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GEORGIA BULLETIN
THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1963
the
Archdiocese of Atlanta
GEORGIA BULLETI
SERVING GEORGIA S 71 NORTHERN COUNTIES
Official Organ of the Archdiocese of Atlanta
Published Every Week at the Decatur Dekalb News
PUBLISHER - Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan
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Anxious Moment
It can be said that we now
stand poised at an anxious mo
ment in the history of Judaic-
Christian civilization. Those who
are Catholic have lost a beloved
father - those who are not have
lost a loving friend. Pope John
had a mind that reached out to
all the confusing issues of a
troubled world, a heart that beat,
not only for the anxieties of Ca
tholics, but for the longings of
the whole human family. All of
us stand at this moment of loss
and bereavement, of a sadness
that goes far beyond any per
functory expression, an uneasi
ness that is linked to the great
est challenge that the Church and
indeed mankind has faced in cen
turies.
This challenge can be simply
stated: Can men rise to a higher
respect for each other because
they are all the children of God?
Can Christians love one another
with less accent on the word
“separated” than on the word
“brethren**? Can Catholics live,
now not themselves alone, but
with Christ living in them? Can
we in our generation take a great
step forward to a second Pente
cost? Have young men and wo
men, on the threshhold of life,
sufficient vision, enough humi
lity, adequate courage, to be in
the vanguard of this movement
into the future? Pope John, dur
ing the brief four and a half years
put these questions many times.
In life, he asked them clearly;
in death, the memory of this
humble man of God is a goad to
a greater sensitivity orf our part
toward the needy, the lost, the
least of men with whom Christ
so pointedly identified Himself.
Pope John has been laid to
rest. Our mourning for him must
not becloud the joy of the future
naming of his successor. Next
week the Sacred College of Car
dinals will meet in Conclave to
choose one of their number to
the august position of Supreme
Pontiff and Vicar of Christ on
earth. This is the good news
which we will all be anxiously
awaiting. We can do our part
with a prayer that the new Pope
will reconvene the VaticanCoun-
cil and continue the “Open door
policies so fervently desired by
Pope John and a majority of the
Council Fathers.
Our Basic Unity
Recently we were asked what
was the best way for Catholics to
become unified in relation to the
vast problems besetting us as
members of the Church and as
citizens.
One of our basic troubles is
that we spend too much time
quarreling among ourselves and
not enough time in the dialogue
so essential in the market place.
The Liberal-Conservative de
bate within the American Church
has gone far enough; so has the
dispute over Catholic participa
tion in the extremist movements
While it is essential for the va
rious differences between Catho
lics to be heard in a charitable
and constructive manner, when
we get bogged down in such hag
gling, we lose sight of our main
goal. We waste too much time
pointing up our differences and
too little on our essential unity.
Despite the semantic tangle,
Catholic Liberals and Catholic
Conservatives have so much in
common in relation to the works
of the Church that their differen-
“For the last time—
I don’t want to trade places!”
ces in interpretation should not
be a hindrance to their working
together in the Lay Apostolate.
The genuine Lay Apostle has
only one label -- Catholic. He
can be Liberal or Conservative,
Republican or Democrat. But
these are really incidental la
bels for community identifica
tion. The goal of all, no matter
what his state in life, is the com
mon good -- and this transcends
all debate.
While we may not wish to be
unified socially or politically the
one unity that we can never re
pudiate is our unity with Christ
within the Church. Let us ther-
fore be very careful to subordi
nate the domestic debate within
the Church to its proper level.
The great debate is with the
world -- where men seek to ido
lize themselbes rather thantheir
C reator.
Rhythm Of
BY FR. ROBERT W. HOVDA
Priest of the Pittsburg Oratory)
JUNE 16, SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTE
COST. The rhythm of the Christ events and sal
vation history has given place during this season
after Pentecost to the rhythm of the Christian
life on earth during this "little while”. Christian
faith, for all its other-worldly aim and focus, Is
still the faith of men, worldly, earth-bound men,
who must respond to God’s great gifts through
love and work in the here-and-now.
That love and work have a new basis for the
man of faith is clear in the First Reading as
well as in the Entrance and Gradual Hymns. God
alone is the rock on which the human labor of
building can be ultimately meaningful. And His
love alone is the security of human brotherhood
and solidarity. Rejection of the brotherhood (the
meal, the symbol of heavenly unity) is rejection
of Him (Gospel).
MONDAY, JUNE 17, S T. GREGORY BAR
BARIGO, BISHOP, CONFESSOR. All Masses
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'BROTHER, WHO WANTS TO BE YOUR EQUAL ?*
OBLITERATES SORROW
Pope’s Death Parodox
BY REV. LEONARD F. X. MAYHEW
Trappist Monastery, Conyers, Georgia —
The great and good Pope John has died. In this
silent and austere monastery, where death seems
both more remote physically and yet far more
immediate in its implications than in the secular
world, the news of his passing seems to be a
paradox, Reflecting on his person and his reign,
his life seems more of a shock than his agonized
and courageous death. The joy of having had
such a father far out-weighs and almost oblite
rates the sorrow of having lost him. We had
hoped so intensely to keep him that we awaited
a sense of despair, when it became clear that
he would die. In point of fact,
such treason to his memory is
unthinkable.
We offered a Solemn Mass for
his soul on the day following
his death. In the spacious and
beautiful monastery church, the
lovely music of the Requiem se
emed less mournful than imbued
with a great peace. For the
absolutions following the Mass,
the catafalque was a simple black cloth, slightly
wrinkled and a little faded, spread on the floor
of the sanctuary. It symbolized the earthly re
mains of the Vicar of Christ, the Father of Princes
and Kings, the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic
Church. I think John XXIII would have smiled
and been pleased.
Like the good and generous father that he was,
Pope John has left us an inheritance. As dutiful
children, we must consider it a sacred trust to
preserve and increase what he has bequeathed
us. It is a heritage of the most authentic ideals
of Christianity and Catholicism, embodied in
his example, his teaching, the direction he has
given to the Church and in his open and warm
love for all men. To follow the course he has
charted will challenge our courage and our vis ion
and our generosity.
From the very beginning of his reign, when
he was still almost a stranger to most of us,
one characteristic of John XXIII stood out with
striking clarity. He habitually made, both in
theory and in practice, a sharp and absolute
distinction, between the essential and the acci
dental. He did not deviate from his remarkable
posture during the four and a half years of his
pontificate. This was the secret of his success
and of the almost Incredible effectiveness of
his short reign. This was how he captured the
imagination and admiring affection of world
leaders and of millions upon millions of men of
every nation and religion and persuasion through
out the world. His simplicity was not naive
innocence. It certainly was not ignorance of the
complexities of the world and its problems. It
was like the simplicity of Jesus Christ, going
to the heart of every question and every consi
deration Jo single out from what is secondary
and contingent that which is essential and there
fore must be preserved or achieved.
It was this that made him the Pope of Love.
The prisoners of the Roman jail that he visited
on his first Christmas in the Vatican, four years
later sent him their love as he lay dying and
in pain. The Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury
commented on the delight and relaxed pleasure
of his visit with the Pope, whose transparent
love for all of his fellow men dispelled all
embarassment and over-shadowed even the drama
of their historic meeting. Even the arch-atheists
of the Communist hierarchy could find no blame
in him and had to praise him as a lover of man
kind and of peace.
Exactly the same vision led him to call the
Vatican Council and breathe into it his own ardent
zeal to renew the Church. His aspiration re
mained always to clear away from the Church
whatever accidental accretions might interfere
with her noble mission. He desired her in her
unblemished sacredness to a sullied and confused
world. This was the "new Pentecost” of cleans
ing fire and new life from within for which he
labored, prayed, and, at the end, offered his
life. In seeking it he went unerringly to the heart
of every question, whether it was theology or
liturgy, social doctrine or political practice.
There is a temptation in most of us that is
born of cowardice and lack erf imagination. We
tend to canonize our own habits and our own
minute experience. The heritage of Pope John
should dispossess us of this weakness. .Above
all his concrete accomplishments, his greatest
bequest will be the example of his loyalty to the
essentials of the faith and the mission of the Ch
urch. "He lived long enough for glory,” a Jewish
observer commented. Our glory will be to measure
up to the challenge of his example.
LITURGICAL WEEK
Christian Life On Earth
rf the "sanctoral cycle" (in
X :ommemoration of holy men and
jff - A #omen) are characterized by a
Jtrong accent on the action of
2od in their lives. We see this
^ I in the hymns today: "The Lord”
did this and that (Entrance
"I have anointed him, that my hand may help
him and my arm strengthen him” (Offertory);
"whom the master has set over his household"
(Communion). The saint’s human cooperation is
not ignored (Gospel), but even this is an aspect
of God’s work. No dilemma of grace and works
here. All is a hymn to His mighty power.
TUESDAY, JUNE 18, ST. EPHREM, DEACON,
DOCTOR. Men like Ephrem saved the Church in
the East from the error of thinking that theo
logians must always be bishops or priests.
Not only deacons like Ephrem but laymen, too,
have made great contributions in theology to
the Church's understanding of God's Word. The
work of scientific students and teachers of the
Word is necessary if the salt of our official
and ministerial preaching of it is not to lose its
savor (Gospel).
WEDNESDAY. JUNE 19, ST. JULIANA FAL-
CONIER1, VIRGIN. "You have loved right and
hated wrong," we sing in the Entrance Hymn to
day in honor of Juliana. For we are gathered
around the altar in our school of values, our
school of loves.
Public worship, especially the Mass, is pre
cisely this. This is one of its functions. To school
us not only to love, but also in the order in which
persons and things are to be loved...and the way
in which wrong (not the wrong-doer) is to be hated.
THURSDAY, JUNE 20, MASS AS ON SUNDAY.
A supper and addressed invitations as symbol of
the kingdom of heaven, that point toward which
all creation converges and all evolution moves I
Continued on Page 5
RACIAL CRISIS
Coming To
A Head
BY GERARD E. SHERRY
The racial crisis is coming to a head. There
is no more time for puss-footing or excuses.
The inevitable is about to occur, whether we like
it or not. The Negro is about to become a first-
class citizen, either through the voice of non
violent leaders like Martin Luther King, or through
the violent approach of the black Muslim or other
"white-haters".
We have many
times observed
that extremists of
both sides are
preparing for a
last-ditch stand;
we have often de
plored the fact
that few mode
rates have had
the moral cour
age to stand up and be counted. Through fear
or pressure, political and economic, they have
stood aside and let the undesirable elements of
the community set the course of community strife.
Even in our churches, moral courage, that es
sential Christian prop, is sadly lacking at a time
when it is sorely needed. We find a so-called
Christian community tom asunder, forsaking
Christ over a little bit of color. Furthermore,
we find men of God justifying their inaction on the
grounds of love. As if love could possibly be pre
sent in a congregation or a community where
some Christians are considered unworthy of
sitting beside their whiter brethren.
IN MANY instances, the Bible is used as an
excuse to perpetuate segregation of the races as
congregations or as communities. It is suggested
that "Love thy neighbor" is a command that can
be practiced without inviting our colored neighbor
to enjoy his God-given rights. It is suggested
that separate but equal treatment of the Negro is
not un-Christian and, anyhow, that is what he
really wants.
Maybe this is so when one is dealing with the
uneducated and the economically oppressed. They
have been denied their elementary rights as
American citizens for so long that anything is bet
ter than nothing. To this class of Negro, separate
but equal treatment is an improvement over com
plete serfdom; but with the breaking down of the
racial barriers in education and commerce more
and more Negroes are becoming aware of what
they have been deprived. They are slowly awaken
ing to the fact that they also are made in the image
and likeness of God — a truth that has always been
but one which too few of us Christians have been
willing to admit.
THE SIT-IN demonstrators who are attempting
through non-violent protests to desegregate res
taurants and hotels throughout the country are not
criminals. They are merely trying to establish a
right which has always been theirs, but which al
ways has been denied them. Much has been made
of the fact that the law is on the side of restau-
ranteurs and hotel owners. Alas, many of these
laws were man-made and aimed solely at de
priving the Negro of sitting with his white bre
thren.
REAPINGS
AT
RANDOM
The Christian conscience cries out against
such injustice. We need a few men of courage
in this field who will dare to be unpopular in or
der to break outmoded economic and racial theo
ries. If the Negro is good enough to fight in de
fense of these United States, he is good enough
to sit with those whom he has helped defend —
and this includes the free enterprise system.
THE RACISTS are in the minority and they act
as if they secretly know that their days are num
bered. In their panic they are swinging wildly
and furiously not caring whether they bring the
good name of this country to ruin or not. On the
other side of the fence the Negro extremists act
in the same manner. Their hatred of the White
man is just as vicious. They too, are heedless
of what ruin they bring in the wake of their agi
tation.
It is for this reason that we can only hope and
pray that the moderates of both sides come out
of their hiding places and move this country for
ward to racial justice and the tranquility for which
we all yearn.
The need for Christian leadership — the need
for men of God to stop taking refuge in out-of-
context quotations from the Bible — is pressing.
We need men of God who will lead their congre
gations out of the abyss of Racism into the real
love of God and love of neighbor. To be sure,
it will take moral courage. To be sure, it might
mean preaching with a few empty pews, but to
our mind it is'better than having a congregation
welded to the immoral concept of segregation.
PUTTING it in practical terms, Christ gave
bread to the resurrected girl. If the same thing
happened today, many of us would be satisfied
with giving her a sermon. In other words, too
many of us, in and out of the pulpit, preach love
but fail to apply it in the hard realities of life.
If we cannot find moral courage in the pulpit,
how can we expect the lay Christian to exercise
it in his daily life? The Bible is replete with th<
necessary' examples. And even those who use j
as the cornerstone of their religious activitie
can find in it the mandate and the command fc
the application of racial justice in every sphei
of life.