SIR,—Tvio things. strike me as a result of your articles
What .Way for Youth? and the comments and correspondence arising out of the question of the Berlin Youth Rally.
(1) The terror of Communism is that it is a militant, crusading religion. Its horror is its capacity to harness the spontaneous and devouring idealism of youtlwthe power of adoration and worship, the impulse to self-sacrifice, the liching desire for social perfection, the inarticulate long- ing for the knowledge of the unity of humanity. Communism, therefore, can only be met on the religious level—on the level of the spirit—because it is itself a corruption of the spirit.. There is only one answer to it, and only the Catholic Church militant can give it.
(2) The most grievous malaise of modern society, and of its youth in particular, is its loss of the sense of real local community. One of the inevitable results of modern industrial and political mass-organisation is the tendency for people to be split up into groups of trades and skills, and therefore for groups to be largely segregated from each other in their interests. As' a result the growth of the great industrial towns, home and work-site now bear hardly any relationship to each other: and, as a consequence of this, the sense of community is mainly transferred from the locality of tome to the trade—or skill—groups at the work-site. But even here the sense of community tends to disappear once the industrial unit or trade union grows beyond a certain size and too large loyalties are demanded of the individual. (Viz. recent trade-union unrest and revolt.) It seems to me that this loss of the sense of real local communitf is hitting very hard at the nation's well-being, and particularly at its youth. There is one existing factor, and one only, which can provide the remedy for this situation—the common, binding interest of the Christian faith within the local church.
With these two points in mind, I have a vision of "The Great Pilgrim- age." I see this green and pleasant land spread out before me in August, 1952. On Canterbury and York are converging hundreds of columns of dozens of thousands of young men and maidens -from every town and village up and down the length and breadth of England. Here boys and girls are, in "The Great Pilgrimage," learning something of real com- munity: here they of many walks of life, of many trades and skills, are learning of each other and living with each other: here all are contribut- ing in greater or less degree to the needs of 'each: here they are experiencing something of the corporateness of humanity. And, for the finale, I see the metropolitans, in all their splendid magnificence, with hands raised in blessing on countless crowds round Canterbury Cathedral and York Minster, who kneel in surrender, having dedicated them- selves anew to fight under the standard of the Prince of Peace, and having been commissioned to go back to establish real local community in His Name.
Only the Church of England has two obvious and outstanding centres of loyalty—Canterbury Cathedral and York Minster—to each of which, respectively, the south and north halves of England owe allegiance. Only the Church of England could sponsor "The Great Pilgrimage," because only the Church of England has the necessary widespread administrative basis. But it would not be narrow and denominational: it would be wide and open, calling those of any Christian allegiance and those of none as yet.
Here is the means for the Church militant—the crusading Church—to harness the spontaneous and devouring idealism of youth, the power of adoration and worship, the impulse to self-sacrifice, the inarticulate long- ing for the knowledge of human unity. Here is the means for the Church militant to teach the necessity and commission the revival of real local community.
August, 1952? Irppossible! But we must meet the challenge of Com- munism, the Berlin Youth Rally and the problem of community now. Not only the life of our nation, but of the whole Western world, may
Previous page
