Newspaper Page Text
THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1964
GEORGIA BULLETIN PAGE 5
SHOCK AND APPREHENSION
White Backlash
BY REV. LEONARD F.X. MAYHEW
The explosive violence in the Negro slums of
New York and Rochester has been added to the
horror of killing and arson in Mississippi, The
nation's burden of shock and apprehension grows
apace. Citizens of every shade of opinion on the
question of the civil rights movement inevi
tably focus their attention on the unpredictable
chain of events. Much solemn discussion - and
some solemn nonsense - centers on the so-
called "white backlash" against the Negroes’
efforts for civil and social equality. Seldom has
judicious and reasonable discussion been more
needed.
The "white backlash" is variously conceived
and explained. At times it supposedly embodies
the hitherto latent prejudice
and resentment of the northern
white against the Negro. A good
deal of this kind of backlash is
reportedly located in the re
stricted suburban areas, where
the "threat” of Negro social
and economic competition is
remote. North and south, the
"white backlash" is reported
also at the other end of the
economic spectrum. Workers, already fearful of
the effects of automation on their present and
future employment, are said to resent the pros
pect of sharing their neighborhoods, schools
unions and job opportunities with Negro competi
tors.
ANOTHER GROUP commonly associated with
the backlash phenomenon consists of those only
moderately in favor of the desegregation pro
cess and the civil rights law. Even if these in
dividuals have not felt themselves absolutely
wedded to an unjust status quo, they are said
to prefer it to any disturbance of *business as
usual’ involved in changing it. It is among this
group that incidents of Negro lawlessness and the
violence of the Harlem and Rochester riots ap
parently trigger a reaction against the entire
civil rights notion and movement.
There are a number of reasonable lines of
thinking that need to be kept forcibly before
our attention during the present crisis. First of
all, let it be baldly stated that lawlessness re
mains what it is, whatever the color of the
lawbreaker’s skin. With this in mind, Roy Wil
kins of the NAACP wrote recently in Harlem’s
Amsterdam News that Negro hoodlums are "sell
ing the Freedom Riders down the river."Negroes
can advance their cause of equality, he con
tinued, "by recognizing that a punk is a punk,
white or black, and by putting him in his proper
place." These are words which deserve applause
for their honesty. They could be fittingly echoed
with fervor by the white leadership of Alabama
and Mississippi.
IT MUST also be kept firmly in mind that
individual abuses do not vitiate entire moral
principles. That the question of civil rights and
racial equality is a matter of morality has
been repeatedly affirmed by Church teaching. Its
concern is with rights and duties, personal op
portunities, human dignity, justice and charity,
the moral nature of law. All these are the very
texture of morality. This is not changed by the
occurence of individual moral failures on the part
of Negroes any more than, for example, the
divine foundation of the Church is brought into
doubt by the moral failures of Popes, clergy or
faithful.
The recent tragic events in Harlem and
Rochester do not lend themselves to an argu
ment against the civil rights law. The passage
of that law did not effect any immediate signi
ficant change in the lives of the Negroes who
live in the two areas. Their substandard hous
ing and overcrowding, their underemployment,
their de facto school and residential segrega
tion their exclusion from a voice in community
affairs- all remain as before. While it is possible
to level an accusation of irresponsibility against
some - and only some - of the Negro leaders in
these areas, neither this nor any particular
incident of conflict with police authority is suf
ficient explanation.
EVERY CITIZ EN concerned with dome Stic tran-
quility will deplore rioting and violence, who
ever is guilty. The real cure- indeed, clearly
the only cure- is to remove the causes that
underlie such disorders. Then and only then,
will the symptoms disappear. "Backlash"
and reaction will only aggravate the illness.
QUESTION BOX
Conscience Problem?
BY MONSIGNOR J. D. CONWAY
Q. When a married couple has in conscience
decided that the Church teaching, or position,
on birth control is WRONG, may they continue
to receive! Communion? Are they obligated to
mention this decision to a confessor?
A. I suspect that some Catholics have made
that final judgment which you put in quotes, but
I doubt that many of them are receiving Com
munion.
Accepting your hypothesis-
that this couple is sincerely
convinced that they are acting
rightly-then they could in good
conscience continue to receive
Communion. And they would be
obligated to mention their deci
sion to a confessor only in the
measure that they might have
doubts about it.
Some of my readers may tend
to be scandalized by my answer. But if they will
reflect a moment they will realize that it is not
the logic of my conclusion which starles them,
but rather the hypothesis. How is it possible for
Catholics to arrive at such a decision?
In these days we rightly emphasize the free
dom of the individual before God, and we stress
the truth that his own sure conscience is the final
arbiter of right and wrong in his case. But this
does not mean that conscience may be merely
subjective; it must be guided by objective norms
of right and wrong. And a Catholic who under
stands his religion knows that Jesus established
His Church to teach His doctrines of faith and
morals. He promised to remain with His Church
to the end of time. She speaks with His voice,
guided by the Holy Spirit.
It does not seem possible that a Catholic
who accepts the teaching authority of the Church
in matters of morality could hold mechanical
methods of birth control to be legitimate. It is
true that Jesus made no mention of the subject,
and that there is no clear, irrefutable statement
in the Bible that the practice is sinful. The crime
of Onan is rather ambiguous.
The Church bases her teachings about birth
control primarily on the natural law. And I
readily admit that it is possible for sincere people
to remain unconvinced by the rational arguments
used by her theologians. And in the strictest
sense it may be true to say that there has been
no absolutely infallible pronouncement on the
subject. However the statements of Pope Plus
XI in his Encyclical Cast! Connubii may well be
a manifestation of the infallible teaching authority
of the Church, and his condemnations of arti
ficial methods of birth control are clear and
definite. Besides there has been about a century
of explicit and uniform theological teaching to the
same effect, bolstered by official responses of the
Holy Office, and based on principles much longer
accepted.
NEW ALGERIA
Your World And Mine
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4
the Catholic Church today works in Algeria. The
morale of the missionaries is nevertheless high.
In fact, f or fi r st time they are in a posi
tion in which they can begin to exercise their
ministry.
During the century and a half of France's
presence in Algeria, the Church was identified
in the minds of the Moslem population with the
European community. Anticlerical French
governments long hindered its i activity,, and they
finally came to tolerate it only for the educational
and social services it could provide for the French
residents and their families. Work with the
Algerians was restricted. Most of the priests
had little contact with them, knew almost nothing
of their culture, their language and their religion.
IT WAS NOT until the trials, of the bitter
guerilla war that the Algerian Moslems began
to see evidence that the Church was notan integral
part of the French colony. Both in France and
in Algeria, Catholic spokesmen raised their pro
tests against the atrocities committed by the
French army and the French colonists. The White
Fathers and White Sisters continued their work in
the villages and the countryside. When a wounded
man came to a dispensary, nobody asked which
side he was on.
The result was that when the settlers streamed
back to France on the proclamation of inde
pendence, no official pressure was brought to
bear by the triumphant Algerians on the priests
to follow them. Nor did many members of the
clergy seek of their own accord to abandon their
mission field. "The Church has decided to be
Algerian," Archbishop Leon Cfoval of Algiers told
them. "She is here for all.’’
Following this lead, the priests dedicated them
selves to the building of the new Algeria. Left
without congregations, they looked for new ways
to exercise their ministry’. Many took jobs as
teachers in state schools. Others went to work as
technicians in sectors of the economy in which
their skills would be particularly appreciated.
Nursing sisters were welcomed into the expand
ing networks of city hospitals.
MEANWHILE, the Church has made every effort
to develop its educational and charitable works in
ways that will fit most fully into the objectives of
state policy. Catholic schools follow the programs
of the ministry of education and give major stress
to Arabic studies. The demand for education is
tremendous. In addition to the expansion of faci
lities for the young, great efforts are being made
to teach reading and writing to the generation
which missed school during the conflict with
France. The Catholic schools are participating
fully in this crash program. Care is taken not
to offend the religious susceptibilities of the
Moslems who now constitute the majority of
the students.
The missionaries in Algeria do not hope to make
quick converts. They do not even hope to preach
the gospel in the literal sense, for every form
of proselytlsm is forbidden in Algeria, as in all
Moslem states. What they seek is a beginning to
dialogue. What they achieve is a Christian pre
sence, a presence which their great faith assures
them will enrich both Algeria and the Church.
Saints in Black and White
ST. ELIZABETH OF PORTUGAL 110
RAISED IN HARLEM
Heartache Of Prejudice
Described By Negro Nun
Ami**
1 She was the daughter of
Ill
Orange
She is one
Life work
Jacob's brother
American Association of
Engineers; abbr
Indian mulberry
shift
charge
frantic
cut
dawn
comb form; air
lien
having grooves
African animal
ridge of sand
hip
condition
purposeful
evergreen shrub
attack
Biblical City
Graduate Nurse
Associated Press
enter
not at nil
rubber tree
fairylike
pare
beside
exclude
tense
implied
valid
Female nlckmanc
Tennyson charcter
plane
age
Her father was from —•<
entangle
sacred to the memory of;
L. abbr.
swab
Esau’s father-in-law
docile
favorite
network
gnawed away
6
10
13
14
15
16
17
19
21
23
25
26
28
30
33
35
37
38
40
42
43
45
47
48
50
52
54
56
58
61
63
65
66
68
70
71
73
75
76
79
81
82
83
85
87
88
89
Down
1 Quaker State; abbr.
2 go astray
3 feat
4 memorial of a saint
5 seer
6 breathe
7 Uncle Sam
8 ranch
9 frenzy
10 Her— ways converted
her husband
11 label
12 eyes (Scot)
13 She founded Convent of
Poor
16 astound
18 froth
20 African wild sheep
22 obligations
24 levees
27 declaim
29 fruit
31 row
32 open
34 expiate
36 added claim
39 made mistake
41 envy
44 edible mushrooms
46 Intern
48 Her was St. Elizabeth
of Hungary
49 request
51 slander
53 creases (botany)
55 extract
57 ardent
59 chromium
60 jackets
62 Female nick name
64 ruin
67 ferocious animal
69 crowbar
72 pittance
74 cotton fabric
76 unit of electrical intensity
77 eggs
78 negative
80 U. S. A. officers; abbr.
84 Group of States; abbr.
86 article (French)
ANSWER TO LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE ON PAGE 7
CINCINNATI—(NC) Anguish,
heartache and frustration are
the feelings of a Negro woman
"as she struggles against the
forces of hatred in a spirit
of faith, hope and love,” a Negro
nun said here.
Sister Maria Mercedes, vo
cation director of the Franci
scan Handmaids of Mary, spoke
(July 25) on "The Effects
of Slavery" at -an institute on
interracial justice held at the
College of Mt. St. Joseph. Some
600 persons, most of them Sis
ters attending summer
sessions at the college, took
part.
SISTER Maria Mercedes,
born and raised in Harlem, said
that "every black woman must
walk in the shadow of the
cross—simply because she is
black.”
After the Emancipation, she
said, the Negro woman contin
ued to walk in an atmosphere
"infected with slavery’s mali
gnant consequences."
"She was a woman whose total
sacredness as a human person
had been utterly destroyed,"
she said.
"Was not the society itself
culpable for not working at
changing its attitudes toward
the newly-freed slave?" she
asked. "Because society did not
meet this responsibility, today
—100 years after the Emanci
pation Proclamation— I, as
child, woman, and Religious,
still carry the burden of the
lingering effects of slavery.
SISTER Maria Mercedes re
called an occasion when, at
the age of 17, she was work
ing in a five-and-ten-cent store
after school. A white custo
mer, annoyed because the young
clerk could not produce a de
sired item, publicly berated
her a "nigger” and "relega^-
ARNOLD VIEWING
Unsinkable Molly Brown
BY JAMES JV. ARNOLD
If freshness or originality is any criterion, then
"The Unsinkable Molly Brown”, which is a rea
sonably workable marriage between "Annie Get
Your Gun” and "The Beverly Hillbillies,” is not
much of a movie. But it is difficult to find too
much fault with a completely wholesome techni
color musical that involves someone more adult
than Fabian and Annette Funiceilo.
In reality, "Molly” was never intended to
stand on its own. It is an elaborate showcase for
a female star who can sing, dance and be funny.
The only trouble with Debbie
Reynolds, who can do all of
these things passably, is that
she can do none of them so
as to create tingling sensations
along the lower vertebrae. If
a. one-woman show by Miss
Reynolds is within your range
of tolerance, "Molly” may be
your cup of (iced) tea.
MEREDITH Willson’s score
is certainly not his best, al
so certainly not his worst^lthough one tune ("I
ain’t Down Yet”) is already a pop standard.
Many of the original songs have been cut. Peter
Gennaro’s dances are bright and lively, full of
arms and legs, shouting and stomping, but they
are indistinguishable from the dances in most
western-type musicals. "Molly” has a heavy
tried-and-true aura about it.
Frankly, it is more interesting as a metaphori
cal statement of some of the traditional dilemmas
and conflicts in American life. The story is the
persistent Colorado legend about a backwoods
foundling who rises by power of will and per
sonality to become the social darling of Denver
and the international set. The poor girl becomes
rich but clings to the brash innocence of her
past. She faces a choice; if she wants wealth
and power, she’s going to have to change.
There seems an obvious analogy to the rise
of America from humble frontier origins to
power in an older, more devious world. At
first, her manners are too rough, she flaunts
her new wealth generously but tastelessly, and
she is not accepted. Finally, after accomplish
ments abroad (in the film: becoming pals with
European royalty and showing heroism in the
sinking of the Titanic), she learns "how to act”
and is cherished for her true qualities.
But a deeper conflict remains within the heroine
herself. She is unable to reconcile her ardent
materialism and ambition ("I can be anything
I want”) with her frontier values; the need to
be friendly, open, unselfish, unaffected. The
conflict is made graphic in the incongruous images
familiar to "Hillbillies" fans; the common folk
uncouthly yukking it up amid incredible wealth,
while the upper crust looks on in horror.
WHAT’S HER solution? To go back to the log
cabin joys of poverty and hard work? To escape
the corruption of subtle, sophisticated society?
That would mean giving up too much, even for
Molly. So the film allows a compromise: the
heroine keeps her mansion in Dever, but the
frontier spirit takes over the neighborhood. The
incompatible live happily together forever after
It works out in the film, but in real life, Ameri
ca is still confronted with reconciling her back-
woods principles and nostalgia with her new
leadership role in a complex world of abundance
and social responsibility.
The movie might have been better, since it
involved some high class production talents:
director Charles Walters ("Easter Parade,”
High Society”), scenarist Helen Deutsch ("Lili,”
"I’ll Cry Tomorrow”), photographer Daniel Fapp
("West Side Story”). But the filmic approach is
too conservative.
EVERY MUSICAL since "Oklahoma I” has been
required to have a few serious moments, heart-
tugging, if possible. Miss Deutsch chugs along on
farce for 90 minutes (in one scene, a fellow
throws a pick over his shoulder and opens up a
$10 million gold mine), but then tries to get the
audience emotionally involved with the characters
as real people facing marital breakup. It doesn’t
work.
Walters is at his best in the staging of "I Ain’t
Down Yet,” when he has Miss Reynolds run,
climb and whoop over half the acreage in Colorado.
Unfortunately her voice lacks the necessary pow.
The interior dances are exciting mainly when
Fapp is allowed to circle or move his cameras
with the participants.
There are two brief but splendid examples of
how film may be used creatively to spruce up a
musical number. In one, Harve Pressnell (as
Molly’s miner-husband) builds a complete home
by himself during a single song. In another, as
the couple decide to take a world tour, they begin
whirling across the ballroom floor and continue,
without missing a beat, through four or five of
the globe’s main tourist attractions.
AMONG OTHER good moments; a whacky spoof
that takes much of the legendary allure out of dance
hall girls, a desperate sequence in which Miss
Reynolds tries to teach herself how to play the
piano, a long shot of Pressnell singing a love
song in the middle of a huge brown-green field
with the Rockies in the distance.
Pressnell is a lean, lanky holdover from the
Broadway company with a strong, if occasionally
waspish, tenor voice. When he gets emotional,
however, he tends to shatter his vocal cords
all over the set. Audrey Christie is elegantly
nasty as the head witch of Denver’s sw ank Sacred
36. The sets are ingeniously wild: the best gimmick
is a fold-down bathtub that may well start a rage
in Scarsdale.
CURRENT RECOMMENDED FILMS:
For connoisseurs: Tom Jones, Bridge on the
River Kwai (re-release).
Superior entertainment: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad
World.
Better than most: America America, Black Like
Me, Becket, Fall of the Roman Empire, Billy
Liar, The Pink Panther.
ed me into the category of ille
gitimacy."
"But nothing is quite so pain
ful,’’she went on, "as a cutfrom
the subtle knife often wielded
by those who are clothed in the
garb symbolizing charity'.”
SHE TOLD how she had gone
from motherhouse to mother-
house, "seeking admission into
the postulancy of the diffe
rent white religious orders.”
She was turned away repeat
edly with such comments as "if
only you were a registered
nurse. . . if only you had a
college education.”
"NO ONE said so, but I in
stinctively knew that behind
their excuse there was a true
reason for their refusal,
namely, that the doors to God’s
houses were closed to me be
cause my face was black,” she
commented.
Even after seeking refuge in
an all-Negro community, she
continued, the Negro Sister
"Still has not escaped the quiet
opprobrium and disdain shown
by many of her confreres be
longing to the white religious
community.”
MOREOVER, she has been
"aware of the artificial show of
friendship by communities who
welcome 'the little colored
nuns' to parties arranged just
for them.”
"No," said Sister Maria
Mercedes, "not even her re
ligious garb has protected the
Negro woman from the bigotry
of the world. How pathetic that
Christ’s great commandment to
love one another often has been
given only lip service even in
the court of His chosen ones.”
Trappists
Live Longer
JERUSALEM (RNS) — A Jew
ish research professor said
here that cloistered Trappist
monks at Our Lady of Emmaus
Monastery near here who have
taken vows of silence live to a
ripe old age and have perfect
hearing.
On the other hand, said Prof.
Pinhas Weil of Hebrew Univer
sity, monks who have contacts
with the outside world and may
speak die sooner and have in
ferior hearing than the clo
istered Trappists.
The findings were reported
by the professor at a meeting
designed to give impetus to an
anti-noise campaign in Israel.
A law enacted by Parliament
some time ago has had little
effect in curbing noises and air
pollution by public vehicles in
major cities.
n^m
Seminary Fund
Remember the SEMINARY FUND
of the Archidocese of Atlanta in
your Will. Bequests should be made
to the “Most Reverend Paul J.
Hallinan, Archbishop of the Catho
lic Archdiocese of Atlanta and his
successors in office*’. Participate
in the daily prayers of our semi
narians and in the Masses offer
ed annually for the benefactors of
our SEMINARY FUND.
God Love You
BY MOST REVEREND FULTON J. SHEEN
Every priest has an immediate and affectionate devotion to
the mother of another priest. All the faithful in like manner
bear to her a tender respect as they say: "She is the mother
of a priest." It is almost an echo of what the Apostles must
have said of Our Blessed Mother: "She is the Mother of our
High Priest.”
No mother makes a son a priest in the sense that she might
make him a musician. The vocation must come from God:
"I have chosen you; you have
not chosen Me," The mother’s
honor comes, then, from being
an instrument of God in the mak
ing of a priest. She is the bed
of the river through which the
waters of priestly grace flow.
Before God wills any son to be
a priest He first wills the
mother of the priest, just as
before becoming Incarnate Our
Lord willed His Mother. He made her before He took His
human nature through her. The honor of becoming the mother
of a priest derives from her cooperation with the eternal
designs of God. Like Mary, she too says "Fiat" - Be it done
unto me according to Thy Word" - and what is born of her
is "another Christ,"
There are only about 55,000 mothers of priests in the United
States, The number could actually be much larger. It is not
necessary that a woman swing open the portals of the flesh
to be the mother of a priest. She can also open the gates of
her charity and become the mother of a priest by sacrific
ing for a seminarian's education, at $250 a year or $1,500
for the entire course, through The Society of St. Peter the
Apostle for Native Clergy, Thus she will share in all of her
priestson's works, conversions, Masses, prayers and sacri
fices. What a joy it will be at the close of life to know you are
the "mother of a priest.” Entering the Divine Majestic Pre
sence of God, you will hear Him say to you of the priest
in the mission lands; "Behold Thy Son," The mother of a
priest — I wonder if any are ever lost?
GOD LOVE YOU to Anonymous for $60.95 'This is a promise
to my God in thanksgiving for all n e h as given me.” ... to
Anonymous for $50 "Your unwavering solicitude for the less
fortunate members of Christ’s fold has always been an in
spiration to me. As a token of appreciation, I send this to
those in need.” to P. A. M. H. for $155,96 "Here
is some extra money for the Missions."
Find out how an annuity with The Society for the Propa
gation of the Faith helps both you and the poor of the world.
Send your requests for our pamphlet on annuities, including
the date of your birth, to Most Rev. Fulton J, Sheen, 366
Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10001.
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 P^lth, 366 Fifth Avenue, New York lx, N. Y. or
your Archdiocesart Director, Very Rev. Harold Rainey P.O,
Box 12047 Northslde. Station, Atlanta 5, Ga.