The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current, August 06, 1964, Image 4

Georgia Historic Newspapers

The Georgia bulletin, August 06, 1964, Image 4

About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 6, 1964)

Page of 8

Prev Issue Next Issue

Text PDF JP2 (2.9 MB) Clip/Print Image

Page of 8

Prev Issue Next Issue

Return to Top

Newspaper Page Textt PAGE 4 GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1964 the Archdiocese of Atlanta GEORGIA BULLETIN SCtVINO GEORGIA'S 71 NO«THM“ COUNTIES UHvi 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 ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rev. Leonard F. X. Mayhew 2699 Peachtree N. E. P. 0. Box 11667 Northside Station Atlanta 5, Ga. Member of the Catholic Press Association and Subscriber to N. C. W. C. News Service Telephone 231-1281 Second Class Permit at Altanta, Ga. Non-Compliance U. S. A. $5.00 Canada $5.00 Foriegn $6.50 The Civil Rights Law has been in effect for a month yet this week four men seeking lunch in town were denied service by a Catholic restaurateur- because two of the men involved were Negro. The Catholic proprietor ex pressed doubt about the consti tutionality of the sections of the Civil Rights Law that affected his business. He pleaded with the four professional' men not to embar rass him or his patrons at this time. Shock and disappointment were expressed that a Catholic businessman would want to bar Negroes simply because their color might allegedly embarrass his White patrons. These Negro men (an attorney and an architect) did not want to embarrass anyone. After ail, they each get hungry like any other person. They wanted no more than to eat in the most conven ient place. Let us point out that this incident not only inf ringed on the freedom of the two Negroes, it also infringed on the freedom of their White friends who could not take them to the restaurant of their choice. This because the proprietor arbitrarily decided his patrons wouldn't want to sit in the presence of Negroes. Whatanaf- front to human dignity! What a denial of all our inalienable rights! To all such people we would say there is no doubt about the validity of St. John's message “For how can he who does not love his brother, whom he sees, love God, whom he does not see?" There are only a few segregat ed restaurants still left in the At lanta area--but even one is too many. The Civil Rights law is quite clear. Until it is declared unconstitutional it should be obeyed like any other law. Com pliance with the law is the only course for responsible citizens. Flannery O’Connor R.I.P. It is proper that a family mourn when one of its members dies. To mourn becomes an agonizing need when the one who dies was a particularly loving and particularly brilliant member of the family. This is the way the Catholics of Georgia must today mourn Flannery O'Connor. We have lost one who was very specially ours. She died in her youth and in the vibrant maturity of her wonderful talent. Flannery O’Connor loved the Church. It was a fact of her daily experience and an ingre dient of her deepest thoughts and aspirations. For many of us, she epitomized the ideal wedding of the South with Catholicism. For that reason, among many others, her home in Milledgeville was a kind of haven and her lucid in sights were a source of direc tion and hope. Flannery O’Connor’s writings concern freedom and integrity - and the violent turmoil at the heart of human affairs through which these gifts bear their fruit. Which comes to saying that her writings are most relevant for us and our times. She wrote, in an introduction to her first novel: “Free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mys tery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen." Her novels and stories deepened it pro foundly. To those who lived near to her- and, above all, to her mother and family - we offer what solace there may be in our sharing their grief- and our fervent prayers. Pseudonymous Publishing Author and magazine news re porter Robert Kaiser has some sharp words for Farrar Straus publishing house in a recent issue of The Commonweal. Kaiser's annoyance arises out of this firm’s proclivity for pseudonymous book publishing, and he cites specifically “The Pilgrim" by Michael Serafian and the books on the first and second sessions of the Council by Xavier Rynne. Both Serafian and Rynne are pen names of personalities whose identities are known around the pizzerias. But for some curious reason Farrar Straus permits them to masquerade behind a fictitious name and character description as they sling their little arrows. One is hard put to decide which is the more disagreeable-- the writer who shields himself by anonymity from the consequences of his charges and the possibi lity of factual challenge, or the publishing house which pretends that the discipline of the Catholic Church is such that it must lie about the identity of the aut hors of its books. Both adver tise an intellectual and moral bankruptcy in themselves. Farrar Straus has a special guilt in the case of “The Pil grim" book, and Kaiser merits a salute for exposing it. Farrar Straus seeks to palm off Michael Serafian as a diplo mat whose career “has brought him into contact with some of the great leaders, religious and political, of the last 25 years." Kaiser labels this “pure fraud," then reveals the name and ex tremely limited credentials of the minor Jesuit clergyman who poses pompously as Michael Ser afian and produces a book which, the Boston Pilot editorialized, demonstrates again “how swiftly the unbalanced are moved to self- expression." Dan Herr writes in the cur rent issue of The Catholic Mar ket that he is ready to admit that he has had his fill of pseu donymous books. Like counsel is in order for Farrar Straus-- Grow up! PITTSBURGH CATHOLIC 2 Wrongs Don’t Make— GEORGIA PINES Desolate Depots BY REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN Nothing seems to me to be so desolate and lonely as an empty railroad station. It matters not wheth er It be Grand Central Station in New York or a shabby siding In Squedunk, a station empty or nearly empty has a ring of nostalgic loneliness to it. These thoughts came to me the other day as I passed the Gainesville station while driving into Atlanta, The New York-Atlanta train had Just passed through town and the local station was deserted. YEARS AGO train stations were the scenes of many a happy occasion. People arriving, de parting, brought multitudes of visitors to this local gathering spot. Indeed in some commun ities there were those who met every train arriving and depart ing. I imagine that this added a sort of community spirit to the local town. For while economic or social levels might have separated people, there was this common meeting ground at the local station. HOW TIME changes things, though. I recall years ago the great excitement at the local station the first time a diesel streamliner came to my home town. Now parents bring their children to the station to view the old steam engines. (If you ever rode a steam engine and stuck your head out the window, you realize now why trains are air- conditioned and the windows are sealedI). All over the north Georgia area there are the relics of what were once busy train stations. Be fore roads were constructed up in this mountain area the only mode of transportation was the train. Like reading ghost stories, its easy to imagine the hundreds of visitors milling around the station waiting to see who had arrived from the city. ITS A pity, though, that most railroad stations are now located in the more dilapidated sections of a city. It sure does give one the wrong impression of a city when the only thing viewable from the train windows are billboards, warehouses and the city dump. One exception to this that I know of is the station at La Crosse, Wisconsin. There the tracks run through the middle of a golf course (FORE!) and the station is a marvelous addition to the city’s complex of municipal building*. Train stations can serve a multiplicity of pur poses, though. There was one Archbishop who lived in Washington, D.C. who regularly on rainy days took his constitutional by walking up and down the concourse of Union Station. One thing about a big station is that people are in such a hurry that they never notice anyone, no matter how important the personage. FOR TWENTY three years I spent every sum mer on Marthas Vineyard Island off the coast of Massachusetts. The sound of the boat whistle there always brought the islanders down to the station. It was no wonder that there was not a radio station on the island and only a weekly newspaper because all of the news was made right before everybody. It has always been a mystery to me why trains always left at odd hours such as 6:07; 2:02;or 3:17. Daylight saving time always brought further complications too. When one made the train, be lieve me, it was no accident but the result of careful, calculated planning. LOCAL TRAINS I*m afraid belong to an age long since passed. The same conviviality, friendliness and excitement that once graced the train station has been transferred out to the air terminal. Prob lems that were once the exclusive domain of the train stations are now the property of the airport. They tell the story of a man, used to traveling by rail, who ventured his first airplane ride. He asked the ticket agent what time the plane left for Birmingham. “At 11:55”, back came the reply. Then the new-air traveler inquired, “and what time does it arrive in Birmingham?” ”At 11:45”, the agent replied. Tien the agent said, "would you like a ticket, sir". *No", said the traveler, "at that speed I’d just lihe to watch it taking off". Obviously the agent in giving the time schedule had neglected to add the E S T and the C S T1 TROUBLE IN CEYLON Your World And Mine BY DR. GARY MacEOIN Buddhism has always prided itself on being a re ligion of brotherhood and peace. It professes and urges a high level of perfection and self-con trol, placing major stress on the contemplative life of the monk. It does not proclaim absolute doctrines, contenting itself with propos ing to its adherents a way for them to follow in order to reach perfection. In spite of all this, Buddhism has emerged in the postwar per iod in several countries of Asia as a vehicle of bitterly anti- Western opinion and action. It played a substantial part in the overthrow of the Diem regime in South Vietnam, A Buddhist monk in 1959 assassinated Solomon Bandaranaike, prime minister of Ceylon and himself a Buddhist, because he was dissatis fied with the response of the Bandaranaike gov ernment to demands made by the Buddhist Con gress of Ceylon in 1956 for reforms which would bring civic society closer to the Buddhist ideal. Many of those demands have since been met, and in the process no little suffering has been caused to the Christians of Ceylon. STRATEGICALLY located just off India’s south coast, the island of Ceylon is about three quarters the size of the state of Maine It exports tea, rub ber and coconuts, but rice production has not kept pace with a population that has doubled to ten mil lions in 35 years. Neither has the economy ex panded rapidly enough to provide jobs. Unemploy ment is high and many go hungry. Pressure on resources has thus combined with the jockeying for position that always follows inde pendence to encourage the dominant Singhalese to seek the elimination or cultural absorption of the other community to which one gives allegiance.. THE SINGHALESE consider that their homeland reached its highest level of culture and prosperity more than a thousand years ago under an enlight ened regime inspired by learned Buddhist monks. CONTINUED ON PAGE 5 NONE BUT THE BRAVE Deserve The Fair BY GERARD E. SHERRY A trip away from the office for a few days took me to such far away places as New York, Kansas City, Missouri, Reno, Nevada, and several spots in California. Most were one-night stands, and it can be quite a chore, I was able, however, to spend a couple of days in thdNew York area, and visited the World’s Fair. What can be said about this vast expanse of amusement and ex hibition? I suppose it has its supporters and its detractors. I for one came away very disappointed with almost every thing. Three excep tions could be the Ford, General Motors, and John son’s Wax exhibitions. They were magnificent efforts catering to the whole family, and giving pleasure. Naturally, I went through the Vatican pavilion. It has received high praise, and it has been con demned as a disgrace and a scandal. It is hard to enter it uncommitted one way or the other, for the brainwashing has been going on for several months. How did I view it? Certainly with mixed emotions, for I felt it was a product of lost oppor tunity. There was too much catering to Madison Avenue (the advertising part of it naturally), and not enough promotion of the spirit of Aggiomamen- to which pervades the Church as a result of the deliberations of the Fathers of the Council. REAPINGS AT RANDOM The trustees of the Vatican Pavilion answer the critics by pointing to the fact that it is one of the most popular in the World’s Fair. No one can deny this, yet it isn’t sufficient answer; for certainly many come out of loyalty to the Church and re main unmoved by the presentation. Michaelan- gelo’s Pieta is housed in the most unnatural sur roundings, and with the usual monastic musical accompaniment. Moving sidewalks carry you by the masterpiece, which is encased in glass and can be hardly seen in the dim blue atmosphere. Most people do not get a sufficient time to appre ciate it, and have to go back the second time if they desire meditation. Frankly, the Pieta should have been left in its natural surroundings in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The gaudiness of a World's Fair building is not the place to exhibit one of the material treasures of the Church. But this is not all. A major lost opportunity concerns the Vatican Pavilion Chapel. It’s quite beautiful, but liturgically out of date. On the morn ing I visited the Pavilion, the legion of Pieta viewers were marshaled through the Chapel on their way to the exits down below. There was a Mass in progress with a priest celebrating in an almost unaudible voice. Contrary to the times, the altar was not facing the people, nor was the cele brant. To top it all off, the Epistle and the Gospel were read out by a 14-year old boy in his best Brooklynese. Let's face it. This is not the place for inaudible Masses and an almost foreign lan guage—especially in these days of the vernacular. I happened to have a Protestant friend with me who is very sympathetic and ecumenical. Unlike myself, he never takes the opportunity to be cen sorial or to assume the mantle of the critic. Yet he too came away most disturbed with what we both considered were missed opportunities. The Pavilion looks attractive from the outside and has some merit within. The final observation is that evf n if there had not been any Vatican symbols there, one would have known it was a Catholic exhibit—collection boxes were all over the place reminding people that the Vatican Pavilion cost money and has to be maintained. For anybody go ing to the Fair, the Vatican Pavilion is recom mended. The only thing is not to expect so much. I am told that while the corporation which runs the World's Fair is going to make a handsome pro fit, individual exhibitors and concessionaires are having a hard time of it. This is especially so in the amusement section, several parts of which are getting to look like a ghost town. Both the ten ants and the visitors to the New York World’s Fair complain of the high costs. I can attest to the fact that it’s very expensive, from the ad mission price $2.50 for adults to the 80# for a three-minute monorail ride. Restaurants too are expensive; so are the hot- dog and cold drink stands. Taking a family to the Fair can be quite a financial commitment. One of my difficulties is that I have previously been to Disneyland—several times in fact. The atmos phere is so vastly different. Disneyland is a real genuine family pleasureland, with its look to the future and its preservation of the past. It’s a pity the World’s Fair wasn't a little bit more human in its outlook and presentation. Maybe if it was, everyone concerned with it would make a just profit and give pleasure to the millions who will visit.