In a notable speech at the Vatican Council on November 20 last, the Archbishop of Westminster undertook, in the name of the hierarchy of England and Wales, to promote a fuller and more frequent dialogue with all Christians in this country of whatever denomination. The occasion was the opening debate on the Constitution de Oecumenismo. The Archbishop said that the hierarchy, for whom he spoke, gives its ready approval to this document and receives it with joy. It gives us the guidance of the Church’s supreme authority, which we have been awaiting, and clearly shows us its mind. Without this our ecumenical work could not make progress.

Soon after the publication of this speech it was announced from Lambeth Palace that the Archbishop of Canterbury had set up a Commission on Roman Catholic Relations, to be composed of experts from strategic areas throughout the whole of the country. They will be responsible, from the Anglican side, for the arrangement of dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church. It can hardly be doubted that there has been a causal connection between the Vatican speech and the Lambeth announcement, and we may hope therefore for the setting up, on our side, of a similar body to co-operate in organising this work.

It will not be out of place then to consider, on as wide a basis as possible and in a spirit of experiment, not only what are the most suitable topics, at the theological level, to embark on in dialogue, but, and this is more important, what are the presuppositions on either side with which eirenic discussion of these topics will inevitably be approached.

The first discovery one makes about America—and this affects the subject of crime just as much as any other—is the great variety that exists from state to state, and how strong is the resistance to any encroachment of federal government on state rights, which certainly include disposing of the vast majority of criminal offences committed. The importance of local loyalties is real and enduring. They have their roots in American history: have indeed made America what it is. And this is most certainly true, not only of the state laws themselves (the differences in the matter of divorce from state to state is an obvious example) but of the enforcement of the law and the treatment of offenders. Indeed Mr James Bennett, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, can say ‘the penal statutes of this country are a mishmash of conflict and variation’.

That is why any statistical account of crime in America must be inadequate. The annual report issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, which gives a detailed analysis of crimes committed in the various states, has been described as the cheapest work of fiction in existence. This is a serious libel on a most valuable work, but of course it would certainly help in making a true picture if there were uniformity —or at least consistency—in the penal offences themselves as well as in the punishment they attract, quite apart from widely varying police standards which obviously affect the issue.

From Pius IX to John XXIII, Popes have stated that a person, to be consistent, cannot, at the same time, be a sincere Catholic and a true Socialist. To many, this attitude seems to evince sheer clerical cussedness towards positive measures intended to right economic injustices, and to dismiss the great improvements in social conditions won through the efforts of Socialists: an examination of what is meant by ‘Socialism’ in the encyclicals may accordingly dispel some misunderstandings. It should be remembered that the Church’s teaching is not an attack on all the demands of Socialists or their criticisms of Capitalism, that the meaning of the term ‘Socialist’ varies in the encyclicals depending on the circumstances of the time and that the personal attitudes of the Popes towards Socialism are reflected in the encyclicals and the timing of their publication.