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FOUR
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
JULY 26, 1952
(Slff IBullrttw
The Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen’s
Association of Georgia, Incorporated
1 7 HtJGH KINCHLEY, Editor
216-17 Southern Finance Building, Augusta, Ga.
ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1951-52
MARSHALL WELLBORN Rome President
MARI IN a. CALLAGHAN. K. S. G., Macon
Honorary Vice-President
HARVEY HILL, Atlanta Vice-President
CHARLES C. CHESSER. Augusta ..... . . Secretary
J. P. MEYER, Columbus Treasurer
HUGH KINCHLEY, K. S G., Augusta
Executive Secretary
MISS CECILE FERRY. Augusta, Financial Secretary
ALVIN M. McAULIFFE, Augusta Auditor
VOL, XXXIII. JULY 26, 1952 No. 7
Entered as second class matter June 15, 1921, at the
Post Office at Augusta, Georgia, under the Act of March
i, 1879, accepteo for mailing at special rate of postage
providec in paragraph 4, section 538, Postal Laws and
Regulations as modified by paragraph 6.
Member of N. C. W C. News Service, Religious News
Service, the Catholic Press Association of the United
States, the Georgia Press Association, and the National
Editorial Association.
Published monthly by the Catholic Laymen’s Association
of Georgia, Inc., with the Approbation of the Most Rev
erend Archbishop-Bishop of Savannah-Atlanta, and of the
Right, Reverend Abbot Ordinary of Belmont.
Spain’s Aid to American Independence
F OR LONG years Spain has been the victim of
biased historians and a hostile press. No
one needs to be told that General Franco will never
be forgiven by leftist-slanted writers for having
overthrown the irreligious, murderous, communistic
“Loyalist” regime in Spain.
Historians from the English-speaking world
have never written fairly about Spain, so it is not
surprising that while Americans are well aware
that France greatly aided the American Colonists
in their struggle for independence, not very many
of our people know that Spain also had a share
in the struggle for freedom in this country.
This long neglected historical fact, which was
underscored when Ambassador Stanton Griffis re
turned to the United States from his post at Madrid,
has been again brought to light by the researches
of Spanish historians.
From his study of the archives in Spain, Senor
Jose Antonio Vac-a de Osma, a Spanish diplomat,
has unearthed many interesting details of the story
of Spanish aid in the War for American Independ
ence. There was a summary of these finding by
another Spanish diplomat, Federico Olivan, which
appeared in a Madrid newspaper last month.
This article points out that while France reap
ed the fame for aid to the thirteen colonies, Spain
for fifteen years covered all drafts by the United
States on banks in Austria, Germany, Italy and
Holland, when they could not be honored by the
infant United States.
Conversation between the Count of Aranda
and Benjamin Franklin and other American repre
sentatives, produced a loan of four million “reales”
from the Spanish Royal Treasury. These funds
were used to buy cannon, grenades, ammunition,
gun powder, muskets, bayonets, tents and military
uniforms in good numbers.
Spanish ministers gave further financial aid
by placing orders with Dutch banks in the amount
of 605,000 pounds and for 120,000 pesos. Large
shipments of army blankets were sent from Bilboa
and Royal Treasury of Spain advanced money and
sent guns.
The Viceroy of Mexico, which at that time
was ruled by Spain, placed Spanish troops at the
disposition of the Continental leader George Mor
gan, who commanded Fort Pitt. These troops drove
the British out of the Mississippi area and occupied
St. Augustine in joint operations with the Ameri
can forces.
The items mentioned, by no means include all
of the aid given the Americans in their ' fight for
freedom. They are just a reminder that Spain has
a long-standing claim ip gratitude to be counted
into any aid that may .be given now to arm Spain
against the menace of Russian aggression. ~ c ‘
When we consider thp relations between this
country and Spain, there are other things to be
remembered besides the Maine;
Father Joseph R. Smith
O NCE MORE the Angel, of Death has summoned
from this life a priest . of the Diocese of
Savannah-Atlanta, Father Joseph R. Smith, pastor
of St. Anthony’s, Church in Atlanta, having sur
vived but a few days following his being stricken
with a cerebral hemorrhage while returning to At
lanta from a visit to his good friends, the Trappist
monks at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Ghost
in Conyers.
For more than a quarter of a century, Father
Smith had served as a priest in Georgia, on the
Albany missions, at Willacoochee and Alapaha, in
Savannah, at the Church of the Most Blessed Sacra
ment, and at the Immaculate Conception Church
and St.' Anthony’s Church in Atlanta.
Born in Washington, Georgia, he came to At
lanta as a young man. The story is that his Work
was such that it required him to be out early on
Sunday mornings, and the young non-Catholic man
from Wilkes County was impressed by seeing
people, in good number, going into the Immacu
late Conception Church at early hours every
Sunday. His curiosity was aroused and he won
dered what it could be that could attract Catholics
to church at the dawn of day.
At last, to satisfy his curiosity, he entered
the church one Sunday morning to investigate for
himself. From that attendance at early Mass there
came an interest in the Catholic Church that led
to his becoming a convert, and not long after en
tering the Church, he decided that he had a voca
tion to the priesthood and began the course of
study that led to his ordination at the hands of
Bishop Michael J. Keyes at Savannah, in May, 1923.
Father Smith’s years in the priesthood were
characterized by unassuming modesty, self-efface
ment, self-sacrificing zeal in the performance of
bis duty as a parish priest and pastor.
•m -His passing- will'.;be mourned .not -only .» vAt-
Janta, the scene of the greater part of his priestly
Turning Back the Pages of History
F OR TOO many long years too many people have
been believing that Georgia’s history began
with the coming of General Oglethorpe and the
English settlers in 1733, and a great and glorious
era of this section of the Southland seemed to
have been cast out of memory.
Within recent generations books by authors
like Father Michael Kenny, S. J., Dr. John Tate^
Lanning, of the University of North Carolina, and Dr.
Herbert E. Bolton, Professor of American Hstory
at the University of California, came to shed light
upon the Spanish Missions in Georgia.
Years before the first English settlers came
to Jamestown, years before the Pilgrims landed at
Plymouth Rock, Spanish Missions were establish
ed and flourished along the Georgia coastline, from
Florida to St. Helena, in South Carolina.
Priests of the Society of Jesus were the first
to be sent to what is now Georgia, coming short
ly after the nation’s oldest city, St. Augustine,
was founded in 1565. In 1573, the Jesuits were
succeeded by the Franciscans as missionaries
among the Indians of this region.
The Franciscans established a number of mis
sions along the coast and even penetrated into
the wilderness of the interior, it being recorded
that there was a mission settlement as far inland
as the village the Indians called Coweta, in Butts
County on the Ocmulgee River. There was even
a mission at a place given the Indian name of
Sabacola, near what is now Columbus.
In Georgia under the Spaniards, forts were
erected about a day’s march apart, and wherever
there was a fort, there was also a mission. In
the missions were priests, sent to teach the Indians
agriculture as well as religion. Fruits and vege
tables whieh Georgians of this day claim as native
products, were then importations from Spain.
The Spanish Missions passed from the Geor
gia scene after the battle of Bloody Marsh on St.
Simons Island in 1742, when the Spaniards were
defeated by the English forces under Oglethorpe.
The Spanish padres wrote a glorious page in
the annals of Catholicity in America, their story
is one which every Catholic in Georgia should
know and cherish with pride.
One of the most interesting events on the
program of the convention of the Georgia Press
Association, held at the General Oglethorpe Hotel,
on Wilmington Island, near Savannah, this month,
was a session which was featured by an address
delivered by H. A. Alexander, Chairman of the
Georgia Historical Commission.
Of particular interest in Mr. Alexander’s talk
was his announcement that the Georgia Historical
Commission had as a present project, marking the
route of DeSoto’s expedition through Georgia in
1540, and as another current project, to mark ac
curately and adequately the historical sites of the
early Spanish Missions in Georgia.
Archeologists are now making explorations
along the Georgia coast, and it is the intention of
the Historical Commission to make of the sites
of the Spanish Missions in Georgia, historic shrines
as renowned as those of California, which they
antedate by two hundred years.
Through the courtesy of officials of the Union
Bag and Paper Corporation, who provided trans
portation, a number of the delegates to the press
convention were taken on a tour to McIntosh
County, to view the ruins of the Talomato Mission,
founded in 1595, on Pease Creek, near Darien.
As the story ©f the Spanish Missions in Geor
gia will be brought more and more into the light
of modern knowledge, the Catholics of this State
will be finding new and greater reasons to be proud
of that remarkable era of Georgia’s history, when
Catholic faith and Christian culture flourished
here four hundred years ago. It is a proud heri
tage.
The padres who accompanied the Spanish
Conquistators illumined a glorious page in the
record of the Faith in our land. Fired with apos
tolic zeal in their quest for souls, the intrepid mis
sionary priests braved the perils of the new and
unknown land and the arrows a#id tomahawks of
its savage inhabitants. Learned and cultured, many
of them professors in schools of the Old World,
they shared the hardships of the wilderness to
preach the Gospel of Christ to the Indians and to
sign them with the Sign of the Cross.
- m May God speed the day when the historic
sites of the Spanish Missions in Georgia will be
shrines of pilgrimage where prayers will be of
fered, to bring the blessings of God on Georgia
and its people.
Dixie Musings
Censorship in Savannah
T HE ATLANTA Journal, in a recent editorial
declared that the Savannah . city council had
made a smart move when it tabled an ordinance
to set up a board of censors to pass on the fitness
of printed matter offered for sale there. The
Journal declared that there were enough laws on
the subject already, maybe -too many.
Censorship is a contradiction in a nation dedi
cated to the proposition that people are able to
govern themselves, The Journal declares. “It can
mean the imposition of the standards of a militant
minority upon an indifferent majority.
This seems to be true, strikingly evident in
the current offering for sale by newsstands in
Savannah, Atlanta and other places in Georgia,
of what Georgia law bans the sale of: “Any in
decent pictorial newspaper tending to debauch the
morals, or any indecent book, pamphlet magazine,
newspaper or other printed paper devoted to the
publication and principally made up of pictures
or stories of deeds of lust.”
The minority who peddle indecent or salacious
literature are doing a good share in the imposition
of low standards of morality upon an indifferent
majority.
service, but throughout the Diocese of Savannah-
Atlanta, where he was known, admired and be
loved.
In recent years he found his greatest hap
piness in providing spiritual ministration to the
Sisters and the patients at Our Lady of Perpetual
Help Free Cancer Home, Which was within the
limits of his pastorate when he was stationed at
the Immaculate Conception Church, Father Smith
will not be forgotten while there lives anyone
whose life life was blessed by association with him.
* "Mtty>God welcome his pi ieStly soui to the eter
nal sanctuary of Heaven.
A campaign to encourage all the.
faithful to wear the Brown Scapu
la of Our Lady has been launched
by the Society of the Little Flow
er and the Carmelite Third Order
throughout both the United States
and Canada.
The crusade to inspire a hundred
per cent of the Catholic populace
to wear the Scapular is being con
ducted jo fulfill the request of the
Blessed Virgin made at Fatima. In
the final Fatima apparition on Oc
tober 13, 1917, the Mother of God
appeared clothed as Our Lady of
Mount Carmel, holding the Scap
ular aloft as a sign that all men
should eonseerate themselves to
her immaculate Heart by wearing
her Gift’of Mercy. Sister Lucy, the
last surviving of the three chil
dren who received the Fatima
message, declares that the wear
ing of the Scapular is an essential
element of the Consecration which
the Blessed Mother requested, in
order that Russia may be convert
ed and that peace may bless the
world.
The same truth has been stress
ed by Pope Pius XII: “May the
Scapular be a sign to them (all
who may wear it) of their Conse
cration to the Most Pure Heart of
the Immaculate Virgin which in re
cent times we have so strongly
recommended.” The Fatima reve
lations are apparent confirmation
of the prophecy made by St. Domi
nic seven centuries ago: “One day,
by the Rosary and the Scapular,
Our Lady will save the world.”
The opening of the eighth cen
tury of Scapular Devotion is cele
brated this year. On July 16, 1251.
at Aylesford, England, the Blessed
Virgin appeared to St. Simon
Stock, the sixth prior general of
the Carmelite Order. As she pre
sented him with the Scapular she
made the promise of unfailing
grace during life and at death to
all who wear it.
During the past few years the
Holy Father has been particularly
anxious to have all the laity wear
Our Lady’s garb of mercy. Since
1949 he has issued three Scapular
proclamations addressed to all the
faithful. In August of last year,
the Holy Father declared: “How
many souls there are who, in cir
cumstances humanly speaking des
perate, have owed their final con
version and their Eternal Salva
tion to the Scapular with which
they were clothed. Devotion to the
Scapular has been an immense
means of grace, both spiritual and
temporal, to the whole world.”
A rare book, autographed by its
then anonymous author, the fa
mous Bishop John P. Lynch of
Charleston, written in Italian and
published privately while Bishop
Lynch was the official delegate to
the Papacy from the Confederate
States, has been presented to the
University of Notre Dame Library.
The immediate donor is Arch
bishop John F. O’Hara, C. S. C., oi
Philadelphia, but the book was re
cently given to Archbishop O’Hara
by the Very Reverend Urban de
Hasque, of Oklahoma City, who
received an honorary doctorate of
laws from Notre Dame in 1918.
The Archbishop asked to have the
book committed to the University
Library for safe preservation.
An Italian Cardinal, an Ameri
can general and a Rumanian queen
were among the guests attending
the commencement exercises at
the American-conducted Pius XII
Institute in Florence, Italy.
The school, which was opened in
October, 1948, this year completed
its fourth year of training young
American students in the arts. It is
conducted by the Dominican Sis
ters of Sissinawa, Wisconsin.
The guests included His Emin
ence Elia Cardinal della Costa,
Archbishop of Florence; General
Matthew B. Widgeway . and his
wife, and Queen Mother Helen of
Rumania.
Occupying places of honor
throughout the proceedings were
Myron C. Taylor and his wife. Mr.
Taylor, who was personal repre
sentative of the late President
Roosevelt and of President Truman
at the Vatican, donated his villa in
Florence to His Holiness Pope Pius
XII for the establishment of a
graduate school of fine arts for
American wdmen. The villa now
houses the Pius XII Institute.
Reporting the appointment of
Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam as the
head of the Methodist church in
the Washington area, secular news
papers in the Capital noted his rep
utation for anti-Catholic utter
ances.
The Washington Times-Herald,
in a special story reporting the
action of the Methodist northeast
ern jurisdictional conference in
Harrisburg, Pa., called Bishop Ox
nam an “outspoken foe of Catholi
cism.” It Scjjd he is also on record
as being against “‘any holy war on
communism.”
The Washington Post said he is
“noted for never flinching from a
religious controversy,” and added
that the “two-fisted preacher” has
“flailed with equal enthusiasm at
what he has considered excesses of
capitalism and Catholicism.” The
Post also said “he took a leading
part in the founding of Protestants
and Other Americans United for
Separation of Church and State.”
The nearby Baltimore Sun, also
in a special story, said: “His direct
attacks upon some policies of the
Catholic Church within recent
years have inspired answering
charges, and bis stand on inter
national affairs, especially as to the
most effective means of fighting
communism, brought his name into
the records of the House Commit
tee on Un-American Activities.”
It was gratifying, at the recent
annual convention of the Catholic
Press Association of the United
States, held at the University of
Notre Dame, to hear Bishop John
F. Noll of Fort Wayne, interpolate
in his keynote address to the con
vention, a tribute to the Catholic
Laymen’s Association of Georgia.
“The Priest,” the fourth album
in a series of rotogravure booklets
on liturgical and sacramental
themes, has been published by
Fides Publishers, 21 West Supe
rior, Chicago 10, Illinois, with the
Imprimatur of Bishop John F, Noll
of Fort Wayne.
Profusely illustrated, “The
The book, small and well pre- ? < * st ” “ \ < ! eally suited ! or us ? J*
served, was discover in Rome by | fu U<Jy an ,‘ l dlscu s slon clubs and by
Father de Hasque in 1910. It is ! who teach rellglon ln the
autographed by Bishop Lynch to a 00 ’
Monsignor Arese, then major domo
to His Holiness Pope Pius IX. The
book is entitled “Letter to a Mis
sionary on Domestic Slavery in the
Confederate State of America, and
was issued in 1864.
Father de Hasque finds no trace
of another volume of this book in
this country. Bishop Lynch’s con
scientious service to the South has
long since been clarified histori
cally, and he has taken his place as
a great Catholic public servant be
side Archbishop Hughes, who
served at the Vatican as represen
tative of the North duririg the un
happy years of the War Between
the States.
Some highly effective educa
tional work on communism—what
it is, and how to identify it—is be
ing done in Louisana and Missis
sippi by Father Vincent J. O’Con
nell, S. M., of Notre Dame Semi
nary, New Orleans, and the Cath
olic Committee of the South, and
Brant Copersmith, director in New
Orleans for the Anti-Defamation
League of B’nai B’fitli.
They have become a two-man
lecture team, traveling from town
to town, raising questions and pro
viding answers to audiences- look-
irtg vfor an honest analysis"of 'to
day's dominant dilemma.
Priced at 25 cents for a single
copy, and at considerably reduced
prices for quantity orders of fifty
or more copies, no study club can
afford not to order a number of
copies of “The Priest.”
Also available at the same
prices, and in any assortment, are
“The Mass,” “Baptism,” and “Mar
riage.” Scheduled for publication
during the coming fall and Winter
are “Confirmation,” “Confession,”
and “The Sacrament of the Sick.”
Students from twenty - five
States and missionary leaders from
four continents will participate in
discussions of international prob
lems bearing upon the Catholic
mission apostolate during the 15th
national convention of the Catho
lic Students’ Mission Crusade, at
the University of Notre Dame, Au
gust 21-24.
Nomination of Dwight D. Eisen
hower to be the Republican candi
date for the presidency recalls that
at one time he was football coach
of St. Louis College, San Antonio,
now known as St. Mary's Univer
sity. A former football player at
West Point, the then Captain
Eisenhower, stationed at Fort Sam
’Houston,” obtained' permission to
coach”the gridiron squad' at the
Catholic college. H. K.