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PAGE 4 GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1964 EXPECTATIONS Archdiocese of Atlanta the GEORGIA BULLETIN SI»VINO GEORGIA'S 71 NORTHF»w COUNTIES Official Organ of the Archidocese of Atlanta Published Every Week at the Decatur DeKalb News 1/jUtAs ^ybot/ /?65 [/pdating The Year BY GERARD E. SHERRY PUBLISHER- Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan MANAGING EDITOR Gerard E. Sherry CONSULTING EDITOR Rev. R. Donald Kiernan ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rev. Leonard F. X. Mayhew Member of the Catholic Press Association 2699 Peachtree N. E. a nd Subscriber to N. C. W. C. News Service P. O. Box 11667 Telephone 231-1281 Northside Station Atlanta 5, Ga. Second Class Permit at Altanta, Ga. U. S. A. $5.00 Canada $5.00 Foriegn $6.50 Search For Patience The advent of the new year brings with it the dangers of impatience at the frustrations to be faced and the jobs that are undone. Yet the virtue of patie nce in its ultimate analysis, is merely one phase of docility to the real. It is a recognition of the dimension of time. If we are to be realistic, to work in the world as it is, in order .to remake it into what it should be, then we must ac cept the fact that things hap pen in time, that causes unfold into effects only through the pas sage of time. Patience leads us to a proper perspective, a balanced view of events, so that we actually come to grips with things in all their reality. To sow in the spring, and to demand a harvest within weeks is an absurdity. To ask a ten year old to assume the respon sibilities of an adult is to vio late the principle of growth. To demand an immediate solu tion to a complex international problem, deeply rooted in his tory, is to demand the impos sible, and to foredoom one's efforts to failure. A man who intends to swim a river will set his pace and his sights to that task. If instead he thought that he was merely going to swim the length of a pool, he would be disheartened and give up in despair before he had fin ished the first mile. Overoptim- istic understimation of the task before us has led many of us to a despair that would have been avoided if we had taken the element of time into ac count. For the Christian, the virtue of patience is more than this, for it is a real sharing in the patience of God. By Baptism we are called to share in the life of God, and thus we must acquire His virtues. Before this truth we must adjust our pace to the pace of a God who could launch the universe, and bide His time be fore setting upon it the master, Man. We must have the endurance of a God who could watch His pro digal sons go wandering off into the slavery of sin, and then wait and wait until man could re ceive the promised Redeemer. In putting on the New Man, we must share in the fruitful wait ing of the Lord, Who had come on the most important task His Father could devise, but Who waited for thirty years, before He did anything about the task. This is the God, to whose pat tern we must conform ourselves. In the light of this aspect of Christian patience, an adoles cent impatience in the adult Christian borders on blasphemy. On a much deeper level there is a further aspect of Christian patience , and that is the rede mptive value of patient endur ance. In the final analysis, the Lord did nothing when He re deemed us, He merely endur ed death. He hung, obediently and willfully upon the cross until the excruciating torture had drained His life away. In .manfully accepting the fact of time, we can share in this pass ion of patience. To be aware of the gravity of a problem, to glimpse a work able solution, but to remain inactive, or at least to accept a minimal activity, in obedience to proper authority or in ac ceptance of the limitations im posed by the element of time, is to be stretched upon the Cross, and is in fact more redemptive than to charge ahead and actu ally work out a solution. In a creed fraught with paradox this aspect of patience brings us to the great paradox of the Cross, and is most contrary to our natural inclinations. But if we ignore it, and fly off in revolt or in disillusioned ab dication we shall have squander ed the most practical contribution we can make to local, national and international problems. The Pope Said It Then What Will We Write? GEORGIA PINES After The Storm BY REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN Like the stilness that comes after a big storm, these past few days, after Christmas, are like a welcomed breathing spell. Merchants are not the only one who are exhausted on Decem ber 25tJ>. The same holds true for parish; priests. Making sure that the Christmas crib is put out on display, arranging for the unusual crowds that attend Midnight Mass, scheduling the hours for confessions, answering the telephone usually, "What time, does tiie Midnight Mass begin?") all of these things are joyful to a priest but physically exhausting. Now added to all of these church duties the priest sends out Christmas cards too, he has members of his family for whom he must do some shopping, wrapping and mailing and yet, at the same time, there are the routine obligations which must be attended to. Then after the Midnight Mass there are us ually ten or fifteen people who invite the priest out. for "breakfast” and if he replies with a "no" because he has to say the 7 a.m. mass. ... the parishioner has a dejected look and acts as if they have been speaking to the original Scrooge, Well, what's the solution? In fifteen years I have never found it. So, consequently, Decem ber 26th finds me exhausted, running late and desperately trying to find some subject to write my column about! retirement.), So here I am on CX;cember 29th and as yet have not even read my Christmas cards or opened any packages. Christmas has a tremendous buildup, no doubt brought on by enterprising merchants. It seems that the turkey on Thanksgiving is not even cold before the first Christmas carol comes blaring over the radio. Store windows are gaily decorated and a spirit of merri ment fills the air. Then comes Christmas night and its all over. I even saw a tree out in a trash barrel at 9:30 on Christmas eveningl The day after Christmas brings with it an exchange of gifts (wrong size) and some stores are now busier than they were the day before Christmas. All in all, it is a reflection on the feverish tempo in which we all live. Were it not for smoking, tranquilizers' etc., I imagine that many would suffer nervous breakdowns just from sheer exhaustion. What with going to parties, giving parties and obligation part ies— for many there is little time to enjoy one’s own family. Spiritual writers for years have unsuccess fully tried to "put Christ back into Christmas” and with the deluge of advertising and mer chandizing forced on the American people it is not small miracle that there are still people who appreciate the religious signif icance attached to the Holy Season. I have an additional fete. My birthday falls on December 28th and though 1 am now try ing to hide the years I do think it calls for ano ther celebration. (Gosh, I can remember when I thought a man 40 years old was ready for I felt real proud when I heard of a mother of five who asked her children if they would like to have an orphan spend the holidays with them rather than exchange gifts among them selves. The children all voted for the orphan. A "real" Christmas was spent in that home. Real proud, I say. Yes, because that mother is my sister. SUPPORT FOR VIETNAM This week, former President Eisenhower stated that he belie ves the “unconditional surren der" policy in World War II was a mistake and that it caus ed the Germans to fight longer. "Germany was defeated after the Battle of the Bulge," he said. "By January 16, 1945, it was all over, and anyone with sense knew it was over." But the war continued and many lives were lost after that date because, as General Eisenhower said,"Hit ler used something from the mouth of our own leader and per suaded the Germans to fight longer than they might have," The main thing wrong with President Franklin D. Roose velt’s slogan on unconditional surrender, the General said, was that it seemed to be directed at the people instead of at the war lords who led them. Eisenhower added that while he had never condemned the unconditional- surrender policy publicly before, he had questioned it privately when he was Supreme Comman der in the European theatre. He said that Gen. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army at that time, had intimat ed strongly that he also thought it was a mistake. This all sounds very familiar. During the war, Pope Pius XII objected to the policy of “unconditional surrender" for the very same humane rea sons. Yet his cry not only went unheeded but has been used to vilify his name recently. Rolf Hochhuth in his slanderous play “The Deputy" alleged that this objection of Pius to stated Allied policy was evidence of his pro- Nazi sympathies. It now appears that the Pope was in good company in his ob jections. There are quite a few men, of both armies, buried along the Rhine and beyond who must wish that someone at that time had the wisdom to see what the Holy Father saw and proclaimed and what General Eisenhower now claims was so apparent to those on the inside. STAR HERALD CAMDEN, N. J. Your World And Mine BY GARY MacEOIN Since I recently reported from Vietnam in this column on the grave deterioration of our position in that critical area, things have become steadily worse. The military situation is today compar able to that in the spring of 1954, just before the disastrous French defeat at Dienbienphu. AsU.S. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor has siad, there are 45 wars being fought in the 45 provinces of the Republic of South Vietnam. Ambassador Taylor has been in the United States for talks with the military chiefs and the President. No new policy has been announced, but Administration statements indicate a belief that what is needed is to step up the military effort. In other words, if we put on enough pressure, we can make the war no longer worth the Communists while. I HAVE HAD the oppor tunity to discuss the situation at length with leading members of the American Friends of Viet nam, a non-partisan group of this country's top experts on South-East Asia, men who have been working unselfishly since the Republic of South Vietname was created to help it fulfil its pro mise, and to develop in the United States a better understanding of its problems and of the contribution we can make to solve them. These men have no miracle drug, no simple solution. They all agree that the deterioration is progressive, that we are approaching disin tegration. But they have not abandoned hope. They believe that stable democratic government can be established in Vietnam, but not by mili tary' effort alone. "The primary problem always was and it still is political," according to Mr. Joseph Buttinger Author of THE SMALLER DRAGON, a book which describes Vietnam's successful 2,000-year effort to prevent China from grabbing the rich rice bowl of the lower Mekong Valley, Mr. Butt inger is this country 's leading student of Viet namese history. "A STABLE government with broad popular support is the primary need if we are to con vince the enemy that he cannot win, and such sup port is almost entirely lacking," he says. "To gain the people, we must convince them that it is worth their while to support the govern ment. This can be done only by' a program of im mediate reforms coupled with a prospect of peace to follow soon." What kind of reforms does Mr. Buttinger have in mind? "Eighty per cent of Vietnamese are peasants, and only a small minority of these own the land on which they live. We should pro claim immediately that the land they are culti- CONTINUED ON PAGE 5 This has been a very vital year on many fronts. Politically, it saw the people of this nation repud iate extremism whether from the right or left. It also saw the election of the first southerner as President of all these United States. On the international front, it saw the demise of Nikita Khruschev as leader of the Communist world and the repudiation of his influence in the Soviet Union. It also saw a change of gov ernment in England where Harold Wil son’s Socialist Par ty won a narrow vic tory over the Con servatives. The year also saw member ship in the United Nations increase to an unprecedented degree. For the first time since its inception, a balance of power (numerically) lay with the emerging nations of Asia and Africa. On the surface things look pretty grim, especially in Viet Nam and Malaysia, both of which are hard pressed by Asian Communist elements. But if things look grim in some areas, there is hope in the field of religion, especially in relation to the Church. NINETEEN sixty-four saw the successful con clusion of the Third Session of Vatican Council II with much meaningful work accomplished. It also saw the introduction of the vernacular into the lit urgy of the Church and its overwhelming accep tance by the majority of the faithful. But one of the greatest of the successes within the Church by year's end was the spread of fruitful dialogue be tween people of all races and creeds. The exam ple of Pope Paul Vi’s early January travels to the Holy Land and his meetings with Orthodox Pa triarch Athenagoras set the pattern for many oth er Church leaders. No longer was it considered un-Catholic to extend the hand of love and friend ship to our separated brethren— rather, it was to be the norm in the search for religious unity. Pope Paul Vi’s November journey to the Asian Continent and the International Eucharistic Con gress in Bombay was further evidence of the Church's concern for mankind — above all, its special copcen^ forthejipor and the needy. Anoth- 0 er shaft of light in a world overshadowed • by clouds of injustice and discontent was the Pope’s First Encyclical issued in the summer and entitl ed Ecclesian Suam. Pope Paul spoke of the re newal and the dimensions of the Church and no where was it more appropriately confirmed that the Church must be concerned with the world. He confirmed in this 1964 document that: ‘The Church should enter into dialogue with the world in which it exists and labors. The Church has something to say; the Church has a message to deliver; the Church has a communication to offer. "It is no secret that this important facet of the contemporary life of the Church will be specially and fully studied by the ecumenical council, and we have no desire to undertake the concrete exam ination of the themes involved in such study, in order to leave to Fathers of the council full free dom in discussing them. We wish only to invite you venerable brethren, to preface such study with certain considerations in order that we see more clearly the motives which impel the Church toward the dialogue, the methods to be followed, and the goals to be achieved. We wish to give, not full treatment to topics, but proper dispositions to hearts. "Nor can we do otherwise in our conviction that the dialogue ought to characterize our apos tolic office, heirs as we are of such a pastoral approach and method as has been handed down to us by our predecessors of the past century, be ginning with the great, wise Leo XIII. Almost as a personification of the Gospel character of the wise scribe, who, like the father of a family, "knows how to bring both new and old things of his treasure-house” (Mt* 13,52)., in a stately man ner he assumed his function as teacher of the world by making the object of his richest instruction the problems of our time considered in the light of the word of Christ.” ARISING out of the Pope’s words, it is a pity the dialogue within the Church was not as fruitful as it is between ourselves and others. While one can only speak about these United States it is tragic to witness the travail of the Church in California and elsewhere, where the conflict between freedom and authority nas not yet been resolved. In such situations it is not sufficient to condemn either side. There is a great need for prayerful concern and understanding. The new year will no doubt see many changes within the Church; within the world. It will be an exciting year with the probable close of Vatican II at the end of the Fourth Session, If one is to look back over the twentieth century, the results of Vatican II will be the main consideration of the historians. Nineteen sixty five will see a con tinuation of Aggiornanm ento — the updating — the renewal — the essential reform. A happy, fruitful New Year to ail who seek it. REAPINGS AT RANDOM