Chapter Sixteen

I. THE WONDERS OF FAITH

I AM only a philosopher -- not even one of those theologians whom the Cartesian Minerva ironically described as supermen. In order to tell you something of the virtues of faith, I shall let someone speak for me who stands above philosophers and theologians -- the Apostle Paul himself.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews which, if it was not drafted word for word by him, nevertheless conveys to us faithfully his doctrine and his thought, Saint Paul, speaking of Faith (Hebrews II, 1-39), says: "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for . . . By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered Isaac . . . By faith also of things to come, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau . . . By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the fierceness of the king. By faith they [the Israelites] passed through the Red Sea, as by dry land. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down . . . By faith [the heroes of God and the prophets] conquered kingdoms, wrought justice . . . obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword . . . put to flight the armies of foreigners. Women received their dead raised to life again."

One would like to be able to draw a picture in our times of comparable wonders. This we cannot do. Is it because we are men of little faith? Is it because the present day is for faith itself a time of anguish and of purifying night? It is as though, while awaiting a new Enoch, a new Elijah, the signs and wonders have become so rare among us that, in order to have them keep on being present and bearing testimony, the Queen of Heaven feels compelled to move and intervene herself, from time to time, and write upon the ground of this planet letters of fire proffered to the inattention of human beings.

II. THE AVERAGE FUNCTIONING OF INTELLIGENCE IN OUR TIME: THE CRYSTALLIZATION IN THE SIGN

Faith is itself a mystery. It is a gift from heaven, but a gift received within ourselves. One may observe first of all, it seems to me, that the very way of functioning which characterizes as a rule the state of the intellect in a period such as ours tends of itself, if we are not careful, to react unconsciously upon the manner in which faith is received within us, upon the paths faith follows within us. Preceding the formulation of any atheistic philosophy, sometimes even in philosophies which pride themselves on making room for religion, even indeed on protecting it, there is a way of functioning of the intellect which in itself is atheistic, because instead of longing for and cherishing being, it eliminates being and nullifies it. Perhaps this is why Kierkegaard, faced with an intelligence functioning in such manner, and, moreover, fully aware of the rights of reason, thought that faith exacted an anguished division of the soul and must always propose a perpetual challenge to reason.

But the remarks I would like to make are of a less general nature: They concern two typical aspects of the average functioning of intelligence in our times. I am not speaking of philosophical theories of knowledge, for in that case I would call the two aspects in question idealism and empiricism. I am speaking of the practical way in which a large number of thinking individuals are led by the tendency of the day to make use of their intellect -- a way which perhaps the philosophical theories of knowledge do no more than reflect. This practical way of putting intelligence to use seems to me revealed in two symptomatic tendencies, one of which I shall take the liberty of calling mental productivism and the other the primacy of verification over truth.

The productivism in question deals with concepts and conceptual statements, signs and symbols. Judging by the intellectual behavior of many of our contemporaries, one can say that we neglect as much as possible and disregard the moment of passive receptivity in which we listen before we speak, in which reality, grasped by sense and experience, engraves itself upon the intelligence before being brought, in a concept or an idea, to the level of intelligibility in act. We concern ourselves only with the productive aspect of the activity of intelligence, with the manufacture of concepts and ideas. The result is that what interests us above all are the signs thus manufactured, and not the real being which is made manifest by them. We go to meet reality with a gust of formulas. Ceaselessly, we launch prefabricated concepts. At the slightest contact with things a new concept is formed of which we make use in order to take advantage of being, while protecting ourselves from it and avoiding having to submit to it. We do not try to see, our intellect does not see. We content ourselves with signs, formulas, expression of conclusions. We seize upon some information about reality which can be of use to us, and that is all we want. But there is no question of using the information as a means of obtaining a view of reality itself. I read today's temperature on the thermometer: I shall, or shall not wear my overcoat; to try to learn what is heat itself is all the more out of the question because the quality of heat is such that we can get no intelligible grasp of it. In the same sense, I learn that one of my friends has lost his father; I shall write him a few words of sympathy; there will be no question of my seeing into his grief.

This way of functioning of the intellect -- let us call it "crystallization in the sign" -- is all very well for the physico- mathematical sciences, for these ask nothing of reality except that it furnish a base for the entia rationis on which they are working. But it does not suffice philosophy. It does not suffice faith. In both, the way the intelligence works is not through "crystallization in the sign" but through a "transition to the reality signified," -- as when knowing that my friend has lost his father I truly see into his grief, I truly understand that my friend is in sorrow. "Faith," says Saint Thomas,^{2} "does not stop at statements, at conceptual signs; its object is nothing less than reality itself attained by means of these signs" -- in other words, the actual mystery of the Godhead communicating Himself to us.

Well, it is this very thing that we are actually disregarding when we allow our faith to become contaminated by the mental productivism of which I have just spoken and follow the road taken by the modern intellect. For when we do this our faith crystallizes in the sign, it does not progress beyond, or as little beyond as possible, into the reality signified. It thus wrongs and offends the formulas of dogma, those infinitely precious conceptual signs whereby the living God tells of Himself in our language, and whose sacred virtue and dignity lie precisely in the fact that they are the vehicles of divine reality. There have always been Christians for whom to know that Christ redeemed the sins of the world is a piece of purely intellectual information of the same caliber as the information that the temperature this morning was 54 degrees Fahrenheit. For them, stating the fact is enough, just as the reading of the thermometer is enough. They have every intention of using the information to get to heaven; but they have never been face to face with the reality of the mystery of the Redemption, with the reality of the sufferings of the Savior. They have never experienced the shock of recognition of faith, the scales have not fallen from their eyes. What I mean is that the way the modern intelligence functions risks making this manner of living our faith appear normal whereas it tends indeed to empty faith of its content.

III. THE PRIMACY OF VERIFICATION OVER TRUTH

The second typical aspect of the way of functioning of the contemporary intellect arises naturally from the first: I called it the primacy of verification over truth. We take more interest in verifying the validity of the signs and symbols we have manufactured than in nourishing ourselves with the truth they reveal. Has not the word truth itself become suspect to many contemporary philosophers? In fact our intelligence cares very little for the delights and enchantments of the truth, any more than for those of being; rather, our intelligence fears both; it stops at the level of verification, just as it stops at the symbol.

What are the consequences entailed by this attitude of mind with regard to belief? Belief is based on testimony. Well, for us, belief will not be that we are sure of a thing as though we had seen it, on the oath of a trustworthy witness. Belief, for us, will be only that we have verified the fact that a trustworthy witness tells us something the entire responsibility for which we leave to him, and which we accept, of course, but without vouching personally for its truth. That is all very well for history. But it will not do for faith. For when it comes to faith I myself vouch for the veracity of what has been told me. I am more certain of it than of my own existence, since the Prime Truth itself has told me through the intermediary of the Church, who here is but an instrumental cause, an instrument for the transmission of the revealed and is herself an object of faith: "id quod et quo creditur." "There are three things," writes Saint Thomas, "which lead us to the faith of Christ: natural reason, the testimony of the Law and the Prophets, the preaching of the Apostles and their successors. But when a man has thus been led as it were by the hand to the Faith, then he can say that he believes for none of the preceding motives; not because of natural reason, nor the witness of the Law, nor because of the preaching of men, but only because of the First Truth itself. . . It is from the light which God infuses that faith derives its certitude."^{3}

Thus it is that he who receives the grace of faith hears in his heart the voice of the Father, and is supernaturally enlightened by the lumen fidei. In one single impulse he adheres to the objective truths presented by the Church, entrusts himself wholly to God, Prime Truth, in an ineffable relation of person to person, and clings to Christ the Savior.

There are believers, however, whose faith consists merely in accepting what the Church teaches them, while leaving the responsibility to the Church, and without risking themselves in this adventure. If they inquire as to what the Church holds to be the truth, it is in order to be advised as to the properly authenticated formulas which they are asked to accept, not in order to learn the realities which are given them to know. God said certain things to His Church; in turn the Church said them to me; it is the priests' business, not mine; I subscribe to what I am told, and the less I think about it the happier I am. I have a deaf and merely mechanical faith (or, as Frenchmen say, la foi du charbonnier), and I am proud of it. A faith of this kind if it were put to the extreme would be no longer a matter of knowledge at all, but merely one of obedience, as Spinoza saw it. And in that conception of faith I do not believe because of the testimony of the Prime Truth teaching me from within, by means of the truths universally presented by the Church. I believe because of the testimony of the Church as a separate agent, because of the testimony of the apostles taken apart from the testimony of the Prime Truth which they heard, but which means nothing to me; I believe because of the testimony of men. But then where is the theological virtue of faith? Here again the way in which intelligence functions within faith leads, practically speaking, to emptying faith of its content. Here again we have to do with an intellect which in its general way of functioning has given up seeing, and thus warps the conditions of exercise required by faith. For faith, which believes, and does not see, dwells -- dependent on the will moved by grace -- in the intellect, the law of which is to see. From this it follows that it is essential for faith not to be quiet, to suffer a tension, an anxiety, a movement, which beatific vision alone shall end. Credo ut intelligam. Essentially, faith is an elan toward vision. That is why it wants to flower here below in contemplation, to come to be fides oculata through love and gifts of the Spirit to enter into the very experience of that which it knows through riddles and "in a glass, darkly."^{4} Actually, faith's eyes are never closed. It opens its eyes in the sacred night, and if it does not see, it is because the light which fills this night is too pure for sight which is not yet one with God.

Precisely because faith is a supernatural virtue infused in the intellect, it is not surprising that the fortuitous ways in which the intellect functions at this or that moment in the evolution of humanity should tend to affect faith itself as to the conditions in which it is exercised. It is for evil rather than for good, as I have just pointed out, that faith is affected by the manner of functioning of our contemporary intelligence. A priest, a friend of mine, told me that according to his experience in hearing confessions, he thought that a number of cases of doubt and vacillations in faith, having nothing to do with the authentic trials of faith, depended on the mental habits of modern intelligence which I tried to describe a moment ago. He often asked himself whether the souls of whom he was speaking had ever truly had faith. In any case, it is clear that today the spirit of faith must climb back up the slopes of an intelligence no longer accustomed to the knowledge of being. And it is doubtless possible that a heroic faith is all the more pure and sublime, the more it dwells in an intelligence the general tenor of which is alien to it. Nevertheless, the fact is that faith itself, in order to find normal conditions for its exercise, needs to dwell in an intelligence which has itself regained its normal climate. An intellect patterned exclusively on the mental habits of technology and the natural sciences is not a normal climate for faith. Natural intelligence, the kind which is to be found in common sense, is spontaneously focused on being, as philosophy is in a systematic and premeditated way. Never have men had a greater need for the intellectual climate of philosophy, metaphysics and speculative theology; probably this is why they appear so fearful of them, and why such great care is taken not to frighten men with them. Yet they are the one and only way of restoring the intellect to its most natural and deep-rooted functioning, and thus to bring back the paths of intelligence into the main highway of faith itself.

IV. FAITH AND UNITY OF INSPIRATION

Faith is an obscure communion with the infinitely luminous knowledge which the divine Abyss has of itself. Faith instructs us in the depths of God. Faith stands above any human system, no matter how valid; it is concerned with the revealed data, with that very glory which cannot be named by any human name, yet has desired to make itself known to us in words which all may understand. The transcendence of faith entails a strange paradox: Faith in its own domain -- in the things which are of faith -- unites minds absolutely and upon certainties absolutely essential to human life; it alone can create such a unity of minds. But faith only creates unity of minds at the top; it does not create unity of doctrine or of behavior in any of the categories of our activities which touch only human affairs, affairs which are not of faith.

All the Catholic intellectuals before whom I am speaking are united in the Faith and in the discipline of the Church; for all other things, whether it be philosophy, theology, aesthetics, art, literature, or politics (although there are certain positions which none of them would hold since they are incompatible with Faith), they can and doubtless do hold the most various positions. The unity of faith is too lofty to impose itself upon human affairs, unless they have a necessary connection with faith. Faith itself wants reason to be free in human affairs and it guarantees this freedom. And intelligence is willing to be held captive, but by God alone, the Subsistent Truth.

Faith creates unity among men, but this unity is in itself a divine, not a human unity, a unity as transcendental as faith.

And yet is it not in the very nature of good that it should diffuse itself? Could it possibly be that from the peak of the eternal mountains divine unity does not come down into our plains, carrying with it continually its unifying virtue? Indeed, it does diffuse itself among us, it does communicate itself. Indeed, had we the spirit of faith; were our faith not anemic and ailing; were it to find in us those full conditions of exercise which it naturally demands; did that faith -- informed by charity so as to become perfect virtue -- inform in its turn all our intellectual and moral life, -- then the transcendent unity of living faith would provide us with a unity at every level of our human activities: yet still in the mysterious and secret way, free and internal, and after the transcendent fashion inherent in faith itself, not by any external conformity or regimentation; not in a visible, formulated or tangible manner, but by the wholly spiritual springs, the invisible breath of the workings of grace. This would be a unity brought about by faith in the things which are not of faith, in other words a unity of inspiration rather than of objective doctrine or guidance. There exists no code or system capable of expressing such a unity; it arises at the wellsprings of the soul like that peace which Jesus gives and which the world cannot give.

Can we attempt to describe it still further? I would say that it requires a certain attitude in regard to truth, to wisdom, to freedom, that faith alone can produce; I would also say that it depends on the degree of depth to which the Gospels penetrate in us.

V. A CERTAIN ATTITUDE IN REGARD TO TRUTH

The unity of which I speak requires a certain attitude toward truth, a very simple attitude, evangelically simple, the attitude of the simple in spirit. To have the artless integrity to prefer truth to all intellectual opportunism and to all trickery, whether in philosophy, theology, art, or politics, to have such artlessness demands a purification more radical than one might think. Every philosopher loves truth, but with what admixtures? The super-ego of the philosopher is there to intrude into that love all sorts of monsters in disguise. If you analyze the philosophical systems from that point of view, you will find that a number of them embrace not only a sincere search for the truth but at the same time a shrewd desire to discover the most advantageous intellectual standpoints or to connive with the times, or the passion to rule tyrannically over a fictitious universe in order to compensate for various secret frustrations. If our love of the truth were purified by the flame of faith, no doubt we would not all share in the same philosophy, but we would be set free from an appreciable number of parasitical motives that cause division among us.

I should like to point out, with regard to theology, another way in which intellectual opportunism can commingle with the pursuit of the truth. We know that theology, rooted in supernatural faith, makes use of purely rational disciplines and of philosophy as an instrument in order to acquire some understanding of the revealed mysteries. For theology, philosophy is a means; therefore, theology chooses to put to its service the philosophy most useful for its own purposes. What philosophy, then, will be the most useful? The one, more or less true, more or less false, which has the strongest hold on our times, and is, therefore, most easily able to reach men's souls and turn them to God? If that choice is made, then in the very sphere of the highest knowledge you have opportunism taking the place of truth. For the philosophy the most useful to theology can only be the philosophy which is the most true, regardless of whether or not it pleases our contemporaries. The instrument of knowing placed at the service of theological truth cannot be other than philosophic truth, as we attain it first of all in its proper order, merely natural and rational. As disproportionate as it is before the divine mystery, philosophy is raised up in its regard by the very use which theology makes of it, as the instrumental cause is raised above itself through being moved by the principal agent. But it is philosophic truth, not philosophic error, which can be thus elevated. In order to be a useful instrument, philosophy needs only to be true; all that is asked of it is that it be true.

At this point I ask permission to say something parenthetical, because I seem to hear some voices which are somewhat shocked. "Ah, we see what you have been leading up to! You want us all to be Thomists!" Would to God that, philosophers and theologians, we were all Thomists; assuredly that is (as French pulpit orators used to say), the grace that I wish for us. But I do not seek to compel everyone to be a Thomist in the name of Faith! I do not reproach theologians who are distrustful of Saint Thomas with a lack of faith at all; surely not! only with a lack of intelligence. They may be much more intelligent than I, that I do not doubt. They are still not intelligent enough. Their faith is not in question.

My remarks on the subject of theology go no further than those I proposed a while ago on the subject of philosophy. In both cases I do not claim that the unity which comes down from faith will produce a unity of system or of doctrine. But there is another sort of unity, one that cannot be seen or formulated, that in the human domain itself of theology and philosophy would be a unity of spirit, a similar basic attitude of spirit. There is no doubt that it would diminish, but it would not suppress the diversity and opposition of systems. We would not all be Thomists, but in the love of truth which is in all of us there would be less mixed elements.

I want to say nothing unkind of anyone; it must be noted, however, that a certain firm resolution to have nothing to do with St. Thomas hardly does honor to the perspicacity of certain intellectuals who are intent on modern problems and modern consciousness. But Thomism will always have two things against it: the teaching itself which becomes commonplace in the schools with its text-books, its stereotyped formulas, its inevitable simplifications and its routines; and its proper technical perfection which frightens those minds who consider themselves original and have not understood that the keys prepared with so much care by St. Thomas are destined to open doors, not to close them.

I have reached the end of my parenthesis. I would add that this attitude toward truth which I have attempted to describe, and which is induced in us by living faith, would be brought, were the spirit of faith more widespread, not only into the domaim of philosophy and theology, but also into the domain of art -- a domain in which truth is no longer the universal truth, but the truth of the creative intuition of the artist, of his own individual treasure to which he must be faithful at the cost of sacrificing all else. The spirit of faith would also bring this attitude toward truth into the domain of politics, a domain in which the name of the truth in question is justice.

VI. A CERTAIN ATTITUDE IN REGARD TO WISDOM

I have spoken of the first attribute -- the attitude toward the truth - - of the unity brought down in our midst by transcendent faith. The second attribute of this unity is, it seems to me, a certain attitude toward wisdom. Wisdom is a savory science, sapida scientia; it is fruition; and of the three wisdoms recognized by Saint Thomas, metaphysical wisdom, theological wisdom and the wisdom of contemplation, this last, which operates in the superhuman way of the Gift of Wisdom and is rooted in the living faith, preeminently deserves the name of wisdom. Well then, does not faith itself, as I described it a while ago, tend inevitably toward contemplation, toward the contemplative experience which faith alone however does not suffice to procure, since this experience depends also upon love and the gifts of the Holy Spirit? Had we more faith, we would all reach out, each according to his own fashion, toward that experience of union with God which is the highest Wisdom; we would understand that this alone makes action truly seminal. Moreover, infused contemplation, since it is achieved by and in charity, tends to superabound in action; but contemplation alone, with the trials it imposes, truly dispossesses man of himself, truly makes of man an instrument, a fellow-laborer with God. Even the most generous activity, if it is not mystically dispossessed, if it does not somehow spring from the experience of contemplation -- no matter how hidden, how disguised -- runs the unavoidable risk of ending up in disillusion or in bitterness.

I believe that the spirit of contemplation is called upon to assume new forms, to make itself more pliable and bolder, to clothe itself in the love of one's neighbor in proportion as it spreads out into ordinary life. This means that action can be a disguise for mysticism, but it does not mean there can be a mysticism of action. There is no more a mysticism of action than there is one of inertia. Stop now, says the Lord, wait a minute, keep quiet a little; be still and learn that I am God.

Those of us who believe only in activity will doubtless have some surprises. We have all read Bergson's book on The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. We know the lesson taught by Aldous Huxley, who understands nothing of our dogma, but has grasped the supreme importance of spiritual experience for humanity. We know, in the activity of a Gandhi, how much was due to a certain mystical meditation, even though it could perhaps only belong to the natural order. Allow me to draw your attention to the fact that a book on the subject of contemplation written comparatively recently by a poet who became a Trappist sold tens of thousands of copies in the United States, as did also the book by the same author in which he tells of his conversion. This is only the most trifling indication, but it interests me particularly because I have the highest regard for Thomas Merton, and because for many years I have thought that the most active land in the world is obsessed with a latent desire for contemplation. Where will that desire lead? One thing is certain, and that is that all over the world, no matter where, wisdom and contemplation are daughters of God whom the human race cannot do without.

VII. A CERTAIN ATTITUDE IN REGARD TO FREEDOM

The third attribute of the unity brought us by faith is, it seems to me, a certain attitude toward freedom. If it is true that grace makes us the adopted children of God, then the more profoundly faith works in us the more intensely it leads us to long for the liberty of those children, that freedom of autonomy which means independence with regard to creatures and dependence with regard to God. Then the theologian is free with respect to theology, the philosopher with respect to philosophy, the artist with respect to art, the politician with respect to politics. And this kind of freedom through which we transcend whatever makes each one of us most inflexibly committed is also a mysterious way, ironic and winged, of transcending our differences.

Then, too, we are free so far as the world is concerned. We give the invisible the upper hand over the visible. We put social and legal considerations in their true place which is doubtless important, but still secondary. It is to the forces at work in human souls that we give primary importance. We respect in them the liberty which we have become aware of in ourselves. We do not desire the conversion of heretics into ashes, but rather to the living God. We grasp the meaning of Saint Augustine when he said: "You think you hate your enemy, when it is your brother whom you hate." In the most arduous conflicts our awareness of the rights and dignity of our adversary is never obliterated. That internal freedom, when it is mutually recognized and respected, is the sign of a unity of the mind which touches the very heart of human relations and which in a certain way reflects in us the transcendent unity of supernatural faith.

VIII. THE DESCENT OF THE GOSPEL WITHIN US

Thus it is by relationship to the truth, to wisdom, to liberty that the unity we seek to define is characterized; it goes down to the heart of human things; but it is only concerned with an attitude of mind and is too subtle and tenuous to have an expression which can be formulated. Nevertheless, it is also of central importance and of overpowering significance: all this because it stems from a supernatural virtue which itself unites men through their adherence to divine truth, but through that adherence alone, -- in other words because it is that transcendent unity as radiating beyond itself, and being poured into the fragile vessels that we are.

It is clear that this additional unity produced by faith, this spread- out unity, depends on how deeply the Gospel has penetrated in us. Each time one rereads the Gospel, one sees a new reflection of its demands and its freedom, as terrible and sweet as God Himself. Happy is he who loses himself forever in that forest of light, who is ensnared by the Absolute whose rays penetrate everything human. The greater our experience, the more inadequate we feel in the practice of the evangelical teachings, yet at the same time the more we are impressed with their mysterious truth, the more deeply we desire it. That is what may be called the descent of the Gospel within us. When we meditate upon the theological truths, it is we who do the meditating upon theological truths, but when we meditate upon the Gospels, it is the Gospels which are speaking to us; we need only give heed. And no doubt, when we are thus walking with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the One Whom the Gospel tells of draws near us, to make our mind a little more alert. Mane nobiscum, Domine, quoniam advesperascit. Abide with us, Oh, Lord, for the evening comes.

It seems to me that if a new Christendom is to come into being, it will be an age when men will read and meditate upon the Gospel more than ever before.

IX. ABOUT A NEW CHRISTENDOM

I have just alluded to the idea of a new Christendom. Actually, I have been alluding to it throughout this chapter: for what else are those roads that faith travels through the depths of human activities; what else is that unity brought down among us by faith which I referred to, if not one of the preliminary conditions for the coming of a new Christendom?

The dearer our hope, the more we must beware of illusions about it. The hope of the coming of a new Christian era in our civilization is to my mind a hope for a distant future, a very distant future. My opinion about this was already intimated in a book written many years ago.^{5} The events which have occurred since that time have only served to confirm these surmises -- which are pessimistic as to the present, optimistic as to the future. After the war it would have been impossible for the spirit to assume control over the forces unleashed in the sick world save by a kind of heroism which could not be demanded of the nations. Since human intelligence has thus inevitably failed in its task, one can only hope that for the immediate future things will somehow settle themselves, thanks to the natural resources of human mediocrity, in other words thanks to a kind of animal shrewdness adjusting itself to the natural pressures of history. But taking as a whole the phase of the world's history which we have reached, it has become a commonplace remark to say that we have crossed the threshold of the Apocalypse. The atomic bomb is a brilliant advertisement for Leon Bloy.

But does that imply that the end of the world is due tomorrow, and that after the great crises no new phase of world history is to begin? As for me, I believe that a new phase will begin, and it is to that phase that I delegate my hopes for the coming of a new age of Christian civilization, more successful than the Middle Ages. But it will come after the general liquidation of which we have seen the beginnings, and especially after the major event prophesied by Saint Paul, the reintegration of Israel which, according to the Apostle, will be for the world like a resurrection from the dead. Let us admit that from now till then there are still too many poisons to eliminate. Let us also admit that things have come to such a pass that for Christianity again to take the lead in history the Gentiles could well afford to receive help from the ancient spirit of the prophets.

If the new Christendom that we await is only to come in the distant future, it is nevertheless from the present moment that we must prepare the way for it and with even greater energy. In this realm of the historic preparations for a new Christendom, may I say that obviously all Christian peoples have their special contribution to offer, and that in considering some of the apostolic initiatives which are now being taken in France we are helped to realize that the universality of the Church embraces virtually all of human kind, so that Catholics must have care not only for their own interests, their fellow Catholics, their works, their legal positions, but also for everything which touches upon the sacred interests of man, as well as upon the cause of justice, and the demands of natural law, or the sufferings of the persecuted and the abandoned, the injured and the humiliated of all the earth. We are also helped to realize that the best means of winning victories of the spirit is not to barricade oneself behind the walls of a fortress but to go out into the highways to conquer through love and the gift of self.

{1} Inaugural address to the Semaine des Intellectuels Catholiques, Paris, May 8, 1949.

{2} Sum. theol. II-II, 1, a, ad a.

{3} Comment on Joann. IV, lect. 5, a. 2.

{4} St. Paul, I Cor., 23, 12.

{5} Humanisme Intégral, Aubier, Paris, 1936. (English translation, True Humanism, 1938.)