Newspaper Page Text
GEORGIA PINES
The Masters’ And Me!
GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY APRIL 18, 1963 PAGE
Saints in Black and White 1 ITS UNFAIR
ST. STEPHEN 2 4
BY REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN
For the Weekend golfer the Masters at Augusta,
Georgia represents the most in inspiration and
adulation. There is hardly a duffer who does
not return to his home town feeling certain that
he has at last found the answer to why he hooks
or slices, or why he has not been able to use
his nine iron correctly.
Then too, around the club house the duffer
brags as to how he was only three feet away
from Nicklaus when he sunk that 2 under or
how Tony Limas smiled at him when he realized
that he was only one under.
Yes, the Masters is quite
a tournament and after hav
ing seen at least a part of it,
H I have come to the conclusion
“ that were I to be called on by
the Lord I would just as soon
have it be on the beautiful
fairways of the Augusta Nat
ional for there certainly would
not be an absence of priests.
There is a story abroad that one Bishop who
was known to be quite good with golf sticks him
self was asked by some newsmen what he thought
of priests playing golf. The Bishop, answering
with a smile, said: Any priest hitting above 90
is neglecting his golf; and any priest hitting
below ninety is neglecting his priesthood. I
guess that golf has been a favorite pastime for
priests in Georgia for quite a number of years.
I RECALL, as a young priest, hearing how
the older priests could have joined the pro
circuit and taught the professionals a few things.
Of course, I always thought that as the years
multiplied the scores proportionally got small
er. However, before the east-west connector of
the expressway cut through Key golfcourse, some
old timers told me that the priests from the "I.
C.” used to burn up the fairways over there.
Golfing has really changed though in the past
few years. As a youngster we all made movie-
money by caddying and shacking balls. Now in
the age of golf carts and electric carts, the age
of the caddy is almost gone. This was when it
was looked upon as a rich man's game, now
almost everyone plays.
A minister told me the other day about the
preacher who played one Sunday morning by
himself. The Lord wishing to punish him let
him make a hole-in-one. Then the preacher
was too embarrassed to tell anyone that he had
been out on the course on a Sunday morning
and he went to his grave, himself only knowing
the secret.
PROBABLY the best known among priest golf
ers of recent date was the late Monsignor
Grady who served as pastor of Atlanta’s Im
maculate Conception Church for five years prior
to his death. The Monsignor was known to love
the game and indeed donated a trophy at the
Augusta municipal course to encourage young
golfers. Returning to Augusta for a wedding,
he decided to play nine holes with some friends
before going back to Atlanta. It was on number
6 that he suffered a fatal heart attack and death
claimed him at the age of 44, eight years ago
this month.
Father James Boyce, the first Chancellor of
the Diocese of Atlanta and prior to his death,
pastor of Athen's Saint Joseph’s Church is re
membered by his fellow priests every year with
a Tournament held in his honor.
Of course, there are many more whose names
are held in reverence and whose scores are
legend: Father Harold Barr, Father Schonhardt,
Father James Conlin. All found the game enjoy
able, entertaining and filled with good fellowship.
To write about the living might be akin to
posting a list of handicaps. Myself, however, I
guess I will just continue to view the Masters in
amazement and return home to my usual 60.
(That is for 9 holes, of course.)
Superintendent Scores
Elementary School Critics
ACROSS
1. .. assissted at his
martyrdom
5. Bluecoat’s territory
9. Speed
13. Make eyes at
14. Commanded
15. ... martyr
17. Old-maid’s year
18. Kind
20. Fruits
22. Part of a chair
25. Alcott character
26. Equine female
27. Recording Secretary
28. Eggs
29. Kind of Tree
30. Explosive
31. Compass point
32. European subway
34. Black fin fish
35. Wharf
39. His position in the
Church
41. Type of bean
42. Wicked
44. Script
48. Military expedition
51. Consume
52. Senile
53. Ensnare
55. Support
56. Medicine
59. Completed
60. Doctor
61. Craft
62. Clamor
63. Speak gently
64. Exclamation
66. Dionysos; abbr.
68. Extensions
69. Defeat
71. Apparatus for
Transmitting sound
waves
73. Remain
75. Lamb’s pen name
76. Greek musical term
78. Instant
80. Snood (var.)
81. Bird; Extinct
82. Early Roman statesman
83. ”... teeth . . . eyes,
• • ■ everything”
, „ DOWN
1. Pertaining to the sun
2. Enclosed fields
3. Descendant of Gileatf
4. Disease of the 10 in
the gospel
5. Kind of gun
6. Orient
7. Fuss
8. White ants
9. Rdio frequency
10. Assist
11. Streetcar
12. Property
16. Sea birds
19. Patio
21. Bristle
23. Vigil
24. South America
29. Nourished
33. Large body of water
34. Snow (Scot.)
35. Sine ... non
36. Vase
37. Girl’s name
38. One of the 5 senses
40. Ontario
42. Prohibit
43. Full skirted dress
45. The Kig in France
46. Lincoln’s home state
47. Long poem
49. Apis
50. Abnormal delight In
, inflicting pain
54. Quill
55. He was not afraid
to . . his faith
56. Fathers
57. Winter Constellation
58. He was ...
60. Put on
63. Company
64. Suffix use to form
nouns
65. Leaders
' mp °f tant organization
69. Growth
70. Arm bone
82. ... China
74. Collection of
anecdotes
77. Thus
79. Toward*
ANSWER TO LAST WEEKS PUZZLE PAGE 7
ST. LOUIS-NC—An Illinois
school superintendent yester
day said here there has been
too much unfair criticism of
Catholic elementary schools
and not enough recognition that
they have done their job
“supremely well.’’
Father John J. Sweeney, Pe
oria diocesan school head,
charged that the only voices
heard recently from Catholic
education have been Catholic
college educators critical of
alleged failures in the Church’
educational system.
“I REFUSE to accept the
blame any longer at the elemen
tary level for the problems of
the Catholic colleges and uni-
verties,” he told a session of
the National Catholic Educat
ional Association's 60th anni
versary convention.
“And I wish,” he added, “that
the critics of Catholic education
within our ranks would properly
identify the area of the problem
at its proper level.
“Why should we in Catholic
elementary education be blam
ed for the inadequacies of the
Catholic colleges and univer
sities, when we have done our
job supremely well?” he asked.
HE SAID Catholic college ed
ucators have been complaining
QUESTION ROY
Free To Marry?
ARNOLD HEWING
Calvinistic ‘Billy Budd’
BY MONSIGNOR J. D. CONWAY
Q. LAST WEEK I RECEIVED BY MAIL ONE
OF THOSE CHAIN-LETTER PRAYERS. I AN
SWERED IT, MADE COPIES OF IT, AND MAIL
ED THEM. TODAY OUR PASTOR SPOKE FROM
THE PULPIT ABOUT SUCH LETTERS. HE SAID
IT WAS VERY STUPID TO PAY ATTENTION
TO THESE LETTERS; AND THAT IT MAY BE
A SIN TO MAKE COPIES AND SEND THEM ON.
I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR WHAT YOU THINK
ABOUT THIS. I DON'T BELIEVE IN THESE
LETTERS MYSELF, BUT I WANT TO KNOW IF
I COMMITTED A SIN.
A. Your pastor chose an exact word in calling
these chain-letter prayers stupid. He might have
added silly, simple, and superstitious. You were
guilty of no sin this time because your stupidity
was genuine: you did it in good faith. Another
time you can hardly have the same excuse. Even
then I doubt that the sin would be serious. Silly
sins seldom are.
* * *
Q. IF A BAPTIZED PROTESTANT MARRIED
A NON-BAPTIZED PERSON, AND THEN THIS
PERSON IS BAPTIZED AFTER THE MARRI
AGE; AND THEN LATER THEY GET A DI
VORCE, CAN ONE OF THEM BECOME A CA
THOLIC AND BE FREE TO MARRY AGAIN
IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH?
A. My incompetent answer would be NO.
Reason for my incompetence: lack of complete
information about all phases of the case. You
should talk to a local priest.
* * *
Freedom To Speak
Continued From Page 4
If a love of the Church de
mands that we speak up about
what we see in a given situat
ion, how much more must our
love of the Church, and above
all our love of our brother, make
us listen. This love will drive
us first of all to be silent, - lest
we slip into Anglo Saxon vigor
and say, Shut up, and pay attent
ion to our brother when he speaks,
precisely because he is our brot
her, and because his love of the
Church is the same as our love
of the Church. To listen, to
attend, to be open to what is
being said; this is the elemental
service of love that we owe as
a duty, which should become a
joy, as our love grows.
But there is a third love
which impels us to listen, and
that is the love of the truth.
Reverence for truth, the truth
that sets us free, should be a
great motive for our listening.
Who would dare to say that he
has an absolute grasp of the
reality ^ i n any sphere of the
Church’s life? Who would be
as bold as to assert that he
has^nothing more to learn about
this marvelous family into
which Christ has called us? Who
would have the arrogance to si
lence the voice of the Spirit,
or to command the Spirit in
His choice of instruments?
We would like to suggest a
principle, and that is that the
wider the gap between the speak
er and the listener, the greater
the rsponsibility of the listener
to pay careful attention, especia
lly when it is a case of a super
ior listening to a subordinate.
Where there is an equality
of position one naturally reco
gnizes the right and the prop
riety of the speaker to express
his thoughts; but where posit
ions are widely separated, where
one carries the authority of his
own which exceeds that of the
speaker, only a supernatural
charity will lead a superior to
show this reveranee to one who
is only accidentally a subordi
nate, but who is at the same
time essentially a brother. Was
it not at the Last Supper, after
washing the feet of His Apostles,
that Jesus said, “The Son of
Man has come, not to be waited
upon, but to serve.”
The only source of freedom
of discussion within the Church
is a love of the Church; a love
which will embolden a faithful
son to speak hi? mind in charity
and in the bond of unity; a love
which will enable another faith
ful son to listen in charity and
in the bond of peace. Let us all
work to hasten the day when such
a charity is rampant within the
Church and the glorious freedom
of the sons of God will become
manifest in our separated bro
thers, and they will thus be ur
ged to seek a greater unity with
us.
(Extract from a recent address by
Gerard E. Sherry to the Arizona
Convention of the Newman Fede
ration at Las Vegas, Nevada)
BY JAMES W. ARNOLD
Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd,’’ which might
be described as a Calvinist theologian's “Mutiny
on the Bounty,” has never been a wild audience-
pleaser. For one reason, it has the unhappiest end
ing imaginable, a Calvary without a Redemption
or Resurrection. There are no ladies in the
cast, which puts a crimp in the advertising
campaign; often also its symbols seem more
important than its people.
First a short novel, published 35 years after
Melville’s death and nearly 75 years after “Moby
Dick,” then an opera and a Broadway play,
"Billy Budd" has finally be
come a movie under the guid
ing genius of Peter Ustinov,
the round, bearded Britisher
most Americans will identify
as either the decadent Nero
of "Quo Vadis” or the gentle
wit of television’s Tonight
show.
Tliis is Ustinov’s picture.
He produced and directed,
shared the screenplay, and acts the most cruci
al of the three major roles. The film is a good
one, but Ustinov-as-writer, haunted somewhat
by Melville’s ghost, prevents the other three
Ustinovs from scoring a major success.
What “Billy Budd” means has always been
more important than what actually happens: an
innocent young sailor, impressed into duty aboard
a British warship in 1797, strikes and accident
ally kills a cruel Master at Arms. The authorit
ies are sympathetic but hang him anyway, fore
going justice to invoke the letter of the law
because they are convinced it is their military
duty.
Melville deliberately made this judgement as
outrageous as possible: the best imaginable man
was to be executed unjustly for having destroyed
a monster. Vere, the intellectual captain who
forces his reluctant officers to this decision,
seems a decent fellow, but he readily stifles
both human feeling and moral scruple in favor
of military law: "For that law and the rigor of
it we are not responsible...however pitilessly
that law may operate, we nevertheless adhere to
it and administer it.”
SO SOON after Nuremberg, when the inevitable
defense was that the accused had, with varying
degrees of regret, only carried out the law, it is
not hard to catch Melville’s point: in war, there
is no limit to the horrors even honest men will
perpetrate in the name of duty.
Expediency is also vital to the captain’s moti
vation: if he does not hang Billy, the crew will
think the officers weak and afraid of their men.
The common sailors (Vere thinks like a tradit
ional aristocrat) are not capable of understanding
Billy’s innocence. They will see only that a sea
man has killed a hated superior and gotten
away with it.
Vere’s character is the source of filmmaker
Ustinov’s difficulty: in expanding the story to a
two-hour film, he has added so much warmth
and intelligence to the man, both as writer and
actor, that the captain’s final judgement is not
only outrageous but incredible. Ustinov’s Vere
seems exactly the sort of man who would recog
nize of dilemma - justice vs. the good of society-
as a phoney one. Injustice, seen in perspective,
cannot have social value. What's more, the movie
Vere rejects the pragmatic argument, that acquit
tal might cause mutiny, and bases his case solely
on the law. It’s a complete reversal of good sense.
What is arbitrary but at least true to character
in Melville becomes, in the film, only arbitrary.
THE AUDIENCE, stunned and irritated, may
also be annoyed by the ending. Billy is hanged
only moments before an enemy ship opens fire
and everyone leaps to battle stations. One feels
that if the chaps had only used better timing, as
they do in American westerns, Billy could have
been saved, helped win the battle, and shaken
hands all around.
As hero, handsome blond Billy (British new
comer Terence Stamp) is much as Melville wrote
him; an illiterate, natural saint, “young Adam
before the Fall,” with no knowledge of bad, no
understanding even of indirection. His antagonist,
Claggart (Robert Ryan), is the exact opposite:
naturally depraved, a man who hates and expects
to be hated back.
This is neat, predestined Calvinist conflict,
but dissatisfying if one believes that both virtue
and vice are learned, not injected by lightning
at birth. Ignorance is a hindrance, not an aid to
sanctity; the true saint knows evil, but rejects
it for something better; he thinks no evil of
others, not from innocence, but out of love. Tlie
conflict between good and evil is eternally fasci
nating. But in “Billy Budd” much of the salt has
gone out of it, because the good man is incapable
of bad, the bad man incapable of good.
THE POINT is well brought out in Billy's famous
last line. Halter about his neck, he looks at his
guilt—ridden captain, smiles disarmingly and
shouts: “God bless Captain Vere I” How much
more impressive the line, if the condemned man
had even been tempted to curse or despair.
Otherwise the movie, shot off Spain in cinema
scope with real sailing ships, is a vigorous sea
story, full of the sound of wind and sea, floggings
and fights and mutinous tensions. Actor Ryan,
when he is mean, is the meanest man alive; the
script makes him, perhaps, too much the routine
Hollywood sadist, moved almost to ecstasy by the
whip. Stamp handles his impossible role with an
unnerving combination of asceticism and virility,
and veteran Melvyn Douglas contributes ably as
the inevitable philosophizing old sailor who under
stands All.
One thing about Melville’s classic is unforgett
able: the notion that goodness, for all its defeats
and suffering for the evil of other men, can
never lose its hold on the human heart. In the
novel, when the end comes in battle for Captain
Vere, many months after the execution, his last
incoherent words are of Billy Budd.
CURRENT RECOMMENDED FILMS;
For everyone:
about the alleged weakness of
higher education.
“Had they not been so con
cerned with building their own
separate dynasties, and a littlq
more willing to cooperate with
each other, this sorry state
might not have not arisen in
their ranks,” he commented
in an aside.
Father Sweeney launched en
thusiastically into what he call
ed “my bold contention” that
Catholic elementary schools
have strengthened the faith of
American Catholics, provided
a basic education “every bit
as good if not better” than
public schools and produced
“first - class patriotic Ameri
can citizens.”
THE QUALITY of basic edu
cation in Catholic schools he
said, has not been made suffi
ciently clear. He said the most-
used testing device, the Metro
politan Achievement tests,
“clearly indicate the superb
job we are doing in the basic
skills of reading, spelling, ari
thmetic and social studies,” he
said.
Father Sweeney said the
schools' patriotism has been
proven repeatedly. He cited the
“Guiding Growth in Christian
Social Living” curriculum
which is used as the frame
work for every Catholic ele
mentary school.
“If any better method of
training American elementary
school children in basic. Chris
tian virtues, including patriot
ism, has been devised, we have
not yet seen it and I doubt if
we ever will,” he said.
IN A convention session for
college educators, a Jesuit from
Boston College said that private
higher education has “entered
a decade of destiny.”
Father Charles K. Donovan,
S.J., academic vice president
of the Massachusetts institut
ion, noted that 15 years ago,
most college students attended
private institutions.
Today, he said, the opposite
is true. “More than 60 percent
of college students now attend
public institutions and the pre
sent trend will obviously bring
the proportion to 75 per cent
in our lifetime,” he said.
The voice of private higher
education is “still strong” in
America, he added, but he in
dicated it will be less signi
ficant when the proportion of
students in them begins to ap
proach the 85—15 ratio between
public and private elementary
and secondary schools.
FATHER Donovan said public
financial aid will be needed. “It
would be unrealistic to think
the decline of private higher
education can be arrested with
out public aid,” he said.
Yet, he warned, public aid
will be fought by advocates of
public higher education.
“Any effort to reverse the
decline of private higher edu
cation by a new policy of public
aid will be violently opposed by
advocates of public higher edu
cation, whose convictions on
this matter seem at times more
akin to religious zeal than do
those of some representatives
of church-related colleges.”
Father Donovan said private
higher education “must face the
possibility” that duringthe rest
of the 20th century, “many
private colleges will suffer the
fate of the 19th century' private
academies — those privately
conducted secondary schools
that preceded public high
schools but were unable to
survive when public high
schools became generally
available at no cost.”
The Miracle Worker, To Kill a
Mockingbird, Gigot.
For connoisseurs:
Sundays and Cybele, Long
Day’s Journey Into Night.
Better than most:
The Longest Day, Days of Wine
and Roses, Mutiny on the Bounty',
Billy Budd, The Lion.
God Love You
MOST REVEREND FULTON J. SHEEN
So often we meet college graduates who introduce themselves
by identifying themselves with their college: “I am an A man,”
I am a B man, * I am a C man.” Never do they identify them
selves by their parish, or even by saying: “I am a Catholic.”
Could it be that our colleges are educating loyal alumni rather
than Catholic laity? Are they preparing mailing lists of financial
prospects rather than possible apostles of the Church, lay mission
aries abroad, loyal disciples of Christ?
A Catholic is a member of the
Mystical Body of Christ, bound
to the world, and even to all
unredeemed sinners, before he
is bound to his parish—or his
college. His diocese, his parish,
his nation, even his ego—all are
nothing but windows through
which he looks out upon human
ity. The grief of the world is
his, the hunger of the world is
his, the tears of the world are his and even the sins of the world
are his. Like King Richard II, he says:
“I live with dread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, meet friends.”
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, it was the one who was
farthest away in terms of blood, nationality and human affection
that Our Lord called the neighbor. We Catholics must realize that
we impinge on every single life in the world. We are brothers to
all. We stand and fall together. If they are contemptible, so are we.
If we are struggling after higher things, so are they. If we have
visions, so do they.
The Church in many parts of the world is suffering persecution.
It could very well be that the Good Lord is sparing us now in order
that we might be His right hand to extend alms to the poor of the
world. May we be worthy of this mission! And in giving alms to
whom you may, be ever mindful of the fact that the Holy Father,
who cares for all missionaries in all parts of the world, said that
he was to be “first and principally aided.” You do this by giving
to The Society for the Propagation of the Faith, his own Pontifical
Society.
GOD LOVE \ OU to Mrs. E. R. for $100 “To be used in the
education of a native seminarian.” ... to Mrs. M. C. for $5
Please accept this offering, which I saved a dime at a time over
a period of two years. Give it to God’s poor.” . . . to J. M. M.
for $40 “In gratitude for an answer to my prayer, ’Deliver me
from^my necessities, O Lord. May this, in turn, help someone
e * se# • • . to Mrs. G. Z. for $5 “I saved this small amount
giving my boys haircuts instead of sending them to the barber. It
isn t ^ much, but 1 hope the Holy Father can use it to do some
good. ... to L. A. for $5 “In petition for my partially blind
son, that others may have their eyes opened to the Faith.”
V\ORLDMISSION, a quarterly magazine of missionary activities
edited by Most Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, is the ideal gift for priests,
nuns, seminarians and laymen. Send $5 for a one-year.subscript
ion to WORLDMISSION, 366 Fifth Avenue, New York 1, New York.
SHEENCOLUMN: Cut out this column, pin your sacrifice to
and mail it to Most Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, National Director
of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, 366 Fifth Avenue,
New York l.O, N.Y. or your Diocesan Director. Rev. Harold
Rainey, P.O. Box 12047, Northside Station, Atlanta 5, Ga.