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PAGE 4—THE BULLETIN, November 25, 1961. NATIONAL PROGRAM FOR MENTALLY RETARDED The Backdrop ' tb Advent MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY! President Kennedy recently appointed a panel of experts to meet in Washington in De cember to consider a program for dealing with a problem that the public seldom hears much about. The prob lem, which has baffled physicians, is the mentally r etarded child. Be cause, until recently, parents of such child ren have tended to conceal the affliction, usually from a false sense of shame, few re alize how many children are doomed to live in mental dark- H6SS. MANY CAUSES Yet,- today there are more than 5,000,000 mentally re tarded (not insane) persons in the United States. Of these, 1,500,000 are of school age. This means that 30 out of every 1,000 youngsters in this country are retarded. Four million families are confronted with the problem of one or more children whose minds can never grow up, and each year 120,000 young couples are added to their ranks. Until rather recently, little was known about the causes of mental retardation, and ev en today experts are at a loss when it comes to treatment. Until a few years ago there was virtually no hope for help for these unfortunates. Medical and social research ers have identified more than 90 causes of mental retarda- JOHN C. O'BRIEN tion. It may be because of brain injury during birth or because of some chemical dis order as yet not fully under stood. Some progress has been made in detecting such chem ical imbalances before brain damage occurs and the prog nosis in such cases is now more favorable. But, whatever the cause, the retarded child suffers from ar rested mental development. Most of the victims never progress beyond the mental level of the normal 7 to 12- year-olds. Some reach only the level of 4 to 6 year olds. Until a few years ago, re tarded children were treated like social outcasts, sources of embarrassment as well as eco nomic burdens to their fami lies. There were few institu tions within the means of the average family to which they could be committed. About 95 per cent of the parents kept the child at home, hiding its existence as best they could from the neighbors. NOT HEREDITARY Today, thanks to a better understanding of the afflic tion, parents tend to take a more enlightened attitude to ward the retarded child. Phy sicians have assured them that neither they nor their ances tors are to blame for the child’s condition. Mental re tardation, unlike some mental diseases, does not run in fami lies. It seldom strikes the same family more than once. Medical science has discov ered that some retarded children are educable up to a point. They can be trained to form useful habits, to care for their personal hygiene, and in a few cases to earn a living. A majority, however, even if they live to adulthood, must be cared for constantly, either at home or in an institution. Although nearly every state maintains hospitals for the treatment of mental diseases, few have provided institutions specifically for the care of the mentally retarded. The lack of such institutions poses an acute problem for parents, most of whom cannot afford the fees of private institutions which specialize in the care of the retarded. That the President should interest himself in the prob lem of the retarded is not sur prising, considering the inter est his family has long shown in it. One of. his sisters devotes a major portion of her time to teaching and care of the un fortunate victims of this af fliction. And the President’s father endowed a home for the education of retarded children in Washington as a memorial to his eldest son, Jo seph, who was killed in the Second World War. To assist the Presidential panel in its attack on the mental retardation problem, the President has asked Ja pan to lend her foremost ex pert, Dr. Osamu Kan, who is credited with having made im portant advances in the study of retardation. To the panel of scientists, educators, physicians and sociologists the President has assigned the task of chart ing a program “to conquer mental retardation.” DORIS REVERE PETERS YOUTH * GIRLS 17 AND 18 SHOULD HAVE SOCIAL LIFE j jjik WHAT IS A PAPER FOR? A DEVIL'S ADVICE ON 'CHURCH AND STATE' Sum and Substance It Seems to Me If you were determined to destroy organized religion in the United States, how would you go about it? This is the question Edmond Cahn dis cusses in the lead article in the No vember issue o f Harper's under the ti tle “How To destroy the Chur ches.” He declares himself to be a supporter of organized re ligion, anxious to preserve the> integrity of its instutions. He is a professor of law at New York University. 'SCREWTAPE' DEVICE Employing the device used by C. S. Lewis in his Screw- iape Letters Cahn calls upon a devil, Mephistopheles, to give him advice on how to proceed in demolishing the in fluence of the churches. Under the irony we can detect the shrill, carping tones on an angry man for Cahn is very much disturbed about the threat of clerical domination in America. What are the devil’s recom mendations on how to handle “political clergymen scowling menacingly?” They are three •—and all three are devious and oblique tips on destroying religion by breaking down Church-State separation. First, Mephistopheles sug gests that Congress and the people be persuaded that all that is necessary to preserve separation of church and state is to refer all controversies on the subject to the U. S. Su preme Court. Why is Cahn so distrustful of the Supreme Court? Be cause he feels that it tends to REV. JOHN B. SHEERIN, C.S.P. get bogged down in “legalism” on church-state issues. Due to old precedents, the high Court may flatly decline to rule on some of these issues. “Mephis topheles has had too rich an ex perience with lawyers to de pend entirely on any techni cality of law. . . he knows that what one lawyer may knit, another lawyer may find a way to unravel.” This is a surprising stand on the part of Cahn. In his book The Moral Decision, published in 1955, Cahn was more op timistic about our Courts. He even went so far as to say that a set of moral guides could be found in the day-by day decisions of American courts, now that “ecclesiastic al pronouncements are consid ered unauthoritative.” In the Harper's article he puts his trust in the people rather than in our Courts. But how in the world can he ex pect the people of decide com plex questions arising out of the First Amendment? By a referendum? By a Gallup pole? The devil’s second sugges tion is that church members be persuaded that supporting their church schools is to oner ous a burden. The obvious im plication here is that Cathol ics, in complaining about the burden of double taxation for parochial and public schools, are giving way to a neurotic self-pity. “In the face of such conspic uous proof that every church can take care of its own and that its own can take care of every church, it would seem hard to picture the church schools and universities now adays as victims of abject poverty.” Gratuitous claims such as this, without facts, fig ures or other evidence, sound strange coming from such an eminent legal expert as Mr. Cahn. He dismisses without consideration a vast mass of factual evidence showing the actual financial plight of Cath olic schools in certain parts of the country.* & : , 4 ‘ * j The third diabolic sugges tion is that the State should give the churches everything they ask for provided church men solemnly aver these con cessions are not sectarian aids but benefits to the citizen as citizen. The Supreme Court ruled that Sunday Closing Laws are a benefit to society in that they provide a uniform day of rest and recreation for the whole community. Cahn sees Sunday not as a day of rest and recreation but as a religious holy day—and there fore he feels that the Supreme Court was conferring a sec tarian benefit on Christians. - Mephistopheles further sug gests that the churches be en snared with the bait of money provided they swear these grants of public money are going for a purpose that is es sentially secular. Here the au thor of the piece is striking at what he considers Catholic chicanery in asking for free bus transportation and aid to education. We claim that both are due us as citizens but Cahn apparently thinks that a ride on a bus and a course in Al gebra are forms of catechism instruction. The devil motif provides a certain amount of wry humor in this article but it is provoc ative in the wrong sense. It stirs up relgious emoton but it enables the writer to avoid a study in depth of a very com plex problem. Drama is no substitute for hard, intellec tual labor. CONVERT STARTS OTHERS TOWARD CHURCH Sharing Our Treasure You’ve heard of the “chain reaction” in nuclear physics, haven’t you? It’s what gives the atomic bomb its incredi ble and appalling power. The first nuclear chain reac tion was achieved by Enrico Fermi and a group of other em inent scien tists on De- cember 2, 1942, at Chi cago University. This means they were able to use the un leashed power of the first ex ploded atom as a fuse to ex plode a chain of others. By winning a convert you may start a spiritual chain reac tion which will lead many converts into the fold. This is illustrated in the REV. JOHN A. O'BRIEN conversion of Frederick B. Pike, noted professor of Latin American history at Notre Dame. “I wasn’t reared in any faith,” related Professor Pike, “and none of the family at tended church. Mother had, however, a high regard for the splendid training which Sisters gave the students in Catholic schools. “So she sent my sister Bar bara to Marymount Academy, conducted by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. Bar bara was deeply impressed by Ihe scholarship, kindness and holiness of the Sisters and wanted ot learn more about the. Catholic religion. She en rolled in the regular courses in religion and soon discover ed that the Catholic Church v/asn’t just ‘another Church’ but was the one founded by Christ for the salvation of all men. She became a devout and enthusiastic Catholic. “Some of her enthusiasm must have rubbed off on moth er, for she began to study the Catholic religion and ended by embracing it. I was a jun ior at a private academy at the time, and mother had plans for me to take dancing lessons when I became a senior. I hat ed the idea, so finally mother made a deal with me: I would be excused from dancing les sons if I went to Loyola Academy next year. “So I enrolled at Loyola and soon was deep in the study of the Catholic religion. For the first time in my life I was stirred and fascinated by the intellectual approach to the whole subject of religion which the Jesuits opened up. They had a solid and convincing reason for every article of Religious journalism is the freest journalism. I realized that fact anew the other day when I took part in a panel discussion on the question, “What is the right purpose of journal ism?” There was broad agree- m e n t in fJffiifcipIS' Ve-’ tween my colleagues of the general press and me. They have their job to do, and we of the re ligious press have ours. Both jobs are indispensable in the modern world. And in each case, the right purpose is to serve readers. But how? My approach was more on the philosophical side. Theirs was more pragmatic; more de rived from experience than thought-out. There was no dis pute, however, over my state ment (which did not originate with me) that the right pur pose of journalism is to pro vide for readers what they need, in the way of journalism to help them lead good lives. THIS MEANS GOOD LIVES not only as religious persons, but in every area. Journalism should help people to be good citizens, good neighbors, good fathers and mothers, good children, good lawyers and doctors and whatever, good members of the world corn- faith. Here was no mere sen timentalism or emotionalism. Here was the challenge of reason, history and truth. “How impressive was the Church’s long history, which went back to the days when Jesus walked with His disci ples along the shores of the Sea of Galilee and over the dusty roads of Judea and Sa maria. I could see Him saying to two fishermen, Peter and Andrew, who were casting their nets into the sea: ‘Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men’ (Matt. 4:19). “These were the first of the Twelve called to be His Apos tles. For the first time it dawned on me that St. Peter and all the Apostles and dis ciples were Catholics; that all the writers of the books of the New Testament were Catholics; that all the Fathers and Doctors of the Church were Catholics. In short, I perceived that Catholicism and historical Christianity are identical. “Hence the Catholic Church is the Mother Church of all Chris tendom, founded by Christ 15 centuries before a Protestant denomination saw the light of day. With a joy ous heart I too embraced the faith of Christ and received our Eucharistic Lord. Bar bara has started a- spiritual chain reaction. Now she, her four children, mother, I and my three children-—nine in all—are members of Christ’s Mystical Body. Would that the chain reaction could, «ps?qad to all mankind!” JOSEPH BREIG munity, good law-abiding mo torists, good conversationalists, good sound thinkers, and so on. How does journalism do this? It does it by providing what readers need in the way of information, interpretation, inspiration, exhortation and even, to some extent, enter tainment. Not only news,, editorials, columns and human interest features should contribute to this end; advertising should do so also. Advertising should put before the people facts about things that will help them to be more fully human; to be healthier, cleaner and safer; to live more graciously, and so on. Advertising ought not to be without its spiritual val ue. GOING A LITTLE DEEPER, indeed to the roots, the right purposes of journalism arise inevitably from the right pur poses of existence. The whole thing goes back to the penny catechism: Why did God make us? He made us to love and serve Him and our neighbors. Oddly enough, in many cas es, the results will be broadly the same, whether an adver tising man thinks only of sell ing goods to make money, or whether he perceives, and is true to, the higher spiritual motivation. This is so because he must serve human needs even if he does it for no other reason than cash. But the ef fect upon him is very different if money is his only motive. SERIOUS CASES ARISE, furthermore, in which the money-motivated, money-cap tive person or institution will go wrong, precisely because he or it is not free, as religious journalism is free. An exam ple arose in our discussion. Somebody mentioned a crim inal case which had been the occasion for an orgy of yellow journalism among otherwise respectable newspapers. My colleagues of the general press did not deny that the behavior : of the press had been disgrace ful. One of them said, “The trouble was that it would have been economic suicide not to report all the distasteful de tails.” Religious journalism is freer because religious journals are non-commercial, are not sub jected to fierce competition, and have no problem with the tendency of readers to want to wallow. Readers know they can’t wallow in the religious press. THE SITUATION, then, boils down to this: journalists in the commercial field are generally high-minded persons but sometimes are caught in a dilemma. How can they escape such captivity; how can their papers become more free? Ob viously, by forming among them professional associations which will prevent the kind of unfair competition which con fronts a newspaper with a choice between wallowing and economic suicide. Why should low characters, or even thoughtless persons, be permitted to degrade journal ism, any more than quacks be allowed to pass themselves off as surgeons? Journalists should realize their dignity and the nobility of their work, and should take steps to protect it from disgraceful perversion. Dear Parents: Following is a letter I thought might particularly in terest you. From your letters I know that most of the time you agree wih the advice of this column even though we are not always on your side. Couldn’t a mother and two daughters who obviously have a great deal of respect for their parents convince this father that he is being un reasonable? Doesn’t the father realize that girls 17 and 18 should have some kind of so cial life? DORIS Dear Doris: My sister and I would like your advice on a certain prob lem. She is 18 and already out of high school and I will be 17 soon. We are the only girls in a family of eight and are con sidered nice decent girls by everyone in the community. I could ask you a hundred questions on problems with father but right now I wish to ask your advice on this every day problem—boys. My father seems to have a dislike for them, especially any boy who wants to be friendly with us. Two boys who dared to ask our father to let us go for a ride only got a long lecture but no ride with us. He cannot stand the thought of letting us go out on dates, not even for a coke. No mov ies, no dances, no parties, not even with girl friends even if the parties are chaperoned. He will not let us ask boys over to the house to play records, er even to talk for awhile out on the lawn. He’ll go into a rage if he sees a boy wave at us or try to get into a conver sation with us. We used to have nice friends at school who would be very glad to visit us and meet our parents. Now that school is out we have no way of seeing them because he will not stand for it. We have an understanding mother and we love and re spect both of them. We don’t want to spoil our reputation by sneaking out. We don’t ex- 5 pect him to let us do every thing we feel like doing, but, we do feel that we should be allowed to have a little bit ox good, clean fun. We want our father to trust us. We see nothing wrong ip? doing any of these things so’ please tell us if we are wrong in wanting to do this or whether our father is being unreasonable. ROSEMARY and TERRY PAPER ROUTE Dear Doris: , ,• I had my 12th birthday in October and would dike to get a paper route but my dad says no because my grades are not good in school. I would study as soon as I was finished with my route. My Dad qays may be I could get a ropte when I am 13. We would Jike your advice. UNSIGNED If your father thinks you are too young to handle a paper route I would go along with him. After all he knows you better than anyone else and he also knows the area in which you would have to work. If he doesn’t apprbve mere ly because your school grades are poor you have;: only one thing to do. Study hard and achieve good marks. Prove to him you can do * better in school and you could handle the route. You may need some help in learning how to study. Check in school, or ask your father to, about your reading level. The principal may have some suggestions. Develop a routine for homework. These four steps may help. Set aside a certain time each day when you study best. Prepare books, pencils, paper, etc., bbfofe you begin. Pick a quiet spot with no TV or radio. Have a good light. Good study habits ;will help you reach your goal now— better grades and the paper route. They will help you even more ’in high school. FORMAL DANCE Dear .Doris: I go to an all girls school. We are having a formal dance and I have asked a boy to go. Who pays for the tickets? Who provides the transportation? (Neither of us drives). Who pins on the corsage? TROUBLED DANCER You pay for the ticket. While the boy usually provides the transportation in this case a few of you could get together and enlist the aid of your paxv ents. One could drive you to the dance;, another pick yo|i up after it is over. Unless there is a tradition concerning the corsage it’s best to have someone skilled with a pin to pin it on. Doris Revere Peters answers letters through her column, not by mail. Please do not ask for a personal reply. Ytyung read ers are invited to write to her in care of The Bulletin. STRANGE BUT TRUE Little-Known Facts For Catholics By M. J. MURRAY Q. Is it allowable to post- fpone the baptism of an infant for several weeks in order to accommodate an out-of-town godparent who cannot be present within the normally allotted time? How long can a baptism be delayed without serious fault on the parents' part? Are there any definite rules on this subject, or is i^ all a matter of opinion? A. Deliberately to put off the baptism of an infant with out serious reason for beyond a month is gravely wrong. Blaming the delay on a god parent’s inability to be present at an earlier date is no excuse at all. For a godparent may act by proxy; i.e., someone else can be designated to rep resent the true sponsor during the actual ceremony (one’s parish priest should be con sulted about this possibility some time before the baptism V' 7 1 ACCORDING TO A A ! 31° CENTURY X Tradition \ ADAM was V 1 BURIED ON THE U \ HILL OF (L ; CALVARY AND t U ; after our lords ,1a ; DEATH HIS I • SKULL WAS !' ^ 111!! ! Found at \ C MI fc.MH****'' \ the FOOT OF the CROSS. j \7/ze great" romantic Composer Fkakz Liszt 1 THE - MASSIVE PILLARS OF SIENA CATHEDRAL IN ITALY ARE STRIPED LIKE A ZEBRA / THE 15 T » CENTURY BUILDERS USED ALTERNATE COURSES OF BLACK £f WHITE MARBLE . M LINGUA > * FORT AND ACTUALLY RECEIVED MINOR ORDERS SHORTLY Before his death in 1886. IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY FORTUNATUS, BISHOP OF POtTlERS, FRANCE 7 , FOR. THE RECEPTION OF A RELIC OF THE TRUE CROSS THERE AT THE END OF THE 61? CENTURY- T ii. .i .1 —,.■1 — mm ■ ■ to allow for the proper hand ling of details). INFANTS should generally be brought to church for bap tism within ten days or two weeks following birth. Gen erally, because if an infant is in danger of death, he should of course be baptized immedi ately. If time is of the essence, baptism can be administered by anyone who intends to ad minister the sacrament accord ing to the mind of the Church. All one need do is pour ordi nary water over the forehead of the infant and say audibly (while pouring the water): “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” j THE ENORMITY of the crime committed by parents Who unnecessarily delay the baptism of an infant is ob vious for a consideration of (Continued on Page 5) v0i Hullrtitt 418 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. Subscription included in membership in Catholic Laymen’s Association. Second class mail privileges authorized at Monroe, Ga. Send notice of change of address to P. O. Box 320, Monroe, Ga. REV. FRANCIS J. DONOHUE REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN Editor Savannah Edition Editor Atlanta Edition JOHN MARKWALTER Managing Editor REV. LAWRENCE LUCREE, REV. JOHN FITZPATRICK, Associate Editors, Savannah Edition. Vol. 42 Saturday, November; 25, 1961 No. 13 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
