Newspaper Page Text
THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 1966
GEORGE BULLETIN PAGE 5
NO WITNESS
Crisis Of Peace
BY REV. LEONARD F.X. MAYHEW
The opening words of the Pastoral Constitu
tion on the Church in the Modern World make a
stirring, sweeping statement and claim. “The
joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties
of the men of this age, especially those who are
poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys
and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the fol
lowers of Christ.’' This marvelous manifesto
marches in the logical footsteps of the principles
evolved by the Council in its
other major documents on the
Church, Liturgy, Ecumenism,
Pastoral Office of Bishops and
the Laity. The statement and
the document it introduces spe
cify the priestly office of the
Christian people of God. The
Church as the “Instrument of
redemption for all mankind"
must be aware of the com
munion of concern in which it is linked with the
world it is to serve.
In an epoch such as ours, the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit dictates a “return to the sour
ces" to re-discover and re-evaluate our mis
sion in the world. This has marked the whole
work of renewal, both within the Council and
in those who prepared for it and those who try
to implement it. Where this latter effort is pas
sed by lightly, both the Christian people and all
mankind are done a disservice. This threatens
to become the case in the most overwhelming
question facing our time: peace or war.
The Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World speaks with dynamic clarity of the crisis
of peace in our world. Pope Paul at the United
Nations pleaded eloquently with the world, includ
ing his fellow Catholics, it seems to me, to re
move war once and for all from world policy.
Without wishing to see bishops in politics, it
would seem proper for them to take seriously
the counsels and declarations of the Council do
cument. If there is an echo in the American
Church of the vigorous statements of the Coun
cil’s teaching on war, I for one cannot discern
it. For their part, the laity, who do belong deep
ly immersed in politics and secular affairs, do
not seem to be making the word of the Council
tangibly present. Only a few lone voices seem
willing to bear Christian witness on this ques
tion.
The question of the avoidance of war occupies
paragraphs 79 to 82 of the Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World. In the tradition of
the social encyclicals, it sets forth the moral
principles that should govern the specific pro
blems that beset us. While deploring the con
tinuance of war “which produces its devastation
day by day in some part of the world," the docu
ment first Insists that the demands of natural
law remain in force even in war —— “Nor does
the mere fact that war has unhappily begun mean
that all is fair between the warring parties."
The horrifying effects of modem war “compel
us," the Council goes on, “to undertake an evalua
tion of war with an entirely new attitude." There
follows an uncompromisingly and uncomfortably
clear statement: “This most holy Synod makes
its own the condemnation of total war already
pronounced by recent popes, and issues the fol
lowing declaration: Any act of war aimed indis
criminately at the destruction of entire cities or
extensive areas along with their population is a
crime against God and man himself. It merits
unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation."
Proceeding to another crucial issue in today’s
political life, the text continues: “Therefore, we
say it again: the arms race is an utterly treach
erous trap for humanity, and one which ensnares
the poor to an intolerable degree. It is much to
be feared that if this race persists, it will even
tually spawn all the lethal ruin whose path it
is now making ready...Divine Providence ur
gently demands of us that we free ourselves from
the age-old slavery of war. If we refuse to make
this effort, we do not know where we will be led
by the evil road we have set upon...It is our clear
duty, therefore, to strain every muscle in work
ing for the time when all war can be completely
outlawed by international consent."
Reading these words and sensing their over
powering truth, one wonders where are the Catho
lic voices, of bishops and priests and laity, who
are making this effort and straining every muscle
in the cause of international peace, in constantly
witnessing to the demands of Christian and natural
law on our own country in the midst of our present
war. This is not meant to judge the issues of this
war but to accept that all war is evil and that the
Spirit has called us to judge it, to prevent it and
,to end it.
GOOD NEWS
Peace Be With You
BY MARY PERKINS RYAN
AT THE LAST Supper, our Lord said to His
Apostles, "Peace I leave with you, - my peace
I give to you; not as the world givesdo I give- to
you' (John 14:27). In His appearances after
His ressurection as in the one recounted in the
Gospel for Low Sunday, His greeting is “peace
be with youl " All of us are thinking a great
deal about peace, as we read or see the news and
listen to or take part in discussions, as our sons
become liable for the draft or actually involved ber, in doing so, that making peace doesn’t nec-
in our country’s military effort. What sort of essarily mean keeping out of trouble or even avoid-
peace does the Lord give us Christians in this ing making trouble. A psychologist once told
confusing and strife-tom world? me, when I was lamenting die freqqent absence
of any obvious kind of peace in our argumen-
In the Old Testament, “peace" means not tative family, that he worried more about fami-
simply the absence of war, but the abundance of lies in which everyone was always calm and
human blessings — what we today would call low-voiced; it might show that they cared about
It also describes §
“prosperity" or, perhaps, the
realization of "the Great So- m
ciety." Psalm 71, describing 1
the kingdom of the MessiasJ
pictures crops so abundant that jW? t
the city-dwellers too will have
plenty to eat.
justice for the lowly and the
poor, the saving of the child
ren of the poor, and uses the
word “peace" again and again
in connection with justice: "Justice shall flower
in his days, and profound peace, till the moon be
no more." "Peace be with you" is a charac
teristic and beautiful Hebrew greeting. The name
“Jerusalem" means “City of Peace", looking
forward to the messianic future when, as Isaias
said, “Rejoice with Jerusalem...Behold 1 will
bring upon her as it were a river of peace."
Our Lord said, “Blessed are the peace makers,
for they shall be called the children of God,"
and He was certainly not denying any of the ac
cumulated Biblical meaning of the word. We
believe that He is going to give us everything
that “peace" implies in the heavenlyjerusalem
— Light, rest, and peace are what we ask for
one another less rather than more, that real
growth toward inner peacefulness, love and ma
turity was being sacrificed to external order
liness and quiet.
The same thing may be true in other com
munities. To bring the blessings of peace to a
neighborhood may involve stirring up a lot of
trouble with the people who want to keep things
the way they are. Pacifists seem to many people
the greatest trouble-makers of all.
We may disagree with one another — in fami
lies, in communities, as citizens — how peace
is best to be pursued. But as Christians we
must think about it in relation to concrete issues;
we cannot be indifferent to the task of peace
making, however complicated and confusing
and seemingly never-ending it may be. Other
wise we have no right to accept the priest's
greeting at Mass, after the Our Father and be
fore Communion, “Peace be with you." We have
no right to our Risen Lord’s gift of peace, given
us afresh this Eastertime. He is our peace, but
somehow we must work to make His peace opera
tive in our world — or we shall not possess it
ourselves.
REFORM OF CURIA
Your World And Mine
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4
prised when I learned that one of his early intel
lectual guides was Dom Lou, a Chinese diplomat
who became a Benedictine.
I was equally impressed by his familarity with
theological thought among “other Christians"
both of the East and of the West, as well as by
his disarming way of appealing to it as a witness
to and enrichment of the message of Christ.
Invidious as are personal comparisons, I feel
I should mention the contrast between the Canon’s
feeling for all current forms of thought and ex
pression and the rigid scholastic mental frame
work of the one Italian participant atNotre Dame,
Bishop Carlo Colombo, often described as Pope
Paul’s theologian. As one theologian commented
to me, “what he said might have been written
before the Council.'’ As a “progressive" in
Italy, Bishop Carlo gives point to the movement
to de-Italianize the Curia with all convenient
speed.
wimi
Conway
departed Christians. We believe that Christ is
our peace, as St, Paul says, and that somehow
we can rejoice in His Presence even in the midst “
of our present pain and confusion. But what are
we meant to be doing to makepeace, to communi
cate His peace to our world?
EACH OF US, clearly, must work out his own
answer to this question. But we need to remem-
Q. MY FRIENDS and I have been discussing the condition of
the world today. I said thattimes are at an ALL TIME low. Times
today are worse (more evil) than they EVER were. My two
friends disagreed. They said that though times are indeed bad,
it is NOT as bad as I see it, and certainly NOT an ALL TIME
low ebb. I base my argument on that the anti-Christ is VERY
soon to come. And the Bible CLEARLY relates that at this time
there will be sufferings, pestilence and misery, such as the
world has NEVER known.
A. PEOPLE HAVE been seeing the anti-Christ just around the
next corner for more than 19 centuries.
There are many things wrong with our old
world. The perennial worry of Oldsters about
the moral conduct of youth stems to have
more factual basis than usual, Except maybe
for the roaring 20’s. New concepts of sex
ual morality, and the practices which result
from them, certainly give cause for worry.
Crime, especially in city slums, is frighten
ing; and the use of narcotic., hallucinative
and stimulative drugs seems to be on the increase; we read of
graft in politics and business; there are still many pockets of
colonialism, despotism, and repression; atheism is a tool of to
talitarianism in many lands; famine is frequently rampant; wars
are still a means of settling disputes between intelligent men;
and there is the bomb!
However, modern sexual morality is quite responsible and al
truistic when compared with' the practices of ancient Greece
and Rome, to say nothing of barbarian and savage peoples; our
pornography hardly equals in quality that of Pompeii; crime in
medieval times was a way of life; opium and betel leaves are
hardly recent discoveries; graft is at least as old as Abraham,
Leban and Jacob, and the modern variety seems rather refined
when compared with that of the turn of our century. Our modern
age has seen a liberation of people and nations much wider and
less disruptive than that of the French Revolution; an awareness
of human rights, equality and justice more sensitive and dynamic
than the world has ever known before.
There is certainly an abundance of suffering, pestilence and
misery in the world, but if you eliminate the factor of our mul
tiplied population, present tragedies hardly merit comparison
with the calamities of the Black Death in the 14th century; and
it is made shocking only by comparison with the luxurious abun
dance which most of us enjoy in fortunate parts of the world.
NEVER BEFORE in history has man had so much knowledge,
skill, courage and inventive imagination; never before has there
been so much cohesion, communication, cooperation and concern
among the peoples of the world; never before has the dignity of
the human person been so highly respected; nor has the welfare
of mankind received so much active concern. We still have some
totalitarian regimes, but we have no Inquisition, no Dachau;
though we do have the Ku Klux Klan and the bomb.
It can well be argued that things are now at an ALL TIME high;
and it is certain that with courage, vision, dynamic charity, and
zeal for justice we can make them vastly better - if we restrain
the bomb.
Q. SOME OF my friends are having a dispute: Can a Catholic
womajn marry a non-Catholic n^stii at 3 i^uptjal Mass? Onp. fyieij^, x ^
says no; she tried to be married in this manner a few years ago
and was told it could not be done. Another friend says it can now
be done in our archdiocese. When I mentioned this to my pastor
he hadn’t heard about it.
A. IN JULY, 1965, the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith) gave our bishops authority to permit mixed
marriages to take place at Mass. I believe most bishops in the
United States have now extended this permission to their dioceses.
ARNOLD VIEWING
Staggering Success
BY JAMES W. ARNOLD
PRACTICALLY everybody will find something
to complain about in “The Gospel According to
St. Matthew." But after each has had a go at the
tenth that bothers him, he will probably concede
that the other nine-tenths is fascinating, perhaps
even magnificent.
’Gospel" is uterly improbable: a bluntly
pious, low-budget life of Christ, with an unknown
cast,' filmed by an Italian Com
munist (Pier Pasolini) in honor
of the late Pope John. Skep- j
tics have wondered if it isn’tj
artful Marxist propaganda, but i
in Italy, where the Don Camillo
syndrome is a fact of life,
Catholics have showered Paso
lini with awards.
If it’s propaganda, have them
hit us again. It reveals Christ as a real human
person who identifies with the workers and the
poor and preaches against materialism and Phar
isaical corruption. It also shows Him as claim
ing to be divine and proving it with miracles
and an unquestionably supernatural Resurrection.
Subversion like this ought to be investigated by
a Committee on UnSoviet Activities.
WILL AMERICANS appreciate this film? Sev
eral factors work against it. For one, it is
arty. To be arty in films today means the oppo
site of commercial: extreme simplicity and rea
lism, natural lighting and sound, hand-held came
ra, accidents and improvisations—kind of across
between an on-the-scene TV documentary and
a home movie.
The contrast between "Gospel" and even the
. best of the commercial Bible epics (George
Stevens’ ’Greatest Story") is extreme. Noth
ing is pretty or pictorial; Pasolini’s Holy Land
(rural Italy) is barren, decaying, poverty strick
en, photographed in austere black andwhite. Her
od’s palace and Caiphas’ courtyard look like an
cient stone ruins. There are no familiar faces
in the non-professional cast (Stevens used well-
known pros even for bit parts), and while many
faces are beautiful, it is not the sort of beauty
that would stop traffic on Hollywood Boulevard.
Further, Pasolini under-produces. There are
no battles or bloodlettings (with the one puzzling
exception of a crude, baby-tossing Slaughter of
the Innocents), no Roman legions and marching
bands, no orgies or intriguing little subplots in
volving Barabbas and Pontius Pilate’s gorgeous
daughter. There is no additional dialog by Har
vey Schultz or anyone else: the only words are
St. Matthew’s, and for some stretches it is almost
a silent film. Typical is Salome’s dance, done
by a fully robed, mildly attractive girl with a
bough of flowers, photographed almost entirely
in a head-and-shoulders closeup.
THE FILM’S HONESTY isfcstaggering; clearly,
Pasolini had his mind on the Gospel and not on
the box-office. (The movie was almost never
seen in America because no distributor thought
it would make a dime). The problem is that
Americans have been spoiled by Hollywood vul
garity, and ’Gospel" may not be sufficiently
souped-up to seem like a “real movie." There
will be walkouts at every showing.
The toughest problem is language. There is
plenty of dialog in the preaching and parables,
all of it in Italian (with English subtitles),
which immediately puts the film out of reach of
slow or reluctant readers of all ages. The speed
of the Italian produces a rhythm that seems much
too fast to American viewers, but dubbing is im
possible without leaving out half the text. The
fault is partly overcome by the film’s visual em
phasis, especially its relentless study of the
human face.
Pasolini has cast with the camera in mind, and
his peasant types, especially for the Apostles,
St. Joseph and the young Mary, are movingly
fresh and authentic. Pasolini’s own mother is
remarkable as the older Mary (St. Matthew
gives her no dialog).
THE CHRIST is played visually by a dark-eyed
Spanish student, who resembles the young Monty
Clift, and the virile, sensitive voice is dubbed
by an actor. The combination is irresistible;
never in film has the character of Christ emerged
in so much of its contradictory complexity. We
get to know and like Him as a person, to under
stand His electrifying impact on his times, and
to feel for Him in His suffering completely apart
from the built-in emotions we bring to the film.
The gentle warmth of this young man’s smile is
indescribable.
More dubious is the use of a young girl, Bot
ticelli type, as an angel whenever an angel is
required. The device is childlike, almost out of
a parish passion play, but it is jarring. There
will also be arguments about the music, which
ranges from the St. Matthew Passion through Mo
zart, Prokofiev, the African Mass (Missa Luba)
and Negro spirituals. It is startling, and even
moving to hear "Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve
Seen" during the Visit of the Magi, but does it
really make sense?
& V j J V *
OLD AND NEW
Three Phases Of Waugh
God Love You
MOST REVEREND FULTON J. SHEEN
a "PASSERS-BY" - they 1 are a part of our modern city life, our
sidewalks, our highways. Yet St. Matthew speaks of “passers-
at Calvary. They mocked, turned up their noses and walked
In the face of intense suffering and need, the disinterested
multiply. Take the case of the accident-prevention experiment
government recently conducted. Along a busy highway they
staged a collision between two automobiles.
Actors, taking the parts of wounded and
bleeding victims, cried out for help. Out of
168 automobiles that passed within a given
time only 48 stopped to offer help. A short
distance beyond the accident scene, the police
stopped and questioned those who had not
offered help. Their excuse: “We pretended
that we did not see." Perhaps some could
not endure the sight of blood; others might
not have wanted to spoin their upholstery,
that it was not their problem but that of the
CANON MOELLER’S ecumenical expression is
a deep part of his own culture. As a teenager,
he was already taking part in the very tentative
approaches which were then barely tolerated
for Catholics. His great teacher was Dom Lam
bert Beauduin, founder of the Monastery of Union
now located at Chevetogne, Belgium. He is pres
ident and inspirer of the ecumenical study semi
nars held since 1946 at Chevetogne.
A peritus at the Council, Canon Moeller help
ed to write the documents on the Church, on rev
elation, on ecumenism and on non-Christian re
ligions. He has himself said that his great for
tune was that he came to theology through the Bible
and the Fathers on the one hand, and the “lived
liturgy*’ on the other.
“A man of truth and a man of justice." Such
was the description recently given him by a Brus
sels publication. With such a man, the Congre
gation for Doctrine starts its service to die
Church auspiciously.
BY GARRY WILLS
THE LIFE OF Evelyn Waugh had three phas
es. First, the aesthete of the twenties — de
liriously happy at Oxford, dabbling in art studies,
suicidally despondent as a young teacher. Until
he published a reminiscence of these years in
1964, the only product of the period was his bio
graphy of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In that book
heCOollyusesLyttonStrachey’sliterary instruments
to oppose the Strachey. school of biography (“we
must keep our tongue in our cheek, must we not,
for fear it should loll out and reveal the idiot?’’)
Rosetti’s pre-Raphaelite blend of decadence,
antiquarianism, gaudiness and religion attracted
the young art Student whose woodcuts can be
found in the 1964 memoir, A
Little Learning. The same mm
blend, mixed to a new pur
pose, would appear in his illl
novels.
The dandy’s laughter is peril
ously close to despair. Waugh,
the embittered young school
master, sought death in the sea,
but found it too full of slimey'
life. Jelly-fish chased him back to shore, where
he tore up the meticulously accented Greek of his
suicide note. This comic treatment of his youth
ful despair owes much, as reviewers noted, to
the technique of the satires. But the judgment is
better stated the other way around: his satire
grew out of that bleak crisis. Why kill one of
the bright empty young things of the twenties
when, with his pen, he could slaughter them by
the bookfull? In 1928 he shot his first bag of
such game, in Decline and Fall.
All through the thirties, comic masterpieces
kept appearing. They piled Pelions of absurdity
on absurd Ossas; but this toppling extravagance
of fancy was joined with a severe economy of
style -- the technique of his woodcuts. The novels
are Dickensian in vision; but Dickens’ style is
plum pudding, next to which Waugh’s prose is dry
martini. At first his targets laughed with him,
not feeling the stroke that had gone so effort
lessly through them. Like the young Eliot, Waugh
gave perfect expression to the moral nihilism he
meant to annihilate. The tongue-tied "hollow
men” actually thought, for a while, that they had
found a voice in Eliot poems and Waugh novels.
It came as a shock for men to realize that both
these artists were classical Tory Catholics. Both
eased the shock somewhat by exaggerating their
pose. Each was a dandy, and could bring off
the role of testy old Tory with just the right touch
of caricature. But underneath the surface, both
were deadly serious men and moralists.
ALL OF WAUGH’S second period was bright
and funny, with only a hint, in 1955, of what was
to come. A biography of the Jesuit martyr Ed
mund Campion marked Waugh’s conversion to
Rome. Handful of Dust (1937) seemed to move
somewhat below the brittle play of his earlier
satire, but the old style reappeared in Scoop
(1938), and it looked as if he would remain the
comic master of understated exaggerations. But
this stage of his work was ended by World War
II, out of which he produced the four master
pieces of his later life — Brideshead Revisited
and, in slow stages, the trilogy now ironically
titled Sword of Honour.
The war called up forgotten moods of honor in
England, only to reveal how little there is in the
modern world' to merit such emotions. Like the
jelly-fish that drove him back to shore, politicians
make it impossible to die with dignity. English
men were asked to fight a crusade around an
emptied shrine. "Brideshead" and “Broome
are the empty shrines, the shriveled remains of
an older England. It is often suggested that
Waugh’s love affair with the country homes of
Catholic gentry was a form of snobbism, that he
was an English Scott Fitzgerald fascinated by
wealth, envious of the aristocracy. This misses
the whole point of Waugh’s last period. He has
tens to join these ridiculous and unconscious
carriers of tradition because they are about to
die. Waugh is not a snob interested in success,
but a crusader mourning defeat. He knows, bet
ter than anyone, how silly Guy Crouchback is.
But like St. Helena he seeks, out of the past,
even broken remnants of the Cross.
HE GRAVITATED to his own -- the losers;
the eccentrics; the saints. He followed no char
iots of fashion. He perfected his craft. Aware
of the comic figure he cut, but all the while forg
ing to himself a sword of cleanest ironic honor,
the mocker became the mocked. On Easter, he
escaped our current swarm of jelly-fish, this time
onto the other shore, where the shrines are not
empty.
still others
police.
said
Whether it is the victims of highway carelessness, trapped be
neath the wreckage of twisted cars or Christ who is pinioned to
a crude Cross there will always be “passers-by." Even those
who shook dice for the garments of Our Lord were close enough
to touch Him by they sat, some with their backs turned, and gamb
led. As T.S. Eliot said: * Human kind cannot bear very much
reality." Maybe we will have to wait for Purgatory before that
hard outer crust of ours is burned away. Then and then only will
we learn the full meaning of God becoming one with the suffer
ing of man. A French King once said that if he were in Jerusalem
at the time of the Crucifixion, he would have sent a detachment
of soldiers to rescue Christ. No I He would have acted no dif
ferently towards Christ than towards a beggar-father of a poor
family who asked for alms. What you will not do for one, you
would not have done for the other. Christ is in the wounded,
the hungry, the sick. This is another form of the Real Presence,
and it takes as much faith to see Christ there as it does in the
T abernacle.
We have written to you every week for 15 years in this column.
How many "passers-by" are there among our readers? If you
want to bring home to yourself the reality of how Christ con>
r innog to live in the poor, I’ll tell you what to do. Send this
column to me saying, "I am Just a ’passer-by’ at Calvary" or
else send it back saying, “Iwantto take a part healing the wounds
of Christ in the poor of the world." In either case God Love Youl
GOD LOVE YOU to the seventh grade class at Marycliff Acade
my in Mass, for $10. "Seeing through MISSION the poverty,
disease and hunger of some many made s feel like doing all we
could for our brothers.” ...to A.B.C. for $100. "We recently
sold our house with the service of an agent. Here is the Lord’
commission." ...to Mrs. A.K. For $2. 'The enclosed is for those
so much worse off than we are. I wish it could be more but my
husband has been ill and out of work for seven months."
Do you know what the 20th parallel is? It is an imaginary line
that girdles the globe. Below it are Central and South America,
Oceania, India, half of China, most of Africa. Above it are the
well-endowed, the well-fed; those below live and die in wretched
ness. Those above cannot envision the horror and anguish
those below. Hunger is not merely an economic problem; it is
a moral and spiritual one - a greater danger to our future than
atomic warfare. It is around this searing theme that Bishop Sheen
has fashioned his new movie, ’The 30th Parallel.” It runs 26
minutes and is available through your local Diocesan Director,.
For more information, write your Diocesan Director or The Society
for the Propagation of the Faith, 366 Fifth Avenue, New York
N.Y.10001.
CUT OUT this column, pin your sacrifice 10 it and'mail it to
Most Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, National Director of The Society for
the Propagation of the Faith, 366 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y,‘
10001, or m your Diocesan Director, Rev. Noel C. Bur-tens haw
p O Box 12047,2699 Peachtree Road, N.E. Northside Station,
Atlanta 5, Georgia. 30305