Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4—THE BULLETIN, May 17, 1958
JOSEPH BREIG
It’s Not That Simple
Life is. never as. simple as al
most any speaker on any sub
ject at any convention tends to
see it —- and I do not except a
certain columnist who, when he
gets up to talk, has an . almost
pre ter natural
capacity for
boring' people
limp.
W h e n you
have been Sol
emnly warn
ed that your
t i me is 30
minutes, and
you see the chairman’s watch
propped against his coffee cup
and sense the fidgeting of the
delegates, you can hardly be
blamed if you touch un only one
aspect of whatever it rs you are
touching on.
It is with utmost sympathy,
therefore, that I comment upon
the address of author-editor Dr.
Russell Kirk a few weeks ago
before the National Catholic Ed
ucation Association on the topic
“A Non-Catholic Looks at Cath
olic Colleges.” Only in the kind
est spirit do I remark that he
left something unsaid.
Dr. Kirk counselled Catholic
colleges, in this day when they
must turn away many appli
cants for sheer lack of space, to
“choose quality.” This should be
done, he said, “for the sake not
merely of scholarship but of the
effectual defense of Christian
faith and learning.” Dr. Kirk
went on:
"The interest of all Christians
and of all our civilization will be
better served today by a reputa
tion for intellectual power and
moral worth than by mere num
bers."
Which is true enough as far as
it goes; but it doesn’t go far
enough. A great many speakers
have been saying the same sort
of thing of late, and 1 solicit
their indulgence while I observe
that to some extent they have
been talking through their hats.
Their first error is their as
sumption that the problem fac
ing us is simply that of choosing
between “intellectual power and
moral worth” on the one hand,
and “mere numbers” on the
other. This is not so.
There is no such thing as
“mere numbers” where human
beings are concerned. Each boy
and girl is of everlasting value,
simply by virtue of being a boy
or a girl — which is to say, an
image and likeness of God,
made for endless life with God.
FURTHERMORE, it is impos
sible to be sure that you are
choosing the best, even in the
relatively simple matter of in
tellectual power.
Intellectual power sometimes
hides behind shyness, immaturi
ty, indolence, lack of direction
and conviction, or plain mis
chievousness.
Very great intellectual pow
er, indeed, may be mistaken for
stupidity by lesser minds, which
are not utterly absent from col
lege administration and facul
ties.
Moral worth is even more dif
ficult to estimate and above all
to predict. Dr. Kirk and others
who hold to his thesis might be
enlightened if they would take
the trouble to interview, some
time, a seminary rector.
THE SEMINARIANS are
right there all the time, day and
night. Classes are small, and re
lations between students and
faculty are family-like. The rec
tor and his advisors bring to
their task of evaluating their
young charges long experience,
close observation and diligent
prayer for guidance.
Nevertheless, they make mis
takes. With rueful smiles, they
will tell you about young men
whom they advised to leave the
seminary — and who turned out
in the long run to be magnifi
cent priests.
Perhaps even more distress
ing than the mistakes are the
uncertainties. Rectors go
through agonies trying to decide
which seminarians should be en
couraged to seek ordination,
and which discouraged.
THE RECTORS KNOW that
some youngsters mature late —
but gloriously. And there are
others who seem as stable as
Gibraltar, but — to say the least
— aren’t.
Dr. Kirk might have a better
case if it were easy to “choose
quality.” But to “choose quali
ty” out of a throng of high
school boys clamoring for en
trance to college is a task to
turn white the hair of a Solo
mon.
And even if that were not so,
wisdom and charity forbid that
a college be turned into a club
for intellectuals. Has not our
American experience taught us
that the common man (as he is
called) has indispensable contri
butions to make to the common
good? We have some obligation,
too, to see that he is given op
portunity to develop to his full
capacity.
Otherwise, I shudder to think
what will happen to low brows
like me.
Theology
For The
Layman
By F. J. Sheed
We have known all our lives
that God is not an old man
with a beard (rather like Karl
Marx, especially when the art
ist wanted to show God angry,
as he often did.) We have rea
lized, too, that
the more com
plex picture
of an old man
with a long
beard, a
young man
with a short
beard, and a
dove, bears no
resemblance to the Blessed
Trinity: it is merely the artist
doing his best. But getting rid
of the pictures is of value only
if, in their place, we develop
a truer idea of God: Otherwise
we have merely a blank where
the picture used to hang.
God is a spirit. As a first step
towards forming our idea of
Him, we imagine our body away
and see our soul existing and
functioning bodiless: it is part
less, spaceless, immortal, it
knows, loves, decides, acts. And
all these things are true to
God. But our soul is not God’s
equal, it is only His image; and
while there are always re
semblances between an image
and the original, there are
greater differences. Looking at
a man’s photograph you might
think him very flat; looking at
his statue, you might think him
unnaturally rigid; in fact you
don’t make either error, you
make allowances for the paper
on which, or the stone in which,
his image is reproduced. Look
ing at man’s soul we must make
allowances for the nothingness
in which God has reproduced
His image; for our soul, like all
created things, is made of no
thing. How do we make al
lowances for that? We are spirit:
so is God. But God is infinite:
so are not we.
We note the meaning of the
word infinite. It is from the
Latin finis, meaning an end or
boundary or limit; the word in
says there is no such thing in
God. God is without limit or
boundary or end. Whatever per
fection there is, God has it to
tally. Apply this notion of lim
it to our own soul: it knows cer-
(Continued on Page Five)
Jottings...
(By BARBARA C. JENCKS)
Question
Box
(By David Q. Liptak)
Q: It has always been my im
pression lhat there is something
selfish about the kind of life
led by cloistered monks and
nuns, like the Trappists and
Carmelites. Wouldn’t it be far
better for the Church if cloister
ed contemplatives were allowed
to engage in certain outside
apostolic work, such as teaching
or nursing in' hospitals? Then
they would be accomplishing
something of practical value for
the community.
A: No Catholic could possibly .
harbor the impression that a
cloistered religious contemplat
ive is living a selfish, impracti
cal life ,without at the same time
showing himself to be grossly
ignorant of true piety and the
nature, significance and efficacy
of the contemplative life as
such.
FOR CONSIDERED IN IT
SELF, the contemplative life
(i.e., the state in which prayer
and penance are emphasized al
most to the exclusion of all ex
ternal activities) surpasses in
nobility, meritorious worth and
practicality i the active life (in
which outside works are engag
ed in, though not without re
course to some contemplation,
which is necessary for all).
This does not mean that the
active life cannot be preferred to
the contemplative life in a spe
cific instance. Each soul, of
course, tnust fulfill God’s will in
his particular case. Subjectively,
then, that state is superior to
which one has been called by
God.
BUT TAKEN IN ITSELF, the
contemplative life is by its very
nature higher than its antithe
sis. In the words of Pope Pius
XI:
"ALL THOSE WHO, accord
ing to their rule, lead a secluded
life remote from the din and
follies of the world, and who as-
(Continued on Page Five)
• TEN YEARS AGO today I
became a Roman Catholic. It
seems much longer ago than a
mere ten years. That was with
out doubt the most important
date in my life. I wish I could
go back to that day and begin
all over again. I have regrets
about my first decade of spiritu
al life. I have been asked would
I ever go back to the easy self-
styled life of a non-Catholic
Where deviations from conven
tion seem more important than
transgressions aganist God’s
commandments. Would I ever
go back to the life which holds
religion as something to prac
tice in moderation: a sermon, a
hymn, a church dinner or a
strawberry festival? Would I
go back to the cold, non-ritual
ceremonies? Would I go back to
the meat on Friday; the long
Sunday morning sleeps? There’s
a song that goes: “There but for
you go I.” I think of this often
when I see some non-Catholic
struggling along alone without
the help of the Sacraments,
without a personal, meaningful
religion. I ache to think what I
might have been without a mer
ciful God who bestowed on me
the greatest of all gifts — the
gift of my Catholic faith. I can
say each day of my life: “There
but for You go I,” with all the
gratitude of my heart and mind
and soul.
• IF I COULD go back ten
years ago, I think I would do
things a lot differently. I do
have regrets about the past dec
ade. L have been disappointed.
I have regrets about my own
continual failures in living the
faith to the letter, the opportun
ities missed, the falls, the de
tours, the blindness. I have dis
appointments in myself never
once the Church. “Remember
not my sins but the faith of Thy
Church.” These have been the
most important years of my
life — these have been the years
when I have grown up emotion
ally and spiritually. I never
could survive without the
Church. I need its strict , disci
plines. I need its refreshments
in the Sacrament of Penance
and the Holy Eucharist. It is not
easy to survive in this world
and as I said I ache for those
who do not have the saving arms
of the Church to uphold them
and refresh and renew them. I
could do nothing. I would be
nothing without grace. I never
heard the word “grace” before
I entered the Catholic Church.
Everything is in naturalistic
terms. God is a bank-president
type, an ivy-leaguer. God is not
the God who created heaven
and earth; who sent His only
begotten Son to walk among us
as a man both divine and hu
man. The humanity of Christ is
stressed, not His miracles and
His powers.
• NON-CATHOLICS wince
before our statues and our -lit
anies and our rituals and our
Marian devotions. The place
that Our Lady holds in my
church is one of the most com
forting of all devotions. I first
came to the Church through
Our Lady. I knelt before her
as a non-Catholic to pray. Fin
ally like any proud mother, she
brought me home to meet her
Divine Son. How can non-Cath-
olics refuse Our Lady a place in
their hearts? Here is the model
mother, the model woman. How
can one know about Christ
without knowing Mary. I could
n't. I’d still be one of those mis
directed, misguided groping
souls out there . without her.
Even now I must surely disap
point her time upon time with
my infractions. I would certain
ly try to do things over much
differently, much better if I
could begin back 10 years ago
today.
Sh
R A NGE BUT TRU
ttle-Known Facts for Catholics
E
By M. J. MURRAY
Cqpjrrffht 1958, N.C.W.C. N«w» Sirrioa
In 'Home the color- |
of a. Cardinal is robe
is governed. ty
liturgical changes.
cr/mson on Festive
occasions; V/OLCT
on non Festivei c-
f?OSE on Laetare
Sunday (lent) and,
(jaudete Sunday.
Act ten ty
More people visit the chapel
of the Miraculous Medal -
where Our LADY appeared -to
ST CATHERINE LABOURS in ihe
Rue duBac.fkris (last year , fr , ...... - ,,
goo, ooo) than visit THE louvre U Spanish. oullftahters honor the
'■"600.000). y "VlFPCEdDC LA MfiCaVENA " in
i Seville Cathedral as patroness. MaNolete, "the greatest bull-
|-fighter of all “gave his cloak to the statue in thanJcsgh/ing ■ £
SHARING OUR TREASURE
History Research Leads Professor
To The Church
By REV. JOHN A. O'BRIEN, Ph. D.
— —(University of Noire Dame)———
(By John A, O'Brien, Ph. D.)
(The University of Noire Dame)
Running as an undertone
through Cardinal Newman’s
famous autobiography is this
thesis: “Go deep into history
and you will find your way into
the Catholic Ch
center of Chris
tian unity and
the Mother
Church of
Christendom, ”
This was the
experience o f
Newman him
self and it
has been the
experience of thousands of other
careful students of history.
Marshall W. Baldwin, profes
sor of history at New York Uni
versity, and author of several
scholarly works, tells in Roads
lo Rome (Macmillian Co., New
York) how his research in his
tory led 1 him' into the Church.
With degrees from Columbia
and Princeton, Dr. Baldwin
made a careful study of the
papacy, publishing the results
in a book, The Medieval Papacy
in Acfion.
“I had been reared an Anglo-
Catholic,” began Dr. Baldwin,
who for a year was a visiting
professor at Notre Dame, “and
my older brother is an Anglican
clergyman of the Holy Cross
Order. Like most Anglicans I
regard the Catholic Church as
my Church, at least until the
sixteenth century.
“After the break with Rome
at the time the Reformation, I
thought that the Anglican
Church had preserved the
essentials of Catholicism and
therefore remained a ‘branch’
of the Catholic Church. As I
went deeper into the matter, I
discovered that England was so
radically torn from the ancient
faith by Henry VIII that it had
no longer any organic, living
connection with the historic
Mother Church of Christendom,
that it was now merely a
national Church deriving its
authority from the king.
“It was a painful discovery,
but there was no blinking the
facts. It shattered my illusion
that I was a Catholic. A Meth
odist minister said to me, ‘If I
wanted to be a Catholic, I cer
tainly wouldn’t stop with
Henry VIII.’ Blunt though his
statement was, it summed up
the whole story.
“I realized that I was con
fronted with the problem of
deciding whether I was to be a
member of the Church founded
by Christ or a Church founded
by a lustful monarch. To that
question there could be but one
answer. 1 told my decision to
Father Quitman F. Beckley,
O. P., the universally esteemed
and beloved chaplain at Prince-
| ton, with whom I had discussed
{ the matter for several months.
1 “On November 20, 1930 he
| received me into the fold of
Christ at the Church of St. Vin
cent Ferrer in New York, and
gave me my First Holy Com
munion. It was a red-letter day
in my life and one of the hap
piest. My mother followed in
my footsteps the following June,
being received by Father Daniel
M. Dougherty in the Cenagle of
St. Regis.
“My father, a professor of
English at Yale and later at
Columbia, reluctant to break the
many contacts which a lifetime
of active Anglicanism brought
him, hesitated. But the deeper
he went into the matter, the
more clearly did he see that the
Catholic Church alone was
founded by Christ and alone
spoke with divine authority.
“He was received by Father
George Ford in April 1934, with
Carlton J. H. Hayes, head of
the history department at
Columbia, and himself a con
vert, acting as sponsor. Father
was confirmed by Bishop Duffy
of Syracuse, who had been a
graduate student of my father
at Columbia. Please pray that
God will give to my brother and
to all sincere truth seekers the
grace to find the true Church
to receive the fullness of divine
truth and life and love.”
Readers will find his whole
moving story and those of many
other noted converts in Roads lo
Rome. Loan that book to a sin
cere truth seeker and it will
help him, as it has helped many
others, to find Christ’s true
Church.
Father O’Brien will be grate
ful to readers who know of any
one who has won two or more
converts if they will send the
names and addresses of such per
sons to him at Notre Dame Uni
versity, Notre Dame, Indiana.
Topping 15,000 entries from Catholic high schools of 38
states, Mary Lou Hilgers, 17, of St. Catherine’s High School,
Racine, Wis., receives the first prize check of $200 for her essay
“How the Catholic Press Helps Me in My Studies.” Pictured
presenting the award for the Catholic Press Association of the
United States is Father Franklyn J. Kennedy, editor of the
Catholic Herald Citizen, Milwaukee. Father Stanley Witowiak,
principal, looks on approvingly.—(NC Photos).
Reds Building Formidable Ecanamic Warfare Weapons
THE
The Soviet Union’s propagan
dists are having a field day
with the recession in the United
States, and American officials
are making no secret of their
concern over the impact of the
C U 111 111 U 11 1
line on the
committed na
tions.
W h i 1 e pro
duction in this
. country is de-
. dining; t e m
porarily
least
tion in the Soviet Union is
booming. While more than
5,000,000; American workers are
jobless', every able-bodied man
and hundreds of thousands of
women in Russia are fully em
ployed. This is a situation made
to order for the communist
propaganda mills, which have
been gleefully predicting the
quick demise of American free
enterprise.
Every Soviet speech, maga
zine article or radio broadcast
aimed at the underdeveloped
nations plays up and exaggerates
America’s economic difficulties.
The uncommitted millions in
Asia and Africa are being told
that the recession in the United
States proves the communist
thesis that crises and unemploy
ment are inevitable under
capitalism.
NEW NATIONS IMPRESSED
Pointing to their own rapid
advances in industrialization and
foreign trade as proof of the
superiority of communism, the
Moscow propagandists are
telling their have-not neighbors
that their’s is the only true road
BACKDROP
By JOHN C. O’BRIEN
to economic sufficiency and
social progress.
These claims appear a strong
appeal for the recently liberated
nations in Asia and Africa which
are starting from scratch on their
climb from primitive agriculture
to industrialization.
These new nations are in a
hurry to reach their goal, and
it is only natural that they
should be impressed by the
successes of communism in
Russia which have been
achieved in a relatively short
time. Free enterprise has made
the United States the richest
country in the world but it took
a long time to bring us up to
our present high standard of
living. For this reason free
enterprise looks less attractive
to the eager and inexperienced
rulers of the new nations than
communism.
In support of their claims for
the communist system, the
Soviet propagandists are able
to cite impressive statistics, the
accuracy of which is not being
challenged by American intelli
gence officials.
Since 1928, the Soviet Union
has developed from a pre
dominantly agricultural and in
dustrially underdeveloped coun
try to the second largest econ
omy in the world. Not only that,
Soviet industry is growing at
a more rapid rate than our own
was even before the recession
set in.
CATCHING UP WITH U. S.
Whereas the Soviet gross
national product was about one-
third of our own in 1950, by
1956 it had increased about 40
percent and by 1962 it may be
about 50 per cent. This means
that the Soviet economy has
been growing at a rate nearly
twice that of the economy of the
United States.
In some instances, the output
of specific industries in the
Soviet Union has approached or
exceeded that of the United
States. In 1956, for example, the
output of coal in the USSR was
about 70 per cent of our own
output, output of machine tools
double our own and output of
steel half of that of the United
States.
Hand in hand with industrial
expansion, the Russians have
pushed their foreign trade at a
rate that is worrying American
industry. For years Soviet
foreign trade was confined
mainly to countries within the
communist orbit. But in the last
two years, Soviet trade with the
West has been moving far more
rapidly than that with the
satellites.
The Soviet rulers are making
aggressive efforts to expand
their trade with the industrial
nations of Western Europe and
with our neighbors south of the
Rio Grande River. A trade
agreement has just been con
cluded with West Germany, and
trade missions are conducting
negotiations in Brazil, Argentina
and other South American
countries.
In this penetration of markets
traditionally dominated by the
United States, American officials
see a grave danger. Once
European or South American
countries become substantially
dependent upon Soviet indus
trial raw materials, the Soviets
will have available a formidable
weapon of economic warfare.
Babies Are Not Sins
This We Believe
(By FATHER LEO TRESE)
It is not often that a home is
faced with the problem of an
unmarried pregnant daughter,
but it does happen. When such
an unhappy event does occur,
the parents should at once seek
competent
guidance from
the social
service de
partment of
their local
Catholic Cha
rities office.
In the absence
of such a re
source, the family’s pastor or
physician will direct them to a
social service agency which can
provide the needed help.
Meanwhile there is a basic
truth involved which all of us
should recognize. This is the
truth that it is not a sin to have
a baby, in or out of wedlock.
Obviously it is a grave sin for
any couple to have sexual inter
course if they are not married
to each other. In doing so, they
wrest by force from God a priv
ilege that He reserves to those
who have made themselves His
partners in the vocation of mar
riage.
However, the sin of fornica
tion or adultery is equally grave
whether conception follows
upon the sin or not. Having a
baby does not add one iota to
the guilt of the action. Our
warped thinking in this matter
is a measure of the degree to
which even we Catholics have
been tainted with Puritanism.
A girl may park evening after
evening with her boy friend in
Lovers’ Lane and still be regard
ed as a respectable young wo
man. Another girl may have one
single moment of moral weak
ness and, if a baby comes, she is
the target of all the self-right
eous tongues in the neighbor
hood. Actually the second girl
may be by far the more virtu
ous of the two, but she has
broken the great American com
mandment, “Thou shalt not get
caught.”
A mortal sin is a mortal sin.
Catholic parents understandably
would feel grieved to know that
thier daughter had missed Mass
deliberately on a Sunday, but
rarely would they go into hys
terics over the offence. Yet if a
frightened daughter confesses to
her mother that she has lost her
virginity, the mother’s reaction
may vary from nervous collapse
to screaming fury.
There is of course this dif
ference between the sin of de-
liberatly missing Sunday Mass
and the sin of fornication: the
former sin hurts no one but the
sinner; the latter sin can have
social consequences which ser
iously affect the rights of oth
ers, particularly the right of a
newborn child to a normal fam
ily and home relationship. It is
to defend itself against the so
cial evils of illegitimate births
that society has attached a par
ticular stigma to unwed parent
hood. But it is foul hypocrisy
for society to condone the use
of contraceptives and abortifac-
ients by the unmarired, and to
make the birth of a child the
sole measure of moral guilt.
Among the thousands of
homes into which this column
comes each week, there well
may be at least one home this
year in which an unmarried
daughter will become pregnant.
If other readers will bear with
me, I should like to address my
self to the parents of that girl. I
should like to remind the par
ents that if ever there was a
time when their child needed
sympathy and understanding, it
is now. Parents must recognize
that their impulse to lash out
with bitterness at their preg
nant daughter is basically a de
fense mechanism, a defense
against the sudden fear that they
themselves have failed as par
ents. By blaming tbe girl, they
can avoid blaming themselves.
Bitter words also may be a self
ish reaction against the fear of
the so-called “disgrace” which
this daughter has brought upon
the family.
Instead of pity, for themselves,
good parents will have com
passion for their hapless child.
Their girl is ridden by guilt
feelings; tortured with a great
sense of shame. Most of all she
is frightened; frightened at the
prospect of childbirth and par
enthood of which she under
stands so little and for which
she is so ill-prepared. No doubt
the sin which brought on the
pregnancy long since has been
confessed, long since has been
forgiven by God. This girl is in
the state of grace. She is not an
abandoned sinner.
This is the time for a mother
to put her arms around her
daughter and to say “Of course
I’m sorry dear, that you forgot
your duty to God and commit
ted sin, but the sin is all in the
past so let’s forget about that.
Right now the important thing
is to plan for the babys’ com
ing. You mustn’t think that the
world has come to an end for
you. Above all you mustn’t
think that having a baby is go
ing to be a sin. You’re a good
girl and you’re still our girl;
your father and I will be with
you all the way. Tonight we’ll
go over and have a talk with
Father O’Brien. Right now let’s
get busy and get dinner ready.”
Good parents will naturally
think of their own words to say,
but this is the kind of reassur
ance which their daughter
needs.
Help with other problems
which arise (To marry the boy
or not? Where to go to have
the baby? To keep the baby or
not?) will be given by the pas
tor and by the social worker
who no doubt will come into
the picture eventually. But right
now as their girl makes her
first avowal, haltingly or with
pretended bravado — right now
is the time for parental love to
rise to its grandest heights. And
may God forgive any of the rest
of us who, forgetting our own
sins, should dare to condemn.
©lj? Bulletin
416 8TH ST., AUGUSTA, GA.
Published fortnightly by the Catholic Laymen’s Association of
Georgia, Inc., with the Approbation of the Most Reverend Arch
bishop-Bishop of Savannah, the Most Reverend Bishop of Atlanta,
and the Right Reverend Abbot Ordinary of Belmont.
Entered as second class matter at the Post Office, Monroe, Georgia,
and accepted for mailing at special rate of postage provided by
paragraph (e) of section 34.40, Postal Laws and Regulations.
REV. FRANCIS J. DONOHUE REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN
Editor Savannah Edition Editor Atlanta Edition
JOHN MARKWALTER
Managing Editor
Vol. 38 Saturday, May 17, 1958 No. 25
ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1957-1958
GEORGE GINGELL, Columbus - - President
E. M. HEAGARTY, Waycross Honorary Vice-President
MRS. DAN HARRIS, Macon . _ — . - Vice-President
TOM GRIFFIN, Atlanta - Vice-President
NICK CAMERIO, Macon - Secretary
JOHN T. BUCKLEY, Augusta Treasurer
ALVIN M. McAULIFFE, Augusta Auditor
JOHN MARKWALTER, Augusta Executive Secretary
MISS CECILE FERRY, Augusta Financial Secretary