Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

4 THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA JUNE 15, 1929 THE BULLETIN The Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen’s Associa- tion of Georgia. RICHARD REID, Editor. Member of N. C. W. C. News Service, the Catholic Tress Association of the United States, and the Geor gia Fress Association. Published semi-monthly by the Publicity Department with the Approbation of the Rt. Rev. Bishops of Ra leigh Charleston, 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 OFFI CERS 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-Presidents J. J. HAVERTY, Atlanta First .Vice-President J. B. McCALLUM, Atlanta Secretary THOMAS S. GRAY, Augusta Treasurer RICHARD REID, Augusta Publicity Director MISS CECILE O. FERRY, Augusta Asst. Publicity Director Vol. X June 15, 1929. No. 11 Entered as second class matter June 15, 1921, at the Tost 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 Laity’s Opportunity” Discussing ‘‘The Catholic Dayman’s Opportunity” j in the June issue of The Missionary, Michael Wil- j liams, editor of The Commonweal and author of “The i High Romance,” “The Catholic Church and the j Modern Mind,” and numerous other works of dis- 1 tinction, referred to the activities of the Catholic Daymen's Association of Georgia as an example of the Catholic laymen and laywomen of the country. Dr. Williams said in part: "After all, if the church is not better known, it is largely because Catholics themselves have not been more wisely active in making her known. It is not the business of the non-Catholics to explain and justify the Catholic Church—although, to their honor let it be said, scores of highly prominent non-Catho lics have been splendidly outspoken in defending the church against the sort of attacks that were made upon her during the stress and storm of the political campaign. But what is said for or against the church during periods of political excitment do not have lasting effects, except (unfortunately) in stir ring anger, and resent, or mere excitment. It will he by calm, slow, continuous, unslackening educa tional efforts extending over years and generations that the true apostolate of the Catholic Church will succeed. ‘‘The Catholic Daymen’s Deague of Georgia realized that fact some years ago. Perhaps there was no state in the union where anti-Catholicism was so rife. The Catholics were few and far from wealthy. But they organized and have carried on one of the most truly successful branches of the lay apostolate. They founded a permanent headquarters with a small hut devoted staff giving its whole time to the task of watching the press of Georgia and answering all charges against or attacks upon the church. They adopted the just principle that the great majority of such attacks or charges were the result of ignorance or misinformation rather than of malice or hatred. Firmly yet courteously they answered all such er roneous statements. The effect of such a method, extending now over a period of years, has been enor mously beneficial. We need similar groups in at least a score of other states. Here is an opportunity indeed for Catholic laymen and laywomen to grasp! "Some day, we shall have an national organization, linking together and coordinating, and financing, all such worthy local activities. We shall have training schools for lay speakers and writers and promoters of Catholic apologetics; educating public speakers, for example, as the Catholic Evidence Guild of Eng land so successfully does; so that they may not only speak in lecture halls, and forums, hut may so out The Archbishop’s Suggestion In addressing the annual banquet of the Catholic Press Association at Cincinnati, the Most Rev. John T. Nicholas, O. P., D. D., Archbishop of Cincinnati, planted a thought which we trust will hear abundant fruit. He said: "As one reads the many bequests made to religion and to all Catholic endeavors, it seems very extra ordinary that thinking men and women who must realize the great good accomplished by the Catholic Press under most discouraging conditions do not make some provision in their last wills and testa ments to further this work. We may ask: What can be done to interest Catholic wealth in our Press? Somebody ought to be charged with this as a definite mission.” It is encouraging to have this thought introduced by such an authoritative sponsor as the Archbishop of Cincinnati. It is not new to the Catholic Daymen’s Association of Georgia, which already has started an endownment fund which when completed will not insure the perpetuity of the work of the Association but the continuance of The Bulletin as a Catholic newspaper for Georgia and the Southeast. The en dowment fund is now in its infancy, but there are in dications that friends of the Association in other parts of the country especially will assist in build ing it up through gifts and legacies while the little band of Georgia Catholics is making sacrifices to meet the current expenses of spreading the gospel of peace and good-will. Sources of Zeal When the Catholics of Georgia thirteen years ago launched their movement "to bring about a friendlier feeling among Georgians irrespective of creed,” they hardly dreamed that their efforts would be as far- reaching as the intervening years has revealed them to be. In scores of issues of The Bulletin there have ap peared tributes to the work from Catholic leaders of thought and action in every part of the nation, nor have these words of commendation been limited to United States or even American sources. Within the year, the blessing of the Holy Father and public commendation by Cardinal Hayes and several Bishops have more than honored it. The previous issue recorded the compliment to the efforts of the Daymen's Association through the invitation of the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Harrisburg to an official of the Association to explain the work to conferences of his priests. This issue reproduces from The Missionary, published by the Paulist Fathers, the peers of any authorities on work among non-Catholics, an article in which Michael Williams, distinguished author and the editor of The Commonweal, cites the Georgia laymen’s movement as an example to the laity of the country. At the recent convention of the Catholic Press Association in Cincinnati, the clerical editor of the official organ of one of our leading American Dio ceses told a Daymen’s Association official that he regarded the work being done by the Catholics here as even more important to the nation as a whole than to Georgia because of the inspiration it is to the Catholic laity of the United States. Such tributes are a source of great encourage ment to the Catholics of Georgia; they give them new zeal in their work of good-will and charity, and after drawing strength from them they refer them to their Bishop and their Clergy, without whose wholehearted endorsement and assistance on the one hand and cooperation on the other, the results re ferred to in the kind estimates of the work would not have been possible. These tributes impress on the Daymen's Association a realization of -added l responsibility and accentuate its ardent desire to | continue to reveal itself as worthy of confidence re- | posed in it inside of Georgia and out. Dixie Musings Dixie Press The Dalton Citizen quotes a North Georgia citizen as telling of an Irish preacher describing drink, which he said “is the greatest curse of the age. It makes you quarrel with your neighbors. It makes you shoot at your landlord. And it makes you miss him.” Out of sixty petit jurors examin ed for an Atlanta murder trial, in which the defendant was a negro, fifty-three disqualified because they were opposed to capital pun ishment. A great many jurors more or less unconsciously opposed to capital punishment sit in murder cases. What Senator Heflin says about the Catholic Church is not import ant. .What the press of the South thinks of him is significant. .The following quotations from Georgia newspapers may therefore be of in terest to our readers: POISONING PEOPLE’S MINDS Atlanta Constitution—A close as sociate of Tom Heflin tells us that he is so fearful that the Catholics have designs upon his life that he takes no chances on having his food poisoned. He should use the same discretion and not poison the minds of the people. “CATHOLIC DOMINATION" Charley Brown down in Cordele calls “Uncle Jim” Williams of the Greensboro Herald-Journal a "Catholic coddler.” Says “Uncle Jim”: “We do not know what that is. It seems to he some kind of a fish or a peculiar apple.” He goes on record as refusing to say what he thinks Editor Brown is. Editor Shytle of the Adel News whose paragraph on intolerance was quoted in the previous Issue of The Bulletin, finds plenty of sup port for his position. The existence and extent of intolerance is pitiable, he said. The Manchester Mercury is one of several Georgia news papers which repeated and endors ed his thoughts. Likewise the Bre men Gateway. "At a time when all ordinary cre dits are tight and business proceeds with utmost caution, and unem ployment continues on a large scale, the Catholic Church in this archdiocese keeps money in circula tion by its building program,” says F. Gordon O’Neill, editor of The Monitor of San Francisco. That is true generally throughout the coun try. It has been suggested that public buildings and other public works be constructed in times of cooperative depression, hut public officials here today and gone to morrow, do not view the plan with favor. Catholic parishes and dio ceses could make plans with this in mind; the effect would be benefi cial in several obvious ways. Father Charles Dubois Wood sends greetings to the editor and readers of The Bulletin from the Eternal City. Father Wood is en joying a leave of absence from the Diocese of Charleston where he was formerly pastor of St. Mary’s Church; he ie one of the most widely known priests in the South east. He expects to return from Europe in the early autumn. He remembered his ‘friends in Rome and at the Shrine of St. Anthony in Padua. Because of the great amount of news matter available from the Southeast this issue, commence ment news especially, it was neces sary to hold some until the next number of The Bulletin. Corres pondents and school officials will assist The Bulletin greatly if they will send in news of graduation ex ercises as early as possible. Edward V. Killeen of Brooklyn, a member and warm friend of the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia, was invested with the in signia of a Knight of St. Gregory by the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Brooklyn the last Sunday of May. Word that the Holy Father l)ad thus honored him came to Mr. Killeen Holy Thursday while he was in Augusta. Mr. Killeen although active in a number of business enterprises finds time to be more than a church-going Catholic, as nume rous Catholic activities, including the Laymen's Association, can testify. The Bulletin congratulates him on this honor so worthily be- Valdosta, Ga., Times—Now that Senator Heflin has failed to have the Senate join him in con demning a Massachusetts town be cause of indignities that were heap ed upon him, it is probable that he will claim that the Senate is domi nated by Catholics. As we see it the senators do not care to pick up the quarrels of a member who is never satisfied without being in one. ENCOURAGING HEFLIN M .a con Telegraph—By vot ing favorably oh the Heflin resolu tion, in which the senator from Al abama sought condemnation of the disorders at a meeting in Brockton, Mass., at which he delivered a Ku Klux Klan address, the senators from Georgia may have pleased the members of the klan, hut it is a safe assumption that they have dis appointed a greater number of Georgians. Besides all this, Senator Harris and George gave aid and comfort to Heflin in his asininity and in his flowering martyr complex. Nothing delights him so much, it seems, as to assume the attitude of a martyr, bleeding for a sacred cause. Securing even 13 recruits out of 96 will give him the idea that he is the leader of a glorious, if small, army battling for the peo ple, when he is only a clown who would be amusing, if he did not in reality speak the sentiments of so many intoierants. REPRIMAND THE SENATE! Brunswick, Ga., News—Tom Heflin just can't contain himself. He went lip into New England and took the liberty, because clothed with a senator’s toga, to hall out Catholics generally, and we all know how vitriolic he can become on the subject. And when some boys in a crowd outside the hail in which ,he spoke forgot themselves and showed their ill-manners enough to shy a bottle or two at the senator, he wanted the United States senate to pass a resolution reprimanding the whole aggrega tion. But the senate, composed in most part of men with clearer heads than the Alabamian, voted his proposition down, 69 to 14. Now Heflin is madder than ever and threatens to have the senate re solute the reprimand those 69, if such a stunt can he pulled off. IGNORING HIM THE REMEDY Bullock (Statesboro, Ga.) Times —As a senator, Heflin de mands the senatorial courtesy which he is not entitled to as a private citizen. His recent resolu tion in the Senate, intended to sat isfy his personal grievances, what ever the reason for those griev ances, compelled two Georgia sen ators to line up with him through that spirit of courtesy to which his station and not his personators; they could not have done otherwise, perhaps, without breaking a pre cedent that may some time be val uable to them. We regret they had to do it, though. Senator Tom Heflin is a pest that must be endured till he can be gotten rid of. The less atten tion he gets, the more harmless he is. Into the streets and public places. Plans for such things are now being studied and discussed in high quarters. "But meanwhile, we Catholic laymen and lay- women need not be idle; we need not and should not wait till some wonderful plan has been handed out to us by others. If we do, it is likely that the won derful plan will promptly fail in practice, no matter how perfect it may theoretically be. Let us get busy now! We can work harder,-,for and in any society or organization to •which we at present belong; we can make ourselves recruiting agents for such groups, bringing in the slackers and those who should be working but who as yet have not seen their duty. We can increase the number of readers of the Catholic papers and magazines. We can distribute pamphlets and books. There is no lack of present opportunities and every, even the slightest, increase of fervor and activity in even the smallest parish in • the land contributes vitally to swell the vast and mighty current of Catholic Action which the times demand.” A year ago Senator Heflin told Senator Robinson on the floor of the Senate that if he carried out his threat of repeating his speech against religious in tolerance in Alabama, the people there would tar and feather him. Now he wishes the Senate to de clare war on the Catholic Church because some un named, unidentified individual tossed a bottle at him in Massachusetts for making hjmseif obnoxious there. The Christian Index, discussing the contributions of J. C. Penney to Protestant efforts, says: “We are inplined to think that there are many other business men today who are inclining toward this theory of stewardship. Mr. Jim Anderson of Knoxville is per haps the largest individual contributor among South ern Baptists. He gives seven hundred and fifty dol lars through his church every Sunday. Last year he lost a considerable sum of money and suffered the tragic loss of his noble companion. But Mr. Ander son didn’t let up in his giving. He increased it. He gave, on top of all his other regular and special gifts, fifty thousand dollars to the Christmas love offering.” The Catholic Bishops of England have issued a pronouncement on education in which they empha size the point that the teacher in a school acts for the parent and not for the state. The pupil belongs to the parents; it does not belong to the state. Some times it seems that this fundamental principle is lost sight of in these United States. A Trappist Brother, a member of one of the strict est orders in the Catholic Church, died recently at New Melleray Abbey, Peosta, la. He was eighty- seven years old, and spent fifty-three consecutive years in the abbey. He was the fifteenth monk to die at New Melleray in fifteen years. Not one of the fifteen was less than seventy; one was ninety-three years old. Fasting and penance did not injure their health. “Have the atheists ever built a charity hospital?” asks O. O. McIntyre, thereby ^teaching a volume of sermons. stowed. News of the erection of I he new parish of St. Mary at Rome in North Georgia and the appoint ment of Father Cassidy as pastor is not only interesting but gratify ing to the Catholics of the diocese of Savannah; it is an irdication of the progress of Catholicity in Geor gia. The church in Rome is over fifty years erected; a new church is planned. Some of the finest Catholics in the state live there arjd we may expect to see St. Mary’s parish under Father Cas sidy's direction soon take its place among the most flourishing cf the 'smaller parishes in the diocese. A peasant with a troubled con science went to a monk for advice, according to the Knickerbocker Press, Albany, N. Y„ as quoted in the Literary Digest. He said he had circulated a vile story about a friend, only to find out the story was not true. “If you want to make peace with your conscience,” said the monk, “you must fill a bag with chicken down,, go to every dooryard in the village, and drop in each one of them one fluffy feather.” The peasant did a 3 was told. Then he came back to the monk and announced he had done penance for his folly. “Not yet,” replied the monk. "Take your bag, go the rounds again and gather up every feather that you have dropt.” “But the wind must have blown them all "away,” said the peasant. “Yes, my son,” said the monk, "and so it is with gossip. Words are easily dropt, but no mat ter how hard you may try. you edn never get them hack again.” THE CATHOLIC AGAIN Willacoochee, Ga., Time s— Sure, we know who made Senator Heflin’s son get drunk and play the fool in New York not long ago. The Catholic pope is the fellow re sponsible. Any good “100 percent American” ought to know that. (Note.—Since the above para graph was written, we see that Senator Hefl’n says his son was “the victim of a Catholic plot.” What did we tell you?) SOME BAD POLITICS The Madison, Ga., Madisonian— The Georgia senators have not helped themselves with many good people in this section by taking up the cause of Senator Hefflin in the matter of his interruption during a Ku Klux tirade in Boston. if they meant it as a political gesture it was a failure. NO ENTHUSIASM The Cobb County Times — Heflin's resolution in the Senate was voted down by a wide margin. And although both of Georgia’s Senators voted for the Alabamian s grievance, we dare say they were n't any too enthusiastic over the affair. SENATORIAL COURTESY. Walton, Ga., Tribune—The Macon Telegraph thinks that Sen ators Harris and George should not have voted for the resolution giv ing comfort to Heflin, of Alabama. And so do we, but we imagine that their action was the result of “Senatorial courtesy” rather than any abounding sympathy for the Alabama bull.