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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, November 24, 19(56
CABBAGES AND KINGS
Most Rev. Thomas J. McDonough, D.D.J.C.D., President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
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The Moment Of Truth
The Bishops of the United States, at their re
cent annual meeting in the nation’s capital, is
sued several important statements.
It should be borne in mind that these de
clarations - on penance and abstinence, war and
peace, race relations and poverty, government
and birth control are not merely pronouncements
of various bureaus of what used to be known as
the National Catholic Welfare Conference and
has been renamed the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops.
They are statements carrying with them the
full weight of the entire body of the Catholic
Hierarchy of the United States.
The statement on the government and birth
control, reported in last week’s SOUTHERN
CROSS was drawn up last spring by the now
defunct administrative board of NCWC and issued
as their statement, but it was issued last week
with the unanimous approval of the body of U. S.
bishops.
The other three statements were issued as
Pastoral Statements of the National Conference
3f Catholic Bishops.
With the exception of the statement on penance
and abstinence, all are concerned with the moral
aspects of pressing, controversial matters of
public concern.
For the public-at-large these declarations
will be accepted or rejected to the degree that
individuals find their reasoning persuasive or
not.
But the statements have a much deeper claim
on the consideration of Catholics, for whom
these official, public declarations of thp entire
body of American bishops ought to be the voice
of Christian moraiity, and from whom the bishops
have every right to expect the fullest measure of
support.
But it needs to be noted that the views of the
C atholic bishops on issues such as war and peace,
and race relations and poverty run counter to
the thinking of many public figures.
This seems to be especially true here in the
South - particularly with reference to race re
lations and poverty.
This variance between the views of the bishops
and those of the public-at-large is evident when
one compares the campaign speeches of a large
number of Georgia office-seekers over the past
few months, as well as supporting editorials in
many of the state’s newspapers, with the Bishops’
statement on race relations and poverty. It is
apparent, too, when one compares the attitude of
the Bishops regarding the moral obligation on the
part of all to search for peaceful means to settle
the Vietnam conflict with what seems to be the
generally accepted view of Senator Herman Tal-
madge - that neogiations should be spurned and
the war escalated to a point only short of nuclear
war.
Catholics, we think, are clearly in the position
of having to make a choice as to whose leader
ship to follow in matters of public morality - that
of their bishops or that of their civic leaders and
newspapers.
This has been our contention all along. But,
as our ‘‘Letters to the Editor” columns has
shown so often in the past, some, if not many,
Catholics have simply refused to admit that they
are faced with such a choice. The issue is now
so clear-cut, we don’t see how any Catholic can
dodge it any more. /'f t n 'i
POLITICS AND THE CHRISTIAN
The Peopl
Rev. William
Perhaps no document in the series of docu
ments promulgated by Vatican II contains more
revolutionary statements than that On the Church
in the Modern World. In this document no section
is more significant in providing a perspective for
a Catholic’s participation in the great problems
which afflict our society today than the section
on the The Church and Political Life.
’s Church
V. Coleman
“It is always and everywhere legitimate for
her to preach the Faith with true freedom, to
teach her social doctrine and to discharge her
duty among men without hindrance. She has the
right to pass moral judgments, even on matters
touching the political order whenever basic per
sonal rights or the salvation of souls make such
judgments necessary.”
The work of the
Church in the poli
tical sphere is open
to misunderstand
ing on two counts.
There is the tradi
tional misunder
standing, dating
back to the time
of Constantine,
which seeks a union between the Church and
a particular state. This was the medieval
synthesis of religion and government which
has prevailed until our own time. Fortunately,
this has been rejected, not only by Vatican II,
but by all major theologians writing in the past
few years.
The second area of error, and a much more
common one in our day, is to endorse the other
extreme, saying that the Church has no mission
to the political life of man. There are those sin
cere Catholic people who see religion as limited
to the parish grounds. They feel that any state
ment made which reflects the moral teaching of
the Church into the political sphere is unjustifi
able.
Here established, then is a clear platform for
the religious-political activity becoming more
and more common in the Church today. Mat
ters such as segregation and civil rights, the
needs of the poor, and the freedom to determine
the size of one’s family are all matters in which
we see the moral activity of today’s Church. If
the spirit of Vatican II is followed, the next
generation will see much greater involvement
of priests, religious, and laity in the great
problems of our time.
As the Constitution draws to a close, it
takes up the difficult subject of modern war
fare. Among the bishops who attended the
Council, there was a small but vocal minority
which called for the outright condemnation of
all war. Their voice was to be heard, weighed
and modified.
The Council clearly condemned the concept
of total war, war in which every available re
source of a nation is thrown into the fray. It
ualls for restraint in waging even the just, de
fensive war.
/i Series On
‘Vatican ft
'Do.cuntcnfo
Both views are incorrect. Although it is not
the place of the church to endorse any political
system, it is her place to acquaint her members
and all who will listen to her words, with the
fundamental moral and doctrinal propositions on
which all political life is based.
To quote from the Constitution: “TheChurch,
founded on the Redeemer’s love, contributes tc
the wider application of justice and charity within
and between nations. In preaching the Gospel
and shedding light on all areas of human activity
by her teaching and the example of her faithful,
she shows respect for political freedom and
responsibility and fosters these values.
Thus concludes one of the most noteworthy
of the Council’s pronouncements. It treated
all of the major problems of modern society
and proved itself a worthy successor to the
two great encyclicals of Pope John XXIII,
Pacem in Terris and Mater et Magistra. It
may well be a generation before the grass
roots attitudes of the faithful reflects the think
ing of the Fathers of Vatican II. For the present,
it would seem to be the obligation of those who
are able to grasp the letter and spirit of this
great manifesto to translate it in practical, every
day terms to those who cannot, and thus, to form
a public opinion in the Church worthy of The
Church in the Modern World.
^Continued Next Issue)
AMERICAN PEOPLE
THE BISHOP PIKE CASE
Rev. William V. Coleman
On F riday
Not since the Mass was “Englished” have
Catholics had the emotional shock brought on by
the decision of the American Bishops to make
Friday abstinence optional. For some this will
be a time of confusion and real trial. - For others
it will bring the uncalled for feeling that penance
is dead.
Both groups are off the track as clearly indi
cated in the Bishops’ state
ment. They make quite clear
that there is no denial of the
need for penance in the lives
of all Christians. ‘ They go
farther and strongly recom
mend Friday abstinence as a
very fitting form of penance.
But they do insist that we must
make the decision to abstain or
The decision is significant because it demon
strates a growing confidence in the maturity of
the American Catholic. His bishops see him as
sincerely interested in his own soul and sin
cerely convinced that he must do penitential
works. Since he is, there is no longer a need
for a law to see that one particular penance is
performed each week.
All of the explanation in the world will not help
those torn by a feeling of emotional loss, how
ever. These good people, we might remind of the
whole thrust of Jesus’ teaching against a sense of
religious security which arises from observance
of man-made laws. Again and again Christ
warned his followers that no fulfillment of pre
cept could guarantee salvation.
The decision of the hierarchy may well be a
kind of “coming out” party for American Catho
lics, a public declaration that we have reached
full maturity. In this we have reason to rejoice.
It Seems To Me
Many of the reporters and
writers — and maybe most of
them — who deal with the sub
ject of religion for the mass
circulation newspapers and
magazines (at least in the
U. S.) must be held guilty
of religious illiteracy. If
journalists were to display
comparable ignorance about
other things
(science, say;
or sports, or
politics, or
economics),
their editors
and publishers
would either
get rid of them
or send them
out to be educated. But the
trouble is that whereas editors
and publishers, by and large,
know enough about these other
matters to know when a man
is writing nonsense, in the
field of religion they are, if
possible, even less informed
than those they hire as
specialists.
Eloquent of the sad state
of religious knowledge in the
general press is the obsequi
ous, almost superstitiously
awed attention given to the
unthinking superficialities ut
tered by Episcopal Bishop
James Pike of California.
I do not doubt that Bishop
Pike is a man of great good
will. I am aware that he de
sperately wants to make re
ligion relevant to modern man;
Joseph Breig
that he deeply desires to see
it expressed in terms which
will get through to today’s
mankind. But Bishop Pike
has an inveterate habit of
throwing out the baby with the
bath water.
Religion cannot be made
meaningful and moving by
emptying i t of divine content.
It is all very well to tell peo
ple to love their neighbors and
be compassionate and all that;
but if the message is to have
any real force in forming
characters and transforming
the world, it’s got to have
something more than mere
humanistic sentiment behind
it.
Religion is concerned with
divine and supernatural
truths; with the relations be
tween God and man, and with
the relations of men with one
another based upon the God-
man relationship, which alone
gives ultimate meaning and
purpose to life. When Bishop
Pike empties God and Christ
of divinity, he is emptying
religion of the root thing that
makes it important and rele
vant.
I find it impossible, how
ever, to be angry with Bishop
Pike. When he talks about not
believing in the Trinity, I
get the half-amused, half-sor
rowful feeling that I am list
ening to the prattling of a child
whose concept of this
Christian doctrine runs to
three-leaf clovers.
E qually juvenile are some of
the other things that Bishop
Pike says, from the pulpit and
in interviews, if God is all-
powerful and all-knowing, he
asks, why is the world in such
a mess? And on the basis of
such sophomoric statements,
much of the public press pre
sented him to readers as a
brilliant thinker.
My aching back! — this pro
blem concerning the existence
of evil, in a creation made and
governed by an almighty, all
knowing, boundlessly good
C reator , has been plumbed to
the depths by theologians and
philosophers for thousands of
years.
The answer is not to deny
God or God’s divine powers;
if you do that, you turn the uni
verse into a looney bin. The
answer i s to realize that in
finite wisdom sees infinitely
deeper than our finite minds,
and that everything is myster
iously directed to an ulti
mate good which is far greater
than we can presently per
ceive.
This is the faith which fills
men and women with such
spiritual strength that their
goodness overthrows evil. It
is the faith that makes saints
like Francis and John XXIII
— and in doing so proves to
the hilt the everlasting rele
vance of religion.
Like all who have recently left childhood, we
may at times hanker for the comfort and security
of those simple days. We maybe uncomfortable
at times with our freedom and responsiblity.
Yet, unless we measure up to this step of growth,
there can be no others and all the years of obe
dience to the law of feist and abstinence will have
been wasted, for they wil 1 have failed to brinf
us to the maturity for which they were intended
QUESTIONS
Our F aith
Msgr. Conway
Q. I have been reading the documents of the
C ouncil, and while they are inspiring, I get the
impression that the priesthood is not given all
the praise, honor and significance it deserves.
It seems that the bishops are built up to a very
great extent, even to the point of being vicars of
Christ on earth, but a constant and almost worri
some reminder is made of the subservience of
the priests.
I have always thought of a
t priest as another Christ.
While we have our grum
py priests, our provincial
priests, our golf - playing
priests, and perhaps, sadly,
a few bad priests, generally
they are for us laity «‘the salt
of the earth,” “the light set
upon a mountain,” the spirit
of Christ in the world, the bulwark and back
bone of the Church, the strength of the Rock
of Peter.
A. Some commentators have noted that just
as Vatican I was the council of the Pope, defin
ing his primacy and infallibility, so Vatican II
was the council of the bishops, defining their
collegiality and their direct succession from
the Apostles, receiving their authority from their
sacramental consecration.
It is equally true that Vatican II was much con
cerned with the layman, and with deacons; but
we simple priests were not entirely forgotten.
The bishops gave us a decree on our life and
ministry in which we find much good advice and a
satisfying explanation of our role in sharing with
the bishop the three-fold ministry of Christ:
teaching, sanctifying, and shepherding the flock
of our Savior.
Indeed, we find in this decree many notes
of encouragement. We are told that the “bis
hop should regard priests as his brothers and
friends,” that he should have our material and
spiritual welfare at heart. We are told that a
senate of priests should be formed in each
diocese to give counsel and effective assistance
to the bishop in the government of the diocese.
The decree reminds priests of the intimate
sacramental brotherhood which exists among
them, of their unity and cooperation in building up
Christ’s Body. We are called on to help one an
other, older priests receiving younger ones as
true brothers, younger priests respecting the age
and experience of their seniors. We are en- ■
couraged to be hospitable, kind and generous to
wards our fellow priests, to join them in recrea
tion, as well as in the mutual development of our
spiritual and intellectual lives. And we are parti
cularly urged to help priests who may encounter,
difficulties.
We are also directed to be obedient to the Pope,
our bishop, and other superiors; and assured that
this obedience leads to more mature freedom.
We are urged to spend ourselves and to be spent
in any task assigned to us; but it is also recom
mended that we receive a living wage.