While it must be said that these same Protestants have built some new churches during this period, and that religious population shifts have emptied churches, a principal reason for this phenomenon of redundancy is that fewer Protestants are going to church. It should be admitted, too, that there is a good percentage of lapsed or nonchurchgoing Catholics (one paper writes 50 per cent). Still, it is clear from such reports, and apparently clear from the remarks of many people, that Protestants are decreasing and Catholics increasing.

An Anglican clergyman in Oxford sadly but frankly acknowledged to me that this is true. A century ago, Newman saw that liberalism (what we now might call secularism) would gradually but definitely make its mark on English Protestantism, and that even high Anglicanism would someday no longer be a ``serviceable breakwater against doctrinal errors more fundamental than its own.'' That day is perhaps today, 1961, and it seems no longer very meaningful to call England a ``Protestant country.'' One of the ironies of the present crusade for Christian unity is that there are not, relatively speaking, many real Christians to unite.

Many English Catholics are proud of their Catholicism and know that they are in a new ascendancy. The London Universe devoted its centenary issue last December 8 to mapping out various aspects of Catholic progress during the last one hundred years. With traditional nationalistic spirit, some Englishmen claim that English Catholicism is Catholicism at its best. I have found myself saying with other foreigners here that English Catholics are good Catholics. It has been my experience to find as many men as women in church, and to hear almost everyone in church congregations reciting the Latin prayers and responses at Mass.