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> PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, May 4, 1963 Who Closed The Fist? When the Archdiocese of New Orleans announced last summer that Catholic schools there would be desegregated in the fall, many objections were raised. The people of the archdiocese were being asked by their Archbishop, in the name of the Christ who said, "Whatsoever you do to one of these, even the least of my brethren, you do unto Me," to receive into their schools, on an equal basis, all those of whom the Same Christ said, “Suffer the little children to come unto M me. . . They were being asked to put aside a centuries-old tradition of racial segregation, and initial opposition was not unexpected by either the Archbishop or school authorities. But they knew that once their people had a chance to think calmly and prayerfully about the change in their school system most of them would obey their Archbishop humbly, as they would Christ, Himself. The confidence of the Church authorities was not misplaced and when the schools opened the predicted wholesale opposition to desegregation did not materialize. But in Plaquemines Parish, political leader Leander Perez called for a boycott of Catho lic schools by white parents. Opposition was also announced from other quarters in the most defiant of terms and several laymen and women were excommunicated. But their oppo sition continued and brought in its wake ugly threats of violence against clergy and white parents who complied with church directives concerning the desegregation of the schools. And though there was no wholesale disobe dience of eccleastical authority, when the schools opened there were disorders at a few of them and to this day Our Lady of Good Harbor elementary school in Plaquemines Parish (county) has not one child enrolled, though its doors remain open. It was at Belle Chasse, in Plaquemines parish that Father Frank Ecimovich, S.V.D. was assaulted a week ago last Saturday by the father of one of the children he had been preparing for First Holy Communion. He became the victim of a physical attack by a man who probably considered himself to be a good Catholic. Why? For the past two years the church of which Father Ecimovich is pastor has conducted its First Holy Communion in exactly the same manner. That is, the white and colored child ren of the parish have made the retreat together. In the past, no serious objections had been raised. Yet, this year the heart of one member of the parish was so filled with hatred that he inflicted bodily injury upon a priest preparing children to receive the Lord of Love. Why? Could it not be that the fist which struck Father Ecimovich was closed by the defiant statements and the bigoted utterances of those so-called Catholics who rejected their Bishops’s call to Christ-like brotherly love and gathered to hurl epithets at little children entering the newly integrated schools? We think it could. We Still Are Important To God God’s World (By Leo J. Trese) There is one source of temp tations against faith which we encounter today which our an cestors did not have to face, This is the ever widening fron tier of scientific knowledge. When our earth was thought to be the center of the universe, with sun, moon and stars circl ing around us and minis tering" to us. it was easy to believe in God's intense interest in us. We were very important creatures. Now, however, we know that our earth is just one tiny, insig nificant planet in the galaxy of suns and planets known as the Milky Way. The Milky Way is millions of light-years across; astronomers still are not sure how many millions. A light- year, remember, is the dis tance that a beam of light will cover in a year, travelin g at the rate of 186,000 miles a second. A light-year is appro- ximately 6,000,000,000,000 miles. And the Milky Way is just one of the countless other galaxies of suns and planets which stretch billions of light- years through the unchartered reaches of space. There may be life on other planets, too. There may be creatures far superior to our selves, somewhere between ourselves and the angels. We begin to wonder, "Is it possible that the infinite Power Who created all this can be interest ed in us, little microbes that we are, crawling about on this pinhead earth of ours? Could God possibly have taken a hu man form and become one of us?" This is what we might call an inverted pride, a specious form of humility. We, who judge im portance by numbers and size, attribute our own way of think ing to God. We question God’s revelation because we cannot conceive that God could so stoop to.us,, a peewee race on a tiny, cooled--off fragment of an ex ploded star. We forget that this is pre cisely what God’s infinity means. He is not limited by time or space, by size or num bers. It would be no strain upon God’s infinite power to create this unmeasured universe just so that it might produce the one little speck of earth which is ours—a space-platform for souls on their way to eternity. A whole universe to produce one puny world? An entire ocean to produce one little pearl? This would not daunt God at all. It is quite possible, of course, that God has other plans under way throughout the universe. There may be souls in heaven from other worlds which ended eons ago. There may be planets now inhabited by intelligent creatures who never sinned and who have no need for redemp tion. There may be other plan ets, still in the making, destined Masons Divided On Measure Oregon Senate Unit Votes Proposal To Extend Text Rental To All Sc hools PIRATE OF DIGNITY It Won’t Go Away for occupancy a billion years hence. There is no limit to what God may have done or may choose to do. Undoubtedly we have some surprises in store for us when, seeing God face to face, we see all things in Him. By all means let us be hum ble, but in our humility let us not try to cut God down to our own size. He may have created other beings to love Him and to sing His praises. Nevertheless, a hundred billion others will not distract His love and His atten tion one single instant from you or from me. God is infinite. He is not hampered by quantity, He is not confused by numbers. Astronomers may continue to probe the universe. Physicists may continue to split the atom. Paleontologists and anthropolo gists may continue to trace man’s history back through mil lions of years; even may estab lish that man’s body (but not his soul) was evolved from that of an ape. It still remains true that God so loved this human race as to become one of us and to die for us. Knowing our own imperfec tion and pettiness, you and I cannot understand God’s predi lection for us. It is not neces sary that we understand it. It is enough that we know it is so because God has said that it is so. It is enough that we concede to God His right to do what He pleases, and to do it in His own way. Boldly, then, and gratefully,-* we say our Credo. (Father Trese welcomes let ters from his readers. The in creasing volume of letters pro hibits personal answers but problems and ideas contained in such correspondence can be the basis of future columns. Ad dress all letters to Father Leo J. Trese, care of this news paper.) It Seems to Me A problem that keeps bobbing up in nation after nation is that of the rights of parents in the education of their children. Some folks wish that the pro blem would go away, but it won’t It never will, because there are al ways fathers and mothers refusing to abdicate their respon sibility. Among those who, sooner or later, must face this fact instead of evading it are President Kennedy and his sec- : retary of health, education and' welfare, Anthony J. Celebrezze. Mr. Celebrezze spoke the other day at a conference in Washington sponsored by the National Committee for the Sup port of Public Schools, of which Mrs. Agnes Meyer of Washing ton is chairman and moving spirit. NOTICE THAT the commit tee is concerned only about sup port of public schools, although there are other schools in the U. S. educating seven million of the nation’s boys and girls. Mr. Celebrezze, as usual, gave forth with vague generali zations. Efforts to strengthen American education, he said, "have been launched repeatedly and failed repeatedly." He could hardly have meant exactly that. The fact is that since memory runneth not to the contrary, education has been strengthened year after year. Education has been strength- JOSEPH BREIG ened both by local communities and by parish and private edu cators bettering the schools at tended by the seven million. WHAT CELEBREZZE really meant, I think, was that efforts have been repeatedly made to put through Congress a huge aid-to-public-schools program, and have repeatedly failed. One of the reasons they have failed is that they were not aid-to-education proposals; they were proposals for aid to some education, but not to all. They were discriminatory. They would have penalized par ents even more than parents already are penalized for exer cising their conscientious right to select the schools they pre fer for their youngsters. Mr. Celebrezze cannot possi bly be unaware of this problem, and of the existence of the inde pendent schools. Yet he never includes these scools in his ut terances about strengthening education. HE SAID NOTHING about them at the Washington meeting. He did not say to the other conferees—“Wait a minute; I'm all for support of public schools. But what about the other schools? Don’t we care about them?’’ Mr. Celebrezze not only could have said something like that; I think he should have said it, because as an official of the federal government, his re sponsibility is for the good of all the people and all the schools, not just some of the people and some schools, I suggest to Mr. Celebrezze therefore—and to government SALEM, Ore., (NC)—The. State Senate Education Com mittee has approved an amend ment to bring all Oregon secon dary school pupils under a House-passed bill that would provide for renting textbooks to high school students. The amendment would reopen for Oregon Catholic high school students an old controversy over textbooks. That dispute culminated in a U. S. Supreme Court refusal to review a state Supreme Court ruling that a 1957 law extending free texts to parochial elementary school pupils was in violation, of the state Constitution. Textbooks in public high schools are now bought out of student fees. The original House bill sought to provide free texts for the secondary public schools. It was amended to pro vide for renting of texts to public school children and for their loan without charge to Most Catholic Country LIMA, Peru—Peru is well on its way to becoming the most Catholic country in Latin America, according to Father Albert J. Nevins, M.M. indigent school pupils. The proposed Senate amend ment would delete the words “public school’’ from the bill. At a Senat e hearing on the proposed amendment, Leo Smith, a Portland attorney re presenting the Portland arch diocese, said the amendment has one important difference from the law that was declared unconstitutional: it provides for rental so the taxpayer does not have to bear the cost. His view, was contested by Judah Bierman, an American Civil Liberties Union spokes man, and Lewis Starr, who re presented the Scottish Rite Ma sons. Starr and his organization would not be against the amend ment if it spelled out rental fees that would provide for the costs of buying and distributing the textbooks but was “unal terably opposed to spending any taxpayers’ money for parochial or private schools." He was countered sharply by committee chairman Sen. A1 Flegel who proposed the amend ment. Flegel identified himself as a Scottish Rite Mason and challenged Starr’s claim to speak for all Masons. Fifth Glorious Mystery THE CORONATION Our ^ Father Who is this that comes forth like the dawn,/ as beautiful as the moon, as resplen dent as the sun? Cant. 6:10 Hail ^ Mary Like the rainbow appearing in the cloudy sky;/ like the blossoms on the branches in springtime. Sirach 50:8, 9 HailMary I am the mother of fair love, and of fear,/ and of knowledge, and of holy hope. Ecclus. 24:24 Hail Mary In me is all grace of the way and of truth,/ in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Ecclus. 24:25 Hail Mary Come to me, all you that yearn for me,/ and be filled with my fruits. Sirach 24:18 Hail Mary Scriptural 3\osarp Part 15 You will remember me as sweeter than honey,/ better to have than the honeycomb. Sirach 24:19 Hail-5^ Mary So now, O children, listen to me;/ instruction and wisdom do not reject! Prov. 8:32, 33 Hail^Mary Happy are those who keep my ways,/ watching daily at my gates. Prov. 8:33, 34 Hail Mary For he who finds me finds life,/ and wins favor from the Lord. Prov. 8:35 Hail Mary Hail, O Queen of Mercy, protect us from the enemy,/ and receive us at the hour of death. Quccnship of the B.V.M., Gradual Hail 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. 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 Avenue, Chicago 2, Illinois. 87% Believers WESTMINSTER, Md., (NC)— A major survey of religious be liefs among adult Americans discloses that 87 per cent are "absolutely certain" that God exists. Only one out of 20 of those officials in other nations--that it is high time they stopped ignoring the rights or parents in education. AS THE ORATORS used to tell us, I can say without fear of successful contradiction that as long as there are children, there are going to be parents, and pretending that the parents aren’t there just won't work, Mr. Celebrezze said that the federal government, “with its broader base of taxable resour ces,” can afford, better than the states, to increase "support to education." Why is this so? It is so be cause the federal government keeps on pre-empting the most lucrative sources of taxation; keeps on draining money away from states and local communi ties. IT IS NOT the law and the prophets that this should be so. The federal government could stop creating bigger and bigger bureaucracies with their hands in all our pockets. The federal government, said Mr. Celebrezze, must find an additional $20 billion a year for education. And this at a time when government economists are saying that the tax burden is keeping the econonl^ on dead center—and that unless the bur den is eased, the economy will begin going backward. Whether the economists are right or wrong, I don't know. I do know that government offi cials everywhere have got to get around to recognizing the right of parents to select schools for their children with out gross financial penalty. surveyed said that religion is "not very important" in their lives, Father John L. Thomas, S. J., reports in a new book published here (May 3). However, he concludes from his study that the religious be liefs of many Americans are “immature" and "superfi cial." Serra Stamp LOS ANGELES, (NC)—The Joe Scott Club of California has requested the Citizens Stamps Advisory Committee and the Postmaster General to reconsider the decision not to issue a special stamp commem orating the birth of Junipero Serra. The club, formed in honor of the late attorney Joseph Scott, noted Catholic lawyer in South ern California, made its re quest in the form of a reso lution at its annual meeting here last week. Named Honorary President MIAMI BEACH, Fla., (NC)— Archbishop Joseph T. McGuck- en of San Francisco, episcopal chairman of the Press Depart ment, National Catholic Wel fare Conference, was unani mously elected honorary presi dent of the Catholic Press As sociation by its board of direc tors of a meeting opening the association’s 53rd annual na tional convention. He succeeds Bishop Albert R. Zuroweste of Belleville, Ill. Archbishop McGucken will be on the CPA’s board of direc tors and will cast a vote with the 12 directors elected by the CPA’s membership. Moon Flights WASHINGTON, (NC) — A symposium on space tech nology, for engineers and scien tists interested in manned flight to the moon, will be held June 11 through 14 at the Caholic Uni versity of America here under sponsorship of the university and the Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The symposium will be part of a two-week seminar at the uni versity, beginning June 3, on plasma physics applied to space science. Church Unity KAMPALA, Uganda, (NC)— Christian unity was a major theme of the meeting here at which about 350 Protestant and Orthodox leaders from 42 Afri can countries voted unanimous ly to establish an All-Africa Conference of Churches. Three Catholic priests at tended the meeting (April 20 to 30) as observers. Exaggerated Opt imism SYDNEY, Australia, (NC)— A warning against exaggerated optimism on Christian unity was given by Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Muldoon of Sydney of an interfaith meeting organized by the New South Wales Com mittee of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. But the Bishop told the meeting that while unity is “not just around the corner", he road toward it is now being opened up. Controver sy Rekindled BERLIN, (NC)—The presen*- tation by the West Berlin gov^ ernment of a special award for a play implicating Pope Pius XII in nazi Germany’s murder of the Jews has rekindled the controversy surrounding the play. The Berlin Senate, executive branch of the West Berlin gov ernment, bestowed its "Award of the Young Generation" on 32-year-old Rolf Hochhuth for his play called * ‘Der Stellver- treter" (The Vicar). The pre sentation was made at a cere mony in the Academy of Arts before a large invited audience. Interfaith Cooperation MADRID, (NC)—A three- year-old U. S. military parish here is giving Spaniards an ex ample in Protestant-Catholic - cooperation. San Cristobal’s, which has become one of this city’s most active parishes, serves U. S. servicemen in the Madrid area, including the nearby joing Apan- ish-U. S. Torrejon air base. The parish was written up in the Spanish Catholic magazine Senda y Alba. The magazine’s reporter, Enrique Cubiles, found the co operation between Protestants and Catholics who share a 500- seat chapel noteworthy. "To us Spaniards," Cubiles wrote, "this togetherness is un known and surprising." QUESTION BOX By David Q. Liptak Q. In the wake of some con fusion to the Church’s posi tion regarding theMRA move ment, could you please state the facts? Or is it difficult to give a clear-cut answer? A. Moral Rearmament (MSR) is a religious movement, found ed upon a religious ideology different from that which must be professed by Catholics (and, for that matter, from that pro fessed by most traditional Christians.) Hence it should be approached in accordance with the same principles which gov ern participation in non- Catholic religious activities. Bishop Thomas L. Noa, in whose diocese of Marquette the American headquarters of MR A is located, has explicitly warn ed against participation in MRA. Similar cautions have been voi ced by other bishops in places where MRA has become an is sue; by the hierarchy of Eng land and Wales in 1946, for instance; by the archbishop of Cologne in 1950 and the arch bishop of Milan in 1952; and by the bishops of the Phili— pines and Ceylon in 1958. Certainly this is not to im pugn the sincerity of practising MRA members, or to imply in the slightest degree there is not a measure of good in the move ment . Rather it is to empha size that MRA is a religion, and that Catholics are already committed to a religion. To quote from The Holy Office statement of 1957: “Let Catholics who feel in J spired in this manner by zeal' and charity . . . devote them selves with enthusiasm and per severance to some of the va rious forms of the apostolate indicated (by the Holy See)." In this way, they will be en gaged fruitfully in the work which is proper to a lay Catho lic, called by the Holy Father a ‘consecratio mundi’ (conse- (Continued on Page 5) ^ The Southern Cross P. O. BOX 180. SAVANNAH, GA. Vol. 43 Saturday, May 4, 1963 No. 33 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