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GEARED
TO THE
NEWS
rchdiocese of Atlanta
SERVING GEORGIA'S 71 NORTHERN COUNTIES
COLLEGIALITY
Hungarian Prelate Cites
Bishops’ Freedom, Authority
BUDAPEST (NC)--The hoid of
the Hung«rl*n Bishops' con
ference said here that every
bishop must exercise both
authority and freedom in his
own diocese,
Bishop Endre Mamvas spoke
on the role of the bishops in
an address at the 117th annual
meeting of the St, Stephan’s
publishing house, today the only
Catholic publishing firm in
Hungary,
SPEAKING on 'The Second
Vatican Council and the Epis
copal Office," he told the as-
HOLY OFFICE
sembly which Included several
bishops, leading Hungarian in
tellectuals and newsmen that in
the past many proper functions
of diocesan bishops were as
sumed by both kings and the
Holy See,
"In Europe," he said, "the
monarchical form of govern
ment resulted in the gradual
loss of the apostolic power of
the bishops, in favor of the
monarchs. This occurred to
such an extent in Europe that
a bishop did not even have the
power to allow an old, ailing
priest to celebrate Mass in his
home,
"But then a new age appear
ed, in which, throughout the
whole world, and also here in
Europe, peoples and nations
began to undergo democratiza
tion. This also opened a window
of worldwide scale for
ecclesiastical administration
through which fresh air rushed
in even into the building of the
universal Church.
Vatican Modifies
Cremation Stand
VATICAN CITY (RNS) —
Roman Catholic Church re
strictions against cremation
have been eased in a decree by
the Supreme Sacred Congrega
tion of the Holy Office, headed
by Pope Paul VI.
•“While making clear that the
Church still opposes cremation,
the decree modifies one issued
by the congregation in 1886
which condemned the practice.
IT BROADENS the conditions
under which cremation may be
permitted and declares that
Catholics choosing cremation
should no longer be consider
ed sinners and may be given
the Last Rites and a Christian
burial.
Copies of the decree were
sent to Catholic bishops around
the world, accompanied by a let
ter from Pope Paul. The pontiff
pointed out in his letter that
the anti-religious aspects of
ACCM Board
To Meet
The Regular Board meeting
of the Archdiocesan Council of
Catholic Men will take place
at Sacred Heart Church, At
lanta Sunday, June 14, at 3p,m,
Officers and presidents of
parochial mens’ organizations
are urged to attend.
cremation have less emphasis
today than in the 19th century.
The Pope also noted that in
many lands national custom and
tradition allow cremation for
economic or hygienic reasons.
Cremation has been condem
ned by the Church as showing a
lack of reverence for the body
as the temple of the Holy Spir
it and as representing an at
tempt to deny the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body of
Judgment Day to be united with
the soul.
THE 1886 decree was adopted
to counteract a campaign by
some Christians who denied the
final resurrection of the body.
The Church’s ban against cre
mation was not based on the
natural law, on Church dogma
or a divine commandment.
That decree said that the
Church prohibited cremation
because it tended to diminish
man’s natural reverence for the
dead and tended to annihilate
many convictions respecting the
supernatural in a Christian peo
ple.
The 78-year-old decree also
said the practice was advocated
almost exclusively by those who
did not recognize the super
natural claims of the Chris*
tlan religion and denied the ex
istence of an after life.
’THIS BEGAN particularly
with Pope John XXIII and is now
being continued by Pope Paul
VI. Pope Paul VI has indeed
made it quite clear that he in
tends to do away with limita
tions on the episcopal authority,
with the exception of those
cases in which the interest of
the whole Church Indicates that
certain matters belong to the
sphere of activity of the central
authority.
"On this subject, I have my
self experienced an indicative
incident. When I came for the
first time before the present
Holy Father in audience, ac
cording to previous practice,
I removed the skullcap from
my head and held it in my
hands. The Holy Father said
to me: 'Put on your cap, for
you are a bishop yourselfl ’
“At the council no one doubt
ed even for a minute that the
episcopal rank is of divine
origin; hence it no more can
be terminated by the suc
cessor of St. Peter and re
placed by another institution,
than St, Peter could have ter
minated the authority of his
apostle colleagues,
"What binding power ought
the bishops' conferences to
have? This ( was the last topic
in the debates on the bishops.
It must be observed that the
resolutions of the bishops'
conferences cannot have any
Juridically binding power. In
his diocese, the bishop is the
supreme legislator. This
power of his cannot be limited
by the episcopal conferences.
In the case of a unanimous
resolution, or in the case of a
majority resolution being made
a unanimous one, —and this is
the case in the Hungarian epis
copal conference—then the con
ference resolutions are moral
ly binding on all the members.
The episcopal conferences can
not have greater Juridical
ly binding authority than, for
example, the regional councils,
which only have such power
when their resolutions have
been approved by the Pope,”
New Hospital
TAIPEI, Formosa (NC)— A
new 60-bed St. Joseph Hos
pital and Nursery in the hill
country of southern Formosa
opened its doors (May 30) to
serve the 15,000 aborigine re
sidents. The Hospital is staffed
by Dominican Sisters.
TO BUSINESSMEN
.MOKK THAN HALF MILLION VISITORS per week now enter the Vatican Pavilion
(above) at the New' York’s World's Fair, according to Msgr. John J. Gorman, director,
Next to the General Motors exhibit, it is second in popularity. Nearly 45',. of the total
number of fair-goers each week view the famed marble statue of the Pieta by Michel
angelo. on loan to the Vatican Pavilion from St. Peter’s basilica in Rome.
TO AID CATHOLICS
Council Of Churches Backs
Shared-Time Relief Benefit
NEW YORK )C) — The Na
tional Council of Churches here
has backed shared time educa
tion, saying it might be oneway
of giving a financial breather
to Catholic and other private
school supporters.
A pronouncement endorsing
experiments in shared time Was
adopted (June 4) by the policy
making general board of the na
tional council, a federation of
major Protestant and Orthodox
churches.
SHARED time, under way in
varioua forma in an estimated
300 school districts in 35
states, sees students enroll
ed in parochial and other pri
vate schools spend some of their
school day in public schools.
Shared time, also known as
"dual enrollment'' has receiv
ed attention as a possible solu
tion to the impasse over the
role of parochial and other pri
vate schools Federal aid to edu
cation.
The 120-member general
board's statement said that in
creasing costs of education have
caused Catholic educators and
parents to seek inclusion of
parochial school education in
government aid programs,
THE STATEMENT noted that
the national council has oppos
ed such requests in testimony
before Congress. But it added
that "resistance and opposition
are not a satisfactory perman
ent stance for Christians" and
went on to support experiments
in shared time.
The 34 demoninations and 40
million members represented
by the general board are aware,
said the statement, "of the fin
ancial difficulties under which
their Roman Catholic brethren
and others labor in supporting
two school systems."
Shared time, it said, appears
to be "one possible solution to
this problem" and "we there
fore approve further experi
mentation."
THE STATEMENT said ar-
NATIONAL ‘BEE’
rangements must be worked
out community by community".
"It is our hope that dual
school enrollment may prove to
be a means of helping our na
tion to maintain the values of
a general system of public
education, yet at the same time
meeting the needs of those who
desire a system of church-
related education, while uphold
ing the historic American prin
ciple of separation and interac
tion of Church and State,"
it concluded.
Parochial Students
Are High Spellers
WASHINGTON (NC) — Paro
chial school students captured
three of the top six places in
the 37th annual National Spell
ing Bee finals here. The first
prize went to a diminutive sev
enth grader from Boltch Junior
High School, Cuyahoga Falls,
Ohio.
William Kerek, 12, took the
national honors (June 4) by
correctly spelling "syncop-
hant," which means a hanger-
on. He won $1,000, a trip to the
New York World’s Fair and an
appearance on an nationwide
television show.
The second-place finisher
was Robert O. Mathews, 13, of
Gahanna, Ohio, He missed on
the word 'geophagy," which is
the practice of eating dirt,
IN FOURTH place was Anne
Restivo, 13, an eight-grader at
Christ the King School in Den
ver. After correctly handling
such words as "agnostic" and
"aphelion," she stumbled in the
18th round on "nubllous."
Although parochial school
students numbered only 14 of
the 70 youngsters who went in
to the national finals here, they
took three of the top six places.
In fifth place was Mary Eli
zabeth Joy, 13, of St. Patrick's
School, Oneida, N. Y. Roxanne
Wood, 13, an eighth-grader
at St. Francis Xavier School,
Phoenix, Ariz„ finished sixth.
MOVIE OWNER
Challeng es Law Licensing Films
MISSIONARY SISTERS of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, who
staff and operate St. Mary's Hospital, Athens, Ga., take special
interest in new life, and with the most modern equipment. The
sisters were featured in last weeks issue of the GEORGIA
BULLETIN, when this photo should have appeared.
WASHINGTON (NC)~The U.S,
Supreme Court has been asked
to strike down Maryland’s film
licensing law on the grounds that
it violates the Constitution's
free speech guarantees.
The law requires movie ex
hibitors in Maryland to sub
mit films to a state Motion
Picture Censor Board before
showing them publicly, The^
board can ban movies it judges
to be obscene or tending "to
debase or corrupt morals or in
cite crime,”
THE CHALLENGE has been
brought before the high court
by Ronald L, Freedman, man
ager of the Rex Theater in Bal
timore, who was fined $25 by
Baltimore Criminal Court for
violating the law. His convic
tion was upheld last Feb, 10 by
the Maryland Court of Appeals,
Freedman’s is a deliberate
test case. In November, 1962,
he exhibited a film called "Re
venge at Daybreak" without
submitting it to the censor board
but after having notified an offi
cial of the board of what he in
tended to do,
FREEDMAN says the state
has conceded that, had he sub
mitted the movie to the board,
it would have been approved.
His appeal to the Supreme
Court argues that Maryland *'ln
Imposing criminal penalties on
the very act of free expression
of concededly legitimate mat
ter," has "directly transgres
sed the First and Fourteenth
Amendments" to the Constitu
tion,
BUT THE Maryland Court of
Appeals held in affirming his
conviction that the law does not
violate free speech.
Pope Asserts
Religious Role
For Economics
VATICAN CITY (NC)--Pope
Paul VI has defended the right
of religion to a place in
economic affairs and con
demned the Manchesterian
Liberalism of the 19th century.
He characterized the dia
lectic materialism of Karl Marx,
and his followers as "antique,"
and asserted that the Catholic
Faith, by establishing the pri
macy of God over all things,
establishes the primacy of man
in temporal things,
HIS SPEECH Monday to parti
cipants in a congress of the
Christian Union of Businessmen
and Executives was a strong
denunciation of lalssez- falre
economics and the theory that
money profits constitute the
sole purpose of the economy.
He said the "religious coef
ficient" is not to be seen as
"a mere paternalistic, useful
corrective to mitigate the pas
sionate and easily subversive
explosion of the working class
against the businessmen,"
On the contrary, by establish
ing the primacy of man in
temporal affairs it supplies
"the motive that stimulates and
Justifies social dynamism,"
AT THE outset of the speech,
he placed businessmen and
executives in a category with
teachers and physicians,
"among the principal trans
formers of society."
Then, pointing to the word
"Christian" in the title
"Christian Union of Business
men and Executives," he asked
whether it was not "almost an
invasion of a foreign agent Into
the system itself," He further
asked whether religion, the
Gospel and the Church "do re
present a contamination of the
scientific and specific rigor that
governs and encloses within it
self the cycle of our (economic)
activity,"
He answered: "You have un
derstood that there are ob
jections which bar the way to
the entrance into your sector
of spiritual elements, and the
very lack of these spiritual
elements is in great part the
cause of the deficiencies,
disorders, dangers, tragedies
that may exist—and how they
exist I—in the realm created
by Industrial civilization."
"THE TECHNICAL and ad
ministrative sides work per
fectly, but the human side does
not," he said, ’The business
enterprise, which by its nature
demands collaboration, accord,
harmony, is it not still today
a clash of minds and of
interests? And sometimes is it
not considered an indictment
of the one who put it together,
Paper Defends
Married Deacons
MUNICH, Germany (NC) —
If the ecumenical council res
tores the dlaconate as a perman
ent order but does not allow for
married deacons, it will be a fu
tile restoration, according to
the Catholic Action periodical,
Die lebendige Zelle (The Liv
ing Cell).
Holding that a celibate dla
conate would attract "only a
few" men, the periodical ad
ded: "We respect the celibacy
of the priest, but the world al
so needs the sacrament of Mar
riage and therefore the marr
ied deacon."
directs it and administers it?"
"Is it not said of you that
you are the capitalists and the
only guilty ones? Are you not
often the target of social dia
lectic? There must be some
thing profoundly mistaken,
something radically lacking in
the system itself, if it gives
rise to such social reactions.
"IT IS true that whoever
speaks of capitalism today, as
many do, with the concepts that
defined it in the past century,
gives proof of being out of touch
with reality. But it remains a
fact that the socioeconomic
system generated from Man
chesterian Liberalism (a school
of British economics advocat
ing laissez-faire and the profit
motive) still persists. It per
sists in the conception of the
onesidedness of possession of
the means of production and of
the economy directed toward
the private profit."
At this point the Pope began
speaking of the "religious
coefficient." He said it would
"reveal with its light the basic
deficiency of the system that
pretends to regard the
human relations born of the
industrial phenomenon as pure
ly economic and self -
regulating.” He added: "And so
you have understood many pain
ful and redeeming things. You
have understood the need to rise
above the primitive stage of
that industrial era when the
economy of one-sided—that is,
selfish — profit ruled the
system. . ,
"YOU HAVE understood that
so many calamities rising from
a search for human welfare
founded predominantly or ex
clusively on economic goods
tnd on temporal welfare, are
the children of this
materialistic outlook on life.
Such an outlook is attributable
not only to those who make the
fundamental dogma of their un
happy sociology out of an
antique dialectic materialism,
but also to the many who erect
a golden calf in the place be
longing to the God of heaven
and earth,
"You have understood that
for you the acceptance of the
Christian message constitutes
a sacrifice, While for the have-
not it is a message of bliss
and of hope, for you it is a
message of responsibility, of
renunciation and of fear,"
PAYLIST HIPKKIOR—
Father John F. Fitzgerald,
C.S.P. i above i, pastor of St.
Paul the Apostle Church, Los
Angeles has been elected to
serve as Superior General of
the Paulist Fathers for a six
year term. A native of Bos
ton, he is the 12th priest to
head the Missionary Society
of St. Paul the Apostle,
founded in New York 106
years ago, by Isaac Heckcr,
convert-priest.