Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—January 29,1976
POLISH CA THOLICS IN AMERICA
CALL FOR UNITY - Dean Francis B. Sayre Jr., of the Episcopal
National Cathedral, preaches from the pulpit of the National Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception in Washington. The dean called for union
between Episcopalians and Catholics, and suggested that intercommunion
is coming “sooner than people think.” Archbishop William W. Baum of
Washington also spoke at the special interfaith service. (NC Photo)
BOOK
REVIEWS
WHAT A MODERN CATHOLIC
BELIEVES ABOUT THE
COMMANDMENTS, by John Deedy.
Thomas More Press. Chicago. 95 pp.
$2.45.
WHAT A MODERN CATHOLIC
BELIEVES ABOUT MYSTICISM, by
Robert Nowell. Thomas More Press.
Chicago. 94 pp. $2.45.
WHAT A MODERN CATHOLIC
BELIEVES ABOUT SALVATION, by
Father Tad Guzie. Thomas More Press.
Chicago. 96 pp. $2.45.
REVIEWED BY RUSSELL SHAW
(NC News Service)
Fifteen or 20 years ago Doubleday
published a series of books with titles
that began “Catholic Viewpoint on . . .”
For the past several years the Thomas
More Press has been publishing a
comparable series with titles which
begin “What a Modern Catholic Believes
about...” It is, I suppose, a sign of
changing times that we have passed
from the magisterial self-confidence of
the “Catholic Viewpoint” to the
carefully qualified subjectivism of
“What a Modem Catholic Believes.”
Despite that difference, however,
there is also a fundamental sameness
between the two series. I did not read
all the “Catholic Viewpoint” books, but
those I did read were “preconciliar” and
poorly done. I have read only these
three “What a Modern Catholic
Believes” titled, but they are
“post-conciliar” and poorly done.
There is, heaven knows, need now -
as there was 20 years ago - for clear,
intelligent expositions of religious topics
written from a Catholic perspective for
a lay audience. Sad to say, of these
three volumes, two do not meet that
need and one meets it only imperfectly.
The most nearly successful of the
three is Nowell’s little book on
mysticism. Nowell, a British journalist,
writes clearly and with sympathy for his
subject. That is the positive side.
The negative side is that he is so
preoccupied with answering objections
to mysticism (isn’t it elitist? Isn’t it a
form of escapism?) that he never gets
around to a clear explanation of what it
is. Granted, there is a real sense in Which
it is strictly impossible to describe
mystical experience; but another recent
writer - Raymond Bailey in his study
“Thomas Merton on Mysticism” - does
a sufficiently good job that the
non-mystic reader comes away with the
feeling that he has some inkling,
however imperfect. Perhaps Nowell’s
book might best be read as a kind of
appendix to Bailey’s.
Father Guzie’s volume presents a
similar problem. That is, one finishes it
in considerable doubt as to what the
author understands by “salvation.”
Granted the pertinence of his
admonition against seeking “rules and
recipes for salvation,” it still does not
seem unreasonable to hope for more
clarity than is offered here.
Apparently “salvation” is intimately
bound up to “coming to terms with our
own inferiority,” and this, in Father
Guzie’s view, is to be accomplished
principally in the categories of Jungian
psychology. To be sure, we are
instructed not to conclude that author
equates psychological adjustment with
salvation; although at the same time he
admittedly treats them as “in practice
indistinguishable.” Possibly this will
make sense to someone disposed to
make sense of it. I can only confess that
I found it opaque.
Deedy, finally, offers personal
reflections on what the commandments
mean to him. He is earnest and well
intentioned, but his reflections are not
substantially more interesting than
those of most of the rest of us would
be. I have no doubt as to the desirability
of every person’s trying to say what the
commandments mean to him or her, but
in the absence of unusual insight, I tend
to question the utility of publishing
such exercises.
To repeat: there is a need for what
books (and series) like this are
attempting to accomplish. Precisely
because there is a need, the “Modern
Catholic” deserves better than these
three titles supply.
(Shaw is secretary for public affairs,
National Conference of Catholic Bishops and
United States Catholic Conference.)
Liberty And Justice For All:
American Catholics 1776-1976
BY ANTHONY J. KUZNIEWSKI, S. J.
(NC News Service)
“Between the Poles and the
Roman-Irish Church in America there
can be no more understanding than
between a lamb and a wolf. Sooner or
later we (Poles) will become the victims
of the crafty, greedy power ... of the
Church dignitaries.” With these words,
part of an appeal addressed to Polish
immigrants in May, 1904, Francis
Hodur of Scranton, Pa., attempted to
attract new members to the Polish
National Catholic Church which he had
organized in the United States. Having
reached a membership of at least 10,000
in its first seven years of existence, the
movement was already well established
as the one large schism to affect
immigrant Catholics in America.
Throughout the 1890s such
independent groups broke with local
bishops in Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo,
and Scranton. Hodur eventually united
them after receiving episcopal
consecration from bishops of the Old
Catholic Church in the Netherlands.
Even the leaders of the overwhelming
majority of Polish-Americans who
remained loyal to Rome admitted the
attractiveness of the independents’
arguments. “The schismatics have the
popular side of the affair,” members of
the Polish Catholic Congress meeting in
Buffalo in 1901 warned in a memorial
to the American hierarchy. “They have
so-called Polish bishops, whereas they
accuse the Polish Roman Catholic clergy
of treason to their nation when holding
allegiance to Irish and German bishops,
as they say.” For, despite the heavy
immigration from Catholic Poland
dating from the 1870s, the first bishop
of Polish descent in the United States
was not consecrated until 1908. By that
time, the issue had exasperated Polish
and non-Polish Catholics alike.
At least the controversy indicated
that the Poles were taking religion
seriously. Beginning with their first
settlements in Texas and Wisconsin in
the mid-1850s, the building of a church
had been a high priority. Later, as Polish
immigrants favored cities north of the
Ohio River and east of the Mississippi,
cross-topped spires marked their
districts. Parishes were often large: St.
Stanislaus Kostka congregation in
Chicago number 50,000 at the turn of
the century, and St. Stanislaus parish in
Buffalo included 30,000. Both were
larger than many dioceses. The church
structures, reflecting the ancient
understanding of reserving the best
things for God, sometimes became
monumental edifices.
The Poles, like others, faced a
shortage of priests when they began life
in America. Part of the need was met by
the Resurrectionist Fathers, who began
work in America in the 1860s. Under
the leadership of Father Vincent
Barzynski, Chicago became the
headquarters for their work among
Polish immigrants and for an apostolate
in the Southern states.
The suppression of Catholic
monasteries decreed in the Russian
section of Poland in 1864 led a number
of Franciscans to come to America.
Other victims of the suppression
immigrated as secular priests and
attached themselves to many dioceses
containing Poles.
Concern with community affairs led
several priests to the field of Catholic
journalism, among them Fathers Jan
Pitass of Buffalo, Boleslaus Goral of
Milwaukee, and Lucjan Bojnowski of
New Britain, Conn. Another priest,
Father Wenceslaus Kruszka of
Wisconsin, began publishing the first
substantial history of America’s Poles in
1905, a task carried forward today in
part by Father Joseph Swastek of
Orchard Lake, Mich.
The pioneers among the
Polish-American religious women were
the Felician Sisters, who came from
Cracow to Polonia, Wis., in 1874.
Limited by the poverty of the people
among whom they worked and beset by
two disastrous fires in the first year,
these hardy women persevered to
become a harbinger of future growth.
As the number of Polish Catholic
elementary and high schools grew to
over 600, several Polish orders of nuns
or orders with Polish-American
members provided generous service. In
addition, hospitals, orphanages and
retirement homes staffed by these and
other orders benefited the entire
community.
Among the first lay people
contributing to the quality of Polish life
in America were the parish organists,
who often conducted the first parish
school in addition to their liturgical
duties. Polish historians and journalists
served as recorders and guides to the
immigrants. Peter Kiolbasa of Chicago
and Michael Kruszka of Milwaukee
represented Polish and Catholic
viewpoints in the civil government well
before the turn of the century. Finally,
the Polish Roman Catholic Union, the
Polish National Alliance and other
organizations have aided cultural
activities and such educational
enterprises as St. Mary’s College in
Michigan and Pennsylvania’s Alliance
College, which is nonsectarian.
Despite the appearance of success,
the process of immigration brought
insecurity to many of these individuals
and groups. In Europe, Poles had
courageously defended their faith and
nationality during the century following
annexation into the Russian, German,
and Austrian Empires. In America they
wanted assurance that the Church
would continue to be their mother and
would allow them freer expression than
had been possible under difficult
conditions in the Old Country. But the
American hierarchy in those days was
struggling to defend the faith against
nativism and grappling with the issue of
unifying a suddenly diverse
membership. Thus the American
bishops appeared to some of the Poles
as unsympathetic. Misunderstandings
arose. Thousands eventually joined
independent churches, chiding the
Catholic Poles about the lack of a Polish
bishop in America.
Therefore, the effort to secure the
appointment of a Polish bishop became
crucial. A series of Polish Catholic
conventions appealed to the American
bishops. In 1903, a delegation
petitioned Pope Pius X personally in the
matter. In 1905, a papal representative
came to examine the condition of
America’s Poles. Three American
archbishops traveled to Rome in part to
request Polish auxiliaries. In 1907,
Archbishop James Quigley of Chicago
was successful, and he allowed the
Polish priests of his diocese to elect one
of their number as auxiliary. Their
choice, Bishop Paul Rhode, was later
THE ADVENTURES OF THE
WILDERNESS FAMILY is the story of
a Los Angeles family -- father, mother
and two young children - who, fed up
with air pollution, traffic jams, and the
multitude of other evils that plague
urban living, leave it all behind and set
up housekeeping in a remote section of
the Rocky Mountains. What follows is
predictable enough, but it is done with a
disarming combination of artlessness
and professional competence. Dad, a
welder back in Los Angeles (fortunately
not an account executive or a movie
critic) had no trouble felling trees and
putting up a splendid log cabin in short
order (never mind where the nice glass
windows came from), aided by Mom
and the two kids, who take to the
wilderness with zest. Most of the film is
devoted to encounters with the local
animals, friendly or otherwise. The
family adopts two standard-model
lovable orphaned bear cubs, a racoon,
and a huge black bear, and then
everybody puts in his or her fair share
of running from such assorted beasts as
an enraged momma cougar, a pack of
wolves, and a fearsome, mysanthropic
grizzly bear. In fact so skillfully done
are the animal scenes that whatever
reservations one might have about the
dramatic range of the actors, one cannot
help but whole-heartedly admire their
courage - especially the scenes with the
friendly black bear, who, one trusts, had
not read the script.
Robert F. Logan and Susan Damante
Shaw make a handsome couple, and
Hollye Holmes and Ham Larsen are
charming as the children. The lovely
Rocky Mountain scenery is beautifully
photographed. This is an excellent
movie for a family with young children,
and even though its lack of
sophistication and, to a lesser extent,
credibility might make it considerably
less attractive to adults and older
teenagers, it could provide even these
with a refreshing two hours of vicarious
escape from urban life, something not
easily come by these days. One word of
caution: very small children might find
named bishop of Green Bay, Wise.,
where he remained until his death in
1945.
Bishop Rhode was followed by about
15 additional episcopal appointments
from the Polish ethnic community,
mostly in the Midwest. In recent times,
the appointment of John Krol as
archbishop of Philadelphia, his
prominent role at the Second Vatican
Council, and his elevation to a
icardinalate has been a source of pride to
many Americans of Polish descent.
(Kuzniewski, a Jesuit scholastic, teaches
history at Holy Cross College, Worcester,
Mass.)
some of the chase sequences a bit scary
to handle on their own even though
everything comes out just fine. (A-I)
FRIDAY FOSTER (AIP) A
sex-and-violence black exploitation
movie based on a comic strip, and as
usual with the translation from a print
medium, much of the subtlety and
depth of the original has been lost in the
process. (B)
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
GRIZZLY ADAMS (Sun) uses the plot
device of having a man flee into the
wilderness (a remote section of the
Rockies) to escape punishment for a
crime that he did not commit to work
in a wealth of beautiful scenery and
shots of adorable animals at play. Good
family entertainment, if your family is
not too critical. (A-I)
THE STORY OF ADELE H. (New
World) The lady of the title is the
daughter of Victor Hugo, who devoted
her life to an obsession - unrequited
love for a worthless English officer. An
excellent film (in French with English
subtitles) that touches on the
relationship between madness and
artistic creativity. (A-III)
f TV Movies j
FRIDAY, JANUARY 30 - 9:00 p.m.
(ABC) - DELIVERANCE (1972) -
Four city men (played by Burt
Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty and
Ronny Cox) decide to spend a weekend
traversing a hazardous river in a pair of
canoes, in this adaptation of the James
Dickey novel. A film for the mature
(one of the plot elements is a
homo-sexual assault), DELIVERANCE
is an absorbing adventure piece despite a
liberal dose of pretentiousness. (A-IV)
9:00 p.m. (CBS) - BOB & CAROL &
TED & ALICE (1969) - A comic
exploration of sexual mores in Southern
California, which, despite some evidence
of serious intent, cannot quite neglect
the opportunity for titillation that the
theme offers. (B)
/ ; — ; \
Film Classifications
A - Section I - Morally Unobjectionable for General Patronage
A - Section II - Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Adolescents
A - Section III - Morally Unobjectionable for Adults
A - Section IV — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Reservations
B - Morally Objectionable in Part for All
C - Condemned
USCC DIVISION FOR FILM AND BROADCASTING
LIFE IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
Love Hurts
Love hurts, love scars, love wounds,
It mars any heart locked up or strong enough
To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain.
Love is like a flood of light rain.
Love hurts, love hurts.
I’m young, I know, but even so
I know a thing or two I learned from you.
I really learned a lot, really learned a lot.
Love is like a flame, it burns you when it’s hot.
Love hurts, love hurts.
Some fools think of happiness, blissfulness, togetherness.
Some fools fool themselves, I guess,
They’re not fooling me.
I know it isn’t true, I know it isn’t true,
Love is just a lie, made to make you blue,
Love hurts, love hurts, love hurts,
Love hurts, love hurts.
by Boudleaux Bryant
House of Bryant Publications (BMI)
optimistic about the loves of our lives without losing reality. People in love must
accept the other person’s faults as well as his endearing qualities. Without this
acceptance, love cannot grow. To see only the good things about another is
actually making someone an idol. And when the idol’s faults suddenly loom on
the horizon (and they will), the idol topples tragically. Recognizing and
accepting faults of one you love is a necessary part of mature love.
Yet even when differences are recognized and accepted, love can cause pain.
Love can cause pain because people in love are capable of making mistakes.
There is always the possibility that one can turn on the other, betray or reject
the other. Yes, every love is a risk because it involves entrusting a part of one’s
life into the care of another.
That is why it is so crucial for people in love to take their time. Love is not
the all-at-once intense relationship the radio would have you believe. Love needs
time and space to be considered from many more angles than just the feeling
level. People thinking of marriage especially need time to consider both sides of
the traditional marriage vows, the better and the worse, the richer and the
poorer, the sickness and the good health.
But not even the best preparation can eliminate pain from love. People just
have a way of getting under each other’s skin. The important question here is,
“What do I do with the hurts and disappointments and frustrations we all know
in love? Do I blow the little ones off as insignificant, try to work them out, ask
forgiveness when I am at fault? Or do I let them build up, hold grudges and let
little issues turn into big ones?
Boudleaux Bryant sings a different kind of love song — “Love is just a lie
made to make you blue. Love hurts.” You can almost feel the singer’s anguish.
It’s the anguish of someone who has been wounded by the one he loves —
someone who has fought back by becoming cynical.
This song gives the impression that the singer didn’t expect the possibility of
pain ever being present in his love relationship. Such an attitude is not
uncommon. All too many people do not understand that every love relationship
is made up of good and bad. There is no such thing on earth as Utopia. Being in
love with someone does not promise uninterrupted happiness. And if this is what
we expect, when rough times come (and they are bound to), we cannot cope.
These experiences will be unspeakably bad, so bad that we cannot see beyond
them. *
Real love is not blind. But people are often blind to reality. We can still be
“What about the big hurts, the times when love seems to leave me
empty-handed, when people trample on my dreams and make me feel that it’s
not worth trying any more? Do 1 feel sorry for myself and turn bitter against
love and life? Or can I pick myself up and know that I am still a worthwhile
person capable of love and being loved?” Love proves its strength under pressure
despite pain.
“Love is like a flame, it bums you when it’s hot. Love hurts.” That’s one way
of looking at it. But a flame can also light up one’s life and one’s world. It can
warm and comfort, dispel fear and bring cheer. It all depends on how you tend
the flame and how you care for love.
(All correspondence should be directed to: The Dameans, P. O. Box 2108, Baton Rouge,
La. 70821 .)