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FOUR THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA MARCH 2, 1957. laUetin The Official Organ of the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia, Incorporated JOHN MARK WALTER, Editor 416 Eighth Street, Augusta, Ga. Observance Of U. N. Resolutions THIS WORLD OF OURS ASSOCIATION OFFICERS FOR 1955-1956 JOHN M. BRENNAN, Savannah President E. M. HEAGARTY, Waycross Honorary Vice-President MRS. L. E. MOCK, Albany Vice-President TOM GRIFFIN, Atlanta Vice-President DAMON J. SWANN, Atlanta V. P., Publicity GEORGE GINGELL, Columbus V. P., Activities NICK CAMERIO, Macon Secretary JOHN T. BUCKLEY, Augusta : Treasurer JOHN MARKWALTER, Augusta Executive Secretary MISS CECILE FERRY, Augusta Financial Secretary ALVIN M. McAULIFFE, Augusta Auditor Vol. 37 Saturday, March 2, 1957 No. 20 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 Right Reverend Abbot Ordinary of Belmont. Welcome Bishop McDonough The Holy Father sends Bishop Thomas J. McDonough to the Diocese of Savannah to serve as Auxiliary to the Most Rev. Gerald P. O’Hara, Archbishop-Bishop of Savannah and Apostolic delegate to Great Britain. Bishop McDonough is no stranger to the clergjr of the Diocese nor to many of our Catholic laity. For the past 10 years he has labored as Auxiliary Bishop in our neighboring diocese of St. Augustine-. He is well known for his accom plishments in Florida. Prior to the appointment of Savannah’s Auxiliary, Phila delphia had sent three of its sons to serve Holy Mother Church in Georgia. The Diocese’s First Bishop was the Most Rev. Francis X. Gartland, a native Philadelphian. In 1936 our present beloved Bishop, Archbishop O’Hara, was ap pointed to the See of Savannah. Bishop Hyland, former Auxiliary of Savannah-Atlanta, and First Bishop of Atlanta, are both Philadelphians. The Catholics of Georgia have learned of the saintly courage of Bishop Gartland, they know of the love of Arch bishop O’Hara and Bishop Hyland, seeing about them what they have accomplished for the Church since they came to Georgia from Philadelphia. They are most confident that their debt of gratitude to Philadelphia will be increased with the coming of Bishop McDonough. There is joy and gratitude in the hearts of the clergy, Religious and laity of the Diocese of Savannah. They are confident, that under the blessing of God, the leadership of Archbishop O’Hara and his Auxiliary, Bishop McDonough, the Diocese of Savannah will write a glorious new chapter of notable progress in its history. The Catholics of Savannah know of the personal worthi ness of Bishop McDonough, of the greatness of his apostolic zeal and the fervor of his devotion to the Faith of Christ. They know, too, of the brilliancy of his intellect, and of his executive ability, which were among the qualifications which merited his being appointed Auxiliary-Bishop of St. Augus tine. The Clergy, Religious, and laity of the Diocese of Savan nah cordially welcome Bishop Thomas J. McDonough upon his arrival in Georgia. On his arrival in Savannah Bishop McDonough told the Faithful: “My apostolic mission is to you; consequently, I call upon your help, your understanding, your daily prayers which I need, and I know under God you will not fail me.” We desire to assure His Excellency of our prayers and co operation. The Bulletin welcomes Bishop McDonough and assures him that though they may not be in the. numerical strength of the laity of other Dioceses, the Catholics of Savannah will! not be surpassed in the strength of the devotion and loyalty which they offer their Bishop and. his Auxiliary. Welcome, Bishop McDonough! I think we must all agree that if the United Nations is to op erate properly the moral — and perhaps physical — force behind its resolutions should be such as to make it obligatory for those who form a part of the internation al body to carry them out faith fully. It may be use ful to call at tention to the way some of those nations most articulate in their denunciation of internat ional lawlessness have acted re cently with reference to pro nouncements emanating from the U. N. Prime Minister Nehru is con sidered one of the men of peace in the world today — at least he is always saying that he is a man of peace, He was shocked at the Anglo-French intervention i n Egypt, considerably less than shocked at what happened in Hungary. KASHMIR ILLUSTRATION Time and time again, Mr. Neh ru has been telling the world that if moral values do not pre vail, and if the United Nation is not given the prestige and recog nition that it requires, there is scant hope for a peaceful world. Mr. Nehru is extremely active in defending moral solutions when they concern someone else’s prop erty in Asia or in Africa. He is much less keen about this sort of thing when India is involved. Re cent news regarding Kashmir il lustrates this perfect contradiction in the application of moral pre cepts to specfic situations. The Indians are enthusiastic for the U. N. when it seeks to get the Israelis out of Sinai. New Delhi is not only enthusiastic, but ac tually flouts a U. N. resolution when it comes to Kashmir, where, in spite of the overwhelming de cision of the U. N. and the long standing proposal to submit the matter to a plebiscite. India has now by force taken what has been specifically denied her by the international body. Just how does Mr. Nehru manage to recon cile this “imperialistic” attitude with the anti-colonialism and an ti-war attitudes he has been striking for years? It is enormously significant that the Indians refer point-blank to a plebiscite in a territory they claim to be rightfully theirs. If the people of Kashmir are so wildly desirous of becoming In dians, then certainly a plebiscite should be quite in order. The In dians were more than willing to have this done in Vietnam, as originally proposed at Geneva af ter the conclusion of the Indo- Chinese war. The next time Mr. Menon prates in New York about loyal and rigorous adherence to U. N. resolutions, it may be well to recall that India has given an eloquent example of the direct refusal to abide by the decisions of this body. HOLLOW RING It is becoming a little tiresome, too, to read and hear exclusively of Israel’s obligations to abide by the. rules of the U. N. and do the hundred and one things this little state is supposedly obligated to do. The talk of sanctions against Israel rings hollow when one re calls that Egypt has never paid the slightest attention to a U. N. resolution calling for free traffic through the Suez Canal. For years Egypt has paid no heed to this demand, nor has she accepted even to conclude the war of 1948 on the basis of the armistice as worked out. I somehow cannot manage a great deal of enthusiasm for the contention of Nasser that he was the victim of foul aggression on October 29 when Israelis nipped across the Sinai. Nasser himself has been screaming for months that a state of war prevails with Israel. If war prevailed, in spite of the U. N., then there was no aggression but simply an act of war according to the Egyptians’ own interpretation. LOOSE TALK FROM IRAQ Moreover, for good or for ill, Israel exists as a result of the U. N. decision to partition Pale stine. The loose talk from Iraq and other sources about wiping out Israel and destroying the last vestige of this little state—-with the thoroughness that Titus ap plied in the year 70 in destroying the Temple—runs directly counter to the U. N. decisions in which most of the world participated. The only nations that have re spected the U. N. with scrupulous fairness in these last months are France and the United Kingdom. They have followed point by point the policy as laid down by the United Nations, withdrawing from Egypt and undoing what was done in November. It is high time that a little de flation were introduced regard ing the punctilious respect for the U. N. that is claimed for Neh ru, Nasser and a number of others. Literary Paradox THE BACKDROP By JOHN C. O'BRIEN On all sides we hear complaints that Americans have lost their taste for reading, particularly for the reading of serious books. We skim through newspapers and magazines of the popular sort, but seldom do we re-read the classics or tack le the more t hough tful books of cur rent output. Even the maga- § zines of high § literary quality | have suffered have suffered from a high rate of mortality in the last half century. Yet never have the great books of the past been available at so cheap a price. At nearly every corner drugstore one . may find well-edited, well-printed, paper-, bound editions of the treasures of our literary heritage for the price of a toothbrush. But only the cheap-at-any-price trash sells in the millions. For the decline of serious read ing television is currently taking the lion’s share of the blame. In stead of sitting down with a book after dinner, Americans, we are told, are now spending their evenings staring at television screens. Though most of the tel evision fare is mediocre, if not worse, Americans seem to pre fer it to the great works of lit erature or even to the lesser books that come off the presses with the passing of each week. NOTHING NEW A half century ago the news paper was held responsible for the decline of reading. As long ago as 1911, the late Hilaire Bel loc, himself a prolific author, was complaining about the neglect of books in England. In an essay en titled “On the Decline of the Book”, he noted that “the pro portion of the population which reads books of any sort, though perhaps not larger than it was three hundred years ago, is very much smaller than it was one hundred years ago. In times past, he reminds us, almost every great house in Eng land had a good library, filled with the Greek and Latin classics, histories of the best sort, and the great works of English literature —poetry as well as prose. And most of the squires, it seems, did not spend all their time riding to hounds; they were dilinquent readers. But at the time of which he was writing, Belloc complained that there was no market for the “kneaded and wrought matter of the true book.” Especially neglect ed were the solid works of history, of which Belloc himself was a seri ous and critical student. A few novelists were able to prosper by catei'ing to the popular taste, but most of the other writers were compelled to turn to journalism to keep the wolf from the door. TV NOT EVEN INVENTED At this time, of course, Belloc could not have foreseen the im pact of television, for it had not yet been invented. To him, it seemed evident that the news paper was the culprit, although he assigned much of the blame to the change in the attitude of the national mind.which caused the British public to prefer ephe meral writing. As to the outlook for a return of the British people to their former reading habits, Belloc was gloomly pessimistic.—even before he was able to consider the dis tracting influence of television which was beginning to be felt only before he died. To the ques tion whether there was any rem edy for the . state of things, as he noted them in 1911, his answer was, “There is none.” “Its prime cause.” he wrote, “resides in a certain attitude of the national mind, and this kind of broadly held philosophy is not changed save by slow preaching or external shock. As long as modern England remains what we know it, and follows the line of change which we see it fol lowing, the book will necessarily decline more and more, and we must make up our minds to it.” NATIONAL TRAITS That televison is distracting ug from serious reading can hardly be denied. But as an American writer, Shirley Watkins, suggests it may not be the only cause for the decline of book reading in this country. It may be traits of our national character—our rest lessness and our gregariousness —that account in no small meas ure for our failure to read. How often have we heard well- educated Americans excuse them selves for their unfamiliarity with the current as well as the great books of the past with the remark. “I just simply can’t find time to do any reading.” What they mean of course, is that golf, dinner- parties, bridge parties and (Continued on Page 5)