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PAGE 4—i‘Hi£ BULLETIN, June ii 1959 JOSEPH BREIG OUR HUGE LITTLE NATION Herewith I add Archbishop Owen McCann of Cape Town, South Africa, to my list of visi tors from other countries who have somehow been able to see or to sense the real America. The real America can not be glimps ed in the sky scrapers of New York, in the Golden Gate Bridge of California, in the steel plants of Pittsburg, or in the endless streams of autos criss crossing the nation. America’s stupendous materi al power is the consequence of the God-given riches of the earth, of the huge energy and industriousness of the people, and of the climate of freedom which has encouraged initiative and application to the job. It is the result also of one nation indivisible, of the ab sence of national borders and trade barriers, of a profound comradeship that makes Ameri cans marvellously cooperative, and of the education of our youth. UNDERLYING all these fac tors is America’s good humor— America’s quiet and undermon- strative happiness—which grows out of our national respect for human rights, and our national habit of opening doors for enter prise and inventiveness. Americans are not sullen be cause Americans are not sup pressed, and are no looked down upon. This is not perfectly and universally so, but it is general ly so, and even for the least of us there is hope and oppor tunity. But there is an even deeper America—an America that no one can discover by counting our wealth, or touring our cities, or inspecting our gigantic in dustries, or even by observing our neople as they pass. THE CENTRAL SECRET of America’s greatness is the hu mility of Americans. And Amer ican humility and equality—sad ered except by a humble person who will go among Americans at their work, at play, and at home. There are jokes about this, and they express a truth. “Be polite to the elevator operator; he may be your next boss,” is one of them. The fact that is indispensable for understanding America is this: it is nearly impossible for an American to feel superior to anybody. In youth, perhaps, some of us may begin our workaday lives looking down on some others of us. But America has a perfect genius for relieving a man of that kind of attitude. IN SHORT ORDER, even the most conceited of us learns that nothing really impresses Ameri cans, not for long, except accom plishments: that the janitor may be a more intelligent person than the chairman of the board: and that nothing is as unpopular in America as pride. We are so free that wisdom and ability are at liberty to ex press themselves and to earn the respect they deserve. No matter in what lowly place they may be hidden. And we do really accept in the blood and the bones of us the fact that all men are created equal and are entitled to equal treatment—simply because they are human beings. We are courteous to the boss: but we are no cringing. We will not have it so, and neither will he. He knows that we are his equals: and we know that he is ours. We step back to let him go first through a doorway—but he steps even farther back for us. He is an American. THERE ARE POCKETS of unhappy violation of this Amer ican humility and equally—sad legacies that have come to bur den us from the past. We have not yet achieved, for instance, the full opportunity we wish for our Negro people. It is possible for an American Negro to feel sullen. But the vital fact is that we do not boast of this fact; we hate it. We are caught in a situation that we de test, and from which we are struggling to free ourselves. Archbishop McCann, in a visit to America, perceived our di lemma and our good will. Upon his return to South Africa, where suppression of Negroes, Indians and other “colored” peo ple is government policy, he ad dressed the Cape Town Institute of Citizenship. He told his people that Amer ica is trying to solve its race problem through unity, not through separateness, whereas South Africa is doing the oppo site. I quote him: "The U. S. is by no means per fect, nor is everything there right; but the nation does show us certain lessons that we can well learn. Its Constitution and the character of its people gen erally seek justice and charity." Archbishop McCann is right. Well do I know the fearful com plexities of the racial problems both of our South and our North—and for that matter of our West. But I know America, too; and America will find the solutions. ' m ' f ’ Theology For The Layman (By F. J. Sheed) FALL OF ANGELS All spiritual beings, angels and men alike, are created by God with the Beatific Vision, the direct vision of Himself, as destiny. All of them need Super natural Life to give them the powers of see ing and loving that their des tiny call for. And for all there is an in- tervel — for growth or testing be- tween the granting of Supernatural Life and its flowering in the Beatific Vision. Once God is seen as He is, with the intellect in the im mediate contact of sight and the will in the immediate contact of love, it is impossible for the soul to see the choice of self against God as anything but repulsive, and in the profoundest sense meaningless; in the immediate contact, the self knows beati tude, total well-being, and no element in the self could even conceive of wishing to lose it. But until then, the will, even supernaturally alive, may still choose self. So it was with the angels. God created them with their natural life, pure spirits knowing and loving; and with Supernatural Life. And some of them chose self, self as against God. We know that one was their leader; him we call the Devil, the rest demons; he is, the named one— Lucifer (though he is never call ed so in Scripture), Satan which means Enemy, Apollyon which means Exterminator, Beelzebub the Lord of Flies. The rest are an evil, anonymous multitude. The detail of their sin we do not know. In some form it was, like all sin, a refusal of love, a turning of the will from God, who is supreme goodness, to wards self. Theologians are at one in thinking it was a sin of Pride; all sins involve following one’s own desire in place of God’s will, but Pride goes all the way, putting oneself in God’s place, making oneself the centre of the universe, It is total folly of course, and the angels knew it. But the awareness of folly does not keep us from sin ning and did not keep them. The world well lost for love— that can be the cry of self-love too. One of the secondary theo- (Continued on Page 5) How Do You Rate on Facts of Faith SIS mrnmmm By Brian Cronin 1. To what was Christ referring when He said: “Do this in remembrance of Me”?: (a) The Lord’s Prayer? (b) The Mass? (c) The Stations of the Cross? (d) Fasting? 2. Which one of the Four Evangelists was a physician?: (a) Matthew? (b) Mark? (c) Luke? (d) John? 3. Who conveyed to Mary the message that her Son be called Jesus?: (a) Zachary? (b) St. John the Baptist? (c) Mary and Joseph? (d) The Angel Gabriel? 4. Pontius Pilate offered the Jews the choice of freeing either Jesus or a criminal prisoner named: (a) Dismas? (b) Ba- rabbas? (c) Gestas? (d) Caiphas? 5. The Mass of the Presanctified, in which there is no con secration, is celebrated on: (a) All Souls’ Day? (b) Holy Thursday? (c) Ash Wednesday? (d) Good. Friday? 6. Where is the North American College? In: (a) The Vatican? (b) Boston? (c) Montreal? (d) Washington? 7. Who was the Pope who devised our calendar?: (a) Pope Pius X? (b) Pope Gregory XIII? (c) St. Peter? (d) Pope Adrian IV? 8. What feast is celebrated on December 8th each year?: (a) The Assumption of Our Lady? (b) The Annunciation? (c) The Immaculate Conception? (d) The ! Epiphany? Choosing A College - - Home Or Far Away? THE BACKDROP By JOHN C. O’BRIEN Give yourself 10 marks for each correct answer below. Rating: 80-Excellent; 70-Very Good; 60-Good; 50-Fair. Answers: 1 (b); 2 (c); 3 (d); 4 (b); 5 (d); 6 (a); 7 (b); 8 (c), SHARING OUR TREASURE A Jew Becomes A Catholic Priest By REV. JOHN A. O'BRIEN, Ph. D. — (Universiiy of Notre Dame) Question Box Jottings... (By BARBARA C. JENCKS) Py David Q. Lintak Q. No >~>a*ter how many times I'm to'd P's a’l rinht to do so, I simDiy don't feed rioht about coin? to Communion with un confessed venial sins on my con science. So that if T commit sons slight fault, svr-h as be coming unnecessarily anrry wi»h mv familv, I usually put off ctoinn to Communion until P>e next time I can cret to con fession. Am I too scrupulous about this? How can you solve such a dilemma? A. The only spiritual reemi- s’tes for the reception of the Blessed Eucharist are a right in tention and the state of grace. A right intention means being motivated bv the desire to please God and the will to be come more united to Him by charity. The state of grace means absence of mortal sin. Hence it is clearly not wrong to approach the altar rail with unconfessed venial sins on one’s soul. Such has alwavs been the teaching of the Church. Centu ries ago. St. Augustine wrote: “If you have sins on your con science, as long as they are not mortal sins, do not hesitate to come . . .” And in our own time we have had several unmistak able admonitions such as this one from the Holy See: “Although it is most exnedi- ent that those who communi cate freciuently or daily should be free from venial sins, espe cially from such as are fully deliberate, and from any affec tion thereto, nevertheless it is sufficient that thev be free from mortal sins, with the purpose of never sinning in the future; and if they have this sincere pur pose, it is impossible but that daily communicants should L (Continued on Page S) • ARE YOU secretly dazzled bv visiting royalty? I heard a European lecturer once state how surprised he was to find that the average, down-to-earth, democratic American is terribly impressed and agog before the roval purple. He cites the so ciety pages which come alive with sparkle at the drop of a titled name. He cited how Americans like to wear crests on their jackets and psycholo gists claim that royalty is a selling point with brands—a coat of arms, a distinctive label is sure to win customers. Per haps we do like the pageantry and pomn of the roval cere monial and look with awe at the visiting prince or duke but so what! I would sav that it is a carryover from our childhood and the fairv stories of the oueens and princes and Cm- derellas. We never have really grown up to the point where we will admit they are make- believe. .au +his came to mind recently. Princess Ileana of Ro mania caused craite a stir among a thousand American college student-,- pq gt Marv’s College in Ind'Vna, when she arrived to sneak on “The Spiritual Against Communism ” She wore no tiara or rpd sarii or royal gown and train. She wore a gray flannel suit and low black shoes. Yet there was something regal about her even without the trappings and fanfare. * * * • SEATED next to her at dinner before her lecture, we talked of Boston, where she now lives, T. S. Eliot, and the Ecumenical Congress. Princess Ileana is a devout member of the Greek Orthodox Church. Her children are all Roman Catholics. Her interest in the forthcoming Congress^ was es pecially gratifying to us. I was more impressed with her ap parent deep faith and dedication to the fighting of Communism than the fact that she was sister of the Late Kinr Carlos of Ro mania and the fact that she is a cousin to both Queen Eliza beth and Prince Philip. This hardly occurred to me until I heard her introduced. At the dinner, we were all served steaks and Princess Ileana left hers untouched on the plate. It turned out that it was Holy Week for her and she was fast ing, She marked the Russian Easter which occurred this year on Mav 3. She told us many of the differences and similiarities between her rite and the Roman Church. This launched us into the Ecumenical discussion. As a devout member of her rite more than a roval personage she awed me at that dinner. I refuse to be baited by the debaters who pull out the democratic placards and banners and all the organ stons to sav we are being hyp notized bv title and tiara. Princess Ileana was auite charming as a member of rovaltv—a lecturer—r>r a Boston housewife as she calls herself now. * * » • HER L-TPE, authentic his tory, would make the fairv tales seem pale and tame. He demo cratic manifestations in her country and here in America would be enough to please even the most bitter royal critics. She founded a hospital and has done social work and nursing—to the By Rev. John A. O'Brien, Ph. D. (Universiiy of Noire Dame) Among the most potent means of spreading Christ’s teachings and winning converts is the printed word. Unlike the spoken word, it abides and carries its message to successive genera tions. Get a Catholic news paper, maga zine, pamph let or book into the hands of a truith seeker and it may start him on the path that leads to the baptismal font in a Catholic church. This is illustrated by the ex perience of the noted convert and scholar, Rev. John M. Oesterreicher, Director of the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies, Seton Hall University, 31 clinton Street, Newark, N. J. Seated in my study, Father be gan: “I was born of Jewish par ents in Austria and had the typical Jewish conception of Chrisitanity. When I was about 17, I walked into a bookstore and, browsing among the books, ran across a little volume, Say ings of Jesus, a compilation from the Gospels. I bought it, read it and was captivated by the majesty and gentleness of Christ. “This was my first acquain tance with- the Master, and the irony of it is that it" was made- through a book compiled by a notorious anti-Semite, Huston Stuart Chamberlain, the intel lectual mentor of Adoloh Hitler. I then decided to read the Gos pels in full and the more I read, the more my wonderment, awe and admiration for Jesus grew. “For several vear<; I regarded Christ as the Messias. but still considered Christian dogma as point of de-lousing patients. She smuggled her nrecious diamond and sanhire tiara with its cen ter stone of 125 carats out of Romania in a nightgown. She sold the tiara to sunnort and educate her six children in America. She sneaks of her life in America with nuiet and an- preciative humor. In romnarna life in the Boston suburbs with her pathologist husband to Ro manian courts, savs: “In Ro mania. for examnle. there was a trumpeter who blew a lovely call—a succession of auick gol den notes when anv of us en tered or left, the palace. Here I come auietlv into my own drive, a passing neighbor mav nod pleasantly, mv kev unlocks the door into mv silent hall. In Aus tria. a formal and official letter to me would be addressed: Her Imperial and Roval Highness, the Most Illustrious Arch duchess and Ladv. Here the postman says briskly and cheer fully when I open the door to his ring, “Hapsburgh here?” as she looks over his parcels . . . But there are outward things, and of little importance.” a corruption of the teachings of the Gospel. I might have re mained indefinitely in that con viction had I not chanced upon another book, Cardinal New man’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. That made clear to me that we are not to expect to find the doctrines of Christianity fully developed in the Gospel but often only in their embryonic form. “That cleared up my dif ficulty, as it has for many other truth seekers, and now my ad miration extended not only to Christ but to the religion which He founded. Investigation speedily disclosed that there is but one Christian Church which goes back to Christ and that is the Catholic Church. I could not join a sect that came into being only 15 centuries after ward, as all Protestant denomi nations have. “I wanted the Church founded by Christ, authorized by Him to teach all nations, presided over by Peter and his successors for 19 centuries. All history'showed this to be the Catholic Church. I read Pohl’s three-volumned Christian Dogma and saw how one doctrine dovetails with another like the stones in a great cathedral. “At 20, I was baptized, with Dr. Max Joseph Metzger, found er of the Society of Christ the King and of the Una Sancfa movement , for Christian unity, ..as my godfather,. He was be headed. by the Nazis because of his peace efforts. Deciding to devote my life to Christ and to the spread of His life-giving truths. I was ordained upon the completion of mv theological studies at Vienna University on Julv 17, 1927. “Fleeing frrnn the Nazis. I went first to Paris and in 1940 came to America. Our Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies seeks to promote a deener un derstanding of the relation be tween Judaism and Christianity, showing the latter to be the flowering and fulfillment of the former. “When I became a Christian I didn’t abandon the spiritual treasures of the Old Testament but came into possession of mv full inheritance—the truths of the New Testament revealed by Christ. Our Institute strives to be a bridge leading truth-seek ers to Christ, the Messias promised of old to Isreal.” Father O’Brien trill be nrate- ful to readers who know of anv- one who has iron two or more converts if thev trill stnd the names and addresses of such Per sons to him at Notre Dame Uni versity, Notre Dame, Indiana. (By John C. O'Brien) Thousands of high school sen iors will be making soon, if they have not already made it, a decision as to whether to at tend a college in their home town as day college some distance away as boarders. For some s t u dents, of course, the question of a choice never i arises. Because their parents feel they cannot afford the addi tional cost of boarding a student at college, many students are compelled to . seek their higher education at a college in, or within commuting distance of, their home community. For the students who do have a choice, the question they must consider is, “Which is preferable -—the status of a day student at a close-at-hand college or board er at a college some distance away?” AID TO MATURITY? This is a question to which professional educators have giv en considerable thought. And the conclusion of a panel who participated in a recent discus sion of. the problems of the col lege students was that it is preferable for the student who can afford it to go away to col lege. In the opinion of David Rites- man, Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard Uni versity, “no one should be allowed to to go to college less than 500 miles from home with out good reason.” The objective to transferring from high school to a college in a .student’s home community most frequently mentioned dur ing the panel discussion was that the transition does not pro vide the dramatic “break” from the “high school attitude” that the student needs. As Chancellor Clark Kerr, of the University of California, points out, for students who go to a college close to home, col lege never seems much different from going to high school. At home the student does not have the opportunity that he would have on a distant college campus to develop a sense of responsi bility and advance toward maturity. All of the educators made the point that a student living on campus, being no longer under parental discipline, is required to make decisions of his own re lating to almost every detail of daily life. He must learn to spend money carefully, fulfill his moral obligations to himself and others without prodding from his parents and maintain his scholastic standing free from the critical eye of home mentors. Students in the Eastern part of the United States' are prone to seek admission to the “big name” colleges, which in their opinion or that of their parents have social prestige. REBELLION AGAINST DISCIPLINE Applicants for admission to college, the educators noted, would be spared much heart ache if, instead of trying to get into the over-crowded big name colleges, they would seek out colleges at a considerable dis tance from their homes, which offer first rate instruction and have the facilities to take more students than seek admission. Many parents, it is true, are deterred from permitting their sons and daughters to stray far from mother’s apron strings be cause they mistrust the lack of discipline on many college cam puses. Catholic colleges, of course, maintain a relatively close surveillance of the conduct of students on campus and im pose campus regulations. In many non-Catholic colleges, on the otherhand, campus life is subjected only to a minimum of faculty supervision. That students on campus are prone to rebel against authority was conceded by the educators who have been quoted as favor ing campus life at a college dis tant from the student’s home. There seems to be an unwilling ness, Dr. Killian noted, “to ac cept anything if a faculty or an institution says it ought to be.” But despite this resentment by students ,of any kind of rule or regimentation or even order ly process, most of the educa tors suggested that present day students are more mature and steadier than their fathers were in their college days. Against Shch ! pranks as mass attempts to break up a parade, such as occurred at Yale not long ago, the educators noted, must be set down the fact that students conduct their relations with each other with much more sagacity and maturity than earl ier generations of students. Fattier Wbarlvu’i View from the Rectory Services For Miss Sullivan SAVANNAH, Ga. — Funeral services for Miss Julia Sullivan were held May 26th at St. Michaels Church Savannah Beach, A well-known comedian tells this one about his youngster: “My kid didn’t utter his first words until he was six. All of a sudden one morning he open ed his mouth and said: ‘This cocoa tastes awful.’ We got so excited we ran to tell every body he had finally spoken. Later I asked him: ‘How come it took you six years to speak?’ He said: ‘up to now everything’s been okay!’” That’s what happens when the little ones arrive in the neighborhood of six or seven: reason starts to assert itself and tell them not only what’s right or wrong with themselves —but also what’s right or wrong with the world. Nevertheless, there’s a bright side of the pic ture: conscience starts to func tion. Be thankful it starts to work sometime, too. Mayhem may be in your heart when baby pla cidly tosses a spoonful of oat meal in your face. But you calmly tell yourself, presumab ly, that he doesn’t know any better. You can blame every thing on him when he’s old enough to know right from wrong. Conscience is a wonder ful thing. Of course, someone will al ways come along with an at tempt to deny that we have this little “voice of reason.” I mean the nrofessionals, now. The ones who say there’s no right or wrong excent what peo- nle expect. Even five-year-old Ferdinand, a precocious child studying French in his spare moments, may deny conscience. Staring at the Creature from the Black Lagoon on his plate next Friday, he may announce: “I can have meat. I haven’t reach ed the age of reason yet.” Six or sixty, however, your conscience tells you what you should not do as long as your reason is in good working or der. Not that you should hear little voices constantly. It’s not like your mother-in-law telling you everv dav what’s wrong with our job. Conscience, is as persistent as she is, but not that loud. And there’s no little man inside of vou whispering, “Don’t do that,” Nor does your guard ian angel swoop down from his heavenly perch to deliver an ultimatum. If you have been ac- tuallv hearing voices like that, you have either swallowed your transistor radio or gone off your rocker. Conscience is simply our rea son judging that a particular action here and now is right or wrong. Whether we recog nize and follow it or not, con science is there. Adam and Eve had it; that’s why they took to the woods in shame after they became fruit-samplers. Cain’s conscience was working when he let Abel have it. There was no catechism to let him know it is not nice for brothers to kill each other; he just knew it from his reason. As we said, this is true de spite the critics who claim there’s no such thing as con science. “It’s a device,” they say, “that doesn’t keep you from do ing anything; just keeps you from enjoying it.” Nonsense. If you doubt that you have a con science, you’re merely used to paying no attention to its de mands. Maybe you have no feel ing about it when you push grandma down the steps be cause you don’t like her any way, and you’re used to stealing candy from dogs and kicking little children (or vice-versa). If you thought about it, you’d have a terrific bout with your con science. Although consciences are gen erally reliable, they are not al ways correct. Junior may tell a lie, for example, to save his lit tle brother from punishment. He judges, incorrectly, that his duty to his brother takes precedence over his duty to tell the truth. So he commits no sin because conscience must be followed. A person who thinks all dogs must be shot on sight (how wrong can you get?) must go ahead and fire away. It’s not only okay, it’s a defi nite obligation, to follr/w con science — even if it’» wrong. Wrong, that is, through no fault of our own. Obviously we have to try to form a correct con science — and we can’t think something’s right when God or the Church officially declares it evil. Sometimes your conscience may be doubtful. In this case, you shouldn’t act until you have tried to find out the answer. Otherwise it’s like saying, “This might be a sin, but I’ll do it anyway.” Just for illustration’s sake, suppose you’re not sure whether Catholics may eat fish on Monday. You can’t just go ahead and eat the fish. It’s nec essary to consult an authority. Besides, eating fish when you don’t have to is ridiculous. The whole idea is to develop a tender and delicate conscience, and follow it. It’s an admirable person whose conscience calls the plays as it sees them and makes him avoid even slight wrong. A lax conscience which overlooks many obligations and a scrupulous conscience which magnifies obligations are two extremes that should he avoided like pickles and ice cream. Make no mistake about it: conscience is here to stay. You can beat it down or ignore it, or sav it isn’t there. But, like mo ther-in-law. it will always have the last word. Services For M rs. Hicigintbof-liam AUGUSTA. Ga -—F u n e r a 1 services for Mts/Flla Mae ,Whit tle Hill Higginbotham were held May 23rd at the Sacred Heart Church, Rev. J. E. O’Donohoe, S. J. officiating. Survivors are her husband, W. T. Higginbotham; daughter, Mrs. Marv Elizabeth McCnrkle of Belvedere, S, C : son, J. A. Whittle of Augusta; three grandchidren: three step-daugh ters, Mrs. Louise Burch of Elize- beth City, N. C.. Mrs. J. B. Ash ley of Portsmouth, Va., and Mrs. Robert Carter of Baltimore, Md.: step-son, William Higginbotham of Norfolk, Va. t Ittllrttn 418 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 MARKWALTER Managing Editor Vol. 40 Saturday, June 13, 1959 No. 1 ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1953-1959 GEORGE GINGELLi Columbus President MRS. DAN HARRIS, Macon Vice-President TOM GRIFFIN, Atlanta Vice-President NTCK CAMERIO, Macon Secretary JOHN T. BUCKLEY, Augusta Treasurer ALVIN M. McAULIFFE, Augusta Auditor JOHN MARKWALTER, Augusta Executive Secretary MISS CECILE FERRY, Augusta _ Financial Secretary