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TWO—A
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLTC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
NOVEMBER 23, 1046
Associate Justice Matthew F. McGuire of
U. S. District Court, District of Columbia,
Addresses Convention of Georgia Laymen
To Preach at
Convention Mass
SAVAttNAH, Ga.— The Honor
able Matthew F. McGuire, Associ
ate Justice of the District Court of
the United States for the District
ol Columbia, delivered an ad
dress 011 “The New Crusade” at
the afternoon session of the
thirty-first annual convention of
the Catholic Laymen’s Association
of Georgia, held in Savannah on
Sunday, October 27.
Justice McGuire, who was pre
sented to his audience by Clarence
llaverty, of Atlanta, said in the
course of his remarks:
There are very few informed
persons in this state, or indeed in
the country generally, inside or
outside of the Church, who are
unaware of the splendid contrib
ution your organization has made
and is making toward tolerance
and understanding among the peo
ple of this great Empire State of
the South.
The magnificent work started
here under your auspices has
borne fruit a thousand fold. Light
has been cast into the shadowy
places, old suspicions allayed, and
the bitterness and rancor of the
dark night of bigotry and mis
understanding given way under
bright sun of truth and tolerance.
You have taken literally what
perhaps may be said to be the es
sence of Catholic Action—namely,
not only to be members of the
Church, but as our Holy Father
himself said in his address to the
Sacred College of Cardinals early
this year, on the place of the laity
in its program for peace—to be
ihe Church.
So your work—let it be repeat
ed—has borne fruit a thousand
fold — and this be it remembered
—all, almost, in less than a gen
eration—and the Diocese of Sa-
vannah-Atlanta yet to celebrate
the centenary of its creation. This
is due first of all to the grace of
God. to the vigor of your aposto-
late. and lastly to men and wo
men of good will outside the
Household of the Faith.
Great, however, as has been
your achievement, you and all of
us face a still greater task. Never
perhaps in history, since that mo
mentous day over twelve hundred
years ago when Charles Martel
met and defeated the Saracen
hosts on the Field of Tours, has
Christian civilization stood more
certainly in the balance. Then,
however, Christendom was united
—and the attack came from with
out—today it faces attack . from
not only without but from within.
For despite the great religious
revolt of the sixteenth ccn'ury,
those who left the ancient and en
during Church still clung to what
they considered fundamentals.
God was still in His Heaven and
men were still Christian.
How true that was—is evidenc
ed by the history of our own
country- Despite difference, and
misunderstanding, our Declaration
of Independence and the Consti
tution of the United States were
predicated upon basic Christian—
indeed upon Catholic principles,
as was Magna Carta before them.
Men still bowed the knee before
the God of their fathers, although
they differed as to the time, man
ner. and circumstance and place.
They still gave more than lip
service to the belief in the Father
hood of God and the Brotherhood
of Man, for they believed not only
that all men were created free
and equal and endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable
rights — but they believed fur
ther that each man b.v reason of
that fact WAS a man with a man’s
destiny before him. And for
about one hundred years after the
establishment of the American
Commonwealth this fundamental
belief prevailed, Not only among
the great masses of our people as
it d oCs today, but among those
who were the educators and fash
ioners of our policy and culture
and it is a significant thing that
practically every in-ti’ution of
learning in America before tha ad
vent of the state universities was
founded under flic sponsorship
and influence of some Christian
denomination. Not only were we
a religious People hut our intel
lectual leadership was also relig
ious. Some day that story will be
fully told. It was true of the pe
riod of the creation of the Union,
and we have il graphically out
lined in another, the great strug
gle between the States.
“Religion," observed Douglas
Freeman in his foreword to Lee’*
Lieutenants ■— speaking of the
South — was “kept in the same
sanctuary of the heart with pa
triotism and love of home. Ac
ceptance of traditional Christian
ity was almost universal. Mild and
reverent deism was viewed with
horror. Doubt was damnation.
Agnosticism was service to anti-
Christ. What was believed was
professed. ...”
No man can read of the simple
faith of Lincoln, but bless the land
that gave him birth, nor learn of
the deep and affecting piety of
Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jack-
son, and the faith and resignation
of Jeb Stuart, fatally wounded in
the high morning of his life and
fame, and but conclude — and
sadly — that we have traveled far,
on more roads than one, since that
fateful morning of Appomattox
still not a hundred years ago.
But yet even’ the Saracen foe
of Martel, went forth to battle,
proclaiming their belief in God-
glorying in the cry—“There is
only one God—Allah—and Mo
hamet is His prophet”
The challenge today is that of
God and anti-God, as though all
of the forces of darkness and evil
had gathered for the final on
slaught. The danger comes great
ly from without — but the men
ace also resides within — and in
this momentous struggle, millions
outside its fold look suppliantly
and with confidence to the
Church, that the catastrophe may
be averted, and the peace of
Christ, the Prince of Peace, de
scend at last upon a broken world.
Here they l'eel is the Ark that
has weathered the storms of the
centuries, hew is the Rock,
against which the gates of Hell
shall not prevail.
They see her not as you and I
see her, through the grace of God.
with the eyes of faith, and with
the aureole of her Divine founda
tion about her. but as the great
stabilizing influence- and focal
point, apd the mighty bulwark
around which men and women
who cling to those fundamental
concepts 1 have alluded to. must
take their stand.
This crisis is not a political or
an economic one- It is a clash of
philosophies, of ways of life, and
how can we rebuild a stable world
order, when for almost three gen
erations, the foundations upon
which our western culture has
been reared, have been inveighed
against, mocked, sneered at and
assailed by self-styled intellec
tuals, who in the bitter assault
against them, would destroy the
distinction between right and
wrong, reduce men lo the level of
the brute, and all this in the guise
of a pseudo art, and under the
blurb of literature and “progres
sive” thinking? And how success
ful they have been!
There are no taboos any more,
no reticences — they went out
with the old morality while porno
graphy is enthroned as a neces
sary realism — sewage is real too
—but it belongs in the sewer—
and if one should rise up and cry:
"Obscene!” — he is accused of
prudery, portrayed as an advocate
of the repression of the free ex
change of ideas, and as a person
who sees “dirt” in everything,
thus revealing the pornographic
character of his own mind.
While homely virtues- honor,
patriotism, love of God and coun
try. upon which the greatness of
this nation lias been built arc ridi
culed as “bourgeois” and have all
but been sneered out of exi -fence
by flic would-be fashioners of our
intellectual world. A man's word
is now given and broken at will,
all human relationships are phsy-
choanalyzcd and post-mortemed,
and labelled as the instincts of
the herd and free-will branded as
a mass illusion.
Marriage. Ihe very foundation
of civil society, is caricatured and
labelled as an outmoded conven
tion, and divorce the anomaly of
yo-terday. has become the com
monplace of today, with one out of
every three marriages going on
the rocks of dissolution.
in a recent poll conducted in
some of our colleges, the Redeem
er of mankind was placed fifth in
a catalogue of the world’s great,
a fact so bizarre and so incon
gruous in a country that claims to
be Christian that it was reported
in the press, and that is all. It
was newsworthy.
And the campaign has gone on,
in every medium of human ex
pression, so vicious and so diaboli
cal, that it savors of the pathologi
cal. Sopietimes blatantly and un
abashed, at other times covertly,
and subtlcly, yet on- like the si
lent. almost impercepitble flowing
in of the ocean tide in hidden
creek and lonely inlet.
Is the picture overdrawn? Your
experience will furnish the an
swer. These conditions exist, and
as Dr. Mortimer Adler of the Uni
versity of Chicago has so well ob
served, in language as restrained
as it is scholarly: “Our war ex
perience, then, simply acts as a
catalyst. It has hastened the pre
cipitation of the disintegrating
forces of positivism, naturalism,
materialism, and agnosticism
which iiave been persistingly re
ducing the formative force that
the study and practice of a dyna
mic religion should have exercis
ed in the moulding of our modern
way of life.”
And from these high priests of
the new paganism, it has filtered
down into the ranks of the plain
people. What can we do? This
attack can lie met and conquered
only by one force — that of re
ligion — and that the religion of
Jesus Christ, in which alone right
is forever right and wrong is for
ever wrong, not because of the fiat
of the super-state or of the majori
ty, but because the distinction
springs from the very nature of
God Himself. The religion which
still proclaims the solemn truth,
that man is not the creature of
the state, but has sprung from the
Almighty Hand of Him Who rules
the destiny of all of us, Who call
ed us out of nothingness, and cre
ated us in His image and His like
ness, to love and to serve Him in
this world and to be happy for
ever with Him in the next. And
that, proclaims the fact- man ex
ists not for the state, but the state
for man.
Between these two concepts—
there is an eternal irreconcilabili
ty. We accept the one and there
is hope. We accept the other and
we cast ourselves out into the ter
rible darkness of a hell of our own
making, and court mass-suicide.
No nation of antiquity — no
primitive tribe has ever repudiat
ed the idea of a supreme being
God or gods. In darkness though
they were, they acknowledged
their own dependency- It remain
ed for modern man to raise the
clenched fist and shout back In
the face of his Creator, the grim
defiance, "I will not serve!”
As Alfred Noyes has so pung-
ently put it, paradox though it
may be, we have actually, living,
tasted. “The wages of sin, whicli
is death to all tea] values. . . ”
We have repudiated our spiri
tual heritage, and are betraying
the life of the nation and the soul.
My opinion?
Dr. Frederick Brown Harris,
pastor of the Foundry Methodist
Church and Chaplain of the Sen
ate, recently had this to say to
his radio audience over WOL, a
Washington station:
“The plight of so-called de
mocracy in this world catastrophe
is an ominous indication that when
it denies its spiritual foundations
it betrays its very life. It com
mits suicide. It is vividly evi
dent that a workable democracy
is bound up both with the theolog
ical and moral fabric of Christi
anity.
“Through decades of so-called
material success multitudes in
America assumed they could live,
that the American dream could
live, without steeples. Of course,
churclies might increase the value
of adjoining real estate, still
worthwhile as symbols of respect
ability. but certainly not as a mat
ter of life and.death.
“But we see more and more, as
Edward Carr declared recently in
the London Times, that ‘Onr pres
ent crisis is moral and spiritual.
We have no spiritual center,’ What
he was really saying- of course, is
that our so-called Christian civili
zation has largely lost the spires
of the spirit.
“We see civilized men using his
new skills and new inventions for
the most devilish and sadistic
cruelties the ages have ever
known. Just when we were as
suming that we were on the mov
ing escalator of progress, with
everything in every way and
every day getting better and bet
ter and Utopia just around the
corner. When we thought of the
barbaric tortures of the Middle
Ages as but a horrible memory of
what man could do to man before
his spirit had been curbed and
spiritualized: just when we had
relegated hot pokers and the ag
ony of torture chambers to old,
unhappy and far-off days and bat
tles long ago, suddenly in our
KEV. JOHN F. CRONIN, S. S.
The sermon at the Solemn Ponti
fical Mass, which will be celebrated
by Bishop Walsh of Charleston at
the convention of the Charleston
Diocesan Council, N. C. C. W.,
will be delivered by Father John
F. Cronin, S. ,C.. Assistant Director
ol the Social Action Department
of the Nation Catholic Welfare
Conference.—(NC Photos).
ST. JOSEPH’S HOME
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
MEETS IN SAVANNAH
SAVANNAH, Ga.—The Board of
Trustees of St. Joseph's Home in
Washington, held its fall meeting
here on October 26, following a
dinner at the General Oglethorpe
Hotel, at which Monsignor Joseph
E. Moylan. Vicar General of the
Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta was
host. - v
Members of the board who at
tended were: Estes Doremus, At-
lanla, secretary; Bernard J. Kane,
Atlanta; Dr J. Reid Broderick,
Savannah: Bernard S. Fahy, Rome;
Alvin M. McAuliffe, Augusta, Rob
ert E. McCormack, Albany, and
William O’Shaughnessy, Macon.
world of radios and motors and
airplanes came a rude shattering
of the polished veneer. And we
stand aghast at what we see—the
gleam of devils once again in the
eyes of modern man.”
We have cut the rope that has
anchored us to our past and have
all but dropped the pilot.
What we need .to do is to purge
out the old leaven and to reaffirm
our belief in the fatherhood ol
God, and in the spiritual; of all
men. and in file fact that men ex
ist, not for their stomachs or their
purses, nor as the pawns of oth
ers, but for a destiny that is eter
nal, and that governments exist
not as tlie instrument for the priv
ilege of the few, but for the norms
of public and private morality set
by the Creator of us all, to whom
all of us, young and old, great, and
small, must some day render an
accounting.
The gauge of battle is drawn—
and the contest joined in the
realm of the intellecl. It is a call
to a new crusade! We must offer
the battle on every front the en
emy appears. We must again pos
sess our immortal souls! We must
recapture the citadel of the human
mind!
CONSIGNOR McNAMARA
ADDRESSES AMIT CLUB
MEETING IN SAVANNAH
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Monsignor
T. James McNamara, rector of
the Cathedral of St. John the
Baptist, was the principal speaker
at a banquet of the Amit Club
held on November 18 at the Hotel
DeSoto.
This was the first outstanding
affair sponsored by the. Italian-
American citizens since the club
was formed early this year. Mi
chael Finocchiaro presided, and
the banquet committee included
John Caferisan,, Joseph Uiico and
Joseph Cela.
CATHEDRAL SCHOOL PTA
MEETS IN SAVANNAH
SAVANNAH, Ga. —Father Wal
ter Donovan, assistant rector of
the Cathedral of St. John the Bap
tist- spoke on Catholic literature
at the November meeting of the
Parent-Teacher Association of the
Cathedral School.
Health education was featured
on the program and Miss Eliza
beth Hogan stressed the work of
the Tuberculosis Association. Sis
ter M. Gilbert. R. S. M., brought
out the problems of securing uni
forms for pupils at the school
during the prevailing shortage of
materials.
R. D. Sherrill, 0. D.
Optometrist
A Complete Optical Service
40 Broad Street, N. W.
Grant Building
Atlanta, Ga.
Best Wishes
From
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845 Gordon S. W.
Atlanta, Ga.
LINDER’S
Manufacturing Jewelers
5 Plaza Way, 3rd Floor
ATLANTA 3, GA.
GEORGE G.
OGLETREE
William-Oliver Building
Tax Accountant
WA 6829 Atlanta. Ga.
Blackman-Walton Sanatorium
A Medical Institution for the Diagnosis and Treatment
of Internal Diseases
A Complete Department for the ltaths and
other Physical Therapy
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Atlanta. Ga.
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COCHRAN-LEE FURNITURE
89 Alabama St. S. W.
Atlanta, Ga.
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Atlanta, Ga.