PAGE 6—The Southern Cross, January 19, 1963
After 100 years of residence
in Columbus, the SISTERS OF
MERCY have the permission of
their Mother Superior to drive
a car. By virtue of the distance
between the downtown convent
and the St. Anne’s Grammar
School and Pacelli High School
(both schools being staffed by
the Sisters) Rt. Rev. Msgr.
"Herman Deimel, pastor of St
Anne's Parish, purchased the
new car, a Volkswagen station
wagon, for the Sisters. The two
tone, green vehicle seats 10
passengers and formal blessing
ceremonies were held recently
at the schools' parking area. .
Bids for the construction of the
new BENEDICTINE MILITARY
SCHOOL building on Seawright
Drive (Sav’h.) will be opened
January 25 at 3 p.m. The new
school, which will accomodate
600 boys, will be air-
conditioned. It will contain 20
teaching spaces and two lecture
rooms. The gym will seat 1,000.
Bids for the construction of a
monastery, chapel and cafe
teria will be invited as of the
above date. The master plan
for the projects also calls for
church and dormitory buildings
to be erected in the future.
Laetare Sunday, March 24, is
the definite date set for the
reopening of the upper CATHE
DRAL OF ST. JOHN THE BAP
TIST. The official opening will
take place with a Solemn Ponti
fical High Mass at 8 p.m. Not
in place for the opening will be
a marble altar rail and marble
pulpit which will arrive at
a later date. Well over one-
third of a million dollars has
been spent for the entire re
novation program.
On January 10, WILLIAM F.
HENNESY, JR., donated his 64th
pint of blood to the Savannah
Chapter of the Red Cross, a
total of eight gallons, thereby
setting a local record for indi
vidual donations. Hennessy is
a special agent of the Internal
Revenue Service. . .At the regu
lar monthly meeting of the Ba
ker High School (Columbus)
Chapter of the Future Home
makers of American FATHER
WILLIAM DOWLING of Our La
dy of Lourdes Church (Colum
bus) was the guest speaker.
This month’s program topic
was “Preparation for Marri
age.” “The most important
thing in preparation for mar
riage is to learn how to love,”
said Fr. Dowling. And he con
tinued “Love, essentially, .is
the wishing of good for some
one else. The ideal of love is
Christ on the Cross. If you
really want to learn how to love
look at Christ and His life.”
. . .The Cardinal-Archbishop
of Boston, RICHARD CARDI
NAL CUSHING, recently re
vealed that he raised $1 million
to help liberate prisoners from
Cuba. His Emminence said he
finally identified himself as the
often rumored “mysteriousdo
nor” because of pressure from
news sources . . . MRS. BAR
BARA (J. Y.) SCHAAF is this
year’s Savannah’s Mother’s
March of Dimes Chairman. In
cluded as honorary generals are
MRS. MAURICE J. MAYNARD,
JR. and MRS. EMMETT MOY-
LAN. The Mother’s March will
begin January 31. Volunteer
workers are invited to call
headquarters Adams 2-1609 for
further information. It is sin
cerely hoped that not many of
our Catholic mothers will be
found wanting in donating some
time to this laudable work . . .
An official “welcome back”
meeting at which the RT. REV.
MSGR. T. JAMES MCNAMA
RA, rector of the Cathedral,
was honored was held by the
Cathedral Men’s Association
on Sunday, the 13th. Monsig
nor recently returned from the
Ecumenical Council in Rome.
Well over eighty men from
the parish gathered for the 8
o'clock Mass and received Ho
ly Communion in a body. A
breakfast was held in the Ca
thedral Day School Cafetorium.
Following the breakfast a re
cording of Dr. John Furbay’s
“Four dreams of man” was
heard. Dr. Furbay, director of
world education for Trans -
World Airline, is a promin
ent educator and platform lec
turer. MR. JULIAN HALLI-
GAN is president of the parish
organization . . . JACK T. Mc-
CUSKER has been named man
ager of Savannah’s Sears, Roe
buck and Co. store. A native
of Iowa, Jack was formerly
of Sears in Atlanta. He and his
wife have eight children.
Next Deadline Jan. 21
Fr. Lawrence A. Lucree
P. O. Box 180
Savannah, Ga.
The Church
And Politics
Following is part two of a 3-part translation of an ad
dress on “The Church and Politics” made to newspapermen
at the Vatican Secretariat of State on November 9 by Msgr.
Igino Cardinale, Chief of Protocol. Msgr. Cardinale says'that
when overriding spiritual or moral questions are at stake
in the political sphere or when a group of nations
“unanimously” seek the good offices of the Holy See as med
iator, the Vatican is bound to enter the area of temporal
politics always maintaining a nonpartisan attitude.
It is easy to understand that
direct power in spiritual
matters resides in the Pope.
The Church, by divine insti
tution, is the guardian of Re
velation; everything that re
lates to the Faith and Church
customs falls directly under
him.
It is true that the particular
position of the Church in the
Middle Ages, when it was re
garded as having universal au
thority and when nations rec
ognized in the pope the su
preme judge of Christianity, ap
pears to suggest the opposite.
However, a careful study of his
tory and of documentation shows
New Saint
(Continued from Page 1)
tolate which he entrusted to
the patronage of Our Lady,
Queen of the Apostles, and which
he made completely dependent
on the wishes of the Holy See.
Pope Gregory XVI approv
ed the society with a “thou
sand blessings” on July 11,
1835. Laymen were enabled to
take part in the society’s apos-
tolate through the formation of
the society’s third order which
now has more than 200,000
members.
In his personal life the new
saint practiced many forms of
physical penances. In his
rooms, which are still pre
served in Rome, can be seen a
number of scourges which he
used to mortify his flesh. He
had a great devotion to Christ's
Passion and collected a num
ber of paintings which stressed
the agony of Christ.
He slept only about four hours
a night, sometimes on a meager
bed, but often on the floor.
Frequently he would re
turn home late at night bare
foot because he had given his
shoes to someone who needed
them.
Blessed Vincent organized
schools for shoemakers, tail
ors, coachmen, carpenters and
gardeners to give them a broad
er education. He set up an in
stitute to teach farmers how to
be better farmers.
During the cholera epidem
ic which ravaged Rome in 1837,
Father Pallotti and his newly
formed society turned their at
tention to the many sick and
dying. Heedless of their own
danger, members of the
society nursed the sick and
opened soup kitchens to feed
the hungry. Father Pallotti
risked his life repeatedly that
year to bring Communion to
the dying.
In 1838, he opened an asylum
for the needy sick and in 1843
he founded the first convent
of the Pallottine Sisters.
Among his pastoral inno
vations was the establishment of
an eight-day campaign of prayer
for the reunion of Easter Chris
tians. This consisted of the
celebration of Mass in a differ
ent Rite each day of the oc
tave of the Epiphany. The oc
tave was supressed in March,
1955, but the custom is still
observed in Rome’s Saint ‘An
drea della Valle church.
Exhausted by ceaseless ac
tivity and asceticism, St. Vin
cent died of pleurisy at the age
of 50 on January 22, 1850. Pope
Leo XIII who had known Father
Pallotti personally said that he
would not hesitate to consider
him a saint.
The cause for his beatifica
tion was opened shortly after
his death. In 1887 he was de
clared Venerable and on Jan
uary 22, 1950 — one hundred
years to the day from his death
— he was beatified by Pope Pius
XII.
His cause was reopened in
1953. Evidence of two miracles
was introduced. One of these
dealt with the curing of Father
Adalbert Turowski, S.A.C., for
mer Superior General of the
Pallottine Fathers. Father Rur-
owski was cured in December
1950, of a postoperative infec
tion with acute heart complica
tions.
The second miracle was the
healing of Angela Bolsorani of
Roccasecca, Italy, who was suf
fering with a malignant car
buncle and blood poisoning.
The body of the new saint is
preserved in the small Church
of St. Salvator in Onda which
is attached to the present gen
eral house of the Pallottine Fa
thers in Rome.
that the basis and explanation of
pontifical action, which so often
spared Christian civilization
from ruin, was nothing more
than the legitimate exercise of
indirect power.
Indirect power may be defined
as the right of the spiritual au
thority to intervene in temporal
matters when superior spiritual
and moral interests are at
stake. In other words, the pope,
considered as head of the Uni
versal Church, and not as tem
poral sovereign of the State of
Vatican City — where he ob
viously exercises direct power
also over temporal matters
enjoys a true and proper juris
diction over the temporal not as
such but only in that which
touches upon the following: the
spiritual order of the salvation
of souls, the integrity of the
Faith and of custom, the free
worship of God and the inde
pendence of the Church in the
exercise of her mission.
All of this is theologically
expressed in the words “ratione
peccati”; thdt is, when it is a
question of defending religion
and morals against the sinful
action of the state or of an in
dividual in a particular tempor
al situation, the Church has the
right to take recourse to
indirect power for the pre
servation of the spiritual order.
Thus it could happen that the
pontifical authority might ex
tend also to the political field.
The Church, in fact, as Pius
XII affirms, cannot renounce the
duty assigned to her by God to
intervene with her authority,
not in technical things, for which
she does not have either suit
able means or the mission to
deal, but in all that is rela
ted to morals and religion.
The Church has always rec
ognized the perfect sovereignity
of the state in the merely civil
field. It is the task of the su
preme civil authority to re
gulate social life according to
the dictates of an order un
changeable in its universal
and moral principles. It must
make easier for individuals the
attainment in the temporal
order of physical, intellectual
and moral perfection and not
impede them in the achievement
of their spiritual and super
natural aspirations. It is the
essential duty of the public au
thority to guard the inviolable
sphere of the rights of the
human person and aid him in
the fulfillment of his duties
The Church does not consider
it legitimate to intervene un
justifiably in the government
of things of the world in pure
ly temporal questions. She lim
its herself to point out the du
ties that are incumbent upon
citizens byjqreason of the na
rural and positive civil law, and
she interprets and applies the
moral law in concrete in re
lation to the particular circum
stances in force. She is, how
ever in her full right when she
wants to prevent the civil pow
er from impeding in any way
the higher interests that re
late to the eternal salvation of
man; from endangering and
transgressing on such interests
with unjust laws; from attack
ing the divine constitution of the
Church; from hindering the ex
ercise of her mission; and from
trampling over the sacro-
sant rights of God in society.
The voice of the Church, as
Pius XII said with feeling, can -
not be stifled when a nation is
wrested with violence and cun
ning from the center of Chris
tianity; when her ministers
are being thrown in jail be
cause they refuse to apostatize;
when the faithful are persecut
ed and arrested; when parents
are being deprived of the right
to educate their children ac
cording to the dictates of con
science; when a state invades
the field of the Church and aims
at establishing a form of “na
tional church” to make it its
own puppet. In so doing, the
Church not only defends the
rights of God and of souls,
but becomes the true and often
the only champion of freedom
against state absolutism.
Secularists and totalitarians
will call all this an unjusti
fied interference of the Church
in the political field; but in
truth it is a matter of the free
and rightful exercise of a right
and a duty that the pope could
not in any way neglect without
incurring very serious guilt.
RUSSIAN MONKS ARE DOMED TO EXTINCTION - Doomed to extinction because new
members are not possible, the Russian monks of Mount Athos, Orthodox monastic strong
hold, are striving to live out their remaining years in the tradition of their ascetic
predecessors. The monastery of St. Panteleimon (shown above) which once boasted over
500 monks is now reduced to 30; many of the smaller Russian houses have only one monk.
Before World War I, the Russian monks outnumbered the Greek monks, but the Greek
government now bars any Russian from Mount Athos. - (NC Photos)
Mount Athos’ Monks
Doomed To Extinction
The
author of the following article, a Byzantine Rite Jesuit
assigned to the Russian Center at Fordham University in New
York, recently spent several weeks studying Orthodox monas
tic life on Mount Athos, a font of spirituality for Orthodoxy. In
the light of current attempts for closer interreligious under
standing, his article can give Catholic readers a new look at
some facets of the Orthodox Church.
By Father George A. Maloney, S.J.
(N.C.W.C. NEWS SERVICE)
One of the saddest experiences for a visitor to Mount Athos is
to see the reduced state of those monks from communist-ruled
Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Serbia.
Of these, none are more pa
thetic than the Russians,
because none had a more glo
rious, spectacular history on
the Holy Mount than they. Be
fore the First World War, with,
approximately 4,000 monks on
the Holy Mount, they out num
bered all the Greek monks. Now
their number is miserably re
duced, due to the interdict on
the part of the Greek govern
ment barring any Russian monk
from coming to the Holy Mount
from Soviet Russia.
With no fresh recruits possi
ble, the monks are left to die
away slowly, with the possibili
ty that the Greek monasteries
will take over their great
churches and lands. The young
est monk from what is now the
Soviet Union that I found on Mt.
Athos was one from Corpathian
Ruthenia, now 57 years old. But
the normal age seemed to be
about 80 and the normal activity,
lying in bed in the infirmary
The very first Russian monk
whom I met upon my arrival
at the governmental seat of Ka-
ryes was Father Ignatius. He
brought me to his monastery
where I slept overnight. It once
had 60 monks; now he i<= all
alone. The next day I met Fa
ther John, of the monastery of
St. John the Theologian (the
Apostle), where there were for
merly 90 monks. Now he is the
only one, over 80 years old and
paralyzed. The large skete
belonging to Vatopedi, St. An
drei or Serai (the Palace), be
fore the Russian Revolution
of different origin may offer
the world a spectacle of loyal
collaboration, of reciprocal
integration of various energies
and interests: all unanimoulsy
aspiring to the common good and
to the elevation of the people.
The Pope wishes that the
Second Vatican Ecumenical
Council collaborate particular
ly in this work in order, as
the Pope hopes, “in the doc-
reinal structure and in the pas
toral action that it promotes,
it may express the desires of
peoples and travel the path that
Providence has marked for
everyone, so as to cooperate
in the triumph of peace and
render more noble, more just
and deserving for everyone this
terrestrial existence.”
“The bishops, shepherds of
the flock of Christ from every
nation under heaven.” (Cf.
Acts, 2,5) will recall the con
cept of peace not only in its
negative expression, which is
a detestation of armed
conflicts; but more so in its
positive requirements, that ask
of every man constant
knowledge and practice
boasted between 500 and 600
monks. Now it is a skeleton
of empt;' rooms with an occas
ional shuffling monk walking
down quiet corridors. Six of
them, 11 age between 75 and
90, rei lain to dream of the
glories of this quasi-monastery
which sought for so many years
to gain recognition as one of
the 20 main monasteries. Due
to the majority of Greek votes
cast against its admission as a
monastery, it had to be con
tent with being a skete, bigger
than three-fourths of the other
main monasteries. The monas
tery of the Prophet Elias had
250 monks and now possesses
only 11.
Apparently doomed to extinc
tion, these Russian monks faith
fully carry out as perfectly as
they can their liturgical ser
vices and maintain a high level
of monastic discipline while
they await the inevitable day
when they cannot carry on any
longer. How often I had heard
from them their plea, “Stay
with us, ” as they stretched
out their hands to say good
bye to me! It was like one
sinking in the ocean, yet who
tries desperately to grasp a
link of hope. One American
of Russian descent tried the
life, but returned to America
after two months. The life is
difficult and the life-line of vo
cations in Russia itself has been
cut off by the Greek govern
ment.
Admist all this dismal fatal
ism of inevitable extinction, it
was for me a distinct joy to
visit among these Russian
monks. I found everywhere a
greater warmth in receiving a
visitor, a greater spirit of com
munal discipline and more care
in performing the church ser
vices than I found in the Greek
monasteries. Monks who seem
ed to step directly from Dos
toievsky's novels bowed low
upon meeting me, kissed me
when I left, called me always
by my first name. There was
no prejudice because of the fact
that I was a Catholic priest.
St. Andrei’s monastery, built
only in the middle of the 19th
century, possesses the largest
church on the peninsula, so
richly decorated that it received
the name of the “palace”.Now
the six monks conduct all their
services in a small chapel while
the largest church on Mt. Athos
remains locked. At St. Pante
leimon monastery, or the so-
called Roussiko, I was told that
in former days to accommo
date all the monks, they had
26 different chapels. The main
“katholikon” or central church
is that of St. Panteleimon, of
late 19th-century architecture.
Here services are bi-lingual—
in Greek (there are only 3 Greek
monks here) and in the tradi
tional Slavonic. The handful of
remaining Russian monks not
assisting in the katholikon cele
brate their church services in
two parallel chapels—actually
full-size basilicas with a flat
roof and separated by a series
of columns--that of the Holy
Veil and that of St. Alexander
Nevsky. The tall, imposing al
tar screen, made of wood and
guilded with gold, gives the im
pression of a fairy-tale palace.
Before I left, I bade fare
well to the abbot of St. Pante
leimon. He bowed lowly and
asked pardon of me for the
sins and mistakes he and his
monks were guilty of. “What
did you do wrong?” I asked him
perplexed. “We have sinned
greatly against God. This emp
tiness in our monasteries is
the punishment for our sins.
When I came to this monastery
there were 4,000 Russian monks
on Mt. Athos. It was like a
craze among monks in Russia,
to come to Mt. Athos in order to
save their souls. But what hap
pened? Instead of staying in
Russia where they would have
befen great saints like Sera
phim of Sarov, they came here
and soon began to drink and to
forget their noble angelic call
ing to become true monks. The
Russian monasteries on Athos
became too rich.”
The superior of St. Elias
the Prophet told me the same
thing: God is punishing the Rus
sian monks for their former
wealth in lands and benefices.
These few remaining monks
strive to live out as faithfully
as possible the few remaining
years of their earthly life in
the traditional monasticism of
their ascetical predecessors on
Mt. Athos. What will happen
after those few years they do
not know. Yet each Russian
monk on Mt. Athos, as I my
self heard so often expressed
expects from the hands of God
some miracle that will once
again restore Russian monas
ticism on Athos to its former
glory.
Law Dean
(Continued from Page 1)
of education, can comply with
the First Amendment if it makes
available funds for structly se
cular purposes in all schools.”
Father Drinan acknowledged
the so-called “permeation” ar
gument against aid to secular
education in Catholic schools—
namely, that even secular sub
jects are so “permeated” with
religion in Catholic classrooms
that public funds cannot be used
to support their teaching.
He said this argument “must
assume. . .that the State is
constitutionally required to
seek out ways to carry out its
secular objectives which will
not give even incidental aid to
religion.”
The opinions in the Sunday
law cases, he declared, “ex
pressly deny the existence of
any such constitutional require
ment.”
Father Drinan argued that
“permeation” by values of
some kind is inevitable in
every textbook and all instruc
tion -- even in the public
schools. He continued.
“If the State therefore can
not constitutionally give public
money for instruction in secu
lar subjects if religious values
are commingled in the instruc
tion, the State is equally dis
abled from financing instruction
in secular subjects where the
orientation of the instruction is,
by silence or by implication,
permeated with a secularistic
outlook.
“Those who argue against
Federal aid for Catholic schools
because there exists in these
schools some permeation of
secular subjects with sacred
values must be prepared to ac
cept the major premise of their
argument—the assumption that
the orientation of secular hu
manism is the only type of edu
cational orthodoxy which the
State can subsidize.”
Father Drinan pointed out that
in recent decisions the Supreme
Court has indicated that it con
siders the establishment of re
ligion clause a source of rights
independently of the freedom
of religion clause of the First
Amendment.
Following up this line of
thought, he said, advocates of
Federal aid to Catholic schools
can argue that the establish
ment clause is violated by a
program of Federal aid to edu
cation which subsidizes only the
secular humanistic values of the
public schools.
“Preferential treatment to
irreligion would seem to be as
constitutionally objectionable
as any preference given to re
ligion,” he commented.
‘The denial of public funds
to Church-related schools
means in effect that the ideal of
a free education in an atmos
phere apart from any officially
fixed indoctrination has been
compromised,” he declared,
adding:
“American law today con
fronts the situation where
about half of all Catholic child
ren of the nation have with
drawn from the public school
because of a profound disagree
ment with the approach to edu
cation and to life which that
institution had adopted.
“American society and Am
erican law do not seem concern
ed that these children who for
compelling religious reasons
have forfeited the education of
fered to them must be thereby
deprived of their right to share
in the commitment of the State
to provide a free education for
every future citizen.”
Observers
Pleased With
Treatment
BALTIMORE, (NC) - The
non-Catholic delegate-observ
ers at the ecumenical council
were “genuinely and sincerely
happy” with their treatment, a
prominent ecumenist who
translated for them said here.
Father Gustave Weigel, S.J.,
a professor at Woodstock (Md.)
College, a Jesuit seminary, also
said that the observer’s pre
sence and the actions of the '
assembled bishops “havemade
it clear that ecumenical action
is something essentially Catho
lic.”
In an interview, Father Wei
gel added: “The Catholic
Church, formally and fully, ac
cepted the ecumenical drive as
something proper to Catholics.
Within Catholicism, therefore,
ecumenicism is no longer under
any kind of question.”
Father Weigel, who spent the
first session of the Second Vati
can Countil translating the Lat
in proceedings for some of the
Protestant and Russian Ortho
dox observers, said the observ
ers “saw the council intimate
ly and from the inside.”
“They were kept from noth
ing,” he said. Observers were'
given books which were the ba
sis of council discussions. They
heard every word spoken,
translated into their own lan
guage.
Father Weigel also explained
that the observers who had a
point to make could do this
through the Holy See’s Secre
tariat for Promoting Christian
Unity.
The secretariat held a meet
ing with observers weekly and
was able to introduce their ob
servations into discussion at
council sessions.
The Jesuit was confident that
the brotherly reception given
the observers has achieved a
greater friendliness between
Catholicism and their churches.
Surmising on what the ob
servers will write in their re
ports to their own church bod
ies, Father Weigel said:
"I imagine that they will point
out there are still many ques
tions we have to discuss, that
progress on the Catholic side
must still go on.
‘ ‘This will certainly be part
of their reports. But the very
fact that they will say in the
beginning, ‘We were treated
ecumenically’-this is going to
do a great deal of good right
away.”
Columbus And Lakeland
Host Albany C.Y.O.
A GROUP of happy CYO’ers pose with Fr. Ignatius Behr, S.D.S. outside of St.
Benedicts Hall Columbus, Ga. St. Benedict’s CYO had just played host to St.^01ar4*'!
C YO from Albany and St. Martin de Porres from Americus during the recent holidays*
is social event included a Christmas Party and roller skating at Mother Mary Mission.
THE CONCLUSION of a parish day of recollection in which the CYO of Queen of
Peace Mission, Lakeland, Ga. played host to the CYO of St. Clare’s Albany, and St
Martin de Porres, Americus. Fr. John J. Murphy, O.M.I., pastor of Queen of Peace!
gave the conferences but everyone helped with the hamburger fry in front of the school
which concluded the event.
WALTON TRIBUNE PRESS. MONROE. GA.
