Newspaper Page Text
GEORGIA RINES
Mine Of Information
Saints in Black and White
ST. CATHERINE LABOURE
79
BY REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN
One time while I was on vacation I went to
visit a sick friend in New Bedford, Massachu
setts. I recall with humor the incident related
by the nurse who was caring for my ill friend
She told me that the priest had been by to bring
Holy Communion. I asked her if she met the
priest at the door with a lighted candle. “Gosh
no’*, she replied, “he came in the middle of the
morning and there was plenty of light for him to
see with!".
Humorous though the incident was, I know that
every priest has had the experience of bringing
Holy Communion under anything but proper cir
cumstances. Often it becomes necessary to re
move aspirins, medicines, glasses, etc. from the
top of a bureau in order to make a place to put
the communion kit.
I FEEL THAT THIS is not so much a lack of re
verence as it is an honest mistake. For many,
it is their first experience with
sickness and the more serious
the illness, the more confusion
reigns.
If they had time to think,
doubtlessly they would remem
ber all the rules of religious
courtesy but most
of the time this is not the case.
WHAT HAS BEEN sadly
lacking is a clear, yet concise,
listing of what is necessary without having to
wade through pages of pious expressions. Gerry
Sherry, managing editor of the GEORGIA
BULLETIN, has done precisely this, In a new
publication called the Catholic Directory for the
Archdiocese of Atlanta, Mr. Sherry has incorpor
ated in his work such helpful things as Prepara
tion for a Sick Call, Christian Burial, Planning
a Wedding?, Baptisms etc.
The book consisting of 56 pages lists all of
the churches in the Archdiocese with the hours
of Masses, Confession time, and the priests in
attendance. It certainly will be a welcome re
lief to summer travelers who have been anxious
to find out the hours of masses before setting
out on a trip.
A MAP OF GEORGIA covers the two center
pages with an outline of the counties which are
located in the Archdiocese of Atlanta. If a church
is located in a particular county it is designa
ted by a cross.
Officials of the Archdiocese. Driests of the
Archdiocese, and a listing of the various depart
ments will save much time for people when
they are anxious to call the Matrimonial Tri
bunal, the Chancery, School office, Newspaper
or Charity Department.
A listing of various religious communities,
location of Hospitals, schools and orphanages
with their phone numbers is also incorporated
into the book.
Yes, Mr. Sherry has done an excellent job
producing this book and it will be an excellent
help both to the laity and the clergy. It is a book
which has long been needed and I certainly would
recommend that a copy of it be found in every
home of the Archdiocese of Atlanta.
QUESTION BOX
Meatless Friday
BY MONSIGNOR J. O. CONWAY
Q. EATING MEAT ON FRIDAY IS THE ISSUE.
I FIRMLY ADHERE TO MY POINT THAT ONE IS
NOT PERMITTED TO INDULGE, AS A GUEST,
WHEN THE HOSTESS HAS ERRED IN SELECT
ING MEAT FOR HER MENU. THE OPPOSITION
DECLARED FEELINGS SHOULD BE SPARED,
AND THE CATHOLIC SHOULD, WHILE RE
MEMBERING IT IS FRIDAY, EAT THE MEAT
WITHOUT COMMENT TO SAVE THE HOSTESS
embarrassment and avoid the waste of
FOOD.
COULD THERE BE DIFFERENT RULES IN
DIFFERENT DIOCESES ABOUT THIS, OR DIF
FERENT INTERPRETATIONS MADE BY VAR
IOUS BISHOPS IN THE UNITED STATES? IHAVE
LIVED IN DIFFERENT DIOCESES, BUT IN MEM
PHIS, TENN,, OUR PASTOR CONVINCED ME
THAT THE HOSTESS’ ERROR, HER FEELINGS,
OR THE WASTE OF FOODCARRIEDNO WEIGHT
COMPARED TO THE OBLIGATION OF CHURCH
LAW, AND OUR EXAMPLE OF DUTY TO OUR
LORD, TO FAITH, AND TO SELF-DISCIPLINE.
If A. Your question is compli
cated, my lady, and even if you
simplified it you would still get
a complicated answer.
Let us simplify it a bit by
elimination of impertinent fea
tures:
1. I don’t believe faith is in
volved. in the light of faith we are trying to de
cide between two duties: charity, or love of
neighbor, and observance of church law,
2. It is precisely our duty to our Lord that we
are trying to fulfill. Would He, in these circum
stances, want us to embarrass and hurt our hos
tess or to judge ourselves excused from church
law? His own example may be pertinent to our de
cision, He often healed on the Sabbath, even when
it gave scandal to the Pharisees, strict interpre
ters of the Law.
3. Self-discipline is hardly involved. It has not
been suggested in your question that we are eating
the meat because it is so luscious. Self-disci
pline may be needed to exercise charity with
graciousness. Besides we can do penance next day,
if we need it for our own discipline.
4. 1 would eliminate all question of waste of
food, except in cases of real poverty. Most peo
ple have refrigerators which keep a roast nicely.
Steaks may suffer a bit! Butformost of us I don’t
believe a few bucks excuse us from a serious law
of the Church.
5. Our bishops sometimes grant dispensations
from the law of abstience, for various reasons,
but I have not heard of any of them giving an of
ficial interpretation of the dilemma you present.
Now that we have pared down your question,
let us first note that your rigorous pastor in
Memphis agrees with a majority of traditional
moralists. Assert yourself strongly as a Catholic
by refusing to let flesh meat touch your tongue
on Friday, and let the offenses fall where they will.
Today moralists tend to place more emphasis
on charity: love of God and love or our brethren;
and they seek the examples of this love in the
words and actions of Jesus. They keep in mind
that the letter of the law may kill, but the Spirit
gives life: that rigorous observance of legal
details may, as St. Paul says, serve our own
pride rather than give honor to God (2 Cor. 3,
9-11).
At a Friday dinner, this new attitude makes us
think first of our hostess and our fellow guests.
Meat has been served; there is no other piece de
resistance, What should we do?
It all depends on circumstances. Charity is cer
tainly not served by giving scandal. We must as
sess that factor honestly, on the spot. Will our
eating the meat do real spiritual harm to others?
If that answer is negative, then further decis
ions depend on your hostess. If she is Catholic
and well known to you, and if most other guests
are Catholic, then you may well ask when you
first smell the roast: “Maude, don't you know
what day this is?" Then everyone gives her a bad
time, she laughs or cries a bit, opens some salmon
cans, and all Catholics there do penance — es
pecially if the Protestants present partake oi the
meat.
LITURGICAL WEEK
Lent-A Baptismal Retreat
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4
More than ever, our lives are centered during
this retreat of Lent in the temple, the holy
place, the Church where God’s Word is pro
claimed and the holy signs of divine life are
celebrated.
Today’s Gospel illuminates the function of
the Church in our lives—the Church building
as a necessary sacred place, to which all of
our other ‘'places’' may be related. And the
First Reading teaches how even the believer
must return again and again to the sources, to
the Word of Cod and the sacraments of His
house, i esl cod’s message be totally humanized
and rendered ineffective.
feb. 19 e mber Wednesday in lent.
Both negative and positive poles of Lent are in
three readings and the texts of this Ember Day
Mass. ‘Forty day 8 and forty nights" of human
response t o God’s invitation and call are ex
plicit in the first two lessons.
But this human response of cleansing and of
penance must be filled wi^ t h e presence of the
Lord. els e "the last state of that man is orse
than the first” (Gospel).
FEB. 20 THURSDAY 1st WEEK IN LENT. We
ar e ern l >a rked on 3 ^horch-wide fast and a
Churvh-wid e act 0 f penance, y e t we may not for
get the Personal nature 0 f p a ith and of man’s
response to God; The Christian finds salvation
in community, but in a community in which the
person is neither swallowed up nor eclipsed.
Today’s First Reading attacks a false and
antipersonal notion of solidarity. And the Gospel,
too, shows us the healing we seek in Lent as a
result of personal confrontation with the Lord.
FEB. 21 EMBER FRIDAY IN LENT. Con
tinuing yesterday’s personalist emphasis, the
First Reading locates virtue, not in the race or
the tribe or the family but in the person.
It is the person’s turning to God his re
pentance, his recognition of dependence and need
which win the mercy so evident in the Gospel
and in the other proper texts of today’s Mass.
Healing is never far from us, but we must know
whom to ask.
SATURDAY, FEB. 22 ST. PETER’S CHAIR.
Today we celebrate the grace Jesus has given
us in Peter, first bishop and foundation of the
Church at Rome, mother and teacher of the
churches.
just as human resources did not produce this
primacy, this leadership among the bishops of
the world, so human weakness has never been
able to deprive the Church of it. So we thank
•God for this bond which, together with the Eucha
rist and our adherence to God’s Word, insures
our unity.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1964 GEORGIA BULLETIN PAGE 5
CATHOUC SCHOOLS
‘Eligibles’ Aren’t Attending
ACROSS
63. Nights
18. Near the North
1. Vows
65. Asiatic perennial
2.). Small island
■5. Ago
66. Of the Elm tree
22. Demise
.:). Fore
68. Harangue
24. Slander
. J. She became on;
70. Solo
27. Rituals
at age 8
71. Ancient Greek City
29. Lien
: i. Greek River
73. Lapse
31. John; Russian
.5. Anger
75. None; (dialect)
32. Flower cluster
\I.ung disease
76. She had many
34. Post
17. t able maker
79. Fodder pits
36. Hemmed
l'\ Chest
'81. Glacial ridge
39. Military fortification
21. Senile
82. Comb, form: boundary
41. One who sates
23. Enlist
83. Roar
44. Proportion
25. Autumn pear
85. Ooze
46. Of one’s birth
26. Row
87. Verb form
48. Stake
28. Purposeful
88. Hebrews’ Ancestor;
49. Knitting stitch
30. Of oil
legend
51. Potash
33. Encore
89. Brilliant success
53. Its product is citric
35. Black
55. Goddess of Vengeance
3 7 . Covet
DOWN
(Gr. Myth)
38. Inscribe
1. Correlative
57. Approaches
40. Peruses
2. Waltaba
59. Elder
42. Head covering
3. Pronoun
60. Numbers
4?. Tree chopper
4. Nor to have (contr.)
62. Low c.tsto Hindu
45. Goods cast overboard
5. Harsh breathings
64. Combat
(Maritime law)
6. Father
67. Pelops was her brotlu-
47. Group of states; obbr.
7. Bow
69. Greek dialect
48. News service
8. Gore
72. Parvenu
*U. Car
9. To prohibit
74. List
52. Ore
10. Name of Saint who
76. Pledge
54. She wanted to become
appeared to her
77. Irish Rebel gtoap
one since very young
11. Land measure
78. Wooden paii
5/. Roman
12. Trap
80. Musical direction
:u. Loathe
13. Favor
84. Mister
61 Waste allowance
16. Entire
86. and (Trench*
ANSWER TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE ON PAGE 7
DETROIT (RNS) — A “pro
gress report" on the current
nationwide study of Catholic
elementary and secondary
schools revealed here that en
rollment represents only42 per
cent of the children eligible.
Reginald A. Neuwien, a spec
ialist in education research,
said that percentage may be
lower when his staff determines
a precise “eligibility figure"
based on the number of infant
baptisms over the past 20years
MR. NEUWIEN, speaking be
fore 3,500 teachers and admin
istrators attending the Detroit
Archdiocesan Elementary In
stitute, gave what he describ
ed as “preliminaryfindings’’of
the nationwide survey. The
study team’s headquarters is at
the University of Notre Dame;
a $350,000 grant from the Car
negie Corporation of New York
is financing the work.
Thousands of Catholic child
ren are unable to gain admiss
ion to parochial schools each
year, Mr. Neuwien reported. In
September, 1962, Catholic ele
mentary s c h o o 1 s rejected
107,000 - - 16 per cent of
all applicants, while high
schools rejected 81,700 — 22
per cent of all applicants.
THE RESEARCHER cited
what he called “interesting,
though not necessarily the
most important" findings of the
Catholic schools study to date:
1. Only 25.6 per cent of re
porting elementary schools
have full-time, non-teaching
principals.
2. The ratio of lay teachers
ARfjQiD VIEEMS
Heavy-Footed Spoof
BY JAMES W. ARNOLD
No longer are there any limits to the hori
zons of the booze-and-bunny oriented Hugh Hef
ner (Playboy magazine) Hero. In “The Prize,"
he emerges as not only peerless drinker and
lover but as great writer and foe of communism.
The film's title might well be: “I dreamed I
won the Nobel Prize on a party weekend.’’
THE MOVIE is loosely based on Irving Wal
lace’s long 1962 novel (768 gamey, drama-pack
ed pages) about what might happen in Stockholm
during Nobel Week if you transplanted the in
gredients of a Los Angeles orgy. Author Wallace's
odd stew of patriotism, shock,
science and sex has been trans
lated by director Mark Robson
and star Paul Newman into what
appears to be a heavy-footed
spoof of spy movies.
Both book and film probably
demean the over-all Nobel
prestige, but the total effect
jnay be beneficial. As the press
agents of starlets who fall into
swimming pools at cocktail parties are apt to say,
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity."
IT‘S HARD TO separate the intended from the
unintended jokes. Newman plays a Nobel laureate
in literature who consumes the brief time bet
ween martinis chasing either girls or the Reds,
who have kidnaped a kindly old scientist (Edward
G. Robinson) and substituted his long-lost twin
brother. Other Nobel winners include a French
husband and wife research team who are experts
in reproduction but on the brink of divorce and
an American doctor who suspects his Italian co
winner of plagiarizing his experiments. None ap
pear right enough to detect nicotine stains on
a cigaret filter.
In the book most of the confusion seems vaguely
connected to character and motivation. Inthefilm
there is no character beyond the obvious. New
man is an amiable happiness-now type who could
scarcely be imagined having the genius to write
a letter home. He pursues one blonde (Sweden’s
Elke Sommer), is pursued by another (France’s
Micheline Presle), and battles brunet Diane Baker
to a standoff. Intervening is the usual spy movie
claptrap; witnesses killed before they can speak,
bodies that disappear, patients whisked in and out
of mysterious hospitals, trench-coated men with
switchblades peering evilly from the shadows.
SOME OF IT IS plainly played for laughs.
This is especially true of the sex play, in which
Newman is always eager eager and apparently
encouraged, but never successful. Such humor is
a long-standing tradition inU. S. films, where the
audience is inevitably tantalized by elaborate
romantic preliminaries and then deprived of the
logical conclusion.
This should not be confused with morality;
symbolically, it more closely resembles onanism.
In the movie trade it is simply another way to
thrill the audience and simultaneously squeeze
past the censor.
While everyone thus emerges, technically, with
virtue intact, there is no doubt of the Playboy
approach to love: the male as pseudo-educated,
pseudo-talented, hip and irresistible; thefemale-
as-bunny, cute, cuddly, pet animal. Miss Sommer-
angelic face and pouting lips framed by bouffant
blonde poodle cut—seems manufactured with this
mind. The new models, like cars from Detroit,
look like all the others; stereotyped perfection
with a few-do-dads to make last year’s girl obso
lete.
NEWMAN, WASTED in apart even Rock Hudson
could have handled, makes a comic shambles of
the much-publicized nudist meeting scene.
Followed by killers, the towel-clad hero is anx
ious to get himself arrested by heckling the
speaker, demanding to know how he plans to make
elbows visible, etc. Director Robson’s cameras
are cleverly discreet, and for all but the ultra-
squeamish, this is the film’s best comedy.
Robson, who won a niche in history for direct
ing the first respectable “Negro problem" movie
(Home of the Brave”), concocts a few other good
comic touches: pulling an endless gag from the
mouth of a bound Communist guard, having an ap
parently driverless Mercedes (with Newman at
the wheel) drift away from a line of unsold new
cars, allowing Newman to react refreshingly in
sheer terror when he stumbles upon a corpse.
But these are only hints of what the picture
might have been; most of it is as straignt as
Mother’s Day in Sheboygan.
The funniest scene is apparently serious. Actor
Robinson is dying of a heart attack, a thought
less act which will rob us of a climactic con
frontation on stage in front of the king, et al.
The Italian doctor shows his true genius by
shocking Eddie back to life with the ends of a lamp
cord touched to his bare bosom. While everyone
stands about grinning, Robinson jogs off to get
his money and his medal.
BECAUSE IT can’t really decide to be satire,
“The Prize’’ is a little funny, a lot trite, and
full of depressing behavior that attracts audien
ces. To be fully conscious of minority status
as a believer in old-fashioned virtues, you should
see it in a packed downtown theater on Saturday
night.
There is, of course, the pretty' Stockholm scen
ery, and even an arty shot of the staturay out
side the impressive Nobel auditorium. I thought
the view was a concession to aesthetics, but
it turns out as merely another plot device. At
the end, one of the bad guys gets impaled on
a statue's upturned limb.
CURRENT RECOMMENDED FILMS:
For everyone: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World;
Lord of the Flies, The Great Escape, Lilies of
the Field.
For connoisseurs: Winter Light, 8 1/2 Jhis Sport
ing Life, The Leopard.
Better than most: The Haunting, Charade.
to religious teachers is 1 to 2.24
in elementary schools and 1 to
2.64 in secondary schools.
3. The median age of Sist
ers teaching in elementary
school falls between 35 and 44,
with the largest group, or 28.6
per cent, in the 25-34 age cat
egory.
4. The median training level
for all teaching groups in Cath
olic secondary schools (pri
ests, Brothers, Sisters, lay
men) is beyond the bachelor’s
degree but below the masr^r’s
degree.
MR. NEUWIEN said the sur
vey team had been surprised to
find that 20 per cent of the
questionnaires sent to 24,000
parents resulted in volunteer
comments far beyond the ans
wers sought. Ninety per cent
w ere “favorable’’ to the Catho
lic educational system, he said.
Foremost of the 31 things cited
by parents as goals of Catholic
schools were religious training
of the child, firm discipline and
academic and social develop
ment.
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
This is a new world, a new time, and we must change! But how?
We start with the words of Our Lord: “Heaven and earth shall pass
away but My Truth shall not pass away.” In other words, moulds
will be broken but the pudding remains; customs may change but
Christ abides. The Catholics who hung on to the old system of
astronomy at the time of Galileo and the old biology at the time of
Darwin were making baby clothes to fit a growing child. It must
not happen again!
How will we adapt ourselves
to our new world? Perhaps as
follows:
1. The parish will continue to be
the unit of Catholics living in a
certain area of a city or town,
but it will cease to be a ghetto
in which Catholics are separat
ed from the rest of the world.
2. Every parish and diocese will be a stake to which Catholics are
tethered, but the spiritual rope will enable them to pasture their
alms, prayers and sacrifices throughout the world.
3. Catholics will go to church on Sundays as they go to a bank on
Monday to draw out money with which they will shop and purchase
necessities wherever there are bargains. Likewise, Catholics will
assist at Mass to have poured into their souls the merits of Christ,
and they will spend them wherever there are “souls for sale" and
especially “bargains" as there are on the Missions, where so lit
tle purchases so many merits.
4. The Catholic laity, knowing the poverty of the world, the hun
dreds of millions of Christless, will support their pastors against
two evils: 1) against excessive luxuries in building; 2) against
Sunday collections only for the parish when the world is the parish.
5. Every Catholic will live during the week as if he were given a
subpoena and brought into court, where instead of being a witness
in a law suit, he will be a witness to Christ — in his shop, his
office, his profession; in Africa, Asia, Latin America — every
where. Our Lord’s last words on earth were for us to “be wit
nesses." But do we give “evidence" of our Faith, or do we take
a spiritual Fifth Amendment and say with Peter, “I know not the
Man"?
6. More priests will be utilized for the Missions, the laity taking
over secular jobs like radio, television, insurance, purchasing,
real estate, building, finances. When Our Lord said: ‘The labor
ers are few,’’ there were so many priests that they haJ to take
turns serving the Temple! Our Lord knew there were priests
enough, but not enough witnesses, plenty of Sisters but not enough
missionaries. With one priest for 20,000 Catholics in many places
in Africa and Latin America and one for every 700 in the United
States, perhaps our families should pray not for vocations, but for
“laborers for the harvest."
7. In the new age, children will be taught not only Catholic Doc
trine, but Catholic discipleship. Our Lord did not say: “If you
know My Doctrine, you will do My Will," but: “If you do My Will,
you will know My Doctrine." The best theology moves from the
confessional to the person, from the classroom to the slums, from
the catechism to the Missions. We do enough talking “about"
God in our schools; now we will do more talking “to" God and
then begin to know ourselves out of love for Him.
8. Our colleges and universities will put less stress on graduates
being “Loyal alumni" to pour superabundant wealth back to their
schools, and put more emphasis on being “loyal Catholics" -
serving not an institution, but the Holy Father and the Church
everywhere in the world.
You may not be able to do much individually to insure the Catho
lic rather than the “ghetto" outlook, but you will hasten the
change as you realize the following truths:
a. The needs of the Church in the poverty stricken parts of the
world are prior to our wants. We need bread; we want cake.
b. So pray, sacrifice and offer your sufferings that the whole
Christ is aided. That is why the Holy Father said he must be
“first and principally aided."
\
c. Paul VI today aids all parts of the world, all missionary acti
vities. The more Catholic you are, the more you will sacrifice
for him through his Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
GOD LOVE YOU to Mrs. R.A.C. for $5 "In thanksgiving for a
favor received." ....to E.M.B. for’$2 “For God’s poor." ....to
Mrs. A.M, for $1 “We are able to send this by having given
up a fancy dinner for Christmas, I have known what it is not to have
food to eat and am happy to share what 1 have with others."
Cut out this column, pin 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, NewJYork lx, N. Y. or
your Archdiocesan Director, Very Rev. Harold J. Rainey P. O.
Box 12047 Northside Station, Atlanta 5, Ga.