Red & Rebel

Though the Christian churches claim as their heritage a body of truth which is divine and changeless, theological interpretation of that truth may vary from age to age. Currently, even in the cautious Roman Catholic Church, the most popular theological stand is on the social and economic implications of the Bible and the life of Jesus Christ. Reflecting the popularity of the "social gospel," last week two notable books were published, one an ardent left-wing Life of Jesus, the other a biography of a U. S. Catholic priest who caused a famed scandal in the Church because he was a Single Taxer.

Noel's Jesus. Father Conrad Noel, 68, is the Church of England's most famed and deepest-red radical. Grandson of the Earl of Gainsborough, he went to public schools, to Cambridge, to Chichester Theological College, and, he says, "completed my education in the doss-houses of South London." For 27 years Father Noel, an Anglo-Catholic, has been vicar of Thaxted, a small parish near Cambridge. Of his early days as priest he says: "At Thaxted I preached Socialism, and soon introduced a full Catholic Worship according to the old English rite. Some of my parishioners became very keen, especially the young and the poor. During the War a lady gave me a Sinn Fein flag for the church and I flew this from the church together with a St. George's flag for England, and a red flag for the International. Those flags afterward became the occasion for riots. We ultimately lost the flags, but the preaching continued as ever in support of Him who helpeth them to right that suffer wrong." Once the centre of violent Anglican controversy, Father Noel today is an accepted church institution, leader of a small but articulate left-wing group called "The Church Militant" and, in politics, tending toward Trotskyite communism. To non-religious communists, Father Noel's views are puzzling. Once a Russian addressed a meeting of Noelites, thought he was speaking their theological language, was aghast to find that they disagreed violently with everything he said, particularly when he mentioned "Christian myths." Publication of Father Noel's Life of Jesus*, over which he labored for 30 years and which has left him blind, should clear up the matter of his views. But the lengthy volume may disappoint some religious radicals. Its interpretation of Jesus' life is unexpectedly mild, unexpectedly orthodox on miracles and other matters which do not impinge on social revolution. Of Feeding the Five Thousand, Father Noel says, "Is it too fanciful to suggest that ... we have a picture of an ordered society in which men will no longer grasp for themselves, and trample on each other in their competition for food. . . ." But find abundance in production, distribution and obedience "to the bountiful Father." To Father Noel, the most dangerous corruption of the Christian faith lies in pietism, "the religion taught as Christianity by many 'Catholics,' Eastern, Roman and Anglican, by most Protestant Anglicans and Nonconformists, namely, the personal love of Jesus, the supreme importance of the domestic virtues, the concentration of the individual on the building up of his own soul and the permanence of the individual soul beyond the grave." In an attempt to dispose of pietism, Noel interprets Christianity as a social religion looking toward a "New World Order," although he admits that this interpretation is acceptable only to a minority of Christians: "The Roman Catholic hierarchy in Italy and Spain is openly allied with Fascism; the churches of the East are pietistic and making no effective challenge against capitalist imperialism, while the Church of England, if she faintly stirs in her sleep, is far from being awake."

To discover the nature of the "Kingdom of God," Father Noel considers in great detail not only Jesus Christ but the prophets before him who expected the Messiah to establish a kingdom of righteousness on earth. Devoting several chapters to the problem of the meaning of Jesus statement, The Kingdom of God is within you, Noel argues, and adduces considerable evidence for his belief, that this means not that the Kingdom of God is in the soul of every individual, but that it is "among you," having been already established by the coming of the Messiah. Father Noel's conception of the Kingdom, however, is a rather simple political one. Dismissing the belief of the prophets, that man is too evil to redeem the earth and establish the Kingdom without divine aid, Father Noel is left wondering why the world's great revolutions have not established an ideal society.

Writes he: "There have been moments in history when the Kingdom of Heaven has been thundering at our doors, when mankind has at best only feebly responded and at worst has utterly failed to seize the opportunity. . . . The Fall of Rome was one such opportunity; another was the fall of the ancient regime in France where the revolution was but the partial response to the call of God's kingdom. Here indeed in France was a coming of the Son of Man, but the state of that country today would hardly justify us in claiming that the Kingdom of God had wholly come to that nation."

Apparently as uncritical in politics as in theology, Father Noel seeks refuge from his biggest dilemma by making Atheist Stalin his final scapegoat, thus: "In spite of God's judgment on Czarist Russia and the creation of a wonderful new world in that territory, the great response has been warped by an atheist philosophy, and fails to exhibit the full graciousness and spiritual riches that we may expect in God's completer kingdom."

Single-Taxer. A forerunner of Father Coughlin, a "political priest" who defied his superiors to silence him and for five years was under excommunication by his Church, was Rev. Dr. Edward McGlynn, born in Manhattan a century ago last September. Last week many a conservative Catholic prelate was far from pleased at publication of the first biography of Dr. McGlynn, Rebel, Priest and Prophet,* by Stephen Bell, non-Catholic economist and staff member of Commerce & Finance.

In a church where discipline of the clergy counts for much, disciplinarians would prefer not to have their flocks reminded of a man who, warm of heart and hot of speech, flouted his Archbishop and once said publicly: "Religion will never be right until we see a democratic Pope walking down Broadway in a stovepipe hat, wearing a frock coat and trousers, and with an umbrella under his arm."

Longtime pastor of St. Stephen's Church, whose congregation of 25,000 was Manhattan's largest, Priest McGlynn first irritated his superiors by opposing parochial schools. He definitely alarmed them by becoming a convert to Henry George's idea that a Single Tax* would be the world's economic salvation. When Henry George ran for mayor of New York in 1886, Single-Taxer McGlynn campaigned for him "because the triumph of his ideas means the bringing about of conditions under which it will be possible to do God's will on earth as it is done in Heaven."

To Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan of Manhattan this sounded like Socialism, antithetical to Catholicism. He ordered Dr. McGlynn to cease his talk, then suspended him, finally removed him from his parish. Dr. McGlynn. the Sogarth Aroon or "good priest" to his tremendous Irish Catholic following, continued to speak as he pleased, helped found and became first president of the Anti-Poverty Society.

In Rome, Cardinal Simeoni, head of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, with jurisdiction over the U. S. which was still a missionary land,/- heard of Father McGlynn, condemned his views and summoned him to the Vatican to account for them. Rebel McGlynn ignored the summons (and three later ones), was accordingly ordered excommunicated in 1887. For five years the priest, a devout Catholic, was unable to say or attend mass, was faced with the prospect, unless he recanted, of ending his days without the ministrations of the Church. But a substantial body of Catholics, clergy as well as laity, remained on Dr. McGlynn's side. And in 1891 Pope Leo XIII issued a great social encyclical, Rerum Novarum, which aligned the Church on the side of the underprivileged.

In the following year, the Holy Father sent a representative to the U. S. (Monsignor Francisco Satolli, later the first Apostolic Delegate to the U. S.) who was empowered, among other things, to look into the McGlynn case. Single-Taxer McGlynn gave Monsignor Satolli a statement of his views which so convincingly showed them to be fundamentally orthodox that, at once, the Pope's representative declared him free from censure. Though it has since been frequently intimated to the contrary, Single-Taxer McGlynn regained his priestly standing without being obliged to retract a single word of his utterances on economics.

A few months later, Dr. McGlynn willingly made the visit to Rome which previously had been demanded in vain. He had a friendly talk with Leo XIII, remarked that he could not stay long in Rome, to which the Pope calmly replied: "As you tell of your necessities, I of course cannot oppose your wishes."

Edward McGlynn died in 1900, in Newburgh, N. Y. where he had served as pastor for five years. To his funeral went Archbishop Corrigan, Newburgh's Jewish rabbi and all its Protestant ministers.

*Simon & Schuster ($3.75). *Devia-Adair Co. ($3). *Henry George believed that land belongs to the people, advocated gradual abolition of the landlord system, by means of a single tax on land value. This would do away with the private profits from its appreciation in value, and remove the incentive for speculation in land. Without abolishing private ownership of land, George wished to make its economic benefits available to all. He believed that his single tax would render all other taxes unnecessary, enable the state to appropriate great sums for the betterment of its citizens.

/-Author Bell errs in ascribing to the Propaganda powers of scrutinizing the orthodoxy of priests throughout the world.

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