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PAGE 2—January 8,1976
\1i:XI( i\-AUi:i{l( i \S /\ THE SOUTHWEST
Liberty And Justice For All:
American Catholics 1776-1976
THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO II, by
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. Harper and
Row, New York. 712 pp., $15.
REVIEWED BY
FATHER DENIS DIRSCHERL, S.J.
(NC News Service)
Solzhenitsyn’s second volume of
Gulag continues the exposition of life
under Lenin and Stalin, notably, life in
the network of penal institutions
spreading over the vast expanse of the
land once called Russia. The
“Destructive-Labor Camps,” as he calls
them, were programmed to produce
prodigious feats of physical labor,
reduce the entire population to a hulk
of fear, and destroy utterly anyone who
stood before the dictatorship machine
driven by Lenin and Stalin.
Solzhenitsyn says that he had to
write this book: “I am writing this book
solely from a sense of obligation -
because too many stories and
recollections have accumulated in my
hands and I cannot allow them to
perish.” As in volume one, Solzhenitsyn
writes with the precision of a highly
skilled surgeon. Moreover, he, writes
with the passion of a Frederick Engels
in his “Conditions of the Working Class
in England in 1844.” With the pathos
evoked by Dostoevsky’s “House of the
Dead” and Father Walter Ciszek’s “With
God in Russia,” and with the
thoroughness of a Robert Conquest.
Three noteworthy portions of
ti e volume include “Women in Camp,”
“The Kids,” and “Our Muzzled
Freedom.” These three chapters say
much more than countless books have
tried to say about the Soviet regime
under Lenin and Stalin. They strike at
the core of its power and control.
The most engaging account concerns
the operation of the camps. This is
admirably done in the chapter of the
Belomor Canal (White Sea -- Baltic
Canal Construction Project). Right off
one must note that the purpose of the
so-called Soviet corrective labor camps
was and is not at all concerned with
individual correction in its traditional
meaning. This is abundantly clear, from
the miserable housing, the inadequate
clothing, the paltry food rations, the
impossible work demands. Then, too,
there are the punishment details and the
quasi-hegemony of common thieves and
criminals over the political prisoners, all
consciously fostered and encouraged by
the Gulag network authorities.
Solzhenitsyn will not accept the
present regime’s ploy of constantly
reminding the populace about the tragic
losses during World War II. He reminds
the regime and his fellow citizens that
far more people were either maimed,
warped, or lost their lives because of the
Gulag system created by the regime
itself.
Solzhenitsyn, however, does not
allow all the blame to rest on the
regime. In a real way the people had a
chance to snap the power-mad state
apparatus as a sapling, before the tiny
oak grew into a mammoth tree. In the
early stages there were many
opportunities On both the individual
and collective levels, but later both
individuals and groups were trapped by
their own inaction.
There have been many heroes, and
Solzhenitsyn cites outstanding efforts
by courageous men and women. But
there were, unfortunately, astronomical
acts of cowardice, too, each one
allowing the jaws of the state police
machine to grip deeper into the viscera
of the helpless masses.
There were occasions when tlje
author prayed for a quick end to it all.
But he refused to allow the inhuman
conditions of camp life to crush or
corrupt him. Instead he rose above his
environment and has given us the
opportunity of profiting from this
literary monument.
BY MATT S. MEIER
(NC News Service)
In 1848 the United States acquired,
as one of the results of the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, about 75,000
citizens of Mexican origin. Living in
rugged and isolated frontier conditions,
these new citizens benefitted little from
the improving quality of life in urban
America as the second half of the 19th
century wore on.
The U.S. government had no program
of acculturation for its new
Spanish-speaking citizens, and the
various social institutions of the country
did little to relieve economic and social
discrimination against them. At the end
of the Mexican War there were
approximately 60,000 Mexicans in New
Mexico, 10,000 in California, 2,000 in
Arizona, and perhaps 4,000 in Texas. In
New Mexico, Mexican-Americans
remained the numerical majority until
about 1930 and during that time
participated to a degree in the state’s
political, social, and economic life. In
the other three areas - California,
Arizona, and Texas - the much smaller
Spanish-speaking populations were soon
overwhelmed by the Anglo majority.
During the second half of the 19th
century immigration from Mexico was
extremely small, especially in
comparison to the large number of
Europeans then arriving. Noticeable
immigration from Mexico to the United
States did not begin until after 1900,
and the movement became heavy pnly
after the outbreak of the 1910 Mexican
Revolution.
As the 19th century approached its
end, some Christian leaders began to
develop increasing awareness of the
need for social justice for their followers
and especially for the poor and
minorities among them. Their concern
was reflected in the initiation of the
Social Gospel movement, settlement
work, and similar activities; and in the
Catholic Church it was evidenced
especially in the 1891 encyclical of
Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum.
• .
This late 19th-century social concern
of the churches was most strongly
expressed in the industrial East and
Midwest, and largely centered on urban
immigrant minority groups. Mexicans,
unlike their European counterparts,
were not seen as an urban proletariat in
need of social justice because the
Southwest, to which they were largely
limited, was an area notable for its
relatively small settlements with great
distances between.
The physical reality of the
Southwest’s scattered and isolated
villages tended to obscure social needs
of Mexicans. It made social work among
them quite different from similar work
in large industrial centers and made such
work virtually impossible in terms of
late 19th-century social concern. Great
distances and small community size
made it difficult for American churches
to fulfill their primary objectives of
pastoral function in the Southwest; and
as long as these were not fully met,
secondary goals such as social welfare
were unlikely to receive consideration.
At the time of the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo there were only a
few clergy in the entire area of the
Southwest. The famed Archbishop Jean
Baptiste Lamy (of Willa Cather’s novel,
“Death Comes to the Archbishop”),
appointed as bishop of Santa Fe in
1851, was able to expand the number of
priests in his huge diocese by bringing in
missionaries from his native France; and
a handful of Protestant missionaries
labored in the area, especially in Texas.
However, most clergymen in the
Southwest were just about as poor
themselves as the Mexicans among
whom they worked; and Mexican social
amelioration, when it entered their
minds at all, was apt to be expected as a
natural byproduct of Americanization.
The Southwest, as a frontier area,
remained essentially a missionary
province with a relative shortage of
clergy, and many priests were deeply
concerned about the more relaxed Latin
attitudes of a folk Catholicism. One
missionary wrote about the offer of a
group of Mexican musicians to play (a
concert) at his church dedication, “I felt
too great a repugnance to allow people
who are so often the life of diabolical
gatherings tb take part in a religious
ceremony.”
While Catholic activities among
Mexican-Americans centered around
frontier missionary work, it also
included the usual charitable and
teaching activities of various religious
orders. In 1866 Bishop Lamy reported
that “almost all of our missionaries have
at least one school under their direction,
some have more ...” A decade before
the Civil War the Brothers of Mary
established in San Antonio, Tex., what
is today St. Mary’s University, with
classes taught both in Spanish and
English; and the Ursuline nuns opened
an academy for girls at the same time.
Subsequently, the Ursulines established
a number of other schools in Texas as
well as the first Catholic-operated
hospital in that state. The Ursuline nuns
also operated a free day school in San
Antonio, principally for poor Mexican
children. In New Mexico and Arizona
the Sisters of St. Joseph and the Sisters
of Loreto established a number of
schools and five small hospitals by the
1890s. The Christian Brothers began the
College of Las Vega, N.M., in 1888 on
land donated by one Felix Martinez;
and Bishop P. Bourgarde established an
orphanage near Tucson, Ariz., as did the
Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in Santa
Fe, N.M.
In the Southwest a major shift in
orientation from pastoral goals of a
mission Church to the expanded social
concerns of the modern Church began
to occur just after the turn of the
century. The first decades of the 20th
century saw the Catholic Church
establishing diocesan bureaus of charity
for social services as well as settlement
houses in the Southwest. These new
activities were, of course, largely limited
to the urban Church; the Church in
rural areas remained essentially pastoral
in its goals.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 9 - 9:00 p.m.
(CBS) - SUPER COPS - Based on the
exploits of a team of New York
detectives, known by their nicknames as
Batman and Robin, this is another
comic-book-style movie (1974) about
trigger-happy cops who are out to bust
the crime syndicate on their own. (B)
SUNDAY, JANUARY 11 - 7:00
p.m. (CBS) - TOM SAWYER -
Television premiere of the 1973 musical
based on Mark Twain’s tale of a boy
growing up on the Mississippi, this
Reader’s Digest production* will please-
older viewers with its nostalgia and
captivate the young who identify with
Johnny Whitaker’s Tom. It is grand
family entertainment but one wishes it
had retained some of the insightful wit
of the original. (A-II)
FRIDAY, JANUARY 16 - 8:00 p.m.
(ABC) - VOLCANO - The special
effects re-creation of the 1883
explosion of the volcanic island of
Krakatoa which killed 37.000 people
In 1905 the first Catholic settlement
houses began to appear in the Los
Angeles area, and a decade later Bishop
Anthony Schuler of El Paso, Tex., aided
by the Catholic Extension Society, was
organizing day nurseries, clinics, and
hospitals. By 1919 the U.S. Catholic
Bishop’s Program of Social
Reconstruction embodied many
advanced socio-economic ideas and led
to the founding of a Social Action
Department headed by Father John A.
Ryan in what has since become the U.S.
Catholic Conference. With this kind of
encouragement, the National Council of
Catholic Women established the San
Jose Clinic in Houston in 1924.
A survey made in Los Angeles in
1920 indicated heightened levels of
social concern for Mexican-Americans
by the churches. It showed that the area
had about seven Catholic social service
centers, approximately an equal number
of Protestant centers, as well as St.
Vincent De Paul Societies, a Good Will
Industries, a Clothing Bureau, and
several dispensaries and clinics. Social
Christianity had begun to reach the
Mexican-American.
(Meier is a history teacher at the University
of Santa Clara in California.)
overwhelms the movie’s cliche-studded
tale of nautical adventure. The small fry
will enjoy the action but not sit still for
the melodramatic dialogue and romantic
liaisons. (Originally called KRAKATQA,
EAST OF JAVA in its 1969 theatrical
release.) (A-II)
/ >
Radio Highlights
i
— SUNDAY, JANUARY 18
NBC Radio Network - GUIDELINE:
“Making Decisions” -- Third in a
four-part series of talks and interviews
with Mrs. Rosemary Haughton,
prominent British Catholic lecturer and
author. In * this presentation, Mrs.
Haughton will discuss the nature of
decision-making that requires not only
good intentions but a growing discovery
of man’s eternal destiny. (Please check
local listings for exact time.)
LEPER PRIEST PORTRAYED -- Father Damien de Veuster (top) the
famed priest of the Hawaiian leper colony at Molokai, and Father
Humberto Almazan, Mexican actor who became a priest in 1966. Father
Almazan portrays Father Damien in a filmed version of the 19th century
priest’s life soon to be released. The film is directed by Don Murray -- who
himself played a priest in the movie, “The Hoodlum Priest.” Father
Almazan has served as a priest at a leper colony in Indonesia. (NC Photos)
BOOK
REVIEWS
a
LIFE IN MUSIC
■>'* t
Fly Away
All of her days have gone soft and cloudy
All of her dreams have gone dry
All of her nights have gone sad and shady
She’s getting ready to fly.
Fly away, fly away, fly away.
Life in the city can make you crazy
The sounds of the sand and the sea
Life in the highrise can make you hungry
For things that you can’t even see.
Fly away, fly away, fly away.
In this whole world there’s nobody as lonely as she.
There’s nowhere to go and there’s nowhere that she’d rather be.
She’s looking for lovers and children playing
She’s looking for signs of the spring
She listens for laughter and sounds of dancing
She listens for any old thing.
Fly away, fly away, fly away.
Where are the days?
Where are the nights?
Where is the springtime?
I wanta fly.
(P) 1975 RCA Records
Written and Performed by: John Denver
If any of you had the opportunity to watch John Denver’s TV special “Rocky
Mountain Christmas” over the holidays, you received a beautiful Christmas gift.
Not only was the scenery terrific but the whole atmosphere of the program
seemed to embrace the real depth of this special season. One got the feeling that
there is definitely something more integral to life and the Christmas season than
the externals of Santa Claus, presents, and commercialism. The deeper realities
of family, friends, the beauty of nature, love and peace were delicately
portrayed. These came together to form a striking picture of the ultimate
expression - God and His Son. It is precisely these qualities which seem to be
the search and the core yearnings of the person in “Fly Away.”
John Denver writes and sings about the person who is bored with life,
searching, restless, and lonely. It is an individual who is unhappy with her days,
her nights, her life. Her dreams have “gone dry.” You can easily picture this
person sitting alone, or even standing with a group of people (perhaps at a
Christmas party) and feeling within herself that there “is nowhere to go and
nowhere she’d rather be.” If you were to ask her what is the matter, she could
not answer. If you were to question her as to what she would like to do, there
would be silence. For people who “have it together” in their lives, there will be
little understanding for this frustrated individual. For those who have had like
feelings and yearnings, the heart will bleed for the other’s anxiety and
unhappiness.
Today, many people could identify with the person in “Fly Away.” Whatever
the reason may be - false promises by advertisers about the “good life,” fear of
struggle and pain to find peace, too many options in life, the unwillingness to
cope with routine and boring tasks, expecting too much from life - it seems as
though the number of dissatisfied people is growing.
There are people who have this searching.feeling, who dislike anxiety, and •
who settle into a nice, comfortable mediocre life existence. They surround
themselves with enough securities and ease that the real “search for meaning” is
laid to rest. These people are threatened by those who challenged their comfort
and ridicule those who fail to conform. Another reaction to the discomfort of
searching for meaning is that of the “jet set.” Good time Charlies looks for the
party, the good time, the gusto experience, the peak human happening. Along
the trail of this approach will be a stream of broken relationships, broken
people, half fulfilled dreams, and often the frustration (and headache) of the
reality of the morning after.
Finally there is the person who feels the dissatisfaction of life, who realizes
that there is something deeper calling within, and begins a realistic search to find
what it is. He or she knows that the trail will be painful at times and that there
will be moments when “in the world, there’s nobody as lonely as she.”
Sometimes the search will be questioned, “is it really worth it” or “where is it
taking me?” One will have to be reconciled with the fact that there will always
be a creative tension between wanting to take the easy way out and that
approach to a situation which might involve sacrifice, but hopefully will lead to
a deeper existence. In this search, the individual gradually moves toward the
goal, sometimes falters, and struggles to find the strength and support to
continue.
But where? That is the grab. Is it the spirit of God calling us? Calling us
where? Where are the days? Where are the nights? Where is the springtime?
Grapple with the search. Wrestle with the questions. Don’t settle for less, for
mediocrity. Throughout, we put ourselves in God’s care, trusting in His love and
concern and risking that our search will not be in vain. Hopefully it will lead us
to fulfillment and peace.
A
TV Movies
USCC DIVISION FOR FILM AND BROADCASTING