25 JUNE 1932, Page 3

Faith and Politics The Eucharistic Congress, producing in Dublin an

unprecedented demonstration of fervour for a faith whose essential tenet is brotherhood, has been marked, in the capital of a country which is still a British Dominion, by a general ban on the British flag, by the exclusion of the chief official representative of Great Britain, himself an Irishman, from the Irish Govern- ment's reception, and by the consequent absence of Mr. de Valera, uninvited, from the Governor-General's dinner party. Such incidents must be noted, and can speak for themselves without comment. If the Congress, as a great ecclesiastical event, results in a lasting stimulus to the profession and practice of the Roman Catholic faith or any other form of the Christian religion, it will be for the good of Ireland outwardly and inwardly, and if the implications of that religion are accepted in sincerity on both sides even the asperities of Anglo-Irish political interchanges may be softened.