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PAGE 4—THE BULLETIN, May 14, 1960 The Peacemaker Shortly after this editorial was written the U. S. State Depart ment apparently admitted that the American plane was on an espio nage flight, but we see no reason to delete the following editorial or change any of the sentiments contained therein. A few short months ago Nikita Khrushchev was received in this country as the head of a great and powerful Nation, Soviet Russia. He was hailed by harrassed statesmen with strained and artificial cordiality, and greeted by fawning and flattering “in tellectuals” as the jovial jongleur of a “much maligned, but basic ally peace-loving people.” “If only we show him what America is really like,” was the cry. “he will see that we mean his country no harm and soon we will have real peace.” And then, appropriately enough, his tour was capped with a visit to an Iowa farm, where the REAL tall corn grows. Of course, after the tumult and the shouting had ended many realized how silly they looked, wearing rose colored glasses, and sheepishly cast them away together with the foolish fancy that a “brave new world” can be founded upon the shifting sands of smiles and sentimentality. But the last few weeks of the “Foolish Fifties” did leave their casualties, and many, who before had possessed perfect 20-20 vision remained blinded by the smile of the Red Chief and en chanted by his homey homilies and provincial proverbs. Many, too, even managed to convince themselves that the sheep could now lie safely with the wolf and that the devil REALLY a monk would be. Last Thursday Khrushchev was in his own country. Gone were the jokes and proverbs. Gone, too, were the smiles and pleas for ‘competition, not conflict; trust, not threats; peace and prosperity for all the world.” ^ With all the righteous indignation of a poseur extraordinaire he announced that the United States had launched an “act of aggression” against the Soviet Union, but that the “aggression” had been bravely repelled by the valiant Red Air Force. The aggressor a lone, unarmed American weather plane, manned by a civilian pilot. The story is not new. We have heard it several times in the past. And once again, as in the past, Americans will have to swal low their National Pride, embracing the frustration which walks hand in hand with fifteen years of “proving our good faith and peaceful intentions” to the Soviets. Once again Americans must suffer the indignity of proving to a world which owes what limited peace it enjoys largely to us, and we did not, in fact, commit an act of aggression” against the one great power in the world whose strength and position is founded almost entirely upon the lifeless corpses of countless innocent people. Yet, it may be that there is something to be salvaged. Surely it is not too much to hope that the Russian shells which destroyed another unarmed American plane have also shattered the roseate spectacles of some more of our apostles of “peaceful co-existence, mutual trust and brotherhood between our two countries,” and blown the Russian missile dust from their eyes. Surely, too, it is not too much to hope that now there are at least a few more of the world’s statesmen who realize that peace will never come through treaties with liars—that it will come only when we and the other “Christian” nations of the world begin to heed our Creator’s insistent demand for prayer, penance and absolute fidelity to His revealed law. leaving Khrushchev and his cohorts to the Almighty Power of God. Jtlow He Has Grown (By F, J. Sheed) Column 55 Infallibility From what was said last week, it emerges that either there is a teacher now teaching upon earth, guaranteed by Christ as the apostles were—or there is no possibility of our knowing the truth which He saw to be so e s s e n tial. Already, well before His death, He had given men au thority to teach with His authority: it was to the disci ples, not to the apostles only that He said “He that hears you, hears me.” That, extended to the Church He founded that it might teach to the end of time, is His formula to ensure that we shall receive His truth with no admixture of error. There is no other formula. The name for this one is Infallibility. Infallibility is concerned with teaching only. It is no guarantee of holiness. It simply means that the Church can tell us, not as its own best guess but with certainty, the meaning of what Christ taught. This, in brief, is the way of it. The successors of the apostles are the bishops. What they are agreed in teaching as the Reve lation of Christ upon Faith and Morals—that is, upon truths to be believed and laws to be obeyed—is infallible. God sees to it that it contains no error. The agreement referred to need not be total, including every bishop that has been or now is; individual bishops, even groups of bishops, in some time or place, may teach error. But a teaching given by the great mass of the bishops of the world—we may call it a moral universalit y—is certainly Christ’s. This teaching by bishops is (Continued on Page 5) STi/olK Jottings.. (By BARBARA C. JENCKS) "I want the intellectual lay man to be religious and the de vout ecclesiastic to be intellec tual.” Cardinal Newman Question Box JOSEPH BREIG HOW MANY LITTLE ONES? (By David Q. Liptak) Q. Not too long ago a group of Presbyterian ministers were reported as opposed to a Cath olic president on the alleged grounds that Catholics believe that the end justifies the means. How could supposedly educated men be so ignorant of a point they could easily check out in any standard library? And why do some Protestants continue to voice this allegation when they know it couldn't possibly be true? A. How any sufficiently in-* formed person could possibly give serious credence to the fal lacy that Catholics believe a moral end can justify immoral means is impossible to un derstand unless bad faith is presumed somewhere along the line. For a Protestant minister to voice such a fallacy is especially ironic. The truth of the matter is that whereas this principle of justifi cation is, always has been, and will ever be, flatly condemned by Catholic theology, it is none theless espoused and propagated by Protestant dogma in general, so much so that it has become characteristic of the Protestant approach to several modern moral problems. CONTRACEPTIVE birth pre vention is an obvious example. Here, recourse to intrinsically immoral means (the use of the generative act in such a way that its primary natural end is deliberately frustrated) is arbi trarily judicated moral because of an end at least indifferent in itself (family limitation). SO-CALLED therapeutic abor tion is another example. Here, again, a thoroughly evil means (the direct, deliberate taking of a human life on one’s own au thority—direct murder in other words) is accepted as moral be cause of a presumed moral end (the alleged clinical welfare of the mother, an excuse which has been termed a fantastic fic tion by competent physicians). DIVORCE and remarriage is a third instance of the end just ifying the means in Protestant dogma. Here the dissolution of a valid marriage bond together with the attempted marriage of (Continued on Page 5) Few people, it seems to me, realize how beautifully right, and how kind and considerate, is the teaching of the Catholic Church on birth control. Not only is it spiritually sub lime and mor ally noble; it is also down- to-earth, emi nently reason able, and ten derly aware of the prob lems of human beings. ~ The trouble is that it”is sel- dom fairly stated. It is half- stated or mis-stated. That is why I would like to restate it here. Pope John, the other day, voiced on aspect of it when he counselled parents not to be afraid “of the number of your sons and daughters.” ON THE CONTRARY, he said, husbands and wives should ask God for children, and rear them for the glory of their earthly fatherlands and their fatherland in Heaven. That is inspiringly true; but not for a moment would Pope John want anybody to imagine that in his chat with pilgrims, he exhausted the subject. No; his remarks were for peo ple who are normally healthy and strong, who can expect nor mal children normally deliver ed,and are able to rear them. But does the Church care nothing about couples who have special problems? The Church cares about them very much. A FEW YEARS before his death, Pope Pius XII delivered an important address which has not received nearly as much study as it deserves. He dealt with the difficulties that arise in some marriages. These can be problems of euge nics, health, economics and the like. For instance, because of social injustice, there are parents who must limit the 1 number of chil dren if they are to prepare them adequately for life. There are cases where preg nancy is seriously dangerous for the woman. And sometimes a couple is unable to bring forth a normal child. POPE PIUS said that when these problems are real, and not fanciful, couples may use nat ural means to avoid childbirth either altogether, or for periods of time. Natural birth control has come to be known by the odd word “rhythm” because it is based on the rhythm of the wife’s periods of fertility and infertility. By sacrificing physical ex pression of their love for each other at certain times, a hus band and wife can limit con ceptions, or even avoid con ception entirely. It is moral to do so for right and sufficient reasons. And as Pius XII noted, the area of suf ficient reason is not oppressive ly narrow, but quite broad. THERE HAS BEEN one vexa tious difficulty, however. It has not been easy in every case to know with precision the dates of a wife’s infertile periods. However, Dr. Joseph B. Doyle, director of the Fertility and En- doctrine Clinic at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Boston, believes he has solved that problem. After 15 years of study, he has developed a simple device for detecting fertile and infertile periods. He did so primarily to help wives who want children and have had difficulty in conceiv ing. His discovery, however, will equally serve those who for right reasons need help in moral birth control. THUS SCIENCE now makes clear the rightness of the divine ordinance. People who should space conceptions, or even avoid them entirely, will be able to do so without moral or physical damage, and without degrading the sacred relationship which is part of the sacrament of mar riage. Those who obey God and the Church find in the long run, that they have been serving their own happiness also. And those who disobey learn sooner or later that they have pur chased sorrow rather than joy. God does not make command ments to oppress us, but to set us free. • THE WIDESPREAD VO CATION shortage today pre sents a constant threat to Cath olic education tomorrow. More and more students will be knocking at the doors of Cath olic schools from kindergarten through college. It is not enough that vocations keep to the num bers of the past but they must increase in proportion to the needs of this great giant of a Catholic system of education stretching and growing all over the nation. Strangely enough it is the vocations to the sister hood wherein the shortage is already felt. Religious are need ed in greater numbers to staff new parish schools with soaring enrollments. As a result, there is a new figure of important appearing on the Catholic American horizon and that is the lay teacher in the parochial elementary and secondary grades. The lay teacher in high er education is no stranger. The lay teacher is a comparative newcomer to the parish school system, long staffed by the dedicated Sister. • "AVE MARIE," the nation al weekly, in an issue back in November, 1959, stated that lay teachers are needed and will be increasingly needed as time goes by to maintain the parochial school system. The magazine went on to state that in the long run the employment of lay teachers in a parochial school system would be a healthful thing for Catholic education, particularly in the area of in tellectual life. They hasten to add that “this in no way dis parages the tremendous job be ing done in education now and in the past by those wonderful teaching Sisters who give their lives to the cause of Catholic education.” Their argument fol lows that in the past students in parochial schools never had a lay teacher; they had no per sonal contact with the idea that it was good and desirable for a lay Catholic to aspire to the teaching profession as a voca tion. In other words, they had no lay example to hold up as their ideal. In brief, the writer believed that the association with more lay teachers—not in place of, but in addition to reli gious teachers—will help to serve that end and will ulti mately be of great benefit to American Catholic intellectual life.” LIFE'S LIKE THAT There is no justice—about the time the bluebirds return the spring taxes are due. • MY PERSONAL IDEAS on this subject were presented in a column some time ago en titled “Intellectuals in Black” in which the role of the dedi cated priest, nun and brother in the classroom was cited an in valuable and irreplaceable. A group of my writing students discussed this problem of short age of vocations to the sister hoods and also the influx of lay teachers in parochial class rooms. Some of their thoughts are printed below. Q. What would you attribute to the lack of vocations amon ; women? A. The greater rewards of thi priesthood in comparison. th< priest offers the Sacrifice of th< Mass. Lack of generosity, wronj attitude of parents. More em phasis on material values today Increased education and in Creased independence of women Selfishness, nuns thought of a: old-fashioned. Q. When your child enter: parochial school, will you be disappointed if - she does noi have a nun for a teacher? A. Yes, this is the beginning of the child’s religious training The nun is better trained than a lay teacher would be. Yes, I believe that Sisters are able to dedicate themselves more absolutely to the teaching of children and are able tc transmit their very real love of God to the younger ones. I want my child to be under their good example. Yes, because in most cases you are confident in the ability of a religious to inculate a true religious spirit and knowledge in a child-even the atmosphere of a class with a nun is mean ingful and demanding of respect and reverence. No, providing her teacher was a good Catholic with a good education. Q. How would you feel about this in the higher grades and in college, would you still want a Sister or religious for a teacher of your children? A. Yes, in junior and senior high schools because they need the type of religious training, but in college a lay teacher is fine. In college they are less susceptible to opinions than they were in the formative y ears - »m In junior high, high and col lege, I think a religious should teach theology and courses con nected closely to religious. I would prefer them. In junior high, I would like my children to have Sisters. In high school, I would want them to have either lay or religious depending on which has the greater command of the subject matter. These students while not ap parently wanting to dedicate , their own lives to the cause of Catholic education, were very anxious that there be somebody else on hand in a holy habit to " instruct their children. In their question as to the shortage of vocations to the Sisterhood, one obvious answer in lacking. True, there are more opportunities for women today and women are , better educated, yet the crux of the’ matter is this: Women to day are failing to be women. They have lost sight of the very essence of their womanliness. j (Woman was ever created to sacrifice and to give to others. In her rush after these new opportunities and freedoms, she has sold her birthright for baubles. Yet above it all, we V jfaee a very real problem in our vochtion shortage. This problem has many aspects and it is a problem which should be dis cussed whenever Catholics meet ■ and most of all, it is a problem which needs much prayer. 'Population Explosion 7 Theory Challenged BACKDROP THE Advocates of artificial birth control who use the catch phrase “population explosion” to support their cause usually talk as though demographers were unanimous in the belief that, unless the growth in population is checked, the time will come when there will be neither room for it on this earth nor food to sustain it. The fact is, of course, that there is no such unanimity. Eminent students of the popula tion problem challenge the two main assumptions underlying the “population explosion” the ory. They do not agree that the world’s population will continue to expand indefinitely and they question whether the time will come when the earth’s surface will be unable to nourish those who live on it. MORE FOOD—LESS LABOR Stated in its simplest terms the question raised by the ad vocates of birth control runs, “Where will the food come from to feed an ever-expanding world population, when millions now go to bed hungry every night?” The solution, as the neo- Mathusians envision it, is to re duce the number of mouths to feed by systematic birth control until the population and the food are brought into balance. This way out of the dilemma assumes that the world is now producing near the maximum amount of food it is possible to By JOHN C. O’BRIEN produce. But this is a conclusion that many agriculturalists re fuse to accept. Agricultural production has been brought to a higher degree of efficiency, in the United States than in any other large country. On a constantly shrinking acreage, the United States has been producing more and more food and fiber with a constantly shrinking farm labor force. For example, between 1954 and 1958, there was a 30 per cent rise in the annual wheat yield per acre. In the last 18 years the amount of food and fiber produced per man-hour of farm work has doubled. And it is now costing the United States taxpayers $1,000,000,000 a year to store government-held agri cultural surpluses. Yet, high as the yield of our agriculture now is, still more intensive cultivation has been proved to be possible. In a care fully supervised five-year ex periment near Essen, Germany, an engineer’s family of six lived in excellent health on the prod ucts of three acres, supple mented only by salt, baking powder, lime, mineral fertilizer and peat. On the basis of this experi ment, Colin Clark, director of the Oxford Agricultural and Economics Research Institute, has estimated that the 19,000,- 000,000, acres of “good, tem perate agricultural land now available” could produce enough food to sustain a population of 38,000,000,000 without a single improvement in existing agri cultural techniques. This hypo thetical population would be more than three times the world’s population if the present figure were doubled twice. MEAT AND FERTILITY Clark’s estimate of potential food production would seem to take care of an expanding popu lation for a long time to come. But nutritionists and population experts are by no means agreed that birthrates will continue to soar indefinitely. Among those who challenge this assumption is the Brazilian, Dr. Josue de Castro, of the UN Food and Agriculture Organiza tion. He has advanced the the ory, based upon a study of hu man birthrates, and experiments with albino rats at Stanford University, that an adequate in take of animal proteins tends automatically to reduce fertility in the human race. He notes that the highest an nual birthrates are in countries with a low animal fat intake, such as Formosa, India, and Japan. On the other hand, in countries where a great deal of meat is j eaten—the United States, Australia and Sweden—■ birth rates are low. Even if it is conceded that birth control is practiced in the latter three countries, Castro maintains that this could not influence the birth rate suffici ently to account altogether for the wide disparity between the fertility of the two groups of countries. Furthermore, he notes, that the decline in-fer tility of albino rats, when fed a high animal protein diet, could not possibility be account ed for, by birth control among the rats. View' I from the |j| Rectory By The Rav. Robert H. Wharton FINDERSKEEPERS? The professor in class had just concluded an experiment concerning atoms. He comment ed: “Please note that at the be ginning of the experiment there were 27 atoms; now there are only 26. Stu dents, what happened to that other atom?” There were several mo ments of tense silence. Then a low voice from the rear slowly, “Don’t this room.” All kidding aside, I think a court would say that atoms be long to anyone who finds them. Not atoms made up into such things as necklaces, horses or wallets, of course. Only un attached, homeless atoms. Atoms (and molecules, too) are about the only things not claimed by someone on this earth. Somehow air is still free and untaxed. But just about everything else might as well have some owner’s name on it. A national magazine even dis cussed at length the question of who owns your garbage after you put it out. See? Long ago some dishonest rhyme-maker thought up that little ditty “finders keepers, losers weepers,” Not so. When a person loses something he may weep, but you have no right to keep. Whenever we find a lost ob ject, we have an obligation to try to find the owner. There’s an obligation, that is, if there’s some hope of discovering him. Just because someone says “That’s my dollar bill!” you don’t have to turn it over. There must be some way of proving ownership, and this is rather hard with money unless his name is Ivy Baker Priest. There’s an obligation of char ity, in the first place, to take care of lost objects. If you should see a lost elephant wan dering along the Avenue, you have no right to shrug your shoulders and say, “It’s none of my business.” Some lit tle kid probably would be cry ing at that very moment for his missing pet. You’re absolved from your obligation, however, if trying to find the owner of the lost object would prove very incon venient. Maybe you have no extra bed for the elephant in your home. But suppose you do take over a lost object. Then you have the obligation in justice, to seek the owner. If you advertise, you would be entitled to compensa tion for your expenses. Should you be keeping that lost ele phant, for instance, you may de mand payment for food, broken furniture and a large hole in the floor. If the owner refuses to pay, then you may keep the pachyderm. And good luck. While we’re on the subject of animals, it might be mentioned that no one has a right to keep lost dogs, cats or parakeets. Homing pigeons should be sent home, unless they have flown away for good. Ditto with bees. If they still call some particular hive their home, they’re not yours. Tilings belonging to no one may be kept by toe finder of course. If you’re lucky enough to find a pearl on the seashore or a nugget of gold on the street, don’t let anyone talk you out of it. It’s yours. What about books? Borrowed books are always lost books, it seems to me. There is an unwrit ten law engraved on the human heart that borrowed books should never, never be returned. Despite this perverse human in clination, we retain ownership of our own books no matter how long they have gathered dust on someone’s else’s shelf. What we have said about books also applies to rakes, lawn mowers, cups of sugar, and Chi nese back-s cratchers. Your neighbor may have forgotten about these items, but God hasn’t. One category of lost objects is the unpaid bill. It might be that the company has forgotten to bill you for that seven- volume set of “North American Snakes.” No matter. It is still theft to refrain from paying up. It certainly would be a ques tionable practice to run up bills you know you can’t pay. Any store or company is entitled to payment within a reasonable time. In this age of the credit- card, we should keep a wary eye on our bank accounts. The other eye could be kept on the collection agency, which is only too happy to relieve you of the article in question. One last item for the thou sands of troubled wives who have begged us to supply an answer. Is the little woman en titled to keep the money she finds in her husband’s pockets? If mother needs money to feed the scrawny, undernourish ed kids—yes, finders keepers. If dad is putting most of the in come on a horse’s nose, go ahead and take it, mom. But what if mother just wants a ten-spot for a new hat? I plead the Fifth. PRESBYTERIANS REJECT STAND ON CATHOLIC JACKSONVILLE, Fla., (NC) —The General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church has rejected a resolution which would have put the church on record as opposing a Catholic President. The resolution was defeated by an overwhelming voice vote at the meeting. In its place, the assembly adopted a recommen dation of the church group’s Standing Committee on Chris tian Relations, which declared that it is not appropriate for the General Assembly to endorse or condemn any candidate for public office. 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; and the Most Reverend Bishop of Atlanta. 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 v °1- 40 Saturday, May 14, 1960 No. 25 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 Treasure- ALVIN M. McAULIFFE, Augusta Auditor JOHN MARKWALTER, Augusta Executive Secretary MISS CF.CILE FERRY, Augusta Financial Secretary anybody leave '' t *»