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GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1963
the
Archdiocese of Atlanta
GEORGIA BULLETIN
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. Donald Kieman
2699 Peachtree N.E.
P.O. Box 11667
Northside Station
Atlanta 5, Ga
Member of the Catholic Press Association
nd Subscriber to N.C.W.C. News Service
Telephone 231-1281
Second Class Permit at Atlanta, Ga.
i
U.S.A. $5.0C
Canada $5.50
Foreign $6.50
Bingoitis
Georgia's Attorney General,
Eugene Cook, recently assured
a Cedartown Baptist minister that
bingo is illegal in the state -- even
if the proceeds go to charity.
The attorney general’s ruling
came after the minister had re
ported that he and other clergy
men in Cedartown and Polk Cou
nty were concerned about two lar
ge bingo operations (unidentified)
which had not been closed down by
the local sheriff. We presume that
the bingo operations referred to
are for charitable causes, beca
use it was on this latter point
that the minister's inquiry was
made.
Everyone knows that bingo is
used in some Catholic parishes,
not only in Gerogia, but through
out the country to assist in the
financing of churches, schools,
and welfare causes. There is not
hing underhanded about the oper
ations, and they are conducted in
orderly manner. There is no per
sonal profit involved, and the
money raised, especially for sc
hools and social welfare, is a
direct saving to the taxpayer.
O f course, the Catholic Church
is not the only religious group
involved. Furthermore, many
fraternal organizations, in
cluding the American Legion, Kn
ights of Columbus, Elks, and Sh
rine groups in various parts of
the country use bingo operations
to help the needy and the aged to
have a better life.
Let it be said right away that
gambling in itself is not sinful
any more than is drinking or in
dustrial sweepstakes by Lever
Brothers or Proctor and Gamble.
Excessive gambling, however,
just as excessive drinking, is
sinful, and we condemn this as
much as any other evil.
We are discussing here, not
excessive gambling but a social
game played for charitable caus
es, which far from harming the
community, often serves its best
interests. Certainly the charit
able activities of the Church,
American Legion, and many
Shriner groups, need no defense.
There are monuments to these
efforts in every community
throughout the land.
There is, too, another angle to
all this, which seems to have been
forgotten in the discussion. The
bingo operations by most organi
zations are on private property.
We hear a lot these days about
church, as well as a business'
privacy and the right to admit
only whites on their property.
The same right of privacy and of
property are surely applicable in
relation to bingo for charity on
the property of the organization
or church involved.
In saying all this, however, we
are not unmindful of the need
for the respect to the laws of this
state. Hence, if they are applied
by local enforcement agencies in
relation to bingo for charity, then
we must accept it as good citi
zens. However, we suggest a pra
ctical approach:
In many states bingo for char
ity is licensed and supervised
by cities and towns involved. We
think the present Georgia law in
relation to bingo operations for
charity should either be repealed
or amended, so that properly sup
ervised and regulated operations
can be allowed to continue un
hindered, as long as it is clear
ly stated that all proceeds go to
works of charity and service
within the community.
GERARD E. SHERRY
UNICEF Trick Or Treat
Next Thursday is Hallowe'en.
It is a time when the children
of this country join forces with
the witches and goblins, and all
the other imaginary “little peo
ple” in a candy feast through
door to door visitation. Mil
lions of dollars are spent
throughout the country to make
this last day of October a gas-
tronomical success.
In recent years, Hallowe’en
has become a reminder of the fact
that, while most of our kids have
plenty, many children throughout
the world are deprived of even
the baisc necessities. To focus
on the plight of the world's un
derprivileged children, the Unit
ed Nations Association of the
United States sponsors a “tpick
or treat” collection, urging that
some of the surplus candy money
be donated to the United Nations
Children’s Fund.
The “fright-peddlers” and the
Right Wing extremists have op
posed UNICEF and the Hallow’en
collection because some of the
money goes to children in Com
munist countries. In other words,
the humanitarian aspects of UNI
CEF are drowned in a sea of po
litical hate. To us, the crass, un-
Christian, attitude of those who
oppose UNICEF on political
grounds is unworthy of the at
tention of any genuinely patrio
tic citizen. We cannot hold a star
ving child responsible for the po
litics of his father; nor can we
blame him for the political means
test, when we should get out of the
business of giving especially to
“little ones’ , and admit our hy
pocrisy.
We urge readers to give to the
UNICEF “Trickortreat” collec
tion on this Hallowe’en. We re
mind Catholics who have been in
fluenced by Extremist propagan
da that ever since the inception
of the United Nations Children’s
Fund, the Vatican has made an
annual contribution of several
thousand collars. As we have
said many times before, we pre
fer to accept the judgment of the
Holy See over that of the “fright
peddlers.”
“GOOD HEAVENS, I FEEL JUST LIKE A KID AGAIN'
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
‘Problems Of Success’
BY REV. LEONARD F.X. MAYHEW
The recent article in a national magazine ent
itled "Trouble Ahead For Catholic Schools'* and
the attractive brochure on "The Mind of the Ar
chdiocese" sent out by Archbishop Hallinan make
provocative and complementary reading. Both are
examples of the relatively new and eminently
healthful trend to open discussion of Church con
cerns and problems. (In how many ways, ultim
ately, will we have to be grateful to Pope John's
notion of "letting some fresh air into the Ch-
urchfn
The Catholic school system in this country,
in which severalgenerationshave invested an over
flowing measure of dedication and sacrifice, is and
should be a source of tremendous pride. If t±rt
should be a source of tremendous- pride. If this
complex network of schools, which serves almost
five and a half million children in elementary
and high schools alone, must to
day face some urgent problems,
it is also true that these are
"the problems of success," as
Monsignor Frederick G. Hoch-
walt, N. C. W. C. education
director, has called them. They
are problems created basically
by the continually growing de
mand on the part of American
Catholics for Catholic education
and first-rate Catholic education at that. "When
a boy or girl is old enough to treat reading and
writing with academic respect, Catholic parents
believe it is time for the same respect to be paid
to the truths of religion." Precisely because this
conviction, stated in "The Mind of the Archdio
cese", has become practically universal, the Cat
holic school system is beset by many serious
present and future problems.
SINCE 1940 THE number of pupils in Catholic
elementary and secondary schools has increased
by 129%, almost two and half times the rate
of growth of the public schools 1 This classroom
population explosion is one of the bases of the
dilemma that faces Catholic school systems
throughout the nation, particularly in the burgeo
ning metropolitan centers where most of our popu
lation is concentrated. The cost of providing the
requisite physical facilities has become stagger
ing. To operate the schools at all, principals
must employ an increasing proportion of lay
teachers, to whom there is an obligation (lar
gely unmet) to offer salaries and fringe bene
fits that compete with those offered by the ta>-
supported schools. Overcrowded classrooms aid
the inability to hire enough adequately trained
lay teachers are immediate and far-reaching ef
fects of the startling and continuing growth of the
Catholic school population.
Added to the frustration inherent in the growth-
cost squeeze is that born of the apparent un
willingness, the country to see the education
of children in Catholic schools as a national
responsibility. The Catholic argument proposing
the government's obligation to offer equal aid
to all educational institutions serving the public
has never had a fair hearing. It is some small
consolation that recently the point has apparent
ly been brought home to several liberal and reli
gious publications outside the Catholic Church.
A realistic attitude, however, cannot place much
hope at the present time on governmental assis
tance to meet the problems of Catholic education.
The only resource available is the heroic, re
peatedly proven, spirit of sacrifice of the Catholic
laity. This indicates another concern.
AS ILLOGICAL AS it may be on the face of
it, in discussions of education the cliche for
these years is the "Post-sputnik era." The tec
hnical superiority of the Soviet Union to the
United States in the field of orbital flight trig
gered, or at least provided an excuse for, a
critical re-appraisal of our educational standards.
A great deal of room for improvement in con
tent, methods and organization has been indicated
by leading educators. Catholic educators and,
naturally enough, Catholic parents have taken part
in this sometimes painful but necessary critical
evaluation of our schools. The point is growing
clearer that, if we are to expect continued sac
rifice to support Catholic schools, these schools
must be as well equipped and managed, as am
bitious in their programs, as generous in the op
portunities they offer as the public schools. As
Father Theodore Hesburgh, Notre Dame Univer
sity president, said: "We Catholics should not
take on any education that we can't do well.
There is no excuse for doing things second-
i’•are."
LITURGICAL WEEK
Kingship Over All
BY REV. ROBERT W. HOVDA
OCTOBER 27 FEAST OF OUR LORD JESUS
CHRIST, KING. "My kingdom does not take its
origin here" (Gospel). Today's feast, though we
find it hard to fit it into the traditional pattern
of the Church’s feasts and season turns our minds
to an aspect of our Lord that we are just begin
ning to comprehend: the fact that in Jesus Ch
rist we have not only the key to our salvation
but also the key to the whole evolution of man and
the world he lives • in toward a consummation.
His "kingship" is over "all things" (First
Reading) and is a much more mysterious and in
timate thing than a mere external rule. "It
was God's good pleasure to let
all completeness dwell in him."
Or, as the Preface states it:
". . .that, all creation being
subdued to his rule, he might
hand over a universal and eve
rlasting kingdom. . .
His rule (i.e., He himself)
is the ultimate form of creat
ion and particularly of man.
Before His coming in history,
everything is meant to grow in Him and toward
Him . Since we end this week with emphasis
on the community, family, fraternal nature of the
Church, it is helpful to begin it with this pro
fession of faith in the source of our commune
and our fraternity.
MONDAY. OCTOBER 28 SS. SIMON AND JUDE,
APOSTLES. The Apostles, as the first, prime
bishops of the Church, remind us, too, how deeply
social and cosmic salvation is. For we belong
to a community for bread and book and bishop.
The holy bread of the Eucharist and the holy
oook of revelation require a minister and a pre
acher. And the men and women who taste the
bread and hear the book are persons whose unity
in bread and book requires an organization with
a person at its head, the bishop, the successor
of the apostles we celebrate today.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29 MASS AS ON 21ST
SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. ^'All things, Lord,
are subject to your power. . .'* begins the re
frain of the Entrance Psalm. And the Scriputre
lessons have basically but two things to declare.
The First tells the Church that since "all complet
eness" is in Christ and all the world belongs
to Him, we have not to look for the enemy
of our salvation in the world. It does not exUt
there. It is "in an order higher than ours/'
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30 MASS AS OF YES-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 5
F.B.I. REPORTS
Enforcement
Leads €rime
BY GERARDE. SHERRY
The bleak picture o community- moral stand
ards as reflected in current crime statistics
leads many citizens o wonder whether there is
any effective law enforcement in this country.
It is, therefore,» pity that the Federal Bureau
of Investigation hasn't got sufficient funds to
send their annual leport for 1963 to every house
hold. I got one h my office the other day, and
it was quite coisoling in many respects. The
report admits ne tremendous increase in all
types of crime choughout the nation. But it also
shows that ou- nation’s leading enforcement
agency has do»e more than merely bemoan cri
minal activiv* The report is most reassuring,
even if one r^rets the necessity for it.
J. Edgar Hoover,
Director o' the F.
B. L, makes the rat
her pertiient note
that whil< the law
less surpassed pre
vious re ords, so did
the F. 3. L He re
ported that the big
gest ircrease in vio
lation' of F ed-
eral laws under the
F. I. L's jurisdiction was the big jump in the
nunher of bank robberies, burglaries, and lar-
ceiies. These offenses reached a new high of
1,571 during the year; an increase of 297 over
tie prior 12 months. There also was a continu
ing increase in the interestate movement of stolen
notor vehicles being recovered after they had
been transported interstate.
Significantly, over 96% of the persons brought
to trial in cases investigated by the F. B. L
cases were 12,816, some 181 more than last
year. Another interesting figure reveals that the
F. B. L located 11,887 fugitives from justice
in 1963, as compared to a little over 9,(XX)
four years ago.
We hear a lot these days in both the news
papers and on television about Joe Valachi,
ami La Cosa Nostra, the well-organized secret
society of criminals. But the F. B. L has known
about it for quite some time, and has paid spec
ial attention to it. The underworld is never
safe from penetration by F. B. L activities,
and the bosses are marked men long before they
are actually arrested and tried.
One often thinks of the F. B. L as an agency
mainly concerned with criminals and general
crime. But it is also, active in anti-racketeer
ing and labor-management infractions. Business
is also affected through F. B. L investigations
of anti-trust charges and the like.
One other field in which the F. B. L is well-
known is that in relation to internal security
and subversion against the state. Mr. Hoover's
report gives a very reassuring account of his
agency's efforts to protect this democracy from
subversion from abroad. He says that despite
all the laws and steps taken against the Commun
ist Party in the United States, the Reds still
continue their untiringefforts to advance the cause
of world Communism. Furthermore, the U. S.
Communist Party constantly displays its alleg
iance to the Soviet Union. Mr. Hoover makes
the following important point in this regard:
"A new trend is evolving within the Party.
A number of Party leaders believe they now are
safe from arrests for some time. They contend
there will be no more charges brought against
them under the Internal Security Act of 1951
until the cases against (Gus) Hall and (Ben
jamin J. ) Davis are settled finally by the Supreme
Court. This, they conjecture, may take as long
as five years and may result in the law being
declared unconstitutional. Based on this reason
ing, they are convinced the Party can and should
function more openly.
"Thus, while the Party's lawyers fight the
various charges in the courts and before hear
ing officials, attempting to delay and frustrate
legal action wherever possible, Communist lea
ders arts expanding their drive for public suppor
Speaking engagements, press interviews, rad
and television appearances are openly soug’
Party leaders are ready, willing, and they clo
to be aOl« to speak with authority on any tor
They profess to have a solution to all ills d
portrav & Communist .world as Utopia.
"During the 1963 fiscai year, Comm st>
spokesman have stressed such domestic ies
as the civil rights struggle, the abolition
internal security programs and Corr Ss “
ional committees investigating CommuniJ and
the reduction of military spending with t) unds
diverted to social welfare projects. Th' leVer
fail to lay claim to being the staunchest most
effective defenders of the Bill of Rights.
‘•Their major aim is to convey th^P^ 3 "
sion that Communists are loyal citi/ dl ®
United States who merely hold poll 11 vdews
which differ from those currently prev n S* They
deny any directioni from abroad, an« le 8 e they
seek change only through legal mean
REAPINGS
AT
RANDOM
Anti-Communism, as expressedt r * Hoover *
is much easier to understand anc* p P° rt th an
that expressed by self-appointed > tr | ot 11 w4, °
mostly talk and write letters. Uwr“ ^ urne, ‘*
tation or facts about Communist y an * Mr *
Hoover's are far more reliable * e phostat -
ic half-truths which often com^° ss ' desk
from the 'fright peddlers" of th xtreme Right.
The F. B. L designates a 1 a ^tm^unist
only after a ithorough investif' n * a Nvhen a ^
the evidence is in; it labels* ups as subver
sive only when the evidenc(° v ^ *• and
justice Department has ma he v, - ssa ry an
nouncement. The F. B. L '? r
with half-truths or innue? J b str ictly
to the facts.