Newspaper Page Text
THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 1966
GEORGE BULLETIN
PENTECOST UPHEAVAL
Reform As Style
By Leonard F.X. May hew
No room exists for doubt that the presentmood
of the Church centers on the Vatican II reform.
There Is the danger, however, and some dlstrub-
lng Indications Indeed, that the much talked about
reform and renewal still lie on a superficial
base. It is the style to refer to the Council In
every public statement, to appeal frequently to
its ''spirit*', to invoke the wotk of the Holy Spirit
accomplished through the assernbled_bisho£
The danger is precisely that
it may become a question of
style, of statement and utte
rance and vaguely saluted spi
rit. To the degree that reform
Is just style it is frustrated!
and frustrating, does harm ra- *
ther than good, tends to con
firm suspicions of the Church's ]
sincerity in the minds of many.!
Fr. Mayhew
The progress of renewal, Impressive in the
theoretical sphere, seems too easily stalled by
relatively unimportant questions of practice.
The liturgical reform, for example, moves snail-
like through a maze of translation technicalities
and minor procedural adjustments. Do those in
authority over these matters realize how frustra
ted many priests and people are over the contin
uance of practicesthat offend intelligence and hin
der effectiveness. Having tasted the absolute
rightness of the vernacular In our worship and
Mass facing the assembly, the anti-climax of the
Latin Canon for example, is difficult to accept.
Legal blocks to experimentation and creativity
seem more abrasive in the light of the pastoral
tone of the Council documents.
Interesting and complex steps have been taken
in a few quarters to draw the lay Christian to
ward an emerged position In the Church's life.
Yet, to the mass of the laity observing the Church,
the clearest thing to see is the retention of all
the marks qf clerical predominance: titles, anti
que and colorful garb, firm control of initiative.
The few scattered Instances of real effort to bring
about a real realignment of relationships within
the Church deserve applause. The fact remains
that there seems no over-all sureness In the call
to the layman to assume responsibility. The style
may dangerously overshadow the reality of our
needs.
The same threatening substitution of style
for reality must be guarded against in every area
of Church renewal. On the lofty level of dialogue
ecumenism makes continuing headlines. Almost
everybody has learned to say "separated bre
thren." But fearfulness hides behind much of
the image-building. The inertia of status quo-
ism is still with the Church, as indicated by our
unwillingness to un-separate our institutions and
service organizations.
The Council called for a thorough re-apprai
sal of the Church's mission to the twentieth-
century world. The pilgrim, pastoral and servant
Church receives verbal accolades almost con
stantly in what threatens to become the "new
triumphalism." Yet, how much willingness do
we actually find to free the Church from the drag
of uneconomical and questionably effective in
stitutions inherited even from the recent past.
How much evidence is there that the present
mentality really faces the crises of poverty and
peace? Is there serious examination going on of
whether or not we are misusing our personnel
and masking it behind the habit of complaints about
"the vocation shortage."
The Vatican Council was convoked to be a new
Pentecost for the Church. Pentecost is a strong
word. It connotes not caution and gradualism,
certainly not concern with style. Pentecost was
the dramatic and revolutionary upheaval caused
by the Spirit’s descent on the Church. The new
Pentecost is certainly supposed to bring us cou
rageously to grips with the hard substance of
reform.
GOOD NEWS
Fire On The Earth
By Mary Perkins Ryan
I have just been reading in manuscript the
translation of a fascinating (From Anathema to
Dialogue, by Roger Garaudy, to be published by
Herder and Herder) book by a French Communist,
on the possibilities of dialogue, cooperation and
friendly, rivalry between, "the Marxists' Prome
thean humanism” and Christian huxrtanlsm",
based on "a mutual willingness to stretch man’s
creative energies to the maximum for the sake
of realizing a total man.” The author has come
to realize, in spite of so many misleading ap
pearances past and present, that
real Christianity implies that
willingness; he believes that
true Communism does also.
The difference, as he sees it,
is that the Communist believes
that this task Is wholly an ini
tiative of man's, whereas the
Christian sees it as a re
sponse to a call from God.
Mrs. Ryan
The book concludes: "As far as faith is con
cerned, whether faith in God or faith in our
task, and whatever our difference regarding its
source — for some, assent to a call from God;
for others, purely human creation —, faith im
poses on us the duty of seeing to it that every
man becomes a man, a flaming hearth of ini
tiative, a poet in the deepest sense of the word;
one who has experienced, day by day, the crea
tive surpassing of himself — what Christians
call his transcendence and we call his authen
tic humanity.
"This ideal is exalted enough and difficult
enough of achievement to demand the combined
efforts of all of us, even if we have to see the
burning away — in the fire of dialogue which
allows us to meet, deep within ourselves, on the
threshold of the basic — of everything in us
which prevents us from becoming what we are.
This is the glorious meaning which Nazim Hik-
met has given to the flame of purification and
sacrifice;
If I do not burn
If you do not burn
If we do not burn,
How shall the shadows
Become light?”
Perhaps we Catholics need a voice like this —
coming from someone whose world-view we would
tend to shrink from — to arouse us to our task
in our society. M. Garaudy states it in terms
not so different from those of Holy Scripture
and the Fathers. Our Lord came to "give men
life, life in abundance," St. Irenaeus said that
"the glory of God is man fully alive." St. Leo.
urged Christians to "become what you are.”
The Masses of Pentecost week are filled with
the flames of the Spirit, the fire that our Lord
said He came to cast on the earth and urgently
desired to be enkindled.
We Christians believe that our assent to God's
call to share in Christ’s life-giving work frees
us to become fully human to the extent to which
we respond to it. We believe that the Holy
Spirit enables us to love God and one another
with the fully human intensity and effectiveness
of Christ's love, a love that is to burn away the
shadows of our selfishness and alienation. But
so far we have not witnessed very effectively
in our society to our beliefs. Do we really want
to become "flaming hearths of initiative”? Do
we want our children to be? If we do not, we
are not living up to this Communist’s expecta-
tios of Christianity — and we are not living
up to Christ's.
In this Pentecost season, then, we might well
examine our goals in life and those we are
setting for our children to see whether they
correspond to the true American dream ("which
sees beyond the years / thine alabaster cities
gleam undimmed by human tears”) and the Chris
tian vision. Do we really want to do well, or to
do good —> not in the self-oriented sense of a
"do-gooder" but as Christ “went around doing
goodl”? Are we cooperating with the gift of the
Spirit to free ourselves from the prejudices and
customs that keep us unloving, less than fully
human and alive? Are we training our children
for conformism, or for responsible and loving
freedom? And as we ask ourselves these ques
tions, we can pray, "Come, Holy Spirit, fill the
hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the
fire of Your love.”
YOUR WORLD AND MINE
The Voice Of
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4J
Bishop Miguel Balaguer of Montevideo has gone
to replace him as bishop of Tacuarembo.
Who is Bishop Partell? Made a bishop in 1960
at the age of 50, he won wide acclaim within
a few months by his first pastoral on the rural
problems of his homeland. His first statement
to the press as head of the archdiocese of Mon
tevideo equally reflects his thinking. It is my
intention^ he said, "to try to implement the de
cisions of the recent Council, particularly by
stressing the place of the laity. Appealing to all
Catholics to recognize that they are not only
members but responsible members at the
Church,” he urged them “to understand better the
Importance of the Church, and to Involve them
selves more completely In the historic process
The Layman
we are living, a phase In which the pre-Council
Church had left much to be desired.”
What is most gratifying is the extraordinary
unanimity with which Montevideo has welcomed
Its new bishop. Historically, much of the press
of Uruguay has been anticlerical and some Im
portant publications viciously antl-Catholic. But
even this segment of opinion, reflecting the uni
versal impact of the spirit of Pope John, handled
the conflict of the past few years with reserve
and goodwill, and now lauds the solution. Atypical
comment is that Bishop Partell brings to Mon
tevideo the new mentality which the Vatican Coun
cil wanted to extend to every part of the Church.
Others praise the Vatican’s recognition of the
wishes of the laity, as well as its desire to give
to Latin America bishops who are concerned
about its economic and social problems.
ARNOLD VIEWING
‘Duel At Diablo’
Q. It’s about time that our'jwiests admit that teaching must
precede any and all Intelligent participation by the laity in the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
How many false consciences have been formed because we
are being bullied, threatened^ driven regimented into mouthing
words and singing hymns without first learning why.
L for one, go to church to worship. I believe that all these
distractions are wrong because they lead us away from devotion
rather than to it. (Devotion: praying the Mass, preparation and
thanksgiving for Holy Communion, etc.)
A. I agree with you that teaching is a re
quisite for proper understanding of the Mass
and participating in it. In most places
where instruction has been carefully given |
participation in die Mass is joyful and enthu
siastic.
There are two main reasons why we are
all asked to join in the prayers and songs
of the community at Mass; (1) because Msgr. Conway
the Mass is by its very nature public worship, Intended to
unite the community in fa|th, love and adoration; and (2)
because the Mass requires that each person present take an
active part in it, and perform well the role assigned to him.
It is joint action, united prayer, common worship.
The great problem of American Catholics is that they have
always considered the Mass a private devotion. The in
dividual holes up In the corner of a pew, ignores his neighbors
as much as he can, resents distracting movements and crying
babies, buries his nose in his missal, takes an occasional
glance at the altar, beats his breast with gusto, and considers
entrancing rapture as the aim of Holy Communion. And in the
midst of it all how terribly distracted most of us were, at
least half the time.
I do not believe that the true community benefits of the Mass
are yet being experienced In most parishes, but for my own
personal devotion and benefit, at least, there has been great
Improvement. There is a greatthrill, in celebrating Mass, to have
the congregation join with you heartily. It really conveys the
feeling that we are all united, worshipping God together. In fore
mer days it was hard to avoidthe Impression that the priest was
performing some esoteric, half comprehended rite in front of
the people, who understood nothing which he said and little
that he did but did occassionally glance upfrom their missals to
see what he was doing at the moment - so they could turn to the
next page and catch up.
And only the best Catholics used the missal, of course.
Others just seemed to sweat it out.
You complain of distractions; it is my personal experience that
the participation makes me twice as attentive at Mass as I used to
be. It calls my mind back from distractions.
By James Arnold
"Duel at Diablo" is a hard-nosed cavalry vs.
Indians western that marks the shootout-and-
cactus debut of such diverse personalities as
Sidney Polder and Blbbi Andersson(the delicate
blonde who suffers so well in Ingmar Bergman’s
Swedish tragedies).
The gifted Polder is usually the first of his
race to do anything that has to do with acting,
but it should be recorded that I
he is not, by a long shot, the
first Negro to play a major I
role in a western. Buffs will
probably think of others, but j
Sammy Davis and Woody Strode, j
for certain, beat Poitier to the
draw.
Miss Anderson is not the first
Bergman alum to reach the Arnold
plains either. Last season Max Von Sydow
struggled through a virtually unnoticed epic called
"The Reward.” But Miss Andersson is splendid
sufferer and in "Diablo" she Is right at home.
The movie takes rather standard western situa
tions and by making them almost brutally rea-
listic, achieves Impressive power. Director Ralph
Nelson ("Lilies of the Field”) makes shrewd use
of the photogenic wasteland of Southern Utah, as
well as a remarkably off-beat cast that Includes,
besides actors Poitier and Andersson, playboy
James Garner (as a tough westerner), Scots
man Bill Travers (as a cavalry officer), TV
hero Dennis Weaver (as a villain), and sophis
ticated John Hoyt (as an Indian chief).
"Diablo" is not the sort of horse opera you
pack off the kids to see on Saturday afternoons.
Thousands of people die, several of them slowly
and horribly, and the camera spares few feel
ings as Hory*s angry Apaches attempt to wipe
out the rest of the cast attached to Travers’
small band of troopers. If the violence is heavy
and explicit, including a couple of bone-snapping,
eye-gouging fist fights, there is no sex. This
must be the first western since Tom Mix re
tired in which hero and heroine do not even
hold hands (the Swedish-bred Miss Andersonmay
never get over it).
Director Nelson turns the usual genial blood
letting between redskins and horse soldiers into
a racial war, and there is some sincere but
heavy-handed typical concern with miscegenation.
Garner Is seeking revenge on some unknown
white man who has scalped Garner's Indian wife,
and Miss Andersson is scorned by both races
having been kidnapped by Apaches and borne
an' Indian child. If there is any message, it is
only that the bigots on both sides are so re
pulsive that acceptabllty by either race is a
dubious honor.
Oddly, amid all the racial bitterness, no one
seems to notice that Poitier is a Negro. Un
accustomed to this lack of attention and to the
locale, he seems vaguely uncomfortable in a
role that demands only that he be a routine good
guy with experience as an army Indian fighter.
His character has little depth or motivation, but
he gets plenty of chances to shoot and ride.
Perhaps the film's best scene Is a harrowing,
brilliantly staged five-minute opening, shot amid
the vast rocky desolation of the mesa country.
Garner spots a lonely, sun-stricken rider (Miss
Andersson) and tries to save her from a per
sistent pair of marauding braves. The camera
captures all the tense drama with hardly a word
of dialog, and the excitement ends beautifully
with the helicopter-born camera moving up and
away as the hero's horse winds Its way over
the awesome terrain.
The rest of the story is a familiar and com
plicated contrivance whereby all the characters
manage to get In the wagon train which, some
how, is destined to be ambushedtlhere is a vir
tuoso battle scene full of elegant camera move
ment, cutting and falling bodies, and the heroes
fall back to a canyon. There, while actors are
Incessantly picked off by arrows and captured
comrades under torture scream through the
night, they fight bravely ahd hope that Garner'
will get through to bring help from the fort.
OLD AND NEW
The Ugly American
By Gary Wills
In a vew survey called The De-Rom anization
of the American Catholic Church, the Jesuit
journals of opinion." Last month at the meeting
of the Catholic Press Association, America did
not win the award for the year's best Catholic
magazine; but it was called the closest possible
second, and was praised by the Assoclaton for
a "keen sense of urgency as well as an abundance
of spiritual courage in facing [~
up to the challenge of aggior- j
namento."
1 turned, from these ritual \
words of praise (yes, America !
does have a longstanding re- |
putation) to the magazine itself;
and remembered, with a jolt,
how ludlcrious it is to compare
America with Commonweal or Wills
The Critic. In the magazine’s spring survey of re
commended books, a Jesuit praises the latest
taffy by Adela Rogers St. John and Taylor Cald
well — judgment typical of Americans taste (or
the Catholic Digest’s), but hardly of Common
weal’s. And the level of information matches that
of taste. In their earlier literary roundup, a Jesuit
wrote that Gladys Schmitt’s historical novel on
Electra is "faithful to the legend as given by
Homer” (Homer never mentions electra). One
finds this carelessness everywhere: a Jesuit
tries to straighten out the main facts of the
Rowse controversy on Shakespeare’s sonnets, and
gets one of the basic facts wrong; America’s
editor tries to explain the Greek concept of
autarkela (independence), ■ and gets it almost ex
actly backwards.
The standards of the magazine are perhaps
best seen in the work of its resident expert on
encyclicals. In a recent book, Fr. Benjamin L.
Masse based a false definition of "subsidiarity”
on a false etymology of the word and a false his
tory of its use in encyclicals. He also discussed
the common good without reference to important
refinements of this concept in the Johannlne
encyclicals; claimed Pius XII never defined what
he meant by his key term "anonymity” (Plus did,
on June 20, 1954); and made an unhistorical
"jolly middle ages” the norm of social order.
The magazine is a cultural disaster area.
Its art critic spells out sub-fundamentals. Its
drama critic writes in the stylistic and intellectual
equivalent of invisible ink. Its movie critic is
praised for "daring” because she is still saying
that Catholics not only may, but should, go to
foreign films — praised, that is, for moving
from a simplistic view of the film as pro
paganda to a sophisticated view of the film
as propaganda. Its book reviews seem to be
written by seminarians whose literary taste was
formed on class notes. Of course, it has some
regular writers who are stimulating (Fr. Charles
Davis, and it can call on special talent for
Charles Davis), and it can call on special talent for
occasional pieces (Fr. John Courtney Murray);
and one or two good writers are enough to re
scue some magazines — look at John Leo and
Wilfrid Sheed at Commonweal. But even if A-
merica's editors had five Leos working for them,
it would not put a dent in the magazine’s dreari
ness.
How does such a journal maintain its reputa
tion? Partly, of course, by the reflected light of
its sponsoring religious order. Jesuits are ex
haustively educated, and presumed to be intelli
gent. Most are. I do not know what screening
process sifts the unintelligent into Americans of
fices, or inhibits the bright ones who go there.
I do know that all the Jesuits to whom I have
recently mentioned the magazine have winced at
the thought of it. One inhibition, I suppose, is
its reputation. It is often considered — especial
ly by non-Cathollc journalists and politicians —
the most representative voice of informed Catho
lics (striking a balance between the "radical”
Commonweal and National Catholic Reporter
the "reactionary” Brooklyn Tablet and Sunday
Visitor). This semi-official status seems to have
dazed or paralyzed the editors of America.
They feel obliged to write on everything, and, say
nothing. Their editorials are bland, imitative,
non-committal, Irrelevant. One steps carefully
when one is the American Church.
Semi-official status brings, too, a kind of baby
sitter’s nervousness. America.nianifests official
dom’s instinct toward repression. It was "un
derstanding” toward Catholic University in the
famous banning of four theologians. It recom
mended that Catholic schools ban conservative
speakers. It breathed a sigh of relief when it
thought Pope Paul had banned further discussion
of the pill ("We welcome the end of a public
‘discussion’ that was turning into a frontal at
tack on the Church’s teaching and her authority”)
—-though it thinks one side is free to keep talk
ing. It was the only magazine to whom the of
ficial line on Fr. Daniel Berrigan’s exile was
entrusted. The journal has a strange repressive
impartiality, suggesting that it lacks the intelli
gence to be consistent. It even-handedly quashes
favorable reviews of books by Buckley and Du-
Bay; it refuses to accept advertisements for Na
tional Review and for books by progressive
theologians. (In Catholic Press Association cir
cles, this is knows as "spiritual courage”).
It snipes at National Review (at one time even
trying to ban from its pages anyone who had
ever written for N.R.) and at the National Ca
tholic Reporter (in a regular feature, "The
Press,” that throws stonqs from the biggest
glass house In town).
Understandably, America irritates intelligent
liberals (who note its phllhispanic bias) and con
servatives (who think it has a "thirties" fun
damentalism on labor unions); and this^ dis
content is only momentarily obscured by the
magazine’s growth. Its circulation broadens out as
it settles slowly down to the Catholic Digest
leveL Eventually, everyone will recognize its
mediocrity; but die sooner, the better. It has long
been assumed that there is one intelligent jour
nal of opinion run by laymen (Commonweal) and
one run by' clerics (America}. But one’s per
spective Is altered when he recognizes — as
the editors of De-Romanizatlon should have re
cognized — that this "balance" no longer exists.
Those who think the symmetry worth restoring had
better get busy. But perhaps there is no need
or real use, in the modern Church, for a journal
of political opinion run by clerics. If that is the
case, then the Jesuit priests at America mlghtbe
released to more congenial labors. They seem
to have been miscast as journalists.
God Love You
MOST REVEREND FULTON J. SHEEN
A cartoon in a New York newspaper pictured an ultra-modern
mother in black leotards with untutored hair falling like jungle-
moss over her shoulder, holding a child while teaching him to
read. The words are slowly pronounced: "Dick protests. Pro
test! Protest, Dick."
The word "rebellion" is in the air we breathe. In the para
bolic language of Our Lord, our times are like those when the
landowner sent servants to collect fruit from
his farm. ' The tenants took the servants,
beat one, killed another And stoned another.
So the landowner sent other servants, more
than before, and they did the same to them.
God's earth is one in which His rebels hold
the field. "God is Dead." Men have eman
cipated themselves from His sovereignty.The
smell of protest drowns out the essence of
worship. Many love to peer into the abyss,
as Nietzsche says, and soon the abyss stares
back at them. Like a bird charmed by a snake, evil enchants
and conquers if for no other reason than the failure of the good
to do anything. What is seen is the placard, what is heard is
the protest, what rules is the Shriek-the yackety-yack of de
rision.
Two aspects of the rebellion may be noticed. The first is
that, unlike the old revolutionists, the protestors are without a
program. They dig holes, but they put nothing in them. But
more Important still is the second aspect: the lack of positive
movement toward repentence, holiness, Christ-likeness, to coun
teract this rebellion. Are not many of us like a flywheel which
continues to run after the motor has been shut off? What posi
tive action is being taken by the faithful, the shepherds and the
sheep to stop this descent from Divinity to humanity to bes
tiality? Because "God is dead," as the placards say, is the
Devil dead?
Are there enough priests in every diocese and enough faithful
in every parish, to be rebels of another kind? To stand by
Christ in His hour of grieving, to protest against our indiffer
ence and to see Him as sharing in every human grief? To be
rebels against our affluence by looking in the mirror and seeing
the Cross that was marked on our foreheads at Confirmation,
to be rebels against comfortable pews by becoming friends of
the famished brethren below the 30th parallel? Let not those
who boast they are Catholics point their fingers at the Church in
the United States, saying: * 'See what you are doing; see how you
sin against freedom!" Whose Church is this anyway? It is
OURS - yours and mine? Any guilt of a fellow Catholic is my
guilt! Any bit of torn flesh in the Mystical Body of Christ is my
own lacerated skin. We have too many stonecasters and not
enough breast-beaters! This is our Christ! Our Church!
These are our priestsl Our sistersl Our brethren! We all fail
if any one of diem fails. Enough hawking up phlegm to spit in
the face of Christ! Every neglect of the fatherless, the hungry,
every refusal to aid in spreading the Gospel in disinherited
lands is putting the purple rob on Christ again. Oh Lord! Help
us put down the scourge and apply it to our Cross-less shoulders
and our unscourged back. Be the right kind of rebel, "The
kingdom of heaven is gained by violence and only the violent
shall take it” but the violence must be against our ego. If
you share these views send me a dime for the poor of the world;
if you do not share them, send the poor of the world a dollar;
if you love sharing with the poor send something worthy of
yourself.
GOD LOVE YOU to M.J.H. for a $1,500 check attached to our
column with this note: "We bought a used car instead of a new
one." ...to A.D, "I am glad to do something for Almighty God's
poor ones, so I am collecting empty pop bottles and now can
send you $12."
Have you ever asked yourself this question: "Why should I give
my hard^-arnedmoney to those in missionlands?" Find out why
in the words of the missionaries living and working on the scene
who write of their experiences in WORLDM1SSION. This quar
terly magazine, edited by the Most Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, can be
sent to you for only $5.00 a year. Write to WORLDM1SSION,
366 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10001.
CUT OUT tins column, pin your sacrifice, .o it and mall it to
Most Rev. Fulton J .Sheen. National Director of The Society for
the Propagation of die Faith, 366 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.
lOOOl, or to your Diocesan Director, Rev. Noel C. Burtenshaw
P.'DJ Box 12047,26^ Peachtree Road, N.E. Nortfaside Station,
Atlanta SyGeorgU. 30305^