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1 9 According To Saturday Evening Post GOMULKA PRESSES WAR ON CHURCH, RENEGES ON PACT WITH CARDINAL GRAND KNIGHTS attending the meeting of the Georgia State Council, Knights of Colum bus in Warner Robins, front row, left to right, Joseph A. DeGrange, Valdosta; Ed Jones, Macon, Robert C. Lagen, Columbus and Mario Moscardelli, Council 4420, Atlanta. Back row, Richard H. Nadicksbernd, Sacred Heart Council 4371, hosts for the meeting, Karl A. Holman, Savannah, and F. Bohlinger Sharp, Council 4358, Decatur. -(Photo by Greg Puster) ""Education Expert In Augusta Talk - Population, Knowledge Explosions “Especially Crucial” For Schools AUGUSTA—An enthusiastic audience of 400 persons includ ing the religious and lay teach ers of the city, and a number of public officials heard Msgr. O’Neil C. D’Armour in a lec ture titled "Freedom and Edu cation in America". The Mon signor D’Amour spoke on Jan uary 29th, the same day in which the Federal Aid to Education was presented to Congress. Msgr. D'Amour is Associate Secretary of the Department of School Superintendents of the National Catholic Educational Association. This lecture was under the auspices of the Au gusta Deanery Council of Ca tholic Women as a Family and Parent Education Committee project. The speaker told the group gathered in St. Mary’s School Auditorium that "All schools today face the consequences of two explosions—the explosion of the population and the explo sion of knowledge. While these affect all schools, they are expecially crucial for Catholic schools. In the matter of the population explosion, the Catho lic school is confronted not only with a higher birth rate, but it is confronted with an unprecent- ed demand for the Catholic school on the part of Catholic people." Msgr. D’Amour, while ac knowledging the right of the State to maintain acceptable standards of education, showed that this in no way affected the rights of the parents and the Church in a "freedom of choice" in the education of the young. "Because of our vision of man as a child of God, because of our recognition of his super natural destiny, because of our insistence upon religion as es sential to education, we must preserve our freedom to have our children educated in schools oriented toward religious truth. The present trend is a threat to the very fundamentals of our beliefs. It is a trend that we must fight with all the resour ces at our command. May I say that in so fighting, we will be performing a service not only to the Catholic people but to the entire nation." Msgr. D’Amour challenged the layman to accept the new role that is being thrust upon him in taking the leadership in matters of education. He asked the layman to recognize this role and to give whole heartedly of his abilities and his monetary assets. "The non-public school sys tems find themselves confront ed with a dilemma. If they attempt to meet the demands of expansion, they find them selves with overcrowded class rooms, with unqualified teach ers, with antiquated equip ment. These things they do not desire. The other horn of the dilemma is that they retrench and that they open their doors only either to those who have the money to pay higher tuitions or to those of above average intelligence. This likewise is not desired. Whetheir the child ren are taken into schools lack ing adequate facilities or whe ther they are turned away be cause of the lack of money or intelligence, I contend that the right of freedom of choice in education is being violated. The speaker emphasized that Catholic education should not belong exclusively to the child ren of affluent families nor to the children of above-average intelligence, that every Catholic child has a right to become a part of "a religiously literate citizenry, and in our society this can be brought about only through the religious school. Msgr. D’Amour concluded his lectube with a compliment to spirit of fair play of the Ameri can people and stated "If our situation is presented to them in a clear manner, I believe they will react with justice and with charity." An interesting question and answer period followed the for mal lecture and the members of the Family and Parent Edu cation Committee were the hos tesses for the social hour. Miss Pauline Peuffier is president of the Augusta Deanery Council of Catholic Women and Mrs. Stephen Mulherin is deanery chairman of the committee which arranged this project. MIXED MARRIAGES REMAIN ILLEGAL FOR ISRAELIS JERUSALEM, Israel, (NC)~ Israel’s Knesset (Parliament) has voted down a proposed law which would have permitted mixed marriages between Jews and Gentiles, with Minister of Religious Affairs Zerah Wah- rhaftig leading the opposition. The bill, introduced by Mrs. Emma Talmi of the leftist Ma- pam party, provided for civil marriage and divorce. This would have allowed mixed mar- raiges, which are now illegal in Israel where marriage is controlled by Jewis religious law. The bill was defeated by a vote of 37 to 13. Voting against it were the Mapai (Labor) Par ty, the National Religious party and other parties of the gov ernment coalition. Favoring it were the Mapam party, the communists and some members of the Liberal party. Mrs. Talmi argued that Is rael’s present marriage laws are not in keeping with the times and often prevent people from living according to their con sciences, thus causing personal tragedies. Minister Wahrhaftig pointed out that the bill would legalize marriage between Jews and non-Jews and said that was sufficient reason to oppose it. Psychiatrics Christian LAGOS, Nigeria--Africans should understand that psychia tric care is part of the Chris tian concern for the sick, a Sis ter who is a physician told the first Nigerian national Sisters' conference here. Sister Margaret Mary Nolan of the Medical Missionaries of Mary asked for the establish ment of a psychiatric ward in every Catholic hospital, telling the Sisters; "It is most un Christian to turn away any pa tient because he is violent or psychotic. DISTRICT DEPUTY VISITS AUGUSTA--Daniel J. Keane, District Deputy recently visited Patrick Walsh Council 677. Pictured left to right: Joseph H. Gigandet, Grand Knight Council 677; Daniel J. Keane, District Deputy, 1st District; Bernard S. Dunstan, State Advocate; Father Thomas F. Egan (Chaplain U.S. Army) Chaplain of the Augusta Council.’ The Southern Cross, February 9, 1963—PAGE 3 PHILADELPHIA, (NC) —Po land’s Red regime headed by Wladyslaw Gomulka has fail ed to live up to its 1956 agree ment with the Church and is stepping up its war against re ligion, Stefan Cardinal Wyszyn- ski has charged in a report is sued here. The Primate of Poland spoke in an interview with Christine Hotchkiss published here by the Saturday Evening Post. Accord ing to the author, the interview was granted in Rome before Cardinal Wyszynski returned to Warsaw from the ecumenical council. The Cardinal declared: "The agreement that I negotiated with Gomulka six years ago last October has been ignored . . . Hardly any of the promises have been kept. In stead, a powerful adminis trative apparatus has been mo bilized to fight us. Its tentacles spread everywhere." Speaking of Poland’s 30 mil lion Catholics, the Cardinal stated: "We form the most powerful body of dissent in the Soviet empire . . . and the struggle we are engaged in is affecting the balance of the cold war . . . So far we are holding the line, but the pace of the onslaught is quickening. Our existence is a shattering proof of the failure of the communist doctrine." Cardinal Wyszynski con tinued: ‘A recent decree . . . com pels every employee of the state to refer every matter concern ing a clergyman Church organization or religious order to a special government agency called the Office for Religious Beliefs. It makes no difference whether this involves an appli cation for a building permit, a driving license for the local priest or an allotment of coal for a convent . . . The policy of the Office for Religious Be liefs is quite simple—"no" to every request. "Then there is the financial pressure through taxes . . . The government ‘calculated’ that the revenue of the Church comes to 2,500,000,000 zlotys a year (about $100,000,000). It fixed taxes of this revenue at 800,000,000 zlotys (roughly one third). "This absurd estimate was made to provide a so-called ‘legal basis' for the exorbit ant levies that are now being extorted from us. There is no money to pay it, for the Church’s real income amounts to less than one sixth of the govern ment’s estimate (which would make the tax twice as high as the income). "But the government is re lentless. In one parish the fur niture of the village priest has been seized in payment for so- called 'back taxes’ due from the collection plates last year. In another a priest's bicycle and his wrist watch were con fiscated when internal revenue agents were unable to locate the preposterously high sums of money they demanded. Ac cording to a recent regulation all religious schools, semin aries and convents are classi fied as ‘luxury hotels’ and thus subject to exorbitant tax ation. "Our clergy lives in con stant fear of eviction. For the state confiscates everything— buildings, furniture, livestock, farm produce . . . The students in a seminary in central Poland recently found themselves sleeping in drawers used to store clerical vestments Every other peice of furniture had been seized by the tax col lector." Cardinal Wyszynski empha sized to the interviewer: "Yes, they are brutal." "They hope," he said, "to discourage young people from joining the ranks of the cler gy. Some, of course, do suc cumb through sheer physical exhaustion. I can’t blame them , . . But these are all flagrant violations of Gomulka's agree ment in 1956." The Cardinal spoke of the Red regime’s war against the Catho lic press. He said: "Strict censorship . . . i applied to all circulars, pam phlets and church publications essential for the dissemination of faith and the routine function ing of Church administrative bodies. It involves endless de lays and expense. "Take the case of books, for example. The communist cen sor requires that a copy which is bound and ready for sale be submitted to him. He then proceeds to blank out parts of it, making it necessary to re print and rebind the entire book The allocation of paper is also in the government’s hands and we are entirely dependent Denies Interview BERLIN (NC)—The War saw office of Stefan Cardin al Wyszynski, Primate of Poland, stated (Feb. 1) in the wake of an "exclusive interview" in the Saturday Evening Post that he had "given no interview to any American magazine." The statement also den ied that the Cardinal had described Church-State re lations in Poland as a "bal- anding act" between himself •and communist party first secretary Wladyslaw Gom ulka. The Saturday Evening Post (February 2 issue) article was written by Christine Hotchkiss, a native of Po land now residing in the West, who said she talked to Cardinal Wyszynski while he was in Rome for the ecu menical council. (In New York, a Saturday Evening Post Spokesman stated: "Our story on Car dinal Wyszynski is authen tic and we stand by it. Any one who knows the political situation in Poland can easily understand the denial.") on their whim. Yes, we have traveled a long way from the heady days of October, 1956 —unhappily in the wrong dir ection!" The Polish Primate also de nounced the communist govern ment’s suppression of religious education. He declared: "In its effort to create an atheistic society in Poland . . . the government has suspended religious teaching in school. This has been the most serious violation of the 1956 agreement. Poland is 95 per cent Catholic, and close to 90 per cent of the parents have gone on record demanding that religion be a required subject in schools. But today the state tries to prevent even the teaching of catechism to children. Complicated per mits are needed to open a meeting point’ after school The refusal is never direct, but the building is declared ‘unsafe -in case of fire,' or some other technical flaw is discovered . . . "Over the last six years the tension has indeed been great ... but the climacter ic was not reached. Neither I nor Gomulka will allow it. They know that we will not compromise in some matters; I know that the prestige of the party has to be saved. I have never, for example, asked the state to make religious edu cation compulsory for all—it is a demand that Gomulka could not possibly defend before his fellow communists and con sequently could not grant. I have never yet told them ‘all or nothing.’ "At times I am forced to make big tactical concessions, like withdrawing a nomination for a bishop, or substituting one name for another. But I can’t risk having all my bishops ar rested. The administration of the Church would collapse, and worship would be seriously interfered with. If the worst comes, it is better to preserve a flicker than to extinguish the flame altogether. "It is all part of the balanc ing act that Gomulka and I are engaged in. We understand each other thoroughly, though our meetings are rather infrequent. It has been almost two years since I last talked to him, but predictions of a rupture between us are unfounded. We both firm ly believe that an explosion has to be prevented at all costs. ' * Poland is a very young coun try; almost half of its people are under 30 years of age and they are inflammable, like tim ber ... To most of them Ca tholicism and patriotism are one. Imagine what would hap pen if a popular revolt were to break out! The Russian armies which encircle us on all sides would march in. An ocean of blood would flow. Our youth would be lost. No| I will not allow Poland to suffer the fate of Hungary. There must be peace . . . "The fierce battle I am en gaged in just now is to prevent a mass biological suicide of a nation . . . "The government has enact ed a new law which legalizes abortions. It is enough for a woman to declare that she wish es to interrupt pregnancy, and the hospital or the doctor are legally compelled to oblige her . . . This is the exact opposite of what is happening in Russia, where abortion is punishable by imprisonment ... To a Catholic, of course, abortion is a mortal sin, but it is diffi cult for me to condemn Polish women for desiring to take ad vantage of the law. In their desperately overcrowded liv ing quarters, the arrival of a new child often means almost insurmountable new problems "But if abortions continue at the present fast-growing rate, the population of our country will be drastically reduced within the next 20 years. There is no economic necessity for this. Even with the present food shortages, mostly due to ineffi cient communist management, the present territory of Poland can easily support a population of 50,000,000 people or more. I have publicly denounced this vicious, inhuman measure and will spare no efforts to com bat it. It is a crime aimed at the existence of Poland, and I shall fight it! The biological defense of the nation is as important to me as religion!" Cardinal Wyszynski describ ed his methods of dealing with his country’s communist rul ers. "I frequently take one line of defense, knowing that I may have to withdraw to the next... I don’t mind it . Our survival depends on our knowledge of the changing communist tac tics. One has to forsee their moves and try to match them. It is not always wise to de nounce immediately a new hos tile law, for example. These laws change and often cancel each other after a time. I re main inflexible only in matters TIRES IBandag Recaps-Guaranteed 25,000 Miles Front End-Brakes-Auto Repairs Appliances — TV Bill Kehoe Tire pairsfj, . CoP 410 Montgomery Savannah AD 31128 of faith . . . "My life’s purpose is to be with my people—no matter what the cost. I prefer to remain in prison in my own country ra ther than to be free in exile or have a high ecclesiastical office abroad ... I am rather in a hurry to get back, for the pressure is on us again in full force." Asked if he is afraid of Red retaliation because of his stand against communist ef forts, the Cardinal answered: "I never think of it ... It is true that I get thousands of letters every day begging me not to travel at night, or to use armed guards in the palace. I would not think of it for a moment. Why, I never even lock my door at night in my bedroom! I know I am under the protec tion of our Lord and of the Holy Mary, His mother. That is the best guarantee for my safety. "You ask me, what does the future hold? I don’t know. But I know that the Church in Po land will survive, and with it a degree of freedom for our people." APPROVES NEW EDITION—Archbishop Patrick A. O'Boyle of Washington, a member of the Second Vatican Council's Commission for Seminaries, receives the first copy of the new edition of At-ONE-ment from Frater Columkille O’Shea, S. A., managing editor. The publica tion, designed for seminarians, treats of the problems and possibilities of Christian unity. 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