Communications
COMMUNICATIONS HOLLYWOOD San Francisco, Cal. TO the Editor:—Though not a subscriber to The Commonweal, I have read it quite regularly with pleasure and edification, enjoying especially...
...What exactly is meant by a continuous part of a temporary thing, "narrative unity" and "snobismus" ? To me they mean nothing but the snobbishness of the author...
...Their form of worship is derived from Constantinople...
...The million odd Rumanian Greek Catholics constitute an admirable bridge between Rome and Orthodoxy...
...This Rumanian Greek Catholic Church, recognized in Rumanian civil law as one of the two national churches of the kingdom, comprises an ecclesiastical province of one metropolitanate, three bishoprics, and one vicariate apostolic: Blaj, OradeaMare, Gherla, Lugoj, and Bucovina...
...true culture and the lauded temporary mind of which Mr...
...Phillips, Dana, Mercier and your English and French contributors, and therefore today am much surprised to find an article by a certain Sheean, in its pages, on Hollywood—that thorn in the flesh of the Californians who do not worship false gods in the guise of money and false aesthetics...
...Such things perhaps are not supposed to survive several reincarnations...
...It is only the small minority who lead decent lives like Greta Garbo, Ramon Navarro and a few others, as well as an occasional visitor of real talent like John McCormack, that keeps Hollywood from being recognized as the cesspool that it is, from which poison flows all over the continent...
...their blood is Romano-Dacian...
...The Orthodox population of Rumania is 70 percent, the Catholic 15 percent, the Protestant 8 percent, the Jewish 5 percent and the Mohammedan .26 percent...
...Walsh, Messrs...
...Again seeing the artificialities and hollowness as he does, it is strange that he does not see that such things do not "bring some mysterious increase of life," but the death of every Christian thought in the masses that first see, then pity, and end by worshiping all that is crude and vulgar...
...It must be news to the university faculties in Los Angeles and elsewhere to hear that Hollywood is the aesthetic capital of the country...
...One American boy is at present studying in the Greek College of Saint Athanasios, Rome...
...It is not the semblance of Notre Dame of Paris, nor even Times Square with its stool pigeons, but bath tubs, bedroom scenes and other suggestive features that raise nonentities to publicity and fortune over night...
...The movement toward Calnolic unity has gained great headway among Orthodox bishops and laity in Rumania...
...For this reason it is hard to attract Rumanian Catholic priests to this country...
...What linguist could fail to marvel at the ability of our American Greek Catholic Rumanian priests who in most cases are able to speak Latin, French, Magyar, German, Slavonic and English, as well as Rumanian ? M. Gray...
...The pity is that what is built by his vaunted civilization is so inferior to what it destroys...
...Rumanian Orthodoxy is disordered and its priests inadequately prepared for ministry in this country...
...It is not only disgruntled film people or visiting Englishmen" that see this...
...I do not pretend to understand what he means by such a sentence as ". . . . can begin the day with the astonishing reflection that the night just over has multiplied their existence in a thousand different dreams...
...In any case, persons interested in Catholic unity, the liturgy, Byzantine art or agricultural Catholicism, ought not to overlook the Rumanian Greek Catholics in our midst...
...therefore, the Orthodox Rumanian Christian Church shall be the dominant state church...
...It grieves me to see what will become of The Commonweal if it sits between two stools, trying to serve at the same time Catholicism, and the immorality and false philosophy that it opposes...
...Their rite is that of Catholic Constantinople in its purity...
...They profess the Catholic Faith, use the seven sacraments and are under a hierarchy of bishops in communion with the Pope of Rome...
...In the United States there are over fifty thousand Rumanian Greek Catholics...
...Rumania today holds in Orthodoxy the position formerly occupied by Russia...
...Evidently the author came to our state not only in ignorance of Hollywood, but also of the eternal verities...
...The Rumanian government supports Rumanian Greek Catholic priests better than Rumanian Americans could be expected to do...
...Rumanian Greek Catholics number 1,470 secular priests (6 percent celibate), 5 priestmonks, and 1,382,544 laymen and women...
...They have eight priests serving sixteen parish churches...
...Some beautiful words used in a way that may mean anything or nothing...
...The "special quality" of Hollywood is in truth the blinding glamor that Satan throws over the "temporary mind" that is so responsive and useful to "the gentlemen with large fortunes that invest money in this house of toys," and incidentally contribute to the glorification of debauchees and divorcees...
...Professor Nicholas Jorga does not place much faith in the intelligence of the Rumanian peasant mind in politics but, since King Carol has chosen the Greek Catholic Transylvanian Maniu as premier, it would seem that the new King relies on the peasantry that comprises 85 percent of the Rumanian population rather than on the intelligentsia, who are represented by his own restorer, Professor Jorga...
...TO the Editor:—Though not a subscriber to The Commonweal, I have read it quite regularly with pleasure and edification, enjoying especially the articles by Sir Bertram Windle, Dr...
...Truly the harvest is great but the workers few...
...RUMANIAN CATHOLICS Princeton, N. J. TO the Editor:—Article XXII of the new Rumanian Constitution declares: "The Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches are state churches...
...Is it not possible that the growth of Rumanian Greek Catholicism might add even to the stability of Rumanian politics...
...One is specially needed in New York City...
...They will have to hasten to learn from the fan magazines the inwardness of the psychological significance of Hollywood...
...Not talent nor beauty but the ability to appeal to all that is vile in a degenerate age makes the so-called success of Hollywood, aided of course by unprincipled scribes...
...Margaret Richard...
...Then we are told that the fan magazines (where his article ought to be) should be read by "all interested in the civilization which is forever building and destroying...
...The Greek Catholic Rumanian Church, however, shall hold the primacy over all other religious bodies in Rumania...
...Is there such a dearth of material contributed to The Commonweal that it is obliged to accept such stuff...
...A number of Rumanian Catholic parishes wait to be organized...
...All these priests are either celibates or widowers and are under the jurisdiction of the local Roman Catholic bishops...
...Their liturgical language is vernacular Rumanian, a phonetic language easy to read if one already knows Italian, Latin or French...
...Sheean says he has not been fortunate enough to form a continuous part...
...The majority of Rumanians belong to the Rumanian Orthodox Church...
...Orthodox and Catholic Rumanians are closely united in heart...
Vol. 12 • July 1930 • No. 10
