Causa finita est?
Sir: It is an old journalistic trick to attribute to one's opponent things he did not say, and then to knock down the skittle that one has then set up. Sir Denis Brogan's performance in his letter of 6 September shows that he is in this a competent journalist, though not perhaps one of the highest class, when he attributes to me sympathy with Mayor Daley, Godfrey de Bouillon, Simon de Montfort and the Scottish Covenanters and the belief that 'everything can be settled by a few brisk orders.'
I note that his attribution of onanism to my club was intended as a joke, although it seems to me to be in poor taste.
Even in these 'permissive' times we cannot discuss the story of Onan without resorting to the 'decent obscurity of a dead language,' but my understanding of the matter is that Onan practised coitus interruptus, that this displeased the Almighty who slew him, and that through- out church history Onan's act has been con- sidered sinful. Pius XI extended this principle to cover various devices which had substantially the same effect, and the present Pope has simply repeated the condemnation.
If, as appears from his letter, Sir Denis has lost his faith and ceased to be a Catholic, it is not easy to see why he devoted two long articles to a subject which does not affect him or, I imagine, the great majority of your readers. Sir Denis need not trouble about attributing any rank to me. My commission was a war- time one and, like Sir Denis, I am now retired. R. L. Travers Palace Court Hotel, Bournemouth
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