Accounts of the Young Christian Workers’ Second Annual Congress have appeared in the Catholic Weekly Press. But a general reflection on their position in this country and their prospects in it might yet be useful.

At the first Annual Congress, December 4th, 1937, at Wigan, six groups were represented, numbers in all about 100. At the 1938 Congress, September 4th, at St. Dominic’s, London, N.W.5, 11 groups were represented and numbers approximately 200. There were boys also from places which have not yet a group but are preparing to start. The number of Priests present at the meeting of Priests connected with the movement was also roughly double that of last year. And this year the Congress was honoured by the presence of the Cardinal.

As at the last Congress the impression given by the members was that of real confidence in the enormous work the movement undertakes: to make itself responsible for every interest, spiritual, moral, intellectual, social, of the Young Worker. Indeed the responsibility is the inspiration, a point of strategy in Catholic Action. The London boys, to begin with, made all arrangements for the Congress —for feeding, for meetings, for transport in London; meeting trains and seeing off at all hours of the night and day. The Societies’ magazine was brought out (again exclusively by the efforts of the 14-25 years-old members), with a printed cover for the occasion. At the Congress meeting local section leaders from the North and South stood up and spoke practically of the leakage, social problems of working youth in their districts, and remedies, which the inquiries of the leaders are discovering.

It is not without significance that in these days we no longer speak of the craft of building but rather of the “building trade.” As in most of the occupations of the working man there has been a revolution, so in building great changes have been made. It seems likely that the revolution in all branches of industry is ultimately traceable to a few common factors.

In this paper I do not wish to examine the morals of the industrial change as a whole, but rather to consider one small and apparently unimportant matter—what the use of concrete has meant to the human side of building. But. in passing, it is worthy of note that practically all these changes have one common result—they all deprive the workman of the exercise of his function as an artist. When something vital in the make up of man is treated as though it did not exist, the sociological consequences are nothing less than tragic. Unemployment over long periods results in something more than the lowering of material standards of living.

In the earliest architecture of which we know enough to consider it as a particular type—that of Egypt—is symbolised the social nature of the age which gave it birth. Most of the important factors in ancient Egyptian social life are reflected in the architectural remains from that time. Examination of a temple, for example, reveals an extraordinary area of construction, and this massivity of plan is repeated in elevation and perspective.

Of all the rites of Catholic Christendom, that used in the Archdiocese of Braga in the North of Portugal is probably the least known. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Braga is remote and an end in itself, since it is not passed en-route for anywhere else, such as Lyons or Milan, and few books have been written on the subject.

Of late years the retention of this venerable rite has been made the subject of two decrees of the Holy See. In 1919, since a section of the clergy had forsaken its distinctive Liturgy, Pope Benedict XV declared (”Sedis hujus Apostolicæ”) the Rite of Braga to be obligatory throughout the Archdiocese for both Mass and Office, a decree specifically endorsed by the present Pontiff in 1924 (“Inter multiplices gravesque curas”). This last decree finds a place in the preface of the latest addition of the Missal (1924), where the rite is referred to as a “Portuguese glory” (“Lusitania nitidum velut speculum”).

The ecclesiastical importance of Braga dates from the fifth century, when its bishop was advanced to metropolitical rank, as the town, after the destruction of Astorga by the Visigoths (433), had become the capital of the Suevic kingdom.

A distinctive liturgy appears to have been formed— Roman in foundation, with Mozarabic, Gallican and local additions—for in the sixth century we find Bishop Profuturus appealing to the Apostolic See for liturgical guidance. Thus, in 538, Pope Vigilius sent the Church of Braga the Roman Baptismal service, the Canon of the Mass and the proper of Easter to serve as a specimen for the formation of other Masses.

A Spiritual force incarnate and commingling with the material movement and flux of history. Beneath the phenomena a fact—the concreted result of a supreme revelation of the spiritual in space and time. That is the tremendous historic reality of the Religion of Jesus Christ. A hundred questions at once press forward to be uttered. This fact which the whole world recognizes, can it be defined, fixed, interpreted? Can the categories of the human mind enfold it adequately, or at all? What is the relation between defined doctrine and formulated thing, between the affirmation of faith and the reflection of theology, miracle and truth testified? What are our criteria and how are they to be applied to history? What is history for faith?

Less than a century ago there was a relatively limited number of answers. The human mind was comparatively insular—confined to its individual expressions in this man and that man and this and that class, country and creed. For protestant and papist, liberal and agnostic, there was a well-spread assortment of “cumulative” arguments. Each, being insulated, could afford to mix his own apologetic panacea (they still exist), and his position of stable equilibrium was chiefly determined by the ingredients he chose. Looked at from the angle of the isolated subject on his intellectual desert-island each position was curiously compelling.