The step taken by the French Provincial Superiors of the
Jesuit Order in recalling members employed as worker priests indicates that this missionary effort to reach the industrial working-class, which had already incurred Vatican disapproval earlier this year, is unlikely to continue in its present form. The communique issued by the French cardinals on their' return from Rome in November had ,already foreshadowed this. Much will obviously depend on the way the conditions laid down for the continuance of the worker priest movement are applied, but the clause forbidding the full-time employment of priests in factories undermines the whole original idea of gaining the confidence of a working-class neither interested in Christianity nor attracted by its official representatives. What is now to become of this pays en mission ? It is signifi- cant that the Bishop of Angers chose to include a denunciation of Gallicanism in a sermon preached on tle matter. Rome has been firm. Whether she has been wise is another matter.
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