Newspaper Page Text
THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1966 GEORGIA BULLETIN
PAGE 5
LIVING LITURGY
Proclaim The Word
By Leonard F.X. Mayhew
: Within the past couple of years we have become
accustomed to speaking of the Mass as a "ban
quet." We do it easily, sometimes glibly. We are
fairly convinced that we understand what it means.
But to call the Mass a "proclamation" is still
not very comfortable. Nevertheless, to understand
and experience the liturgy in the light brought
to bear on it by the Council we have to grasp
the connection between the Word and the Sacra
ment, the proclamation and the banquet.
The Liturgy Constitution speaks of the place
of the Word within the mystery of the Eucharist
* as having prime Importance.
"The treasures of the Bible
are to be opened up more la
vishly so that richer fare may
be provided for the faithful at
the table of God's Word." The
proclaiming of the Word is also
then a banquet, a nourishing gift.
The document speaks as well
of the homily, which is to open
up the mysteries of the faith Fr. Mayhew
and the principles of Christian life "from the
sacred text." The Liturgy of the Word, which in
the pre-vernacular Mass was treated as an in
troduction of minor Importance, has been re
stored to its proper dignity. We still need to learn
its complete meaning.
Just as the church cannot exist without the
Eucharist to sustain it so it cannot exist without
the Word of God. "The church would cease
to be the church," a contemporary theologian has
written, "if the authentic Word of God ceased to
be proclaimed in it or if this word ceased to find
q it's mysterious realization in her sacramental
life." It is of the very nature of the church to be
the bearer of the glad tidings contained in
Scripture.
The Christian religion is a revelation. This
means that it comes as a message, a Word open
ing up a new realm of life and fulfillment. The
Sacraments, which also reveal this new life as
present, make it actual. They fulfill what has been
proclaimed. It is all part of one process, one
divine initiative.
When the liturgy was a living reality, before
it had been removed from the realm of ordinary
experience, it spoke powerfully of the sacred
kinship between the Word and Sacrament. The
book Of the Scriptures carried in procession for the
Gospel proclamation was treated as a living pre
sence of Christ. Surrounded by candles, Incense,
acolytes and carried aloft by deacons it was a
true sign of Christ’s royal presence with his
people. That this ceremony became perfunctory
ritual is one of the ravages of history that must
be undone. The custom of enthroning the Scrip
ture in a place of honor in our church is being
revived. The am bo, the place reserved for
proclaiming God's Word, is being treated with a
dignity equal to that of the altar. These are new
signs of the same truth: that God’s Word is
and must be present in the Church.
The place of preaching within the liturgy has
been restored, at least in principle. The homily
is not an interruption of the sacred rite, not a
kind of ‘between the acts’ Intermission. It is not
the time for announcements, scoldings, financial
enterprise or catechism. It is a real exercise
of God’s living message taken from his Word
spoken simply and with love to this particular
assembly at this particular moment. The Word of
God is a saving force fulfilled in the Holy Eu
charist. The new liturgy is attempting to allow
it freedom, to restore its dignity in our minds
and to open us to this rich experience.
Your World
And Mine
MacEoin
Early in March the French bishops Issued
a statement on the economic order which
searecely ruffled the surface of the news pond
in this country, even in the Catholic press.
The more I read the text and the reactions
slowly churning through Europe, however, the
more I am convinced that we have here a
time-bomb, not one of the old-timers of World
War II but a nuclear-age time-bomb. Get
out your Geiger counters as the atomic cloud
drifts surely around the globe.
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Vatican II’s The Church in the Modern World.
The trick word here, as John Cogley would
say, is "found." Does the Church’s teaching
change or evolve or deepen or remain always
the same? Different people use different words
to describe the phenomenon, sometimes
squabbling rather like children over the im
propriety of the words used by the others.
It has also been said, and I think fairly,
that the French bishops have indicated as de
sirable an evolution of the socio-economic
system in the direction in which Sweden
leads the world, an economy in which free
enterprise is king, but a king responsible to
a cabinet composed of government, manage
ment and labor. This means that profit has
a place but not the dominant one. Capital
must go, not where it makes most money,
but where it does most good.
The Church has already said this many
times. But the French bishops have another
not less Interesting or less practical com-
• m ent on capital. They analyse its changed
character in modern industrial society and
come up with a devastatingly logical deduction.
The three elements in production, in classi
cal economics, are capital, management and
labor, placed in an order of importance as
for a time Catholic theologians placedtheends
of marriage. Marx wrongly tossed out capital
and, more reasonable, questioned the validity
of the management - labor antithesis. The
French bishops make what looks like an ex
cellent sub-distinction as regards capital.
Capital can be the product of the savings
of an individual, and in that case he is en-
titiled to a profit for its use (if its use helps
produce a profit). But a big, growing and
indeed overwhelming part of capital in today's
Industrial enterprises is not so generated.
It is the re-invested profit made by the en
terprise Itself. And who created that capital?
Obviously the partners in the enterprise:
capital, management and workers. Who owns
it today? It accrues to the owners of the
original capitaL Who should own It? Those
who created it, of course.
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Little as it will appeal to some in this
country, that kind of questioning is going to
show up more and more. Vatican II’s The
Church in the Modern World is full of it,
and there is a document that it’s going to be
very difficult to avoid reading.
A pillar of capitalism, long-time editor of the
London Economist, Barbara Ward, is also at it.
In her Plaunt Lectures at Ottawa, just published
here as "Nationalism and Ideology," she in
sists that the "ideologically indistinguishable"
capitalist and communist systems are coalesc
ing and must coalesce in a more human
amalgam.
As she puts it, the gospel of Karl Marx
(whom she calls one of the greatest of the
Jewish prophets) is "the mirror-image of the
gospel according to Adam Smith or the Found
ing Fathers." The capitalist and communist
ideologies were both messianic, visions of an
earth made new. The former sought to achieve
its goal by an automatic economy, has been
forced to ever-growing state direction. The
latter chose state control as a remedy for
the all-too-obvious abuses of the unregulated
profit motive, believing it would lead to a utopia
in which the superfluous state would wither
away. The one sacrifled two generations af
workers to build its system, just about the
same as the other.
If Barbara Ward is not saying precisely
the same thing as the French bishops, they
complement each other perfectly. Both are
required reading.
Mental Difficulties
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4.)
* They will be forced to bolt, ’’
the psychiatrist said, "and to
become further conflicted with
their faith. They will become a
new member of that group known
as ‘fallen priests.’ I have
• enough knowledge about priests
to know that at least some of
them have become "fallen lay
men’ as well.”
He said that if "fallen” is
translated into "mentally ill”
then, "we can better understand
that we are dealing with a health
problem and not a vocational
one.”
Dr. Hall said the serious
casualties of religious life are
the product of mental illness
which often * 'was flagrantly ap
parent years before, but super
iors and-or the subject refused
to see the obvious symptoms of
mental illness.”
Psychiatrists frequently see
priests and nuns who chose the
religious life in their early
adolescence as a defensive ma
neuver against "unmanageable
upsurgings of sexual and ag
gressive impulses.”
‘To accept asfactal4-yeai>-
old boys’ statement that he
wants to be a priest and take
the vows of chastity, povery and
obedience is ridiculous,” Dr.
Hall said. "He doesn’t know the
significance of the vows he is so
ready to take. He has not yet
lived long enough to know what
is truly involved in such a de
cision. He may state his intent,
but I think that he should be
helped to scrutinize that intent
at every step along the way,
even to the day of ordination.”
The psychiatrist said that
most of his priest and nun pat
ients who have problems with
sexuality "are the victims of
a wrong vocational choice.”
‘Their problem in this area
did not start die day before yes
terday,” he said, "and when
one obtains a careful clinical
history, it is evident that the
problem was there before final
vows.”
He warned that superiors
should be certain that the re
ligious candidate who antici
pates the vow of chastity knows
the significance of that vow and
his capability, psychologically,
to take that vow.
Dr. Hall said that it is easy
for the young adolescent to think
that once he enters the monas
tery his sexuality will go away,
that this delusion can be con
tinued, and that once he is or
dained his sexuality will really
go away.
"We must tell him in all hon
esty,” Dr. Hall said, "thatnot
only will it not go away, it may
eventually become more in
tense. To take the vow of chas
tity means that as one grows
older he is going to live with
greater loneliness rather than
less.
COOSAIC—
Strange Catholics
M' i ■ '■ By LEON PAUL ———
Many af you will remember "my pampniet, *’A Christmas-
Hanukkah Program” published by Our Sunday Visitor Press
two years ago. It was so popular that the first edition sold
out and a new, revised edition was printed last year.
I have had many, many letters from Catholic organizations
that used this pamphlet during Advent, as
recommended, and from Sisters and priests
who put the program on in Catholic high
schools, convent, monasteries, parishes,
etc., all of whom found the program illu
minating, exciting new, inspiring and giving
new meaning to Advent, and to Christmas.
Well, last year, during Advent, a lady
columnist on The Wanderer, a Catholic
paper in St. Paul, Minn., read the pamphlet
and wrote a column (called: “The Shot View") about it. She
called this column, "Advent from Outer Space.” The editor
of the paper wrote an editorial in which he commended the
columnist and urged readers to read her column since, after
he "personally scanned a copy of the program," he agreed
with the criticism of Natalie White, the columnist.
Neither the columnist nor the editor had the courtesy of
sending me a copy of that issue of their paper, but a copy fi
nally reched me. When I read their criticism I was shocked
to see how something so meaningful and beautiful, something
meant to bring more meaning to the preparations on the
part of Catholics for Christmas, could have been so utterly
m is under s tood.
Miss White accused me, fnally, distorting the entire Christ-
mas-Hanukkah Program, of trying to degrade and pervert the
Nativity af Christ. "I cannot understand, "she said, "why
any Jew, or Jewish Catholic, or other informed person would
desire to distort the meaning 'and significance of the lovely
Hebrew feast by using it as an Instrument to degrade and per
vert the Nativity af Christ.”
Strange language, strange ideas, strange thinking. I sat down
and wrote a long reply to her column and to the editorial.
The editor published it, and at the end, he did not simply give
my name and city as with other letters, but published my en
tire letterhead with street address and all. And following my
reply which was published in the Feb. 3rd issue, Miss Natalie
White replied to my criticism of her. And she said:
"I agree with Mr. Paul that the crux of his program is the
lighting of the candles, and also that his work cannot be suf
ficiently explicated in a short column, and I recommend that
all interested get a copy and study it in depth, keeping in mind
thatthe Shamus candle, the one candle not sacred, validly,
in the lovely Hebrew Feast of Lights, becomes, in Mr. Paul’s
Christmas Hanukkah Program for Christians, the symbol of
Christ. ..”
Paul
Then I began to get letters from Wanderer readers, not yet
having seen my reply in print, so I sent for a copy, which
they finally sent me. Among ftther things, I was accused of
trying to "superimpose Jewish belief and tradition on a sacred
Christian celebration of the anniversary of the Birth of Our
Divine Savior, Jesus Christ." ‘
one letter from a man on. Long Island wrote a letter de
scribing the house I lived in. "Hfe frontdoor has a sign indicat
ing the apartment is the office also of ‘The Edith Stein Guild.’
In the event that the Edith Stein Guild is a curiosity, you may
want to file this information. I have no data on the Edith
Stein Guild, but am curious concerning it and the operations
of Leon Paul." Jeff O’Brien, Elmont, N.Y.
The editor titled this letter: "Curious about Leon Paul."
This has all the implications of subversion and communist
intrigue. What puzzles me is that since Jeff O'Brien came right
up to my front door, why didn’t he ring the bell and ask me what
the Edith Stein Guild is, and who I was ? Instead of writing to
a newspaper in St. Paul, Minn.?
I would have told him that the office of the Guild is whereever
the president lives, which I happened to be at that time, and I
would have gladly given him some of the 54 issues of the News
letter published by the Guild, plus other material describing
the organization.
This kind of Catholic journalism disturbs me. And these
kind of Catholics disturb me also. They indicate that anything
Jewish is at odds with everything Catholic, that Jewish tra
ditions and culture have no place in Catholic life. They apparent
ly have never read the Nuptial Mass, nor had a house blessed,
nor read the Divine Office. They have a lot to learn. •..
Q. WHEN WILL the contents of the letter connected with the ap
parition af our Lady of Fatima be revealed to the public? I would
like an honest answer, something more than your "heaven knows.
Or am I being nosey because I am curious and interested in the
entire Fatima story? I think most Catholics, including myself,
are very disappointed with the secrecy surrounding the contents
of this letter, not because we are unfaithful or don’t trust, but we
feel the Church is holding back the contents for fear of reprisals
by critics, or mass confusion and hysteria.
A. Honestly, I don’t know the answer.
I DOUBT THAT most Catholics are interest
ed enough in that letter to be disappoint
ed. I hope Catholic interest has been ad
sorbed in a thousand events of far grea
ter importance to the Church and the world,
which have happened since a pious little
nun’s letter was supposed to be opened five
of six years ago. No matter what was in it,
its importance could not compare with Pope
John or Pope Paul, with the action of the
Msgr. Conway
Holy Spirit in the Second Vatican Council, or with religious liberty
ecumenism, liturgical renewal, collegiality, or any one of a
dozen other subjects studied and decreed by the world's Bishops
in union with the Pope.
Q. I would like to know what day Jesus Christ was born, be
cause the Bible does not give the date.
A. We have no way of knowing. We don’t even know the year of
His birth for sure.
Q. IN TRYING to comprehend the Question Box column I be
come wonder-ful. That question about the square circle is
ridiculous. Surely a priest should know that at an early period in
Christianity certain sanctified individuals had square halos.
The square circle is a symbol of these early saints.
A, It may be possible for a square to become a saint and wear
a round halo. I never denied that God could turn a square into
a circle. It is ridiculous, isn’t it?
ARNOLD VIEWING
Legion Adjusts Film Code
By James Arnold
“Cast a Giant Shadow" is the kind of film
we would have had of George Washington, if
his life had been screened within 20 years
of his death by friendly medium-sized talents
who wanted to be sure of a decent killing
at the box-office.
At ieast basically it is the military bio
graphy of Col. David (Mickey) Marcus, the West
Pointer who organized and
unified Israeli forces in their
1948 struggle for survival a-
galnst the Arbs. But writer-
director Melville Shavelson,
for all his worship of Mar
cus, refuses to tell the story
with dignity. It adds up to
anotherHollywood version Of
a war, with all the defects
and the few assets of the
genre.
First Marcus (Kirk Douglas) must be per
suaded to go to Israel, then he must per
suade his war-weary wife (Angie Dickinson)
to let him go. In Palestine the first soldier
he meets is Senta Berger in a low - cut
battle jacket. There really was no such wo
man, but Shavelson apparently felt neither the
war nor Marcus were interesting enough for
the Average Viewer.
Besides shooting, the Israelis do a lot of
arguing, singing and dancing. When the Arabs
relax, they sit on their decadent haunches
and watch a fat belly dancer or put on a
record of (no kidding) "The Sheik of Araby."
When he is not beating off Senta or debating
tactics with a tough Ben-Gurion type (Luther
Adler), Douglas helps the Israelis overcome
truly incredible odds and triumph as all good
underdogs should.
Also on hand are John Wayne and Yul
Brynner as hard-bitten officers, respectively
Yank and Israeli, and Frank Sinatra as a
wise-cracking pilot who is shot down while
dropping soda bottles on Egyptian infantry.
Some battle scenes are noisy and imagina
tive, but the mixture of violence, contrived
battle-zone romance and deadpan humor reeks
of the Beverly Hills script mills.
"Shadow" has a theme and several inci
dents in common with "Judith," but is general
ly less sensitive and objective. It is also
much less personal: we never have any
solid reasons for liking Douglas or rooting
for Israel; it is just assumed that we do. It
is the kind of movie in which we are expected
to cheer when "our boys" pull a surprise
flame-thrower attack and roast the Arab Le
gion. Also typical of the blend of high-minded
ness and lousy taste is the scene where the
partisans selflessly exchange clothes, with re
fugees to save them from deportation, while
a British officer leers at Miss Berger.
Both the late Col. Marcus and the tragic
Israel-Arab war deserve better than this,
which is equivalent to the treatment Sister
Luc-Gabrielle and aggiornamento got in "The
Singing Nun.”
The Catholic Film Office decisions accept
ing nudity in "The Bible” and foul language
in "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" are
still further revolutionary moves by an agency
that has been staging revolutions regularly
now for several years. The Office is simply
facing the facts, especially the obvious one
that movies are no longer simply mass en
tertainment but a thriving art-form capable
of appealing to specialized adult audiences.
Both decisions are highly significant. The
Office was in an awkward spot regarding the
presumably respectful John Huston film of
"The Bible." If the producers had refused
cuts and the Office had followed precedent
("The Pawnbroker," "The Silence"), it would
have had to condemn “The Bible” for showing
Adam and Eve in their primordial nakedness.
Had the Office taken a hard line, however, it
probably could have forced cuts, since it is
unlikely that anyone could really sell a $20
million religious film with a C-rating.
The exception to the absolute no-nudity rule
was reportedly made because of the "sanc
tified” nature of the story. But one wonders:
it is unlikely that the Office would approve
nudity in just any old Hollywood Bible epic.
The artistic quality of “The Bible” was un
doubtedly crucial. And this, it seems to me,
establishes a valid principle that nudity in
films is acceptable if, in full context, it makes
artistic sense. If the Office is really adopting
this principle, It is protecting the power of
its C-rating for use against genuine immora
lity:
The "Virginia Woolf” case is a real vic
tory for the Office. In exchange for the A-4
rating, Warner Brothers intends to enforce
contracts with theaters forbidding' admission
to anyone .under 18 unaccompanied by an
adult. This is in effect a film classification
system with teeth, which the Office has been
long urging on producers.
It remains to be seen if the anti-classi
fication NationalAssociation of Theatre Owners
will take this lying down, or if other pro
duction companies will encourage the trend
by giving an industry seal to "Virginia Woolf,”
whose nasty language violates the industry’s
owe code.
But it looks as if ultimately we will have
a double system of film production (adult
and juvenile), with classification enforced by
film.]-.makers, themselves. This-.will surely-
mean more liberal future judgments by the
Catholic Film Office, but only because part of
Its responsibility will now be assumed by
producers.
Arnold
OLD AND NEW
Product Of The South
By Gary Wills
No other weapon has the recoil of an as
sassin’s gun. Though it sends its bullets or
pellets forward, obeying its wielder thus far,
it stabs light backward on the man who
pulls the trigger, and on the men behind that
man. And light is more destructive to such
men than bullets can be to their targets. The
baffled assassin merely wounded James
Meredith; but he may have destroyed the last
hope of his fellow cowards lying in wait along
Meredith’s route.
That bullet shattered what little was left
of Southern racist pretensions. You know the
normal set of excuses:
"We do not mind the native Negro. It is the
outsider, the white troublemaker we fear."
Meredith is not only a native
Negro, product of die South,
product of its schools; he has
maintained (though few of us
could do so in his circum
stances) a love for Mis
sissippi. Indeed, he told an
interviewer not long ago that
anyone would love the state
who knew it. Well, he knows
one part of it a little better
now. I hope he still loves It. Wilis
"We do not mind an individual’s real protest
over a real grievance, bu: the civil rights
organizations stir up trouble so they can ex
tend their own power.” Meredith represented
no organization. He was simply a lone, edu
cated Mlssissippian trying to walk through
his state. Not, one would think, an extra
vagant ambition. But he is a Negro — and
that made his mere freedom on the road an
affront to white "men."
man — and they tried to prevent him from
performing in their classrooms. They failed
in that attempt. Nothing was left but the shot
gun.
They are right to fear him. He is the real
danger — not a co-ed down from the North
for the summer; not Dick Gregory coura
geously taking up the dangerous walk; not
NAACP or CORE or SNCC or Muslim or
ganizers. All these groups- can do is clear
a little area in which the Merediths will
perform, will prove that the Negro is capable
of industry, education, self-respect. Meredith
is not the exception — the genius, the re
ligious leader, the wit, the rebel. He is not
a Baldwin or King, a Dick Gregory of Julian
Bond. He is the norm — the man of average
talents and ambitions seriously and usefully
to work. He is a law student, but not a bril
liant one (*T, fighting for the Negro’s right
to be a C student. Nobody has to push an A
student"). He is a plodding, respectablefamily
man who does not smoke or drink, who walked
miles to school as a boy, served six years
in the Air Force, won an American Legion
prize in school for the best essay on “Why
I am Proud to be an American.” These are
the kind of memories that Ralph Ellison can
recall only with the agony of nightmare. But
Meredith does not resent his childhood — ten
children, all of whom made it through high
school, four through college. He is not hostile
to authority, or white men, or the South. He
is balanced,careful, self-critical. "Give us
the good Negro"? They got him — and shot
him. And nothing could make clearer that "the
good Negro" is, for the racist, not the Negro
who will earn his way, but the one who will
not; the one who will be content with an ir
responsible sloth caused by the closing off
of all avenues toward improvement.
"These agitators do not have the South’s
good at heart. They come and do their act.
they stir up mischief and trouble; then they go
back to their Northern campuses and pul
pits, and leave us to cope with the mess they
made." James Meredith does have the South’s
good at heart. He means to make his career
there. He wants to be his native state’s Go
vernor some day. He was trying to enroll its
citizens as voters — voters, eventually, for
him. Not for an organization or sweeping pro
gram, but for James Meredith, the hard-work
ing, respectable, educated individual Negro —
the one who is always opposed, in defensive
Southern rhetoric, to the organization-back
ed outside trouble maker. They say they will
respect the man who simply stands up as an
individual and asks, not for special treat
ment, but for the chance to perform, to earn
his way. In James Meredith they got such a
Meredith is the thing the racists fear most —
the living refutation af their contention that
the Negro cannot bear the burdens of free
dom. Meredith can, and does; and he is a
harbinger of many Merediths. Even if he does
not become Mississippi’s Governor (and I hope
he may) some Negro will some day. And when
that day comes, whoever the Negro is, it will
be only right to say that James Meredith
has achieved his ambition; that, by proxy if
not in person, he has become Mississippi's
highest officer of the law. That day will do
credit, not to Negroes or the individual Gover
nor, but to the state and the office.
Meredith will deserve credit for that fu
ture (and perhaps not so distant) election.
But so will his would-be assassin, whose lone
shotgun will cannonade the truth about racists
for years to come.
