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THE DEVELOPMENT OF CATHOLIC LAY ORGANIZATIONS
Liberty And Justice For Alls
American Catholics 1776-1976
PAGE 6-May 27,1976 s
BICENTENNIAL SMILE - Ronnie Meffert, first grader at St. Columba
School in Louisville, Ky., grins as he joins hands with classmated for songs
during a bicentennial presentation for his school. (NC Photo by Joe
Duerr)
DEATH AND BEYOND, by Father
Andrew Greeley. The Thomas More
Press. Chicago. 144 pages. $7.95.
REVIEWED BY ROBERT NOWELL
(NC News Service)
It is tempting to apply to this work
the delightful Freudian malapropism to
be found on page 114 and call it a
“work of superarrogation.” Some
people no doubt find Father Greeley
irritating. If an optimist is defined as
one who sees a half-empty bottle as
half-full, Father Greeley is one who sees
it as at least five-eights full. And this
kind of optimism can grate.
But any potential readers who react
like that should make an exception at
least for this book. It adds up to a
refreshingly joyful celebration of faith
in the Resurrection, of the Christian
belief that life is what it is all about and
that not even death can put a stop to it.
Father Greeley’s aim is to persuade
his readers that faith in the
Resurrection, though it is not something
that can be proved, is immensely
worthwhile. In this way it is a work of
what used to be called apologetics,
though that category of Christian
writing has become sorely debased of
latter years.
But whom is Father Greeley trying to
convert? The. answer seems to be urban
intellectual man. Given this audience,
much of the effort has to go into
persuading the reader not just to follow
his instincts, which cry out that there
must be more to life than death, but
that it can be intellectually respectable
to do so.
Father Greeley starts with the
experience of spring as a key example of
the kind of experience that bring us up
against the realization that there is
something more to life. But it is a very
strange experience of spring. It is
mediated through Stravinsky, T.S. Eliot
and Gerard Manley Hopkins. His readers
are clearly assumed to have little
contact with the soil.
It is odd, too, that among the
experiences that can make us aware of
the possibility of something more, and
alongside the violent rebirth of spring
(in North America or Russia, that is -
the European spring is gentler), he does
not seem to mention the experience of
childbirth itself.
Two chapters of this are followed by
four chapters presenting the sociological
data. I do not think it would be unkind
to suggest that the underlying argument
here is that one can believe and still
remain a fully paid up member of the
Western scientific intelligentsia.
In the absence of this possibly willful
interpretation it could be difficult to
accountfor a demonstration of the
extent to which belief in an after-life
has been normal in human society and
the extent to which it persists in
Western society, apparently unaffected
by secularization.
Here one could wish for more weight
to be given to the pull of skepticism.
Even though within a universal content
atheism is the aberration that has to be
explained, still Father Greeley could
dampen his optimism to allow doubt
more attraction.
And when he suggests that the
findings of parapsychology and related
studies point toward something other,
one could wish for a more skeptical
attitude on his part.
The most interesting chapter here is
where Father Greeley presents the
findings of research he and McCready
have conducted into the remarkably
high occurrence of mystical experiences
among citizens of the United States. For
those tempted to put too high a value
on the Church as institution, there is a
very sobering remark made by one
person about his particular mystical
experience: “I knew it had to do with
God and religion; but I didn’t think it
had anything to do with the Church.”
Finally Father Greeley draws the
threads together. He drives home the
always needed lesson that Christianity is
very much about this world, while at
the same time transcending this world.
It is both this-worldly and
other-worldly, and if you try to make it
purely one or the other you distort and
ultimately destroy it.
Yet again his optimism can intrude.
He plays down the extent to which
protest at the sheer indignity of death is
and remains also part of the total
Christian attitude. If, in his language,
one buys the “O felix culpa” of the
Easter Exsultet, then one needs to give
equal weight both to the “happy” and
to the “fault,” both to the “necessary”
and to the “sin.” A Christian can rage
along with Dylan Thomas at the dying
of the light while joining with St.
Francis of Assisi in praising God for our
sister death.
(Nowell is London correspondent of NC
News Service. He is the author of “What a
Modern Catholic Believes About Death” and
“What a Modern Catholic Believes About
Mysticism,” 1972 and 1975 Thomas More
Press. Chicago.)
BY SISTER M. ADELE
FRANCIS GORMAN, O.S.F.
(NC News Serivce)
Lay activity in the Catholic Church
has come almost full circle from the lay
trustees of the early 19th century to the
contemporary parish council. In
between, lay participation in the Church
was mainly through societies, sodalities
and other pious groups, unions,
congresses and the great American
Federation of Catholic Societies.
One of the earliest societies was the
St. Patrick’s Funeral Benefit Society,
imported from Ireland in 1836, and
incorporated in New York as the
Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Concurrently, the German mutual
benefit societies were forming because,
like the Irish, German immigrants had
no funds to help in time of illness or for
funeral expenses. In 1855 about a third
of the German societies formed the
German Roman Catholic Central
Society, known as the Centralve rein.
During the 19th century Catholics
were subjected to persecutions, first by
the American Protestant Society, then
by the Supreme Order of the Star
Spangled Banner (Know-Nothings), and
finally by the American Protective
Association (APA). Often Catholics
refused to identify themselves as such
for fear that they might be revealing
their religion to the enemy. Relief came
only with the Civil War when all had to
unite in a common cause. But after the
Reconstruction, the APA started.
Shortly after the war, Catholics
became aware that there is strength in
unity and that something larger than the
society was needed.
A New York lawyer, Richard Clarke,
and others wrote a constitution for a
union to be comprised of societies and
of individuals. Although Clarke wrote to
every bishop in the United States asking
that circles of unions be formed, only
Buffalo, Boston and New Jersey created
unions. Until 1878 news items about
union activities appeared frequently,
but after that little was heard on the
topic.
Even as the union movement died
out, a new thrust in lay activity through
organizations took shape. As early as
1868 a writer in the Catholic World
pointed out the need for Catholics to
assemble to discuss their problems. But
no assembly took place until 1889 when
William J. Onahan, Chicago layman, and
Henry Brownson, son of the
convert-publicist Orestes Brownson,
asked Cardinal James Gibbons of
Baltimore for permission to call a
Catholic congress that was to bring
together prominent laymen and clergy
as well representatives of the Catholic
societies.
Although Cardinal Gibbons had some
misgivings about allowing a large
assembly of Catholics when the APA
was gathering strength, he was finally
persuaded by his friend Archbishop
John Ireland of St. Paul and other
bishops to give his permission. So
successful was the first congress that
participants created a Committee for a
Permanent Congress which was to meet
regularly. However, only one more
congress was held. It brought together
for the first time a number of Catholic
societies in Chicago in 1893 at the time
of the Columbian Exposition
commemorating the fourth centenary of
the discovery of America by
Columbus. For many reasons the second
congress was not so successful as its
predecessor.
Even while the congresses were being
planned, a new type of lay leadership
through organizations was germinating.
The Pittsburgh Catholic announced on
Feb. 1, 1890, that most of the societies
in the diocese were taking steps to form
a federation, noting that Pope Leo XIII
had urged Catholics to unite in an
encyclical on the duties of Christians as,
citizens.
Winning episcopal approval, gaining
the confidence of societies, especially
the ethnic groups, writing an acceptable
constitution and many other matters
delayed federation for a decade.
However, on Dec. 10, 1901, the first
national convention of the American
Federation of Catholic Societies (AFCS)
met in Cincinnati, elected officers,
approved a constitution and made plans
for annual meetings. A giant
organization whose members were
societies, the AFCS did meet annually
except in 1905. Through member
societies, the AFCS claimed about 3
million members by 1913 and took
credit for a number of achievements.
Alone, or with assistance, the AFCS
announced that it had aided the
Catholic Press Association to become
viable after a number of false starts. It
began what appears to have been the
first organized effort to raise moral
standards for plays, silent movies and
postcards. It fostered the study of the
encyclicals, promoted Catholic
education, formed a Social Service
Commission to encourage the spread of
Christian justice, and attacked the
enemies of the Church it assisted in the
formation of a rural life organization,
the Catholic Drama Society, the
Extension Society, Catholic youth
organizations and other associations
that still exist.
Because of internal dissension and the
formation of the National Catholic War
Council during World War I, the AFCS
gradually faded out after 1917. When
the bishops formed the National
Catholic Welfare Council (later
Conference) on the foundation of the
War Council, the National Councils of
Catholic Men and Women directed
organized lay activity within the NCWC.
Other lay organizations already
operative, like the Knights of Columbus,
and beneficial societies, like the
Catholic Knights of America, remained
strong, and new ones like the Catholic
Youth Organization and the Serra Club
rose as needed.
Since Vatican Council II, lay activity
in the Church in the United States has
expanded both through organizations
and by individuals.
THURSDAY, JUNE 3 - 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) - GERONIMO (1962) - Routine
western, with the great Apache chief
played by Chuck Connors of all people.
(A-III)
FRIDAY, JUNE 4-9:00 n.m. (CBS)
THE CULPEPPER CATTLE
COMPANY (1972) - A fairly effective
Western about a young man’s initiation
into the life of a cowboy. (A-III)
9:00 p.m. (ABC) - GAILY, GAILY
BABY BLUE MARINE (Columbia) is
a sentimental, nostalgic movie about a
young marine (Jan-Michael Vincent)
who washes out of basic training in
1943. There are some good moments in
it, and Vincent and young Glynnis
O’Connor head a uniformly good cast.
A-II (PG)
GOODBYE, NORMA JEAN
(Austamerican) is a dreadful little
movie, a cheap exploitation of the tragic
life of Marilyn Monroe. B (R)
TRACKDOWN (United Artists) is
another film in the vicious DEATH
WISH tradition, with distinctly racist
overtones. A rancher from Montana
comes to the corrupt big city and
wreaks havoc among those who
brutalized his young runaway sister --
the brutalization is dwelt upon with
sickening detail. Makes the recent
The fears of lay control of the
Church, so strong as a result of the
activities of the earlier lay trustees, have
been put to rest, and strength has been
found in the parish councils as well as in
organizations. Consequently, lay
activity in the Church has come full
circle but to a richer participation of the
laity in the life of the Church.
(Sister Gorman teaches at Our Lady of the
Angles College, Aston, Pa.)
(1969) - A simple rural youth comes to
bustling, corrupt Chicago in 1910. A
satire and human interest drama that
does not quite come off. (A-III)
SATURDAY, JUNE 5 - 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) - THE NELSON AFFAIR
(1973) -- A literate if somewhat bland
treatment of the stormy love affair of
Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, with a
script by Terrence Rattigan. The cast,
headed by Glenda Jackson and Peter
Finch, is superb. (A-III)
LIPSTICK look innocent by
comparison. C (R)
ILSA, HAREM KEEPER OF THE
OIL SHEIKS (Cambist) is an
exploitation film whose extraordinary
grossness is mitigated only by the
ludicrous amateur-night tone to the
whole proceedings. C (R)
MERRY GO ROUND (New Line) is a
tedious, offensive, atrociously dubbed
remake of the old chestnut about a
series of sexual relationships coming full
circle. It stars Senta Berger and Helmut
Berger and smells none the sweeter for
the absence of Lym Berger. C (R)
RECENT FILM CLASSIFICATIONS
Goodbye, Norma Jean
(Austamerican)- B (R)
That’s Entertainment, Part 2 (United
Artists) - A-I (G)
Trackdown (United Artists) - C (R)
ia
fu
If*
LIFE IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
Welcome Back
Welcome back, your dreams were your ticket out
Welcome back, to that same old place
That you laughed about.
Well the names have all changed
Since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained
And they’ve turned around.
Who’d have thought they’d lead you
Back here where we need you.
Yeah, we tease him a lot
Because we’ve got him on the spot.
Welcome back.
Welcome back, we always could spot a friend.
Welcome back, and I smile when I think
How it must have been.
And I know what a scene you were learning in,
Was there something that made you come back again?
What could ever lead you,
Back here where we need you?
We tease him a lot,
Because we’ve got him on the spot.
Welcome back.
Written and sung by John Sebastian
(c) John Sebastian Music, BMI
What song was playing the night you first met him or her? Why does one
particular piece of music always make you feel sad? Who do you think of when
you hear an old favorite?
The answers to all of those questions lets us know that music can often call to
mind past experiences and people. Music can help us feel again what we felt
then, it’s the power of association. That idea led many TV executive to
capitalize on their TV theme songs by introducing them into the pop music
market. When we hear the song, we think of the program and are more inclined
to watch it. And when we hear the song, we recognize it from the TV series and
are disposed to buy it. Everybody wins, as we see from several recent TV theme
hits, e.g., “Chico and the Man,” “Rockford Files,” “Baretta’s Theme,” and the
latest entry, “Welcome Back.”
There are several things about “Welcome Back” that make it more interesting
than some other TV theme songs. For instance, the TV series and the song
explain each other, so that when we put them together, we understand the
whole picture. And what the song describes is basically true.
The TV program is about a man named Kotter who grew up in the slums of
Brooklyn and longed to break away. His “dreams were the ticket out.” Once he
was out, he found a good life in another world but thought of those kids in
“that same old place that he laughed about.” The freedom he had come to know
led him “back to that same old place,” to teach kids how to find themselves and
discover their own freedom.
The TV story-line is built upon the real life experience of the actor-comedian,
Gabriel Kaplan, who plays Kotter. Kaplan grew up in that environment and
broke away to find himself as a comedian. He also found that his greatest
comedy material came from his struggles as a slum kid. It was that which led him
to the idea for “Welcome Back, Kotter.”
There are lots of things to be learned from this. For one thing, our own
experiences can sometimes give us our greatest tool for understanding the plight
of others and make it easy to “spot a friend.”
We also learn that our struggle to freedom is not just something that happens
for our own good, but something that should “lead you, back here where we
need you.” In other words, any freedom we have acquired should drive us to
share it by helping others find their freedom. When we are willing to approach
others with understanding, to help them discover their own freedom, then we
are “welcome.”
(All correspondence should be directed to: The Dameans; P. O. Box 2108; Baton Rouge,
La. 70821.)
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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
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