Jlortfr
Carolina
Catholic
Edition of Our Sunday Visitor
Subscription $4.00 Copy 10c
Volume LV May 29, 1966 No. 5
RALEIGH, N.C. ' • P.O. Box 9503
Archbishop Stresses
Fair Housing Duties
WASHINGTON — (NC) —
Archbishop Patrick A. O’Boyle in
a pastoral letter reminded Catho
lics of their duty to respect the
civil rights of others in regard to
jobs, education and — particularly
— housing.
“Those who deny a neighbor,
solely on the basis of race, the
opportunity to .buy a house, en
joy equal educational and job op
portunities are in effect denying
that right to Christ Himself,”
Archbishop O’Boyle said.
In a covering letter to 343
priests of the Washington arch
diocese, he scored “block busting,
panic selling and similar tactics”
that violate the right to equality
in housing.
, “The heart of the fair housing
issue is that every man, whatever
his race, religion or national or
igin, has the moral right to ac
quire and occupy any house his
means will allow, subject only to
the obligation all members of so
ciety have to live as good neigh
bors in Christian charity,” he said.
THE ARCHBISHOP’S pastoral,
read at all Masses in the arch
diocese (May 22), coincided with
the observance of “Fair Housing
Sunday” in nearby Prince Georges
County, Md., which is part of the
archdiocese.
The observance was, supported
by the Greater Washington Coun
cil of Churches and the Greater
Washington Jewish Community
Council as well as the Catholic
archdiocese. Pledge cards were
distributed to members of the con
gregation in churches and syna
gogues throughout the county.
The cards read: “I believe that
any person, regardless of race, re
ligion, or national origin, has the
moral right to purchase or rent
a home anywhere. I urge financial
institutions, home builders and
owners, apartment owners and
real estate brokers to do business
without racial or religious dis
crimination.”
ARCHBISHOP O’Boyle declared
in his pastoral that “the will of
God ... in relation to our neigh
bor” means “treating him as a
fellow son of God, recognizing him
as an equal image of the infinite
God who is our Creator, our Re
deemer and our Judge.”
He expressed joy at the “great
advances” made in recent years in
developing “a Christian attitude in
the field of civil rights” in rela
tion to equality in education,
housing, jobs and social life.
But, he said, “further progress
is assured only if we continue to
condemn individually the denial of
equal housing, education and job
opportunities as morally wrong,
just as we condemn other sinful
actions which are part of the
crime wave afflicting so many of
our great cities.”
The archbishop noted that
Christians “cannot jselect which
part of the moral law we are to
obey. . . We cannot be part-time
Christians or partially loyal Chris
tians.”
EARLY MORNING SUN rises over Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Ceme
tery, across the Potomac from the Nation’s Capital. The World War I Unknown Soldier is the
only body in the sarcophagus. But the Unknown Soldier of World War II and the Unknown
Soldier of the Korean Conflict lie beneath the white marble oblongs in the plaza near the sar
cophagus. The amphitheater is the scene each year of a Memorial Requiem Mass on the Sunday
nearest Memorial Day. (NC Photos)
Pope Paul Warns Workers
On Dangers of Marxism
VATICAN CITY — (NC) —
Pope Paul VI has reminded Chris
tian workers that the Church has
not and cannot adhere to “the
false conception of man, history
and the world which is typical of
radical Marxism.”
“The atheism it professes and
promotes,” he said (May 22), “is
... a blindness which man and so
ciety will have to pay for in the
end with the gravest consequen
ces The materialism which de
rives from it . . . extinguishes
man’s true spirituality and his
transcendent hope.
“The class struggle raised to a
system harms and impedes social
peace and inevitably ends in vio
lence and oppression, leading to
the abolution of liberty and the
establishment of a ponderously
authoritarian system naturally in
clined toward totalitarianism.”
NEVERTHELESS, he told
15,000 representatives of Christian
labor, the lay apostolate and social
action movements in 35 nations,
“the church does not bypass any
of the claims for justice and prog
ress of laborers. Let it be once
more affirmed that the Church by
rectifying these errors and devia
tions does not exclude from its
love any man — any worker.”
The Pope’s address followed a
concelebrated Mass in St. Peter’s
Basilica commemorating the 75th
anniversary of the publication of
rope L,eo Ains tamous encyclical
on the condition of the working
man, Rerum Novarum, which has
served as a blue-print for the
Church’s subsequent social teach
ing. Among the concelebrants
from six continents was bishop
John J. Wright of Pittsburgh, rep
resenting North America.
Following his talk, the Pope re
ceived 70 representatives of 45 or
ganizations throughout the world,
including William Toomey of Al
bany, N. Y., executive board mem
ber of the National Catholic Social
Action Conference. Toomey is the
U.S. delegate to the constitutional
assembly of the world movement
of Christian Workers, which be
gan May 23 in Rome.
Canada is represented by
Jacques Champagne of the Canad
ian Christian Worker movement
and its chaplain, Father Laurent
Denis, both of whom were also re
ceived by the Pope. On his own
behalf and on that of Msgr. George
G. Higgins, director of the Social
Action Department of the National
Catholic Welfare Conference, Fa
ther Denis participated in the
assembly as North American Chap
lain.
POPE PAUL reduced the mes
sage of Rerum Novarum to seven
“elementary propositions,” which
he called fundamental axioms.
“First, the Church has been
thoroughly interested in the social
question. Nobody can reproach it
for its absences from the problem,
for its timidity, superficiality or
inconsistency. The Church has
heard the “cry of anguish” of the
worker proletariat and even made
it its own, not as a tinder of
hatred and revenge, but as a de;
mand for love and justice. Even
before concerning itself with the
needs and rights of others, it
frankly recognized its own new
duty which the history of human
vicissitudes placed before it — to
concern itself with the working
world, to place itself at the side
of the defenseless and to seek with
them and for them better living
conditions.”
The second axiom founded on
Leo’s encyclical, Pope Paul said,
is that “the Church has proclaimed
the dignity of labor of whatever
kind so long as it is honest, and
supported it with wonderful argu
mentation. There has even been
talk of a ‘theology of labor’ since
in the thought of the Church hu
See Pope Warns, page 8A
C.P.A. AWARD — Bishop Clarence G. Issenmann congratulates
Joseph Breig, winner of the St. Francis de Sales award
of the Catholic Press Association for the outstanding contri
bution to Catholic journalism in 1965. They were in San
Francisco (May 13) for the annual C.P.A. convention. Bishop
Issenmann, Coadjutor of Cleveland and Episcopal Chairman
of the N.C.W.C. Press Department, is honorary president of
the C.P.A. Breig is associate editor of the Cleveland Catholic
Universe Bulletin. (NC Photos)
Red Court Convicts
Yugoslavian Atheist
MUNICH, Germany — (NC) —
In an unprecedented decision a
people’s court in communist-ruled
Yugoslavia has convicted an athe
ist poet for offending the reli
gious beliefs of his Catholic fellow
citizens.
Vladimir Gajsek, a young phi
losophy student, was sentenced to
a two-week suspended jail term
and placed on a year’s probation
after a Ljubljana district court
found him guilty of charges
brought by three Yugoslav bish
ops.
Gajsek’s conviction in January
was reported here by Radio Free
Europe, which did not identify the
three bishops.
THE FORMAL charge was
made following protests by Ljubl
jana theology students against
Gajsek’s poem, “The Holy Fam
ily,” which contains a parody of
Christ’s crucifixion. The poem
was published in a Ljubljana
newspaper in May, 1965.
The Yugoslav court’s judges—
all Communist party members—
based their decision on the Yugo
slav constitution’s guarantee of
religious freedom and its specific
ban against incitement to reli
gious hatred or intolerance.
The court declared in its ruling:
“The accused, Gajsek . . . was,
in the opinion of the court, fully
aware that he would provoke reli
gious intolerance by his manner
of expression. That is why his de
fense that he did not commit the
deed intentionally is not convinc
ing.
‘TROM THE judicial point of
view there exists in the behavior
of the accused all evidence of a
criminal deed.”
The court added that Gajsek had
“undoubtedly ridiculed and put
to shame” certain terms and ex
pressions used by the Catholic
Church.
The decision was greeted with
a wave of protests by militant
communist atheists.
The noted Slovenian communist
novelist, Ivan Potrc, charged that
“the people’s court did its best to
enable the clerics to celebrate
their silent victory.”
A Belgrade critic, Dr. Rakoce
vic, said the decision was evi
dence of the “strengthening of
the power of the Church.”
Czech Police
Search Homes
Of 2 Bishops
BONN, Germany _(NC)— Po
lice searched the residences of
two bishops in Czechoslovakia aft
er they had been visited by tour
ists from the West, but found no
“subversive material,” according
to KNA, German Catholic news
agency.
The prelates are Auxiliary
Bishop Kaj e t a n Matousek of
Prague and Bishop Karel Otcena
sek, apostolic administrator of
Hradec Kralove, who had been
released from confinement in
1963.
KNA reported that all bishops
who have been confined are un
der surveillance after their re
lease.
The news agency reported also
that there are still 16 priests im
prisoned in Czechoslovakia and
that an unknown number of lay
men are still in jail there be
cause of their faith and religious
activities.
It was reported that 25 priests
were imprisoned about six months
ago.