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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.