WE HAVE long been accustomed to the air of innate superiority assumed by Roman Catholics in this country. Their failure to engraft themselves on the English people must often have proved a sore temptation to bitter expression of chagrin. But they have held themselves most admirably in check. Now, however, we read of wild words spoken to Merseyside Catenians at Liverpool by Cardinal Gasquet. His Eminence told his hearers that the Church in this country stood for confusion and chaos, and went on to indulge in the safe enjoyment of prophecy. Those who lived for twenty years would, he said, “see the whole break-up” of our Church. “In twenty years’ time there will be nothing to choose between Catholicism and absolute free-thinking and agnosticism.” We are not so optimistic as Cardinal Gasquet. But for all that we have faith that the Church in these islands which, in its sixteen hundred years or more of history has weathered many storms, will yet by the Grace of God fulfil its mission and convert to the true faith the souls committed to it.

[Cardinal Gasquet, Vatican Librarian and a strong influence on the bull Apostolicae Curae, which had condemned Anglican Orders, used the term Catholicism in a different sense from the Church Times.]

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