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PAGE 4 GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1964 Archdiocese of Atlanta •GEORGIA BULLETIN SERVINO GEORGIA’S 71 NORTHMm COUNTIES Official Organ of the Archidocese 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 Kiernan 2699 Peachtree N. E. P. O. Box 11667 Norths ide Station Atlanta 5, Ga. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rev. Leonard F. X. Mayhew Member of the Catholic Press Association and Subscriber to N. C. W. C. News Service Telephone 231-1281 Second Class Permit at Altanta, Ga. U. S. A. $5.00 Canada $5.00 Foriegn $6.50 Welfare Costs There are attempts in various parts of the country to elimi nate much of the welfare costs to communities by cutting relief payments to the needy, including unwed mothers who continue to produce illegitimate offspring. Aid to Dependent Children is aimed at the preservation and maintenance of family life, threa tened by the death, desertion or absence of the father. This ob jective is philosophically, mor ally, socially, and economically sound. Clergymen, doctors, psychiat rists and sociologists all agree that children develop most health fully in their own home. This is also God’s plan for children. Social agencies and their ad ministrators across the country, public and private, have been greatly concerned with the in crease in illegitimacy in the com munity, and especially with its impact on the Aid To Dependent Children program. They have been saying that any amelioration of this grave social problem is a total com munity concern and responsibi lity. Welfare programs do not cause, promote or condone ille gitimacy, nor can welfare pro grams, unaided by all the other social forces in the community, e. g., education, police, courts, probation departments, the law, even help stem this problem. Nearly 50% of the American people are unaffiliated with any religion. Therefore, almost half of our population never receives any moral or religious instruc tion or education. Illegitimacy is essentially a moral problem, and it will inevitably increase, unless all America, as some sections already have, finally finds a way to teach coming generations moral, religious and ethical val ues. Our laws reflect America’s lack of concern for sexual mor ality, which is the basis of mar riage and family life. Fornication and adultery are against the law in most states. The average fine is $10.00. The penalty for parking in a prohi bited zone of a downtown area in some of our big cities is $15.00, Yet we say the family is the most important social unit of a democratic society. Easy and repeated divorce un dermine the stability of marriage and family life. The extramari tal and premarital “romances’* of glamorous personalities are glorified and are given public ad ulation. Sex, apart from its signi ficance and relationship with marriage and family life, is pub licized, promoted and encouraged by movies, magazines and tele vision. The only time people seem to be concerned about immora lities and illegitimacy is in terms of what it costs the taxpayers. The only logical conclusion is that illegitimacy is a crime only for the poor. Patterns of marriage and family life were not established during slavery, and only moral and religious training can make any real progress in the estab lishment of the pattern. America must decide whether it still believes in marriage and the family as it has been known in Judeo-Christian Western cul ture, or whether it wants to “Modernize the family’* as in ef fect its lack of concern for sexual morality, permanent monagam- ous marriage and stable family life is actually accomplishing. Liturgical Prayer Liturgical prayer is like the central artery to which other streams of private and popular prayer lead and from which others flow for a personal, spiri tual life. And it is the one which must constitute the principal current of Catholic religious life in the in creasing secuiarity of modern society. Liturgical prayer must give the Church deeper and more genuine knowledge of herself. It must make the Church more lovable and make it easier for her to at tract souls to a new life in un ion with God. The liturgy stands today as a central problem of pastroal life. By this time, there is no lack of documentation for the fact. Today, thoughtful persons, be they shepherds of the people of God or students of Catholic cul ture, recognize the undeniable importance of the liturgy. They recognize the liturgy as important for a more compre hensive and effective approachto the children of our age, an age extremely refined in the use of human faculties and, at the same time, fright fully obtuse in par taking of the things of God. “The liturgy/* writes a contemporary scholar, “con tains all the doctrine of the Church. It is dogma in the form of prayer. “For although it is life and interior warmth, it is not do minated by capricious sentiment, but characterized by the pri macy of the Son of God. “Although the aim of the liturgy is not that of educating, but of putting souls into communication with God, still it puts us into the right relation with the whole of reality which centers around Him and subsists through Him. “The liturgy, with the great ness and the virile seriousness of its concepts, does not run the risk of being rejected by the ma ture man as the product of chil dish emotion, because, on the contrary, in the liturgy, religion is truly adequate to the needs of life.” (Josef Jungmann), POPE PAUL VI TwtWJb/ess every jo/ace where a jo/eture of My ffeerrf Sho// he set tf/o and honored Sacred Heart month GEORGIA PINES Shower Of VIP’s BY REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN Last April’s showers sure brought a big group of VIP showers during May. In the fifteen years I have lived in Georgia, I don't ever remember as many civic leaders visiting the state in such a short period of time. The early part of May brought the President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson and three Cabinet Members here. Before a week had passed the First Lady of the Land, Lady Bird Johnson visited a new hospital facility in DeKalb County. Days later the youngest brother of the late Pre sident, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts visited the General Assembly and addressed Law Day exercises at the University of Georgia in Athens. PEACE CORPS Director, R. Sargent Shriver, was the next visitor to Georgia. His Athens trip was punctuated with a cour tesy call to the Chief Execu tive at the State Capitol. An airplane trip to West Georgia College in Carrollton for the groundbreaking cere mony of the John F. Kennedy Interfaith Chapel brought the Attorney General of the United States, Robert Kennedy. This Chapel, which was built by the Episcopalians, was purchased by the Diocese of Savannah- Atlanta and now has been donated by the Arch diocese of Atlanta to West Georgia College. ILLNESS FORCED a cancellation of a visit by former President Harry S. Truman. Mr. Truman was scheduled to speak at the Jefferson-Jackson Day banquet sponsored by the Georgia Democratic party. While Georgia is no strange land to political and civic figures, the same can be said of Church figures too. I ESPECIALLY remember a visit in 1950 by the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, Eugene Cardinal Tisserant. The occasion was the marking of the Centenary of the establish ment of the Diocese of Savannah. The late Archbiship Gerald P. O’Hara had just been expelled from IRumaniai by the Communists. Archbishop O’Hara invited this Prince of the Church to the Centenary celebration. Cardinal Tisserant was at that time the head of the Oriental Congregation. Savannah turned out en masse to welcome the Cardinal and a Ponti fical Mass held at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist drew a record crowd. ONE SATURDAY in October of 1954 while I was serving as a curate at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Atlanta we had a visit by Cardinal Agaganian. Eastern Airlines phoned the rectory to say that a plane having a Cardinal aboard would have a two hour lay-over in Atlanta. Hurriedly a luncheon was arranged at the At lanta Athletic Club with some of the leading lay men of Atlanta’s Armenian community. Georgia Tech was playing a home game that day and it posed a terrific traffic problem getting the Cardinal back to the plane on time. Generously, the Atlanta Police provided an escort and after the Cardinal had seen the newly decorated Im maculate Conception Church, the motorcade arrived at the airport on time. CARDINAL SPELLMAN, the Archbiship ofNew York, visited Atlanta in 1960. As Military Vicar he had been invited by General Ruffner to speak at the Fort Me Pherson. The following day the Cardinal offered Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the King, On the way back to the airport one of the motor cycle escorts had a slight accident. When the Cardinal’s car stopped, he jumped out to per sonally assist the motorcycle policeman. Today, the policeman proudly shows a letter he receiv ed from Cardinal Spellman. AMONG OTHER things Atlanta is fast becom ing a travel center for the great southeast. This state is taking on new prominence as a leader. Doubtlessly the city will be seeing more and more visitors of the religious, political, civic, cultural and financial world. AFRICAN MISSIONS Taking A Hard Look BY GARY Mac EOIN Independence has obliged the Catholic missions to take a hard look at the activities on which they have traditionally concentrated their efforts in Africa. Frequently, the attitude of the new government or the prevailing public opinion in a society in which Africans are for the first time revealing their thoughts is very different from that of the former colonial regime. This is true not only of governments hostile to Christianity, like that of the Sudan, but also of those which recognize the contri bution of the missions and val ue their cooperation. Formerly, for example, edu cation was in large part con trolled and operated by the Christian mission bodies, with the state paying a substanital part of the cost. Now, however, strong pres sures have developed to bring the schools un der direct State control on the ground that the mission authorities must inevitably give prefer ence to the children of their own communicants. In a society in which only a minority of school age children can be accomodated in all schools, this tends to concentrate education in certain religious groups and keep the others in perma nent inferiority. Uganda and Nyasaland have al ready taken over control of administration and syllabus in mission schools, and other states are being urged to follow them. Apart from such intrinsic merits as the argu ment for greater state control of education may have, the position of the mission schools has been weakened by their practice in some terri tories under the colonial administrations. In return for the financial aid received from govern ment funds, they provided a higher level of ser vice for the European and Asian than for the African members of the community. Today the Africans by virtue of their numbers make policy, and they have not forgotten. A friendly critic, Tom Mlxjya, minister of Justice of Kenya, recently said what many are thinking. Having described what he himself owes to the mission schools, he says that Africans have doubts about the work of missionaries when they see how the missionaries in the past complied so easily with the type of colonial regime in which CONTINUED ON PAGE 5 THREE ITEMS Hierarchy Of Values BY GERARD E. SHERRY One is often talking about a hierarchy of values and the Importance of first things first; the right thing at the right time, and the right word in the right place. Several incidents of late have brought all these things to mind; (1) Just recently a group of teachers from the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine were dis cussing plans for a summer session. They were all lay people and were enthusias tic about something different than the standardized class. They therefore de cided on seminars on particular subjects. One doesn’t have to guess the first two subjects agreed up on. Yes they were Communism and Sex. What is more, speakers were readily suggested and thought available for these topics. Another subject readily accepted was Catholic Action. Yes, it was CFMerwho was recommended as an instructor. One always equates Catholic Action with CFM and vice versa. Everything was going fine until one of the instructors suggest ed Race as a topic for discussion by the teen age students. It wasn’t so much a question of an uneasy silence that followed, rather it was an unspoken horror that such an issue has to be thought of as essential in the process of Chris tian education. The CCD teachers had no difficul ty with the matter when it was suggested. They simply made no decision. They also discussed the Lay Apostolate as a subject, but could only come up with a priest as a possible speaker. As we said at the beginning, a hierarchy of values. This item concerns Senator Barry Gold- water and I use him only as an example. I can’t help him or hurt him in relation to success or failure in his attempts to win the California primary. It will all be over by the time these Reapings see the light of public day. Barry Gold- water, like most politicians, tries to enlist in his corner as many respectable people as possible. If they are also well-known Americans; if they are truly patriotic; if they are oft- proclaimed anti-Communists, and, finally, churchmen, so much the better. Judge for yourself the follow ing; The California Goldwater for President Com mittee inserted a full-page advertisement in many of the state’s newspapers last week. The one in the Central California Register, newspaper of the Monterrey- Fresno diocese, contained ex cerpts from leading Republicans, plus an ex cerpt from a letter addressed to Goldwater by Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York. The general heading of the advertisement was “Lead ing Americans pay tribute to Barry Goldwater.” We can dispense with the tributes paid by Re publican leaders to Barry Goldwater. They were genuine and natural and nobody could quarrel with their publication in such an ad. However, the alleged tribute from Cardinal Spellman is another kettle of fish altogether. This is what they quote from Cardinal Sepellman; “Your elo quent plea for fair treatment, in the event of Federal aid, for students in private and church- related schools expressed a viewpoint with which, as you know, I am in complete agreement. I am very pleased to know that you have taken such a strong stand on this vitally important is sue.” I have no doubt that Cardinal Spellman has sent similar letters to other proponents of fair treat ment for private and parochial school^in Fede ral education. I am equally convinced that recipi ents include Democrats as well. Maybe even Rockefeller has one which he will produce in the final hours of the campaign. Or maybe Gold- water's opponent will produce a medal struck in honor of Pope Paul and say to the voters, “See, Pope Paul likes me. He gave me this medal when I visited him last year.” The point I make is that the quote from Cardinal Spellman is not an endorsement of Barry Goldwater, yet this ad gives such an impression to the uninitiated. Politic ians have a habit of doing this type of thing and we only mention Barry Goldwater because his is the latest example of what I believe is dis honesty by his supporters. Item three is something that was brought up at the Catholic Press Convention last week at Pittsburgh. 1 was having a discussion with several Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Marc H. Tanen- baum of New York, national director of the Inter religious Affairs Department of the American Jewish Committee. I mentioned the fact of the remarkable and speedy support given the Ameri can Jewish Community by Christians of all faiths in protesting Soviet persecution of their Jewish citizens. I said this made me very happy and proud, especially the Catholic participation in this protest. But I brought up a point of discomfiture over a problem which many people would like to sweep under the rug. That is the lack of Jewish protest or apparent concern for persecution of Christians in such places as the Sudan and the further limiting of freedom of Christians in places like Ceylon. I also observed that there were Jewish signators to several protests over the now proven to be phoney persecution of Viet Nam Buddhists by the Dhlem regime. I sa ^ this apparent double standard impeded the work of those Christians who genuinely wanted to work side by side with their Jewish fellow citi zens in the cause of community peace and tranquility. It's an emotion-packed subject and one which should be handled very carefully. But we would be fools if we ignored the questions asked by many responsible citizens as to why , the Jewish community seldom is seen in our corner when the shoe is on the other foot. fact that in relation to “The Deputy'* controv ersy some leading Jewish officials support ed the stand of the late Pope Pius XII does not alter the situation one iota. We started this pi ece talking on * hierarchy of vain® 8 * That it what is involved in this latter observation. REAPINGS AT RANDOM