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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 22, 1964)
r I I PAGE 2 GEORGIA BULLETIN. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1964 a personal invitation "go for TWENTY" H. 2. "Buck" Kelley Home LI 3-3141 SNOW TIRE COMPANY ATHENS, GEORGIA LI 3-4371 Borne of “20,000 MILE” Guaranteed Retreads COUNCIL’S 5th WEEK PHONE FOR FAST, ONE- DAY SERVICE 1st and 2nd Mortgages FURNITURE • AUTO • Consolidate Your Debts SIGNATURE Sensible Monthly Payments # Quick, Friendly Service ' FINANCE CORP.DIAL LIBERTY 8-4221 154 E. Clayton Q yon CoopeU BEST WISHES BRADLEY PROVISION COMPANY Pune "PvtA Saudaye RUTH DRIVE ATHENS, GEORGIA FARMERS HARDWARE OF ATHENS, INC. For All Of Your Hardware Needs BROAD AT OCONEE ST. Telephone LI. 3-3681 P. 0. Box 472 ATHENS, GEORGIA WE ARE SUPPLYING MANY CATHOLIC SCHOOLS OVER THE STATE OP GEORGIA MAIL OR PHONE YOUR ORDERS ASK FOR NEW SCHOOL • SUPPLY CATALOG Se4aoi The McGregor Co. Athens, Ga. Pope Upholds Progressives BY JOHN COGLEY VATICAN CITY (RNS) — The fifth week of the current ses sion of the Ecumenical Council was a stormy season in Rome. It rained almost every day, and the mood of the Council match ed the weather: sometimes tur bulent, more often dark and dreary, with occasional periods of summy relief. The week began with a corri dor crisis in the College of Car dinals. It ended with a group of Eastern Rite prelates hur ling a barrage of criticism against the draft on the Orien tal Churches prepared for the Fathers' consideration. In be tween there was a full-scale discussion of the schema on "Priestly Life and Ministry,’* a series of "proposition"' which was received with some thing less than enthusiasm by the bishops and with downright disappointment by most of the simple priests in the aula, who, of course, had no opportunity to speak their minds before the assembly. A handful of parish priests were especially invited to talk. TO ADD to the general flat ness of the week’s proceedings, an address ( in English) given to the Council Fathers by a British lay auditor as the wind up of their discussions of the lay apostolate turned out to be a disappointment. It was given by Patrick Keegan, normally a highly articulate veteran of the Catholic social movement in England. As a purveyor of platitudes and sodality piety Mr. Keegan was out of cha racter. The milky rhetoric of his speech gave no hint of the real man who delivered impro bably because he was speaking not merely for himself but for all the lay auditors and had to reflect a least-common-de- nominator blandness. Neverthe less it was a sad climax to the career of a fiery pioneer in the work of "declericaliz- ing’* the Church. "You can't please everyone,’* Mr. Keegan explained at the American Bishops Press Panel when someone asked why his remarks were so innocuous. The real problem though was that the talk seemed to have been drafted with precisely that goal in mind. THE FOUR-DAY crisis of course was widely publicized in the general press. It was occasioned by still one more maneuver by the die-hard con servative forces in the Roman Curia to manage the Council against the will of the majority of the Fathers — this time by relocating the proposed de claration on the Jews from the schema On Ecumenism (where it would be in the hands of the less liberal Doctrinal Commission), and by setting up a board of review heavily weighted in favor of known op ponents of the religious liberty schema to pass on that de claration after it is redrafted by Cardinal Bea’s com mission. There was general apprehen sion among the Fathers that these moves would result in eviscerating both documents, which have become focal points for the conservative - pro gressive struggle in this ses sion. Resentments were also set up by a report that the text on episcopal collegiality was being tampered with by the con servative forces who control the machinery, though not the sentiment, of the Council. ALL THIS was done by pri vate communication between highly placed Curial prelates— and if Rome were not a no toriously difficult place as a fait accompli. But within hours the whole city knew of it, though no one in authority would speak for the record. High authority, however, did act, promptly and decisively. A group of cardinals meeting at the home of Cologne's Car dinal Frings, decided to appeal directly to the Holy Father and did so, thereby nipping the plan in the bud. Among them were representatives of the Euro pean, Latin American, and North American hierarchies. The two American Cardinals in Rome at the time, Cardinal Ritter of St. Louis and Car dinal Meyer of Chicago, were among those who signed the petition. Cardinal Meyer, a na turally cautious and deliberate prelate, emerged, during those critical hours when the fate of the Council’s recent work seemed to hang in the bal ance, as a firm, steady, and decisive leader. Respect for him has since zoomed '.mong Council Fathers and others in Rome. THE action of the protest ing cardinals was almost uni versally backed up by the A- merican bishops and periti on the scene, many of whom were indignant when they got news of what was happening. Some of the most significant "poli ticking" necessary in fact was devised by a group of bishops and priests, almost all Americans, who for the dura tion of the Council have formed a kind of loose-knit community in a large pensione open only to the clergy. It is visited by eminent non-American Fathers, who enjoy par ticipating in the discussions held there, and has become not only a center of intellectual power and influence but the most "in’* place for the American clergy in Rome to live. A room in the pensione Villa Nova is now roughly the clerical equi valent of a listing in the So cial Register. There was a general sigh of relief when the director of in formation for the Latin Ameri can hierarchy finally revealed that there would be no essential changes in the controversial documents they were intent on saving. The tension subsided then as quickly as it rose four days earlier. THROUGHOUT this whole period, however, the journalists in the city had to live on ru mors, No highly placed pre lates were speaking for the re cord — they still have not. Even the treatment of the sub ject at the American Press Pa nel was something less than candid. No reporter dared even ask a straightforward question in the conspiratorial atmo sphere. One who did venture a circuitous inquiry was first put off by a reference to the "rules'* governing the panel and then, after the reporter com plained of "legalism" (which has been frequently denounced in the Council aula), he was given a reply which was a mo del of evasion. In the meantime, most of the panel members sat with stony faces, visibly nervous; the newspaper people were simply embarrassed. In the United States there is cur rently a discussion of the need for "honesty in the Church." Its significance was pointed up dramatically during those hours of impending crisis when there was a great outpouring of pri vate garrulousness and a public direction verging on the ifuneraln In the meantime, the Fathers in Council were discussing the schema originally entitled "On Priests" and then cut back to a series of propositions called "On Priestly Life and Minis try." THERE was widespread dis satisfaction among them with the fact that the ordinary clergy were being dealt with so brief ly. After the lengthy treatment given bishops and the laity, it was an "insult" to priests, said Bishop Luis Sanchez Mo reno Lira of Chiclayo, Peru, to reduce the schema to a series of propositions — a complaint repeated by other bishops in the aula and many priests out side it. setting of high spiritual ideals of priestly piety. In fact, said another Latin American pre late, Archbishop Fernando Go mes Dos Santos of Goianla, Brazil, the schema aims many exhortations to priests "along lines which we did not dare to lay down for ourselves" in the schema on bishops. IN THE course of the prac tical discussions it was sug gested that a greater equality be established among priests of a given territory, 9o that one is not fated to live in penury because he is dependent on im poverished parishioners and another enjoys the benefits of a prosperous parish.. The so- called "stole fees'* — the con tribution made to the officiants at weddings, baptisms, funer als, etc. — said Bishop Joseph Banic, a newly named Hungarian Pprelate, should be put in a common fund. There were mild suggestions that priests should be able to look forward to retirement and relief from duty in old age, though several Fathers believed that not age alone but only ill- health and incompetence should justify retirement. A member urged that social security and insurance plans be worked out for the secular clergy. Others wanted to make it illegal for a priest to leave money to members of his family. ONE Father, again a Latin American, Bishop Victorio Garaygordobil of Los Rios, Ec uador, said that steps should be taken so that priests are not left utterly at the mercy of their bishops, whose "ar bitrariness** in some cases can be oppressive. After all, he warned, priests are not merely mechanical instruments in the hands of their superiors but "human’’ and "personal" col laborators with them. He added that bishops by the mere fact of their consecration are not necessarily either "confirmed in grace'* or "infallible".' Somehow these factors should be taken into consideration in working out the discipline for the clergy. But this intervention was a break from a steady em phasis during the discussion on the necessity for priestly obe dience and observance of the law. There was only one dire warning against the state of the priesthood in modern times. It came from a Yugoslav, Bishop Smiljan Cekkada of Skopje, who noted that the spirit of "na turalism" was creeping even into the ranks of the clergy. He deplored the "unbelievable laxity and general care lessness" of some priests' handling of delicate moral pro blems in the confessional and spoke of the steady "laiciza- tion" of the clergy. FOR example, he saw no reason why so many European priests want to put off the soutane on the street and "dress like laymen." He tied in these condemnations with a denuncia tion of "young girls dancing in the sanctuary" — a pheno menon not as scandalous as it sounds since the reference was to a dignified sacred per formance. These are signs, said the bishop, not of the much- heralded Catholic "renewal" but of a creeping apostasy from the faith. Thoughout, clerical celibacy was taken for granted as an abiding and not-to-be-changed practice. There is no indication in the schema that the law of celibacy is even open to ques tion and no Father suggested that a full-dress discussion of it be put on the agenda. What ever rumors there were that the question would be re-thought at the Vatican Council, then, seem to have come to nothing. NOR were there any sugges tions of how the rights as well as the duties of the ordinary clergy might be more firmly established in the upcoming re vision of Canon Law. In fact, after the discussion of priests, the only conclusion to draw was that the Council Fathers plan no radical revision in clerical discipline. Their frequent exhortations were in accordance with the existing order, and the present pattern of priestly life would appear to be generally accepted as the model for the future. THE only exception might be the recurrent suggestion that the clergy could well be less locally-oriented. A Spanish prelate, Bishop Marcello Gon zalez Martin of Astorga, point ed out that from one to two thousand candidates for the priesthood are turned away in Spain every year because there is no place for them in their native dioceses, so overstaffed are the parishes. These potential priests, he said, could be used elsewhere where their services are needed drastically. This was a surpris ing statistic for many A- mericans to hear, sinct there is such an all-out effort right now for U.S. clergy and re ligious to undertake work in the priestless lands of Spanish speaking Latin America. The discussion of the Ori ental Churches inevitably was dominated by prelates of the non-Latin Rites. Some of them, notably the sharp-tongued Pa triarch of Antioch, the Melkite Maximos IV Saigh, thought that the schema (again a series of propositions) was defective from the very fact that it was written separately from the draft "De Ecclesia." The tip- off, he said, is given in the very first words of the Oriental churches draft where it is stated that the Catholic Church wants to give a special mark of its esteem and love to the "Oriental Churches." This suggests, said His Beatitude, that the "Oriental Churches’* are thought of as but append ages to the Catholic Church. Again the tension was be tween those who think of the Church in "Roman" terms and those who think of it in "Catho lic" terms. SOME of the Eastern prelates who spoke complained bitterly of "Latimzers" who make their lives difficult. These "Lati- nizers" have a careless atti tude toward the traditions and history of the Churches of the East, they claimed. Maximos was also par ticularly biting in his criticism of the low estate given to the historic Patriarchates of the East in the Latin-Rite menta lity. "YOU talk," he said, "as if the idea of a patriarch is an Oriental phenomenon. It is Western, too. In fact, I remind yod that we are meeting in a ‘patriarchal basilica.’ When the Pope lived in the Lateran, his home was called a 'pa- triarchum."’ It is no use show ering patriarchs like himself with praise, he added, when in fact they are reduced to su bordinate status and are required to apply with docility to the Roman Curia for per missions and directives. Steps should be taken, he said, to restore the patriarchate to its former dignity and to abolish the honorary patriarchates, like that of Venice, which are really meaningless titles in the West ern Church. As nothing else has, the discussion of the Oriental Churches pointed up the narrow "Roman*’ view of the Council Fathers, even the most pro gressive, The relations between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, these Eastern prelates insisted, simply connot be thought of in terms analogous to the relations between Catholicism and Pro testantism in the West. The sit uation is entirely different. When the East broke with the Western Church, the notion of papal primacy had not been full developed. The Orthodox knew that they were breading with the Patriarch of the West (the Pope) but they had no idea of breaking away from the Catholic Church. They had long recognized the Pope as the pre siding patriarch but did not con ceive of his essential power and authority as being anymore extensive than that of their own patriarchs. It was evident as they spoke that though they are as loyal to the papacy as any bishop of the West, these Oriental pre lates, theologically, liturgi- cally, and canonically must feel more at home with their "rivals’* in Constantinople or Cilicia than with their brother- bishops in Rome. TV English Mass ST. JOHN'S, Newfoundland (NC)~The first Mass televised in Newfoundland was offered here in the new English dia logue form. The celebrant, Msgr. H, McD, Murphy, pastor of St, Patrick parish, used the new liturgy which will go into general effect here in January. W. H. BAILEY PLUMBING & HEATING 548-4257 — 1500 W. Hancock Avenu* ATHENS. GEORGIA BEST WISHES St. Joseph's Parish & Athen's Newman Club COLONIAL HOTEL Located in the heart of Athens opposite University of Georgia campus 79 E. Broad Athens, Ge. 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