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PAGE 4—THE BULLETIN, March 21, 1959 JOSEPH BREIG PILGRIM OF THE NIGHT I wonder whether we will ever realize that God made our planet to be the home of the family of man, and that every last one of us is entitled to the help of the others in making a success!' u 1 life. You can call this a simpli fication if you please, and no doubt it is; but statements of basic prin ciple are simj go to the root of a question, and leave the flowering and leafing for future development. The Founding Fathers simpli fied when they wrote in the Declaration o f Independence that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Crea tor with certain inalienable rights. Such packing-together o f great theological and political truth was sheer genius; and out of it have grown not only the American nation, but move ments for independence and hu man rights which go on sweep ing the world like huge winds. NOW WE ARE LIVING in the Century of the Exodus; or per haps we should say the Decade of the Exodus. In the years since the end of World War II, 40 million human being have left everything to flee from despot ism. To this day, despite mine fields, guards with automatic rifles, floodlighted frontiers, masses of barbed wire, and con stant police surveillance, the iron curtain leaks thousands into the free world every month. We are faced, therefore, with the question of the right of hu man beings to migrate. Thus we are confronted with the chal lenge to measure up to the fam- iliness of all mankind. No one is more keenly con scious of this gigantic reality, with which the minds and con sciences of all of us must grap ple, than the bishops of Austra lia, into which pour hundreds of thousands of 20th century set tlers. THE AUSTRALIAN bishops, therefore, after much study, is sued-a joint statement that the right to migrate is “a natural heritage of man” which must be “recognized, protected and pro- 1 moted by the state and the com munity of nations.” -Is this revolutionary? It is revolutionary only in the sense that every great trenchant basic truth is revolutionary—demand ing, as it does, that humanity rise to its stature as a family of children of God. “Pilgrims of the Night” was the touching phrase with which the Australian bishops described the millions who are hewing out —or waiting their opportunity to hew out—new lives in free dom from tyranny. After setting forth the funda mental truth that man has a right, as a heritage from the na ture God gave him, to look to now frontiers and horizons, the bishops wisely emphasized cer tain qualifying conditions. HUMAN RIGHTS, they noted, are not absolute, but exist in re lation to such factors as the nat ural moral law and the common good. The rights of the individ ual are modified, even as they are .protected, by such realities. Nations, and of course the world community (said the bish ops) may justly control migra tion, within reason, in order to safeguard public order, eco nomic welfare and security. Within such boundaries, how ever, the nations and the com munity of nations have an in sistent duty to open up decent futures for those who choose freedom in preference to grovel ling under godless dictatorships. Rightly, the bishops praised Australian authorities for efforts already expended in behalf of hundreds Of thousands who have found homes “Down Under,” and who will certainly make a much greater Australia in fu ture. THE BISHOPS also voiced their appreciation of the hercu lean work done by American Catholics through U. S. Catholic Relief Services, the accomplish ments of which are multiplied 'with' the help of surplus food and clothing given by the U. S. government. Nevertheless, the bishops faced the fact that more must be done for the “Pilgrims of the Night” who flow out of the Empire of Satan—as the Ger mans call the area under com munist enslavement. The bishops asked the Aus tralian government to admit more of these pilgrims. Surely, by inference, they also address ed the appeal to other nations. This is one of the great chal lenges of our time. Theology For The Layman There, then, stands man. His soul, because it is a soul, ani mates his body, as the soul of a lower animal animates its; but because man’s soul is a spirit, it has the faculties of intellect and will by which it knows and loves as the animal’s can not. To man’s intellect, ob jects are pres ent not only as those indi vidual objects seen, just as what they are: it can abstract their essence, analyse, generalise, build up all the great structures of thought, come to the know ledge of spirit and of the Infi nite spirit, grow in the domina tion of the material universe. We are proud of our dog when he brings in the morning paper; pleased with a chimpanzee which has been trained to smoke or drink from a cup; but animal knowledge is only a faint parody of human. And so, with all its pathos is animal love. This superiority of the spirit ual soul spreads downward — to the border region between soul and body, to imagination and sense memory and the emo tions, in none of which has the animal more than hints and sug gestions of the human. It spreads to the body itself. We have not space here to develop the final point in the relation of soul and body as the philosopher would: but at least remember that they are not two separate things, one of which animates the other; they are combined in one being, man himself. By its substantial union with a spiritual soul, man’s body is — shall we say spiritualized? — not mere matters anyway, but ennobled. If, by some im possible chance, one of the lower animals were given a human body, he would not know what to do with it. But even when we have seen man as a union of spirit and matter, we have not seen him whole and entire. Two other truths about him must be seen, or we see him wrong. The first is that man is essen- (Continued on Page 5) Jottings. By BARBARA C. JENCKS Question Box David Q. Liplak Q. While dining oul with friends last Saturday in a res taurant I generally frequent, the waiter embarrassed me by saying that I should know bet ter than to order meat on a. Saturday during Lent. He claim ed that in his native country. Catholics always abstain from meat on the Wednesdays and Saturdays of Lent. Is there such a rule? A. One full meal, at which meat may be taken, is permitted under the Lenten Feast, as now promulgated in this country. With the exception of Ash Wed nesday (which is like a Friday insofar as meat is concerned), the Wednesdays and Saturdays of Lent are not days of complete abstinence from meat. Individu als who attempt to force their own interpreations of the fast on others should ordinarily be corrected. Q. Whai is ihe rule about the name a child should receive in baptism? A. The name given a child in baptism should be taken from some person who by reason of his or her sanctity, occupies a place in the catalogue of the saints. The reason for choosing a saint’s name is that the child might grow to emulate the vir tues of the saint, who in turn, is sure to watch over his name sake and pray to God for him. “Wherefore,” cautions the Catechism of the Council of Trent /‘those are to be reproved who search for the names of heathens, especially of those who were the greatest monsters of iniquity, to bestow upon their children. By such conduct they practically prove how little they regard Christian piety when they so fondly cherish the mem ory of impious men, as to wish to have their profane names continually echo in the ears of (Continued on Page 5) • ALL DAY today, I have been reading the Journals of Thomas Merton. Here is the kind of writing I like best. Mer ton has a lot to say to me. I bump into myself many times on the pages of his journal. He wrote these diaries twenty years ago. Don’t/let the spiritual treat ise he has been writing since “Seven Storey Mountain” scare you away from the journal. Would that I could reach his level of spirituality today, how ever. Anyhow there is much in the journal that appeals to me as Merton was convert, college teacher a n d searching always for the vocation God willed for him. And so I feel an affinity with Merton. It was just the right kind of afternoon for that personal, easy type reading. It was a Spring-like Sunday. The campus had a Sunday air of awe over it. I went to my room, put Beethoven’s symphony on the phonograph, sprawled out and continued reading Merton: Merton in Cuba, Merton at St. Bonaventure and Merton at Gethsemani. I w i s h I had a whole page in which to quote some of "the lines and experi ences that appealed most. I rec ommend it in part and in whole for Lenten reading, especially his journal of Holy Week at Gethsemani. It is strange reading Merton in retrospect. It is like cheating and reading the end of a story and then going back to the first page. • WHEN HE reaches Geth semani, he writes in his journal: “I should tear out all the other pages of this book, and all the other pages of anything else I have written and begin here. This is -the center of America,” Later on when I finished my day at solemn benediction in the big Church in the heart of the campus, I remembered oth er things in Merton. It was a good day . . . music, Merton, benediction with a choir of no vices and later a good talk about all this with a friend. Yet the theme of humility kept coming back to me. Merton once wrote that he let much of his life and his thoughts be made public be cause he was “beyond humili ty.” Humility has always been a bitter-sounding thing to me. Humility meant embarassment and the pain of shame. Merton wrote during that Holy Week that when we know ourselves even a little, we necessarily be come humble. As he left the re treat on Holy Saturday he writes: “Lent is over. I am tir ed. Tomorrow I go for no good reason to New York. I wonder if I have learned to pray for humility.” I know what humil ity is for I am aware every morning as I go to my knees be fore Mass how miserable and weak I am, how dependent I am on God and the wonder of His mercy. I have no right to preach to anyone and I am aware with every breath I take and every word I write of my nothingness without God and yet humility is a rough word in my vocabulary. Sometime ago, a nun-friend sent me the Litany of Humility. I could not come to say the words of it meaning fully: “That others may be more loved than I . . .” etc. It is tuck ed away in a prayerbook. I do not read it but I know it is there and I remember it all too many times for comfort. • THE IMITATION OF CHRIST would ask us to flee honor and praise and to wel come humiliations. This is a great problem for the worldly. The Imitation also says that you must not consider that you have made any progress until you look upon yourself as inferior to others. Humility then is not (Continued on Page 5) By Brian Cronin 1. Which month of the year is observed as the Month of the Passion?: (a) February? ib) April? (c) May? (d) Septem ber? 2. In appointing a bishop, the Pope issues a leaden-sealed document called the: (a) Papal encyclical? (b) Papal Bull? (c) Motu Proprio? (d) Ajostolic Brief? 3. “The Venerable Bede” was the name of a: (a) Blessed Rosary? (b) Praper? (c) A renowned Pope? (d) A Bene dictine scholar? 4. Six years after she had witnessed the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes, Bernalette: (a) Died? (b) Entered a religious community? (c) Was canonized? (d) Married? 5. Who was the apostle martyred on an x-shaped cross named after him?: (a) Andrew? (b) Jude? (c) Paul? (d) Simon? 6. One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic are 4 marks associated with: (a) The 4 Cardinal Virtues (b) The True Church? (c) The Gifts of the Holy Ghost? 7. To shelter the homeless, to visit the sick, and to bury the dead . . . these are some of the: (a) Corporal Works of Mercy? (b) Cardinal Virtues? (c) Eight Beatitudes? (d) Gifts of the Holy Ghost? 8. Who is known as the apostle of the Negroes? (a) Blessed Martin de Porres? (b) St. John the Baptist? (c) Fr. Jacques Marquette? (d) St. Peter Claver? Give yourself 10 marks for each correct answer below. Rating: 80-Excellent; 70-Very Good; 60-Good; 50-Fair. Answers: 1 (a); 2 (b); 3 (d); 4 (b); 5 (a); 6 (b); 7 (a); 8 (d) New Tax Burden Pending THE BACKDROP SHARING OUR TREASURE Good Exampie Wins Atheistic Scholar By REV. JOHN A. O'BRIEN, Ph. D. (University of Notre Dame)' "" "" Do you want to win a con vert? Then live a clean, upright, Christlike life, and you will be a walking testimonial to the beauty, truth and sanctifying power of the Catholic Faith. Action speaks louder than words, and good example is more con vincing than dialectics. This truth is illus- 1 trated in the conversion of Robert L. Brannan, until re cently on the English faculty of Cornell University and now at the University of Notre Dame. “I was reared a devout Meth odist in Fort Worth, Texas,” re lated Mr. Brannan, “and receiv ed a beautiful copy of the Bible as a prize for regular attendance at Sunday School. When I went to Texas University, I became active in the work of the Wes ley Foundation. At our board ing house was an atheistic stu dent, whom I tried to convert. “We had long bull sessions, but instead of converting him, he made an atheist out of me. My religion was founded on emotion so I could not present any logical grounds for my Methodist beliefs. I floundered around in the unhappy state of atheism for several years. “After taking my M.A. de gree, I fell in love with Lucille Mann, a devout Catholic. I took a few pre-marriage instructions and we were married at St. Austin’s Rectory in Austin. Though Lucille was a daily com municant who loved her relig ion, I was such a confirmed atheist that I tried to knock the props from under her. “While my assaults on her re ligion did not destroy her faith, they did make her miserably unhappy and I began to fear for the stability of our marriage. So I went to St. Peter’s Rectory in Alamo Heights, and asked Fa ther Guido Nurenberger who answered the doorbell to call at our home and talk to my wife. “Father’s visits were like spring sunshine. Gracious, kind and considerate. Father told us of his mission work in Africa. It was my first close-up of a Catholic priest and it dispelled my idea that a priest was either a scheming hypocrite or a stu pid zealot. Here was a man so close to God that he radiated goodness and compelled my ad miration. “My anti - Catholicism was toned down and I let up on my life. When I went to Cornell, I was thrown in close contact with A1 Overhauser, a physicist and a convert from Methodism. I started baiting A1 about his religion, but he was able to give sound logical reasons for every article of the Catholic Faith. He too was a daily communicant. “Then I became an assistant to Professor George H. Healey who also turned out to be a de vout Catholic convert. Radiating charity and goodness, he treated graduate assistants as persons rather than as things. Like Al, he too was brilliant and humble. “Two graduate assistants with whom I was closely associated were Dan O’Dell and Dick Loomis. Both were exemplary Catholics and daily communi cants, who along with Al Over hauser started me on a system atic study of Catholicism. I read The Belief of Catholics, The Faith of Millions, The Road to Damascus and a dozen other books on the Faith. “No longer was there a sha dow of doubt about the Catho lic religion being the religion of Christ. Reenforcing the creden tials of the Church was the shining example of Lucille and my Catholic colleagues. I called on Father Langworthy at St. Thomas Aquinas student chapel and sought admittance. “Upon discovering how tho roughly I had studied the Cath olic religion, he baptized me that very evening with Al Over hauser as my godfather. How can I ever thank God for guid ing me into His Church? I’ll try twice as hard to plant the Faith as I once did to uproot it.” Every holder of a life in surance policy in the United States will be hit with an in crease tax burden, if a bill which already has been passed by the House is approved by the Senate and the Presi dent. Yet, the bill has gone vir- t u a 11 y un noticed except by officials of the insurance c o m p a n ies. They are fighting what appears to be a losing battle to block the bill which would increase the tax bill of the life insurance industry by 70 per cent, from $319,000,000 a year to an esti mated $545,000,000. DISCRIMINATORY MEASURE In the long run, of course the new tax bite will come out of the pockets of the 109,000,000 persons holding $458,000,000 worth of life insurance. The probability is that most of the companies will cut down on policy dividends or refunds, thus increasing the cost of life in surance to the typical policy holder. Ordinarily Congress would be reluctant to increase a tax that would affect the life savings of such a large percentage of the voting population. But the law makers see little risk in in creasing the tax on the ’’rich” insurance companies, since the average policy holder does not By JOHN C. O’BRIEN seem to realize that he is the one who is really being hit. The mutual companies, which would pay 75 percent of the ad ditional tax, have been trying strenuously to arouse their policy holders, but as yet Con gress has received few letters of protest from the holders of life insurance. Spokesman for the mutual companies have been trying to stress the point that thy have no profits in the sense that a stock corporation, like the American Telephone and Tele graph Company, has. Whatever is earned by a mutual insurance company, after the cost of doing business is met, goes back to the policy holders in the form of dividends or refunds, which have the effect of lowering the cost of insurance. The bill to increase the taxes of life insurance companies has been branded by spokesmen for the mutual companies as a “dis criminatory measure carrying the worst possible form of hid den tax against the savings of millions of small mutual com pany policy-holders.” Even at the present rate of taxation, the mutual companies maintain, income from life in surance already is taxed more heavily than income from any other form of thrift and is three times as high as the average for 19 other forms of savings. The new tax, it has been pointed out, not only ignores the heavy state taxes already levied Father Wharton’s If View from the IfeHorv It’s bad enough that the five- cent-cigar and horse-and-buggy have passed into history. Now the U. S. Chamber of Com merce announces it will no longer publish its list of special days, weeks, and months. What with every business and occu pation wanting some special commemoration, they say, the thing got out of hand and there were no ordinary days left. In this charming booklet there was listed National Canned Hamburger Month (May) to “dramatize America’s greatest THE STORY LADY Maureen Wenk Hanigan FLUFFY'S COLD Fluffy was a cuddly little white kitten. She lived in a small neat cottage with a little old lady who loved her more than anything else in the world. One morning, Fluffy woke up later than usual. Something seemed to be quite wrong. Her little head had the strangest feeling, and her sparkling blue eyes didn’t seem to blink back at the sunshine in just the right way. Fluffy was very worried. She could not even smell the milk in her own saucer. Then, suddenly, before she could even stand up to see what the trouble was, she sneezed; “Mee-choo, Mee-choo!” went the kitten. “Oh,” she said, when she had quite finished, “Now I know what the trouble is — I’ve got a cold.” The kind little lady heard Fluffy sneeze, and she picked up the kitten and patted her gently. “Poor little Fluffy,” she whis pered, “It isn’t much fun to have a cold is it? I’ll fix you some nice Cambric tea and then if you take a little nap that will chase your cold away.” So she fixed the tea at once and set it down before Fluffy, but the little kitty would have none of it. She just didn’t like medicine! Fluffy put her kitten nose high in the air and walked right out the door into the barn yard and she took her little cold right along with her. OLD MR. COCK Fluffy hadn’t walked far be fore she met old Mr. Cock, the rooster. “Cock-a-doodle-do, good morning to you,” crowed proud Mr. Cock. The kitten tried to meow an answer as a polite kitten should, but her cold was so bad, that all she could say was “eow-eow-eow —She couldn’t believe it herself .Why she sounded just like old Mrs. Hoot Owl. “Cock-a-doodle-do, what are you trying to do? I know you!” You see, Mr. Cock thought Fluffy was trying to fool him and he didn’t like any one to play tricks on him. Fluffy tried to explain, but her cold grew worse and worse, and she sounded more and more like Mrs. Hoot Owl. Now Mrs. Hoot Owl wasn’t a very friendly neighbor, and when she heard someone talk ing like her she flew right down from the high Oak tree and she called. “WHOoo are YOUuu?” She sounded very angry. No matter how hard Fluffy tried to explain she just could n’t sound any differently. Mrs. Owl grew more angry. She had no sympathy at all for a kitten with a cold. “I’ll teach youuu,” screamed Mrs. Owl and started to peck Fluffy with her sharp bill. “Don’t youu try to be an Owl tooo.” POOR LITTLE FLUFFY Mrs. Owl just didn’t under stand, and poor little Fluffy just couldn’t explain. There was just one thing for the kitten to do, and she ran as fast as she could back into the sunny kitchen and right straight over to her saucer of Cambric tea. She just had to get rid of her cold, no matter how badly she thought the med icine tasted. She put her tiny red tongue deep into the saucer and she lapped and lapped un til every bit was gone. Then she went straight to her pillow and took a nap. “My goodness, Fluffy,” said the little old lady, “ I wonder what made you change your mind about taking your medi cine?” Of course she never found out, because she couldn’t understand kitten language. But one thing she did notice was that Fluffy never, never turned up her nose again when she was told to take some medicine. She always lap ped it right down as a good kitten should and she always took her rest and she always felt much better right away. against life insurance income but flaunts tax principles by starting from a preconceived premise that the government ought to collect a half-million dollars in revenue from life in surance. POLICY HOLDER PAYS The proposed new.tax would be levied not only on the in come of the insurance com panies from investments but also on premiums paid by policy holders. Such premiums, the in surance companies point out, are not income but savings of policy holders and, therefore not properly subject to tax. What Congress really is aim ing at are the vast number of new stock insurance companies that have come into existence in the last few years. The num ber of such companies has al most doubled since 1951. While some of these are genuine “small businesses” seek ing a share of the expanding and profitable life insurance market, others are known as “tax shelters” set up by men of great wealth for the sole purpose of capitalizing on a law that levied a tax of no more than 15 per cent on a life in surance company’s net income from investments. But in the attempt to strike at this tax dodge, the lawmakers are proposing to levy a new tax burden at the same'time on mil lions of Americans whose majors form of savings is life insurance in mutual life, insurance com panies. “alert the public to the ‘true culinary institution” and also to hamburger’.” There was Nation al Laugh Week, National Long Underwear Week, Old Maids’ Day, Mother-in-Law Day, Pop corn Week, Poetry Day, Save-a- Wife Week, and National Tax Freedom Holiday. Even an Ex pectant Fathers’ Day designed to “honor those who expect to become fathers during the cur rent year.” That they are not publishing this book now is distressing news because, if you played it right, you could have been cele brating something all the time. No more looking around for an excuse to celebrate. Just look in the book, find out that it was N a t i o n al Snap-Your-Bubble- Gum Week, and have a real fling. However, book or no book, commemorating special days is very much a part of human na ture. It has been so ever since Adam declared National Apple Month and brought on all our troubles. But all the commmem- orations probably have their or igin in the fact that God Him self announced the first and most special day: the observance of the Sabbath. Anyone only slightly familiar with the Bible realizes how im portant to the Jews was the Sabbath. It meant a lot because the Lord Himself sanctioned, or rather ordered, the special day. The third commandment of the Old Law said: “Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day.” It was a precept to set aside one day of the week to retire from other activities and to worship God. Saturday was the day rec ognized by the Jews, since they wanted to commemorate God’s resting on the seventh day after His completion of the material universe. Then, when the Church came into existence, Sunday gradual ly replaced Saturday as the day of worship and rest. This was not surprising because, as St. Paul stresses at length in his Epistles, Christians were not bound by the restrictions of the Old Law. Bible - and - only - the-Bible Christians object that the New Testament does not specifically announce a change of the Sab bath from Saturday to Sunday. That’s true. But we have abund ant evidence that the earliest Christians did in fact observe Sunday as the special day. St. Paul called the first day of the week “The Lord’s Day.” The Acts of the Apostles relate that the disciples came together for worship on the first day of the week. From the beginning, our holy day has been Sunday, the first day of the week. In case you wonder why we’re writing about all this — there’s a movement afoot by some Protestant sects to switch the Sabbath back to Saturday. This is nothing new, since it has gone on for a few hunderd years. We wouldn’t mind all this lob bying for a switch, of course, if there were not so much hard feeling about it. The question is asked: “Why was the Sabbath changed in the first place?” And the Catholic Church is accused of dealing from the bottom in bringing about the change. It should be understood by all that Sabbath does not mean Sat urday at all. The Hebrew word signifies the “day of rest.” God’s commandment, therefore, points out only our obligation to ob serve a day of rest, whatever day that might be. Sure, the Bible also tells us: “The. seventh day is the Sab bath of the Lord thy God.” But who is to say what is the sev enth day of the week? It’s all in (Continued on Page 5) t HuUditt 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. Subscription price $3.00 per year. Second class mail privileges authorized at Monroe, Georgia. Send notice of change of address to P. O. Box 320, Monroe, Georgia. REV. FRANCIS J. DONOHUE REV. R, DONALD KIERNAN Editor Savannah Edition Editor Atlanta Edition JOHN MARK WALTER Managing Editor Vol. 39 Saturday, March 21, 1959 No. 21 ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1958-1959. GEORGE GINGELL, Columbus 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