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FOUR
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
SEPTEMBER 27, 1952
SHf* SuUrliw
The Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen’s
Association of Georgia, Incorporated
HUGH KINCHLEY, Editor
216-17 Southern Finance Building, Augusta, Ga.
ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1951-52
MARSHALL WELLBORN, Rome President
MARTIN 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. SEPTEMBER 27, 1952 No. 9
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
provided 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.
Augusta’s Catholic Hospital
T HE people of Augusta, Catholic and non-Catho-
lic alike, are soon to have an occasion for great
rejoicing—the day upon which St. Joseph’s Hos
pital, now in the final stages of installing equip
ment and furnishings, will be able to receive its
first patients.
With the completion of the hospital here which
will be operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph of
Carondelet, Augustans come to the realization of
a desire and hope that they have yearned to see
fulfilled for years. A.dream has at last come true.
The tradition of hospitalization under Catholic
auspices goes back to the early days when the
Church emerged from the catacombs. While there
may not have been in those days a systematic de
velopment of caring for the sick as is found in the
hospitalization of our modern era, it is true that
some of the Christians of the first centuries did
dedicate themselves and their homes to the care of
the sick and wounded.
Able to profit by the larger liberty which came to
them with the conversion of Constantine, the Chris
tians could better provide for the sick and suffer
ing by means of hospitals. There is some dispute
as to when and where the first hospital was estab
lished, but we know that there is a record of the
famous foundation of St. Basil, at Caesarea in Cap
padocia in the fourth century. This “Basilica” as
it was called, was almost a city in itself, with build
ings for different classes of patients and dwellings
for physicians and nurses.
St. Fabiola founded a hospital in Rome in the
fourth century. Another was founded by St. Pam-
machius, a Roman senator, and a schoolmate of St.
Jerome. After the death of his wife, in 395, St.
Pammachius took the religious habit and used his
riches for the sake of the sick and poor, building
a hospice in Porto Romano, where he served the
ill with his own hands.
St. Basil set an example, and in the monasteries
and other houses of Religion, members of the com
munity devoted themselves to the care of the sick
as a common feature of their work, and there has
been a steady development of hospitalization under
the auspices of the Church, down through the Mid
dle Ages, and on into modern times.
It is good to know that the Sisters of St. Joseph
are to extend this centuries-old tradition of service
to the sick in this city.
Some idea of, the vast scope of hospital service
under Catholic auspices in this country may be de
rived from the statistics given in the Official Catho
lic Directory for 1952.
General Catholic hospitals in the United States
total 720, with a bed capacity of 117,033, admitted
5,110,757 patients during last year. The 117 special
hospitals or sanitariums, with a bed capacity of
10,141, treated 66,337 patients during 1951. In con
nection with the Catholic hospitals, 366 training
schools for nurses were in operation, with 31,755
student nurses enrolled. Some 25,000 mem
bers of Religious Orders, of men and women, are
serving in Catholic hospitals as nurses or in ad
ministrative or technical positions.
It is well known that some of the finest hospitals
in the country are conducted by members of Re
ligious Orders, a few that might be mentioned be
ing St. Vincent’s Hospital, New York City; Queen
of Angles Hospital, Los Angeles; Creighton Me
morial Hospital, Omaha; Mercy Hospital, Pittsburgh;
St. Joseph’s Hospital, Houston; Good Samaritan Hos
pital, Cincinnati; Mercy Hospital, Charlotte; Char
ity Hospital, New Orleans; U. S. Marine Hospital,
Carville, and St. Mary’s Hospital, at the Mayo Clinic,
in Rochester, Minneosta.
Here in Georgia, we have St. Joseph’s Hospital,
Savannah; St. Joseph’s Infirmary, Atlanta; St. Fran
cis Hospital, Columbus; St. Mary’s Hospital, Athens,
all of them modernly equipped and efficiently
operated institutions.
In addition, there is Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Free Cancer Home, in Atlanta, and the Catholic
Colored Clinic, in Atlanta.
Augustans can thank themselves 1 for St. Joseph’s
Hospital, for if the individuals and firms of the city
had not contributed to the hospital building fund,
It would not have been possible tel obtain a Fed
eral grant under the Hill-Burton Apt, nor to have
the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet assume a
large share of the cost.
There is a profund significance in the title so
often given by French-speaking people to a Catho
lic hospital—“Hotel Dieu”—for it is truly the House
of God. Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who
Himself healed the sick and the maimed when He
walked the earth, will be really and truly present
in the Holy Eucharist in the tabernacle of the hos
pital chapel—making it indeed the House of God.
May He bless abundantly all those who have made
the hospital possible, those who will direct it and
serve it, and those to whom it will minister through
years to come.
The Georgia Laymen’s Convention
O N Sunday, October 26, the Feast of Christ the
King, the Catholic Laymen’s Association of
Georgia will hold its thirty-seventh annual con
vention in Waycross. This will be the first time
that Waycross has ever been host to a Laymen’s
Association convention.
This should be one of the most important gath
erings of the Catholic laity of Georgia in many
years. At the convention held in Rome last year,
the Laymen’s Association began a new era by em
barking on a positive program of Catholic action.
In the months that have paissed, under the lead
ership of their president, Marshall Wellborn, of
Rome, the members of the association are.now being
organized at the parish level, With a program that
calls for monthly meetings patterned after those in
augurated by the local branch of the Laymen’s As
sociation in Columbus.
One of the most important features of the com
ing convention in Waycross will be a demonstration
meeting which will be staged on the evening before
the convention by George Gingell, president of the
Columbus Branch and a group of the members from
Columbus. Every member of the Laymen’s Associ
ation who can arrange to be in Waycross on the
Saturday night before the annual convention should
do so, as the Columbus delegation will show the
methods which they have found successful in enabl
ing oqr own Catholic people to know their Faith
better and to be better able to explain it to others.
The convention will be honored by the partici
pation of His Excellency the Most Reverend Francis
E. Hyland, D. D., J. C. D., Auxiliary Bishop of Sa
vannah-Atlanta, and will be favored in having as its
guest speaker, Father Joseph G. Cox, rector of St.
Thomas More Boys High School, Philadelphia.
Father Cox has, gained widespread fame as a
speaker, and his discussion of “The Catholic Lay
man—Yesterday and Today,” will be an outstanding
incident of the convention program.
Edward M. Stone, president of the Waycross
Branch, and Frank Tassone, executive board member
from Waycross, and their fellow-Catholics in that
attractive Southeast Georgia city, assure a cordial
welcome to. the convention delegates from other
parts of Georgia. Those who accept the invitation
to meet in Waycross that was extended in Rome last
October by Father John H. Hillman, S. M., and Mr.
Tassone, can look forward to a profitable and en
joyable occasion, and many delegates, u'e know, will
take advantage of the opportunity to visit the famed
Okefenokee Swamp.
Catholic Bible Week
S EVERAL things have inspired American Catholics
to celebrate Bible Week at this time. Three
are outstanding. First, the week marks the
500th anniversary of the invention of the modern
printing press and the publication by the Catholic
layman, Johann Gutenberg of his famous Bible, St.
Jerome’s translation, the Catholic Latin Vulgate ver
sion, the first book to be printed. Second, the week
marks the greatest accomplishment to date of Amer
ican Catholic Biblical scholarship, the publication of
eight books of the Old Testament, newly translated
from the original languages. Third, efforts to stim
ulate distribution of the Old and New Testaments
will move Catholics to deeper study and more fre
quent reading of the Bible.
Instead of indicating a purpose to discourage
the use of the Bible, as those who are her enemies
claim ,-the Catholic Church’s zeal to give her children
the uncorrupted truths of Scripture is found in her
centuries of tireless effort to keep the Sacred Books
from being lost or destroyed. It was from her
pulpits that the writings of Christ’s apostles and
disciples were first read to the people, and it was
in her archives that they were deposited and pre
served. It was at her direction that they were first
collected together from the four ends of the earth.
She pronounced upon her character, distinguished
the genuine from the spurious, the inspired text
from the uninspired gloss, and for the first time
presented the Bible as one book.
When the barbarian hordes devastated Europe,
destroying books and libraries, threatening the ex
tinction of all record of the past, she preserved the
Sacred Scriptures as that toiling monks could set
themselves to the task of copying the spreading the
Books accepted by the Church .as canonical.
Catholic Bible Week will serve to impress the
fact that the world can accept the Bible only on the
word of the Catholic Church. The Bible is truly a
Catholic book, and we would have no Bible today
but for the Catholic Church.
Catholic Aid to Public- Education
A CCORDING to estimates madd by the Federal
Bureau of Statistics, there wer<5 3,952,000 pupils
enrolled this month in primary\and elementary
schools conducted under religious auspices. The
vast majority of these pupils are attending Catholic
schools.
Those who are interested in public education
should be grateful to the Catholic.Schools and those
who support them. Here in Georgia vast sums are
no"w being expended to operate the public school
system, and the school building program now in
progress represents a huge Expenditure of money
contributed by taxpayers.
Georgians would have a heavier tax burden if
it were not for the schools of the Diocese of Savan
nah-Atlanta.
Last year, in the tern. Catholic high schools in
Georgia, 1,415 students were enrolled; in the thirty
grammar schools, there were 6,910 pupils taught.
Reports on enrollment for the school year just be
gun show a substantial increase in all of the Catholic
schools in Georgia.
The new school year brings the opening of the
new St. Theresa’s School, in Albany; the new Our
Lady of the Assumption School Atlanta; the new St.
Joseph’s School, Columbus, and the Blessed Pius X
Colored high school in Savannah, as well as the dedi
cation of the new Immaculate Conception School in
Atlanta. The Sacred Heart School, opened in Mil-
iedgeville last fall, reports a pupil enrollment
double that of last year for the current term. Land
has been purchased as a site for a Catholic school in
Marietta, and it is reported that property on Walton
Way Extension will be donated as the site for a new
Boys’ Catholic High School in Augusta.
Our Catholic - Schools maintain high scholastic
standards but what is more essential to the welfare
of the state and the nation, they inculcate character
and impress upon their pupils a patriotism based on
the principles of true Americanism.
Dixie Musings
“My Witness, Bernadette,” a
publication of Templegate, Spring-
field, Illinois, is an English trans
lation of a book written towards
the close of the last century by
J. B. Estrade, who was an -of
ficial of the French civil service in
Lourdes at the time of the ap
paritions of the Blessed Virgin
Mary at the Grotto.
M. Estrade knew Bernadette
Soubirous, and followed the
astounding events connected with
the apparitions at Lourdes at the
very places where they occurred
and recorded what happened from
day to day in his diary.
His notes have been woven into
a narrative which tells the life-
story of SL Barnadette as one who
was an eye-witness to many inci
dents in her life, and who was
able to gather at first hand other
information from Abbe Peyramale,
cure of Lourdes, the Mother Su
perior of the convent at Nevers,
where St. Bernadette spent the
last years of her life, and from
other persons who participated in
what happened at Lourdes.
The book is not only a factual
record, but it is a Stirling and mov
ing story that will hold the atten
tion of the reader tightly in its
grasp from the preface, by Mon
signor Robert Hugh Benson, to its
closing paragraph, in which he
prays that St. Bernadette “will re
member her old friend at Lourdes,
and obtain for him by her prayers
grace so that he may himself see
in heaven the Immaculate Con
ception whom he has never failed
to invoke with filial confidence
since that fovever blessed day
when he knelt so near her, under
her eye and under her hand, at
the Grotto of Massabieille.”
In the vestibule of the Jesuit
House of Studies, just completed
at Spring Hill, in Alabama, hangs
a particularly beautiful copy of
Murillo’s Immaculate Conception
by Alsonso Miguel de Tober (1678-
1758). ■-
For many ydars the -history of
this painting was shroudjed in ob
scurity. For fnany years Its paint
er was unknown. Today, thanks
to the ingennity and unstinted ef
forts of Father Thomas McGrath,
S. J., Director of the f Mission
Band of the Jesuits’ Neifr Orleans
Province, tge answers jto both
questions a$e known.
In 1906, Father David Foulkes,
S. J., taugh| at the Sacp-ed Heart
College, heie in Augusta. About
twenty-five years later jhe return
ed here to pdeach a Mission. Walk
ing through 'the corridors of the
college buildihg, long since closed,
Father Foulkqs came Wpon a heap
of rubbish, and at thfe bottom of
the pile was tfljis striking painting.
For many y^ars if hung in the
chapel of the rectrtVy of the Sa
cred Heart Chuich In Augusta. In
1949, Father MoGrath obtained
permission to flake it to Dallas
to have it restored and appraised.
The painting ' was sent to the
Metropolitan /Museum in New
York, hoping that- experts there
would be able to identify it. Pho
tographs were then \ent to Spain.
At length, Dr. MhVirice Gold-
blatte, the “Sherlock IHolmes of
the Art Gallery,” affirmed with
no hesitation that it was a free
copy of Murillo’s Prado Museum
painting by Alsonso Miguel de To-
bar.
A new Protestant version of the
Bible,'Written in modern language,
goes on sale September 30, and
anticipating that it will reach the
best seller lists the publishers are
printing a first edition of 1,000,000
copies. /
This Revised Standard Version
which is sponsored by the National
Council of .Churches of Christ in
America, his been prepared by a
group of scholars who examined
thousands ol old manuscripts and
foun^ many! errors of translation
and copying' had crept into the
King James version.
Among the changes made from
the text of the v King James ver
sion is the omission of the words:
“For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glpry, forever,”
from the Lord’s Prayer, as given
in the Gospel according to St.
Matthew. \
The translators say Vthat these
were words used in ritual ser
vices which had crept' into the
biblical text as an interpolation,
and were not found in oldep manu
scripts. V
A recent issue of The Steuben
ville Register contained the story
of the conversion of Mrs. Michael
J. Hodovpnie, a native of Glenn-
ville, Georgia, now livi-g in To
ronto, Canada.
Patrick Scanlan, managing edi
tor of The Tablet, of Brooklyn,
noted in his column “The Manag
ing Editor’s Desk,” that he had
seen in the daily press that the
United States Air Force had
“spread its magic carpet to help
3,900 stranded Moslem pilgrims to
the holy cities of Mecca and Me
dina.” Four-engined planes, which
use a tremendous amount of high
octane gas, were Used to fly a to
tal of 121,800 miles.
Mr. Scanlan said that no objec
tion was offered to this good will
and friendly gesture, but he won
dered if suph organizations as
Protestants and Other Americans
United for the Separation of
Church and State would not “view
with alarm” tips using of public
funds for religious purposes.
“Assuredly,” says -Mr. Scanlan,
“if these organizations maintain
that the carrying of American
children in burses to non-public
schools violates the United States
Constitution, what will they say
about conveying Moslem religious
pilgrims to their religious shrines
in United States government own
ed planes? And remember the
buses used are paid for by the
taxes of the children’s parents, and,
we repeat, the children are Amer
ican citizens.”
The question of whether or not
Sisters wearing religious garb
should be permitted to teach in the
public schools of that area was air
ed at a public meeting of the board
of education in Grangeville, Idaho.
Benedictihe Sisters have been
teaching in public schools of
Greencreek, Keuterville ahd Fer
dinand, Idaho, for about forty
years. The population in all three
areas is predominantly Catholic.
A complaint which respited in
the public hearing was brought by
Fred Pautfest of Ferdinand, who
charged that public school funds
were being spent for religious pur
poses as long as religious garb was
worn in classrooms.
Catholic residents of the areas
maintained that as long/as the Sis
ters were qualified they should be
permitted to teaph regardless of
their attire.
At the hearing a) letter was read
from the district/attorney citing
court rulings in a number of
states which held that the wearing
of religious gafb constituted reli
gious teaching contrary to most
state constitutions. Others at the
hearing pointed out that although
the Idaho state constitution for
bids religious teaching in public
schools, there is no law directly
forbidding the wearing of religious
garb by teachers. The attorney
general of Idaho has declined to is
sue an opinion on the question.
Catechetical Guild Educational
Society, which raised such a furor
in communist eireles a few years
back with /its . amNcommunist
comic blooldet, “Is Th|s Tomor
row,” is publishing three) new anti
communist releases in a new for
mat this fall: “Blueprint for En
slavement,” by the Reverend James
McCormick, M. M., “Cyasis in His
tory,” by Bisliop Fulton J. Sheen,
and “The Answer to Communism,”
by Douglas Hyde.
All three bookK will appear in
the new “Guild Family Reader”
format and will be available on
pamphlet racks and throitgh retail
bookstores at 15 cents percnpy.
While in Berlin to attend the
recent Katholikefitag, Archbishop-
Elect Joseph W^ndel of Munich
and Freising, was the personal
guest of Protestadt., Bishop Otto
Dibelius, head of the Evangelical
Church of Berlin-Brandenburg,
vert”—and with a smile replied:
“Thank you, I forgot it purpose
ly. H. C.