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PAGL 4 GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1964
the
'Archdiocese of Atlanta
GEORGIA
SMVINO OCOtOlAS 71 NOITHPtM COUNTIIS
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 Kieroan
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rev. Leonard F. X. Mayhew
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The World Was
Not The Same
John and John agony was the short moment of
were men of God,
were men of men.
The world was not
the same with them,
nor will it ever be again.
The aged pontiff, John XXIII,
and the youthful President Ken
nedy offer many contrasts as
we move away from 1963, the
year of their deaths, into the
age that they have opened.
^ Nothing that occurs in the
Catholic Church for centuries
will be untouched by the vision
that was Pope John’s, But there
is already the danger that his
measure is being distorted by
his own virtues, - his poverty
and humility, his boldness and
warmth. There is peril that his
universal vision will be blurred.
We are gratefully accustomed
to dealing with spiritual leaders
who are humble and brave. We
are not quite so sure just what
to do with saints who think deep
ly and intuitively, and see bey-
orjd the ordinary horizons.
And John F. Kennedy? For not
quite three years this man touch
ed the presidency of our nation
with a new vibrancy. Our people
have been graced in history by
leaders who led. Kennedy was
capable of such power but the
time was too short. Elected by a
tight vote, cut down in three short
years, he holds a place in Ameri
can history described by himself -
at the frontier. In civil rights, in
the nuclear test-ban, in defin
ing our role to Europe, Asia and
Africa, he explored, blazed a
trail pointed a direction.
Kennedy never enjoyed the po
pular unanimity that Washington
had. He lacked Jackson’s brash
‘man of the people” posture,
and he did not preside long enough
to give his name to an age as*
Theodore Roosevelt did. Lincoln,
Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt
endured war agonies that sil
houetted them as true figures of
tragedy. President Kennedy’s
AN ALTAR BOY
NAMED "SPECK"
“If Speck asks for
wild buffalo meat again—just
ignore him.”
concussion.
Yet this young man, assassina
ted a year ago shares with these
giants of history America’s
strange tribute to many of her
great ones. It is a tribute of
which none of us can be proud.
It is spawned in an unmanly fear
of reality, and nurtured by
suspicion and hate. It has soiled
our history and dirtiedour ideals.
It depressed Lincoln, embittered
Wilson and helped to destroy
Franklin Roosevelt. Certainly in
the life and statesmanship of
each of these men, there is room
for criticism, reason for opposi
tion. But is there room in any
one’s appraisal of another for
bate and dirt and rumor?
The world beyond our shores
knew John F. Kennedy far better
than many Americans. The nun
who wrote the lines above, Sis
ter M. Stanislaus, IHM, also
spoke of his reception in Berlin:
Why
must a prophet
always stand
more glorious
in another land?
John F. Kennedy was our first
President who was a Catholic.
We are deeply proud of him not
because he was “a representative
Catholic, but because he was
“an authentic one.” There is a
difference. Henry VIII, in 1532,
was ”a representative Catholic.”
Thomas More was “an authentic
one.”
None of us desired,- or even
considered, - that a President
who was Catholic would treat
Catholicism as a privileged po
sition. What we hoped for, and
magnificently found, in John F.
Kennedy was the core of virtues
that make for greatness.
What could be more Christian,
more Catholic, than this? “Art
is not a form of propaganda;
it is a form of truth.” Or this?
“If a free society cannot help
the many who are poor, it cannot
save the few who are rich.” Or,
in his inauguration address, ask
ing God’s blessing and help:
“but knowing that here on earth
God's work must truly be our
P 9
own.
Our American pride in John
F. Kennedy is a pride in brief
achievement. Our Catholic pride
we are happy to share with men
of all faiths, races and nations.
There will not be an “Age of
Kennedy,” but the decades to
come will be marked by his vis
ion. What he said of the poet,
Robert E. Frost, may be said of
himself; “He gave his age
strength with which to overcome
despairs. ”
Eternal rest, Lord, grant to
this man who was restless for
justice. Let your light shine
always on him; he knew the nec
essity of light and sought it in
cessantly.
May his soul, through Your
mercy, rest in the peace which
was his humble goal.
THANKSGIVING
CLOTHING
COLLECTION
GEORGIA PINES
Man-Made Hardship
BY REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN
Last week's column was about “Ye Good Olde
Days’* and the hardships which people took for
granted in everyday life, especially during times
of national depression. It was my conclusion that
confusion exists in many a person's mind as to
just how good the old days were.
Nevertheless, by comparison, with the suffer
ing people endure today behind the Iron Cur
tain I’m sure that many a person
would live over our hard years
rather than exchange their lot
with those living under the heels
of a dictator.
THE OTHER day I was driv
ing into Atlanta and I stopped
by one of our parishes where
construction is underway. The
pastor introduced me to the
architect. A conversation followed and the arch
itect told me the story of his life.
It was a story of privation; torture and desper
ation. I hesitate to mention his name lest he be
embarrassed. But the story stood out so vividly
in my mind because of its sharp contrast to our
“soft'* way of life. It certainly made me aware
of just how fortunate we are to have been born
and live now in America.
A NATIVE of Poland, the architect was a stu
dent at a iniversity in Warsaw when World War
11 broke out. The Soviets occupied his home town
and with his parents he took up residence in
Warsaw.
It was not long before the Nazis captured
Warsaw, and though still a student he joined an
underground movement. Obviously reported by a
traitor, he was dragged out of his home one
night in 1942 by the Gestapo.
THOUGH only 23 years old at the time, he
was jailed for 8 months. The interrogations
and tortures extended over a period of 5 months
of this time. One such Incident he describes is
an occasion when he was tied, crucifix style, and
was beaten unmercifully. As he now puts it, for
givingly,” . . . they acted like animals ... I
felt and still feel sorry for them. . . there was
nothing human about them”.
After 8 months he was sent to a slave labor
camp near the Baltic Sea. This was followed
by internment in slave labor camps near Berlin
and finally Norway, from which he escaped to
Sweden.
ONE SUNDAY morning in 1944, he escaped
to Sweden by swimming through icecold water
and crossing a 7,000 foot mountainl
He was obliged to work in a lumber camp in
Sweden for one year after which time he was
set free. He immediately obtained work with an
architectural firm in one of Sweden's larger
cities.
HOWEVER, when he learned that the Swedish
government had turned over Estonian refugees
to the Soviet government he immediately made
plans to leave that country. With a group of
Polish refugees he purchased a boat, only to have
the craft condemned by the government as not
being seaworthy.
This necessitated another escape. Sailing with
out lights during the dead of night they un
knowingly went through a mine field, hit rocks
and had the motor seriously damaged. An auxi
liary motor furnished power to continue the
journey but this motor was not big enough to
power the craft when it ran into a hurricane.
Describing the event now, the architect told me
that he feared all would be lost, but fortunately
they drifted into Ireland and were given shelter.
He remained in Ireland over two years. His
wife, whom he had married while in Sweden,
could not endure the climate there, so in 1955
he came to the United States.
Quite an experience for a man now only 44
years old.
AFRICAN LESSON
Your World And Mine
BY GARY MacEOIN
The basic facts about Africa today are not hard
to find. They stare the observer in the face.
The first is that the boundaries of the new na
tions of ex-colonial Africa are artificial. Created
for the convenience of the colon
ial powers less than a century
ago, they lack historical, geo
graphical, racial or linguistic
Justification.
Many of these new countries
Include within their territory
traditional enemies. The colon
ial power maintained an equili
brium, protesting the weaker
from the stronger. Now die protection has been
suddenly withdrawn, leaving the weak to the gob
bled up by the strong, as is happening in southern
Sudan. Elsewhere, boundaries split a tribe or a
religiously-united group, as on the Kenya-Somali
border, provoking clashes and raising claims for
border adjustment.
YET THERE is no practical alternative to the
present frontiers. The only natural political unit
is the tribe, and it is usually too small to merit
consideration as a sovereign division. Some Afri
can countries contain hundreds of tribes speaking
their mutually Incomprehensible languages and
dialects. One may seek federations of groups of
neighboring countries as a long-term aim, but the
fostering of internal unity is all that is currently
practicable in most cases. And this means a long
future of instability and bloodshed. Yet even here,
one must retain perspective. The student of medie
val Europe knows the centuries of war that accom
panied the development of its now great nations.
The next fact is that there is no political demo
cracy in the Western sense in the new countries of
Africa. The primary reason is that the institutions
do not exist and cannot be artificially created. Il
literacy prevents the vast majority from even un
derstanding the issues. The few who can must us
ually follow the dictates of the local boss or
tribal head.
IN CONSEQUENCE, the forms of democracy in
herited from colonialism are fast being replaced
by one-party systems that to us seem extremely
close to the monolithic structure of the Communist
regimes. The change has been introduced not only
by left-leaning Nkrumah of Ghana but by moderate
Nyerere of Tanganyika who insists that it is dic
tated by concrete needs and is compatible with
democratic freedoms. The compatibility with
democracy remains to be established. The con
crete need is evident, because there is no sense
of public duty or morality to balance the lust for
personal power, avarice and vanity.
Fact number three is that Africans are united
on one issue, if on nothing else. What survives of
the colonial era on the continent must be liquidated.
We in the West tend to think that the process is
CONTINUED ON PAGE 5
DANGER
The Heresy
Of Neutralism
BY GERARD E. SHERRY
We were talking recently anout the United
Nations and how essential it is in the fight for
peace and that the United States must continue
to support the world organization. Of course,
lots of our people get soured by many of the
members of the UN who, although not commun
ist countries, constantly appear to back the
Red line.
We tend to call these nations neutralists and
indeed the title in many cases is apt. Most of
these so-called neutrals are countries which
have only recently cast off the yoke of coloni
alism and are now struggling to learn what it
means to exer
cise the right to
be free. Politically,
many of their lea
ders are amateurs in
the ways of the world.
In other words, they
are finding that it's
much easier to fight
against allegedly
colonial oppressors
than deal with some of our modern govern
ments. But I would venture to suggest that there
is a much more important angle. This so-call
ed neutralism is a dangerous international her
esy.
IN THE global body politic nothing is more
certain than the fact that a large faction of the
peoples of this world are neutralists at heart.
They lack the courage to stand up and be coun
ted in the battle for the right to be free. This
is most true in areas where, only a short while
back, freedom was merely a word chalked on
walls in the dead of night. It seems as if those
recently freed from the bondage of 19th
century colonalism now have lost the will to re
main free. There is no other conclusion one
can come to as a count is taken of the large
number of such countries now actively espous
ing a neutralist course in their realations with
others.
REAPINGS
AT
RANDOM
Alas, there is no escape from the fact that
the neutralist doctrine can only beget oppression
and godlessness. This is so, especially in the
modern world, because there is no middle road
between evil and good; between hate and love.
On the one side, we have the godless atheism
of the Communist world— on the other, a world,
which although not perfect by any means, does
attempt to espouse the cause of justice and
freedom. In such a situation there is no choice
for those who believe in human dignity and the
elementary rights of man.
THE HARD fact is, however, that neutralism
is gaining converts fast. Little wonder that the
foxes venture forth from their Kremlin lair and
encroach on Free World preserves.
Of course, the root cause of this heresy of
neutralism is fear. The younger nations want
time to put their Houses in order politically and
economically. They wanted to be left alone to
accomplish these tasks. And they see nothing
but trouble in seeking the support of the big
powers. Both in the United States and Soviet
Russia the old rule applies — “He who is not
with us, is against us.”
OF COURSE, one can sympathize with these
neutral countries when it comes to domestic
policies, both political and economical. They
should be allowed to run their own houses
the way they wish to. But, in international deal
ing I think a totally different attitude has to
be adopted.
Throughout the course of history weak nations
have attached themselves to power blocks in
order to survive as national entities. And his
tory also shows that the smaller groups are
naturally affected by changes in the balance of
power among nations. Many of the present day
neutralist countries are going through a similar
agonizing appraisal.
IN ASIA the specter of the power of com
munist China hangs over the neutralists and the
smaller countries allied in the west. In Europe
and Africa the specter is the might of the
Soviet Union. It is also true that in the Europ
ean area there is the might of the Free World.
However, because we don't push our weight around,
we tend to appear soft and unconvincing in our de
termination to fight for the survival of our
way of life.
We can win neutralists only by being genuine
in our assistance and sincere in our express
ed hopes for their continued independence— es
pecially by abstaining from political and eco
nomic pressures brought about through a stance
of self-righteousness. In fact, in many ways,
we need the neutralists more than they need
us. And that goes even to the extent of their re
maining neutral in the United Nations.