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GEORGIA PINES Paved With Good Intent Saints in Black and* White ST. ANTONY 81 DURING VATICAN COUNCIL THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1964 GEORGIA BULLETIN ,PA.QE 5 BY REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN Mayor Allen’s recent statement about the unpav ed roads still existing in the great city of Atlanta recall to mind many interesting and humorous stories about those Georgia red clay roads. Savannah, Georgia is one city in the state where property owners have to agree to bear part of the cost of paving the street in front of their property. Soon after I was ordained, I was sent out to pick up the census of the Cathedral parish. I remember driving down one street in particular and stretches of the street were paved while the parts in-between remained virtual mud- holes. It seems that some of the property owners liked un-paved streets. IN MY HOME TOWN there was a street named after an Indian, Cohannet. I look back now and re call that someone wanted it to remain like an Indian trail. On one occasion after the street was paved, the Municipal Light Company came along and dug it up to lay power lines. As if this were not enough, soon the telephone company dug it up and put down underground cables. To top it off, then the city de cided to put down a new sewer ,line. One time I was sent out to pick up a testimony in a marriage case. Over eight miles of ruts and two streams, I travelled. Gosh, was I glad to find the people at home that day. I IMAGINE THAT SOME of the older priests in the state could tell many a story about the red clay roads they travelled In order to reach the far- flung missions ot yesteryear. Georgia clay is more slippery than ice when it is wet; and more dusty than a dry mop, when it is dry. The most famous of all Georgia missions was that of Albany. Many of the priests who served on that mission are still working in our own arch diocese. They literally made their way over hun dreds of miles, every week, on Georgia’s unpav ed roads. GEORGIA MIGHT NOT have the best roads in the country, but the other day I received a map from the Highway Department showing all of the paved roads in our state and I was surprised to see how few highways remain unpaved today. Some years ago we had a trailer-chapel in the state. It proved impractical because when it slipped into a ditch it required a major effort to put it back on the road again. In those days Geor gia was dotted with many wooden bridges, often barely strong enough to support an automobile, let alone one dragging a trailer behind. LAST SPRING WHEN we had so much rain and the expressway out in DeKalb County became as slippery as a ski-slide, many a person wished that the road had been left unpaved. Of course, north Georgia is plagued every spring when the ground begins to thaw out and ruts are left in the highway making travel more dangerous than it would be on a dirt road. “Then, too, I saw a picture in the paper the other day where an automobile almost dropped out of sight when a paved street in Atlanta suddenly re vealed a cavity under its filling. Oh well, paved or unpaved, I guess people will always manage somehow or other to get around. QUESTION BOX Plain Wooden Crosses MY MONSIGNOR J. O. CONWAY Q. 1 HAVE A QUESTION WHICH 1 WOULD LIKE FOR YOU TO ANSWER FOR ME. IN OUR CHURCH WE JUST HAVE PLAIN WOODEN CROSSES IN STEAD OF PICTURES FOR STATIONS. I WAS TOLD THAT WE COULD NOT GAIN \NY INDULGENCE WHEN WE PRAY THE STA TIONS IN OUR CHURCH, SINCE THOSE CROS- ;es could not be blessed with any in- )ULGENCE. A. You may be sure that all the indulgences of ie Stations of the Cross can be gained from the lain wooden crosses which you have in your hurch. Even if you had the most elaborate pic- ares, you would still have to have the plain wood- n crosses. These are the main feature of the Stations, and without them no Indulgences can be gained. In other words, the pictures or statues are simply additions to the Stations, which are the cros- ses. t*** Q. FOURTEEN YEARS AGO I HAD A NERVOUS BREAK DOWN AND AT THE TIME RE- jmmmmmmrnmm— L1GION, ACCORDING TO THE POCTORS, OR RATHER RELIGIOUS CONFUSION WAS A PART OF THE MENTAL ILLNESS, AND THEY STRONGLY SUGGESTEDTHAT1 REFRAIN FROM ACTIVE PARTICIPATION UNTIL I HAD ONCE AGAIN REGAINED MY FULL MENTAL BALANCE. THE BACKGROUND IS COMPLICAT ED AS I WAS A CONVERT ALTHOUGH NOT A MEMBER OF ANOTHER CHURCH. I WOULD LIKE TO TRY TO TAKE AN ACTIVE PART IN CHURCH SACRAMENTS AGAIN. SHOULD 1 JUST GO TO A CONFESSIONAL SOME DAY, OR IS IT NECESSARY TO CONSULT A PRIEST AT THE RECTORY? MY HUSBAND THINKS THE LATTER THE CASE BUT I AM NOT TOO SURE I CAN TALK IN DETAIL A BOUT MY ILLNESS WHICH WOULD PROBABLY BE NECESSARY. A. I agree with your husband that you should first talk to the priest in the rectory. If you are not able to discuss your problem without getting upset, then I doubt that you are ready to greatly in crease the tempo o* your religious activities. However, I do not insist upon my opinion in this matter. You are perfectly free to go right into the confessional and receive the sacrament. The only problem involved is that of your nerves and emo tions. *** Q. IF I MAY ASSUME THAT FORA FEW MINL TES OF SERVILE WORK ON SUNDAY I MAY COM MIT A VENIAL SIN, HOW LON'J WOULD I HAVE TO WORK TO COMMIT A MORTAL SIN? A. For two or three hours doing definite work which is not necessary. *** Q. I HOPE THIS QUESTION IS NOT IRREVE ^ NT. WHY WOULD GOD DESIRE TO BE CON STANTLY PRAISED? A. To really understand the answer, we would Live to understand the nature of God, and that is not possible for us here on earth. This is one of the many areas in which we will be led astray if we try to transfer man’s nature to God. If a man sought to be constantly praised, he would be very vain and ambitious. It would seem to me that God’s wish for con stant praise is due to several factors; (1) The very nature of God, His complete goodness, His immeasurable love, His infinite power, all deserve this praise by the very or der and nature of things. It is wrong for us not to acknowledge the truth. (2) It is for the welfare of man. Only by giving constant praise to God, recalling His greatness, returning His love and giving gratitude for His goodness are we able to maintain our awareness of God’s unlimited greatness and goodness. (3) It is for the good of the People of God. Only by one man’s joining with his fellow men in giving constant praise to God do they come to realize their true brotherhood as children of the Father and their obligations toward each other in life. SOUR SOCIAL FRUIT Prejudice: A Dirty Word CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 not merely injure its victim. It wounds, equal ly or even moreso, the person who possesses the prejudice, because it attacks him in his most noble part, his reason. Each time that one of us forms a judgement on any but a reasoned motivation we lower ourselves to a less than human level, even before any injury we do to another. At least the victim of the prejudice has the consolation, whatever the suffering or disability he must undergo, that his integrity as a man has not or disability he must undergo, that his integrity as a man has not necessarily been threatened. There is, in most of us, an inborn fear of what i s or seems to be foreign. Those of dif ferent religion, race, national background, lan guage, even looks, arouse our immediate su spicions. The more pronounced the contrast that marks off the individual from his environ ment; or, the more dramatic the disproportion between a minority and the prevailing group, the more likely it is that emotional antagonisms will be created, and inherited by one generation from another. Prejudice forces its victim into a pattern, creates a stereotype to match the pattern and then, in a complete logical vacum, criticizes the object of prejudice for what it has done to him. Thus, in the Middle Ages, Jews were legally excluded from most profess ions and allowed only to engage in finance, which was forbidden to Christians. Anti-semltic sent, ment then immediately labeled all Jews avarici ous usurers. The Negro, confined largely to menial work, is criticized for the dirt he has to work in. One of the most enlightening lessons about pre judice is its universality. I recall mission aries recounting to us in the seminary the un complimentary remarks about big noses and un pleasant odors that the Chinese habitually made about Europeans and Americans. It gave us pause to feel the shoe on the other foot; pause and an unpleasant experience of turnabout being fair play. Humanity has to date not evolved sufficiently to equate diversity with rich variety, although perhaps the direction will begin to change in our time. Only when one has made the effort to shed a prejudice and found it difficult indeed, does he realize how deeply and irrationally anti semitism, prejudice against Negroes, or Ca tholics, or whomever, has influenced his atti tudes and deeds. If I have met a thousand men from Tibet, for example, and found them all impolite, when am I Justified in saying that all Tibetans are impolite? Never. When it is a matter of human beings, 1 must take each one in his own proper person and dignity. That alone will spell the end of prejudice. North American Bishops Lauded On Liturgy Role 13. 14. 15. r ACROSS 1. One who (suffix) 5. Aeons 9. Leach Female name He has one Mosaic Swiss cheese 18. Gohl Surface 20. Lantern 22. Poor people 25. Molecule part 26. Ostrich-like bird 27. Time loan; abbr. 28. .025 acres 29. Atmosphere; abbr. 30. International News Service 31. One of the N.E. States; abbr. A play : ns card Memphis Chief God (F.gypt) Flavor 39. Slow balkt 41. He/.ekiah’s Mother i2. Jap outcast *4. Abnormal 4 8. Apolv material on a surface 51. Sprinjt 52. Roman room 53. MaHtn 55. S!e : gh 56. lo reword 59. Of the calf of the lex 32. 34. 35. 60. Pelican State; abbr. 61. Now 62. To soak 63. Promise to pay 64. Football abbreviation 66. North Caucasian . Language 68. Denary 69. Plaguer 71. A heat resistant glass . 73. Native of Denmark 75. Prong 76. Steamship 78. Medallion 80. Heating vessel 81. Cubfc measure 82. Besides 83. Way DOWN 1. Napped 2. Dependent on a tide 3. Jacob’s brother 4. Parapet 5. E-tclamarion 6. Chokes 7. Yale 8. He lived in 9. Weight; ahbr. 10. River islet- 11. Plumlikc fruit 12. A taught him spiritual life 16. Operatic scene 19. Fel'ne papa 5 !. A unease 38. 40. 42. 23. Biblical character 24. Anent 29. Hawaii cord 33. He was born in .. . . 34. Hawaii food 35. Perched 36. Cameroon tribe 37. Brim Arrtsrs International Phonctj. Alphabet; abbr. Period 43. Convinced 45. Coolidgc 46. Beverage 47. Boy 49. Insecticide 50. Vocal performance 54. Former monetary unit of Latvia 55. Loiter 56. Unfledged-bird 57. he was scourged by the ...... 58. Slant print 60. ..... Cehrig 63. Medical suffix for diseases 64. A dy* 65. Source of life 67. A City in Nevm'a 69. Woma nicki.aine "0. Yugoslav Ic<He>- 72. Dry; comb, form • 1 5. Nothing 77. Road; abbr. ■'9. That (Fr.) ANSWER TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE ON’PAGE 7 ST. LOUIS, Mo. (NC) — A letter has been sent to all the bishops and council Fathers of North America praising them for their “de cisive role’’ in the passage of the Second Vatican Council’s Liturgy Constitution and for their decision to implement its teachings as soon as possible. The letter was drafted at the annual mid-winter meet ing of the Liturgical Confer ence officers, board of di rectors, and adivsory council at Maryville College hertfDec. 27-28). SERVICES, personnel, and resources o f the Liturgical Conference, a Washington- based organization which is the focal-point of the U. S. liturgi cal movement, was offered to the bishops in the letter, it was announced. Members of the committee which worked on the letter stressed their view that wor ship in the Church is the “source and summit of Chris tian life” and said- that they welcomed the new constitution Decause it will be a source of personal holiness and will foster greater unity of the Body of Christ. The offer to provide what ever services the bishops may request reflected the major con cern of the experts, authors, and practitioners of liturgical reform as they met here. They ARNOLD VIEWING A Mad, Mad Three Hours BY JAMES W. ARNOLD Movies just don’t come much better than “It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” producer-director Stanley Kramer’s broad, raucous, generally dis respectful first venture into comedy. For 25 years, a Big Movie Comedy has rarely been more than a collection of notable TV, radio and night club comics scrambling about in search of a story. The laughs have depended on wise cracks or audience recognition of a comic’s famous routine. Some of this survives in “Mad Mad’’; e.g., Phil Silvers is still a fast-talking con - man, and Jack Benny has a moment in which to immortalize his hurt look when a woman barks at him; “We don’t need any help from you I” But mostly Kramer employs a long list of very funny people as actors in an ingeniously com plicated story that brings forth some of the wildest visual humor since Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd filed away their reper toire of probable impossibilities. This film is for those who remember how funny movies were before pictures learned to talk very well; yet it is made with all the production skill of the 1960’s. “Mad, Mad’’ is nearly a type unto itself, so long have the old sight gags - so often depending on the sudden insanity of the physical universe - fallen into disuse. Younger filmgoers have never seen what an automobile can do when a comic madman turns it into a boat, tank, plane or sled; never noticed that dynamite always fails to explode, unless a comdeian examines it to find out why, or that basements are easy to get into but impossible to get out of; never seen an air plane fly through a billboard, or a fire-ladder suddenly behave like a giant windshield wiper; never watched a chase that ended with the entire cast dangling from a crumbling (always crubling) fire escape. "Mad, Mad” bears some comparison with "Around the World,” with which it shares a big- screen elegance of style and joyful spirit, as well as a plot involving wide vistas of geography and a race that challenges the madcap inventiveness of its participants. This time the performers rush about southern California, looking for illegal trea sure buried by Jimmy Durante. The tone is not always genteel: there are prat falls, ladies with torn skirts, burlesque brawls, and such obvious buffoonery as having Sid Caesar and Edie Adams escape from a hardware store basement into a Chinese laundry. Detective hero Spencer Tracy is burdened with a six-foot-five teenage daughter and a wife with the voice of Selma Diamond; once he aims his hat at a coat- rack and sends it out the window where it is smashed by a car driven by a gleeful Jerrv Lewis. This remains the only serious defect; Kramer and authors William and Tania Rose try so hard they sometimes suffer from a lack of artistic restraint. But 95 percent success is a good score even at Harvard. In a n age of symbolism and psychoanalysis, one suspects that Kramer, who has always felt movies should do more than entertain (’’Judgment at Nuremberg,” “A Child Is Waiting”), has done more here than tell a long, improbable joke. The fable involves chiefly four sets of people - a hen pecked husband, spouse and mother-in-law (Milton Berle, Dorothy Provine, Ethel Merman); newly weds (Gaesar, Miss Adams); Las Vegas ne'er- do-wells (Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett), and a surly, persecuted truckdriver (Jonathan Winters). Presented a $350,000 windfall by the expiring Durante, they fail to agree on a fairway to divide the loot, then spend three hours frustrating them selves and doing violence to the notion of human dignity as they pursue the Easy Dollar. So busy are they disputing and chasing false leads that they finally miss the exact location of the trea sure, though it stands like a neon sign against the sky. At last they are confronted by the saintly old detective, who has had them all under constant observation and recites the crimes of each. Here is a Last Judgement allegory if ever there was one. The script has a final mad switch, worthy of Chesterton, which -features a not-too humorous dig at the way society treats its good stewards. There is, in fact, a bitter edge to the last 10 minutes which makes the concluding orgy of inspired slap stick almost too brutal. But the point is worth noting: despite the universal curse of human misfortune and avarice, we are, like all good clowns, some how worth loving and laughing at. The production is a wowser, starting with the droll titles by Saul Bass and the lilting score by Ernest (“Exodus”) Gold. The new one-camera Cinerama eliminates all thewiggly lines and some distortion; the chases (most of them achieved by stuntmen rather than camera tricks) and long overhead shots (apparently from helicopters) are wondrous to behold. But the deeply curved screen is still a bother; unless your seat is in mid theater, it is often like trying to read the Times while lying on your ear. “Mad, Mad” is worth whatever fee is exacted. Most of it will go to Kramer, a decent, gifted filmmaker who deserves every dime. This is the funniest three-hour movie ever made. FAMILY LIFE Status Symbol In Reverse (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4) Responsible parenthood demands that whatever decision a couple makes, whether to have a large or a small family, it must always be a decision resulting from Christian prudence. My main point about the whole matter is that, while there may be virtue in having large families, one should not, therefore, conclude that those with small fami lies are shirking their Christian duty. There are extremists at both ends of this problem. NEITHER SHOULD these Reapings be taken as an attack on large families. It is more a defense of the many small families who face not-so- subtle criticism by those who stress only one facet of family life. Catholics cannot accept the secular answers to their marriage problems; but they do look to the Church for a more sympathetic hearing, and better instruction, in fulfilling their moral obligations. spent much of their time planning how to get the Catholic people to study and understand this new and central develop ment of their faith. ATTENDING the meeting here were Father Gerard S. Sloyan, president of the Liturgi cal Conference, and Father Frederick R. McManus, past president, and about three dozen other members of the board and advisory council. Purpose of the meeting here was to plan for the 1964 Liturgi cal Week, to be held in St. Louis from Aug. 24 through 27, and to plan their organization's program for the coming year. Father Gerard S. Sloyan, of Catholic University, president of the national organization, summed up the effect of the new Liturgy Constitution in an inverview. “To view the Liturgy Constitution as new legislation that is binding would be a mistake,” he said. “In stead, it is a document that is a guide to a total renewal of the Christian life and worship in the Church.” AT THE same time, even with the constitution in hand, h e worried about what would be done now. “Popular edu cation is the answer,” he said. He said the Liturgical Confer ence will put its full efforts behind this effort and make it self available to the whole Church, bishops, parishes and people, to carry this out. Immediate plans of the Liturgical Conference, an or ganization that numbers among its members many bishops, priests, and lay people with extensive experience and scho larship in the liturgy, is to embark on an intensive publi cation program and series of bulletins to help put the docu ment into effect m parisl life. Father Sloyan said that the full effect of the reform and renewal of Catholic worship will “take 30 to 50 years to overcome all the handicaps of 500 years.” AS AN immediate timetable of how soon the first reforms will be practiced in the United States, Father Sloyan outlined this progress. An extraordinary session of the full U. S. hierarchy, around Easter will decide on the re commendations of their five- member commission. But the first effect—when a parish might begin using English instead of Latin—will be delayed until late summer or fall, according to Father Sloyan. He said the interim time will be necessary for the publication of translations and for priests and people to become acquainted with how to use them. Seminary Fund Remember the SEMINARY FUND of the Archdiocese of Atlanta in your Will. Be quests should be made to the “Most Rev erend Paul J. Hallinan, Archbishop of the ,Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta and his suc cessors in office’*. Participate in the daily prayers of our seminarians and in the Masses offered annually for the benefactors of our SEMINARY FUND. God Love You BY MOST REVEREND FULTON J. SHEEN Many mental patients belong in the realm of psychiatry, bui there are some patients whom no psychiatrist can heal. The\ are like the woman in the Gospel, who “after having spent al] of her money on physicians was not better but worse.” The rea son medicine cannot help them is because they are suffering from a hidden sense of guilt. Multiplying their sins and re- e ion against the law of God, they reach a point where life becomes intolerable; suicide often follows. They call them selves worthless, forgetful that no one can be worthless for whom Christ died. For those who are not men tally sick, but are suffering from grave sins, the cure is in atonement, in reparation, in the making up for guilt by penance. In his play, “The Cocktail Party,” T.S. Eliot makes Celia Copplestone say in her confession to the psy chiatrist: “It’s not the feeling of any thing I’ve ever done which I might get away from, or of anything in me I could get rid of, but of emptiness, of failure toward some one, or something, outside of myself; and I feel I must... atom — is that the word?” A few years ago a plea was made on television for a national day of atonement for the sins of America. But a govemmeni official recommended that the word “atonement” be dropped, because people would not understand its meaning. If you have any sins for which you would like to atone, then help convert sin ners in Africa; if guilt mounts up before your face, then turn despairing souls into white souls through the preaching of our missionaries. Build a chapel or a hospital, or education a native priest. Do anything which will cut into your own flesh, into your own guilt. Waste not your money by giving it to those who already have; give it to those who have not, and who share the poverty of Christ. God will then have mercy on your soul for, as Scripture says: “Charity covereth a multitide of sins.” Send your atone ment offering to the Holy Father through his Society for the Pro pagation of the Faith. GOD LOVE YOU to Mrs. A.C.H. for $10 “Enclosed is my thanksgiving to St. Jude for his intercession for a very special favor.” .... to Mrs. H.T.F. for $5 “When I asked my sister, a nun, what she wanted for her birthday, she answered: *A little donation to Bishop Sheen would make me very happy.”* ... to A.H. for $5 “For my intentions.” Why not place an OUR LADY OF TELEVISION statue atop your •T.V. set? It is available in two sizes; the 11-inch figure of Madonna and Child, constructed of unbreakable white plastic with gold-colored cross and halos, reminds us that as Mary gave the Divine Word to the world, so television projects the human word; and the 4-inch model with black suction-cup base, which is ideal for use in automobiles. Send your request and an offering of $3 (11-inch) or $1 (4-inch) to The Society for the Propagation of the Faith, 366 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10001. Cut out this column, pm your sacrifice to it and mail it to Most Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, National Director of the Society for the Pro pagation of the Faith, 366 Fifth Avenue, New York lx, N. Y. or your Archdiocesan Director, Very Rev. Harold J. Rainey P. O. Box 12047 Northside Station, Atlanta 5, Ga.