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PAGE 4 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 MANAGING EDITOR Gerard E. Sherry CONSULTING EDITOR Rev. R. ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Sue Spence 2699 Peachtree N.E. P.O. Box 11667 Norths ide Station Atlanta 5, Ga. (j© Member of the Catholic Press Association and Subscriber to N.C.W.C. News Service Telephone 231-1281 Second Class Permit at Decatur, Georgia Donald Kiernan U.S.A. $5.00 Canada $5.50 Foreign $6.50 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 [f r % AWgBf'-l I ( T l V'- •'*. 1 '.Is r fT V I K ** yj F i tie |fflv ' \ L J JM " ' ? | L \ '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.