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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
THE BULLETIN
The Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen's
Association of Georgia.
Published Monthly by the Publicity Department,
409 Herald Building, Augusta, Georgia.
Subscription Price $2.00 Per Year
ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1921-1922
P. H. Rice, Augusta President
Col. P. H. Callahan, Louisville, Ky Hon. Vice-Pres.
,T. J. Haverty, Atlanta First Yice-Pres.
J. B. McCallum, Atlanta Secretary
Thomas S. Gray, Augusta Treasurer
Richard Reid, Augusta—-Editor and Publicity Director
Miss Cecile C. Ferry, Augusta....Asst. Publicity Director
VOL. II SEPTEMBER, 1921 No. I 0
THE ATLANTA CONVENTION
Last month in this column the belief was expressed
that the 1921 convention would not only be the great
est in the history of the Catholic Laymen’s Associa
tion of Georgia, but that it would be the greatest gath
ering of Catholics ever staged in the Southeast. Any
one of the three hundred delegates and members who
journeyed to Atlanta for the convention Sunday, Sep
tember 1 1, will tell you that The Bulletin was correct
in its prediction.
From the opening of the convention with prayer by
our Rt. Rev. Bishop, to its close, with the singing of
“Holy God, We Praise Thy Name,” there was not a
moment which might not be called perfect from near
ly every standard.
It was a warm day, but that did not matter. The
hundreds who filled the Marist College Hall paid but
little attention to the high temperature. They have
the rest of the year to worry about such details and
trifles of life.
The thanks of the Association goes out to the At
lanta Branch of the Laymen’s Association for the un
paralleled entertainment for the visitors. The hotel
accomodations at the Ansley, the lunch at the Capital
City Club everything was perfect.
The convention closed a year’s work. Another year
lies before us. What it will bring we do not know.
But we do know that the membership of the Associa
tion is actively behind the officials to the last man and
woman. We know that the people of Georgia are gen
erally fair. We know that the Association has no in
tention of departing from the dignified manner in
which it has previously answered misstatements and
groundless insults, which are, we can gratefully say,
not as numerous as they once were. The Association
shall be guided in the future by the same spirit of
truth and moderation which has aided it in the past.
It cannot but succeed.
WHY MURDER IS WRONG
“The murder of the Catholic priest in Alabama last
week by a Protestant preacher is one of a long chain
of incidents proving our foolishness in placing the
Catholics on the vantage ground of martyrdom,
states a Georgia sectarian paper, and it continues:
“How long will we persist in the error that two wrongs
make a right? This poor man, this father, had lost
the confidence of his own daughter and in a fit of
madness, no doubt enough to try any man’s soul, he
goes and murders this Catholic priest. And from Rome
to Calcutta the press tells of this man’s act and adds
countless adherents to the Catholic faith.”
No word of regret that a man has been slain by a fel-
lowman! No word of condemnation for the fanaticism
which prompted the act! No horror at the deed ex
cept insofar as it reacts to the advantage of the Cath
olic Church!
About two wrongs making a right certainly they
do not, especially in this case where the two wrongs or
any others come from the same source.
“Not whose hand, but whose brain prompted the
murder?” is the query of the Columbus Enquirer-Sun.
The unfortunate man who now sits in a Birmingham
jail, with his hands stained by the blood of the man
he slew, would without doubt never have committed
the deed were it not for the anti-Catholic propa
ganda of men like the Junior Senator from Georgia.
The Church has lost a loyal son in the death of
Father Coyle. But between the priest, cold in his
tomb, and the man charged with the deed, which of us
would not choose to be the former?
CHURCH AND STATE
“What the country needs most is a good five-cent
cigar,” Former Vice-President Marshall was quoted
as saying in the days immediately preceding his re
tirement from public life, last March.
Mr. Marshall is wrong. More than anything else,
the country needs more men like himself.
Mr. Marshall is a Presbyterian elder, and in this
capacity, according to The Boston Transcript, he con
tributes to the Presbyterian New Era Magazine, an
article in which he protests against the mixing of re
ligion and politics.
“It may not contribute to the harmony of the
church music,” Mr. Marshall writes, “but after much
deliberation, however discordant the note may be, it
is my opinion that it should be struck. And as I have
less to lose than anyone else, I have concluded to
strike it.
“It is no infrequent occurence to have some zeal
ous brother inform me that we must be up and stir
ring as Protestants, or the Roman Catholic Church
will seize the reins of government in America. May
be this foolish statement accounts for the fact that the
church to which we belong, in common with other
Protestant denominations, in an effort to prevent the
union of Church and State, is, unconsciously, I hope,
doing those things which look very much like an at
tempt to unite the American Republic and the Protes
tant churches of this country.”
Mr. Marshall thus voices a thought which has been
struggling for expression in the minds of many of us
for many a day. We have often wondered how our
non-Catholic brethren, most of them not members of
Mr. Marshall’s church, can consistently howl from
the house-tops the charge that the Catholic Church is
struggling to get control of the government, call on all
“true Americans” to resist the attempted union of
Church and State, and then turn around and send
clergymen to Congress.
Surely ministers have a right to represent a dis
trict in Congress if the people so desire. But if a priest
were elected to Congress, and there are many over
whelmingly Catholic districts in the country, these op
ponents of Church and State could see in their mind’s
eye the non-existent army of the Pope marching down
Pennsylvania Avenue to take control of the Capitol.
There are approximately 20,000,000 Catholics in
the United States. In the century and a half of its
existence there has been but one Catholic priest elect
ed to Congress, and that one about a century ago, and
from a pioneer state. The next century and a half
will perhaps witness an even smaller number of
priests in Washington in legislative capacities.
All of which proves that there are none so blind as
those who will not see.