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Vol. 8 No. 45
Dear
Reader
BY HARRY MURPHY
President Rufus Harris of
Macon’s Mercer University is
among educators harassed for
allowing students to be
exposed to controversial
views.
Recent visits to the Mercer
campus by Irish legislator
Bernadette Devlin and movie
star Jane Fonda has brought
the wrath of some Georgia
Baptists.
Several churches and
pastors have expressed
opposition and a letter writer
in the Baptists’ CHRISTIAN
INDEX asked of Miss Fonda’s
visit: “Why? What possible
contribution can this woman
make to the life, the attitude,
the education of those who
will hear her?
“. . .One of the most
serious consequences is that
those who have been
generous in their financial
support of our schools are
beginning to find it extremely
difficult to justify
contributing to a school that
invites this type of person to
come and speak to the
students.. .”
Notice the ithreat: If you
don’t straighten up Dr.
Harris, I’m going to cut off
my money.
The university president
did a masterful, diplomatic
job of defending the lecture
series in his December report
to the boar* of trustees:
“A university as such
expouses no issues nor
persons supporting them. It
simply recognizes that social
and sometimes radical
movements and their
advocates are inescapable
aspects of our times, and
students should not be told
that they cannot hear them. ”
He added that education,
as students see it, “is a
process partly missioned in
the training of young people
to grow, to comprehend and
to evaluate. . (An indirect
answer to the letter writer’s,
why?)
He said he supports that
view, despite the regret he
feels over “any community
disapproval of the speakers.”
He further noted:
“The students at Mercer,
as at most leading colleges,
largely provide for these
events through their own
organizations and funds.
Trustees for the college, and
the college as such, espouse
neither the speakers nor the
opinions the speakers express.
TTie trustees play no part in
inviting personnel to any of
the campus programs ...”
Dr. Harris’ trials are all
part of a recent series of
events where persons seek to
keep all views except their own
from being presented to
students.
In other words, students
can read books, look at
advertisements and hear
speakers as long as I don’t
disagree with views contained
therein.
High school and college
students aren’t as
impressionable as many
believe; they aren’t easily
swayed by propaganda. And
certainly if our government,
society and other institutions
in which we believe can’t
stand comparison with
others, through views
expressed by their advocates,
then ours aren’t very strong
anyway.
The Bulletin carries many
stories which show the
Church’s faults. But I believe
it is better to be informed
truthfully about what is
happening around us than to
find ourselves suddenly faced
with unexpected problems we
don’t understand.
A free-flow of facts and
opinions must be maintained.
POPE SA YS
Peace Comes When
War’s Causes Go
(Following is the text of the message of Pope Paul
VI for the celebration of the Day of Peace, Jan. I.
.1971.)
Men of 1971! On the timepiece of the
world’s history the hand of time, of our time,
points to the beginning of a new year, this one
which we wish to inaugurate, as we have
inaugurated previous years, with our
affectionate greeting, with our message of
peace: Peace to you, peace to the world.
Listen to us. It is worthwhile. Yes, as usual,
our word is: Peace. But it is the word of which
the world is in need, urgently in need, and that
makes it new.
Let us open our eyes at the dawn of this new
year, let us observe two orders of general facts
and events, which affect the world, its-peoples,
families and individuals. These facts, it seems to
us, influence our destinies deeply and directly.
Each one of us can be their horoscope.
Observe the first order. In truth it is not an
order, but a disorder. For the facts which we
assemble in this category all indicate a return to
thoughts and deeds which it seemed the tragic
experience of war had, or should have, wiped
away. At the end of the war everyone said:
Enough! Enough of what? Of everything that
gave rise to the human butchery and the
appalling devastation. Immediately after the
war, at the beginning of this generation,
humanity became suddenly conscious that it
was not enough to bury the dead, heal the
wounds, rebuild what was destroyed and renew
and improve the face of the earth. The causes
of the conflagration we had undergone must be
removed. The causes: This was the wise plan -
to look for the causes and to eliminate them.
The world breathed again. Indeed it seemed
that a new era was about to open, the era of
universal peace.
Everyone seemed ready to accept radical
changes in order to avoid new conflicts. For the
political, social and economic structures a
perspective of wonderful moral and social
innovations was presented. There was talk of
justice, of human rights, of betterment of the
weak, of orderly coexistence, of organized
collaboration, of world union. Great gestures
were made. The victors, for example, came to
the aid of the vanquished. Great institutions
were founded. The world began to organize
itself on principles of effective union and
common prosperity. The way to peace, as a
normal and fundamental condition of life in the
world, seemed to have been finally planned.
And yet, what do we see after 25 years of
(Continued on Page 4)
NEWS BRIEFS
'Remember The Poor’
VATICAN CITY (NC) -r Pope Paul VI urged Christmas
shoppers not to forget “those who suffer, who live in poverty
and v have nothing.” Speaking to crowds in St. Peter’s square
Sunday, Dec. 13, from the window of his study, the Pope called
Christmas a “human and gentle feast” when gifts are given as a
sign of goodness and joy. “But let us avoid waste and remember
that around us and in the world there are still many poor, many
who are in need and often do not have necessities while we
enjoy luxuries,” he said. The Pope asked his listeners to show a
“spontaneous interest toward those who suffer, live in poverty
and have nothing, toward the children especially, toward the
homeless, the sick, the prisoners, the unemployed and the
abandoned.”
U.S. Nuns In Top Posts
PHILADELPHIA (NC) — Four U.S. nuns have been named
to important posts in the five-year-old International Union of
Superiors General, (IUSG) it was disclosed here: Sister
Georgianna Segner, a Texan, stationed in Rome as the Schools
Sisters of Notre Dame superior general, was elected to the
IUSG; Sister Margaret Brennan, superior general, Sisters
Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Monroe, Mich., to
the general council; and Sisters Thomas Aquinas Carroll,
superior general, Sisters of Mercy of Pittsburgh and Eucharia
Malone, superior general, Sisters of Mercy of Burlingame, Calif.,
to the general council.
Cardinal Carries Greetings
NEW YORK (NC) — Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York,
who left here Dec. 13 for his annual overseas tour of military
bases, said he will extend greetings of the President of the
United States to American fighting men.
School Rolls
Drop 543,088
Over 3 Years
V-|| ,jy
WASHINGTON (NC) — Catholic school
enrollments have decreased by over a half million
students since 1967, according to the first published
report of a comprehensive fact-gathering project
conducted by the National Catholic Educational
Association (NCEA) here.
The NCEA “date bank” report contains the most
reported the total number of reliable statistical information
students in the nation’s currently available on
Catholic elementary and Catholic education,
secondary schools had Decreases were also
dropped from 5,215,598 in reported in the total number
1967 to 4,672,510 in 1970- of U.S. Catholic elementary
a decrease of over 10 percent. and secondary schools. They
numbered 12,814 in 1967-68
The data bank project - and dropped to 11,937 in
funded by a $78,000 1969-70.
Carnegie grant - covers the
past three academic years, Though the number of
1967-68 through 1969-70. teaching Religious has
Statistics accumulated from dropped 12,400 since 1967,
all 150 U.S. diocesan school according to the data bank,
offices were processed and an increase of 11,900 lay
“stored” in computers. teachers has made the total
number of teachers almost
NCEA officials believe the constant.
Spirits,
Pockets
Uplifted
VATICAN CITY (NC) -
People who attend papal
general* audiences may have
their souls uplifted, but if
they are not careful their
wallets and purses will be
“uplifted” at the same time.
St. Peter’s Basilica has
become a pickpocket’s
paradise, especially during the
general audiences when
people are crowded together
and their attention is fixed on
the Pope.
As one Vatican official put
it, pickpocketing is one of the
most frequent crimes
committed in the Vatican.
Lately, such thefts have been
averaging four to five for each
general audience, he said.
The pickpockets take
advantage of the throng and
the fact that those present are
moved by the presence of the
Pope. The rest is easy.
A slight jostle here, a
gentle shove there, and the
job is done. And sometimes
the results are almost tragic.
Many of the people who
come to see the Pope are
from distant places. All of
their funds may be in that
wallet or purse. To some,
such a loss has meant packing
up and going back home on
borrowed funds. Often it has
meant they missed their one
chance in a lifetime to see
some of the places they had
dreamed about.
Not all the pickpockets are
Italian, say the police.
Tourists themselves
sometimes have been
arrested. Sometimes it is a
case in which the tourist runs
out of funds and tries to get
some money at the expense
of another tourist, according
to the police.
Those who are arrested for
such crimes must be sent to
an Italian jail because the tiny
Vatican City jail closed down
in 1955 for lack of business.
Its two cells held only four
inmates for a combined total
of three weeks in the 26-year
history of the institution.
No pickpocket had ever
spent time in the Vatican jail.
Its inmates were a Swedish
tourist who assaulted a
Vatican canon, a man who
stole alms in St. Peter’s
Basilica, a man who robbed
the Vatican food store and
another who insulted a
pontifical gendarme.
Life In The Seat Of Wisdom
Third Sitting
The theologian was at it again.
Consider the Renaissance,
an age bursting with newness.
Well, maybe just a rediscovery of oldness,
but it seemed new to the folk of the time.
Vision was refocused:
men stopped worrying about climbing into another world
and plunged themselves more deeply into this one.
Ideas were taken out of abstract, logical form
and couched in the warm tones of romance and passion.
Jesus was not unaffected.
He was brought down out of the clouds
of Byzantine majesty and glory
and once again wrapped in swaddling clothes,
pulsing with human-emotion and feeling,
sharing the fullness of life on earth.
Nowhere was identification with man more clearly found
than in the sufferingsof Jesus;
No one sharpened the theology of the cross more keenly
than the anguished monk of Augsburg, Martin Luther.
Possessed of incredible genius and incurable scruples,
Luther repudiated every semblance of a theology of glory
and found the meaning of Jesus in His suffering-for-us.
The Catholic Church pulled its best minds together
and tried to reconvince a continent that it had the better
of the argument,
including both cross and crown,
faith and works,
Word and Sacrament,
grace and merit.
But the door was opened
and the spirit of free inquiry into new realms
could not be halted.
The Church had lost its claim
to arbitrate truth and mediate salvation.
Post-Renaissance man soon discovered he could get on quite well
without a protective and dogmatic Church,
but hot quite without some sort of guide.
The new hero was Reason.
Everything had tp conform to it
or be consistent with it - even Jesus.
Now this created a conflict with the Reformation heritage
because one thing the cross is not
is reasonable.
Moreover, it has always been wedded to man’s self-awareness
as a sinner,
a miserable, lowly, worm-like wretch.
But the first achievements of modem science and technology
belied all that,
SO;the Jesus who took the place of sinners on the cross was abandoned;
the Jesus who represented man was not.
In fact, that’s what Jesus came to mean for 17th and 18th century man:
a representative of the best that man can be,
especially in the area of moral, humanistic endeavor.
There was nothing shocking or contradictory about Jesus;
His ethics were reasonable, His personality agreeable;
His spirituality was pious, His mission was to do-good.
A comfortable picture.
Too comfortable.
And so, looking into the swirling snow of earlier explanations,
the theologian found himself chilled and troubled.
Christmas was now closer than when he first came to question
and still he was not at home with his understanding of
what Christ’s birth really meant.
He paused, puzzled by the comfort of earlier ages.
He smiled thoughtfully at the wide-eyed wonderment of vision
needed to catch a glimpse
of the size of Jesus.
Considering this statistic
along with the corresponding
decrease in enrollment, this
means the average number of
students each teacher must
handle has been reduced.
The data bank estimated
33 elementary students per
teacher in 1967-68. In
1969-70, the ratio had
decreased to 29 students per
teacher. On the high school
level, the ratio was 20
students per teacher in 1967
and 18 per teacher in 1970.
The data bank also
provides statistics about
minority and non-Catholic
student enrollment and
information on teacher
salaries and qualifications.
In 1969-70, about 11
percent of Catholic
elementary students and
about 8 percent of secondary
students were either black,
Spanish-sur named or
American Indian. About
three percent of Catholic
school students that year
were non-Catholic.
Bases on information from
about three-fourths of U.S.
Catholic schools, the data
bank reported most Catholic
elementary school teachers
earn from $4,000 to $6,999
annually. The largest number
of these - 30 percent - fall
into the $5,000-$5,999 -
category.
Among lay Catholic high
school teachers, most salaries
range from $5,000 to $7,999
annually with the largest
number - 33 percent »-
clustering in the $6,000 to
$6,999 category.
le data bank also
reported that 90 percent of
Catholic high school teachers
had a bachelor’s degree or
better in 1969-70.
Thirty-four percent had
master’s degrees. About 70
percent of Catholic
elementary school teachers
had a bachelor’s or better
that year.
Christmas
Collection
For Children
The annual parish
Christmas collection for
the dependent children of
the Village of St. Joseph
will be held Dec. 25 in all
parishes in the
Archdiocese.
Brochures on the
collection are to be
disturbed in all parishes
Dec. 20.
(See Page 3.)