Newspaper Page Text
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1964 GEORGIA BULLETIN PAGE 5
SPOTLIGHT ON SOCIAL REFORM
Intrinsically Evil
• Father Mayhew’s column will be resumed
after his return to the Archdiocese from vaca
tion.
BY WILLIAM J. SMITH, S.J.
"Communism is intrinsically wrong.”
So wrote Pope Pius XI in his great encycli
cal Atheistic Communism. "No one who would
save Christian civilization”, he added, "can
collaborate with it in any undertaking whatso
ever."
Some anti-Communists seem to interpret this
pronouncement of the Pope to mean that there
is only one way of meeting the menace of present-
day Communism, as exempli
fied in the Soviet Union, and
that is through superior mili
tary force. Communism must
be wiped off the face of the earth.
The only way the total obliter
ation of it can be accomplished
is by a resort to arms.
Unfortunately, Communism
is an idea and the only way
that a false idea can be dislodged from the mind
of a human being is to supply a sound idea in
its place.
every action taken by the governments of the
Western world must be taken in the framework
of that danger of inciting a world war.
POPE JOHN XXIII in his memorable encycli
cal Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth) sounded
a warning. He wrote: "It must be borne in mind,
that false philosophical teachings regarding the
nature, origin and destiny of the universe and of
man, cannot be identified with historical move
ments which have economic, social, cultural or
political ends, not even when these movements
have originated from those teachings and have
drawn and still draw inspiration there from.
"For these teachings, once they are drawn up
and defined, remain always the same, while the
movements, working on historical situations in
constant evolution, cannot but be influenced and
cannot avoid, therefore, being subject to changes,
even of a profound nature."
IN OTHER words, there are two faces to Com
munism — the one, the philosophical error; the
second, the practical working out of the myriad
dealings of that nation with other nations through
out the world, as well as within its own borders.
The Soviet Union is a fact — an ugly fact.
In its tenacious claws it holds millions and mil
lions of human beings in servitude and slavery.
It is equipped with modern military power to
destroy the majority of the inhabitants of earth,
if it were to direct its full force and fury against
the rest of the world. Our nation has at least
an equal, if not a superior, military counter
power to wreak a similar vengeance on the Com
munist world.
IS THE ANSWER to the tensions that exist
between the East and the West the use of these
countervailing powers? Is there no other way,
no means, no ability, no talent within the human
minds of the leaders of the nations to curtail
at least, if not to gradually weaken, the ag
gressive powers of the Soviet Union?
One certain fact stands out in any discussion
of this subject. Whatever this government and its
allies around the world do in their relationship
with the Soviet monster the over-riding considera
tion must be: "Does this action advance or weaken
the danger of an overall nuclear war?"
THE UNITED States of America could, no doubt,
perhaps within the brief space of half an hour,
wipe out the whole of the Communist guerilla
forces now operating in Viet Nam. In ninety
minutes we could demolish Cuba which sepa
rates our land from that island by ninety miles.
We could tear down the Berlin Wall in an equi
valent period of time. We could reduce Red China
to desolation stre\vn with millions and millions
of dqad-,and wounded bodies in less than a day.
ritrrrT«”*’ f' r r. '
We have the striking power "to solve" any
problem that faces us in our competition with
Soviet Russia through the instrumentality of a
preventive nuclear war. In attempting to do so,
however, we too would experience the desolation
of desolations that such ah encounter would bring
upon the rest of the civilized world. Is that the
single, simple, one-and-only solution to the
problems that beset the world today? Only a mad
man would advocate it.
THE SOVIET Union is not merely a powerful
military force. It is also an economic system.
It is a social entity which is compelled by the
sheer force of international circumstance to
carry on relations with all the other nations on
the earth. It is a political order with a thousand
years of history behind it which, in spite of its
Communist ideology at the present time, needs
the free flow of ideas with human beings out
side the iron curtain to make even a beginning
in changing the idea that is Communism.
The people of Russia and of the satellite nations
under its control, are human beings just as we
are. A case could be made on the thesis that
they and citizens of other Communist nations such
as Poland, may in the eyes of God be living a
better moral and a higher spiritual life than do
those who now glory in the term of democracy.
Is nuclear warfare the answer to their problems?
Would it solve any problem anywhere? It is
obvious that it would not. Therefore, any and
In meeting Soviet aggression in limited ter
ritorial regions we must in self-defense coun
teract that aggression by every legitimate means
we can devise. Militarily we must take every
means morally open to us — short of nuclear
war. We must meet propaganda with propaganda.
We must stir up, as far as it is possible, the
spirit of other nations under attack to fight in
their own self-defense. We must counsel, aid
and abet the victims of Soviet injustice. But we
must never abandon hope that peace is possible
in this distraught world.
Wherever and whenever the cause of peace
can be advanced, even in dealing with the Soviet
Union, by negotiations, through the U.N., through
world public opinion, through social exchanges,
we have the obligation to use those means. Is
this collaboration with Communism? Not if we
read the mind of Pope John XXIII aright.
WAS IT collaboration with Communism when the
Test Ban Treaty was negotiated? Is it collabo
ration with Communism to endeavor to wean from
Communism nations like Poland and even Yugo
slavia now under Communist demination, but not
necessarily Communist in heart and mind? Is
it collaboration with Communism to encourage,
support and develop world-wide social and cul
tural agencies that function through the medium
of the U.N.? Is it collaboration with Communism
to take steps, even faltering steps, to negotiate
with the hope of advancing the peace of the
world even a little?
Is it collaboration with Corpmunism to say that
we must co-exist with the Soviet Union? We have
no choice in the matter. The Soviet Union is a
fact. The United States and the nations of the
Western world are facts. We must co-exist whet
her we like it or not.
The alternative to physical co-existence is the
destruction of one nation or the other. The al
ternative to the idea of Communism in the minds
of the people is by so living our own lives that
the underlying idea of freedom will prevail in the
minds of the people all over the world.
IN HIS ENCYCLICAL on Atheistic Communism,
Pope Pius XI devotes about ten times as much
space to the need of social order, of morality
and spiritual living, than he does to his analysis
of Communism. Can we gain that balanced view
of Pope Pius XI simply be concentrating all our
thoughts, all our efforts on the fears, the evil,
the injustices that characterize the work of the
Communistic dictators? If we are to save the
world from Communism, we better spend at least
some time in saving America from itself -
and I don't mean looking for a Communist under
every bed.
We are living in an exceedingly complicated
world. The solution to most of our problems
relating to Communism must be found by the
government involved. A prime requisite for
progress in that direction is confidence in and
support of the Administration which was elected
on November 3rd by the people of this nation.
Your World And Mine
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4
preters as well. Major servicing involves return
ing the plane to Russia. Fewer than half the planes
are airworthy at any given time,
ELSEWHERE, one hears the same complaint of
high cost, poor quality and unsuitability of equip
ment. The most common example is the old-
fashioned tractor designed for arctic weather con
ditions, with an enclosed cab in which the operator
swelters, AH in all, I think that Africa’s exper
ience of Soviet aid up to this time has been a very
healthful lesson. We can at this level meet the
open competition to which Khrushchev used fre
quently to invite us a few years back, but about
which we don’t recently hear so often from him.
What would, I think, be a mistake would be to
force African countries to choose, or to impose
such rigid political conditions on our aid as to
make them completely dependent on Russia. That
would be to direct them to the road along which
Ghana has already moved a considerable distance.
There, Communists are in key positions. Business
is regimented. The press has become a weapon
of terror and misrepresentation. Education is de
generating into brain-washing, as the protest of the
Vice-Chancellor of the University ofGhanainthis
year's Commencement address eloquently testi
fies.
Nor do I think that we can hope in our lifetime
to see in Africa an economic system remotely
similar to our private enterprise. Even the most
moderate of the African leaders with whom Idis-
cussed the subject, President Nyerere of Tan
ganyika, scoffs at the idea. Our broad-based pri
vate enterprise in the West, like our party politics,
became possible only after a long period of ac
cumulation of capital and development of education
under far more restrictive systems, he argues.
ALL OF AFRICA’S leaders agree in advocating
economic development along the lines of what they
call African Socialism. Just what this means no
two of them agree. For Nkrumah it seems to be
very close to Communism, to judge by his Mar
xism as a product of industrial capitalism. Since
Africa never passed through the class war, he
says. Communism has no meaning for it.
Neither has traditional Africa known private
property in our sense. Land has always belonged
to the tribe, and even personal possessions such as
cattle were held subject to social restrictions. The
tribal council might compel the owner to yield
them when it considered that the good of the group
so demanded. The advantage of the system was
that it created a close sense of community and en
sured a fair sharing of production among the
members. Its disadvantage was that it left little
incentive for capital accumulation and consequent
ly induced economic stagnation.
Nyerere and others hope to preserve the spirit
of the traditional system, which recalls the com
munity of goods of the early Christians. They be
lieve that credit unions and cooperatives can
achieve capital formation and progress at the vil
lage level, and that the state itself must take the
initiative in large-scale industry. Only time can
determine whether they will in fact find an African
way.
CATHOLIC EDUCATOR
ACROSS 61 butt
1 He was a member 63 hand-to-hand fight
of the clergy 65 pertaining to calf
6 dispatch
10 small quanity
13 He condemned this
14 stew
15 relief administra
tion (abbr)
16 degree
17 lime trees
19 He held a Council
in this church
21 part of a play
23 fumed
25 deplores
26 widow in cards
28 Greek Island where
he was kept prison
er
30 icy particles
33 pertaining to large
pelvic bone
35 complete
37 musical sign
38 position on a team
40 Biblical character
42 assent
43 heads in Paris
45 citrus fruits
47 railway
48 doctoral degree
50 New York, for
example
52 steal
54 grain
56 choose
58 shoulder (Fr.)
of leg
66 stand
68 swift
70 plunger
71 force
73 floods
75 Hindu title
76 noise
79 procrastinate
81 prefix: in, into
82 spring (Bible)
83 injure
85 novena
87 Tunisian ruler
88 German river
89 Saint ,Fr.
composer
DOWN
1 note on musical
scale
2 food bit
3 Jan van der
Dutch painter
4 Chinese, for
example
5 Indian antelope
6 Chinese porcelain
7 Midwestern state
(abbr)
8 fabricator
9 flower
10 briefly
11 Angle-Saxon coin
12 color
13 harass
16 fundamental
18 musical intervals
20 elongated fishes
22 spoil
24 pertaining to a
dowry
27 small pieces (Scot.)
29 fine line
31 your (German)
32 salver
34 French pronoun
36 Asian perennial
plant
39 kingdom
41 aids
44 pilot
46 type of duck
48 definite quanity
49 information
51 splendor
53 flings
55 His native place
57 lukewarm
59 bay tree
60 watchmaker
62 boy’s nickname
64 sea ducks
67 potter’s wheel
69 girl's name
72 coarsely ground
substance
74 satisfy
76 part of a locomo
tive
77 rest
78 railroad executives
80 Laos aborigine
Hails Teachers’ Aid Stand
ANSWER TO LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE, PAGE 7
WASHINGTON (NC)— A na
tional spokesman for Catholic
education has hailed the action
of the American Federation of
Teachers in endorsing govern
ment support for parochial
schools.
Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt
said the stand taken by the
100,000-member A.F. of T. is
in line with the argument that
"discriminatory legislation
would seriously hamper free
dom of choice in education."
Msgr, Hochwalt is director of
the National Catholic Welfare
Conference's Department of
Education.
THE A.F. of T. endorsed
government aid to both par
ochial and public schools in a
resolution adopted by its ex
ecutive council. This was a
reversal of the organization’s
previous sta.„d. The resolution
said Federal aid "must reach
the child where he is."
Federation president Charles
Cogen said (Nov. 7) that the
resolution was dictated by em
ergency conditions in education.
Spokesmen said the A, F. of T,
is planning a largescale effort
to obtain Federal school aid.
The federation is an affiliate
of the AFL-CIO, which has
already gone on record in sup
port of equal aid to children
in both public and nonpublic
schools.
Msgr. Hochwalt, in his com
ment on the AFT action, said:
’THE Department of Educa
tion, NCWC, has taken no of
ficial position on the basic ques
tion of whether there should or
should not be a Federal aid
program but has always as
serted that every school-age
ARNOLD VIEWING
That Man From Rio
child should be the beneficiary
of any Federal aid to educa
tion program that might be
passed by Congress.
‘The statement by the AF.
of T. ‘that the child shall have
the benefit of such Federal sup
port in any given educational
HOOVER CHARGE
situation where he or his guar
dians elect to have him’ cor
responds with the constant as
sertion by the Department of
Education that discriminatory
legislation would seriously
hamper freedom of choice in
education."
BY JAMES W. ARNOLD
Interracial Group
Defends Dr. King
CHICAGO (NC)—The Catho
lic Interracial Council of Chi
cago is "greatly disturbed" by
recent statements by FBIdirec-
tor J. Edgar Hoover concerning
the integrity of Negro integra
tion leader Dr. Martin Luther
King.
The Catholic Interracial Coun
cil said in a statement "we
know of Dr. King, his religious
faith, courage and integrity. It
is inconceivable to us that he
could lie."
DR. KING and Hoover have
recently engaged in public con
troversy over the FBI’s role in
protecting persons protesting
segregation in the South.
The Catholic group's state
ment urged that the FBI be
given "the power
life and limb” in
to protect
the South.
It said it sent nine persons
on a "Chicago interreligious
delegation" to Albany, Ga., in
August, 1962, and "it is a
fact that the FBI was of no help
in that situation."
Set Scholarship
MANCHESTER, NH (NC)—
The trustees of St. Anselm’s
College here have established
a scholarship in the name of
the late Archbishop Joseph F.
Rummel of New Orleans, an
1896 graduate of St. Anselm’s
and holder of an honorary doc
torate of laws awarded him by
the college in 1949,
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.
What’s the rarest kind of movie? In a film
era in which the only thing that happens more
often than people getting killed is people get
ting kissed, the truly rare movie is the one
without a single passionate wrestling match to
use in the ads or coming attractions.
brave and pure heroes who have saved heroines
since time began. He goes by motorcycle, plane,
tractor, trolley, auto, speedboat, bicycle, para
chute; when no mechanical aids are handy, he
walks, runs, swims swings through the trees
like Tarzan.
But probably rarer still, in any age, is the
film that combines high quality with mass ap
peal and a moral tone to suit
a jury of discriminating den
mothers. At least one movie
of that species is available
this year; unfortunately, it is
the very kind star-and publi
city-conscious filmgoers are
likely to miss.
IT IS CALLED "That Man
From Rio," made mostly in
Brazil by a French-Italian company, with a cast
that includes only on mildly famous name: Jean
Paul Belmondo. ( Whooo?) It is dubbed (pass
ably) in English, and also funny, marvelous,
brilliant, great. If you miss it, you simply don’t
deserve forgiveness.
"Rio” is the work of a young French director,
Philippe DeBroca, who for several years turned
out deft Gallic comedies that tried the patience
of the Legion of Decency ("The Joker," "Five
Day Lover," the gluttony sequence in "Seven
Capital Sins"). But by chance or design DeBroca
has now plunged into more whole-some subject
matter. The results is the kind of buoyant mad
ness that hasn’t been on the screen since the
Rene Clair films of the 1930’s or the Preston
Sturges drolleries of the 1940’s.
INEVITABLY, just as he rescues her, she
is stolen again, and the brisk pursuit rambles
all over Brazil. IDe-Broca misses nothing: every
scenic spot in Rio, as well as the mountain roads,
native villages, backwaters of the Amazon, jungle
depths, the stark rectangles and speroids of Bra
silia (an H.G. Wells city if ever one existed).
All in color, with hysterically fast, imaginative
action and cutting, with each shot calculated to
squeeze from nature every last glimmer of beauty.
The mystery involves a mad anthropologist
(Jean Servais) who through murder collects three
acient idols which hold the secret to an old In
dian treasure. (“Only I have been able to dis
cover the secret," he brags, pulling from the hat
crisp pieces of paper with explicit written di
rections to the fortune). At the end, you may guess
which greedy character is buried alive with the
jungle 1 loot while hero and heroine race to safety.
Nearly every moment in "Rio" is precious;
Belmondo chasing the culprits on motorcycle,
cigar clenched in teeth; his desperate attempts
to dodge the assassins’ cars on an open, red-clay
field in Brasilia; the beautiful hillside silhouet
tes of the couple and their friends, the Negro poor
of Rio, against the lighted shanties and the night
sky, while on the soundtrack a girl sings a gentle
song of love and happiness.
REAPINGS
THESE YOUNG French film-makers are en
chanted with the commercial movies of that
ancient vintage; the gangster films, the mys
teries, the westerns, the musicals. "Rio" spoofs
them all, but chiefly the Grade B action melo
dramas; it reminds me most of the cheerfully
improbable serials that used to run before the
double features on Saturday afternoons. (Fbiends
report that another recent DeBroca picture,
"Cartouche," a loving take-off on the sword
-and-costume romance, is even better, but I
haven’t seen it).
Bishop Is
The Father
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4
its spiritual benefits. It is a great Christian ad
venture before us, high in the virtue of hope.
V
The first requirement of a movie, often ig
nored by those who search for film material
in books and plays, is that it move. The second,
and a purely personal requirement, is that it
move across territory that is, or is made, vis
ually delightful. "Rio" does both eminently. At
the same time, it manages to be exciting and
funny without being either terrifying of intel
lectually snobbish.
Belmondo, a dark-haired mixture of Steve
McQueen and Ringo Starr and obviously a brash
young man of the people, plays an airman-on-
leave whose girl friend is kidnaped and flown to
Rio by two swarthy, indestructible Latins. (The
girl is alarmingly pretty, animated Francoise
Dorleao, who makes U.S. actresses look as if
they are cut from concrete). Without question,
he takes up the chase, like all those marvelously
The Church is all of us, bishop, priest and lay
man, but our spiritual fathers must lead in order
that all can receive what is being offered,for as
Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan has said:
". . .the Church is offering modern man his full
share in the liturgy, a role proper to his status as
a layman, much of it in his own language and in his
own mode of life. Liturgy will no longer appear to
be the exclusive hobby of a few; it is the birth
right of us all. It is the bread and butter of our
spirit: our actions, our efforts, our presence of
fered to God through the service of His priest, and,
in return, divine grace flowing sacramentally
through familiar channels into every corner of our
lives. As the first chapter of the schema sum
med it up: The liturgy is the summit toward
which all the actions of the Church tend and, at
the same time, the source from which it draws
all its strength.' "
God Love You
BY MOST REVEREND FULTON J. SHEEN
The hour has struck for all Americans and in particular Ameri
can Catholics to ask themselves if they have a right to so much
when the rest of the world has so little. Do the poor have any claims
against us? Do the 80,000 living in the slums of Peru, who have
to pay 16 cents a week for a keg of water have any claim on
Americans who average $1.10 per week on alcohol? Does a parish
in any big city have a right to build a million dollar church or
school without giving at least $1,000 to build a small house for the
Eucharistic Lord in Nigeria or New Guinea?
We in the United States own 46 per cent of the world’s wealth
and yet we are only six per cent of the world's
population. This is like dividing the world’s
wealth, giving each American $7.50 and those in
the rest of the world only 58 cents. Oh yes! Two or
three collections are taken up each year for the
millions and millions who starve, but are not these
like crumbs which fall from the table? Something
radical must be done and not just to save the
wrecks of humanity in Latin America, Asia and
Africa, but to save ourselves I
We need help more than they do. Certainly, they need bread for
their bodies, clothes for their backs, education for their minds,
medicine for their ills, but we need to justify our blessings. We
need to prove ourselves stewards of God’s wealth. We need to be
Christians not on Sunday only but everyday because the burdens
of others must be carried daily.
Two radical changes are needed. The first is an International
Commission in Rome charged with the Missions. The Missions
are not territories that once were colonies, but areas where
there is need^ - whether it be in Chile or in Angora. The second
change that is necessary is a world-wide system of adoption in
which every diocese in the United States and in prosperous parts
of the world, as well as every parish, school, hospital, fraternal
organization and religious society, adopt a poor area or parish of
the world. This cannot be done arbitrarily now, otherwise we
will have adoption in one place and poverty in the other. It is for
the Church or her International Commission to decide on adoptions
- not a bishop or a priest. Equality must be preserved and this
can be done only by the Chruch acting as Christ.
Until these two changes come to pass we hope that you will not
sleep well. We hope you will worry about how much you could do
for the Holy Father and the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
Begin to share with the poorl God love you.
GOD LOVE YOU to E.N.H. for $100 ‘This is being sent as an
act of love for God, an act of thanksgiving for His blessings to me,
an act of amendment for offending him and an act of petition for
His Church and His Missions." ...to a prisoner for $3 "Here is
a money order for the Holy Father's Missions, I have turned my
back on Christ many times. I pray and hope that 1 never do it
again."
Solve your gift problem with a subscription to MISSION magazine.
Those to whom you have this pocket-sized bi-monthly sent, will
have a new vision of the Church and her Missions spread before
them. Send your list of names and addresses and $1 for each sub
scription to: Order Department, 366 Fifth Avenue, New York,
N. Y. 10001.
Cut out this column, pin your sacrifice to it and mail it to Most
Reverend Fulton J, Sheen, National Director of The Society for
the Propagation of the Faith, 366 Fifth Avenue, New York, New
York 10001, or to your Diocesan Director, Rev. Harold J. Rainey
P, O, Box 12047, Northside Station, Atlanta 5, Georgia.