Communications
Powell, Donald & Ryan, Edwin & AGAR, JOHN G. & J., REV. E. G. BRUNNER, S.S. & McCARTHY, DENIS A. & BYRNES, CHARLES J. & CALLAHAN, P. H.
COMMUNICATIONS NEO-PAGANISM Norwalk, Conn. TO the Editor:-I thank the Reverend Thoma Vopatek and Mr. Harvey Wickham for so kindly having attempted to tell me who the neo-pagan is and what he...
...The truly heroic work of the sisters and the splendid results they are obtaining, have well merited from the United States Bureau of Education the statement that "Xavier College is rendering a needy service worthy of continued support...
...The neo-pagan is more of a potential Catholic than the Protestant...
...that it is better to be free than to be a slave...
...Were an exclusive situation such as this to develop in the affairs of any magazine it would be difficult to convince anyone that its character was other than political...
...Wickham's indictment of the neo-pagan leaves me breathless...
...Indeed, the aim of these men is, precisely, to overcome some of that indifference of which Father Gillard so justly complains...
...The break has come at last...
...Wickham is right...
...Edwin Ryan...
...Moreover, inconsistent as Mr...
...but, regardless, whether from affection for God or respect for the rights of their fellow-citizens, they manage to maintain moral standards at least the equal of those of their Christian associates...
...But that a convert should fall away from the Church was to me unthinkable...
...Wickham deems him, I have considerable respect for his intellectual honesty...
...We all can recall some, I imagine...
...The disagreeable pill of enforcement must be accepted to accomplish a real diminution of the harm in liquor...
...Shaw's dietary habits are his own business, but if he were to try to make them my habits by legislative enactment, he would forthwith become a nuisance and unworthy of either respect or sympathy...
...Unfortunately, men need no encouragement to drink and when we deal with a habit-forming drug such as alcohol, it is very doubtful whether any easy and liberal law could ever be effective...
...At the conclusion of his article he pays well-deserved tribute to the supreme example given by Mother Katherine Drexel and Mrs...
...Father Vopatek quotes from Saint Paul concerning the "inexcusable" sins of the old "paganus" while Mr...
...Making some inquiries when I first observed the tendency toward defection, I discovered that it was the insistence of a parish priest on certain devotions and on the "offerings" which these devotions were supposed to bring into the parish treasury, that first started this family on its way back to the communion whence it came...
...and I venture to suggest that his type of mind would be much more at home among the former...
...NEGRO EDUCATION New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:-The fine article on Negro Education, by the Reverend John T. Gillard, that appeared in your issue of February 12, presents facts all too little known to Catholics...
...Expressed conviction is a good force and makes such an interesting item of reading that Catholic individuals (by no means excluding editors) should be encouraged to foster the intellectual blessing that comes from a mutual and orderly exchange of ideas on unproscribed subjects of common interest...
...It was a reaction against the cry for money and against the means by which this money was sought...
...I considered them final...
...I would tolerate him...
...My own tolerance stops when people attempt to force their own beliefs upon me...
...They read Catholic books, magazines and papers...
...The neo-pagan, in America at least, pretty much minds his own business...
...Whatever their fund of knowledge may have been, we all grant their basic intelligence...
...One of the most painful experiences of my life has been the knowledge for some years that a certain convert family, well educated, well instructed in the faith, well-bred, gentle people, were drifting gradually but surely away from the Church...
...This family was more than twenty-five years in the Catholic Church...
...Xavier College, New Orleans, Louisiana, was started by Mother Katherine Drexel and her community, the Blessed Sacrament Sisters, to remedy this situation-at least locally...
...One of the reasons for the dislike of the United States among the people of Brazil and Argentina is the anti-Catholic propaganda in those countries financed by Protestants in North America...
...Probably quite a number of them would agree that "dutiful concupiscence" would hardly be "jolly...
...It also renders a great service in calling attention to the serious financial handicaps suffered by Catholic enterprise in this field...
...I would, for instance, bespeak for Mr...
...And may I ask also that we give some thought to means to stop such leakage ? Denis A. McCarthy...
...The Commonweal deserves credit in-blazing the path of orderly discussion...
...E. G. Brunner, S. S. J., President, Xavier College...
...I cannot think that he has such a bad opinion of us all...
...I believe that the Catholic who is most certain of the truth of his own religion should be the most tolerant of opposing beliefs...
...Wickham for having misled him...
...May I point out, however, what seems to be a slight inadvertence on the writer's part...
...One can read, in a city like Pittsburgh with a syndicate press, a statement in unmistakably plain English that, if you do not like a law disobey it as the best way to repeal it...
...If Mr...
...Louisville, Ky...
...But, alas, I have known several such cases...
...Carter's article, Facts and Latin America, I feel it omits one cause of friction between those countries and us which, though it may not be the most powerful, ought to be known...
...that it is better to have knowledge than to be ignorant...
...Some deny God, some Christ, some the necessity of divine grace as an instrument of salvation...
...They interested themselves in the work of various parishes in which they lived...
...Its educational courses and training for practical leadership afford a solution to many of the colored Catholic's most perplexing problems...
...And it is a heart-breaking one...
...but the neo-Puritan minds everyone else's business...
...TO the Editor:-When I was young and enthusiastic I always rejoiced over conversions to the true faith...
...Or shall we examine ourselves to see if we can discover any flaw in our own way of dealing with converts...
...HOLDING THE CONVERT Boston, Mass...
...Shaw, obviously, is a neo-Puritan, moreover, a neo-Puritan who is also a gentleman, a most remarkable combination...
...It takes courage to continue building when you feel certain that the upper stories are going to cause the whole structure to come tumbling about your ears...
...I wonder what is the answer...
...John G. Agar, President, The Cardinal Gibbons Institute...
...Nor can I be frightened by his less articulate brothers, who comprise almost half of the population of the United States...
...FACTS AND LATIN AMERICA Washington, D. C. TO the Editor:-While welcoming Mr...
...TO the Editor:-In The Commonweal of January 1, there appeared in the Communications column a letter from John P. Moore of Philadelphia criticizing the Evolution of a Moderate Drinker...
...May I ask the prayers of the readers of this letter for this family...
...Wickham attempts to indict two-thirds of the human race...
...He is a Catholic, without faith, while the Protestant is a faithless Catholic...
...After reading the above Gospel Mr...
...and "indecent" has slang connotations other than those found in the dictionary...
...Harvey Wickham for so kindly having attempted to tell me who the neo-pagan is and what he believes...
...With five members of its staff Xavier graduates, the Cardinal Gibbons Institute can join Father Gillard's testimony to the high type of education afforded at Xavier College, New Orleans...
...He would also meet members of the more emotional of the non-Catholic churches...
...When I wrote that the modern pagan was held to be a "jolly indecent fellow," the term was used colloquially...
...After years of scattered and experimental effort, a responsible and working organization has been developed on behalf of the Institute...
...Later, Father Vopatek takes from Plato a quotation, which indicates that at least that old pagan was not so guilty of inexcusable sins as Saint Paul believed...
...Taking it, they return to us either perverted or very, very lukewarm Catholics...
...Wickham to the closing paragraphs of The Free Man's Worship and particularly to: "Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen their failing courage, to instil faith in hours of despair...
...The need of Catholic higher education for Catholic Negroes is beyond question...
...So that I do not think that the neo-pagan is an immediate danger...
...Here is a whole family lost to the Church, with its children and children's children...
...We are witnesses to a public press, seditious in part...
...Most of us feel that the Irish instead of our Hebrew friends would now be owning and also running this country if it were not for their weakness for liquor...
...Yet, they are so condemned by Catholic critics...
...If I am still unconvinced that he ought to menace my peace of mind, it must be my fault...
...Shaw and Mencken, neo-pagans...
...Yet none of us is wholly tolerant...
...We, on the Negro missions, are in daily contact with that problem...
...If there is no Catholic institution available, they must of necessity take what is at hand...
...Burke suggested the impossibility of indicting a whole nation, but Mr...
...Would that I could also report the happy news that it, our only effort, was about to be the recipient of some hundreds of thousands, or even of some thousands...
...I deem it far easier to put faith into the neo-pagan, than to put faithfulness back into the Protestant...
...Concerning Sir Bertrand Russell, I refer Mr...
...Mencken has emerged from the Lutheranism of his fathers with a not to-be-despised and not anti-Catholic credo, wherein he states succinctly what he says is his whole belief: "that it is better to tell the truth than to lie...
...The subject of liquor is one of those public questions that come up regularly and unavoidably for common debate and settlement...
...Pastor and sisters labor for years, in the parochial schools, to form Catholic hearts and minds in the little ones entrusted to them...
...Wickham were living in this Connecticut community, he would meet continually all sorts of neo-pagans...
...The father and mother had long ceased to attend the Catholic Church...
...TO the Editor:-By a strange coincidence, I had just finished reading a newspaper account concerning the merger of two old and flourishing local universities for Negroes, namely, New Orleans University (Methodist) and Straight University (Congregational) and that the merger was to be accompanied by gifts running into the hundreds of thousands, when The Commonweal came to hand and I found therein an article on Negro Education with this comment by the author: "So far, all- Catholic attempts to help the Negro educationally seem pitiably weak considering the magnitude of the problem and the efforts put forth by others...
...Sir Bertrand has not "succeeded in worming all traces of God's finger out of him...
...New Orleans, La...
...Would a commandment of God fare as well in such an atmosphere...
...Chaste minds and chaste bodies are not exactly unknown among pagan peoples...
...I have treated this matter elsewhere so I shall confine myself here to suggesting that as long as the "Yanqui Protestante" keeps up his pernicious activities in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires cordial relations will be impossible...
...Nor do I think that upon reflection, he will argue that the unfortunate two-thirds are trying to get at "sexual freedom...
...Moore is evidently one of our coreligionists who resents our ever saying anything about our own faults and for which the only cure is in close reading of the Gospel for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, which is still the very best formula for a successful program to secure favorable public opinion...
...Nowadays when a portion of the public press is full of paid propaganda, much of which is mere harangue with no effort to be sincere or to disclose a single constructive thought, it behooves the Catholic press to promote a discussion that will have a sane appeal, and it is far more important that a political discussion be general than that any particular solution should monopolize the space...
...My apologies to The Commonweal for having defiled its pages with slang and to Mr...
...EVOLUTION OF A MODERATE DRINKER Pittsburgh, Pa...
...Charles J. Byrnes...
...The Church has survived all the philosophical systems referred to by Mr...
...I fancy that even in Rome, he does not seek companionship among the Methodists...
...Now, surely, I took no responsibility for proclaiming A. E., Sir Bertrand Russell, or Messrs...
...They gave to Catholic missionary funds...
...The contrast of these two facts struck me more forceably, perhaps, than they would most others, as I happen to be connected with the only effort being made, at present, to give our Catholic Negroes a Catholic education in a Catholic College for Negroes, namely, Xavier College, New Orleans, Louisiana...
...Staying away from Mass was out of the question with them...
...Still, my two informants do not quite agree...
...Its members were frequent in the reception of the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist...
...Such charity as I possess is helpless against it...
...I knew, of course, cases of fallen-away Catholics, people who had enjoyed Catholicism as an inheritance and had given it away either for a mess of pottage or for what James Clarence Mangan calls "the devil's dismal stock of returns...
...Luckily, while prohibition receives its crucial test we can cast a watchful eye on Canada where mounting revenue from an increasing consumption of legal and seized liquor, expanding out of all proportion to the growth of population, spells dire results for the years to come...
...TO the Editor:-Father Ross's article Evolution of a Moderate Drinker in The Commonweal of November 27, was a distinct accomplishment for Catholic journalism, in which good service The Commonweal and Father Ross may share...
...P. H. Callahan, Secretary, Association of Catholics Favoring Prohibition...
...Incidentally, the General Education Board and the Rosen-wald Fund, have broken the ice by their financial assistance to the Institute and give hope for similar assistance and encouragement to the other deserving projects...
...Unless we supply it, they will get higher education at non-Catholic, and, at times, even at anti-Catholic institutions to the partial or total destruction of all that the Church has previously worked so hard to build up in their souls...
...but I do have a chronic case of Puritanophobia...
...I am not afraid of them...
...Is it nevertheless quite accurate to say absolutely: "Their charities . . . are the only worthwhile constructive efforts put forth by individual Catholics for the education of the Negroes" ? Surely the group of men who are interested in the work of the Cardinal Gibbons Institute, at Ridge, Maryland, are putting forth constructive efforts in behalf of the Negroes...
...To the end that I may grow up (the adult mind should be phobia-less) and cast this one remaining fear from me, I ask the prayers of the Reverend Thomas Vopatek and Mr...
...Jolly," so used, is synonymous with "thoroughly...
...I should like to point out to him that during the last presidential election, the opposition to the losing candidate came, not from the neo-pagan element, but almost solidly from the evangelical churches...
...He would then be descending to the level of certain of our American evangelical churches...
...When I noted that Aristotle, Aeschylus and Confucius were alleged to be ignorant, I was merely being ironical at the expense of those responsible for the statement...
...Ludwig Lewisohn's The Island Within...
...Arrived at high school and college age, these youths want and, at very great sacrifice by parents and relatives, are determined to get higher education...
...Still, granting Sir Bertrand to be the nearest approach to the ideal neo-pagan, I decline to be frightened by him...
...One of the children wrote me, the other day, that she had been confirmed in another church...
...Walter Lippmann's "high religion" in his Preface to Morals, the same sympathetic tolerance that should be accorded the mystic Catholicism in Mr...
...Morrel, with which no individual effort has yet appeared to compare...
...I am not in sympathy, then, with calls upon The Commonweal to join with Protestant sects against the assaults of the neo-pagan...
...Michael Williams's The High Romance, or the Judaism in Mr...
...Instead of being influential and helpful, and, in a Catholic way, rounding out the work we missionaries are attempting to do, they are either ashamed of the name Catholic, or, at least, not interested in a practical way...
...Shall we dismiss the question by saying that the defection was due to the world, the flesh and the devil...
...Donald Powell...
...What ails America is not neo-paganism, but neo-Puritanism...
...Wickham grants that he was a reasonable and decent fellow...
...It never occurred to me that, once having entered the Church, a convert would be in the least danger of falling away...
...Moore might read Jim Tully's book...
Vol. 11 • March 1930 • No. 18
