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THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW

Catholics were among the leaders fighting for justice and freedom for
the miners, and eventually won the day after the apparent failure of
the Eureka Rising.
The next struggle which called for Catholic endeavour was against
the evils of a secular educational system and the withdrawal of State
aid from denominational (mainly Catholic) schools. Here they wwe
unsuccessful, and Australia still suffers from the ruling made by Sir
Henry Parkes, Premier of New South Wales, in 1877.
Politically during these same years, Australia’s progress was rapidly
approaching a climax, and the people’s clamour for Independence was
at length answered in 1890 by the Bill of Federation. Australia had
become a Commonwealth. Confident in the strength of her young man­
hood, she began her march along the road of progress—only to be
brought to a rude standstill by the world catastrophe of 1914.
Finally, World War II introduced a situation new and unfamiliar
to the Australian people in the proximate threat of invasion from a
foreign power. The whole world knows now how Australia was saved by
the armed intervention of the U. S., and how in consequence, a strong
link has been forged between the two nations. In 1941, the Australian
Prime Minister, the late Mr. Curtin, was able to make the following
statement: “Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear
that Australia looks to America free from any pangs as to our tradi­
tional links or kinship with the United Kingdom” (p. 241). Time alone
will show what that bond will bring.
Anyone interested in the history of Australia, and particularly of the
Australian Catholic Social Movement, should not miss reading this
splendid work of Fr. Murtagh. It is the first complete work of its kind
dealing with the subject, and is an inspiration to Catholics of Australia
and America alike, who today need to fight against strong opposition, and
a gracious introduction to Australian Catholicism.
Nicholas Wabne, O.FJL

Theology and Sanity. By F. J. Sheed. New York: Sheed and
Ward, 1946. Pp. x -f- 407. $3.00.
Despite its manifest literary excellence, Mr. Sheed’s book manifests
doctrinal shortcomings serious enough, in the opinion of this reviewer
at least, to render the volume a somewhat questionable asset in the
task of explaining Catholic truth. According to the author, “This book
contains theology, not the great mass of it that theologians need, bat
the indispensable minimum that every man needs in order that he may
be living mentally in the real world” (p. v). An “indispensable mirimum” of theology on the Church should certainly include some dear

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statement of the requisites for membership in Our Lord’s society. It
should also contain a more adequate and accurate treatment of other
teachings in the field of fundamental dogmatic theology than that given
by Mr. Sheed.
Theology and Sanity gives neither a satisfactory teaching about
membership in the Church nor any sufficient indication of the Church’s
real necessity for salvation, although these are certainly theological
truths which a man must understand “in order that he may be living
mentally in a real world.” Mr. Sheed’s teaching on the function of the
Church as the rule of faith (p. 355) is misleading. His teaching that
“The Mystical Body, His Church, we may think of as the successor
to His natural body, or perhaps better to His human nature as a whole"
(pp. 286 f.) is certainly unfortunate. And his contention that “in the
Mystical Body, the Kingdom of God is like a leaven working secretly”
(p. 282) betrays a fundamental confusion of thought on a crucial
point of theology recently clarified in the encyclical Mystici corporis.
His claim that it is the privilege of any man to dislike the company he
finds in. the Church (p. 262) can hardly be set forth in the name of
sacred theology. Moreover since theology takes the magisterium of the
Church as its guiding norm one would expect a much more clearly
defined use of it throughout the book.
Mr. Sheed offers only a very imperfect explanation of the motives
of credibility. He seems to be under the impression that the only func­
tion of intellectual inquiry into the evidences of credibility is that of
preparing the way for the act of faith (p. 351) and thus he takes no
cognizance of the fact that the motives of credibility point to Catholic
doctrine as the one body of teaching which can and should be accepted
«nth the assent of divine faith. Mr. Sheed’s offerings in this field fall
far below the “indispensable minimum” of theology which the Catholic
layman should possess. It should be noted also that the treatment of
Papal Infallibility in Theology and Sanity is generally unsatisfactory.
Joseph Cliffobd Fenton

In Him Was Life. By John P. Delaney, S.J. New York: The
America Press, 1946. Pp. xii + 179. $2.75.

The author of this book is a former associate editor of America.
He has the distinction also of being the first to announce to the world
the election of Pius XII, at which time he made his now famous fivehour broadcast from Rome. At the beginning of World War II, Fr.
Delaney was in New York organizing and conducting the Institute of
Social Order, a co-ordinating agency for all Jesuit social-welfare
groups in the United States. It was in the year 1943 that he began