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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC L AYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA FEBRUARY 1, 1930 THE BULLETIN ,'he Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen’s Assoeia- tion of Georgia. RICHARD REID, Editor. Published semi-monthly by the Publicity Department •vith the Approbation of the Rt. Rev. Bishops of Ra leigh. Charleston. Savannah, St. Augustine, Mobile and Natchez. 1-109 Lamar Building, Augusta, Georgia. Subscription Price, $2.00 Per Year. FOREIGN ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE ■3. T. Mattingly, Walton Building Atlanta, Ga. ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1928-1929 H.* RICE, K.C.S.G., Augusta President :OL. P. II. CALLAHAN, K.S.G., Louisville, Ky„ \DMIRAL 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. XI. February 1, 1930. No. 3. 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. It’s Being Done '“It has long been my hope that a movement would be started which would result in a small, competent group in each large city of the country whose job it would be to pick up and answer every misstatement, slurring or otherwise, made in ignorance or malice, concerning the Church,” someone wrote recently to the editor of the • Catholic Citizen, Milwaukee. “All answers would have to assume good faith on the part of the offender, and the work would have to be so well organized that it wouldn’t ' take long for the public and the press to realize that a regular authorized, sure-fire squad was watching that particular sector.” r Whereupon the editor of the Catholic Citizen com mented: “Can you name in your own locality five Catholics with sufficient zeal and intelligence to serve on such a committee? With the assistance of a priest, as an advisory member, such a committee would be well worth while. But who will take the initiative? Nobody nowhere.” As a matter of fact, the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia has been doing such work in this state since 1916. Benedict Elder has been doing it in Louisville. There are others we might mention, riot working spas modically, but continuously, consistently, systematical ly. The situation, therefore, is not as bad as Dr. Des- monc! seems to think, but except in some localities, among which we presume to mention our own, not even a start has been made. The Catholic Laymen s Associa tion of Georgia finds that most misstatements about Catholics and the Church appearing in the press of this state are made in good faith and corrections are courteously and often cordially received. We believe that any group nearly anywhere in the United States undertaking this work in the spirit suggested in the let ter to the Milwaukee Catholic Citizen will evoke the same reaction as the Catholic Laymen s Association has experienced in Georgia. The United States and the Vatican Sixty-five years ago the Pope ruled the Papal States with as much authority as the King of Italy and Musso lini rule them and all Italy now. His sovereignty was acknowledged by all the governments of tire world, in cluding our own. His temporal sovereignty was limited to the territory of the Papal States; he claimed no civil authority over Catholics elsewhere. His spiritual authority extended over the entire Catholic world. Not only did our government recognize Pope Pius IX as the temporal ruler of the Papal States as the succes sor of a dynasty of lawful rulers that goes back to the eighth century, antedating by centuries the proudest royal houses of Europe, but it exchanged ministers with Ihe Papal States quite as it now exchanges diplomatic representatives with England, France, Germany and the Other nations of the world. The situation created by the Independence of the Vatican does not create any new situation for American Catholics or the governments of the world. And the attitude of our government toward the Vatican in those days, suscinctly expressed by Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, in a letter to the American minister to Rome, may reassure nervous and Suspicious people with anti-Catholic complexes. Secre tary Seward wrote: “The opening of our country as an asylum to men of all religions as well as of all races, and an extension of the trade of the Union,.in a short time brought with them large masses of the faithful members of that Church of various birth and derivation, and these masses are continually augmenting. Our country has not been slow to learn that while religion is with the masses, as it is with cther3, a matter of conscience, and while the spiritual head of the Church is a cardinal artijtie cf their faith which must be tolerated on the soundest principles of civil liberty, yet that this faith in no way necessarily interfetes with the equal rights of the citizen or affects unfavorably his loyalty to the Republic. It is believed that ever since the tide of emigration set in upon this continent, the Head of the Reman Church and States has freely recognized and favored the development of political freedom on the part of Catholics in this country, while he has never lost an i opportunity to express his satisfaction with the growth, jgrosperity and progress of the American people." The Basis of Good Will The' Calvert Round Table of Boston recently sponsored a seminar of one hundred Bostonians who gathered at Harvard University at the invitation of President Lowell to discuss prejudices, tlfeir causes and their remedies. Addresses were made by Mr. Patrick O’Connell, presi dent of the Calvert Round Table, who presided, Presi dent Lowell of Harvard, Rabbi Harry Levi of Boston, Father Michael I. Ahern, S. J., of the Jesuit House of Studies, Weston, Mass., and others equally notable, and the conference closed with the adoption of the follow ing declaration: “Sincere conviction as to the absolute truth of one s own faith, and, as a corollary, the error or inadequacy of other religions, involves no question of the spiritual sincerity of those who differ and who hold firmly to the tenets of their own faith, their inalienable right to the practice of their religion, or as to their eternal reward. “That such sincere differences are matters of con science between the individual soul and its Creator, and therefore are entitled to universal respect. “That such ‘agreement to disagree’ as to the fundament als of their respective faiths in no way interferes with their active cooperation in all undertakings making for the welfare of the community. “That discrimination—political, social or economic based solely «n religious prejudices and intolerance, violates both the letter and spirit of the Constitution, and is fraught with great peril to the security of the Re public. “We call upon our fellow-countrymen and women, re gardless of creed or nativity, to adopt and put into prac tice the foregoing declaration.” This declaration coming out of the Seminar at Harvard- is in refreshing contrast to similar statements often made by people seeking to promote “tolerance.” It rose from the plains of tolerance to the heights of good will. To tolerate is merely to endure, and the mitigating of prejudice must have a more solid basis. The Seminar’s declaration recognizes this fact, and it likewise avoids the fallacious principle of those who would reduce prejudice by compromise of convictions. There are fundamental differences between beliefs of different denominations, and a recognition of this fact and a wholesome respect for the honest convictions of others while at the same time remaining unswervingly loyal to one’s own convictions is a first requirement in crowd ing out prejudice by good will. These promoting the Calvert Round Table Seminar at Harvard express the hope that similar groups will be organized in other parts of the country. Such groups will be guided by sound principles if they adopt those permeating the declaration adopted at the Seminar at Harvard. DIXIE MU SINGS Every time they hear about an am bassador or postmaster being con firmed by the Senate, some folks wonder what has become of separa tion of Church and State. Ernest Camp’s Monroe Tribune re joices at the Congressional action eliminating interspersed notations of “applause” in speeches in the Con gressional Record. They tell a story of a newspaper typesetter who once misread this “applause” as “apple sauce”, and it got by the proof-read er. A Catholic Citizen circular asserts that “an officer of a Catholic society who fails to read a Catholic paper regularly is as little fitted for his place as a lawyer who has no law books.” And again: “A Catholic who tells you: ‘I don’t read a Catho lic paper’ is apt to have a son who will say: ‘ don’t go to Church.’ ” Catholic journalism loses a widely known and able figure in the death in Illinois of Scannell O’Neill. Mr. O’Neill, who had edited the Catholic Columbian. Michigan Catholic and other leading newspapers, has con tributed in recent years the splendid sperious of articles, “Notable South ern Converts” and “The Catholic Relatives of Alexander Stephens” to the Columns of The Bulletin; he con tributed these articles gratus. The readers of The Bulletin are asked to remember him in their prayers. What Constitutes Morality? In an address before the Rotary Club of Fayetteville, N. C., Dr. Horace Williams, dean of the department of philosophy of the University of North Carolina, deplor ed the trend of womanhood away from religion, accord ing to published reports. Womanhood is drifting- away from those conceptions, he said, which in the past en abled her to influence the world through her home and children. Our Catholic women as a rule have not been carried away by this current, but unfortunately what Dr. Williams says about womanhood in general &eems to have a solid basis in fact. “The speaker traced the development _ of the. idea of personal responsibility to oneself rather than submission to a theory or authority of right,” Dr. Williams is further quoted as saying. “Socrates and Martin Luther were instanced as leaders of the thought that men should do right because it is right and not because the State or Church so decrA-s.” As a matter of fact, thousands of years before Martin Luther and before Socrates man was required to do right because it was right and not because the State or Church so decreed. No State or Church forbade Cain to slay Abel, yet he committed a crime and a sin against the natural law when he took the life of his brother. Murder is not wrong merely because Church and State forbid it, Church and State forbid it because it is wrong. The Church'like any other organization can lay down requirements for membership, and this she is further authorized to do by her Divine Founder; she can suspend these rules whenever it seems proper to her to do so. But the Church could not permit murder, though the Heavens fall, and this was her teaching for fifteen centuries before Martin Luther and his doctrine of the efficacy of faith without good works. The estate of T. P. O’Connor, “Father of the House of Commons” in England, amounts to only $1,500. Charity “to an almost reckless de gree” is responsible, the Daily Ex press of London says. T. P. earned large sums of money during his life time, particularly in his chosen field of journalism, and he poured it out for worthy causes. “I venture to say that if the Catho lic Church, representing 300,000,000 adherents, should be wiped out, the world would go Bolshevist in two months.” This is not the statement of the Pope, or a Cardinal, Bishop, priest or Catholic layman, but of Joseph E. Morcombe, editor of “The Masonic World”, in an address re cently in Oakland, Cal. The Fellow ship Forum and those of like mind would probably say: “Let her go.” Chambers County, the home county of Senator J. Thomas Heflin, of Alabama, refuses to intercede in his behalf before the state democratic executive committee which barred Heflin from the party’s August primary for non-support of the party’s presidential nominee in 1928. The resolution to intercede was de feated six to four. Well, what can you expect of a county with a county seat with a name like Lafayette, Tom’s home town? Robert E. Lee The birthday of Robert E. Lee, who was born January 19, one hundred and twenty-three years ago was the oc casion of a stirring editorial tribute to him in America, conducted by tire Jesuit Fathers in New York. “In what ever aspect Lee is studied, the man is supremely great,” the editorial concluded. “Great as a soldier, he was great as a teacher and administrator, but greatest of all in his faith in God and in his unfeigned piety. He ‘thought it to be the office of a college not merely to educate the intelligence but to make Christian men,’ writes Joynes. ‘I shall be disappointed, sir,’ Lee once re marked, ‘and I shall fail in the leading object which brought me here unless all these young men become con sistent Christians.’ Under whatever flag our fathers fought, we can now do homage to the hero who belongs not to the South alone but to all nations and to all men everywhere who love liberty and revere selfless devo tion to duty.” As an advocate of religious education Robert E. Lee followed in the footsteps of another great Virignian, George Washington. A burglar in Hanover, Germany, pleaded that he was controlled by destiny and that he was not responsi ble because lie was predestined to be a burglar. The judge, according to the Denver Catholic Register, agreed with him, but declared that the burglar was predestined to be punish- ed by imprisonment. We need that i judge over hqre to teach a thing or | two to some of our highbrow psycho- | analysists and pseudo-psychologists. Time, the news magazine, report ing “official flag etiquette,,’ says: “When used upon a table, nothing should rest upon the flag but the Bible.” Send in a call, for the Sena- tor who discovered the Cross above I the Flag. | Tlris reminds us that a professor of j theology in Yale University, Rev. Dr. j Douglas Clyde Macintosh, has been denied citizenship because he would promise to bear arms only in the event that he believed the war to be morally justified. Fortunately for the eardrums of the country, Rev. Dr. Macintosh is not a Catholic priest. The case is being appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals by Dr. Macintosh’s attorney, a wild eyed. bomb-throwing Bolshevik nam ed John W. Davis, the Democratic presidential nominee of four years ago. formerly ambassador to Great Britain and president of the Ameri can Bar Association. Ben Davis, a leader of the colored race in Georgia, and Republican Na tional Committeeman from Georgia, was scheduled to speak at Warren- ton in Warren County, January 1. The meeting was called off when a committee of ’ citizens of Warren County called on the sheriff and ad vised him that proper protection could not be guaranteed the Georgia colored leader. “Uncle Jim” Wil liams. editor of the Greensboro Her ald-Journal. says that the colored Republican National Committeeman could come to Greensboro and Greene County any day and address the members of his race in the court house without molestation. Yet Greene County went Democratic in the recent national election and War ren County went Republican. Says the Herald Journal: “Intolerance and Ku Kluxism seems to be strongest in the counties in Georgia carried by Hoover.” We were told that it was prohibition that decided the election in the Republican Counties. Georgia has again had a year with out a lynching, according to Robert R. Moton of Tuskegee. There were ten persons lynched in 1929 in the United States, one less than the year before, and six, nine and seven less than for the three previous years previous years respectively. Twenty- four times in the South and three times in the North officers of the law prevented lynchings. Of the ten persons lynched, seven were colored and three white. Lynching ha? been declining steadily for years; may it now leap to the vanishing point. Georgia journalism loses two of its outstanding leaders in the retirement of Julian and Julia Collier Harris from the Columbus Enquirer-Sun. They have been conspicuous in their fight against intolerance; it was Julian Harris who revealed a half decade ago the name of the “Gover nor of a Great State” who addressed the Ku Klux Klan IConvention al Kansas City after that Governor had declared he was elsewhere at the time. He has since been retired to g rivate life. With some of Julian [arris’s views we did not agree, but his sincerity and fearlessness com pelled admiration. The Baltimore Sun seems to think that the retire ment of the Harrises was forced by their attack on the Ku Klux and in tolerance, but the Macon Telegraph, while commending them highly, as serts that “the Harris predecessors didn't say anything about the Ku Klux or anybody else in particular and yet they failed.” The Telegraph apparently considers Thomas W. Loy- less a contemporary and not prede cessor of the Harrises. Julian Harris is the only anti-Ku Klux editor who has been forced out in Georgia, and that on a paper which had also fail ed under at least three previous managements. It is greatly to be hoped that the Harrises will remain in Georgia and in the newspaper field so that the state may have the benefit of their courageous pens. The Augusta Herald recently re printed the following item from the Augusta Chronicle of August 8, 1829, over one hundred years ago; “August 15th, the Festival of the Assumption, being the anniversary of the Ladies’ Association, an election of officers will be held at Holy Trinity Church, with High Mass immediately follow ing. H. Blome, secretary.” A post script stated that Rev. I. F. O’Neil would deliver the sermon at the High Mass August 16, “after which a col lection will be taken up for the Ladies’ Association.” Donations might also be made to Father O’Neil or Mrs. Ellen Lang for the fund. Holy Trinity Church is now better known as St. Patrick’s, with Rev. H. A. Schon- hardt as pastor. Parish life flourish ed there a century ago as well as to day. St. Patrick’s will soon observe the 125th anniversary of its organiza tion as a parish. How many congre gations in the South, Catholic or non- Catholic, are older? Eddie Ives, convicted of murdering a policeman, was hanged January 10 in Colorado. He died protesting his innocence. Last Thanksgiving he was baptized a Catholic by Father Regis Barrett of the Benedictines. Ives will be cited by anti-Catholics as another example of the pernicious influence of the Catholic Church, despite his death-cell conversion. But that will not worry Catholics or the Church. Christ on the Cross said to a criminal convicted 'and being crucified with Him: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Likewise the Church does not protest against the execu tion of criminals. But to those sincerely repentant she says with Christ: “This day you Will be in Paradise.” “To Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” The Macon Telegraph and other newspapers are quoting the Senior Senator from Alabama as having as serted in an address in the Senate on April 13, 1928, that the Catholics "bolted the last three Democratic tickets. They are really not entitled to participate in a Democratic primary or convention or to have one of their number run as a candidate on the regular Democratic ticket.” The Sen ator’s Protestant fellow-citizen in Alabama are now prescribing for him. Reverting to the subject of lynch ings, the yearly average in the United States since 1885 was 95. The average number of victims of the in quisition, which tried people not only for heresy but for treason and other capital offenses, and which the Protestant historian Ranke says “the Pope had an interest in thwarting and did so as often as he could”, was twenty; some reputable historians place it at ten. The inquisition exist ed in an age when even minor crimes were punished by death and it was a legal proceeding. The lynch ings cited took place in the enlighten ed modern times; twice in the twentieth century, in 1903 and 1908, there were one hundred lynchings, Up to 1922 there were never fewer than fifty lynchings except in 1918. The drop to ten this year Is heartening, but that is.ten too many. These figures ought to give critics of Catholics and things Catholic something to think about. FATHER QUINN HURT IN AUTO ACCIDENT Sumter, S. 0,, Pastor Injured When Machine Capsizes on Slippery Road CHARLESTON, S. C.-Rev. James D. Quinn, pastor of St. Anne’s Church, Sumter, was painfully thougn not seriously injured when his car overturned near Greleyville last week. He is in the Tourney Hos pital at Sumter, where he was brought following the accident. The car skidded from a wet pavement and turned upside down in a ditch. Father Quinn who cares for several missions attached to the Sumter par ish, is an experienced driver but says he lost control completely when the car began to skid.