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PAGE 2-B—The Southern Cross, January 5, 1963
SALUTE TO MEN IN BLACK
A DEDICATION
BY MOST REVEREND THOMAS J. McDONOUGH
More than forty years ago
the Catholic Laymen’s Asso
ciation of Georgia published
the first edition of THE
BULLETIN.
A quarterly journal at first,
it soon became a monthly
publication circulated not only
in Georgia, but also in North
and South Carolina as a tre
mendously effective instru
ment for translating into
reality the motto of the Lay
men’s Association - “To
Bring About a Friendlier
Feeling Among Georgians Ir-
respecive of Creed.”
Steadily - for more than four
decades - the zeal and dedi
cation of the Association’s
founders has borne rich fruit,
largely through the influence
of their official publication,
THE BULLETIN.
Those years have witnessed
not only increased under
standing between Catholic
Georgians and their non-Ca-
tholic neighbors, but a
stronger, more vigorous, and
ever-growing Catholic Church
throughout the State, and the
expansion of THE BULLETIN
into a bi-weekly newspaper.
Six years ago the late Pope
Pius XII, recognizing the
growth of the Church in Geor
gia, established a new Dio
cese, with its seat in Atlanta.
THE BULLETIN continued
to be the Catholic newspaper
of both Savannah and Atlanta,
with separate editions reflect
ing the distinct atmosphere
and character of each Dio
cese, and today the work of
the founders of THE BULLE
TIN brings forth yet more
fruit.
For, as we enter on a New
Year, the sister Dioceses of
Savannah and Atlanta begin
publication of weekly news
papers.
We feel that the new name
of our paper is a most appro
priate one.
Webster’s International Dic
tionary describes the Southern
Cross as - “Four bright stars
in the Southern Hemisphere,
situated as if at the extremi
ties of a Latin cross.”
We believe that this is also
a fitting and apt description of
the four decades during which
THE BULLETIN has held high
the Cross of Christ in South
Georgia.
Consequently, this first edi
tion of THE SOUTHERN
CROSS is published as a tri
bute to the men of the Catho
lic Laymen’s Association,
whose devotion to Christ has
played an indispensable role
in bringing His Church in our
Diocese to the beginning of a
new era.
Their spirit will live on in
the work of THE SOUTHERN
CROSS, and it is our hope
and prayer that all of us -
Bishop, Priests, Religious,
and Laity - heirs of The Bulle
tin and its founders - will
continue to hold high the Cross
of Christ in the Diocese of
Savannah.
Need Seen For Catholics To Know
Schools And
(By J. J. Gilbert)
WASHINGTON -- On the
threshold of the New Year, the
proposal to extend Federal aid
to education is developing a
new facet.
Although a national question
by its nature, authorities here
see the controversy engender
ed by the Federal aid sugges
tion reaching down to state and
municipal discussions touch
ing upon any kind of aid to
church schools.
The Legal Department of the
National Catholic Welfare
Conference has drawn atten
tion to this trend, saying it
calls for a laity thoroughly in
formed on the Federal aid
questions, and, as a conse
quence, for a stepped up in
formational program among
laymen.
“Unless the laity is thor
oughly informed on the is
sues, we cannot expect lay
leaders to develop and unless
such leaders develop we can
not expect effective support of
the rights of the Church and of
Catholic parents,” the depart
ment asserted.
There has long been a need
for Catholic parents to inform
themselves about their Catho
lic schools. This has been use
ful in connection with lo
cal matters such as zoning law
controversies, school bus
cases and auxiliary aids to
schools. Now apparently,
there is equal need for Ca
tholic parents to know the is
sues involved in the Federal
aid proposal, a matter many
may have considered to have
only national implications.
In this connection, attention
has been drawn here to a pro
gram which a parish in Willi-
ston Park, Long Island, N.Y.,
is launching to inform Catholic
parents and their non-Catholic
neighbors concerning the
parish elementary school.
“Operation Understanding”
is conducted by the laity of
St. Aidan’s parish in Willis-
ton Park. It is a block-by
block program of neighborly
discussions. In more than 100
Aid Issues
horqes neighbors will gather in
groups of 20 or so to hear
two speakers -- one a man,
the other a woman-- explain
the function of the Catholic
school in their town. By means
of pictures and charts, those
present are taken on an infor
mal tour of the school. The
speakers divide 40 minutes of
time, after which questions
are answered over coffee.
Speakers are provided by a
bureau from 26 lay people,
13 men and 13 women. They
work in teams, and approach
the subject with the assump
tion that St. Aidan’s is in a
very real sense everybody’s
school because it is educat
ing citizens for the commun
ity, and the whole community
should be interested in how
that education is carried out.
Lawyers, housewives, stu
dents and public schoolteach
ers are among the speakers
available.
Controversial questions are
avoided, since the purpose is
only to inform. The approach
is positive. The curriculum is
explained, the school’s physi
cal plant is explored, extra
curricular and parish activi
ties are outlined and attempt
is made to have neighbors
know better the Brothers and
Sisters who teach. Msgr.
Charles E. Bermingham is
pastor of St. Aidan’s.
So far, the reaction has been
encouraging. A Jewish woman*
explained the program to her
rabbi, and he promised to pray
for the success of the neigh
borly project. At the sugges
tion of a Protestant neighbor,
local ministers have been ask
ed to announce “Operation Un
derstanding” from their pul
pits and to ask their congre
gations to cooperate.
“Operation Understanding”
will be watched from many
points around the country. Its
success could provide a test
ed means for taking care of
one phase of that informational
program Catholic parents are
being called to undertake.
Epiphany
AN END TO STRIKES
It Seems to Me
JOSEPH BREIG
I trust that before this
column is published , there
will have been settlements
of strikes which halted pub
lication of daily nev/spapers in
Cleveland (where I live) and
New York
same, I think
be recognized
(which is a
nice place to
visit but, etc.)
The dailies,
I will grant
are not as in-
dispensa-
ble as police
men, fire
men, food and
water. All the
they ought to
as essential public services.
I am not going to be content,
therefore, until procedures are
devised to insure that news
paper-information blackouts do
not occur. Our civilization, it
seems to me, ought to be capa
ble of solving that problem.
INDEED, it is high time we
put our brains to the task of
finding ways of avoiding strikes
altogether. Our society is so
complex that stoppages of en
terprises are becoming ana
chronisms.
Where, then, do we begin?
We begin, I think, by recog
nizing that collective bargain
ing, standing more or less
alone, has been only a stopgap
measure, and that good citizen
ship now calls for further pro
gress.
We must turn, then, to
something in the nature of the
Industry Council Plan proposed
several decades ago by the
bishop of the U. S.
This, I believe, is the only
suggestion in the carefully
thought out program of the
bishops which not only has not
been adopted, but has never re
ceived any very serious wide
spread consideration.
YET IT STRIKES ME as so
obviously necessary in our tech
nological world that sooner or
later something like Industry
Councils (call them what you
will) must be brought into op
eration.
First, though, we must all
manage somehow to see the fal
lacy in attitudes which we have
inherited.
A basic change must take
place in our thinking.
We all tend automatically to
assume that capitalizing is one
thing; managing another thing,
and working a third thing, and
that never the trio shall meet.
WE HAVE NEVER learned
to look at the world as one
household, and the human race
as one family. We have never
even clearly seen the nation or
the community in that light.
But that is the correct light.
For illustration, let’s invent
something that we shall call the
Whatnot Corporation, which
does a billion dollars of business
yearly.
Whatnot Corp. - no doubt
about it - was originally some
body’s brainchild. Somebody
thought it up, recognized the
need for it.
Somebody financed it, too.
And certain persons with spe
cial skills in organization de
veloped it.
THAT’S ALL TRUE but
Whatnot Corp. has grown so
big, so important, so useful to
everybody, that now it affects
greatly the common good of vast
numbers of people.
Competitors have been
created, too. Other similar ser
vices have sprung into being.
Our philosophy thus far is
largely one of letting competi
tion reign supreme - competi
tion among enterprises, and
competition between capital and
management and workers within
companies.
We just haven’t seen the vi
sion of what could be achieved,
and what harmony could prevail,
if consultation and cooperation
were given their proper
For New Year's Day, A Prayer of Faith:
l asked God for strength, that I might achieve;
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey . . .
1 asked for health, that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity, that I might da better things . . .
I asked for riches, that I might be happy;
I was given poverty, that 1 might be wise . . .
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God . . .
/ asked for all things, that 1 might enjoy life;
/ was given life, that I might enjoy all things . . .
/ got nothing that l asked for - but everything / had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unsjwken prayers were answered.
1 am, among all men, most richly blessed.
—art unknown Confederate soldier
Unborn Child Has
Right To Life
SAN DIEGO, (NC) - A priest
reiterated the Catholic
Church’s teaching against kill
ing the unborn at a legislative
hearing on a bill to relax Cali
fornia's abortion law.
Father William J. Kenneally,
C.M., rector of St. John’sSem-
inary, Camarillo, appeared be
fore a State Assembly com
mittee convened here. The Vin
centian heads the major semin
ary of the Los Angeles arch
diocese.
Father Kenneally called the
phrase, “therapeutic abor
tion,'' a euphemism. “The word
‘therapeutic’ means ‘serving to
cure or to heal'; and abortion
does not heal - it kills,’’ he
said.
The bill before the committee
would relax California’s law
which permits abortion to save
a mother’s life. It would legal
ize abortions for ‘therapeutic
reasons’ and for pregnancies
resulting from rape and incest.
After two days of hearing
here, Assemblyman John A.
O’Connell of San Francisco,
committee chairman, said that
witnesses favored the bill two
to one. He said the committee's
recommendations would be pre
sented before the 1963 session
of the legislature.
In his testimony, Father Ken
neally stressed the unborn
child's right to live. “Whence
stems the right of the state to
hear, judge and condemn a hu
man being to death who has com
mitted no crime and who cannot
defend himself?’’ he asked.
He contrasted the killing of
an unborn child, with its lack
of justice, with the care taken
by courts before passing the
death sentence on a convicted
murderer -- noting that many
top state officials have proposed
legislation to abolish such sen
tences.
“The unjustly aborted child
is sentenced by such an unjust
law to capital punishment, with
out a hearing, without represen
tation, without a proxy, with
out a judge and without a jury.
Our plea for the unborn is for
the very same legal fairness
accorded all our citizens,’’ Fa
ther Kenneally said.
Jottings
By BARBARA C. JENCKS
“The fullness of manhood seems to me to be the priesthood.
By this character man is complete. Yes, the priest remains
in ordinary ways, but he goes to the limits of the destiny
that is properly human.’’
Maurice Blondel
place along with competition.
WE HAVE NOT established a
system which would do for our
economy - our enterprises and
services - what our working-to
gether has accomplished in
other fields.
To put it shortly, there are
no parliaments in industry.
There are town councils, but no
Industry Councils. There are
state legislatures, but no Indus
try Legislatures. There are na
tional congresses, but no real
Economic Congresses repre
senting all segments of the
economy.
There ought to be such things.
Eventually there will be such
things. And when there are, we
will work out our economic bal
ances without stopping indus
tries from producing, services
from servicing, and newspapers
from informing.
What is it that sets a man apart from the crowd? What is
the ideal of manhood? What is it that women look to in men?
What is it that other men strive to be and look up to in other
men? Courage, strength, discipline, honor, heroism? All these
are part of it. It is there in the long lines of West Point cadets;
in the heroism and courage of the police and firemen; in the
skilled . surgeon’s hands. As for me, I look to this ideal in the
men in black serge, the men in Roman collars and cassocks
‘ ‘whose office it is to baptize and to preach, to bless and to
govern”. . .but most of all to be an “alter Christus” and offer
the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the greatest power on earth! The
priest possesses powers that no king nor president holds.
Asa human being, he alone holds eternal powers.
The priest has been popularized for the masses in a dozen
novels within the past few years. Yet how many even approxi
mate the power and glory of the priesthood in their psychological
probings and dramatic plots? The Pulitzer prize novel of the
year concerns a parish priest, who is interestingly drawn but
not entirely representative. Few of the priests of fiction are
recognizable as those who pass within our lifetime. Few but
those who bear the mark of ordination know the terrible burden
or the glorious wonder of it! Yet many outside have attempted
to capture the life which will forever be a wonder and mystery
of the layman. Perhaps George Bernanos in his “Diary of a
Country Priest” comes closest to a sympathetic and sensitive
insight into the mind and soul of a priest. If laymen would
like an authentic view let them read “A Priest Confesses” by
Jose Luis Martin Descaizo, a Spanish priest. It is his Seminary
and ordination journal which tells dramatically (and
embarrassingly in its frankness) the wonder of wonders, the
miracle which turns a man into another Christ! It is full of the
glory and pain which is each priest’s portion as he walks the
earth with heaven in his hands.
I comtemplate the many priests who have marked my life.
All mirrored the variety and wonderful difference of human
natures and personalities but all were alike in that indelible
mark of ordination. The men in black who walked pathways
in my life come at different times and for different needs.
Some with the enthusiasm and eagerness of the young cardinal;
others in their last years, their causes forgotten, their fiery
zeal warmed instead of burned. The priest of the middle years,
more thoughtful, some carrying the pain of disillusion, disap
pointment, exhaustion. They have been there at every need in
joy, sickness, death, troubles of soul and body. I have been
blessed by those who have been strategically placed along the
way: pastor, curates, the editor-priests, the order priests,
chaplains, confessors, retreat-masters, teachers, mission
aries, authors — but all priests first and last.
The novelist continues to write about the priest and probes
his mind and soul. We will continue to pray for them and thank
them for being what they are as they pass among us preaching,
teaching, pardoning, blessing, counseling. The man in black
looks like any other man but who has gone to the “limits of the
of the destiny that is properly human.” It is the miracle of
our times that men will ever be called from among men to
ascend the altar of God. His is the power greater than the
nuclear bombs and missiles: the Mass. Young men will ever
continue to find their human and divine destiny in this dedica
tion. A few days ago a young seminarian wrote to me of his
hope: “In a year from this date, these hands that are typing
these lines to you will hold in them the Son of God!”
BUSINESS
Needs More Than
Natural Law As Guide
PITTSBURGH, Pa., (NC) -
The natural law as a moral
guide for businessmen is often
too remote from the complex
challenges of day-to-day cor
porate administration, Arthur
J. Noetzel of John Carroll
University, Cleveland, declared
here.
In his presidential address
to the 21st annual meeting of
the Catholic Economic Associa
tion, Noetzel commented (Dec.
27) that “middle principles are
needed--moral guides which
are closer to the situation at
hand.”
“Some of these middle prin
ciples of ethical behavior can
come from corporate policies,”
he continued, “if top manage
ment will make a determined
practical, yet philosophical, ex
amination of the root concepts
of corporate policies.”
Noetzel urged that the pro
blems of business ethics be
studied “at a position more
centrally located between the
poles of personal integrity
and social responsibility.
“Since corporate policies are
guides to managerial behavior,
they have an ethical dimension.
But this aspect is generally not
a surface characteristic of poli
cies. The ethical character of
corporate policies may be found
in the underlying precon
ceptions of profits, markets,
work and authority.”
In another address, Father
Richard L. Porter, S. J., of
Marquette University called for
“a larger horizon of social
understanding and responsi
bility” on the part of all “pow
er blocs” in the economy.
He pointed out that “the
charge of cost-push inflation
has been laid against Big La
bor,” then asked: “could it
likewise be laid against Big
Business as exemplified by the
corporation?”
Father Porter commented
that on occasion “the large
corporation in basic industry
can be pursuing truly justified
'normal' profits in the same
way that Big Labor can be
pursuing their concept of a
‘living wage.’ But in the me
chanics of the business cycle
and secular growth, both can do
harm to the overall economy.”
FOR RESTRICTIONS
Polish Cardinal
Critical Of Red Regime
BERLIN, (NC) - Stefan Card
inal Wyszynski has criticized
Poland's communist govern
ment for not allowing more Po
lish bishops to attend the first
session of the ecumenical coun
cil, according to reports reach
ing here.
The Primate of Poland spoke
(Dec. 16) at a Mass in War
saw's St. John’s cathedral.
Close to 5,000 persons, reports
said, packed the church and
overflowed into the snowfilled
street outside. The crowd in
side was so dense that some
persons fainted and had to be
revived by snow passed in from
outside, reports added.
Cardinal Wyszynski also took
the government to task for
allowing the bishops who went
to the council only a
limited amount of money.
“Each Polish bishop, 1
said, "was allowed to take
five dollars. . .with him
that would not suffice ever
could live on seeds.” Hetl
ed Polish-Americans and
American churchmen v
contributions provided
Polish prelates with fooc
lodging.
Of the close to 70 bishc
in the country, the Cardii
said, “Only 25 Polish bishc
participated” in the counc
Many had to remain at horr
he stated, because of illne:
“because they could not lea
their flocks or because th
could not get passports.”