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THE Ut 'IHE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S MiON Or GEORGIA DECEMBER 11. 1954. FIRST NATIONAL BANK IN WAYCROSS Member F. D. 1. C, WAYCROSS, GEORGIA COMPLIMENTS OF HL H. BURNET & CO PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS AND INCOME TAX CONSULTANTS WAYCROSS, GEORGIA FIRST FEDERAL SAVINGS & LOAN ASSOCIATION - INSURED SAVINGS - HOME LOANS - FIRST FEDERAL BLDG. PHONE 340 WAYCROSS, GA. U, $, Bishops Emphasize: Godless Materialism Is The Evil, But Renewed Faith In God The Cure ST. JOSEPH'S CHURCH—Pictured here is the Church of St. Joseph, Waycross. (N.C.W.C. News Service) WASHINGTON, — The threat of atheistic materialism, “a tyran ny already imposed upon a bil lion souls.” can. be combatted in this ination by renewing “our Faith in God and in His Christ” and by clinging again “to that Christian moral code which is the American way of life at its purest and its best,” the Ameri can Hierarchy has declared. The nation’s Cardinals, Arch bishops and Bishops sounded the warning and prescribed the an tidote in their statement released at the close of their annual meet ing here in the nation’s capital. The title of the 1954 statement is “Victory—Our Faith.” The Bishops emphasized that the tyranny of atheistic materi alism can come in the form of communism or as godless human ism. They said: “We need, first of all, to identify our enemy; to recognize it for what it really is.” And they warned: “If our nation is to escape the fate of Poland and of China, of Yugoslavia and of Hungary, anci of so many others, if we are to survive as a free Christian nation, then we must be clear-eyed and we must be strong.” Material strength, the Bishops reminded, is a necessity, but “like physical vision,” it is not enough. The Bishops said: “This resources and our masterly technical skills will avail us nothing unless we are a people strong in the faith that gives purpose to action, and in the morality . which fosters discipline and courage. The true strength of a Christian nation is in the power of God which out weights all force of arms.” The Bishops said that in recent times the drift from God and from the spiritual way of life has weak ened this country. They observed that in the last few years, there has been a rise in church member ship, “but in the light of other evidence, one is forced to ques tion how significant such mere statistics may be.” “Indeed, the trend in public and private morality has been downward; there is an alarming disregard in practice for God’s teaching and for God’s law,” the Bishops asserted. “Is there any need to instance the growing evils in family life, the lustful self- indulgence which leads from birth prevention to divorce, from broken homes to the lives of youthful delinquents? Need we adduce in evidence the appalling circulation of indecent literature, and the low moral level of so much of the public entertainment in these days?” The Bishops said it “is not that the existence of God is expressly or generally denied; it is rather that so many men ignore Him and His law in their absorption with the material world which He created.” There is no deliberate turning away from God but “an excessive preoccupation with cre atures,” the members of the Hi erarchy declared. “This form of materialism re veals itself as secularism in poli tics and government, as avarice in business and in the professions, and as paganism in the personal lives and relations of all too many men and women,” the statement declared. Materialism has brought about a decline in the influence of re ligion upon American life and has caused “confusion in our think ing and a sort of paralysis of the national will,” the statement con tinued. The Bishops said history clearly attests that unless “we ar rest this religious decline, unless we push back the domestic inva sion of materialism, we shall not be able ... to withstand the enemy from without.” Material ism is the real enemy, both at home and abroad, the Bishops said. The Bishops said this nation needs, first of all, faith - in God because faith is the first essen tial of human living. Faith is the key to knowledge of the high est and noblest character, the statement asserted, for by “faith, we iiso above the things of earth and of time and glimpse the things of heaven and of eternity.” “The Western world, with its law of fraternal charity and its humane culture,” the Bishops de clared, “was created by this Faith in God and in His Son, Jesus Christ. At its best, our civiliza tion was the fine flowering of the Christian Faith. Now that the West has fallen from its former greatness, let us recognize that it is because so many have fallen away from the Faith, or have denatured it by dilution and compromise. We have fallen down before the idols of flesh and of gold. It is not the True Faith that has failed us; it is we who have failed the Faith. A week and vacillating Christianity, a partial, truncated Christianity, paying lip service to God and to the spirit, but devoted in practice to man and to matter, can never triumph in the battle with total, deter mined materialism. “Our nation, if it is to survive, must recover and renew its Christian Faith,” the statement concluded. “Here alone can we find purpose to end the present confusion; strength instead of weakness; a dynamic zeal to over come the difficulties of life; an uplifting soul-stirring motive for the fight to the death against the total materialist enemy. In the sign of Christ’s Cross our ances tors in the Faith conquered the ancient paganism and gave man kind the golden ages of the Chris tian era. We in our day shall conquer the new paganism, athe- i'tsic materialism, in the same triumphant sign.” “The greatest tribute that the world can pay to Christians is the fierce persecution of hate . . . Men build colossal dams to obstruct only mighty rivers; they make use of fearsome weapons of de struction only against an enemy with a tremendous potential. So too, they rage with, relentless hate only against the love that is strong as eternity.”—Simon Wood, C. P., in The Sign. Problem Solved! the engraved Jarrell gift certificate rlijicatc If there is someone on your list who is just a bit hard to please ... or should you be rushed . . . then here’s your answer! We shall make out the Jarrell Gift: Certificate for any sum. you authorize, charging to your account if you wish. John Jarrell, Inc. 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