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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, December 19, 1963
. . .And it came to pass, that when they were there, her
days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him
up in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because
there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were in the same country shepherds watching,
and keeping the night watches over their flock.
And behold an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the
brightness of God shone round about them; and they feared
with a great fear.
And the Angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring
you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people;
For, this day, is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the
Lord, in the city of David.
And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant
wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in cMTianger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the
heavenly army, praising God and saying:
Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of
good will. . .(St. Luke 2:6-14)
Sees Need For Nation To
Encourage All Education
By J. J. Gilbert
WASHINGTON — Rather than
argue what aid should be given to
what institutions, the country
would be well advised to encour
age all legitimate schools
and urge pupils to stay in them
as long as possible.
This is an implication of a lit
tle known government study to
which attention was recently di
rected. Attention comes at a
time when powerful groups in
scattered actions round the
country have returned to vig
orous attacks upon any
aid to church-related institu
tions.
The study is a Department
of Commerce projection of the
nation’s economy to the end of
this decade. It was made for a
Senate sub-committee studying
unemployment in depth. Broadly
it showed farm-workers, labor
ers and the like will suffer de
clines in demands for their ser
vices and that clerical, techni
cal and professional personnel
will find an increasing demand.
But Secretary of Commerce
Luther H. Hodges has said “the
striking features about these
changes in labor require
ments is the need to upgrade
the educational level of the la
bor force.”
It was found that:
. . . We must have more high
ly trained professional man
power with 16 years or more of
education. In less than a decade
jobs in this category grew from
4.5 to 7.5 million.
. . . We must have more tech
nical and semi-professional
workers with 1 to 3 years of
education beyond high school.
Jobs in this category have in
creased 40% in the last decade.
. . . Today, in the greater
part of the country, even fac
tory jobs are closed to per
sons without high school edu
cation. This trend will contin
ue.
It used to be said that dem
ocracy requires education; we
need an enlightened citizenry to
maintain the eternal vigilance
which is the price of freedom.
Now it is being said that we
need a better educated popula
tion just to maintain our place
in the world.
Secretary Hodges said “au
tomation is the challenge to
change,” but where readjust
ments used to be made through
generations, today develop
ments come so rapidly that an
individual may have to adapt
and readapt” more than once
in a lifetime.
He also said automation and
technological progress “are
es sential to the general welfare,
the economic strength, and the
defense of the nation,” and that
we must use our capabilities * ‘to
raise our standard of living and
retain our position as a strong
force in the community of free
nations.”
The study had to do with
jobs, but it provided a strong
argument for education, and as
much of it as the nation can
have.
College Bill Does Not
End Church-State Issue
By John J. Daly, Jr.
(N.C.W.C. News Service)
WASHINGTON—Approval of
Federal aid for classroom con
struction at all U. S. Colleges
is a major congressional move
in the controversy over govern
ment help for private education.
But both sponsors and critics
of the measure agree more dis
cussion will be heard on the
Church-State issue raised by
its equal treatment of public,
private and church-related col
leges.
Adopted by the House on Nov.
6 by a 258 to 93 vote and by the
Senate on Dec. 10 by a 54 to 27
ballot, the bill establishes a
five - year, $1.2 billion pro
gram.
Colleges can seek Federal
assistance to help finance con
struction of non-religious faci
lities. They can ask for either
outright grants for one-third of
a project’s cost or repayable
loans for up to 75% of cost.
The money can be applied
only to libraries and buildings
to be used for instruction or re
search in the natural and physi
cal sciences, mathematics, mo
dern foreign languages and en
gineering.
The bill specifically bars use
of Federal funds for any facility
to be used for “sectarian in
struction,” for religious wor
ship or primarily for any part
of the program of a school or
department of divinity.
After Senate passage, Presi
dent Johnson immediately spoke
high praise of the bill. * 'The
Congress,” he said, “is well on
its way to doing more for educa
tion than any Congress since the
Land' Grant College Act passed
100 years ago,” he said.
The measure was strongly
backed by the late President
Kennedy. His successor has
been described by congression
al sources as playing a major
role in getting it adopted before
Congress adjourns.
Even though the bill includes
church-related colleges on an
equal footing with all others,
this fact does not end Senate
controversy over alleged
Church-State issues, the matter
which dominated Senate debate.
The bill passed the Senate
under a truce in the controver
sy. A few days before final
Senate action on the measure,
its sponsor, Sen. Wayne Morse
of Oregon, introduced a sepa
rate bill which would give tax
payers the legal power to block
in Federal courts any assis
tance for church-related col
leges.
A bloc of southerners, led by
Sen. Sam J. Ervin of North Ca
rolina, wanted such a provision
in the bill itself. The Senate
earlier had approved this ap
proach.
But such a “judicial review”
provision was scrapped in
House-Senate conferences on a
compromise version of the bill.
Morse’s separate bill took the
steam out of efforts to keep it
in the measure.
Morse told the Senate his sub
committee on education will
take up the review issue next
year. He argued successfully
that extensive hearings, with
testimony from ranking consti
tutional experts, was necessary
before the Senate makes up its
mind on whether to permit in
dividual taxpayers the unusual
power to block Federal expen
ditures.
Denial of Federal benefits to
church-related and other pri
vate colleges would have a seri
ous impact on U. S. higher edu
cation. Most American colleges
are privately operated and a
majority of these private insti
tutions are related to churches.
The U. S. Office of Education
has reported that in 1962, there
were 2,100 colleges and uni
versities. Of these 1,357 were
privately operated.
The U. S* office said the na
tion has 842 church-related in
stitutions of higher education:
482 Protestant, 335 Catholic, 9
interdenominational, 8 Jewish,
6 Latter-day Saints, 2 Russian
Orthodox, 1 Greek Orthodox and
1 Unitarian.
The American Council on
Education, a federation of indi
vidual institutions and of or
ganizations representing higher
education, vigorously supported
the college aid bill, as did U. S.
Commissioner of Education
Francis Keppel.
However, three public school
groups fought it. They charged
that its inclusion of private
schools would undermine public
education and “open the door to
Federal tax support of private
education at all levels.”
Represented in the protest
were the American Association
of School Administrators, the
Council of Chief State School
Officers and the Division of
County and Intermediate Unit
Superintendents of the National
Education Association.
English
Mass In ’64
EDINBURGH, Scotland, (NC)
—The Catholic Church in Scot
land will begin experimenting
with the use of English in the
Mass early in 1964, according
to Archbishop Gordon Gray of
St. Andrews and Edinburgh.
Scotland’s top - ranking
Catholic prelate said that Eng
lish will be used in the begin
ning of the Mass through the
Gospel or the Creed.
T is the prayerful wish of the staff of The Sou
thern Cross that all of its patrons and friends
may enjoy a Happy Christmas and a New Year
P| filled with blessings, spiritual and temporal.
So that our staff, and that of our printers,
might enjoy the Holiday, there will be no
paper next week. Our next issue will be Jan
uary 2, 1964.
Christmas
The Council On The Press
It Seems to Me
JOSEPH BREIG
In the eyes of many Fathers
of the council, the document
on TV, radio, movies and the
press ( “Instruments of So
cial Communication”) was a
harmless collection of pious
platitudes.
I t boiled
comes new
inventions in \ L
u s e in
spreading the Gospel, and ex
horts editors, publishers, re
porters, writers, actors, di
rectors and producers to do
good, avoid evil, and remem
ber that some people are chil
dren.
Jesuit Father Edward Duff
of America magazine, writing
from Rome as special corres
pondent for Religious News Ser
vice, remarked that the Fa
thers must have voted “in a
moment of fatigue or a fit of
inattention.”
EITHER THAT, or the Fa
thers, seeing no likelihood that
anybody was going to come
forward with anything very
meaningful on the subject, ap
proved the text to get it out of
the way and go on to something
important.
In view of the incalculable
importance of communications
in our day, when the thinking
of billions is influenced in great
part, and sometimes in fright
ening part, by what the “In
struments of Social Communi
cation” convey to minds, it is
a great pity that things turned
out as they did. It is a shame
that the council did not have
before it a statement filled
with new light and inspiration
for communications people—
for novelists, reporters, play
wrights, editorialists, news
casters, advertisers—and for
those with whom they com
municate.
FATHER DUFF’S dissatis
faction with the document cen
tered on the point that it did
not sufficiently define freedom
of the press and protect it from
undue government interference,
and therefore was a turning
back from the teaching of John
XXIII, who said in Pacem in
Terris that every human being
has the right to be informed
truthfully about public events.
Father Duff rightly took
alarm on that score, but my
objection was broader. I felt
that the council was being asked
to bring forth a mouse. And
the grave inadequacy on the
topic of communications seem
ed to stem from three causes.
First, there is failure to re
alize what tremendous moral
problems, aside from sex mo
rality, are involved.
Second, the council Fathers
are not communications ex
perts, nor are they phil
osophers about communica
tions; and in the document I
could find no evidence of any
effort to consult the experts.
Third, the “theology” of
communications is in its in
fancy. Some deep and basic
thinking is being done, and we
may look forward to works
which will give real insights;
but those who prepared the
council document were ob
viously not in touch with these
thinkers.
Communications, like Topsy,
have “jest growed.” Tremen
dous wisdom about them has
been accumulated in minds all
around the world, because men
and women have learned by ex
perience. You need only read
about the meetings of bodies
like the American Newspaper
Publishers Association to see
that some brilliant minds are
thinking seriously about com
munications day in and day out.
But this “experience wisdom”
has never been distilled by a
philosopher or theologian; it is
handed down only because older
men train younger men.
The treatise on ‘ ‘Instruments
of Social Communications”
clearly indicated that those who
prepared it had not tapped this
wisdom. Neither, I think, had
they consulted the schools of
journalism and communica
tions arts, not even the Catho
lic ones.
FOR A TRULY important
council statement on communi
cations, we must wait for de
velopment of a theology and
philosophy of communications.
And, these will come from a
combination of experience and
trained thought. The theologian •
and philosopher must peer into
the nature of communications;
must discover, theoretically,
what are the right root pur
poses of communications. Then
they must subject their theo
ries to the test of experience.
Christmas Wishes
Tonight I wish I were many
things other than a writer with
a Christmas column to produce.
Every year it is the same pro
blem. But this year it is greater
than ever. I yearn to write the
stars out of the sky and to bring
readers to their knees before
the wonder of the season. I
never can. It is especially dif
ficult this year.
I wish that I were a little
girl again so that I might recap
ture the innocent wonder of
Christmas—never to have
known evil, suffering, death.
There was then nothing to mar
the innocence of this holy day.
It would be worth a kingdom to
view the world as a five-year-
old again at Christmas. The in
nocence of childhood fails to see
the world of the grownup with its
tragedies, frustrations and
pains. Perhaps that is why all
men love Christmas, it takes
them back to the innocence and
safety of childhood. The beauty
of Christmas is unbearable in
retrospect yet it could be even
now for the Kingdom of God is
within us.
I would like to be the mother
of a little boy like John Kenne
dy, Jr. at Christmas, too. I
would like to take him on my
lap and read the story of an
other little Boy’s Christmas
many hundreds of years ago in
the city of Bethlehem and let
him know that his father is
now in the land where it is
eternal Christmas.
At Christmas, I wish, too, that
I were a cloistered nun far from
the distractions of the holiday
world. I yearn to escape from
the frenzied crowds which at
tempt to take all the magic and
music from the season. I could
contemplate then away from all
distractions the meaning and
promise of Christmas. And if I
were a cloistered nun this night,
I would never for a moment
forget those out in the world
imprisoned by the demands of
their states in life, the state
God destined for each one. Nuns,
no matter how old they are,
hold some of the starry-eyed
Christmas wonder of children.
They appear to have preserved
this innocence.
Alas, I am a writer. I am not
a little girl again or a clois
tered nun or the mother of a
little boy. I have only words at
my disposal to translate my
thoughts and asperation. Some
poets and writers have the spe
cial gift for setting lights ablaze
in hearts. But for me, words
never appear as inadequate as
they do at Christmas.
Christmas is something sac
red. It is silence and reverence
(Continued On Page 6)
Vernacular In
Low Mass Only
OKLAHOMA CITY (NC)--One
of the five bishops doing the
spadework for the vernacular
Mass in this country said here
the change from Latin will be
applied initially only to low
Masses.
Bishop Victor J. Reed of Ok
lahoma City and Tulsa said the
High Mass will remain in Latin
because of complex problems
involving adequate music.
Bishop Reed and four other
U. S. prelates have been named
by the Hierarchy to submit to
their fellow Bishops in January
proposed translations. All the
bishops will meet in the spring
of 1964 to draw up formal de
crees and send them to Rome
for confirmation.
Pope To Go
To Working Class
VATICAN CITY (NC) — Pope
Paul VI is expected to offer one
of his three Christmas Masses
in the parish church of St. Mi
chael the Archangel in Rome’s
working-class Pietralata dis
trict.
The official schedule of the
Pope’s Christmas Masses has
not been officially released, but
it has been learned that the
Pope will offer his three Mas
ses in the presence of differ
ent groups.
Christians Oppose
Indian Bill
BANGALORE, India, (NC) —
Christian leaders here have
asked the Mysore state govern
ment to drop a bill to control
and tax religious institutions.
One provision of the govern
ment-sponsored Religious and
South Pole
Christmas
NEW YORK (NC)—Francis
Cardinal Spellman left here for
his 21st consecutive Christmas
with Americans abroad, this
time personnel at the Navy’s
South Pole installations.
The Cardinal, who has de
scribed his annual trip as "my
pilgrimage to the men and wo
men who protect our country
and preserve peace,” flew from
here directly to Christchurch,
New Zealand, by way of Los
Angeles, Honolulu, the Fiju Is
lands and Auckland, New Zea
land.
Arriving in Christchurch on
Dec. 19, he was scheduled to
leave for the Antarctic as soon
as possible.
Interracial Award
CHICAGO (NC)—The Catho
lic Interracial Council of Chica
go will present its award for
interracial justice leadership
to Dr. Eugene Carson Blake,
stated clerk and national leader
of the United Presbyterian
Church, at a dinner here Jan.
16.
Charitable Institutions and
Trusts Bill requires charitable
institutions and trusts to turn
over 5% of their gross income
to a government administration
fund for charitable institutions
and trusts. The bill would also
set up a department to control
religious and charitable insti
tutions.
U. N. Inquiry
Shelved
UNITED NATIONS, N. Y„
(NC) — The General Assembly
shelved the U. N. inquiry into
alleged persecution of Buddhists
under the government of the late ;
President Ngo dinh Diem of
South Vietnam.
The action was taken (Dec.
13) without either discussion or
a vote after the representa
tives of the 16 nations which
had originally sponsored the in
vestigation decided against pur
suing it further “at this time.”
QUESTION BOX
(By David Q. Liptak)
Q. Relative to the Legion of
Decency’s system of classifying
motion pictures: Instead of list
ing some movies as A, and
others as B or C films, why
couldn’t it merely point out that
some are all right for general
patronage, while others are
"for adults only?”
A. "For adults only” is not
per se a moral assessment.
Rather, its primary purpose
is to indicate that a particular
film would in all probability be
psychologically harmfulfor im
mature viewers.Naturally, mo
ral harm would also follow,
though indirectly, as it were.
AT LEAST the "adults only”
listing is not a moral evaluation
in the sense that films so clas
sified are less "moral” than
those approved for general pa
tronage. On the contrary, an
“adults only” film can be per
fectly moral, yet because of the
theme or its treatment would
proximately (though, once
again, indirectly) endanger a
child’s moral welfare. This is
why the Legion is careful to
distinguish morally acceptable
pictures into three categories:
those which are generally unob
jectionable (A—1); those which
are unobjectionable for adults
and adolescents (A—11); and
those which are "for adults
only” (A-III).
IN EXPLANATION of the last
category, the Legion notes:
“Films in this classification
require normal emotional sta
bility and a knowledge and un
derstanding of basic Christian
truths and moral values.”
Q. I fully understand that C
pictures are so classified be
cause they are thoroughly im
moral, either in the plot or
thematic treatment. Hence I
can’t see how any practicing
Catholic would even consider
viewing such films. But hasn’t
there been some discussion as
to whether attendance at B films
(i.e., those which are objec
tionable in part) is always
wrong? Is it true that the Legion
of Decency today is not so strict
in this area as it once was?
A. This question was ade
quately answered, in our opin
ion, by the Legion of Decency
itself in 1957, when the "A”
classifications were modified:
"HENCEFORTH there will
be no doubt that a B film is
one adjudged to contain mater
ial which in itself or in its
offensive treatment is contrary
to traditional morality and con
stitutes a threat not only to the
personal spiritual life of even an
adult viewer, but also to the
moral behaviour-patterns
which condition public morality.
Catholic people are urged to
refrain from attendance at all
B pictures, not only for the
sake of their own consciences,
but also in the interest of pro
moting the common good.”
* * *
Q. Why doesn't the Legion of
Decency ridicule immoral
films from an artistic view
point, provided there is suffi
cient justirication—as re
viewers do? Wouldn’t such an
approach combat objectionable
pictures more effectively than
condemning them outright on
moral grounds?
A. The artistic quality of mo
tion pictures is not the primary
concern of the Legion of Decen
cy; nor does it pertain imme
diately to the Legion’s compe
tence. The Legion’s first inter
est is to ask whether a parti
cular film is or is not conso
nant with the norms of Chris
tian moral principles.
The Southern Cross
P. O. BOX 180. SAVANNAH, GA.
Vol. 44 Thursday, December 19, 1963 No. 24
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