Religion: Seldes v. Rome

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In Sawdust Caesar, Author George Seldes stuck out his tongue at Benito Mussolini. In Lords of the Press, he thumbed his nose at U. S. journalism. Last week, in The Catholic Crisis (Messner, $3), Author Seldes uttered some hoarse Bronx cheers at the Roman Catholic Church. His thesis is that the Church has dallied too long with Fascism, and his book suggests that his way of fixing things would be to have someone like Oswald Garrison Villard for Pope. He devotes more than 300 pages to accusing Catholic churchmen and laymen of all manner of misdeeds—pressure against the press and the cinema, devious activities in politics, assaults on civil liberties—which, though in part damaging, are not all germane to the subject. Privately last week, George Seldes admitted to friends that he was annoyed: for at least the first week after publication, The Catholic Crisis was not even mentioned in Manhattan newspapers.