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FOUR
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
JANUARY 5. 1957.
1
Mulhtxn
The Official Organ Of the Catholic Laymen’s
Association of Georgia, Incorporated
JOHN MARKWALTER, Editor
416 Eighth Street, Augusta, Ga.
ASSOCIATION OFFICERS
JOHN M. BRENNAN. Savannah
E. M. HEAGARTY, Wavcross
MRS. L. E. MOCK, Albany
1
FOR 1955-1956
President.
Honorary Vice-President
Vice-President
TOM GRIFFIN, Atlanta
Vice-President
DAMON J. SWANN, Atlanta
V. P., Publicity
GEORGE GINGELL, Columbus
V. P., Activities
NICK CAMERTO. Macon
JOHN T. BUCKLEY. Augusta
JOHN MARKWALTER, Augusta
MISS CECILE FERRY. Augusta
ALVIN M. McAULIFFE. Augusta
Secretary
Treasurer
Executive Secretary
Financial Secretary
Auditor-
Vol. 37 Saturday, January 5, 1957
No. 16
\
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 Association
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, the Most Reverend Bishop of Atlanta, and the
ight Reverend Abbot Ordinary of Belmont.
est cldilorial. . .
Most Rev. Thomas J. McDonough
Hungary In Retrospect
THIS WORLD OF OURS
(By RICHARD PATTEE)
It is perhaps opportune now
that the violence of the Hungari
an outburst has subsided to take
stock for a moment and attempt
to draw up some kind of a bal
ance sheet of the results.
The tendency
i n general is,
of course, to
look upon this
event as an un
mitigated trag-
edy out of
which nothing
but Soviet tri
umph and hu
miliation for the
Hungarians and for the free
world have come. Is this in re
ality the whole story?
Obviously the sacrifice that
Hungary has made is one of those
dramatic, deeply moying episodes
in history that will forever re
main as a tribute to the nobility
of the human spirit. If there was
ever any inclination to doubt that
man in the twentieth century
was still capable of heroism on
the grand scale, what happened
in Budapest has borne witness to
the capacity of men, women and
children to offer - everything ra
ther than accept the rule of in
iquity and barbarism. In a very
real sense the Hungarian people
have redeemed our faith in all
mankind and have by their act
made us all proud to belong to
the kind of world in which that
degree of abnegation and courage
still prevails.
COMMUNISM EXPOSED
There are the prophets of doom
who insist that Hungary was a
lost opportunity for striking at
the Soviet Union. I find it hard
to agree with the school of
thought that believes that it
would have been the best wisdom
to have gone barging into Hun
gary with armed forces and there
by set off a war that would have
engulfed not only Hungary but
everyone else. No one can serious
ly doubt that the Hungarian ex
perience has given the Soviet
Union an extremely bad turn;
that it has infinitely weakened
the Soviet system morally and
probably physically and has done
more than anything else in the
past eleven years to make crystal
clear th^ hideousness and vicious
ness of everything that Sovietism
represents.
Here in our country one may
wonder that it is still necessary
to show communism up for what
it is. In other parts of the world
the perspective is different and
the Hungarians have contributed
directly and graphically to show
ing up marxism in all of its bru
tality. I would list rapidly some
of the positive conquests that flow
from the Hungarian rebellion in
the following way:
I. It has produced a wave of
defection in communist circles
everywhere.
II. It has discouraged innumer
able fellow travelers and crypto
communists from remaining sup
porters of the Soviet system.
III. It has demonstrated the
falsity of peaceful co-existence
when vital Soviet interests are
at stake.
IV. It has .confirmed the fact
that changes in the Soviet regime
do not mean and cannot mean a
trend toward humanitarianism. qf
flexibility.
V. It appears to have recreated
the tension between Tito’s Yugo
slavia and the Soviet Union; an
encouraging thing in terms of the
interests of the rest of the world.
VI. It has forced such person
alities as Nehru to recognize al
though belatedly and perhaps un
willingly, that European victims
of oppression and bestiality have
as many rights as Asiatics and
Africans.
NO MORE PLATITUDES
Other effects could probably be
listed but these suffice to indi
cate that out of the bloody mas
sacres in Hungary, certain definite
consequences have come. The
Soviet Union will certainly never
be able to mouth the same plati
tudes about co-existence, and re
spect for small nations around the
world. The devastation, loss of
lives and exodus of the unfortu
nate Hungarians is a shocking
price to pay to open the eyes of
Mr. Nehru. In the long run we
may, however, manage to bring
a little more sanity and a little
more clarity into the specious
claims of Moscow.
An Encouraging Report
The Most Rev. Thomas J. McDonough of St. Augustine
has been named Auxiliary to Archbishop Gerald P. O’Hara,
Bishop of Savannah. Bishop McDonough comes to Georgia
from the neighboring state of Florida, where he has served
as Auxiliary-Bishop of St. Augustine since 1947.
Ordained in 1938. Savannah’s new Auxiliary began his
service in the St. Augustine Diocese in 1941, being named
vice-chancellor in 1941, chancellor in 1944 and vicar general
in 1945. He was administrator of the St. Augustine Diocese
while Archbishop Hurley served as head of the papal mission
in Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1950.
Bishop McDonough was consecrated as the first Aux
iliary-Bishop of the Florida-Diocese on April 30, 1947. At
the time of his consecration Bishop McDonough was the
youngest member of the American hierarchy.
Details for the transfer of the new Auxiliary are now
being worked out and announcement of his date of arrival
in Savannah is expected shortly.
The Bulletin joins the clergy, religious, and laity of the
Diocese of Savannah in extending a heartfelt welcome to
our new Auxiliary-Bishop.
Tito The Communist
(THE NEW YORK CATHOLIC NEWS)
Marshal Tito for some reason difficult to fathom has
gained in popularity An this country as the Kremlin Reds
fell into deeper disgrace. Apologists for Tito are promoting
the idea of inviting him to this country.
The enemy of the United States and the West is com
munism, which has for its basic purpose the overthrow of
governments such as ours with world communism replacing
it. Tito is a Communist—indeed he maintains that he is the
orthodox Communist, and' that those in the Kremlin are
heretics.
This is the Tito who ten years ago had the heroic Arch
bishop Stepinac—now Cardinal—sentenced to 16 years in
prison after a “trial” which our own government condemned.
This is the Tito who kept the Cardinal in prison for five years,
and who has since confined him to his native village, restrain
ing him from exercising his office as Archbishop and Metro
politan.
This is the Tito whose soldiers shot down American avi
ators who were on an errand of mercy, who imprisoned
Bishop Peter Cule for eleven years, who put hundreds of
priests in jail, who has closed Catholic schools and seminaries,
making it impossible to replenish the clergy reduced by
death, imprisonment and exile. The number of priests killed
is in the hundreds, and the number of the laity murdered
is in the hundreds of thousands. Tito has outraged every
principle of justice and decency for which the United States
stands,. There is no fundamental difference between Tito the
Communist and the Communists in the Kremlin.
BACKDROP ■
By JOHN .C. O’BRIEN
g-inal cases. In no case studied. for waiver of jurisdiction have
did we feel that the fundamental been granted.
THE
A team of professors from the
G e o r getown University Law
School has recently issued a re
port on the treatment of Ameri
can servicemen tried in foreign
courts that should allay the fears
of parents that <
their sons, if j
they run afoul i
of the law, will j
be unfairly:
treated.
A number of i
C o n g r essmen i
have complain- ;
e d b i 11 erly
about permitting, foreign courts to
try servicemen charged with law
infractions. Their lurid reports
about alleged harsh treatment
and injustices have stirred up
anxiety among parents who have
sons with the overseas forces.
But the two Georgetown pro
fessors—Father Joseph M. Snee,
S.J., and A. Kenneth Pye—after
a tour of four NATO countries
assure us that American parents
have nothing much to worry
about.
TRIALS ARE FAIR
Although the investigation,
sponsored by the American Law
Institute, was limited to Great
Britain, France, Italy and Turkey,
it is within the jurisdictions of
the countries that most of the
American servicemen over seas
are stationed.
“We believe,” the professors re
ported, “that the trials of our
American military personnel in
foreign courts, at least in the four
countries visited are conducted
fairly and impartially. There are
a few cases where we disagree
with the result and the procedure
by which it was reached, but even
these were, in our opinion, mar-
rights of any serviceman were
violated, or that procedures were
followed or results reached which
were such as to shock the con
science or offend against a con
cept of ordered liberty.”
This is a comforting report, for
the United States has more than
1,000,000 servicemen overseas and
many have their families with
them. In the last two years some
18,000 were charged’with offenses
in the countries where they were
stationed or were visiting.
AN AGREEMENT MADE
When troops are stationed in a
foreign country as allies during
a war, host nations have often
waived jurisdictions over those
charged with infractions of the
civil or criminal laws. But when
we stationed large forces of men
in Europe after the war, the NA
TO countries objected strongly
to turning all American service
men charged with offenses over
to United States military cours.
To meet these objections, in
1953, the United States Senate
by an overwhelming vote ratified
an agreement between the United
States and the NATO countries
whereby American troops would
be tried in foreign courts unless
the host governments specifically
waived jurisdiction to permit
trial by military courts.
Under the agreement the NATO
governments undertook to give
“sympathetic consideration” to re
quest for waiver of jurisdiction
to the American forces. And Fath-
I er Sn^e and Mr. Pye report that
they found that “foreign officials
have shown themselves anxious
to give gneerous cooperation with
our military authorities.” In fact,
about two-thii'ds of all requests
AUTOMOBILE CASES
By and large, the law profes
sors reported, the. GI’s tried ia
foreign courts received lighter
sentences than military law would,
have permitted had they been
tried by military courts martial,
The investigators found, too, that
many servicemen preferred to be
tried by foreign courts because
their sentences were not entered
against them on their military
records.
Most of the charges against
servicemen abroad grow out of
the reckless use of an automobile.
About 70 per cent of all cases
involving GI’s tried in the foreign
courts were automobile cases.
One of the chief complaints of
critics of the trial of American
servicemen in British courts has
been that an appeal judge may
impose a stiffer sentence than
the trial court imposed if he be
lieves the original sentence was
too lenient. Actually, however,
few sentences have been increas- *
ed by appeal courts, the investi
gators found, but the risk of a
stiffer sentence has discouraged,
appeals by convicted servicemen.
Most of the complaints by
Congressmen, however, have been
directed against trials in France,
Italy and Turkey which operate
under codes and procedures
sharply different from the Eng
lish Common Law which is the,
basis of American jurisprudence.
One critic' complained that
American boys tried in the courts
of those countries were not given-
a trial by jurv. Also in French,
Italian and Turkish courts de
fendants do not have the right
of cross examination. The judge
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