Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—October 2,1975
“PAUCITY OF AUTHORS” - John J. Delaney, editorial director of
Doubleday and Co.’s Catholic department, said in an article in National
Catholic Reporter that while religious publishing is “booming,” Catholic
book sales are “pallid” by comparison because of an “appalling paucity of
publishable Catholic authors.” (NC Photo by Sam Ross)
CATHOLIC BOOKS ‘PLODDING’
Religious Books Booming
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (NC) -
Religious publishing is “booming,” but
“the sales pattern of Catholic books is a
pallid imitation of the rip-roaring
success of tfieir Protestant
counterparts,” according to the editorial
director of Doubleday and Co.’s
Catholic department.
The principal reason why Catholic
books “continue plodding along,” said
Doubleday’s John J. Delaney, is that
“there is an appalling paucity of
publishable Catholic authors.”
In an article in the National Catholic
Reporter, an independent Catholic
weekly published here, Delaney, who
has been in the publishing business for
more than 30 years, said: “Just as
happened with the Protestant publishing
scene of the past two or three years, the
market for Catholic books has revived.
But unfortunately, unlike our
Protestant colleagues, we do not have
enough competent Catholic authors to
provide books for this market.”
Among the reasons Delaney gave foi
the lack of Catholic authors were:
- The period since the Second
Vatican Council “has seen change,
uncertainty, questioning, groping,
renewal, renovation, revolution, if you
like, unlike anything the Church has
experienced in centuries” and many
men and women who might have been
writing “have been too involved in the
processes of renewal and reform to have
time to write.”
- This period “has witnessed an
exodus of 'men and women from the
Church and from their accustomed state
who normally might be expected to
produce books.” Many earlier
best-selling Catholic titles were written
by priests and nuns, Delaney said. “But
in a period when many Religious had
renounced their roles as priests and nuns
and many of those who remained were
redefining their roles in religion, little
time or energy was left for that most
demanding of man’s endeavors -
writing.”
- The “disappearance of many of the
old-line Catholic publishers,” such as
Bruce, P.J. Kenedy, Benziger Brothers,
Herder and Herder and Helicon. “No
longer were the editors of these
publishers out in the field coaxing,
cajoling, giving out with ideas - doing
the myriad things a good editor does to
get books into existence,” Delaney said.
The drop in the number of publishing
jfirms also meant that “potential authors
were seriously limited in finding
publishers for their work,” he added.
- Many magazines that “had
published original Catholic writing went
out of business” and others cut down
the amount of material they would
accept for publication. “With this
curtailment of sources offering
publication, one more disheartening
obstacle was added to an already
formidable list facing one aspiring to a
career of writing in the Catholic field.”
-- “Increasingly, the allurement of
general publishing, especially to lay
authors, was brighter than religious
publishing. For many years, the
financial return in the religious field,
and particularly in the Catholic field,
generally speaking, was meager
compared to the financial return from
general publishing.”
-- Priests and nuns provided a main
source of readership for Catholic books.
“When they became involved as they
did in renewal and reform efforts, they
spent less time reading,” Delaney said,
adding that nuns spent money on
“clothes, hairdos and the more materia
things of life” that had formerly been
spent on books.
- Authors have sought to write for a
broader Christian market rather than for
the strictly Catholic market and the
consequence has been “a loss of authors
who are capable and competent in the
Catholic field.”
« To secure federal or state funds,
many Catholic colleges have declared
themselves secular colleges. “When the
educational milieu changes from
religious to secular, one of the
consequences may be a loss of authors
for Catholic publishing.’.’
“So now,” Delaney said, “those of us
who are left involved in Catholic
publishing are faced with the curious
situation of a real revival of interest in
Catholic books when very few
publishable authors exist to meet that
demand.”
He pointed out that many widely
recognized and read Catholic authors
are middle-aged or elderly, and added,
“we need new, young, publishable
authors to replace them as the years
take their inevitable toll.”
Delaney is to receive the 1975
Thomas More medal of the Thomas
More Association, a Chicago-based
literary organization, for “five decades
of distinguished contribution to
Catholic literature.”
REVIEWED BY JOSEPH A. BREIG
(NC News Service)
DICTIONARY OF FOREIGN TERMS, revised and updated by Charles Berlitz.
Crowell Co. New York. 368 pp. $9.95.
Often, in reading, we come across italicized phrases, words or expressions in a
language we do not know. As a consequence, we miss something of the meaning of a
passage -- perhaps all of the meaning.
This volume by Charles Berlitz, famed linguist (not connected in any way with the
Berlitz schools of languages), is the remedy. It provides, alphabetically, definitions of
more than 15,000 words and phrases from all major foreign languages, even ancient
Greek and Aramaic. Included are proverbs and popular sayings, mottoes,
abbreviations, and expressions used in travel, dining and writing letters. A valuable
addition to any book shelf or library.
THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD, by Kenneth Katzner. Funk and Wagnalls.
New York, 374 pp. $11.95.
Ever see a game of jai alai? Ever wonder whence came the name? It comes from
Basque, a tongue spoken by 700,000 persons in Spain and France. It stands alone;
scholars have never proved any connection between Basque and any other language.
And jai means “festival;” alai means “joyous.”
That’s one of the countless fascinating things about languages which are compressed
into this highly useful book, which capsules information about the hundreds of
tongues spoken by mankind.
FIRST NUN PROFESSED IN U.S.
Liberty And Justice For All:
American Catholics 1776-1976
BY ROSE MARTIN
(NC News Service)
Freedom to embrace a Religious
vocation was one of the liberties won by
American Catholics through the War of
Independence. On the veiling day of the
first nun to be professed in the original
United States, a Jesuit priest, Father
Charles Neale, declared that it was “by
the happy Revolution of the
Government in America” that God “has
drawn us out of our bondage and
restored us to our just rights.”
The symbol of the liberty hailed by
Father Neale was Elizabeth Carberry,
47, who on May 1, 1792, became a
Discalced Carmelite nun, Sister Teresa
of the Heart of Mary.
In the United States at that time
there were 25,000 Roman Catholics,
two-thirds of them in Maryland. Many
traced their ancestry to Catholics who
had come to the New World in 1634
under protection of the first Lord
Baltimore.
Before the Revolution Catholics and
Jews were barred from public office in
the colony, and the rites oi the Roman
Church were prohibited. Year after year
the Mass was celebrated in private
homes behind drawn curtains by a
handful of Jesuit missionaries, disguised
as country gentlemen, who carried the
Host in their, saddlebags. Harassed and
hunted by the colonial authorities, fined
and even jailed at times, they kept the
faith alive in cooperation with the
people they served.
In the midst of such troubles,
Elizabeth Carberry decided at the age of
20 that she wished above all things to
become a nun. Pretty, popular and
courted, she had already refused several
offers of marriage. She was born into a
large and devout Catholic family and
was apparently the favorite child of
John Baptist Carberry II, a prosperous
farmer in St. Mary’s County.
Since there was no convent in the
colonies, she begged her father to send
her to Belgium where other Maryland
girls had gone to be professed - and had
never returned. John Carberry, however,
would not hear of it. So there was
nothing for Elizabeth to do but wait
and hope to take her vows some day in
her native land. Her wait lasted 27
years.
Records at the National Archives in
Washington, D.C., reveal that at least
three of Elizabeth Carberry’s brothers -
Henry, Joseph and Peter - served as
soldiers in the Revolutionary War. One
of them, Captain Henry Carberry, was
mentioned in George Washington’s
letters.
With her father deceased and her
brothers away at war, Elizabeth
Carberry stayed home and helped
manage the family farm. The experience
of running a Maryland plantation would
prove useful in later years, after she had
entered a convent attempting to subsist
on its own farm products.
When peace came and with it a
Constitution assuring religious freedom,
Catholics of southern Maryland werd
prompt to claim their reward.
Repeatedly “several in Charles County”
petitioned the bishop of Antwerp,
Belgium, to send nuns to establish a
convent in the United States. After
more than six years those efforts were
successful, and in April, 1970, four
Discalced Carmelite nuns left
Hoogstraeten, Belgium, for Maryland.
Three of them were Maryland-born:
their superior, Mother Bemardina who
had been Anne Matthews, and her two
nieces, Sisters Mary Aloysia and Mary
Eleanora Matthews. The fourth was an
English nun, Sister Clare Joseph
Dickenson, from a neighboring convent
in Antwerp. Escorting them were Father
Neale, who was Mother Bemardina’s
nephew, and Father Robert Plunkett,
soon to be the first president of
Georgetown University.
Because of an edict of Napoleon
banning religious dress in public in
Belgium, the four nuns were obliged to
travel in secular dress. Carrying luggage
which included a host-baker and chapel
fittings and wearing fashionable clothing
contributed by well-wishers, the four
women boarded a small vessel at
Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Early in July they debarked at Port
Tobacco in Charles County, where they
were guests for a time at the Neale
family residence. Elizabeth Carberry
was among the first to welcome them.
Acreage for a monastery was soon
found on a secluded green hillside near
Port Tobacco. Father Neale donated his
entire patrimony to buy it. Several tiny
clapboard buildings adjourning a small
chapel were hastily erected, and the
convent was dedicated Oct. 15, 1790,
the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila,
foundress of the Carmelites.
One week later the convent’s first
postulant arrived. She was, of course,
Elizabeth Carberry, bringing with her a
bedstead, farm implements, kitchen
utensils, and for a dowry 150 British
pounds left to her by her father.
Eighteen months later, she became the
first nun to be professed in the convent
and the nation.
As Sister Teresa of the Heart of Mary,
she stayed at Mt. Carmel in Maryland
the rest of her life. She died in her sleep
Jan. 18,1814, at the age of 69.
Concerning her, the original
handwritten Book of Professions and
Deaths of the Discalced Carmelites
states: “She was our first Religious in
this country and was remarkable for her
gratitude to God and to us for entering
religion.”
By 1831 the nuns were obliged for
economic reasons to leave Port
Tobacco. The little convent buildings
fell into ruins and were almost
forgotten. In our own time, however,
there has been a serious movement to
restore them.' The site has been declared
a National Shrine, and although it has
been only partially restored to date, it
has become a place of pilgrimage.
(Rose Martin is an author and historian.
She has compiled the life of Elizabeth
Carberry from a family Bible, government
records, and other original sources. I.
STORY OF PRIEST -- Richard Angarolo plays a
bishop who helps Father William Wasson, an
American-born priest, in his founding of Nuestros
Pequenos Hermanos (Our Little Brothers and Sisters),
a home for orphaned Mexican children. At right, Jason
Miller plays Father Wasson in the CBS drama special,
“A Home of Our Own,” to be telecast Sunday, Oct.
19, 8 p.m.-lO p.m. Eastern Time. (NC Photos courtesy
CBS)
LIFE IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
Games People Play
(Man) Can’t get no rest, don’t know how I work all day
When will I learn, memories get in the way
I walk around, I can’t hear a sound
Folks talkin’ loud, well I don’t see at all
I gotta get away, gotta get away.
(Woman) I don’t know where to go, it’s hurt me so
Guess I’ll leave it alone.
(Man) Well, I spent all that day, fixing up to go somewhere
Thought I was late and I found she wasn’t there
I guess I’ll find love, peace of mind some other time
But I still have today,
I gotta get away, gotta get away.
Why is such a system of communication needed? What is it about human
persons which constantly calls us to be more honest and authentic in relating to
others? Why do we play “games” and thus have unreal relationships with others?
What are the barriers preventing good communications in our own lives?
The song “Games People Play” by the Spinners describes a person who is tired
of the hassles in his life, his work, and his general boring routine. He is looking
forward to breaking out of this and being with a person where he can find
“love” and “peace of mind.” He spends all day getting ready and then is late for
the appointment. She gets tired of waiting and when he does finally arrive, she is
gone. All of his plans have gone down the drain and he is miserable, “alone,” and
“blue.” She, on the other hand, shares the same frustration that he is feeling.
She is “hurt” and “lost.” She doesn’t know where to go. In this song, what
happened to this relationship that had the possibilities of a happy ending? What
were the games that were played that nearly destroyed this friendship?
(Woman) I don’t know where to go, it’s hurt me so
I guess I’ll leave it alone.
Games people play, night or day, they’re just not mentioned
What they should do, keeps me feelin’ blue
Been down too long
Right, wrong, I just can’t stop it
Spending all day, thinking just of you.
(Man) Twelve-forty-five, headed for the subway home,
I took my time ’cause I felt so all alone
Not far away, I heard a funny sound
Took a look around and I could see her face,
Smile as she came, calling out my name.
(Woman) So I know where to go
We’ll take it slow as I call it a day.
Games people play, night or day, they’re just not mentioned
What they should do, keeps me feelin’ blue
' Been down too long
Right, wrong, I just can’t stop it
Spending all day, thinking just of you. ( c ) 1975 Atlantic
Games people play . .. Written by: J.B. Jefferson, B. Hawes
and C. Simmons
- Performed by: The Spinners
Back in 1964, Dr. Eric Berne wrote a book which has the same title as the
above song - “Games People Play.” This book was to become the basis for a
system of personal communication which is popular today and which many
people find helpful. The system is transactional analysis and the key to that
communication is knowing how you react to another or a situation in terms of
the child, the parent, and the adult in you. It basically calls a person to be
keenly aware of his or her words and actions. The book “I’m O.K., You’re O.K.”
by Dr. Harris gives a good overview of this process of communication.
He may have been playing tlie game of “don’t know your feelings.” He may
have kept her waiting so that she wouldn’t know just how much he was looking
forward to being with her and how much he cared. So he arrives late and is
“cool” and “ho-hum” about the whole event. The only problem is that she is
not around to see how cool he really is. Another game played is the “I’ll show
him” game. She was probably looking forward to being with him and when he
was late, she might have felt that she had been “stood up” and made a fool
of. Her pride comes through and she says, “Who does he think he is to make me
wait -- I’ll show him.” So, she shows him, and ends up alone. Another game is
the sulking and “it hurts me so” game. Because he makes her wait, she is hurt
and feels rejected. Her response is to inflict the rejection on him - “guess 111
leave it alone.” Actually we don’t know why he was late, or how long she waited
for him, but there is no doubt the “games” are in operation, and that they are
both unhappy.
The story doesn’t have a sad ending, though. After she wanders around “not
knowing where to go” and after he spends the entire day “thinking of you” and
“feeling blue,” they cease the game and get together. She is now happy and
“knows where to go” and he now has his “peace of mind.”
Playing these games can have a positive effect but just think of all the
emotional and psychic energy that was spent in the above encounter. In playing
these games, one should definitely be aware of what is going on and what the
motive behind the game might be. However, the “games” can have a destructive
quality when we kid and delude ourselves and when we use and abuse another. It
can keep us from knowing our authentic selves or from communicating with the
other at a more intimate level. If the games go too far, then our relationship is
not based on “love,” but on images, masks, and sand.
This song gives us the opportunity to think about the “games” we play with
ourselves and others. Eric Berne says that uncovering our games,can be
“frightening” and even “perilous.” However, it is in facing ourselves and our
relationships squarely that we have the chance to “know where to go” and to
have “peace of mind.”
(All correspondence should oe directed to: The Dameans, P.O. Box 2108, Baton Rouge
Louisiana 70821.)