Southern cross. (Savannah, Ga.) 1963-2021, May 11, 1963, Image 4

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, May 11, 1963 Mary’s Month During the month of May parish life seems to take on new vitality and vigor. In some instances last minute preparations are being made for First Holy Communion, in other places final plans are readied for the annual Communion breakfast, in all parishes hearts are happy and hands are busy preparing for the annual May Crown ing ceremony. The Catholic world prepares most exactly for the annual tribute to the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven. Families gather each evening for the recitation of the Family Rosary. Young and old join in their tribute to the Heavenly Lady. Wouldn’t it seem strange without this wonderful Queen? This beautiful devotion con tributes to human welfare in so many ways. The father of the family displays his strength and leadership; mother provides the sense of warmth and love; children, the great imitators, reap courage and devotion. With Jesus and Mary in the midst of the family group, the temptor cannot enter. Father Peyton’s slogan, “The Family that prays together, stays together,’’ is not an empty, meaningless notion. In addition to stabilizing the family unit, the Rosary increases the virtues of faith, hope, and charity in the individual. We make a profession of faith by reciting the Apos tles Creed. The objects of hope are found in the last articles of the same Creed: “I believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” Charity is exer cised in the Our Father. This prayer is an act of perfect charity, since we solicit, above all, the extension of God’s glory, the advent of His kingdom, and the conformity of our will with His. The Rosary, then, aids us as individuals by increasing the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. This prayer helps the family by placing each member in his rightful role. It promotes the welfare of the church by uniting her members under the mantle of the Virgin Mary. Mary’s Month teaches us that we must go to Jesus through Mary, Her Rosary pro vides the spirit we all need for the journey to our Redeemer. —THE CATHOLIC LIGHT— Emotional Threats To Faith God’s World By Leo J. Trese Loss of faith may result from intellectual pride or P'&rn ha bitual sin. There is Mother po tential danger to faith which may arise from the emotions rather than from the intellect or the senses. This is the danger faced by the person who, in child hood, has had an unsatisfac tory relation ship with his or her father. With a father who is a cold and rigid sort of person, perhaps harsh and domineering, even brutal, a child almost certainly will de velop a feeling of hostility to wards his father. In many instances the child is afraid to admit this feeling into the realm of consciousness. He represses his hostility into his subconscious mind and on the conscious level assures ev- rebel directly against God. However, there is a less aug ust father-figure close at hand: the pastor. A person with a re pressed hostility to his own fa ther will find it extremely diffi cult to establish a comfortable relationship with his pastor. He will be hypercritical of the pastor and resistant to the pas tor’s requests and directives. Unless the priest possesses exceptional tact, the day may come when the parishoner quar rels openly with his pastor, then crowns his rebellion by staying away from church. There is hardly a parish in the land which does not have at least one man who is an ex- Catholic because he “had a fight with the pastor.’’ Sometimes there is no overt quarrel be cause there is no personal con tact. The rebel still may aban don Mass and the sacraments with the excuse, “I can’t stom ach that man,” (meaning the pastor, of course). This fallen- away Catholic is unaware that eryone7*Tnclu3ing himselYT’th'aT he loves his father. However, repression does not eliminate. The buried hostility still exerts strong pressure upon the emo tions. Unfortunately, in later life this hostility is likely to be ventilated towards anyone who presents the image of father hood. God, by His very nature, is a father-image. The adult who has a submerged resentment against his own father may be tempted to transfer his resent ment to God the Father. The danger is most acute if God’s law is a barrier to something which this individual wishes to do. The person may hesitate to he is trying to get back at his own father by “punishing” the pastor—and ultimately God Himself. This does not mean that just because we feel a stirring of resentment against a particu lar priest, we therefore are suffering from an acute emo tional problem. We may have been genuinely hurt by a priest. Profiting by progress in the science of psychology, semin aries make a scrupulous effort to spot any sign of emotional in stability in candidates for the priesthood. Good personal ad justment and a fair degree of prudence are high on the list of requisites for a priestly vocation. However, no screen ing process is foolproof. Oc casionally a man of unbalanced character may slip through the mesh. Even if this were not so, we priests are human. We have our faults, we make our share of mistakes. It is not too sur prising if we sometimes do something which is offensive to a parishoner. Faults aside, there still may be clashes of personality. It does sometimes happen that two individuals, each a fine person in his own right, will find themselves quite incompatible and irritat ing to each other. If our faith is basically strong, we do not allow our re sentments, whatever their source, to turn us away from God. We do not “punish” God because we are tempted to be angry at some priest. We do not punish our pastor because he reminds us, obscurely, of our own father. With our faith for tified by charity, we do for the disagreeable priest what we would do for anyperson who has offended us: we pray for him and recommend him to God’s mer cy. In the meantime we happily continue to fulfill our religious duties. We know that one priest is not the Church; much less is he God. (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. Address all letters to Father Leo J. Trese, care of this newspaper.) A Treasured Legacy By BARBARA C. JENCKS “From the rising of the sun even to the going down, My name is great among gentiles. And in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean offering . . .Come eat My bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.” Gradual of a Mass * * * IT WAS LATE at night and the next day she was leaving to dedicate her life as a mis sionary nun, but my friend sat down and wrote me a letter which is a treasured legacy. Hardly a week goes by that the words written do not return to mind again and again. There was a lot personal in the letter about her feelings on the eve of entering a convent after an active independent life and car eer. It was her last advice as a laywoman. “One thing I ask and it can be a danger to any one like you. With all writers and those in iiterature, some times they begin to confuse themselves personally with the things they create. . .and in spite of all their best inten tions, become affected. Don’t, Don’t. You’d lose your definite personality. First editions, publicity, etc., you have exper ienced all the glitter produced. A fine example, I am, never theless here is a prayer I made up a couple of years ago, and it might help someday:‘No mat ter where I go, or whom I might meet, most necessary and most vital thing in my life is to receive You daily in Com munion—let no one person, place or thing separate me from you.’ With the crowd of people and events connected with the press, it is so neces sary and it is so easy to say about midnight, I won’t go to Mass and Communion tomor row, it doesn’t matter. Maybe it has never happened to you but someday it might. Its hap pened so often to me, and I’d be struggling all the time. It isn’t easy, heaven knows, and if one falls now and then, I’d never blame her. I promise to pray for you every day, while at adoration.’’ That legacy was written more than ten years ago and I know it by heart and experience. * * * MANY DAYS are discourag ing and I wonder what on earth could be redeeming about any actions of the day. Yet if it has been a day begun before the altar of God who gives joy to my youth—(a brave quote) I know that the day is salvaged somehow. Father Denis Geaney has recently given hope with this thought, too. “Sanctity for the laymen can only be achiev ed from the broken pieces of an untidy day.” I write about this today for this day marks the anniversary of my baptism and first Holy Communion, the day life really began for me. By the human calendar I was 21, by the Lord’s I was just born. The biggest event of my life time. ##:>!< HOLY THURSDAY, the an niversary of the institution of the Holy Eucharist is an ex- pecially favorite feast of mine. Our Lord promised His friends on the eve of His Crucifixion that He would not leave them orphaned. So it is with us. Our friends and family may die, we may be away from home or have no home, we may travel the ends of the earth, suffer in a hospital or charity home, we can be crippled, ravaged with disease, alone in old age. We may fall a hundred times— seventy times seven—and be forgiven—no matter what hap pens in the circumstances and chances of life. God is waiting for us. He is ours merely for the asking. It is the only change less event in our ever-changing life. It is the one event of a day we can really count on— and no matter what life holds, there is no greater joy than this moment. There is nothing more real in the world than Christ on the altar at Mass. Kennedy Award Witness To Faith WASHINGTON, (NC)—U. S. Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy was presented the Brien McMahon Memorial Award by the Ford- ham University Club of outstanding Washington for public service. Named in honor of the late Connecticut Senator, the award was given last year to Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg. MUNICH, (NC)—Julius Card inal Doepfner declared here that Catholics must give witness to their Faith in deed and that pious participation in the Holy Eucharist is not enough. Warning against any separa tion of worship and witness, he said that Christians’ sacrifice at the altar would not be accep ted by God unless first the lack of love and the wrong done to one’s fellow man were uprooted. Press “Leaks” Graduates Not Prepared” Does Iz Speak For K? MIAMI BEACH, Fla., (NC) —A Protestant editor said here that the Second Vatican Council “benefited from leaks” made to the press. Dr. Harold E. Fey, editor of the Christian Centry magazine of Chicago, said that despite traditional Vatican caution re garding the press the public got a fairly accurate picture of the council. Dr. Fey, who covered the first phase of the council for his mag azine, spoke (May 3) at a ses sion of the Catholic Press As sociation convention. On the platform with him was another Protestant journalist, Don Taft, religious editor of the Miami Herald. He made a plea for more realism and more background reporting in regard to the council. LONDON, (NC)—A “pathetic bewilderment” in the face of practical moral problems is the response of today’s Catholic school graduates in Britain, a group of Catholic teachers ha^ agreed. Because their training is not It Seems to Me Catholic Hour’ realistic, the graduates are not able to make an intelligent Christian assessment when they meet new views on such matters as extramarital purity, birth control, strikes, nuclear dis armament and race bias, it was declared. The Catholic Educational Council, meeting at St. Mary’s^ College near here, urged a newj emphasis on practical matters* in the classroom and the estab lishment of a vigorous Catholic youth service to follow up the work in school. JOSEPH BREIG The official Soviet govern ment newspaper, Izvestia, which is edited by Premier Khruschev’s son-in-law, took an unfortunate attitude in its first comment on Pope John’s Peace on Earth encyclical. I z ves- t i a ’ s story about the en cyclical was headlined, “ Washington Is Not Satis fied.” Ives- tia’s comment was: “The appeal for peace and disarmament by the head of the Catholic Church will not reach his parishoners who sit in Washington. At any rate, it will not deflect them from their chosen path in the armaments race.” Izvestia quoted the New York Herald Tribune, which said that the encyclical assumed the need for co-existence between com munist and non-communist states. Izvestia then said: "This is precisely what Washington does not want.” point in history. Premier Khruschev has been talking for a long time about peaceful coexistence. But the trouble is that thus far, what he means by peaceful co existence is not what the West means by it; and until Khrus chev does mean what the West means, there will be no true peaceful coexistance. By peaceful coexistence, Khrushchev seems to mean that while global nuclear war is to be avoided, the Soviet Union and its communist parties through out the world will go on trying to undermine America and the West by subversion, conspir acy and local violence. HIS ATTEMPT to establish nuclear missile bases in Cuba for the purpose of blackmail ing the western hemisphere with military threats made a mock ery of the words “peaceful coexistence.” I hope that Izvestia was not speaking for Premier Khrush chev and his associates in the Kremlin, because this kind of talk is not going to advance us one inch toward the peaceful world that mankind needs and wants—and indeed must have if we are to avoid nuclear catas trophe. Radio Vatican found it neces sary to remind the communist press that when Pope John calls for negotiations, disarmament, and establishement of a world authority to foster true peace, the pope is not talking about the tongue-in-cheek communist kind of coexistance. Izvestia’s comment is the op posite of statesmanlike, and statesmanship of the highest or der is indispensable at this Vatican Radio said that the heart of the Peace on Earth Encyclical is to be found in Pope John’s insistence upon re spect for “the dignity of the human being, his rights, his duties. The very scope of peace is the liberty and growth of the human being.” Premier Khruschev, there fore , must show greater wis dom than Izvestia did if we are to make any real progress to ward the kind of peace Pope John outlines in his encyclical. UN SECRETARY GEN. U Thant welcomed the Holy Fa ther’s words, both about the world situation and about the need for strengthening the UN to deal with world problems. Thant believes that “the world is heading for a synthe sis.” He noted, at a news con ference last September, that religious tolerance was regard ed as a crime a couple of hun dred years ago, but that people of varying religious views fi nally learned to coexist in peace. Thant believes that humanity will learn also to live at peace despite differing political ide ologies. Let us hope so, but it will not come to pass as long as one political ideology schemes for the destruction of the others. THANT ALSO emphasized that he believes firmly in par liamentary democracy as the only type of society which is “congenial to the growth of human freedom, happiness and genius.” But he is willing to live at peace with those who believe otherwise. We of the West also are will ing and anxious to live at peace with those who do not see eye- to-eye with us. We are convin ced that the human race will prefer democracy to commu nism if left free to make a choice in due time. ® Is Premier Khruschev^ill- ing to engage in mutual\lis- armament, and gradually to al low people to choose for them selves? That, I think, is the central question of this point. NEW YORK, (NC)—A history of the Church’s councils dur ing the Middle Ages, from 800 to 1453, will feature the sec ond episode of the “I Am With You” series on the “Catholic Hour” program May 12 from 1:30 to 2 p.m., EDT, over the NBC-TV network. The episode will trace the development of the Church in the West from the time of Charlemagne in 800 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and feature scenes in Rome, Subiaco and Florence in Italy, Lyons, Avignon and Vienne in France, and Constance, Ger many. Red Gains ROME, (NC)—Most anticom munists here have expressed considerable alarm over the Communist party’s gains in Ita ly’s first national elections in five years. But the Vatican City daily, L’Osservatore Romano, pointed out that the Catholic-oriented Christian Democratic party re mained the country’s largest and declared that it “remains’ the irreplaceable pivot of demo cratic security after the diffi cult test.” Lay Theology Instructor Martyrs’ Faith SANTA CLARA, Calif., (NC) —The University of Santa Cla ra has named a layman an in structor in theology for the first time in its history. Father Theodore Mackin, S. J., chairman of the theology department at the Jesuit school, announced the appointment of Charles K. Winston as a theo logy instructor and said he hopes it “may set a prece dent and . . . may lead some students into a career in the ology.” LONDON, (NC)—Tyburn Walk, an annual pilgrimage that honors the English Martyrs, this year followed the actual route taken by the martyrs from Newgate Prison to the gallows of Tyburn Tree. In previous years since the end of World War II police had diverted the marchers from Soho Square. - About 2,000 gathered to begin the walk. They were joined by others along the way, and when the leader, Bishop Brian Foley of Lancaster, officiated at Benediction at Tyburn Convent the crowd was estimated at 3,000. QUESTION BOX Across Missouri Catholic Parents’ Protest Packs Public Schools ST. LOUIS, (NC)—A “wild cat” move by Catholic parents of removing their children from parochial schools and enrolling them in public schools has mushroomed in rural areas ac ross Missouri and could spell “financial disaster” for the state public school system. The movement is a protest over the killing (May 1) by the Missouri House Judiciary Com mittee of a bill which would permit all students, regardless of the school they attend, to ride on tax-paid school buses. The action was taken by the parents on their own initiative, apparently without consultation with Catholic Church or school officials. In a matter of a few days the move snowballed. Hun dreds of children were remov ed from parochial schools and rode the public school buses. Hubert Wheeler, State Com missioner of Education, said if the protest continued across the state and the paro chial school children contin ued in public schools next Sep tember, it would cost Missouri a minimum of $66,500,000 to accommodate them. Groups of parents said they will continue to send their children to the pub lic schools. Summit, Sullivan, Hot Springs, Arnold, Kinnswick, Pacific, Os- aga Bend, Vienna, and Hickman Mills, all of which are small farming communities. (By David Q. Liptak) Q. To go to confession worthi ly, sorrow for one’s sins is, I know, just as important as con fessing them, Is such sorrow had, though, if one is truly repentant for having sinned, or is something additional requir ed? A. Sorrow for sin is but one element of three, the composite of which is technically referred to as contrition. And contrition is a sine qua non for the valid reception of the Sacrament of Penance. Contrition means (1) sorrow and (2) hatred for sin, coupled with (3) a firm determination not to sin again. Or, to put it backwards: sorrow and detesta tion plus resolution add up to contrition. SINCE SIN is a theological concept, contrition must pro ceed in faith and be related to God in some way. One could contrite because by sin one h offended God who is all go and deserving of all one’s lov Given its nobility—it emanat from sheer love of God f his own sake—such contriti is called perfect contritio Such contrition is had if o: realizes—in Father Franc Connell’s words—“that God all-good and then gives him tl first place in his heart, turnii away from any sins (at lea mortal sins) that he may ha' committed in the past, and ri solving not to offend him ser ously in future.” IMPERFECT contrition i attrition proceeds from lessi motives related to God: the lo: of heaven or the fear of he] for instance. Outside the Sa< rament of Penance imperfe contrition is not sufficient f< (Continued on Page 6) A spokesman for the Missouri school system said if the state’s 172,000 parochial school stu dents were turned into the pub lic school system, the move could cause “financial disas- ter. The movement was confined to the rural areas. There were no such incidents reported in St. Louis, Kansas City and other urban areas of the state. Par ents simply removed their chil dren from the parochial schools and enrolled them in the public schools, packing them on the public school buses. l(0)j The Southern Cross P. O. BOX 180, SAVANNAH, GA. Vol. 43 Saturday, May 11, 1963 No. 34 Less than 12 hours after the House committee action, the movement apparently began in Centertown. It spread to Wash ington, St. Martin, Union, Kra kow, Guildehaus, St. Clair, Eu reka, Baldwin, Fenton, Festus, High Ridge, House Springs, Crystal City, Valley Park, Gray Priest-Pilot 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. HOLLANDIA, New Guinea, (NC)—Father Edmar Vergou- wen, O.F.M., 33, who set up a flight service to assist in land missions, has died in the crash of a plane he was piloting on a supply trip from here. 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