative success of the Catholic church with the worker. It has made studied attempts to recruit its ministry from the lowest classes & has preserved the medieval tradition of opportunity for advancement for the poorest within the church if nowhere else. The priests thus recruited from the soil have brought a more critical attitude to the problems of modern industry than the Protestant pastor: & have moreover maintained a more natural contact with their people than the latter who has always been drawn out of a highly intellectual high middle class. It is interesting to observe that the German pastor who, as a result of his university education & in answer to the intellectual needs of his educated middle class congregation, is theologically more liberal than any religious leader of the world lost the worker both because he was theologically liberal and because he was socially illiberal…. As between Catholicism & Protestantism in Germany we have the curious but frequent paradox of theological conservatism & social liberalism opposing theological liberalism & social conservatism.

Reinold Niebuhr, quoted in "The Biblical Review" Jan, 1924.

[139]

"Pendennis" was published in monthly parts from Nov: 1848 to Dec. 1850. The book has more autobiography than any of the novels. It is a transcript from real life. The conversation between Pen and Warrington (ch. LXII) in which the former expounds at some length his philosophy of life may, perhaps, be taken as the Author's personal confession. It includes an evident reference to the two Newman brothers.

I wrote a short Review of the Book "The Return of Christendom by a group of Churchmen", and sent it to Sir Henry Lunn: the book is certainly an astonishing evidence of the same sinister blend of sacerdotalism and socialism as men are observing on the continent. The Roman Church has discovered the art of manipulating the vast democracies of the modern world. So long as democracy meant the government of the middle & upper classes, it was inaccessible to the approaches of the Jesuitized papacy, for it was too independent, well–informed, and intelligent to be easily deluded by a system so grossly superstitious, and burdened with so scandalous a record. But when, by successive extensions of the franchise, democracy became indistinguishable from the rule of the mob, which has neither knowledge, traditions, nor self–respect, the Roman Church had no difficulty in trading on its ignorance, prejudices, & appetites. The triumph of "Catholic Socialism" threatens the world with the most penetrating & pervasive of all tyrannies.

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