Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 7 — The Georgia Bulletin, January 4,1973
Unpublished Encyclical
Drafted by an American
PHOTO by Alex Gotfryd.
Author Jess Stearn, with Taylor Caldwell portrait in inset.
Was Taylor Caldwell
Magdalene’s Mother?
NEW YORK (CPF) — Was novelist Taylor Caldwell the mother of Mary
Magdalene?
Was it Mary Magdalene who was the “woman taken in adultery” whom Christ
saved from the mob ready to stone her to death?
Was the Blessed Virgin’s
depicted?
The answers are “yes” if
you are ready to believe the
contents of a book called
THE SEARCH FOR A
SOUL: TAYLOR
CALDWELL’S PSYCHIC
LIVES, written by Jess
Stearn from tapes made of
Taylor Caldwell’s
conversations while under
hypnosis.
Miss Caldwell, author of
such Biblical-era novels as
DEAR AND GLORIOUS
PHYSICIAN (about St. Luke)
and GREAT LION OF GOD
(about St. Paul) personally
discounts the idea of
reincarnation.
“I have carefully read Jess
Steam’s book, and I was
astonished at what I said in a
trance,” she remarked. “I had
warned Jess that I am a
novelist, and that perhaps
some or most of the material
had lain fallow in my
subconscious, and was only
the creative power waiting
dormantly in my mind for
expression through future
books.”
Nevertheless, the facts and
descriptions offered by Miss
Caldwell while under
hypnosis impressed Stearn
and those who have listened
to the tapes of her “recall.”
Whether the information is
based on reincarnational
memory or is the result of a
novelist’s imigination. the
segments in SEARCH FOR
hair golden-white rather than dark-haired as so often
Burkett TV
SALES SERVICE
RENTALS
Antenna Specialists
457-7293
3775 Central Avenue
Doraville, Ga. 30340
A SOUL set in Christ’s time
make for provocative reading.
Under hypnosis, she spoke
as Hannah-bat-Jacob, mother
of Miriam of Magdala (Mary
Magdalene), describing the
place where she lived, the
synagogue they visited, the
people they knew.
“You should see my
Miriam,” Miss Caldwell said
during one hypnosis session.
“They say she has a cast in
her eye. But she can see.
They say that’s a yetzer-hara,
the bad side of one. How
wicked they are, these
people.
“Oh, yes, I dreamed, too,
that my darling, my beautiful
baby, my Miriam, that no one
will ever forget her name
because she will look on the
Messiah, and I will too in my
dream . . .1 see her kneeling at
his feet, and he raises her up
and puts his arms around her.
Like all of us Nazarenes, his
hair is golden red, blue eyes,
and in my dream he was born
in the House of Bread
(Bethlehem).”
At another point in her
hypnosis, Miss Caldwell
described the Messiah as
wearing a beard and hair
down to his shoulders and
being called “Jeshua ben
Joseph.”
She “remembers” hearing
him speak in the synagogue.
“There was a young man -
he would be five years older
than my Miriam. He stood up
and he read from the holy
books. What a beautiful voice
he had.”
Because women were not
allowed in the synagogue, she
could only watch from
behind a curtain, she said,
and remarked on the beauty
of his voice to a woman
standing beside her. The
woman replied, according to
the novelist, “He is my son.”
LARACH’S IMPORTS
Quolifij Worl <J-\virle Mcrrliaiulist
The Old And The New In Fine Gifts
Crystal - Objects D'Art - Si Iver
Decors for the Home
The woman’s name was
Miriam-bat-Joachim, and her
husband was Joseph-ben-
David.
“I open the curtain so she
can see, too. She is so young
to be the mother of a man in
the prime of his manhood,
near twenty. What a beautiful
face she has. She is a
Nazarene like all of us. She is
very fair. Her hair is almost
white, like gold over which
silver flows. Her eyes are blue
like the sky, bluer even than
ours are, bluer than the eyes
of our Miriam. They have the
same name.”
According to Miss
Caldwell’s account under
hypnosis, her daughter had
disappeared and had not been
seen for about 10 years, ever
since her faither attempted to
marry her off to a cripple. It
is rumored that Miriam of
Magdale went to Jerusalem.
It is there that Miriam’s
mother suddenly finds her, in
the midst of a mob of angry
people trying to stone her to
death. It is there that she sees
Christ again for the first time
since listening to him in the
synagogue.
According to Steam’s
account, “there was a
considerable pause” in Miss
Caldwell’s narrative “and
then, without warning, her
voice rose in a horrified
crescendo, and she began
screaming with a terror that
sent a chill up our spines.
“No, no, no,” she cried,
writhing in anguish on the
couch. ‘You must not kill
her. You must not stone her
to death. God, Miriam, my
babe. They are killing her.’ ”
She saw a man coming
forward to rescue her
daughter.
“It was Yeshua ben
Joseph. He lifted her by the
hand. They were stoning her.
And He said to the men, the
righteous Pharisees, ‘Let him
who has not lain with this
woman throw the first stone.’
VATICAN CITY (NC) -
An unpublished papal
encyclical condemning
nazism and facism that was
drafted by an American
Jesuit might well have
changed the course of history
for the Catholic Church
before World War II,
according to Jesuit Father
Walter Abbott of Boston,
who heads the office for
common Bible work
sponsored by the Vatican.
Father Abbott said he was
the first to discover the
“secret” encyclical draft by
Jesuit Father John LaFarge at
the specific request of Pope
Pius XI in June 1938. Father
LaFarge, former editor of the
Jesuit weekly AMERICA and
noted author and crusader for
social justice, died in 1963 at
the age of 83.
Father Abbott told NC
News here that “the day after
Father LaFarge died, I was
assigned the job of going
through his papers with the
idea of writing his
biography. My first
discovery that day was texts
in English and French of an
encyclical letter which I
learned Pope Pius XI had
asked him to draft.”
Rather ruefully, Father
Abbott recalled that he began
his assignment to do a
biography of Father LaFarge
“with great enthusiasm,” but
bogged down in other
previous assignments.
The LaFarge collection of
documents then went to
Fordham University historian
Jesuit Father Harry Sievers,
who in turn, also for reasons -
of work, turned them over to
Thomas Breslin, a former
Jesuit scholastic.
Quoting extensively from
microfilmed copies of the
encyclical draft and related
documents, National Catholic
Reporter (NCR) commented
that the encyclical was never
published for two reasons:
- A delay “for political
reasons” by Jesuit superior
general, Father Wlodimir
Ledochowski, in passing on
the completed draft to Pope
Pius XI.
- The serious illness and
sudden death of Pope Pius XI
shortly after he finally
received the draft - if he ever
received it.
Father Abbott recalled in
detail for NC News the
beginning and end of the
encyclical drafts done by
Father LaFarge. He said that
Father LaFarge had been sent
by AMERICA, the Jesuit
magazine to cover the
international Eucharistic
Congress in 1936 at
Budapest, Hungary.
“His assignment also
authorized him to meet with
European intellectuals around
the continent to discuss the
turbulent situation in which
Hitlerism and Italian fascism
had already become the
dominant note,” Father
Abbott said.
After the congress Father
LaFarge came to Rome and
visited the papal summer
home at Castelgandolfo on
June 24, 1938.
Father LaFarge’s diary
recounts that Pope Pius told
him that he had read the
American’s book
INTERRACIAL JUSTICE
and the Pope declared that
Father LaFarge’s ideas were
“close to his.”
The upshot was that Pope
Pius XI commissioned the
American Jesuit to write a
draft of an encyclical - a
papal letter - “as though I
had written it.” When
completed four months later,
the draft document was a
“resounding denunciation
and condemnation on
Nazism, Fascism, racism and
the policies of anti-Semitism
3798 Roswell Rd., N. E.
Atlanta, Ga.
Phone 261-6654
“Mike”
Holman Mechanical Service
Total Air Conditioning Service
Maintenance & Installation
Residential - Commercial - Industrial
Heating & Air Conditioning
766 English Ave., N.W.
Atlanta, Ga. 30318 873-1631
espoused by the totalitarian
powers of the time,” Father
Abbott said.
The drafting of the
document was accomplished
between June and September,
1938, by Father LaFarge and
a German Jesuit, Father H.
Gundlach, with the blessing
of the then Jesuit general,
Father Wlodimir
Ledochowski.
According to Father
Abbott, the problems that
dogged the progress of the
draft document - and which
eventually resulted in its
disappearance from the scene
of history - began at that
point.
First of all, Father LaFarge
sent the document to the
Jesuit general for forwarding
to the Pope. Father
FATHER JOHN
LAFARGE, the
American Jesuit author
and crusader for social
justice, was asked by
Pope Pius XI to write an
encyclical attacking
racism and anti-Semitism
before World War II,
according to National
Catholic Reporter. (NC
Photo)
LaFarge’s associate, Father
Gundlach, later reproached
him for “being too loyal to
your superiors.” The reason
for this, Father Abbott said,
was that Father Ledochowski
felt this document was not
adequate to the times. He
sent it to an Italian Jesuit,
Father Enrico Rossi, formerly
of CIVILTA CATTOLICA
(the Rome Jesuit magazine),
for “improvements.”
Father Abbott said:
“Father Ledochowski was
worried by its headon
confrontation with the two
great powers of the area at
the time.”
The LaFarge document
was tied up with Father Rossi
until January, 1939, but was
untouched because the Italian
Jesuit was ill and unable to
deal with the material. At the
prompting of Father LaFarge,
Pope Pius XI sent word to the
Jesuit general that he wanted
to see the draft encyclical
without further delay.
The document finally
reached the Pope’s study on
January 21, 1939. By that
time Pius XI was already a
very sick man. He died
February 10.
Father Abbot said that “it
is not known if the Pope had
time to read over the
document before he became
gravely ill or if it was on his
desk awaiting his attention.”
Father Robert Graham, an
American Jesuit living in
Rome, has spent over 10
Delochowski sabotaged the
encyclical draft “because his
extreme anticommunism
blinded him to the dangers of
nazism.”
The death of Pius XI has
been surrounded for years
with rumors that he had
planned a scathing
denunciation of Hitler and
Mussolini and their political
philosophies. It has even been
suggested that he was
poisoned to keep him from
issuing such an encyclical.
The facts are, as
documented from the
LaFarge files, that papal
secretaries gathered up all the
documents on the desk of the
late Pope and consigned them
to the secret archives of the
Vatican. A note attached to
the draft of the LaFarge
encyclical, penned by the
then Monsignor Domenico
Tardini, later cardinal
secretary of state to Pope
John XXIII, made a special
note of the fact that Pope
Piux XI had requested the
Jesuit general to send it on to
him as soon as possible and
without delay.
Father Abbott agrees with
historians who believe that
the publication of the
encyclical, as drafted by
Father LaFarge, might have
changed the current history
of the Church.
‘‘The document’s
condemnation of the political
philosophy of Hitler and
Mussolini, its strong middle
part attacking the attendant
anti-Semitism and racism, was
enough for Hitler to send
every Catholic bishop in
Germany loyal to the Pope to
a concentration camp.”
He added that, as a
consequence “it is quite
likely Cardinal Pacelli, Pope
Pius XII, might not have been
elected to succeed Pius XI
because of the resulting
German crisis.”
Father Abbott said that
after the election of Pius XII,
Father Gundlach was a
member of the group of
German Jesuits who
surrounded the new pope. He
called the Pope’s attention to
the earlier document. Pope
Pius XII’s first encyclical,
issued after the outbreak of
World War II, “had some
similarities to” the
LaFarge-Gundlach draft, said
NCR, “but they were in
general areas that referred to
totalitarianism and human
rights. Nothing resembling
the strong contents of the
racism and anti-Semitism (in
Father LaFarge’s work)
appeared.”
Other echoes were
contained in subsequent
Christmas messages during
the war years, but the full
contents of the draft
document never appeared as a
single unit.
“Father LaFarge during all
his years after the death of
Pius XI never told any of us
at Fordham (University)
about that work,” Father
Abbott said. Shortly before
his death in 1963, he was
asked by a former student of
Father Gundlach about
rumors that he had written
such a document.
“In the privacy of that
community Father LaFarge
finally admitted that he had
once been engaged in this
work but did not expand. He
was faithful to the last to his
promise to keep the project
secret as Pius }3 had asked
him to do.”
3270 Snapfinger Rd. At Snapfinger Creek
981-1818 or 981-9970
I
I Open 5 Days Open Evenings^
Pick Up & Delivery
(Ph. 394-3233)
©J ftvtxmxt-r Serving A tlanta Since 1912
(® PRINTING • printing
KYCO, r™. O O/fyWJRAk /W y •LITHOGRAPHING
794 Forrest Road, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia Telephone 522-9726'
STAPLES
JBmt&toafm UiUage
PHARMACY. INC.
5513 CHAMBLEE-DUNWOODY RD.. DUNWOODY. GA
OPEN 9 TO 8
AFTER HOURS
PRESCRIPTION SERVICE
Fast - Efficient
Professional
Installation of
Amtstroni
in less tnan a day
• No plaster mess* Completely in
stalledfor only
av«fog« (TilO'roem.
m
CALL NOW FOR FREE ESTIMATE
CEILINGS by DeGEORGE
East Point, Ga. 1432 E. Cleveland 767-9711
We Can Solve Your Ceiling Problems
OPEN MONDAY UNTIL 8
Come In and See Our House of Ceilings
© John J. Todd Gulf Service
6 Months to Pay!
I No carrying charge
for tires & batteries
with Gulf Card
TELEPHONES Central At Hunter St.. S.W.
525-2534 Across From Shrine Of The
524-9847 Immaculate Conception At
Atlanta, Georgia 30303 Entrance of Underground
Taurus
PORSCHE-AUDI
500 W. Peachtree
577-8500
Good news for
people who are tired
of being pushed around.
The Audi has
front-wheel drive.
Authorized
Porsche/Audi
Dealer
Let us make sure that your insurance
program is just right for you.
"The only insurance people — you'II ever need"
/utter oncJ fTlcLellon
Insuronce
2010 Rhodes - Haverty Building
Atlanta, Ga. 30303 (404) 525-2086
Master T. V. SERVICE
Peachtree Battle Shopping Center
Domestic and Foreign Color TV’s
Stereos, Radios, Tape Players, Etc.
Phone 262-2638
Ralph’s Cleaners & Laundry
Pick-Up and Delivery
Serving Mtn. View and Lake City Jimmy Head, Owner
Fine Shirts a Specialty, Alterations.
We give S&H Green Stamps
1006 Main, Forest Park 366-6286
“ARMY-NAVY SURPLUS
Camping - Hunting - Fishing Supplies
OLD SARGE SURPLUS
451-3377
5327 BUFORD HIGHWAY DORAVILLE, GA.