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FOUR THE BULLETIN CF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA, JULY 9, 1955. ©Jjp BwUrtftt The Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia, Incorporated JOHN MARKWALTER, Editor 418 Eighth Street, Augusta, Ga. ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1954-1955 P, MEYER, Columbus President JE. M. HEAGARTY, Waycross Honorary Vice-President MRS. L. E. MOCK, Albany Vice-President DAMON J. SWANN. Atlanta V. P., Publicity GEORGE GINGELL, Columbus V. P., Activities RAWS ON HAVERTY, Atlanta V. P., Membership JOHN M. BRENNAN, Savannah Secretary JOHN T. BUCKLEY, Augusta Treasurer JOHN MARKW ALTER. Augusta Executive Secretary MISS CECILE FERRY, Augusta Financial Secretary ALVIN M. McAULIFFE, Augusta Auditor Vol. XXXVI Saturday, July 9, 1955 No. 3 Entered as .second class matter at the Post Office, Monroe. Georgia, and accepted for mailing at special rate of postage provided by para graph (e) of section 34.40. Postal Laws and Regulations. Member of N. C. W. C. News Service, the Catholic Press As sociation of the United States, the Georgia Press Association, and the National Editorial Association. Published fortnightly by the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Geor gia, Inc., with the Approbation of the Most Reverend Archbishop- Bishop of Savannah-Atlanta, and of the Right Reverend Abbot Ordinary of Belmont. A Cradle Of Catholicity An interesting and valuable book has come to our at- tdntion recently. We picked it up casually to thumb through it and found ourselves fascinated with its contents. The History of The Diocesan Shrine of the Immaculate Conception turns out not only to be a history of the Shrine, but of Catholicity of that era when Atlanta’s Mother Church served the entire area. It tells the history of the City’s growth from a small town to the great, metropolis it is today; of the Catholics who were the parishioners of the famous Father O’Reilly; of their efforts and sacrifices in erecting the im posing church; of Father O’Reilly’s valiant effort which saved .Atlanta’s Churches from destruction during The W T ar Be tween the States. Compiled under the supervision of the late Monsignor Grady, this history, along with the renovation of The Shrine, are monuments to his pastorate. To Van Buren Colley who compiled this book, to Father frier nan. to all who made this book possible we owe a sin cere thanks for publishing this history. Copies may be obtained by contacting The Shrine in At lanta. The book sells for $5.00, which covers only the actual ..printing expenses. This book tells of our Catholic heritage, ft should be a welcome addition to ail our libraries. The UN Ten Years After THIS WORLD OF OURS U„ S. Founders and Religion (CATHOLIC NEWS) The Fourth of July, marking the birthday of the Repub lic, is a day of national rejoicing. Without the Declaration of Independence, the adoption of which the Fourth of July celebrates, there would be no United States of America, no great Republic of the West, and the world would have been ■'incomparably poorer. There are people in the United States who, however happy they may be over our free and independent nation, must have their happiness tinged with sadness when they read the Declaration of Independence. They are the “wall of separation between Church and State” theorists, who main tain that any recognition of the spiritual by the civil authori ties is a violation of fundamental American principle, and unconstitutional. Viewed through their eyes, the Declaration of Independence must be unconstitutional. The Declaration in its first paragraph refers to “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” entitle a people. That is decidedly recogni tion of the spiritual by the civil authority, the Continental Congress. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” said the Found ers of the Republic, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happi ness.” The Declaration further appeals “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,” and con cludes: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred. Honor.” The religious tone of the Declaration of Independence is alone sufficient to demonstrate how incompatible with the principles of the Founding Fathers are the theories of the “wall "of separation between Church and State” and other (secularists so vocal today. (By Richard Pallee) This is the summer of pious commemoration for the 10th an niversary of the establishment of the United Nations and it may not be amiss to devote a few lines to some thoughts on the subject. Having spent a [couple of months at San Francisco jin 1945 for the N. [C. W. C. News Service, I feel [that I was pres- lent when the ac- ouchement took |p 1 a c e, so to ipeak. Thus I have a very special interest in what has happened in the ten years that have transpired since, in travail and confusion, the in stitution was born. ATTITUDES AMONG CATHOLICS I realize that in Catholic circles there is a fairly strong sector in which it is felt that the UN and all its works are nefarious and should very properly be liquidat ed. Many do not go so far, per haps, as to think the United States should withdraw, should condemn the institution to cer tain extinction, and in this man ner solve the problem of the veto, the presence of the Soviet Union and everything else. It must be confessed that I am no wild enthusiast about the United Nations. On the other hand, we have to be realistic enough to recognize certain things. The first of them is that from the point of view of Catholic thought and principles of political action, international organization is indispensable and in conformi ty with right reason. INTRINSIC IN OUR CONVICTIONS There cannot be, I am confi dent, any serious doubt on this point. It may seem very general and very fuzzy, as most broad principles are; but the fact re mains that, as Catholics, we are the last to combat the idea of an international society or an or ganization of states competent to bring about an advancement in the international order. It is true to say that this is intrinsic in our convictions. If we accept the ne cessity for international organiza tion as just, natural and desirable, then the only problem becomes what form this organization should take, and whether the form now assumed is the best or not. This is not the place to pick the UN apart piece by piece, or to show that it has not done a lot of things which it was never pre pared to do anyway. The. second main point I want to make is that ever since 1945 the Holy See has manifested a keen and abiding interest in the United Nations and very especial ly in the numerous specialized agencies attached thereto. In UNESCO, in the agencies handl ing. immigration and the refugee problem, and in innumerable other fields, the Holy See has not only been interested but has oft en collaborated and sent observ ers to meetings as they have been called. VITALLY, ACTIVELY INTERESTED From some slight experience in Paris as a member of the Vatican Commission on UNESCO, I can attest to the fact that Rome has been vitally and actively interest ed and at no time has done any thing but to encourage Catholic participation in the programs and efforts of these agencies. This fact weighs very heavily in my own thoughts on the sub ject. The UN and its agencies may be very far from what we would, like them to be, and undoubtedly are, but our refusal to have any thing to do with the institution will certainly not produce any betterment. In other words, in condemning it as “Godless,” how do we propose EVER to intro duce the idea of God if men of good will who believe in God re fuse to have anything to do with its operations? We simply leave the field wide open to those whose action we deplore. BOUND TO BE PRESENT Moreover—and this is a final idea—the UN is not an abstraction but a composition of the nations and the individuals who make it up. To talk about the United Nations as though it were some force that had nothing to do with men and their emotions is absurd. Better to have something that has lasted 10 years than nothing at all. The UN will evolve as every thing human does. It may evolve for the worse or, conceivably, it may evolve for the better. My own conviction is that as Cath olics we are bound to be present through whatever vicissitudes it may pass, and to exert every ounce of influence of which we are capable. THE BACKDROP Bv CHARLES LUCEY ATOMIC ENERGY —A GOD-GIVEN MEANS I It could be that when the scholars of some far future time dip back in research to find the wise men of the early post- atomic era, they will call Thomas E. Murray wisest. Mr. Murray is a member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, a man who distin guished himself in private life before devoting his real talents to government service, a Cath olic who works at it. He was at Eniwetok in the Pacific for the first hydrogen bomb test, has fol lowed thermonuclear develop ment as have few men and, bet ter than most, has some under standing of its almost unimagin able meaning to all the world. For quite a while now Mr. Murray has gone about the land fostering a Christian concept of acceptance of the atomic age, urging that the universal moral law must control atomic v, T eapons as it must control human actions, pleading for a day when atomic energy will serve peace exclu sively. CONVENIENT FALLACY’ No one has spoken more often of the bright hope in terms of human living that can spring from the unlocking of the secret of the atom. Mr. Murrary has no notion we can relax our interest in atomic and thermonuclear weapons until we live in a safer world — “under present world conditions we as a nation have no immediate alternative but to maintain our military strength unimpaired.” But, he warns, a daily increase in nuclear strength never can re solve the dilemma in which we find ourselves. He asserts milita ry might must be subordinated to the God-given laws of spiri tual and moral conduct ori which true peace and justice depend. But this right order will not be realized as long as men “persist in the convenient fallacy they can compartmentalize military might and moral principle.” MEN MORE ONE THAN EVER Commissioner Murray told an audience last year that scientific achievement in atomic energy forces man into the predicament of having to choose between un precedented material progress and death and devastation. He wasn’t carving out any new thought there. But his follow-through was different. He said then that atomic weapons bring man to a realization that the basic human predicament lies.deeper than the issues of life and death—that it is to be found rather in man’s eternal situation between good and evil. No man stands outside today’s crisis, no man has im munity from it. Hence men are more one, than ever before. Ev ery man is responsible to all men and for all men. The rela tionship between the need for spiritual and moral recovery and the common good is inescapable. Personal responsibility is basic to all this. NEW SEARCHING NEEDED The atom was not easily found out, Mr. Murray points out; nature does not surrender her secrets to the indolent. Nor will victory in the spiritual and moral crisis of our age belong to the indolent—“those who will not submit themselves to the lengthy and exacting discipline of the truth are of no help to us today.” But it is not only in the masses, but in their leadership, that there is need for a new searching today. Only a handful can under stand the mathematical physics of atomics. The power of deci sion rests on only a few—ulti- mately on a single man. the President. Today there is great need to concentrate on leaders— “we particularly need spiritual leaders, a handful of men and women who live at the height of the Christian gospel in all its concrete fullness.” As an AEC member, says Mr. Murray, he has no doubts about our growing preparedness. But he is not at all sure about the adequacy of our strength “on the higher intellectual and spiritual planes where the crisis is even sharper and more urgent.” HUMAN PRUDENCE NOT ENOUGH In a speech this year to the American Irish Historical Socie ty in New York, Mr. Murray said, the times demand “the same faith in God and belief in, the power of prayer which our Irish forebears had in such abundant measure.” In this address he measured the atomic bomb not in tonnages of conventional ex plosives but in “the thousands of souls dispatched in a matter (Continued on Page Five)