Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE 4 GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1963 the Archdiocese of Atlanta GEORGIA BULLETIN SIIVINO OlOCOlA'S 71 NORTHERN COUNTIES Official Organ of the Archdiocese of Atlanta Published Every Week at the Decatur Dekalb News . _ „ PUBLISHER - Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan **** * sS MANAGING EDITOR Gerard E. Sherry CONSULTING EDITOR Rev. R. Donald Kleraan ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Sue Spence Member of the Catholic Press Association nd Subscriber to N.C.W.C. News Service Telephone 231-1281 2699 Peachtree N.E. P.O. Box 11667 Northside Station Atlanta 5, Ga. <|P Second Class Permit at Atlanta, Ga. U.S.A. $5.00 Canada $5.50 Foreign $6.50 Ci viJ Rights Our archdiocesan St. Martin’s Council on Human Relations is touring parishes, bringing to the people information and discuss ion on various aspects of the fight for racial justice. One of the most frequently brought-up questions by audiences relates to Civil Rights legislation pre sently before Congress. There seems to be an awful lot of misinformation concerning this proposed legislation, and we think the St. Martin’s Council is performing a useful service in explaining it -- devoid of politi cal emotion. The one section that seems to create most fears is Title Two which bans discrimina tion in public accommodation. What does this Title provide for? Simply the right of all cit izens to full and equal access to the services and facilities of public establishments if such business is to a substantial de gree to serve interstate travel ers or affect the movement of goods in interstate commerce. Private clubs are not affected. Although we are not expressing an official Catholic viewpoint on this matter, we do feel that the public accommodation section of the Civil Rights legislative pro posals is not demanding anything against individual or state rights. A lot is made of the fact that it is an attack on property rights. But property rights are not ab solute when the common good is affected. This can be found in any study of the Papal so cial encyclicals. Furthermore, the section is not an invasion of a man’s privacy or of a bus iness establishment’s property rights. It concerns only public accommodation. We feel that if our people re ally study the proposed Civil Rights legislation -- free from prejudice and political pres sure -- they will discover that all that it is demanding is equ al treatment in public accomo dations for all our citizens. There is no compulsion anticipated in respect to prvate clubs or or ganizations. It is not too much to ask that those who make profit from all our citizens refrain from discriminating against some, merely because they are colored. The discriminatory tradit ions of the past (and in some cases, of the present) is no ex cuse for blind opposition to the legislation. After all, if men had moved to end such practices in a voluntary manner, legal reme dies would not have been nec essary. The Protestant Press October is being celebrated as Protestant Press Month. It gives us an opportunity for a double acknowledgment: we greet and congratulate fellow editors inthe growing Protestant press, and welcome one of the newest edi tions, the monthly newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlan ta, whose masthead has a very simple title, “The Diocese’’. We wish it a long and fruitful apos- tolate. The vast circulation of the Ca tholic press in this country some times leads us to forget that our separated brethren are becoming "SPECK" #./f. “Did we hint fun at ramp. Sinter!* more and more aware of the pow er of the printed word. We share the religious press field with all men of good will; our own Ca tholic Press is affiliated with a national organization of religious press associations. In these times of a renewed ecumenical spirit, this is as it should be. The stakes are too high for press po lemics against each other. It is a time for service in order that the community may have a vital spi ritual as well as temporal, func tion. We have been taught that the duty and honor of the press,par ticularly the religious press, is to enlighten, nourish, and elevate minds and hearts. The religious press, therefore, must be as im portant to the life of the commu nity as the secular press. It must strive to have at least as much influence. It must be the representative mouthpiece of all Christian thinking and informa tion. It must protect the vital interests of Christians in a com munity, both in their work and leisure -- in their education, in their growth. It must fight for the reform of many conditions which are a denial of the dignity of men or an obstacle to his progress. But that is not all - the reli gious newspaper in striving for the good of the Church within the community, must also fight and work for the common good - this includes Catholics, Protestants, Jews; it includes Negroe s, Puerto Ricans, Chinese, Japanese, and any other race, color, or creed within the community. We have a strict obligation to work for the protection and assistance of every one, so that they may en joy a right and reasonable life. BREAKING THROUGH THE SPAGHETTI CURTAIN MEDITATIVE PRAYER Month Of The Rosary BY REV. LEONARD F.X. MAYHEVV October, the month dedicated to the devotion of the Rosary, has just begun. The Rosary is appa rently a very simple matter. It ought to be natural to speak of it with the utmost simplicity. And yet, as is so often the case, the more simple a subject appears, the more difficult and complicated it is to discuss it with clarity and depth. The problem seems more acute in our time which does not value simplicity and which has lost the art of leisure and contemplation. The first element of the Rosary prayer that will strike anyone's attention is that it is accomplished with the aid of an external, the beads. What is their purpose? It is, quite simply, to free the mind from mechanical details in order to attend to the essen tial. Each bead follows the other and their number maintains the repeated prayers in the meas ured pace sanctioned by long ex perience. The pattern proceeds of itself, as it were, and the mind is free to turn to the con templation that is the heart of the Rosary. The second most noticeable characteristic of the Rosary prayer is its use of formulated prayers and particularly the manner in which they are repeated It is not very useful to introduce in this regard the distinction between vocal and mental prayer. The Rosary represents a determined form of re ligious activity with a unity all its own. Un necessary distinctions of the various kinds of prayer contained in it run the risk of weakening this unity and denaturing this unique devotion. The Rosary is essentially a meditative and contemp- plative prayer. The formulated prayers - Creed, Our Father, Hail Mary, Gloria - serve to focus and anchor the meditation. The formulated prayers of the Rosary are the most fundamental of the Catholic religion. There are no frills in the Rosary, properly understood and properly prayed. The Apostles’ Creed, which serves as the introduction, presents the whole panorama of the faith in a form made venerable by centuries of usage. Originally a declaration of allegiance pronounced by converts at their bap tismal initiation into the Christian faith, it re calls the foundations of our religion. It forms the setting, the atmosphere, for the contemplation of the mysteries of redemption which follow. The Our Father which opens each decade is a gift of Our Lord to be a model of every Christian prayer. It guides our thought the most sublime contemp lation fo God's loving fatherhood, his will and his kingdom and our own pressing needs which only He can fulfill. It is Mary and her special prayer, the Angelic Salutation, that are the central focus of the Rosary , The first part of the Hail Mary is taken from the New Testament, the first chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, and repeats the words addressed to Mary by the angel Gabriel and by Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. The second part of the prayer is an ancient Invocation asking for the continuous intercession of Mary before her Son. The Rosary is Mary’s; in large part it is ad dressed to her and is said in her spirit. And yet, the Rosary is a Christ-centered prayer and con templation. This is the paradox which most Ca tholics realize instinctively but which very often » puzzles Protestants. The solution is contained in the person of Mary herself. Mary is she whose life as a woman has been completely filled with Christ. What she is and everything about her is de termined by her unique relationship to Him, her Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier and Son. This is what makes her more than a saint among saints. And this is what makes the Rosary not an acces sory devotion but a fully Christ-centered prayer of contemplation. The object of our contemplation in the Rosary-is Christ engaged in the work of redeeming mankind. In the Joyful Mysteries, we see his infancy and youth during which he prepares for his work. Al ready the foretaste of his sufferings are felt. The Sorrowful Mysteries follow the ordeal of Christ from the Garden of Olives to his death. The final cycle of mysteries, the Glorious, por trays^ his triumph and the accomplishment, in Mary’s Assumption and glorification, of an exemp lar of the salvation he has won for all. LITURGICAL WEEK 6 In Him We Become Rich 9 BY REV. ROBERT W. HOVDA OCTOBER 6 EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. As we gather for the Eucharist today, we who are, some of us, sick, some poor, some jobless, some burdened with unspoken con flicts are told that we are rich. “You have become rich, through him, in every way’’ (First Reading) And the Gospel confirms this verdict with Jesus’ deed of absolution, forgiveness, healing. For our assembly at Sunday Mass, if it tells us nothing else, speaks every time an opportune word about our destiny—as it does about our unity. MONDAY, OCTOBER 7 OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY. Time is fleeting and life is short, but the Christian's dignity and sense of destiny is sung today in the words of Proverbs (First Reading) applied to the Blessed Virgin. “Already I lay in the womb, when the depths were not yet in being.*’ Our roots are in timelessness, as our source is in God’s thought and will. So the type of private prayer, the Rosary, which this Mass honors, is (unlike the sacramental worship of the church) a kind of gentle rhythm in timelessness, without beginning or end. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8 ST. BRIDGET, WIDOW, The Church’s lavishness in its praise of holy men and women is not comouflaged idolatry. It is precisely praised of what God has done in us, of His works. “Blessed are they who are un defiled in the way’* (Entrance Hymn). “God has blessed you forever’* (Gradual and Offertory Hymns). WEDNESDAY. OCTOBER 9 ST. JOHN LEON ARD!, CONFESSOR, When we speak of the Ch urch's missionary task we no longer think of only foreign lands nor of clergy and Religious exclu sively. The whole Church must be a witnessing as a worshiping community. Today's Mass com municates a sense of the urgency of our witness for Christ (Gospel) and cautions us to commend our witness b virtue and not to preach oursel ves , but Jesus Christ. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10 ST. FRANCIS BOR- CONTLNLED ON PAGE 5 Our crises, however real and frightening they may be, cannot rob us of our destiny—as long as we can turn to Jesus'absolute power for forgiveness. For this power can turn any evil to good and any sinner to God. We can not celebrate this sacrificial meal without becoming deeply conscious that we are people liberated from the despair which so often seems the human POLITICAL INTEREST — 3 Wheat And Hypocricy BY GERARD E. SHERRY The huge wheat deal recently consummated between Canada and the Soviet Union has revi ved talk in this country of a resumption of large scale, non-strategic material trade with Communist countries. It also points up a terrible fraud in relation to political anti-Communism. One of the reasons why we have not en couraged trade with Red nations is be cause we have always had the feeling that it would help Com munism to consoli date its position be hind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains. Many people have thought the policy wrong, but have been afraid to express their views publicity, fearing the wrath and pressures of the political anti-Communists. REAPINGS AT RANDOM READERS WILL recall that suggestions were made a couple of years ago that our govern ment should offer wheat to the starving people of China. There the Communists have made such a mess of their agricultural and industrial set-up that millions are deprived of subsistence. These suggestions were made on humanitarian grounds, but they got nowhere, because no res ponsible congressman or senator could risk his political future. There are always elections and the self-appointed patriots who oppose every thing, could be expected to charge a legislator with being “ultra-Liberal”, “Leftist”, or” soft on Communism.” This fear of Right Wing Ex tremist denunciation has led to stagnation in many areas of international trade in which most of the benefits would be accrued by this coun try. I am reminded of all this on reading about Republican as well as Democrat legislators from our wheat-growing states perking up and showing interest in current suggestions that we get rid of our wheat surplus through trade with Russia and other Red countries. Even some of our farm groups, whose record in the past has been most noticeable, for its stress on ultra-Conservatism and anti-Communism, have not come out with a flat “no" to the idea. In other words, their antipathy towards Communism and trade with Communism* is tempered by self-interest. I feel there is a little bit ofhypocrisyin all when some express the attitude that it is all right to trade with the Reds as long as they are benefiting from it. There is a lot of selfishness in the political anti-Communism of many groups within this country. “A fast buck is a fast buck, even if I am an anti-Communist,’’so the thought goes. THIS IS ONE of the reasons why I keep stress ing that to be successful, anti-Communism must have a spiritual base. It certainly needs to be promoted in political ways, but politics must never be the sole guide for our anti-Communist activities. This is all the more so at present, when the initial skirmishes looking toward the 1964 Presidential elections take place. There will be lots of charges and innuendo leveled against honorable men on both sides of the political fence. At both ends of the political spectrum there are extremists ready to pillory good names with photostatic half-truths and distortions. A sincere expression of sympathy for starving Ch inese children will be decried as un-American; an appeal to jaw instead of war with the Soviet Union will be labled appeasement; an expressed fear of radioactive fall-out will be labeled cow ardice; Fervent exhortation for the granting of equal rights to Negroes will be construed as a Communist attack on States Rights; an appeal for government aid to the aged and needy will be labeled Socialism. All the stops will be pulled out in order that the vocal minority, who promote this extremist propaganda, can sabotage any steps to ease international tensions and further steps ( being taken to achieve civic peace at home. ONE HAS ONLY to glance through the cyni cal, negative, comments to be found in some of ^ our extremists publications to understand they are W making an all-out effort to halt the positive steps being taken to find accommodation with the Rus sians and bring some semblance of peace to this troubled world. One would not mind the negative wailing of the extreme Right, if it were not for the fact that it offers no alternatives other than the big stick and continued belligerancy. One would wish that at least the Catholics among them would sit down and make a serious attempt at studying the late Pope John's two famous encyclicals, Mater Et Magistra and Pacem In Terris. The mandate to work for peace is surely in those documents; so is the mandate for assistance to the under-developed new nations, the aged and the poor wherever they are, disarmament, the abolishing of nuclear warfare, strengthening the United Nations, and fighting for racial justice. THE TROUBLE is, the extremists listen only to men. They adhere to the principle that relig ion is for church, and has no bearing on every day life. One of these people told me recently that Pope John was a very sick man when Pacem hi Terns was published. Hence, 1 should not really attribute to him some of the Socialistic doctrine contained in it. “If he had been a well man, he would not have allowed them to publish it und.r his name.” Unfortunately, the gentlemen in question was a practicing Catholic who thinks that most Catholic editors and colu mnists in the Catholic press have been subtely brain-washed by Communist infiltrators who are in every sphere of Catholic life. There is no doubt that we all need seriously to examine our consciences and strive to make our antl-Com- mur.nm devoid of political quackery, heeding the Church, which was in this field long before our modern self-appointed patriots.