The bulletin (Augusta, Ga.) 1920-1957, April 27, 1929, Image 6

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

6 THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA APRIL 27, 1929 THE BULLETIN The Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia. RICHARD REID, Editor. Member of N. C. W. C. News Service and of the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada. Published semi-monthly by the Publicity Department with the Approbation of the Rt. Rev. Bishops of Raleigh, Charles ton, Savannah, St. Augustine, Mobile and Natchez. 1409 Lamar Building Augusta, Georgia. Subscription Price, $2.00 Per Year. „ FOREIGN ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE S. T. Mattingly, Walton, Building Atlanta, Ga. ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1928-1929 P. H. RICE, K.C.S.G./ Augusta President COL. P. H. CALLAHAN, K.S.G., Louisville, Ky., ADMIRAL WM. S. BENSON, K.C.S.G., Washington, D. C.,.. BARTLEY J. DOYLE, Philadelphia Honorary Vice-Fresidents J. J. BAVERTY, Atlanta First Vice-President J. B. McCALLUM, Atlanta Secretary THOMAS S. GRAY, Augusta, Treasurer RICHARD REID, Augusta Publicity Director MISS CECILE C. FERRY, Augusta Asst. Publicity Director Vol. X. APRIL, 27, 1929 No. 8 Entered as second class matter June 15, 1921, at the Post Office at Augusta, Ga., under Act of March, 1879. _ Accepted for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized September 1, 1921. The Cardinal and Eiristeinn The Macon Telegraph, which is one of our best Southern newspapers and interesting whether one agrees with it or not, doesn’t like Cardinal O’Connell’s criticism of the Einstein theory. "The cardinal makes the mistake that so many clergymen do,” The Telegraph says editorially. "He condemns a scientific man because he does not under stand him or his theories or his ways.” It sees him as "looking for trouble. He doesn’t know what it is all about, and because he doesn’t, he scents a deep, dark plot to destroy the Christian basis of life. He even calls Einstein’s theory ‘the ghastly apparition of atheism.’ ” The Telegraph’s editorial' is very apparently based on statements taken out of the context of the Car dinal’s address; it is quite evident that the writer of the editorial did not read it. The talk was made at the University club in Boston to three hundred repre sentatives of the Catholic College Clubs of America, and the basic idea of the discourse was to urge the young people not to be swept off their feet by worked up and fictitious enthusiasm for new and unproved systems of philosophy. “For a while Ruskin was all the rage,” Cardinal O’Connell recalled, “and then he palled, and was for- gotten. Then this clicque began to boom Herbert Spencer. After a while he became passe, and enthu siasm for him died out. Then Schopenhauer was hailed as the greatest philosopher of the age, and we heard nothing but German philosophy until he com mitted suicide. Then he was dropped. Now, for the moment, it is Eftistein. Nobody knows what he is try ing to reveal, but in a certain sense that adds mys tery to his name, and the intellectual world, while puzzled, is almost ready to applaud, but in a short time it will be perfectly clear that Einstein’s day has come and gone and then, no doubt, there will be some one else who for the moment will gain the applause of the clicque and he will be boosted as the greatesi philosopher of modern times.” "Truth,” says Cardinal O’Connell, "is so simple, so clear, so substantial, so solid, so eternal!” The Telegraph on the other hand quotes Einstein as saying that only twelve men in the world understand his Evidence From Rome The folks who are always worried about the way they think the “hierarchy” is imposing on and mis leading Catholics and who are deeply distressed by the plots of the Pope to capture America and by the War and Navy Department’s blissful ignorance of such plans have more recently been greatly agitated and deeply concerned over the fate of their Protestant brethren in Rome, now that the concordat and treaty between the Vatican and Italy has been signed. It may console them to know that the pastor of the Cornelius Bake» Memorial Waldensian Church in Rome, a church as Protestant as the Baptist or Meth odist or Presbyterian—more Protestant than some from the standpoint of the length of separation from the Catholic Church—in an address at a luncheon of the Clergy Club at the Fraternity Club’s Building, 22 East Thirty-Eighth Street, New York, early in April declared that the pact will not affect the Protestant churches in Italy. “The treaty does not touch the Protestant church,” he said. “We of the Protestant church will go on the same way as before. Mussolini simply says that from now on the State and Church will have perfect free dom. I have confidence in Mussolini that he will do nothing against the Protestant Church. I think we of the Waldensian Church will be able to do our work in Italy the same as before.” This should console, the agitated folks, but it hardly will. They feel they know more about it than the Protestant pastor from Rome, whose evidence takes added importance when one considers it is in the nature of a declaration against interest. But, to paraphrase Sam and Henry, even if they know it’s true they won’t believe it. But we don’t feel unkindly toward them any more than toward a neurotic who despite perfect health imagaines he’s ailing all the time. With patience they can he cured. The Literary Awards Foundation The Catholic Press Association is still engaged in securing life members to complete its Catholic Literary Awards Foundation. The first prizes will be awarded this year at the convention in Cincinnati. The Foun dation is about one-fourth complete. It proposes when complete to award a number of prizes annually, four of them of two hundred and fifty dollars each, for literary work in the Catholic field. The income from the foundation will supply the funds. Prizes will be offered in every field, including high schools and col leges. The idea of the Literary Awards Foundation was advanced and adopted at the Savannah convention. Five hundred life members of the Catholic Press Asso ciation are sought in order to provide the funds. Life membership costs one hundred dollars, payable in in stallments if desired. Every Catholic publication in the United States affiliated with the Catholic Press Association has its quota of members to secure. Invitations to become life members have been ex tended by the Catholic Press Association to the mem bers of the Hierarchy, to pastors and their assistants, to Catholic schools, academies, colleges, universities and seminaries, and to prominent laymen and women. The Bulletin is anxious to secure its quota of members. It feels that there are in the Southeast a sufficient number interested in this great movement, which without doubt will develop a Catholic literature which will be a most effective means of breaking down Dixie Musings Roger W. Babson, business statis tician, thinks that cheap movies are largely responsible for the crime wave in the United States. Nor can the movie magnates remedy the sit uation by jumping the price of ad mission. "Foch smoked a pipe and won a war," says the Boston Pilot. “Dawes smoked one and won a diplomatic post.” So we read in the Savannah Press. The Boston Pilot is Cardi nal O’Connell’s paper. Charlie Brown may want to know who on The Press reads The Pilot. Pat Scanlon in the Brooklyn Tab let says that “when Alabama was recently suffering from floods and the people were in terrible want, Big Tom Heflin was about Maine seeking to hold the line—at so much per—against a future invasion of the Pope.” Surely Editor Scanlon did not expect a dry senator like Tom to do otherwise than shun wet ter ritory. The Dothan Eagle over in Alaba ma tells about a man whose "charm ing wife is Irish through and through, and possesses that delight ful wit and sense of humor that has characterized the people from the Land of Erin for generations be fore a Spanish Queen borrowed mon ey from some liberal Jews to finance the journey of an adventurous Ita lian Catholic who eventually dis covered a land where Hundred Per centers grew up to blush at the thought.” A former New York Congressman, Charles D. Haines, died recently near Tampa at the age of 73.. Con gressman Haines, a resident of Flo rida for the past seventeen years, was the financial backer of the Na tional Pilgrim, an anti-Catholic pub lication, which the Catholic Lay men’s Association of Georgia pu,t out of business about five years ago. When the Laymen’s Associa tion exposed its dishonesty in claim ing as vice-presidents national fig ures who never heard of the publi cation, Congressman Haines with drew his support, and the collapse of the publication followed. Governor Catts, whose anti-Ca tholicism was his chief stock in trade in Florida a few years ago, is again in trouble, charged this time with being mixed up with a coun terfeiting ring. We’ll not anticipate the verdict of the court, but merely point out that the Governor has long been dead politically in the penin sula state. Even in politics anti- Catholicism does not pay in the long run. The new Governor of Oklahoma, Holloway, who succeeded the im peached Klansman, Johnston, was the principal speaker at a meeting of the Gibbons Club in Oklahoma City recently. He paid a tribute to Catholics and said he had never heard his father, a Baptist minis ter, speak disrespectfully of them. Former Governor M. E. Trapp was also present at the meeting of the Catholic organization. Joseph Quinn of the Southwest Courier, Bishop Kelley’s Diocesan paper, believes that Oklahoma should be given cre dit for getting rid of a governor when it finds he is no good instead of putting up with him until the next election. • The Question Box By Rev. Bernard X. O’Reilly To G. M.: If a Protestant marry a Catholic he is not bound to follow the practices of the Catholic Church. He is not compelled to fast or ab stain on the days commanded by the Church, nor is he obliged to go to Mass on Sundays or holy days of obligation. Before a dispensation for such a marriage is granted the non-Catholic party must promise that he considers marriage a con tract indissoluble except by death, that he will have no marriage cere mony performed other than that by a priest, that he will never interfere with his wife in the practice of re ligion, will have all children born of the union raised in the Catholic faith even though his Catholic wife should die before the children have reached the age of maturity. Q. How soon before death should a sick person be anointed? A. The rubrics of the Church urge that any one in probable danger of death may and should receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. It is a great mistake to wait until peo ple are in imminent danger of death before summoning a priest. The Sacrament of Extreme Unction is primarily to bestow some special grace upon the soul at a critical time of life, but it is also an occa sion in which God sometimes con fers a special blessing in the way of bodily health. If a person re ceived the Sacrament of Extreme Unction during a serious illness and partly recovers, the Sacrament may be administered again if there is a relapse. In the case of invalids who are victims of a fatal disease, but whose illness is of long stand ing, it is generally admitted that it is commendable to anoint them at repeated intervals. Q. What are the conditions under which the Church will annul a mar riage? A. There are certain impediments to marriage which are called diri ment or invalidating impediments. When a couple attempts to marry over such an impediment and with out proper dispensation the mar riage is not a true marriage. The Church will annul such a union not in an attempt to grant a divorce, but to make an official declan^tioji that the marriage was invalid from the beginning. Q. What are the duties of the Apostolic Delegate? A. He is the official representa tive of the Pope to deal with mat ters pertaining to church govern ment in a particular country. He is not delegate to the civil govern ments, but to the bishops of the Church. The Pope is the supreme head of the Universal Church, but since he can hot be present in all parts of the world he sends a rep resentative who will consult with the bishops of the country and be consulted by them in matters re lating to the spiritual welfare of the people. There are occasions when it would cause serious inconven iences to await answer to a direct appeal to Rome and in such cases the Apostolic Delegate may have sufficient authority to answer ques tions for the Holy Father, Q. Is the evading of taxes either by failure to report property owned or falsely reporting same consider ed a grievous sin? Most people do not seem to think that there is anything wrong about this. theory. The Cardinal admits he is not one of them, but that does not mean that “he doesn’t know what it is all about,” as The Telegraph asserts, for he says; "Now, I have my own ideas about the so-called theories of Einstein, with his relativity and his utterly befogged notions about time and space. It means nothing short of an attempt at muddying the waters so that without perceiving the drift innocent students are led away into a realm of speculative thought the sole basis of which, so far as I can see, is to produce a universal doubt about God and His creation.” “The Bishop’s attitude,” says The Telegraph, “is too typical of what has been, upon the whole, the attitude of his own church and of other churches.'” Two generations ago, the Catholic Church was regard- ed as reactionary because it did not become enthusias tic about the philosophic, economic, educational and other movements popular in that day. A generation passed, and new movements succeeded the old; the Catholic Church was not swept from her basis by them, and again was regarded as reactionary. Today the theory of Einstein finds the Catholic Church as conservative in its attitude toward it as the philosophy of Schopenhauer in another day. Let the theory be proved. Only twelve men understand it, according to Einstein as quoted by The Telegraph, and how many of these twelve believe it is any sounder than the countless other discredited theories, The Christian Index, Baptist, Atlanta, reports that there are in the United States 64,000,000 people mem bers of no church, 33,500,000 Protestant Church mem bers, 18,500,000 members of the Catholic Church and 4,000,000 of the Jewish Church. It does seem that some Of the energy spent fighting members of another deno mination might be more effectively spent trying to interest some of the 64,000,000 non-church members in religion, h- ■ prejudices, to enable The Bulletin to fulfill its obliga tions in this direction. It means at least as much to the Southeast as to any other section. Will you make yourself or your school a life member? We shall be pleased to furnish information about the movement. Catholic Education and Morality A canard has been described as something you can ’ardly believe. One of the most popular of these’ canards in anti-Catholic circles cites anonymous fig ures in an effort to show that Catholic school grad uates turn to crime more readily than those of other schools, particularly public schools. In the year ending July 1 of last year, 423 inmates of the New York State Reformatory, Elmira, N. Y., listed themselves as Catholics. Rev. Francis J. Lane, chaplain there .conducted a survey of them. Less than one-fourth were in the habit of attending church with any degree of regularity, and one cannot be a Catholic in good standing without regular attendance at Mass and reception of the Sacraments. Of . those attending Mass regularly, practically every one was a first or accidental offender. The rest embraced a criminal career after leaving the Catholic Church. Furthermore, of the 423, only 124 ever attended a Catholic school; the others, 299, attended public schools. Of the 124 who attended Catholic schools, more than half left before completing the sixth grade. Of the entire population of the reformatory in the state where Catholics are most numerous, only two pef cent are graduates of Catholic schools, “A religious founda tion is necessary if the other attributes of education are to survive,” in the expressed opinion of Former President Coolidge. The religious foundation of edu cation in Catholic schools directs those who receive, it along pathways of good citizenship, as these figures indicate, The Journal de L’Ain of July 13, 1880, quoted Pope Pius IX as saying in 1873: “The Prussians will again invade French territory. Taken by surprise, the French armies will at first undergo cruel defeats; but thanks to unforeseen alliances, they will win a victory that will give them more territory than they lost in 1870. The independence of the Holy See will follow this new war.” La Croix reprinted this prediction in its issue of February 27, 1916. It proved to be a prophecy. Here but a few weeks after a United States Senator made a spec tacle of himself in the Senate by charging the Catholic Church with attempting to dominate the Navy, the Protestant chaplains of the navy, in conference at Union church Balboa, Canal Zone,, express regret that there are not more Catholic chaplains to look after the religious needs of the Catholics in the ser vice. There are twenty-one posts for Catholic chaplains in the navy; only eleven of them are filled. One of these eleven priests is resigning; the other may go out soon because of physical disability. This is what anti-Catholics are talking about when they warn against “Catholic domination of the Navy. The U. S. Census Bureau reports that 16,317 Catholic churches ex pended $204,526,000 in a year, an average of about $12,750 each. The value of 16,254 Catholic churches in the United States is $837,271,053, on which there is an indebtedness oi $135,815,789, or about 16 1-2 per cent. Five states, New York, Pennsylva nia, Massachusetts, Illinois and New Jersey, have over a million Catho lics. Even from a material stand point, isn’t it foolish to be disturb ed by attacks on us by discredited agitators in back alleys? A former Congregational minis- A. We would hardly agree that most people do not think there is anything wrong in such conduct. In the first instance when you make a return for taxes and it is a false re turn you lie. We are bound in con science to pay our part for sup port of government. The character of the sin would depend upon the amount involved. ter, James Alexander Smith, is now a Catholic lay missionary in the Dio cese of Pittsburgh. He is but one of many Protestant ministers who have come into the Catholic Church recently. He does • not go around criticizing or misrepresenting his former associates in religion. The spirit of Christ is that of love, not hate, and it is that spirit that brings people into the Catholic church Even if a convert minister did not have the spirit, he would not preach hatred to Catholics more than once or twice; thereafter he would have no audience. The Associated Press reports that at Bognor, England, “King Geoge performed an official ceremony at Craigwell House, where he is recu perating. The occasion was a recep tion to the new Archbishops of Can terbury and York, who come to do homage to their sovereign and kiss his hand on their appointments ”• This is an indication of the domina tion of the Church by the State as distinguished from the Catholic doc trine that Church and State are inde pendent in their respective spheres. If the youngsters who threw mud at Senator Heflin in Brockton, Mass, were not paid by him, and they were not, they were badly cheated. We hesitate to think of what would happen to a Catholic Senator who came to this part of the country and maligned Protestants an dtheir reli gion as Heflin is maligning Catho lics in the East. That explains but does not excuse the one minor ad verse act in the Bay State,