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FEBRUARY 17, 1934
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
THREE
Florida Holy Name Convention Held at San Antonio
7TH ANNUAL MEETING
AN EMINENT SUOOESS
Bishop Barry Pontificates at
Opening Mass. George Ber
gen Reelected President
(Special to The Bulletin)
SAN ANTONIO, Fla.—Before a
temporary altar erected at the en
trance of St. Joseph’s Church, with
the church grounds as a sanctuary,
St. Joseph’s Plaza the nave, the sky
as a roof and palms swaying in the
gentle breezes from the Gulf as an
awning, the Most Rev. Patrick Bar
ry, D.D., Bishop of St. Augustine,
officiated at the Mass Sunday, Janu
ary 28, which opened the seventh an
nual convention of the Diocesan Holy
Name Union.
The Rev. Thomas Hoffman, O.S.B.,
was assistant priest, the Rev. The
odore Ray, S.J., Tampa, and the Rev.
Lewis Fesser, O.S.B., deacons of hon
or, the Rev. Alvin Kontrik, S.C.,
Ybor City, deacon of the Mass, the
Rev. Marion Bowman, O.S.B., sub
deacon. and the Rev. J. F. Enright,
pastor of St. Paul’s Church, St. Pe
tersburg, master of ceremonies. The
choir from St. Joseph’s Orphanage,
Ybor City, conducted by the Sale-
siand Fathers, sang the Mass. The Rt.
Rev. Francis Sadlier, O.S.B., D.D.,
Abbot of St. Leo and many clergy
assisted at the Mass.
Rev. A. L. Wagner, S.J., principal of
Sacred Heart College, Tampa, deliv
ered the sermon. Father Wagner as
serted that this is the day, of the com
mon man, who is now coming into
his own in every field, as indicated
by recent events in various parts of
the world. It is a day of great op
portunity as well as of great danger,
he asserted, a day in which Catho
lic leadership is eminently necessary,
a day when Catholic Action is most
essential.
Father Wagner indicated particu
larly two leading and most important
channels of Catholic leadership, the
Catholic school and organizations
like the Holy Name Society, spon
sored by ecclesiastical authority.
A Communion breakfast at the par
ish school hall followed. Father Ber
nard delivered the address of wel
come and presented Bishop Barry,
who was the only speaker. After
complimenting Father Bernard and
the members of the Holy Name So
ciety of the parish for the splendid
manner in which they were handling
the convention, and the women of
the parish for the way in which they
arranged the bountiful breakfast,
Bishop Barry commended the Holy
Name Society of the Diocese for its
zeal for the honor of the Holy Name.
Tire annual convention is not a
demonstration of strength, Bishop
Barry said, but a demonstration of
faith. The purpose of the‘Holy Name
Society is to honor and glorify God,
he asserted, and it has no purpose
but the increase of the honor given
to the Holy Name. Catholics who
wish to engage in politics join polit
ical organizations; those who wish to
develop their own particular lines of
business join organizations for that
purpose; they join the Holy Name
Society only for the purpose indicat
ed by the name of the society itself.
Bishop Barry urged the Holy Name
men not merely to refrain from dis
honor to the name of God, but to be
otherwise careful and exemplary in
their speech. He referred to those
who sometimes for the sake of a
laugh will even in a public address
violate the canons of propriety and
morals, something a true Holy Name
man and true Catholic will never do.
The convention sessions were held
in the school hall, President George
T Bergen, of Tampa, presiding. The
roll call of societies indicated that
every part of the Diocese was repre
sented, and the principal topic of dis
cussion was the extending of the in
fluence of the Holy Name Society in
the Diocese by the organization of
new parish units. A plan suggested
by President Bergen was unanimous
ly adopted.
Mr. Bergen was re-elected presi
dent for the coming year; other offi
cers named included M. Westerndick,
Tallahassee, first vice president; D.
G. Nordman, DeLand, second vice
president; M. K. Kane, St. Peters
burg, treasurer; J. W. Wickham,
Tampa, secretary, and John O’Keefe,
Lakeland, marshal.
Messages of greeting were received
from Stephen Early, in the name of
President Roosevelt; Governor Dave
Sholtz, Congressman J. Hardin Pe
terson, and Judge J. W. Sanders, of
Dade City.
The boys' band from the orphan
age entertained in St. Joseph’s Pla
za with a band concert in the after
noon, a program which was followed
by the principal lay address by Rich
ard Reid, editor of The Bulletin, Au
gusta, Ga., and president of the Cath
olic Press Association of the United
States, whose subject was the Holy
Father, and Rome in the Holy Year.
Large Families Cradles of
Genius, Fr.Foulkes Asserts
In Interview in the Macon News He Points Out Moral
and Other Evils of the Practice of Birth Control
Florida Holy
The Rev. Bernard Weigl, O. S. B.,
Spiritual director of the San Antonio
Holy Name Society, host to the con
vention.
Name Leaders
George T. Bergen, Tampa, presi
dent of the Diocesan Holy Name Un
ion, re-elected at the convention
held at San Antonio.
(Special to The Bulletin)
MACON, Ga.—Recalling that Benja
min Franklin was one of ten chil
dren, Washington one of six, Jeffer
son Davis one of ten, Thomas Jeffer
son one of ten, and James Madison,
Washington Irving and General
Pershing one of eleven in their re
spective families, the Rev. David J.
Foulkes, S.J., in an interview pub
lished in the Macon News showed
that large families frequently are the
cradles of genius and asserted that
empty cradles are too often the price
of a full garage and a life of ease and
amusement.
Father Foulkes was giving a mis
sion at St. Joseph’s Church, the Rev.
F. J. Clarkson, S. J., pastor, and his
statement was occasioned by position
of the president of the Georgia Medi
cal Society, Dr. C. H. Richardson,
who was quoted in the press as ad
vocating sterilization and birth con
trol as methods of remedying cur
rent conditions.
“The Catholic Church condemns
birth control as sinful on the ground
that it violates the natural law,”
Father Foulkes said in his published
statement. “Man cannot attain the
development suggested by nature
without society; society cannot exist
if the generative function be per
verted. The preservation of the hu
man race, imperatively demanded by
right reason and order, can be se
cured only by means provided by
nature. According to nature’s law,
the effect of the union of the genera
tive principle is, of itself, procrea
tion. Birth control is therefore a
violation of the natural law, and of
its nature, forbidden.
“God has implanted in man certain
appetites, desires, or tendencies ac
companied by faculties and powers
to satisfy them. To misuse the
faculty of speech by lying or the ap
petite for food or drink by gluttony
or drunkeness, to steal or to kill, is
to violate the natural law. Similarly
to use for any other purpose a faculty
ordained by God only for the perpet
uation of the human race is a viola
tion of the law of nature and an of
fense against God, the author of na
ture.
“Birth control is similarly for
bidden and prohibited by the positive
law of God. He commands and or
dains that through the mating of the
male and the female in lawful wed
lock the human race increase and
multiply.
“He unmistakably avenges this
crime of birth control as in the case
of Onan, Gen. 38, 9:10, ‘And there
fore God slew him. because he had
done a detestable thing’.”
“The men and women who prac
tice birth control are in the eyes
of God Herods strangling His inno
cents. They wear on their foreheads
the mark of a Cain and like him
they are outcasts. For such there
cannot be a Heaven.
“Is there then a binding obl’ga-
tion to procreate children? Not
necessarily. The husband and wife
may legitimately abstain from the
use of their marriage rights. And
hence we assert that the only legiti
mate way of limiting the family is,
birth-control through self-control,
which spells abstinence, either total or
partial.
“Part of the report of the Federal
Council of churches is as follows:
‘Very laige families tend to produce
poverty, to endanger the health and
stability of the family, to limit the
educational opportunities of the chil
dren, to overstrain the mother and
take from her, her own chance for a
life larger than the home.’
“Even though very large families
tended to produce poverty, poverty
is no crime. Parentsof large families
must economize, must deprive them
selves of many so-called luxuries
and make sacrifices, but what a
splendid reward is theirs when their
children gather around them in their
declining years to chant their grati
tude.
“If you gather information con
cerning many of our great statesmen,
and national heroes, you will find
they invariably spring from very large
families. Benjamin Franklin was
the eighth of 10 children; Jefferson
Davis was the tenth child; George
Washington was the first of six;
Longfellow was the second of eight;
Daniel Boone was the sixth of nine;
Thomas Jefferson the third of ten;
General John Pershing the first of
11; Washington Irving the last of 11,
and James Madison the first of 11.
“The accursed assumption back of
birth control is the materialistic
tenet of our day that this life is our
all and that there is no reward for
the hardships suffered here. If there
be no aftermath, no heaven or hell,
why make any sacrifices to propa
gate a race destined to final extinc
tion? Why generate earthly taber
nacles for the image of God. our im
mortal souls, if there be none. So
reason the Bolshevists of Russia and
the fools of today who say in their
heart there is no God, when nature
animate and inanimate proclaims
that fact to highest heaven.
“They say very large families tend
to endanger the health and stability
of the family. The president of the
American Medical Association, Dr.
W. G. Morgan, a non-Catholic,
vehemently denounced birth con
trol in a statement published in the
Washington Herald a day or two
after the church’s council pronounce
ment.
“Dr. Morgan wrote: ‘I read in this
morning’s press with surprise and re
gret the action taken by the Council
of Churches on birth control. I can
not believe any considerable propor
tion of the 23,000,000 individuals
making up the membership of the 27
American Protestant churches will
endorse the findings of that council.
“ ‘The questin of birth control is of
vital importance to the future of
our country, since it affects directly
the survival of the white race and
its dominance in world progress. If
this social practice were to be uni
versally endorsed and adopted, it
would open the door to unbridled
dominance of the basest passions and
give rise to the most widespread
physical abuses.
“ ‘To establish the habit of thwart
ing nature is, in the long run. a dan
gerous practice, and invariably leads
to moral degradation and disaster.
It would strike a death blow to self-
control and to the dominance of the
home. The arguments in favor of birth
control are subtle and seductively
given to self-indulgence and selfish
ness.
“ ‘I trust that the voice of the lead
ing and thinking men and women of
the country will be promptly raised
in protest,’ concluded Dr. Morgan.
“History of older times, when fam
ilies were larger, shows that women
were then healthier on the average
than they are now in spite of all the
progress that medicine and surgery
have made.
“They say very large families limit
the educational opportunities of the
children. The country is full of free
primary schools, and any boy or girl
with a bit of stamina and backbone
can work their way through college
and university.
“The striking fact, however, that
we witness today, is that so-called
higher education turns out scoun
drels of the worst tye. Genuine
education begins in the home.
“They say very large families tend
to overstrain the mother and to take
from her own chance for a life larger
than the routine of the home.
“The modern married couple
wants no limiting to their quest for
unbridled pleasure; dancing and
movies; bridge and golf, auto rides
and every kind of amusement cer
tainly interfere with the routine of
the home. That kind of life is so
large that the Almighty is about
tired of it.
“We are asked to picture a world
in which there will be standing room
only with countless millions starving,
because the world will not be suf
ficiently productive to feed them.
We need no other answer to this su
premely silly talk than to witness
our surplus crops of cotton- wheat
and fruits.
“Kill off the demand for our prod
ucts and you will protract the pres
ent depression through the years un
til he becomes a chronic ailment, yes,
you will se the birth control of pros
perity and its final obsequies.
“The Catholic Church as the inter
preter of morality does not allow
the modern fallacious doctrine of
expediency to still her voice. Pri
marily and fundamentally she does
not deal in terms of population trends
and optimum concepts. She speaks
in terms of right and wrong, and so
speaking, she declares simply and ef
fectively. in language that admits of
no' misinterpretation that birth con
trol, in the popular sense of the word,
is wrong.
“Any use whatever of-matrimony
exercised in such a way that the act
is deliberatley frustrated in its na
tural power to generate life is an
offense against the law of God and
nature, and those who indulge in
such are branded with guilt of grave
sin.”
Bishop Ernest Stires, Episcopalian
Bishop of Long Island, at a fare
well dinner to the Rev. Dr. Francis
J. Healy, transferred from Garden
City to St. Joseph's Church, Brook
lyn, as pastor, called Father Healy,
who is editor-in-chief of the Brook
lyn Tablet, “an ideal neghbor and
one who has devoted his life to the
interest of his parishioners. (Bishop
Stires was formerly pastor of the
Episcopalian Church of the Good
Shepherd, Augusta, Ga.
Tennessee Valley Project
Stresses Need of Missions
Bishop Gerow and Bishop Hafey Outline Conditions in
Territory to Be Developed
(BY N C. W. C. NEWS SERVICE)
NATCHEZ.—That section of the
great region embraced in the Ten
nessee Valley project which extends
into the territory of the Diocese of
Natchez presents, in the opinion of
the Most Rev. Richard O. Gerow,
Bishop of Natchez, ample reason why
Catholics of America should under
stand and support home mission en
terprise.
The TVA project, Bishop Gerow
notes, affects a portion of Tishomin
go County, in the extreme northeast
comer of Mississippi, and in that
county there are not more than two
or three Catholic souls, no church or
chapel, or church property of any
kind.
“As a matter of fact,” Bishop Gc-
row said, “the entire northeastern
portion of the State of Mississippi has
very few Catholics.” The Bishop
pointed out that the area covered by
three parishes which have resident
priests extends over 12,650 square
miles, almost equal to the combined
area of the states of Massachusetts
and Connecticut. Within this vast re
gion there are ten chapels, attended
once a month by a priest, and the
Catholic population of the entire area
is 724.
“In all this area,” Bishop Gerow
said, “there is no Catholic school or
any kind of Catholic institution ex
cept these little frame churches and
chapels.”
SIMILAR SITUATION
IN NORTH CAROLINA
RALEIGH.—In that section of the
Tennessee Valley area within the
Diocese of Raleigh, embracing all or
part of 15 counties, there exist no
Catholic schools or institutions of any
sort. Knowledge of this fact, the
Most Rev. William J. Hafey, Bishop
Mr. Reid was presented by Mr.
Bergen.
Following the speaking program,
the procession started for the march
to St Leo Academy, where the con
vention closed with Solemn Bene
diction of the Blessed Sacrament,
Bishop Barry officiating. Father
Bernard officiated at the renewal of
the Holy Name pledge. The closing
services, like the opening Mass, were
held in the open air. The boys’ band
from the orphanage led the proces
sion; the Tampa delegation was led
by Boy Scout Troop Nine, Tampa; the
color guard from Gordon Crothers
Post, American Legion, Dade City,
took part in the procession.
Lakeland was chosen for the 1935
convention. It was announced by
Bishop Barry that the Rev. M. Fen
nell, pastor at Plant City, is the new
Spiritual director of the Diocesan
Hely Name Union, succeeding the
Rev. P. J. McGill, chancellor of the
Diocese, who was forced to relin
quish the post by press of other du
ties.
of Raleigh, said should “bring home
to us all the need of more nissicn-
ary work in the un-Catholic parts of
our country.”
“West of Asheville.” Bishop Hafey
said, “we have only one parish lo
cated at Waynesville. The pastor is
the missionary covering the entire
section.”
Birth Control ‘Heresy*
Baptists Are Told
Federal Judge Discusses It
at Philadelphia
(BY N. C. W. C. NEWS SERVICE)
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — Federal
Judge George A. Welsh, in an ad
dress here at the annual dinner of
the Baptist Social Union of Philadel
phia, referred to the doctrine of birth
control as a “heresy”, which “car
ries the seeds of its own destruction
and is being promulgated to main
tain an economic order that is based
on the mere possession of wealth.’
He deplored the spread of birth
control propaganda and.declared that
the churches must oppose the doc
trine or perish. He hailed “the dawn
of a new day which finds millions
interested in the welfare of their
neighbors and a growing spirit of
friendliness, among the nations.55
Dr. Johnson Discusses
Federal School Aid
Presents Position of Private
ly Supported Schools
The San Antonio parish Holy Name
Society was warmly commended for
the able manner in which the con
vention was handled. Chief credit
for the arrangements is given to Fa
ther Bernard Weigl, O.S.B., spiritual
director of the St. Joseph’s Holy
Name Society at San Antonio, the
officers of the society, Oliver Hoehn,
president, Louis Tourscher, vice
president, Peter Dunne, secretary,
Joseph Herrmann, treasurer, and
William Nally, marshal, the members
of the society, and the ladies of the
parish, with the Benedictine Fathers
at St. Leo Abbey, headed by Ab
bot Francis, and the Sisters at Holy
Name Academy, also co-operating
generously.
WASHINGTON. — Although he is
opposed to Federal aid to education
and is not convinced that the emer
gency warrants it, nevertheless, if
such aid is given it should be given
in a way to benefit the children in
privately - supported, non - profit
schools as well as the children in
public schools, the Rev. Dr. George
Johnson, of the Department of Edu
cation of the Catholic University of
America, will declare in an article
appearing in the February issue of
The Catholic Educational Review.
Detroit Pastor Dies
at Lake Worth, Fla.
Ill Health Compelled Father
Fisher to Retire
(Special to The Bulletin)
LAKE WORTH, Fla.—The Rev.
Edwin A. Fisher, formerly pastor of
St. Patrick’s Church, Wyandotte,
Mich., died here recently after an
extended illness. Father Fisher was
born in Wilkesbarre, Pa.. December
23,1871, and educated at Detroit Col
lege and St. Mary’s Seminary, Balti
more. After serving as assistant in
parishes in Detroit, and as prison
chaplain, he was named pastor of the
Clinton, Mich., parish, and its mis
sions, serving from 1906 to 1917 in
that capacity. He became pastor at
Wyandotte in 1917, but was forced by
ill health to retire six years ago. Two
sisters, the Misses May C. and Eliza
beth V. Fisher, of Highland Park,
Mich,, survive. Bishop Gallagher of
Detroit pontifioated at the Requiem
Mass, which was attended by Bishop
Plagens, several monsignori and many
priests.