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Vol. 43, No. 3 SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, SATURDAY, JULY 7, 1962 Published By The Catholic Laymen's Ass'n of Georgia 10c Per Copy — $3 A Year SUMMER VACATION SCHOOL AT ALBANY ’CM fell § m SJZZ f'W jg SIm W.f: % V. rV For the second year in a row the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception from St. Francis Convent in Savannah came to Albany to conduct a summer vacation school for the grade school and junior high school children of the parish. In this picture are some of the fifty three children who took advantage of the school. Sr. Mary Ephraem, Mother M. Virgilius, the superior of the convent, Sister Mary Merici and Sister John Francis are the sisters who conducted the school. The great need of St. Clare’s is for sisters of their own so that there might be a parish school. Sponsor K. Of C. Ads In Weekly Papers The Catholic Advertising program,of the Bishop’s Con ference Committee of the Knights of Columbus, is now in its second year of spon soring Knights of Columbus Re ligious information ads in hometown weekly papers. In the committee’s annual report presented to this years : State K. of C. Convention, Charles C. Chesser, member * of the committee, reported the total yearly circulation of the papers which carry the adver tising is 196,428. Papers in , which the ads appear are: The Metter Advertiser; Bulloch Herald and Bulloch Times, both of Statesboro; Forest Blade of Swainesboro, True Citizen of VVayensboro, News & Farmer of Louisville, The Millen News 1 and the Sylvania Telephone. This program was initated as a result of a chance con versation between a member of Patrick Walsh Council and one : of the Fathers who was working in the missions in the western portion of the Diocese, who expressed the idea that pub lication of the Knights of Col umbus Religious Information Ads in the hometown weekly ((papers, would be of help in the work of the Church in bringing souls to Christ. With the approval of Bishop McDonough and the approval of Julian Halligan, Chairman of the Bishop’s Committee of the | PRAY FOR OUR PRIESTLY DEAD REV. JOSEPH R. SMITH July 8, 1952 REV. JAMES A. GRADY, U.S. A. t ( July 12, 1953 , VERY REV. JAMES F. O’NEILL July 12, 1870 0 i REV. GODFREY S. SCHADEWELL July 16, 1922 it Oh God, Who didst give to ! thy servants by their sacredotal i i office, a share in the priest- i hood of the Apostles, grant, U U'e implore, that they may j also be one of their company i ’ forever in heaven. Through Christ Our Lord, Amen. SPONSOR ADS IN HOMETOWN PAPERS - Charles C. Chesser, Augusta, memberi of the Bishop’s Con ference Committee, is pictured presenting a copy of his report to Bishop Thomas J. McDonough. The pic ture was taken at Albany during the recent State Con vention of the Knights of Columbus. Twenty-Six Scholarships For St. Pius X Graduates Savannah Diocese, and the State Deputy William T. Jordan, Jr., the project was launched with funds to come from individ ual Knights of Columbus on a voluntary basis. The Rev. William P. Dowling of Columbus was appointed by the Bishop to direct the pro gram and four papers were chosen to carry twelve ads on a monthly basis. It was then that four mem bers of Patrick Walsh Coun cil in Augusta responded with the offer to sponsor the ads in two additional papers. The past year the program was continued and expanded during the term of Hugh Grady as Committee Chairman, and State Deputy of the Knights of Columbus. Through the efforts of The Honorable Andrew W. McKenna and Chris F. Sheridan of Macon, the Macon council has joined in the sponsoring of the ads. Their financial support has en abled the adding of two ad ditional papers, bringing the number of papers, in which advertising appears, to eight. With the participation of ad ditional Councils, expansion of the program is expected in the near future. Savannah Girl Receives Maryknoll Habit SAVANNAH - A young wo man from Savannah diocese was among 51 to received the habit of the Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic at the missionary com munity’s reception ceremony held at the Motherhouse, Os sining, N.Y., on June 24th, Julie Miller, St. James Par ish, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L. Miller, 506 Lee Boulevard. She graduated from St. Vincent’s Academy and attended Armstrong Col lege for a year before entering Maryknoll, She has a brother, James Elliot Miller, and two sisters, Gloria Ann and Mary Frances. Her name in religion will be Sister Maureen Faith. She is the first Sister to enter Maryknoll from the Sav annah diocese. SAVANNAH - This years graduating class of Saint Pius X High School has received a total of 26 college scholar ships, according to the Rev. Timothy Dwyer, S. M. A., Principal. There are thirty-two members of the Class of ’62. Scholarships were awarded from local schools such as Albany State, Spelman, Fick, and Bethune-Cookman, as well as to out of State Colleges such as Nazareth, Ky.’ St. Mary’s Salina, Kansas; and Tuskeegee, Alabama. Miss Jeanette Jenkins re ceived a total of six scholar ships, while Miss Betty Graham, Miss Gloria Ryals , Miss Gloria Williams and Miss Patricia Spikes received three scholarship offers each. Members of this year’s grad uating class are: Alice Murray, Harvey Me Cray, Lucille McKenzie, Gloria Ryals, Dolores Pender, Mildred Cummings, Gretta Edmonson, Nathan Edwards, Frances Frazier, Bettie Graham, Hazel Scott, Elmore Singleton, Patricia Spikes, Gloria Wil liams, Pricilla Wilson, Louise Bradley, Charles Brown, Paul Chaney, Sheran Cleveland, Annie Mae Grovner, George Heyward, Mary Hutchins, Lawrence Bell, Natrine Ben jamin, Ruby Goodine,Catherine- Jones, Kelsie Mae Kelly, Mary Lewis, Freddie Lotson, Marian Manigo, and Jeannette Jenkins. INDEX MARRIAGES 3 LEGION OF DECENCY 2 EDITORIALS 4 DORIS ANSWERS YOUTH.. . . 4 OBITUARIES 5 BOOK REVIEWS 2 N.C.W.C. Legal Department Analyzes Decision High Court’s Prayer Ruling Seen As Not Outlawing AII Prayer In Public Schools This analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial decision in the New York prayer case was prepared especially for the Catholic press by George E. Reed, associate director of the Legal Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference and a specialist in legal matters affecting Church- State relationships. TIME OUT FOR REPAIR - Wooden scaffoldine sharplv contrasts with the classic lines of the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Erected for cleaning and repair work, the scaffold blots out the granite papal coat-of-arms of Pope Alexander VII. The three-tiered crown, however, looms above the scaffold. - (NC Photos) * * * * The Supreme Court’s latest opinion in the field of Church- State relationship is limited to prayers composed by govern ment. It does not outlaw all prayers in public schools. Furthermore, the court’s re cent decision does not articu late any proposition that is rele vant to Federal aid to educa tion. These are two significant points that can be drawn from a thorough study of the court’s decision in Engel v. Vitale. The court ruled that a prayer composed by the Board of Re gents of New York and recited in some of the public schools was unconstitutional in that it violated the “establishment of religion’’ clause of the First Amendment. New York courts, after making it clear that no student could be required to recite the prayer or even be retained in the school room while it was being said, had upheld the prayer's constitutionality. The highest court of New York declared: “Saying this simple prayer may be, according to the broadest possible dictionary definition, an acknowledgement of re ligion. When the Founding Fathers prohibited an ‘es tablishment of religion’, they were refering to an official adoption of, or favor to, one or more sects. They could not have meant to prohibit mere profes sions of belief in God, for if they did so, they them selves, in many ways were violating their rule when and after they adopted it.’’ In oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, the at torneys for the school board defending recital of the prayer and for intervening parents con tended that the prayer is an embodiment of traditional pub lic prayers. They argued that voluntarily reciting it represents a reason able and proper accommodation of the spiritual needs of our people and, as such, does not violate either the Federal or state constitutions. This proposition was re flected in the dissenting opinion of Justice Potter Stewart, who stated: “With all respect, I think the court has misapplied a great constitutional prin ciple. I cannot see how an official religion is estab lished by letting those who want to say a prayer, say it. On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our nation. Moreover, I think that the court’s task in this, as in all areas of constitutional adjudication, is not reason ably aided by the uncriti cal invocation of meta phors, like the ’rule of separation,’ a phrase no where to be found in the Constitution.’’ The only other Justice who did not join in the majority opinion was Justice William O. Douglas. He felt that the issue was disposed of on too narrow a base, and assented that the main point for the decision was “whether the gov ernment can constitutionally fi nance a religious exercise.’’ He observed that our system at the Federal and state levels is “presently honeycombed with such financing.’’ He referred to Bible reading, the G.I. Bill of Rights, the National School Lunch Act, the tax exemption of religious organizations, pos tal privileges, and the deduc tibility of bequests to religi ous institutions under the Fed eral Estate and Gift Tax Laws. He felt that if the court had taken a broad position and had held that the prayer was un constitutional on the ground that the state was financing a re ligious exercise, there would be a basis for applying this reasoning to other forms of asserted aid. He admitted that his posi tion is somewhat complicated by the decision in Everson v. State Board of Education, which up held the constitutionality of the New Jersey school bus trans portation law, but he disposed of this difficulty by saying that “the Everson case seems in retrospect to be out of line with the First Amendment.’’ Significantly, not one other member of the court adhered to this broad approach. As a matter of fact, no re ference is made in the decision to the “no aid’’ theory. No attempt is made, for example, to solve the Federal aid to education controversy. Some attorneys have been quoted as expressing the opinion that the decision in Engel out laws aid to parochial schools. There is nothing in the opin ion that pertains to any prin ciple relevant to this question. No reference is made to any institutional assistance and no reliance is placed upon any of the Church-State decisions of the court which have at various times been urged as precedents against the inclusion of all schools in Federal pro grams of aid to education. One of the interesting as pects of this decision is its failure to cite any previous Church-State cases. It depends primarily on the rationale set forth in the opinion, without importing additional reasoning by the citation of such cases as McCollum v. Board of Edu cation or Torcaso v. Watkins, where the court gave a very broad and secularistic inter pretation to the First Amend ment. Some attorneys have specu lated that the court has avoided reverence to these decisions because of a desire to free itself from their broad impli cation. This speculation, while interesting, is not persuasive. Actually, there is reason to believe that the court felt that the prayer was so intimately related to the basic concept of the establishment clause that legal citation was unnecessary. Thus the court observed: “The petitioners contend among other things that the state laws requiring or permitting use of the re gents’ prayer must be struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause because that prayer was composed by govern mental officials as a part of a governmental program to further religious beliefs. For this reason, peti tioners argue, the state’s use of the regents’ prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State. “We agree with that con tention since we think that the constitutional prohi bition against laws respec ting an establishment of re ligion must at least mean that in this country it is no part of the business of government to compose of ficial prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a re ligious program carried on by government.’’ The composition or formula tion of official prayers to re cite as a part of programs carried on by government ap pears to be the essence of the holding of the court. This was stressed in oral argument and frequent refer ence is made to this propo sition in the majority opinion. The court, for example, compares the New York prac tice to the governmentally com posed “Book of Common Pray er’’ which was the heart of the English Establishment. The analogy limps badly, ex cept on the fact of composi tion by government authority. The “Book of Common Prayer” contained distinctive sectarian tenets which did not reflect the basic religious tradition of this country. Moreover, it was ar- SAVANNAH - Graveside services were conducted by The Most Reverend Thomas J. Me Donough, D.D., bishop of the diocese, on Saturday, June30th, at 10 a.m. in Bonaventure Ce metery, for four members of the Bull family, who perished June 3 in the crash of a jet liner in Paris, France. Bodies of the victims arrived in Savannah on Thursday, June 28th. The family leaves no im mediate survivors. The crash, described as the world’s worst single airplane disaster, took the lives of 115 Georgians, most of whom were civic and cultural leaders in the Atlanta area. They were re turning from a European tour arranged by the Atlanta Art Association when the Air France jetliner crashed on takeoff. Catholic members of the Bull bitrarily imposed on all of the people. The court admits that the prayer does not amount to total establishment of a particular sect or of religion generally, but asserts that it is condemned by the following reasons of James Madison: “It is proper to take alarm at the first experi ment on our liberties. . . Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other re ligions, may establish with the same ease any parti cular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects? That the same au thority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?” This is a major weakness of the decision, for the Mem orial Remonstrance of Madi son is not a part of the Con stitution. It was a political tract used to defeat a bill in Virginia five years before the First family were Mr. and Mrs. Fred erick W. Bull, Jr. and their two daughters, Miss Elizabeth Wilmot Bull, 16; and Eleanor Adair Bull, 10. Mrs. Bull, Jr. was a grand daughter of Cornelius Sheehan who served in the Confederate Navy aboard the Savannah. A Sacred Heart College alumna, she was active in work of Hospital Auxiliaries and had served as president of the St. Joseph’s Infirmary Auxiliary in Atlanta, the Georgia Asso ciation of Hospital Auxiliaries and was -southeast representa tive of the national organization of Hospital Auxiliaries. An aunt, the late Mrs. Isabelle Shee han More, was the first secre tary of the Atlanta Art Asso ciation Her husband, a member of a Savannah family, served as a (Continued on Page 6) (Continued on Page 6) Bishop Conducts Services For Bull Family