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I
PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, April 27, 1963
Opposition Isn’t Bigotry
A study of the constitutionality and prac
ticality of including church-related schools
in the allocation of tax funds for educational
purposes was issued by the National Catholic
Welfare Conference in December of 1961.
That study reached the conclusion that there,
is no federal constitution bar to aid to educa
tion in church-related schools in a degree
proportionate to the value of the public func
tion it performs and that inclusion of such
schools in any aid program would benefit
American education rather than impair it.
A similar study, commissioned by the
National Council of Churches Department of
Religious Liberty, was published last week.
It, however, concludes that use of tax funds for
religious schools would violate both Federal
and state constitutions and would severely
damage our public school system and our
educational standards.
Quite understandably, supporters of Catho
lic schools resent the inference that their
schools are somehow inferior to public
schools, but it is important to note that the
National Council’s study contains none of the
anti-Catholic sentiment so evident in the
testimony of POAU and other so-called
Church-State Separation groups at legislative
hearings last year.
In fact, according to the Rt. Rev. Malcolm
Endicott Peabody, chairman of the Council’s
Department which prepared the study, draft
copies of the document were sent out last
January to leading constitutional lawyers,
including Catholic scholars, and revisions
were made in response to their comments.
We hope that the Catholic Press, Catholic
educators and supporters of Catholic schools
will read the study with objectivity and atten
tion, and when offering criticism, show the
same care for the religious sensibilities of
others that the National Council of Churches
evidenced in preparing it.
Faith Can Be Lost
God’s World
There is a difference between
the virtue of faith and the act
of faith. The virtue, which is
a state of readiness to believe,
was infused into our soul at
baptism. Most of us received
this virtue as
infants. How
ever, there
could be no
exercise
of the virtue
until we rea
ched the age
of understan
ding. Only
then did we
learn that there is a God and
that He has made certain truths
known to us. Only then could we
give free assent to the truths
of God and say, meaningfully,
"I believe.”
No one can make this act
of faith except with God’s help.
That is why we speak of faith
as a gift of God. A person
can prepare himself for an act
of faith by learning about God
and about the truths of religion.
For the final step, however,
when with mind and heart we
unreservedly accept GocT'and
His revelation—for this final
step we must have God’s assi
stance. This is the grace of
faith, as distinguished from the
virtue of faith. If we were bap
tized in infancy, we received
first the virtue and later the
grace of faith. Those who' be
came converts in later years
received first the grace of faith
and then, in baptism, the virtue.
Occasionally we meet with a
non-Catholic who says, ‘‘If
I were to join any church, it
certainly would be the Catholic
Church. It all seems so rea
sonable, but somehow I can’t
seem to make up my mind.”
This is a person to whom the
grace of faith has not yet come.
Since faith is a gift of God,
it is something to be prayed
for. The person in search of
faith who, with complete sin
cerity, asks God for this gift,
certainly will be given it. How
ever, there are millions who
do not even know of their own
need for faith. In our love
for Christ, a big intention in
our daily prayers will be, ’’for
the conversion of unbelievers.”
Another daily intention will be
for an increase in the depth
and strength of our own faith.
Faith is not a static attitude
of mind. Either faith grows
or it weakens—and sometimes
dies. We have particular need
to pray when, as does happen
to most of us, we find our
selves beset by temptations
against faith.
We usually think of tempta
tions against faith as arising
from intellectual scruples:
apparent clashes between re
ligion and science, for exam
ple, or difficulty in understand
ing how God can be present
under the appearance of
bread. These however are
easily conquered with prayer,
and, if need be, with investi
gation.
The temptations against faith
which are more often fatal, are
those which arise from moral,
conflicts rather than from doc
trinal obstacles. A man does not
first lose his faith through in
tellectual difficulties and then
marry a divorcee. A woman
does not first lose her faith and
then begin to use contracep
tives. The sequence, most often,
is just the opposite.
We humans cannot long
sustain an interior conflict. If
mind and emotions are at war
with each other, we must some
how establish peace. When a
person of faith finds himself
strongly drawn towards a sinful
course of action, he experiences
a painful state of conflict. Faith
pulls one way, self another.
The sufferer can quickly re
establish peace by renouncing
the sin, however painful (for
the moment) his renunciation
may be. If he is unwilling to
surrender his present or con
templated sin, then it is his
faith which has to give. He
begins to find points to cri
ticize in his religious beliefs,
begins to manufacture difficul
ties and to see apparent con
tradictions. Eventually he finds
the peace he seeks, a specious
and a fatal peace. He loses his
faith. This has been the history
of apostates from the Church.
It is not likely that we are
enmeshed in grave habitual sin.
However, when we find our
selves afflicted with severe
temptations against our faith, it
will be well to do some honest
probing. It is possible that we
may find self-love, in one form
or another, to be the instigator
of our temptations.
Father Trese welcomes let
ters from his readers. The in
creasing volumn of letters pro
hibits personal answers but
problems and ideas contained
in such correspondence can be
the basis of future columns.
Address all letters to Father
Leo J. Trese, care of this
newspaper.
British Trade Christian Rights
Malaysia Threat To Christians
By Father Patrick O’Connor
Society of St. Columban
(N.C.W.C. NEWS SERVICE)
Religious rights of non-Mus
lims are being traded by
the British government to buy
Muslim political support for
Malaysia.
That is the feeling among
Christians of all denominations
in Sarawak and Sabah (North
Borneo), two of the Borneo
territories to be included in the
new Federation of Malaysia. In
the draft proposals, the British
authorities have agreed to make
Islam (the Muslim religion) the
national religion of Malaysia,
although a majority of the total
population will by non-Muslim,
Christians in Malaya an
independent federation in the
British Commonwealth, realize
now that some of their rights
were given away six years ago.
Islam was then made the nation
al religion, even though the Sul
tans, Islamic rulers of nine
states, had not asked for it.
Christian observers from
North Borneo have been looking
around the existing Federation
of Malaya to see what they
may expect if the present Mal
ayan constitution is extended to
cover their territories. That is
the way in which the British
and Malayan governments pro
pose to form Malaysia next
August, with Singapore and Bru
nei also included.
The results of the survey are
disquieting, according to well
informed sources.
“Though freedom of religion
is officially guaranteed in
Malaya, it is often restricted
in practice—for non-Mus
lims” one observer declared.
It is illegal for Christian
children in Christian schools
to receive Christian religious
instruction from state-paid
teachers, but Muslim teaching
must be given in Christian
schools to Muslim children by
state-paid teachers.
A government school-zoning
policy restricts the freedom of
Christian parents to send their
children to schools of their
choice.
Christians of the non-Muslim
tribes (“aborigines”) are not
allowed to have any churches
or chapels. They may worship
only in their own homes or
in the jungle.
Christian missionaries are
forbidden to preach or minister
to the aborigines. These tribes-
folk are not allowed to become
Christians now. State policy is
to Islamize them.
That’s happening in Malaya
today, six years after “merde-
ka” (independence).
Christians of Borneo natural
ly fear that a clause making Is
lam the national religion of the
new Malaysia may be made the
pretext for enforcing similar
policies in their territories.
There are many indigenous non-
Muslim Tribesfolk in Sarawak,
Sabah and Brunei.
Objections have been brushed
aside with vague assurances
which, especially in the light of
what is known of Malaya, have
failed to reassure. If restric
tions and discrimination are
evident in Malaya today, even
under the broad-minded Tunki
Abdul Rahman’s administra
tion, what might not be feared
from a less liberal government,
tempted to profit by a pro-
Islamic clause in the constitu
tion?
A petition signed by repre
sentatives of the Catholic, An
glican, Methodist and Adventist
Churches and the Salvation
Army in Kuching, Sarawak, on
March 5, declared a national
religion for Malaysia to be
“undesirable, unwarranted, and
unnecessary.”
IT'S FUNNY WE DON'T GET THE SAME RESPONSE'
New Age Of The Church
It Seems to Me
JOSEPH BREIG
If we are to understand ade
quately the new flowering of the
Church which is taking place,
we must be attentive, I think
to the words of Augustin Cardi
nal Bea as he speaks the mind
of Pope John
XXIII.
C ardinal
Bea is help
ing us to open
our minds to
the fuller
meanings of
the word
“C atholic.”
That, it
seems to me, is the essence of
the messages he has been bring
ing to us as president of the
pope’s Secretariat for Promot
ing Christian Unity.
On his American tour, he em
phasized that the secretariat
has a wider ultimate purpose
than that of the union of Chris
tians—great through the union
of Christians will be. Out of
Christian unity, Cardinal Bea
trusts that a world unity will
grow.
With the boldness of Chris
tian hope which knows that with
God nothing is impossible, he
envisions “a world of brothers”
in which there will be “unity
of all men of good will for the
good of humanity.”
THE FOUNDATION of this
world unity, Cardinal Bea says,
is freedom of conscience, plus
fraternal love among human
beings “in union with their
common Heavenly Father, the
Father of all men, who have
been created in His image and
likeness.”
Cardinal Bea therefore sees,
in the Pope’s creation of the
Christian Unity Secretariat, one
of the crucial events in the
Church’s history. He does not
hesitate to compare it, in im
portance, with the establish
ment of the Congregation for the
Missions in the 17th century.
Cardinal Bea summons Ca
tholics anew to the mission
which Pius XII gave to the
laity—that of “consecrating
the world.”
The laity’s task, he said
during his American tour, is to
“render testimony to Christ
by one’s own authentically
Christian life and activity in full
conformity with the Gospel.”
And he exclaimed:
“What would be the influence
of Christianity in the world if
such were the case!”
Each of us, therefore, is to
take thought: how can I, in my
own life and activity, give
Christian witness to Christ in
full conformity with the Gospel?
Obviously, the first step is to
form my mind and my will in
an authentically Christian way.
This will demand both study and
goodness. Once I have formed
myself rightly, I can hardly help
bearing Christian witness.
Christian witness, therefore,
consists before all else in
Christianizing myself pro
foundly by reading and prayer,
by seeking counsel, and by devo
tion to the Mass and the sacra
ments. As Cardinal Bea said,
for the laity it is not a matter
of preaching and teaching, but
of living the Faith in the cir
cumstances of life.
For our associations with
others, Cardinal Bea gave us
Pope John’s ecumenical prin
ciple—that of “emphasizing
what tends to unite men, and
accompanying every man as far
along his way as is possible
without betraying the demands
Fourth Glorious Mystery
THE ASSUMPTION
Our $$ Father
Scriptural 3\osary
Part 14
Blessed art tnou, O daughter, by the
Lord the most high God,/
above all women upon earth.
And the moon was under her feet,/
and upon her head a crown of twelve
stars.
Apoc. 12:1
Hail 0 Mary
Hail<3G>Mary
Judith 13:23
For he has so magnified thy name this
day,/
that thy praise shall not depart out of
the mouth of men.
Judith 13:25
Hail!0C>Mary
In
every nation which shall hear thy
name,/
the God of Israel shall be magnified
on occasion of thee.
Judith 13:31
HailQBMary
All glorious is the king’s daughter as
she enters;/
her raiment is threaded with spun
gold.
^ Ps. 44:14
Hail <38 Mary
Sing to the Lord a new song,/
for he has done wondrous deeds.
Ps. 97:1
Hail SB Mary
Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou
art the joy of Israel,/
thou art the honor of our people.
Judith 15:10
Hail SB Mary
Hear, O daughter, and see; turn your
ear,/
for the king shall desire your beauty.
Ps. 44:11,12
Hail SB Mary
And the temple of God in heaven was
opened,/
and there came flashes of lightning,
and peals of thunder.
Apoc. 11:19
Hail SB Mary
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit./ As it was
in the beginning, is now,
and ever shall be,
world without
end. Amen.
And a great sign appeared in heaven:/
a woman clothed with the sun.
Apoc. 12:1
Hail SB Mary
Editor’s Note: This is one of the 15 decades
of the Scriptural Rosary, a modern version
of the way the Rosary was once prayed in
the Middle Ages. We are presenting the
complete Scriptural Rosary in 15 install
ments as a service to our readers. You are
invited to save these meditations for future
use. Or you may obtain the complete set in
illustrated prayer-book form by sending $1
to the nonprofit Scriptural Rosary Center,
6 N. Michigan A venue, Chicago 2, Illinois.
Image Of God Anne Frank’s Father
MIAMI, Fla., (NC)—Amid
current concern over public
images, what really matters is
“that man is created to the
image and likeness of God,”
an archbishop said here.
“Social planners who play
down this image of man deform
VATICAN CITY, (NC)—The
father of Anne Frank, the teen-
aged Jewish girl whose diary
has lived on as a testimonial to
human warmth and dignity long
after her extermination by
Nazi Germany, was given a
special audience by His Holi
ness Popw John XXIII.
him and do him a most disas
trous disservice,” Archbishop
James P. Davis of San Juan,
P. R., said here.
Outlines Order
NEW YORK—Father John
Courtney Murray, S. J., be
lieves the significance of His
Holiness Pope John XIII’s new
peace encyclical is that it out
lines an “order” for the “new
era of history. . .that is clearly
with us.”
The “order” envisaged in
Pope John’s encyclical, Father
Murray writes in America
magazine, (April 27), is one
based on freedom.
Otto H. Frank called on Pope
John (April 19) accompanied
by his second wife. Anne’s
mother died in January of 1945
—two months before she her*G
self came to her death in the
camp—her mind frayed after
the nazis routed her family out
of the hiding hole in Amster
dam where they had cooped
themselves up for more than
two years.
Mickey Mouse
erf:
ODAWARA, Japan, (NC)—
The distractions originated by
American television are far-
reaching. Father Thomas Dowd,
S.S.C., of West Roxbury, Mass.,
was trying to preach a sermon
Heads NCEA
of justice and truth.”
ON FREEDOM of conscience,
Cardinal Bea said that he was
not giving a personal opinion,
but was voicing the authentic
teaching of the Church—a
teaching which has not always
been observed by Catholics.
The teaching, he said, is this:
every person has a right and
duty to obey his conscience.
Therefore, individuals and so
ciety have a duty nr respect
that right and duty—that free
dom to follow conscience.
ST. LOUIS—Archbishop John
P. Cody, Apostolic Administra
tor of New Orleans, was re
elected to a second one-year
term as president general of
the National Catholic Educa
tional Association.
In the final general session
of the 60th anniversary conven
tion here, where the election
took place, delegates also voted
to hold next year’s convention
in Atlantic City, N. J.
in Japanese at the children’s
Mass here. But he had to give
up when a neighbor’s TV sound
ed loud and clear through the 1
window.
"Who is the leader of the club
that is made for you and me?
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E . ..
Mickey Mouse!”
Way Of The Cross
Birth Control Book
This does not mean exempting
anybody from all moral and re
ligious obligation: freedom of
conscience does -not mean
trampling on the rights of
others, and if anybody does
trample on those rights, indivi
duals and society have the right
to protect themselves.
BOSTON—Richard Cardinal
Cushing has stated that opin
ions on the morality of artificial
birth control as expressed in
gynecologist John Rock’s new
book “lack any official approval
as authentic Catholic teaching.”
The Archbishop of Boston
says that in the book, entitled
"The Time Has Came,” “there
is much that is good,” but “it
also contains several state
ments which are theologically
incorrect and certainly mis
leading.”
BERLIN—The historic Palm
Sunday procession in the East
German city of Heiligenstadt,
held annually for more than 400
years, drew participants from
Muehlhausen, Erfurt and Eis
enach, according to delayed re
ports reaching here. Several
thousand Catholics sang and
prayed their way through the
streets in an observance of the
Way of the Cross.
Red’s Execution
School Hearings
NEVERTHELESS, nobody can
rightly be “forced to fulfill”
religious and moral obligations.
It is not permissible to use
force or violence to correct
the erring conscience of ano
ther.
Whence is to come the world
unity which Pope John and Car
dinal Bea desire? It is to grow
out of truth, justice and chari
ty; or, in more general terms,
from “the law written in man’s
heart, prompting him to do what
is good and avoid what is evil.”
Cardinal Bea emphasized
again the essential oneness of
Christians which exists because
of baptism. The Church, he
said, "affirms resolutely” that
“the baptized person is or
ganically united with Christ and
His Mystical Body . . .All those
who are validly baptized are
brothers among themselves.
WASHINGTON—Senate hear
ings on aid to education will
begin April 29, Sen. Wayne
Morse of Oregon has announced.
Morse, chairman of the edu
cation subcommittee of the Sen
ate Labor and Public Welfare
Committee, told the Senate that
the subcommittee will hear tes
timony from public witnesses on
each section of the administra
tion’ s bill separately.
VATICAN CITY, (Radio NC)
—News of the execution of the
Spanish Communist leader Ju
lian Grimau Garcia has been
received by Vatican officials
with dismay.
Several of them privately ex
pressed chagrin that the sen
tence of death had not been com
muted. They pointed out that he
had been executed on the mor
row of the Pope's peace ency
clical and during Eastertime,
a period that the Pope explicit
ly said on April 17 calls all
men to gladness and to pardon.
QUESTION BOX
(By David Q. Liptak)
Q. I always thought that to
receive Holy Communion wor
thily it is sufficient to be in the
state of grace. But in a pamph
let I have been reading it says
that a “right intention” is also
necessary. Is a “right in
tention” an additional require
ment, or is it the same thing
as the state of grace?
A. The right intention requi
red for reception of the Bless
ed Eucharist is the same gener
al disposition necessary for the
performance of any good work.
What it means is that one should
approach the Communion rail
for supernatural motives, not
out of vanity, for instance, or
merely to please others. Cer
tainly one who goes to Com
munion for love of God and for
the welfare of one’s own soul
has a right intention. In his fa
mous decree of December 20,
1905, St. Pope Pius X defined
a right intention in the wise:
“He who approaches the holy
table should do so, not out of
routine, or vainglory, or human
respect, but for the purpose of
pleasing God, of being more
closely united with him by
charity, and of seeking this di
vine remedy for his weakness
es and defects.”
THE STATE of grace or free
dom from mortal sin is of
course the essential specific
condition for receiving Com
munion worthily. As this prin
ciple is explained by the Church,
one who has committed mortal
sin may not receive Communion
until he has confessed his sin
and has been absolved—even
though one may have regained
the state of grace by means of
an act of perfect contrition
(which by its nature implies of
course the obligation of con
fessing one’s sins to a priest
as soon as possible),
VENIAL SINS do not of them
selves preclude worthy recep- '
tion of Communion. But they
unquestionably hinder the per
fection of union which Christ
(Continued on Page 5)
The Southern Cross
P. O. BOX 180. SAVANNAH. GA.
Vol. 43
Saturday, April 27, 1963
No. 32
Published weekly except the last week in July and the
last week in December by The Southern Cross, Inc.
Subscription price $3.00 per year.
Second class mail privileges authorized at Monroe, Ga. Send
notice of change of address to P. O. Box 180, Savannah, Ga.
Most Rev. Thomas J. McDonough, D.D.J.C.D., President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor
John Markwalter, Managing Editor
Rev. Lawrence Lucree, Rev. John Fitzpatrick,
Associate Editors
