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PAGE 4—The Georgia Bulletin, August 5,1971
MKSWKXW. «» ATLANTA HEB^INC (.EORGIVS II NORTHKMX Cl* STIES
Most Rev. Thomas A. Donnellan D.D. J.C.D - Publisher
Buslntsi Office
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Atlanta, Georgia 30308
Harry Murphy, Editor f
Fr. James Maciejewski - Associate Editor
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The opinions contained in these editorial columns are
the free expressions of free editors in a free Catholic press.
I SHOT A hi APROW INTO THE AtR .
Let ’Em In St. Peter’s
The battle of the hemline has spread
to Vatican City and women wearing
dresses with hems above the knees
reportedly are being turned away from
St. Peter’s Basilica by a couple of nuns
and some male attendants.
This edict extends to sub-teens.
Tourists who don wrinkled raincoats
and trousers over their short dresses are
admitted, even though they may look
like shipwreck survivors.
The question of what is proper attire
for church has plagued us for ages.
It once was unheard of for women to
enter church without their heads covered
and their legs uncovered (no pants suits,
allowed), but those taboos have slipped
away.
The problem of what is too short at
the bottom and top of a dress has also
presented problems.
Whenever an attempt is made to judge
what is correct in hair and dress styles, a
large can of worms is opened.
Is a hemline at the knee correct, but
one an inch above incorrect?
No doubt there always will be people
who, through ignorance or brassiness,
will wear apparel which is distasteful to
the majority of people.
But these cases, as long as they don’t
violate public decency laws, are best
ignored.
The Catholic Church’s business is
saving souls, no matter whether they
belong to the micro-skirted or the
granny-gowned.
It is true that many of those who seek
entrance to St. Peter’s are merely curious
tourists, but Christ is still present there
as he is everywhere.
While the tourists gawk in awe at
Christendom’s most famed basilica, He
may decide that it is time to touch their
hearts.
At many resorts, vacationers attend
Mass in bathing suits, sometimes
remaining in their boats.
Christ is not offended by bare skin,
for he brought Adam and Eve into the
world in the shortest attire of all - none.
It is what is in men’s hearts and minds
which concerns the Maker and no one
but Him can discern what that content
is.
The battle of the hemline is like many
other battles.
It isn’t worth fighting.
Farewell Father Ruff
Announcement from Cincinnati that
Father Frank Ruff was named to the
post of National Director of Promotion
for the Glenmary Home Missioners came
as no surprise.
In eight years of solid achievement in
North Georgia, Father Ruff has
demonstrated the versatility which his
new job will require. If one man can
possibly handle the work of vocational
recruiting, fund raising, and public
relations for an entire religious order,
Father Frank Ruff is that man.
In his years with us he has been a
pastor, a Newman chaplain, a member of
the priests’ senate and the ecumenical
commission, a consultant on the
permanent diaconate, and a
self-help-program administrator under
OEO.
Besides all this we believe he has made
signal contributions in two areas:
With a heavy preponderance of
Southern Baptist affiliation among
the Christmas of Georgia, it is necessary
that the Catholic Church should
manifest an interest in the work of the
Southern Baptist Convention. If we are
as committed to the re-union of
Christians as we like to believe, if we
want to know and love others as our
brothers, then we cannot neglect that
church which is the spiritual home of so
many of them in our part of the
country. Father Frank Ruff has worked
and prayed with Southern Baptists. He
has attended their annual meetings. He
has their respect and affection and,
;mong them, he has been a warm and
attractive representative of the Catholic
Church.
Father Ruff not only has been a
liaison between Georgia Catholics and
Baptists, but also between urban and
rural Catholics.
The focus of this archdiocese is
logically in Metro Atlanta, which
contains 23 of its 37 parishes and most
of its people. A danger of this focus,
however, is that the needs of the Church
in Metro Atlanta can so predominate our
thoughts and plans that the
“town-and-country” Catholics are
forgotten.
Father Frank Ruff has helped us to
avoid that pitfall. He has often been the
spokesman of the non-metro Church in
this archdiocese. In this way he has
helped reminded us that a diocese is a
special kind of community and that
special bonds of common concern
should make us one, whatever the
barriers of geography and economy.
We hope that in his new post Father
Ruff will come our way again to share
his vision and enthusiasm. We are richer
for his eight years with us.
Welcome, Father Berson
Father Robert Berson, who replaced
Father Ruff, has served the Glenmary
Home Missioners as their president, or
superior general, for the past six years.
In a religious order, the superior
general carries responsibility and prestige
similar to that of a bishop in his diocese.
That Father Berson should be assigned
to us as a replacement for Father Ruff is
a compliment both to the archdiocese
and to Father Ruff.
It compliments the archdiocese for it
suggests a recognition by the Glenmary
Fathers to the importance of their role
here in the hub of the South.
It compliments Father Ruff for it
suggests that a priest of uncommon
ability is needed to carry on his work.
Over the past two years the idea of a
new archdiocesan office for
non-metropolitan affairs has been
bandied about. If that idea is to be
pursued, we now have an excellent
resource person in Father Berson to
guide our thinking. His insight and
experience will be valuable, too, for our
young priests in the special work of the
rural apostolate.
We are proud and pleased to welcome
Father Berson.
& 0 7ittCe&
BY FR. JAMES MACIEJEWSKI
A trip to the movies to see “Red Sky
at Morning” confirmed for me that
NCOMP was right -- the movie rating
system is a failure.
NCOMP is the National Catholic
Office for Motion Pictures. Very
recently that office, in a joint statement
with its corresponding Protestant
agency, dismissed the rating system as an
unreliable guide to movie
moral quality. After seeing
“Red Sky at Morning,” I
can understand why.
Artistically the film is
awful. It’s a multi-plot
movie with only the loosest
connection among the
disparate strands of the
story.
Claire Bloom offers a very wooden
characterization in her role as a spoiled
Southern belle. She affects a Southern
accent such as I have never heard in the
South. Richard Thomas in the lead role
is all squinty eyes and shiny teeth. Desi
Arnaz, Jr., has the acting range of his
father.
Even visually the film is poor,
especially' in the early sequences when
some' of the film seems over-exposed.
But it’s the moral quality of movies
that concerns NCOMP, and it’s the moral
quality of RED SKY that offends most.
The viewer is subjected to repeated
vulgarity in language, obscenity in
gesture, and even nudity. There’s a
strong pre-occupation with sex.
In one scene Richard Thomas and
Cathy Burns spend the night together,
waking up to sweet music and a dazzling
sunrise. “I guess I was pretty inept,” he
says.
And pretty inept, too, is the movie
rating system, for might we not
reasonably expect a restricted rating for
such strong film fare? Sorry -- the: movie
is rated GP. The advertisements proudly
proclaim that “all ages are admitted.”
What is the value of ratings that so
seriously mislead parents as they try to
select suitable movies for their children’s
viewing? Little value at all.
And this was the thinking of NCOMP
when it withdrew its support of a system
that was initiated for the lofty purpose
of guiding parents and protecting
children.
So sad to see that they’ve been let
down.
OUR PARISH
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“We don’t exactly look upon Paris as a mission
field.”
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MSGR. GEORGE C. HIGGINS
The Survey Research Center of the
University of California, Berkeley, was
commissioned nine years ago by the
Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith to
conduct a major sociological study of the roots
of anti-Semitism in the United States. The
findings of this exhaustive study (the end of
which, we are told, is not yet in sight) are being
published at irregular intervals in a series of
volumes known as the “Patterns of American
Prejudice Series.”
The most recent of the six volumes published
thus far as a part of this series is entitled
“Wayward Shepherds: Prejudice and the
Protestant Clergy” (Harper and Row, New
York, $6.95). Whereas most of the earlier
volumes in the series concentrated almost
exclusively on the roots of anti-Semitism, this
one, for reasons which are not entirely clear to
the present writer, also takes up the question as
to whether or not the Protestant clergy are
effectively using the power of the pulpit to
combat the major social and economic
problems confronting the United States at the
present time.
The authors’ findings, on both scores, are
entirely negative. First of all, a substantial
percentage of Protestant ministers are said to be
prejudiced against Jews and Judaism on
religious or theological grounds. Secondly, most
Protestant clergymen are said to be failing in
their duty to provide guidance to their
congregations, through the medium of the
pulpit, on the great social and political
problems of the day. “It is as if there had been
no Sermon on the Mount,” the authors
conclude rather sorrowfully.
I have yet to come across any scholarly
reviews of this volume by professional
sociologists. As a matter of fact, the only
review I have seen thus far was in the form of
an editorial in the May 29 issue of The Pilot,
the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of
Boston. This editorial, to put it as mildly as
possible, took an extremely dim view of the
book. It dismissed it (apparently sight unseen)
as a “piece of pseudo-sociology - undoubtedly
similar to what preceded it in the sameseries.”
“We cannot fail to wonder,” the editorial
concluded, “why the ADL goes on publishing
this kind of business, except to excuse its own
existence, organization and budget.
Jewish-Christian relations, so vastly improved
over these last years, are not assisted by such
so-called revelations. Simple decency suggests
that, if we are going to talk about prejudice -
any of us - we begin by searching our own
hearts before we go prying into one another’s
pulpits. If the Sermon on the Mount says
anything at all to us, it tells us to reform our
ways in the light of God’s kingdom. When each
one of us has accomplished this personal
transformation, we will have hastened the
promised day of blessedness.”
For my own part, I simply don’t feel
qualified to say whether or not the Berkeley
volume in question is as bad, from the
sociological point of view, as The Pilot makes it
out to be (or as good as its authors and
sponsors presumably think it is). So far as I am
concerned, that’s a matter for trained
sociologists to argue back and forth among
themselves in the pages of their own
professional journals.
It does seem to me, however, that The Pilot
was much too caustic in its specific reference to
ADL and that it should have exercised more
restraint in its criticism of the methodology
employed in the study. In other words, I think
the editors of The Pilot would have been better
advised to concede at the very outset that they
are really not qualified to pass anything like a
definitive judgment on technical matters of this
kind. I also think they should have refrained
from suggesting that .ADL’S motives in
sponsoring the Berkeley project are self-serving
in nature. It seems to me, in other words, that
judging an organization’s motives on a matter
of this kind is totally uncalled for.
On the other hand, I, too, am beginning to
wonder if and when the Berkeley series is ever
going to come to an end. That is to say, having
looked at all of the six volumes in the Berkeley
series and having carefully read two or three of
them, I have the impression that most of them
say substantially the same thing, namely, that
the Christian religion plays a crucial role in
generating anti-Semitism.
A number of professional sociologists would
argue that, while this may or may not be true,
the Berkeley volumes, because of certain
defects in their methodology, really haven’t
proved it. Granted, however, for present
purposes, that the Berkeley findings are
substantially accurate and methodologically
sound, is it really necessary or helpful to go on
making the same point over and over again in
what promises, or threatens, to be an almost
endless series of separate volumes?
To put the question another way: Isn’t it
about time for the Berkeley sociologists and
their sponsors at ADL to turn their attention to
other matters of equal importance? After all,
there is such a thing as a law of diminishing
returns even in the field of sociology.
In offering this opinion, I am writing as one
who thinks that anti-Semitism is still a serious
problem in the United States and as one who
clearly recognizes the need for religious
sociology in general and the usefulness of this
specific form of research in particular.
Nevertheless, repeating what was said above, I
must admit that six volumes on the same
subject strike me as being more than enough.
To this I would only add that if there is to be a
seventh and an eighth and a ninth volume (and
I suspect there will be), I doubt that I will ever
get around to reading them. I am sorry about
this for the sake of my friends at ADL, but
there is a limit to the amount of time that one
can be expected to devote to any particular
subject, and I, for one, have passed that limit in
the case of the Berkeley series.