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