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PAGE 4 — The Southern Cross, February 19,1970
MASS CHANGE DIALOGUE
Published at Waynesboro, Ga.
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Gerard L. Frey, D.D. President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor
John E. Mark waiter, Managing Editor
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Published weekly except the second and last weeks
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The Safest Course
Much publicity has been given to the
widespread use of marijuana by reason
of recent arrests of the children of
prominent members of our society, also
the exhortation by President Nixon that
something must be done on a national
level to counteract the serious drug
problem which exists in our country.
It is not our purpose to discuss the
bad and evil effects of such drugs as
cocaine, morphine or speed. It is the
purpose of this editorial to discuss the
morality, legitimacy, medical and social
aspects of marijuana.
There is much research being done
about the effects of marijuana but not
come to any definite conclusion about
the temporary or permanent effects of
the use of marijuana. The best that can
be said is that its effect is “uncertain”
and its very uncertainty causes a moral
problem.
Should or may any one -- whether
teenagers or adults -- expose themselves
to the questionable use of marijuana? It
is our opinion that they should not. The
very uncertainty about the drug should
make one hesitate to use it.
Regarding its legal aspects, this is
indeed a very great problem although
penalties have been defined by the law
for its use, for example a two-year jail
sentence. No one is willing to accept this
as either preventive or curative. The use
of marijuana is in essence a medical,
social problem and should be treated as
such.
/
The jails would not be big enough to
house the users of marijuana. Our
legislatures, both state and national,
should make a realistic appraisal of this
habit and should approach this as a
national problem, since it is estimated
that as high as 20 million people have
used marijuana. They claim it is not
addictive though many authorities
consider marijuana to be a “step”
toward the use of hard drugs.
The social effects of the use of the
drug can be most disturbing. It has an
effect on the emotions and the senses
that can last from two to four hours.
The effect can vary from depression to
excitement and the sense of time and
distance can become distorted. Such
effects are admitted by most researchers.
The use of marijuana is becoming so
prevalent among our young - even as
young as 13 - that there is reason for
alarm. The problem is beginning to
touch many homes, most schools, and
bears with it a great danger to the
society in which we live.
Should any one, teenagers or adults
use a drug such as marijuana, when all
we know from research up to date is that
no definite conclusions as to its harm
can be made? Is it valid to say that
marijuana becomes a step along the way
towards use of the hard drugs? Does it
use have serious and harmful effect upon
the society in which we live? Does it
make automobile driving dangerous? Can
it affect one’s role in life, robbing
technicians, teachers, pupils, etc. of
proper motivation?
Until definite answers can be given to
the above questions, the safe, moral
course for teenagers and adults alike is to
avoid the use of marijuana - or any
other drug about which there are
uncertainties.
(The Advocate--Newark, N.J.)
PLIGHT OF THE SCHOOLS
The Backdrop...
By John J. Daly, Jr.
I will never forget my first brush with the
toughness of a big, overcrowded, inner-city high
school. I was teaching an after-school religious
instruction course for teenagers. We spent a
couple of sessions discussing how a student’s
beliefs might influence his school life.
As they warmed to the topic, the youngsters,
all boys, began to “tell it like it is.” Stories
were casually related of daily extortion
demands imposed
on smaller pupils.
Lavatories were
said to be “owned”
by different gangs
and a charge
extracted for their
use. Books
frequently were
stolen and money
paid by the victim for their return. Outer
garments necessary for winter weather were not
worn because there was no safe place to put
them in school.
Added to such tension was the burden of
misunderstandings accompanying the transition
of the school and its surrounding neighborhood
from predominantly white to racially mixed.
That was four years ago. No responsible
official, in school or out of it, seemed willing to
address himself to such problems then. Some
remedial steps have been taken recently, but
they are tardy and heavy-handed, usually
involving extra “security measures” provided
by cusodians, special teachers or even
policemen.
Now it would appear that such experiences
have been shared in many other areas of the
nation, principally, but not exclusively, in
core-city secondary schools in large
metropolitan centers. A Senate subcommittee
headed by Sen. Thomas Dodd of Connecticut
has concluded that disruption in high schools is
nearing the point of a national phenomenon.
Indeed, it was reported only recently that
the number of people now engaged in security
1 4
work in secondary schools has reached a point
where they are attempting to band together in a
national, professional organization.
This problem obviously is not an isolated one
in the schools. It is part and parcel of a larger
challenge, chiefly the failure of public schools
to find the proper educational method to
effectively reach youngsters for whom the
traditional school is irrelevant.
So what is happening? The nation’s capital
affords an example of one result: the
abandonment of city high schools by a growing
number of parents, many of them influential
figures themselves in public schools.
These parents apparently have given up hope
that corrective steps in the schools will come in
time to affect the schooling of their own
children. They are turning, some of them at
considerable financial sacrifice, to private
schools. The District of Columbia school office
reports that transfers to private schools have
jumped more than 50% in two years.
Children transferred include those of Sterling
Tucker, vice chairman of the Washington City
Council; Percy Ellis, principal of one of the
city’s biggest junior high schools; Mrs. Lucille
Johnson, a school educational consultant, and
Julius Hobson, a public school board member
and outspoken advocate of radical change in the
schools who told newsmen: “With the schools
they way they are, you’re crazy if you can take
a child out and don’t. It’s a disservice to the
child.”
These brief observations are not meant as a
slam at public schools nor as a justification for
private education. The role of private education
can easily be explained without recourse to
ridicule of public schools.
They are meant, rather, as an echo of the
cries of the community leaders who are
appealing for a growth in public concern over
the trials, and often near-collapse, of public
education in some of our nation’s most
important communities.
Security
7tteaAu%e&
TteecCcd
Who's Afraid of People?
MARRIAGE-NO REFUGE FROM SACRIFICE
It Seems To Me
No normally fertile man,
married to a normally fertile
woman, can live up to the
great divine meanings of
Christian marriage without
being in large measure,
celibate. Marriage does not
lessen the obligation of
chastity nor does it
necessarily
make the
o b 1 i g ation
easier to
observe.
Marriage,
indeed, may
make the
s acri fices
greater.
Those two aspects of
marriage, it seems to me, are
not well understood by
seminerians and priests who
(as in the Netherlands)
oppose obligatory priestly
celibacy.
In one of Thornton
Wilder’s lesser-known books,
there is a striking passage
describing “the priest of
Asscalapius and Appollo, who
had taken the vow of
chastity-the vow which,
profoundly encompassed, sets
a man forever apart from the
unstable tentative sins of
men.”
Note the perceptiveness of
Wilder’s vision of priestly
Joseph Breig
celibacy: the vow must be
“Profoundly encompassed;”
and when it is, it sets a man
apart and confers upon him a
rock-founded stability in
order that he may give
himself.
The priest is “set apart”
precisely in order that he may
give himself more wholly and
humbly to the service of his
fellowman and of God. He is
to strive constantly to
become more and more like
Jesus Christ, the high priest
of all priests. He is to be like
God who, entering into
human nature in Christ,
“emptied himself’ (in St.
Paul’s words) “taking the
form of a slave” and
sacrificing himself for love of
others.
The celibacy of Jesus, like
the virginity of his mother,
Mary, was centered in
immense divine and human
purposes. It was embraced for
the lifting up of mankind
nearer and nearer to the
all-holiness of God.
Priests and seminarians
should try to understand this,
and try also to realize that
marriage, like the priesthood,
is a thing divine, a “vow to be
profoundly encompassed.”
Both states of life are for
the making of saints. Too
OUR PARISH
easily do we forget nowadays
that for this reason the
Church exists--to point the
paths of holiness, and to
channel the grace for their
reading.
If a man becomes a priest
and does not advance in
holiness, something is wrong.
And when a man becomes a
husband and does not grow,
hand in hand with his wife, in
likeness to the holy God,
again something is wrong.
Sexuality (with which
much of mankind seems
obsessed nowadays, at least in
the Western World) is like
food or drink or work or
recreation or money or
anything else in life. Either
we rule things, or we are
ruled. Either we master our
sexuality as mature persons,
or we are held by it in a state
of perpetual adolescence-- not
to say infantilism.
No less than the priest, the
married man who sees
marriage for what it is--his
key to God-must master his
sexuality; must often, and
sometimes for long periods,
be celibate.
Priests, if they married,
would soon enough discover
that marriage is no refuge
from sacrifice, without which
there is no holiness.
‘Martha saved all the old Lenten Regulations. She
likes to reminisce.”
Tracts For
The Times
By Marvin R. O’Connell
(Following is a relevant dialogue between the
universal liturgy committee and the People of
God, U.S. chapter.)
“Gee whiz,” said the committee, “we’re
going to have some more changes in the mass.
Isn’t that swell?” “What, again?” said the
People of God. “You don’t seem properly
enthusiastic,” said the committee. “Don’t you
want to be spiritually enriched?” “Sure.” said
the People of God; “I’m just not
certain enrichment will come from
more changes.” “You disappoint
me,” replied the committee. “After
all, these reforms are simply a
response to the groundswell on the
part of the people.” “Whom you
trying to kid, buddy? I AM the
people and there iz no
groundswell.”
“That’s right. I forgot. Can’t take that line
with you, can I. Well, anyway it’s for your own
good. That’s been decided.” “Yes, I suppose
so,” said the People of God. “Despite all the
talk these days about how important I am
decisions seem to be made as to what’s good for
me by some committee somewhere.” “Well,
these decisions are made by experts,” said the
committee. “Experts like me.”
“Oh, I’ve got nothing against experts,” said
the People of God. “But the liturgical changes
strike me as hardly reflecting much expertise.
They have been haphazard and hurried, they
give evidence of having been ill-planned, and
certainly preparation for them was sorely
inadequate. I wish you people wouldn’t
inaugurate changes until you knew what you
were doing.” “You’re just a reactionary,”
retorted the committee. “You don’t like
anything new.”
“That’s not true,” said the People of God. “I
like the liturgy visible and audible, and most of
all I like the English. The use of the vernacular
has opened grand new vistas for me. The whole
idea of the sacramental life as formed out of
intelligible and effective signs now makes more
sense than it ever did-at least to me.” The
People of God paused. “It may seem petty to
mention it, seeing the great boon the vernacular
has been, but I do wish the liturgical English
\ were a little less barbaric.” “Don’t blame me
for that,” said the committee. “That job was
done by a different committee of experts.” “I
see,” said the People of God. “Well, maybe in
time we’ll find some experts whose native
"tongue is English.”
“Ihat’s a nasty thing to say,” said the
committee, redfaced. “I don’t think you really
appreciate all that’s been done for you by us
liturgical experts and our colleagues the
linguistic experts.” “No,” said the People of
God, “I do appreciate what’s been done for me
and I’m grateful. But at the same time I resent
what’s been done to me.” “Like what?” asked
the committee.
“Well, basically I guess I resent the lack of
intelligent and responsible control over the
process of liturgical reform. This manifests
itself in many ways, most noticeably, perhaps,
in the kind of High Church vs. Low Church
mentality which divides one section of the
country from another and even one parish from
another.” “What you want,” said the
committee, “is the dead hand of conformity.”
“Not at all. But I’m right, aren’t I, that
liturgical acts are the acts of a whole
community, of a people--me--made up of
different ages, sexes, temperaments, who come
together to praise God and find solace as a
group. Now in this situation a practical
compromise has to be found by which everyone
can find a measure of comfort, can feel
somewhat at home. So I resent the constant
turmoil. I resent being left to the whim or the
mood of the individual priest for the simple
reason that my mood--my multiplicity of
moods -- may not match his. I resent it when he
grins at me like Tiny Tim. I resent it when he
says it makes no difference whether the Host is
received on the tongue or in the hand
because-regardless of which is the better
way--it does make a difference to me. I resent
ceremonies being invented in the name of
phony spontanaeity, when I know better than
any expert that liturgical prayer is not a mystic
seizure bdt rather a growth process, a matter of
predictable rhythm, a calm and habitual,
ever-deepening development. And so I resent
most of all the authorities and the experts who
ignore this fundamental necessity and allow this
kind of confusion to flourish.”
“The upcoming changes may be fine,”
continued the People of God. “We’ll see. But I
want to warn you about something.” “What’s
that,” asked the committee? “The whole
subject is beginning to bore me. And don’t
forget: you experts come and go but I am
forever.”
There was a pause, disgruntlement on both
sides. Then the committee said brightly: “Say,
you’re going to like the dandy new epiclesis
we’re getting ready for you. It has a swell
doxology.”
“Ho hum,” said the People of God.
ATLANTA CIVIC CENTER AUDITORIUM
April 16, 17, 18, 1970