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PAGE 4—THE BULLETIN, April 2, 1960 JOSEPH BREIG WHICH WAY The success or the tragic fail ure of the Cuban revolution rests squarely upon the man who led it — Premier Fidel Cas tro. Even bigger things depend .li p on him, also. ' ‘ 1 He can be come known 11 as one of the great men of the Americas ' — or as a dis astrous bung ler, or worse. He must make his choice. He cannot escape responsibility. J “History will absolve me,” Castro said once. History will not absolve him if he wrecks his own revolution —a revolution that sent a thrill of hope through the western hemisphere. NEITHER WILL the Cuban v people absolve him. Nor will those in other lands who love social justice, and labor for a better world for all humanity. Neither, I think, will Latin America forgive Castro if he does not measure up to his ti tanic opportunity. Great and difficult economic -and social reforms are despe rately needed in our sister con tinent to the south. The future of the western world, and indeed of all man kind, will be affected, for weal or for woe, by the attainment or hon-attainment of those objec tives. If Castro leads Cuba into the doldrums, or worse, the needed . reforms may be set back many years. THEY MAY, in fact, be de layed so long as to generate ca tastrophic consequences in the vast regions south of the Rio Grande. The disillusionment of the Cu ban people will be terrible if - the Castro government hands them a stone instead of bread. Every Latin American de fender of a better social order will be put on the defensive. Every reactionary will be en couraged. The standpatters and the greedy seekers of special FOR CUBA? privileges will be able to point to Cuba, and answer would-be reformers with the caustic que ry: "Is THAT what you want?" Castro owes it to his people, and to decent humanity every where, to buckle down to the work of giving Cuba a new deal that will not be a delusion. He has had more than a year now to indulge in showmanship and endless television ha rangues. That sort of thing has grown tiresome. It is high time for some competent and intelligent governing. Doubtless Castro has enjoyed the fun of denouncing the U. S. The Cuban throngs listening to him have liked it, too. ELEMENTARY common sense, however, ought to tell any one that Castro is playing with deadly fire when he cud dles up to Soviet Russia and Red China. Possibly it is difficult for Cas tro and many other Cubans to believe that the U. S. is anxious to be the friend of Cuba and of all other Latin American na tions. But Castor and Cuba won’t find out the truth about Ameri can intentions if they simply as sume that the U. S. is the bad guy of the western hemisphere. The statesmanlike thing would be to stop insulting the U. S. and give cooperation a try. THE MAN Castro put in charge of Cuba’s national bank, Maj. Ernesto (Che) Guevara, seems to have found the U. S. guilty without a trial. He makes speeches alleging that America wants Cuba in “economic slave ry.” The world knows who wants nations enslaved. It isn’t the U. S. It is the Kremlin, with which Cuba has become peril ously friendly under Castro. Castro can be a great figure in the history of the two Ameri cas. Or he can be, in the long run, a tragic hemispheric joke. It’s up to him. I don’t think he’s got a lot of time left in which to make his choice. Theology For The Layman (By F. J. Sheed Column 52 OUR LADY (2) We have considered one re sult of Our Lady’s being the Mother of God—all sons want to give their mother gifts, this son could give without any limit save her power to receive; and what in supreme meas ure He gave was sanctify ing grace. But there is one special ele ment in His power to give that we might easily overlook. Because He was God, He could give His mother gifts not only before He was born of her, but before she was born herself! This is the mean ing of the doctrine of the Im maculate Conception. It is surprising how this phrase has caught the non- Catholic imagination, but more surprising how for the non- Catholic who uses it, it has no trace of its true meaning. Ninety-nine times out of a hun dred it is used as if it meant the Virgin birth of Christ. But it refers not to Christ’s concep tion in Our Lady’s womb, but to her conception in the womb of her own mother. And it means that her Son’s care for her and gifts to her began from the first moment of her existence. For all of us conception comes when God creates a soul and unites it with the bodily ele ment formed in the mother’s womb. But from the very first moment of her soul’s creation, it had, by God’s gift, not natural life only but supernatural life. What this means quite simply is that she whom God chose to be His mother never existed for an instant without sanctifying grace in her soul. (Continued on Page 5) Question Box By David Q. Lipiak G. All the publicity attending Jhe_ execution sentence of Caryl Chessman has been especially revolting to me. For what he did, he certainly deserves to die. Would you please outline the principles governing the morali ty of capital punishment? A. Except for an occasional odd individual (like the person who reportedly telephoned the Wethersfield State Prison before a scheduled execution a few years ago to ask whether the death-chair current would inter fere with his TV reception), no one is totally indifferent about the recourse to capital punish- rnent in a particular instance. "jEertdinly none but the mental ly deranged could experience anything but a natural sense of revulsion in having to give the order for such a sentence. BUT capital punishment is not immoral in itself. To claim that it is wrong would be to manifest ignorance of the laws of morality, which are founded not on public opinion surveys, TV panels, newspaper specula tion or social convention, but on Sacred Scripture the teach ings of the Apostles and theo logical reasoning. NOWHERE in the Bible is capital punishment declared il licit. On the contrary, in the Old Testament it is even legislated for the commission of certain crimes. And in the New Testa ment, St. Paul warns some of the first converts to Christianity that the death penalty unques tionably belongs to the state. THE TEACHINGS of the Apostles, relayed to us through the writings of the Church Fa thers and early ecclesiastical chroniclers, confirm the testi mony of the Bible; i.e., that a criminal may be executed by or der of the state if juridical proof has established the moral cer tainty that he has pertained a serious crime for which the state, in the interest of the common welfare and security, inflicts by law a sentence of death. THEOLOGICAL REASON ING leads to the same conclus ion. The state has the sacred duty to maintain peace and or der and to safeguard the rights of its members. To meet this duty, it must possess all the means necessary — to postulate anything less would be absurd. (Continued on Page 5) SHARING OUR TREASURE Veteran Helps Win Twelve Converts By REV. JOHN A. O'BRIEN. Ph. D. r r r , r r r r r .(University of Have you ever heard of one conversion setting off, like an exploding atom, a chain re action that brought in a goodly number of other converts? It happens not infrequently. Hence it should prompt every Catholic to try to lead at least one per son into the fold, with the hope and prayer that it will bring more in its wake. This is illus trated by the experience of Robert A. Cook of Potsdam, New York. “I was working,” related Rob ert, “for Mr. P. J. Clohosey, and became well acquainted with his family. I was struck by the Catholic Faith of these people and the religious atmosphere which permeated the entire home. On the walls were reli gious pictures of Christ and the saints which kept the members of God’s heavenly family before their eyes. “When I asked questions about their Faith, they didn’t hem or haw, or tell me to see a priest. They answered them with eagerness and joy. When my interest persisted, they in vited me to attend Mass with them at St. Mary’s Church. This I did and I was deeply touched by the peity of the worshippers, absorbed in prayer. This made me eager to know the whole story. “So Mr. Clohosey arranged for my instruction by Father John B. Doonan, S. J., at St. Mary’s. This opened my eyes to the marvelous unity of the Catholic Church, with more than 500,000,000 members in all the countries of the world pro fessing the same Faith, receiv ing the same sacraments and acknowledging the same su preme spiritual head, the Pope. Here surely, I reflected, was the ‘one fold and the one shep herd’ of which Christ spoke. “I was impressed too by the fact that the Catholic Church traces its foundation to Christ Himself, from whoip it received power and authority to teach all nations. I had long wanted not a man-made creed but a God-made one, and I knew that at last I had found it in the holy Catholic, apostolic Faith. The day of my first Holy Communion was one of the happiest in my Notre Dame) , . ., . life. <fj “Eager to share my wonder ful discovery, I started with my own family. The first to follow in my footsteps was my oldest sister Eleanor. When I was serving with 38th infantry di vision, known as the Avengers of Bataan, in New Guinea in 1944, I interested a fellow sol dier, Jim Snyder, in the Faith and soon had him saying the rosary with me. “I explained that we do not adore the Blessed Virgin but vernate and honor her as the Mother of Our Lord, and ask her prayers and intercession. That seemed reasonable to Jim. When his interest persisted, I arranged for his instruction by the chaplain. Jim is now a de vout and enthusiastic Catholic and is rearing a growing Cath olic family. “When I was released from the service, I helped lead my mother, father, a half-sister and a half-brother into our holy Faith. My grandmother at 82 and by grandfather at 85 sub sequently came in also. How great was my joy in seeing all all these become" members of Christ’s Mystical Body and be nourished with His divine life. “God has privileged me to help four other persons enter the Church and to bring back a fallen-away. Wanting to give my whole life to winning souls for Christ, I’ve become a Mis sionary Brother of the Society of the Divine Word.” What a precious thanks offer ing Robert Cook has already made for the gift of faith! 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 persons to him at Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, In diana. The fewer times your person al history repeats itself, the less chance you have of being short changed. Depressions may come and depressions may go, but it never bothers the fellow who feathers his nest -— with cash down. Jottings... (By BARBARA C. JENCKS) The Battle For Older Workers THE BACKDROP THE CROSS: "I cannot escape it.. . nothing can tear us from this gibbet on which we were born, which has grown side by side with our bodies and strengthened itself with the stretching of our limbs. We are hardly conscious of it in our youth but as the body develops and grows the flesh becomes heavy and drags on the nails. What a time it takes for us to realize that we are born crucified." — Fran cois Mauriac. * * * • SUFFERING repels most of us. We flee it. But with Mauriac we cry out: “The cross, I cannot escape it.” It casts its shadow across every path. Yet it is our salvation ... “as long as your miserable little weakness keeps you close to the cross you will make it.” It is there in youth with its stings of the flesh, its limitations, the first bitter dis illusionment. It is there in old age when “the. days are sotlong and the years so short.” It is at the right of us and the left of us, it is in the body and in the soul. There are certain members of society we especially asso ciate with suffering . . . the sick, the imprisoned, the old, the lonely, the bereaved, the maim ed. Yet each of us suffers in our own way. At different periods in our lives, the cross falls harder upon us than at others. We suf fer in our bodies and in' our souls and in our fellowmen fof they are no more perfect than we are. To live is truly to suffer. Yet our attitude toward this suf fering is what makes us. Suffer ing can embitter or enoble. One spiritual writer says that our suffering gives us solidarity with’ suffering mankind and it also is the most pleasing gift we could offer to a Christ who suf fered for us. • RECENTLY I received a letter from a friend who has been bedridden for 10 years. In valids, of course, suffer more than physical pains. They suffer loneliness, despair, frustrations. She wrote of how she spent her days saying: “You ask me about my daily schedule? Well I give each day of my suffering to a soul in need. Monday, I give to the souls for whom I am duty bound to pray, my parents. Tuesday, I offer for the most forsaken soul. Wednesday, I of fer for the soul suffering the most. Thursday, for the soul suf fering the longest; Friday for the soul next to die; Saturday, for the soul most pleasing to the Blessed Mother; and Sunday, the soul most pleasing to the Blessed Trinity. I also offer a day for a missionary whose name was given me. I offer a day for a missionary in Indo nesia, another for one in Japan. I also lie here and say the sta tions of the Cross on a special ly indulgenced crucifix. Each af ternoon, I say two rosaries. I offer up all my loneliness and heartaches to Our Lord in union with His in the garden of Eden and the sufferings I bear in un ion with His on the Cross for me. My loneliness, I offer es pecially in union with His in the tabernacles all over the world where He is alone. I chain my little crosses to His great Cross on Calvary, you see. This is how I spend my day.” • ONE OF THE most moving articles I have read recently was by a prisoner on Alcatraz about his conversion. He wrote: “As a convict, I like to think of myself as a companion of Christ cru cified. He alone gives meaning to my suffering. When the go ing gets rough, I hear Him say: ‘Behold, I have chosen you to suffer with Me as a companion. For you the hill slants more, the cross is of a heavier weight. Loneliness will be with you al ways, but take heart. I walk in its shadow. And when you seem to suffer most, remember that we are truly companions! Thomas Merton says that tribu lation detaches us from the things that are really valueless, because their attraction cannot stand up under light and all sat isfactions that are meaningless appear as such when we are fill ed with tribulation. Therefore, we should be grateful for it. • SUFFERING more than anything else brings us to our knees and'makes us -closer and more at one with Christ as the patient and the convict both so eloquently attest. It is in our sorrows, sickness, pain, heart aches, loneliness that we see with clearest vision. My mo ments of greatest sufferings have been the most important moments of my life. As I cried out at the pain, I soon learned to bear it and know its value. When one wants something more than anything in the world and it is denied him for a time or forever, he learns his greatest lesson when he can say: “Fiat.” If he can learn to live with suffering and use it as both the patient and the con vict have learned, his victory is an eternal victory of far more value than a cure or a parole. Suffering borne goes beyond the confine of a sickroom and cell. Suffering is not held to the sick or the imprisoned, each man has his inheritance and own kind of suffering which is disguised in a hundred ways. The Cross ... I cannot escape it . . . and I do not want to. It is my sal vation! During the seven years or more that he has been Secre tary of Labor, James- P. Mitchell has been waging an up-hill bat tle to break down the prejudice among employers against the hiring of the so-called “old er” worker. Workers past 40 years of age, who have had the misfortune to lose a job, of ten find it next to impossible to find an other requiring their particular skills. As they make the rounds of the personnel departments of industries employing craftsmen and office workers, almost in variably they are told that it is against policy to hire workers in middle life. GOOD WORKERS LOST As a result, many workers at the peak of their usefulness age are compelled to forsake the line of work in which they are most adept and accept any kind of employment that turns up, often at wages below those to which they have been accustomed and upon which their scale of living has been established. Reluctance to take workers in their forties and fifties into re tirement systems is one of the obstacles to the re-hiring of the middle-aged. But the belief also YOUR HOROSCOPE Next to me in the railway car was a newspaper-reading old man with a lighted candle protruding from each ear. I didn’t say anything, but after 15 minutes I couldn’t stand it any longer. “I hate to be so curi ous,” I said, “but could you tell, me why you have those lighted candles in your The old fellow ignored me, so I kept quiet. But curiosity won again after another 15 minutes. So I tapped the man on the knee and said, “I’m terribly sorry to be so curious, but why do you weear those lighted candles in your ears?” The old fellow smiled help lessly and said, “It’s no use talk ing to me — with these lighted candles in my ears I can’t hear a thing.” Ridiculous. I always heard that it’s better to leave the can dles unlighted. It’s still a mystery to me why the old man had the candles in his ears anyway. The only thing I can figure out is that he was born under the sign of Taurus the Bull (April 20 to May 14) and thought he looked like a bull that way. It would be better if he didn’t light the candles. It’s not so ridiculous to figure that the gentleman was taking his horoscope too seriously. Many persons are afraid to make a move without calling Taurus, or Aries, or Cancer, or Aquarius By JOHN C. O’BRIEN is prevalent among employers that such workers are less pro ductive than younger workers and have a higher rate of ab senteeism. These assumptions, Mitchell maintains, do not square with the work records of workers 40 years of age and older. A re cent study of the Department of Labor dealing with office workers showed conclusively, Mitchell noted, that “older of fice workers are as productive as their younger counterparts.” The study, moreover, “indi cates as do other studies by the Department, that employers are passing up some excellent work ers with valuable experience if they place an arbitrary age lim it on hiring.” “Our studies,” Mitchell says, “prove that older workers have lower rates of absenteeism and turnover, are more consistent in their performances, and fre quently produce at a faster rate than younger workers.” The new study compared the work performance of about 6,000 workers in various age groups on comparable office jobs. It showed that workers 45 years old and over produce, on the average, about as much as those aged 25 to 45, and slightly more than workers under 25. Also the study demonstrated that accu racy of performance was almost identical in each of the age groups studied. — or one of their representa tives on this planet. These rep resentatives make a good bit of money by being on friendly terms with the stars. This k i n d of star-gazing is known as astrology, the so-call ed science which pretends to in terpret the influence of heaven ly bodies on human affairs. For a small fee, its exponents will explain your horoscope. Your horoscope, or nativity, (as every newspaper reader should know) is a diagram of the heavens at the time of your birth. A skillful reader of horo scopes can tell you what tem perament you have, what diseas es you’re likely to contact, and what fortunes or calamties will probably come your way. Reading stars and interpreting horoscopes is nothing new. The Egyptians and Babylonians, the Greeks and Romans — one and all, they took these things se riously. One reason for the an cient interest in predicting events from the stars was that the astrologers were real scien tists, too. Only after Copernicus came along did astrology tread a separate path from that of the real science. Astrology, a form of genuine superstition, should not be con fused with astronomy. The lat ter is a scientific study of the heavenly bodies. And in this day, when Conrad Hilton is making plans to build a hotel on the moon, astronomy is a very important science indeed. Astrology, however, is un scientific and contrary to our faith. Saints and sinners are of ten born in the same time and in the same place. Maybe your horoscope says you should be sweet-tempered, but you’ll have something to say about that, I’ll wager. When we think that the stars influence human affairs and de- EFFICIENCY AND OUTPUT In output per man-hour be tween office workers in dif ferent age groups there was only an insignificant difference. A large portion of the workers in the older groups exceeded the performance of the average workers in the younger groups. Also the older workers had a steadier rate, of output, with considerably less variation from week to week than’ workers in the younger age groups. In short, the study, which cov ered office workers in 21 private companies and five government agencies, showed no major dif ference in work performance that could be attributed to age. The handicapping of workers forced to seek new jobs after passing the age of 40 presents a serious social problem. It is when a worker is in the fifth decade of his life that his re sponsibilities are apt to be hea viest. At that stage of life he probably is buying a house, he has committed himself to an in surance program for the protec tion of his family and his chil dren are of the age when money is required to complete their education. As Secretary of Labor, Mitch ell has been fighting a vigorous battle to break down the preju dice against the middle-aged worker. But he is getting only sporadic support from employ ers. termine the course of events, what happens to Divine Provi dence? What happens to our fre& wills? It is God who directs the affairs of men, and we have a hand in making things happen. It’s a sad state of affairs if we have to consult some star be fore making a decision. The ancient Book of Deute ronomy announced our stand in clear words: “Neither let there be found among you anyone that consults soothsayers, or ob serves dreams or omens. Neither let there be any wizard or charmer, nor anyone that drinks pythonic spirits, or fortune tel lers, or that seeks the truth from the dead. For the Lord abhors all these things.” It’s all right, of course, to con sult a soothsayer or fortune tell er at the charity bazaar just for laughs. No one will blame ;you for believing something so ob viously true as the card which tells you that “you are witty, charming, handsome and strong.” And as far as “pythonic spirits” are concerned, a little shot before dinner never harm ed anyone. But when we take these things seriously, it’s time to have a spiritual checkup. There are millions who fail to see that astrology is a superstition. Many great persons, including Hitler, depended upon astrologers to guide them. We can forgive the people of the middle ages who counted on the stars too much. They didn’t have television and ice cream cones to keep themselves amus ed. But it’s downright tragic to see enlightened moderns letting the stars tell them what to do. But if you honestly feel that the stars have decreed that wearing candles in your ears is good for your rheumatism, then go ahead and wear them. Just don’t be silly enough to light them, please. NO OUTSIDE HELP The ambitious young man strikes out on his own — he never depends on the services of a pinch hitter. New Vatican Postage Stamps Two new series of postage stamps have been issued by the Vatican City postoffice to commemorate two occasions. The 60 and 15-lire stamps at the left and right, upper row, com memorate the First Diocesan Synod of Rome. They depict the interior of the Lateran archbasilica in Rome, where the synod was held. They show the papal altar with baldachin.. The center stamp, upper row, and all three stamps in the lower row commemorate the fifth centenary of the death of St. Antoninus, Bishop of Florence. They are in 15, 25, 60 and 110-lire denominations, and depict a bust statue of the Saint in the act of preaching, as taken from a bas-relief in the Chapel of St. Antoninus in the Church of St. Mark, Florence. (NC Photos) ittllitfttt 416 8TH ST., AUGUSTA, GA. Published fortnightly by the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia, Inc., with the Approbation of the Most Reverend 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, April 2, 1960 No. 22 ASSOCIATION OFFICERS 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 View! 1 from the Rectory By The Rev. Robert H. Wharton