Dr. Munz's "Proud Young Man"

Respectfully Answers Back

Dr. Munz is a man of many fulminations, and in his fulminations on misrepresentation he has misrepresented me, "the proud young man" to whom he refers.

At no time did I mention trans-substantiation. I commenced, amidst laughter from the audience, by saying I would like to help Dr. Munz. I attempted to do so. It seemed to me that in his attempt to discover the order and significance of the early church services, he had failed to utilise the historical principle of interpreting the past in the light of the present. I was struck by the resemblance between the order of the early church services as he postulated them, and the present order in the Catholic Church. I was speaking of order, not transubstantiation. I thought, for instance, that my reference to the disposal of surplus communion breads in the Russian Rite would help him in his problem of surplus altar breads in the early church, something which he said puzzled him. Incidentally, my mention of this difference in rites, answers the misrepresentation that I claimed they corresponded in every detail.

Dr. Munz attempts to place me in a dilemma so that either way I am impaled. I admit I did not mention the difference in communion of one kind for the laity—for which there are good reasons, theological, economical, hygienic and practical. (Does Dr. Munz know the definition of transubstantiation commonly accepted? The context in which he has used it, linking it with communion of one kind, suggests otherwise). The point is, I did not say every detail. Unfortunately for Dr. Munz, he has the usual amount of bull behind the horns of his dilemma.

I do not deny I was a proud young man. The observance of the same order of service (as distinct from transubstantiation) in most details after 2000 years, seemed to me an achievement to be proud of. I hasten to disclaim responsibility for that achievement. I am only basking in reflected glory.

Propagandising? Certainly! The command, "Go ye, and teach all nations" implies to me something imperative and dynamic. I cannot see that it can be interpreted as meaning to formulate one's own private religion and then studiously conceal it in the depths of one's good manners and complacency from the rest of one's fellow men. And why this twentieth century horror of "propagandising"? Was not Dr. Munz, in his lecture, propagandising Munzianism?

Finally, I would renounce any claims to being a good Catholic. I claim only to be a Catholic attempting to be good, and between these two claims is all the depth and breadth of sanctity.

Let me quote Dr. Munz ("Hilltop") to Dr. Munz ("Salient").

[unclear: "Transubstantiation] is, after all, a very woolly concept, and we have found that there can be no ultimate truth about it since so many people who are obviously very intelligent seem to hold contradictory views about it." Dr. Munz's views on early Christianity seem so woolly, one can well wonder whether there is any ultimate truth about them, either.

—"Proud Young Man."

P.S.: I am not "Historian."