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l PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, August 8, 1963 Test Ban Treaty Seems To Offer Hope For Peace This week the momentous three-nation nuclear test ban agreement has been pre sented to the United States Senate. The treaty negotiated in Moscow by representatives of the United States, Great Britain and Russia outlaws atmospheric, space, and under-water nuclear blasts. It must first pass the scru tiny of the Senate Foreign Relations Com mittee and finally be ratified by the full Senate. We fully support and share the hopes of the Administration that the Senate will promptly provide the necessary ratification. The central overriding consideration involved was simply expressed by President Kennedy when he declared that the treaty is “an impor tant first step” towards world peace. It does not guarantee peace or put an end to the cold war. It does not change the na ture of the communist conspiracy or justify any relaxation of necessary national security measures. There are many other things which the treaty is not, and there are countless desirable objectives which it will not accom plish. But, after all, these things have been said, we think the President’s basic contention remains true—it is “an important first step.” Great events and issues in our times are never simple. Progress is not achieved without risk. Major decisions in the inter national order cannot be made in a comfortable and reassuring fashion which leaves no doubts or loose ends. We must not disregard or minimize the solid points which have been made and will continue to be made in Senate debate by the critics of the test ban treaty. No reasonable person will dispute the ap propriateness of Senator Dirksen’s call for ' ‘the closest scrutiny of every word” of the text. Supporters of the treaty must face fully and thoughtfully such objections as that offered by the distinguished scientist Dr. Edward Tiller to the effect that the treaty will hamper our efforts to build a defense against ballistic missle attack. Obviously there are substantial arguments against the ratification of the treaty. But there are, it seems to us, altogether over whelming arguments against its rejection. On July 21 Pope Paul VI apparently was thinking of the nuclear test ban talks in Moscow when he spoke of signs of “greater hope and serenity” in the world. Vatican radio interpreted the Pope’s remarks as referring to a “recent demonstration of signs of good will.” On the day following the Pope’s remark, the Vatican City Daily, Osservatore Ro mano, discussed the news concerning the test ban talks in Moscow and remarked: “It is significant that an understanding, considered unattainable until yesterday, has today become possible. . . For the first time since the end of the second world conflict, there is shown among the respon sible leaders of peoples and nations a point of agreement: limited it is true, but real.’’ These words echo a most significant sen tence from Pope John’s encyclical, “Pacem in Terris,” in which he pleads for men to study the problem of world peace until “they find that point of agreement from which it will be possible to commence to go forward towards accords that will be sin cere, lasting, and fruitful.” Whether the present test ban treaty is such a “point of agreement” as the Holy Father referred to only the future can tell. We simply cannot afford to miss the chance that it might be. —The Record-Louisville, Kentucky. Not Too Much, Not Too Little God’s World In the minds of many people the word “temperance” is link ed with the use of alcoholic beverages. Perhaps because of the activities of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the virtue of t e m p e ranee is thought to be synony mous with complete ab stention from int oxicating drink. This con cept of tem perance is mistaken on two counts. In the first place, tem perance is the moral virtue which guides us in the use of any of God’s creatures. The application of temperance is by no means limited to the use of alcohol. In the second place, temperance does not neces sarily mean abstinence. A tem perate person is one who uses God’s gifts with moderation. He avoids both the extreme of ex cess and the extreme of defect. In other words, temperance is the virtue of the golden mean: not too much, not too little. There are times, of course, when “not too much” does mean “not at all.” For a person who has the disease of alcoholism, the virtue of temperance must mean total abstention from in toxicants. An alcoholic cannot take even one drink without losing all control over his appe tite for alcohol. However, a person free from this allergy could take one or two drinks for sociability’s sake, and still be a temperate person. Similarly, for an unmarried person or for a person with the vow of chastity, an indulgence of the sexual urge would be in temperance. For a married couple, on the other hand, in temperance in sex would occur only if one or the other spouse were either unreasonably de manding (excess) or were to refuse the reasonable request of the other spouse (defect). As we look around us (or perhaps in the mirrors?) and see the high percentage of over weight people, we might well conclude that intemperance in eating is far more prevalent than intemperance in drinking. Medical science assures us that obesity is a killer, yet we con tinue to load ourselves with calories. A person of normal weight, on a maintenance diet, offers a good example of tem perance in action. There is hardly any phase of life to which the virtue of tem perance is not applicable. For example, a housewife who by slovenliness would let her home become dirty and unattractive, would be intemperate in clean liness by defect. A housewife who would have such a passion for cleanliness as to put neat ness ahead of family comfort, would be intemperate by excess. Temperance is one of the four cardinal virtues. Its role in our spiritual life is much like the function of a governor on apiece of machinery. The purpose of the governor is to keep the machine running at its most ef ficient speed, neither too fast nor too slow. Usually we think of intem perance in connection with things physical, but temperance also is essential to our spiri tual practices. A person who hardly ever prays certainly is being intemperate, by defect, in his piety. On the other hand, a parent who would spend all his spare time in church, to the neglect of his family, would be intemperate in piety by excess. A parent’s vocation is not that of a cloistered monk or nun. Similarly, one person might refuse to participate in any civic or parish activity even though he has the time for it. Another person might be so busy with outside interests as to slight his or her duties at home. Each would be intemperate in the practice of fraternal charity —one by defect and the other by excess. Probably most of us will find, with a little self-examination, some evidence of intemperance in our lives. This will not be surprising. It is not easy to maintain a perfect balance at all times and in all matters. How ever, temperance is the ideal at which we must aim and, God be thanked, we do have the basic skill for the task. We have the cardinal virtue of temperance, infused into our soul with the grace of baptism. Summer Litany By BARBARA C. JENCKS “When the dog bites and the bee stings When I’m feeling sad, I simply remember my fa vorite things. And then I don’t feel sobad.” Listing “My Favorite Things” is a homemade remedy applied often during “blue per iods” or feeling under par sieg es. In the Broadway musical this hit was sung by the abbess and postulant. It is suggested that when feeling blue “you sim ply remember your favorite things and then you don’t feel so bad.” Of course some will say the abbess should have pre scribed the rosary, litany of the saints, spiritual reading—or possibly tranquilizers and aspirin—but then the musical would have lost one of its hap piest tunes. The litany of fa vorite things could always be followed up with the litany of thanksgiving. Think upon the fa vorite things of your life when the temperature’s high and tem pers are short and the sunburn stings and the poison ivy itches and maybe you “won’t feel so bad” either. Confined to bed recently I began compiling my list in non rhythmic pattern in contrast to the musical version. I decided to make my current list a cool, summer “lazy, hazy, summer days” sort of thing. “My Favorite Things?” The smell of salt air and the pound ing surf, Ireland: Italian food, f lean sheets, the clean shower ed feeling, ice cubes, Beethov en, Bermuda shorts, old doors and four on four paned windows, the smell of incense, the sound of Church bells and fog horns, rain on the roof, fireplaces, (not lighted right now please) chocolate ice cream, charcoal broiled steaks, air mail letters, white kid gloves, white dresses, new paperback books, proces sions of nuns, sandals, bare feet, berets, mantillas, roses, Sunday morning breakfasts, fishing, sitting on a porch at twilight in good company, heat ed debates and silence, Celtic cross, Nat King Cole’s sum mertime record, shifts, sand, art galleries and boon stores (air-conditioned), early morn ing walks to the Franciscan chapel. I also like: Time’s ar ticle on Ireland, Pope Paul’s aesthetic looks, television mo vies, iced tea, chicken sand wiches, Kennedy’s talks in Ire land, Morris West’s “Shoes of the Fisherman,” fan letters and the ‘other kind, too,’ cheerful bus drivers, and waitresses, chef salads, New York Times’ book section, listening to rec ords, long distance phone calls, avocados, hitting a good golf drive. It makes one feel better and cooler thinking of these good things in hap-hazard fashion, so why not try it yourself on the next day when you are bitten by a bee—or the temperature within and without rises too high? It is a happy prescrip tion—inexpensive, too. Sex And U. S. Aid It Seems to Me JOSEPH BREIG Neither Congress nor the White House, I am confident, wants to see the U. S. govern ment meddling, like a rich and interfering mother-in-law, in the marriage affairs of hus- bands and wives in other nations. I have very little fear, therefore—at least for the present—that any of our foreign aid money is go ing to be spent for contracep tives, for birth control clinics, or for abortions or steriliza tions. All the same, there is always some propaganda in favor of that sort of thing, and so I think something needs to be said about how millions of citi zens felt when the Senate For eign Affairs Committee voted— at the last minute when some of its members had gone home for a weekend—for anti-birth use of foreign aid funds. J. William Fulbright, the Ar kansas Democrat who is com mittee chairman, is an old Sen ate hand and nobody’s fool, and I am at a loss to understand what moved him to initiate and support such a proposal. Any how, apparently we must ex plain once more why we don’t like this sort of thing. THE MOST OBVIOUS and ele mentary statement of our posi tion is that we don’t want to pay taxes to finance activities which we not only consider grossly immoral, but which we know from history to be fearfully subversive of human society. It should hardly be necessary to explain why we detest abor tion, which, after all, is mur der of the innocent, falling into the category of the kind of crime that for 20 centuries has made hideous the name Herod. As for contraceptives and sterilizations, such things simply encourage lustfulness and animality in the use of sex, which in our eyes is peculiarly sacred, and is profoundly invol ved in whether human beings rise to nobility, or sink into bestiality. Let Sen. Fulbright ask any scholar of the history of the Greek and Roman empires what happened as a consequence of the degradation of sex; let him learn something about the gov ernment-op e r a t e d abomina tions and diabolical cruelties which took place in the arenas and circuses and other public places of Athens and Rome. ON THE POSITIVE side, let him open his Bible and refresh his memory about the meaning and purpose of sex. Let him re discover that God made us in God’s image and likeness; that God created Eve because Adam was lonely and needed a being like himself to communicate with, to love and to cherish, and that God blessed the man and woman and commanded them to multiply and fill the earth. Let Sen. Fulbright meditate upon the fact that the ultimate meaning of sex is that it is the power of partnering God in creating new images of God, destined for life eternal with God. Sen. Fulbright then will begin to understand why we are deter mined that American foreign aid will not be used to finance the degrading of sex. At very least, let him ponder what Dwight D. Eisenhower said, when he was president, about birth prevention: “I cannot imagine anything more emphatically a subject that is not a proper political or govern mental activity or function or responsibility.” NOBODY IS MORE unpopular than in-laws who meddle in the marriage affairs of young peo ple, especially when they try to buy, with gifts of money or things, the privilege of doing so without being told to mind their own business. If we want America to be thoroughly disliked every where, we need only put the government in the position of the nosey mother-in-law telling daughter and son-in-law or son and daughter-in-law that they shouldn’t have so many child ren. It would be interesting to listen to a speech on the Senate floor by Sen. Fullbright—who is capable of expressing him self forcefully—in case some nation should offer to finance a campaign to prevent the births of Americans. In Vietnam Many Buddhists Not Backing Extremists The author of the following article on the campaign of Budd hist extremists to overthrow the Vietnamese government of Catholic President Ngo dinh Diem has spent almost two decades covering the news in the Far East. For the past two years he has maintained headquarters in Saigon, Vietnam’s capital, and kept a close eye on the com plex political currents active in that communist-embattled republic. The present report comes at a time when the chief Buddhist priest of South Vietnam, Thich thinh Khiet, has protested in a message to President John F. Kennedy against the statement by the outgoing U. S. ambassa dor to Vietnam, Frederick E. Nolting, that he has seen no evidence of religious persecu tion of Buddhists. (By Father Patrick O’Connor Society of St. Columban) SAIGON, Vietnam, (NC)— Buddhists in south Vietnam have been selling the American public a bill of goods. They sold it first to some of the foreign correspondents in Sai gon. They have represented them selves as undergoing religious persecution. By now they have been depicted in the press around the world as suffering from “a host of restrictions on their religious freedom,” “refusal to grant them freedom of worship,” “discriminatory practices,” and so on. They are described as comprising some times 70 per cent, sometimes 80 per cent, of the population, persecuted by a “Catholic mi nority government in Saigon.” On the other hand, “Vietnam has impressed me as a country of religious tolerance,” Am bassador Frederick E. Nolting told the N.C.W.C. News Serv ice here. “In the time I have been here—in visits to all parts of the country during nearly two and a half years—I have never seen any evidence of religious persecution or of bigotry on the part of any religious group.” The government of the Re public of Vietnam is headed by a strongwilled — sejme would ] i say “obstinate”—president who is a Catholic. That does not make it a Catholic government. Obviously nobody is sure of the Buddhist percentage in the population here. Shrewd Viet namese estimate the practising Buddhists at anything from 20 percent to 28 percent. All Buddhists in south Viet nam are not unanimous in the present quarrel with the gov ernment. For instance, the “traditional” Buddhists, of whom there are at least 800,000 will have nothing to do with the General Buddhist Association, the chief protesting body. The militant “Inter-Sect Committee for the Defense of Buddhism” has listed five de mands. For these it is pre pared to throw the country into disorder and defy the govern ment, in the middle of a life- and-death struggle with com munism. For these it is pre pared to let elderly persons, a bonze and a bonzess, burn them selves to death—provided that the foreign press, with (Continued on Page 5) Laymen Named ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N. Y., (NC)—Bishop Walter P. Kellen- berg of Rockville Centre has announced the appointment for the first time of laymen to the board of trustees of Catholic Charities. The Bishop said the following four men were appointed to the board in recognition of their outstanding leadership and their service to the diocese: Jeremiah J. Burns of Rock ville Centre, president of the Jeremiah J. Burns Company: State Supreme Court Justice Thomas P. Farley of West Hempstead; Joseph Virdone of Old Westbury, president of the Chemical War Manufacturing Company, Manhattan; and Walter Van der Waag of East Williston, president oftheMea- dowbrook National Bank. Editor Appointed BOISE, Idaho, (NC)—Father Perry W. Dodds has been ap pointed editor of the Idaho Re gister, Boise diocesan news paper. He has been associate editor since 1958. He succeeds Father Nicolas E. Walsh, founding editor of the paper established in April, 1958. Bishop Sylvester Treinen of Boise announced that Father Walsh, pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary parish here, will remain with the paper as con sulting editor. To Bless Archabbot LATROBE, Pa., (NC) — Bi shop William G. Connare of Greensburg, Pa., will confer a solemn blessing August 29 on Father Rembert G. Weak- land, O. S. B., 36, recently elected as Coadjutor Archabbot of St. Vincent archabbey here. Assisting at the ceremony will be Archabbott Denis O. Strittmatter, O. S. B., of St. Vincent Archabbey, and Abbot Bede Luibel, O. S. B., of St. Bernard Abbey, Cullman, Ala. Fair Housing SPRINGFIELD, N. J., (NC) —An interreligious interracial committee for Fair Housing was organized here at a meeting at St. James parish. Interested persons met in the parish hall at the invitation of Rev. Francis X. Coyle, pastor. Among those helping to form the committee were Protestant and Jewish clergymen. The action was taken after the scope of the housing problem was out lined by Rev. Gerard J. Mur phy, S. J., of St. Peter’s Col lege, Jersey City. Flying Priest DUESSELDORF, Germany, 0 (NC) — Father Paul Schulte,t O.M.I., Germany’s “flyings priest,” has received this na tion’s highest civilian award,§ the Grand Federal Cross of R Achievement. ±, Father Schulte, a pilot in^ World War I, pioneered in ad^ 0 apting modern means of trans-t R portation in unexplored mission' areas. In 1927 he founded thq 4 Missionary Transport Agency^ Earlier this year, in what her said was perhaps his last great; A flight, he delivered a transport plane from Germany to South-tn west Africa. Id Cardinal Bea Honored' MUNICH, Germany, (NC)-^ 11 Augustin Cardinal Bea, S.J., A President of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, has been awarded the Grotius: Medal of the International Gro-wj tius Foundation for the Ad-“ vancement of International La\£ for his achievements in the ecumenical field. Burial Request m DJAKARTA, Indonesia, (NClj —At the personal request ofi President Achmed Sukarno„_l the body of Archbishop Albert Soegijapranata, S. J., of Serna- 1 rang will be brought to thi^ country for burial. The Indo- , nesian prelate died (July 22) in~ the Netherlands. President Sukarno, an ol<£^ friend of the Archbishop, had sent an emissary to wish him- well after he suffered a hearty attack in March. The two work-, ed together in Indonisia’s move ment toward freedom after'. World War II, and Sukarno sought Archbishop Soegijapran-„. ta’s advice in framing Indone-’ sia’s constitution of 1945. .4 Pope’s Title noli' Simplified VATICAN CITY, (NC)—His Holiness Pope Paul VI has giv- a en instructions that the tradi tional formula used in refer- I0 ence to himself in all officiaLrt publications be replaced by the-;- simple term, “the Holy Fath- , er.” 13 In the past the formula “La_* Santita di Nostro Signore” (the Holiness of Our Lord) has been i3 used in the official notices-, i printed in the periodical, Acta - Apostolicae Sedis (Official Acts^ of the Holy See), and L’0sserva- i3 tore Romano, Vatican City,,, daily. The formula was dropped for the first time in the August 3 edition of L’Osservatore Ro mano, and the less formal term, * ‘the Holy Father” used instead. QUESTION BOX (By David Q. Liptak) Q. Is using irony being un charitable? A. Whether the use of irony crosses Christian charity or not depends largely upon what is meant by the term. Basically, of course, and ironical saying (from the Greek for “ignor ance deliberately affected”) is “a figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used" (The Shorter Oxford Dictionary). IN THIS fundamental sense irony is surely not wrong, as when, for instance, it is used in light humor with reference to persons, or in certain cas es, in mild rebuke or censure. (When irony is employed mere ly with reference to objects or events, charity is not per se involved.) THE PROBLEM with irony is . that it is frequently mixed with^ sarcasm, the essential quality^ of which, according to Webster, T is “bitterness of taunting re proachfulness.” According to'^ the same definition, sarcasm is ! “always cutting or illnatured.” (The Greek origins of the term imply a “tearing of flesh.”) A SINCE SARCASM deliberate ly leveled at persons does vio- ‘ late chairty, irony which is col- ( ored by sarcasm would be I wrong—according to thedefini- * tions outlined here (which are not absolute). ONE ASPECT about irony not I specifically asked by the ques- tioner here is how it can be" reconciled with the principlesg forbidding lies. The solution is3 that ironical expressions are( not lies as such; so much can, (Continued On Page 5) jj V The Southern Cross Vol. 44 P. O. BOX 180, SAVANNAH, GA. Thursday, August 8, 1963 i » No. 3 Published weekly except the last week in July and thej last week in December by The Southern Cross, Inc. g Subscription price $3.00 per year. —- 4 Second class mail privileges authorized at Monroe, Ga. Send notice of change of address to P. O. Box 180, Savannah, Gaj 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