Pope Warns of Dangers of Marxism
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Continued from page 1A
man activity, including that which
is manual or executive, has been
recognized in its most human and
most mysterious implications.
“WHAT HAS the Church not
said, what has it not proclaimed
regarding the worker, his person,
his singularity and his numerical
unity in the midst of the crowd,
which the Church does not call a
‘mass' but a ‘people’? What has the
Church left unsaid about his con
science, his liberty, his inalienable
and sacrosanct right to bread, to
a family, to education, to spiritual
hope and to a profession of re
ligious beliefs?
“You workers who are listen
ing now — who more than the
Church has esteemed, respected
cared for and loved you as per
sons?
"The third axiom is that the
Church has made its own the prin
ciple of the progress of social jus
tice. that is to say, of the neces
sity of promoting and implement
ing the common good, not only
by its speculative doctrine (which
it has maintained ever since the
evangelical message proclaiming
blessed all who hunger and thirst
Charlotte Women's
Officers Installed
Sunday, May 15, St. Gabriel's
Women's Club held a Mother
Daughter Breakfast at Sharonview
Country Club. Outgoing officers
were thanked for their 365 days of
hard work and new officers were
installed. Mrs. R. L. (Joan) Turby
fill. Jr., was presented with a
beautiful hand-carved. painted
replica of the Madonna by the Pas
tor. the Rev. J. Paul Byron. At the
close of the Breakfast new offi
cers were installed and recognized
as follows:
Mrs. J. J. Schiveree—President;
Mrs. Elbert W. Goff, Jr.—Vice
President; Mrs. H. R. Gover—Sec
retary; Mrs. George Leidig—Treas
urer; and Mrs. Robert Griffith—
Trustee.
After the presentation of the
gift Father Byron went on and
spoke to the new officers, suggest
ing that as well as helping the
school and church with their many
projects they think about concen
trating on a Civic Project for the
coming year. Mrs. Schiveree. the
new President, told Father Byron
the idea would be presented to
the members and a project out
side the Church and School, would
be considered, and the members
would be asked to pick a special
project.
SCHOOLS
SACRED HEART ACADEMY
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A SIwM 4-Tm H*h ScM
Accredited hr The Southern Association
of CoUokb and Secondary Schools. The
North Carolina State Board of Kin
cation.
Sacred Heart
Junior College
Belmont,
North Carolina
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BELMONT ABBEY COLLEGE
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after justice) but also by its prac
tical teaching. This promotion of
the common good involves reform
ing existing legal norms whenever
they do not take into sufficient
account a just distribution of the
advantages and burdens of life in
society. . . .
“THE FOURTH axiom,” he said,
is that "the Church has never been
afraid to descend from the reli
gious sphere proper to it to the
[sphere of the concrete conditions
of social life. Like the Samaritan
in the gospel parable, the Church
has descended from ... its purely
religous concern with the cult of
worship and become a minister
of charity — not only individual
charity, but social charity. It has
showed its concern in the econom
ic field. It has spoken on the re
lationship between capital and la
bor, it has pronounced on the
labor contract, on wages, as
sistance, family allowances, pri
vate property and savings — on a
hundred practical allowances, pri
vate property and savings — on
a hundred practical questions es
sentially connected with the hon
est and legitimate necessities of
life.
“Its charity armed itself with
progressive demands which it de
scribed as human and Christian
and therefore right It assessed the
aspirations and interests of the
poorer classes and did not hesitate
to search among them with wis
dom and prudence and a far-reach
ing courage to find new rights to
be satisfied. It aspired and still
aspires to obtain legislation con
trary to privilege and selfishness
which will protect the weak, hum
ble and disinherited. Indeed, it
has demanded that the state in
tervene, not in order to take over
rights and functions which belong
in a free society to citizens,
whether individual or associated,
but to protect the freedom and
equality of citizens themselves and
to assume the exercise of those
activities which only the public
authority can pursue if the com
mon good is to be completely
guaranteed.
“The fifth axiom (is that) the
Church has recognized the right
to form tirade unions. It has de
fended and promoted it overcom
ing a certain theoretical and his
torical preference for corporative
forms (guilds) and mixed associa
tions. It took cognizance not only
of the strength of numbers which
the fact of unionizing was bound
to exert upon a society oriented
toward democracy, but also of the
fruitfulness of the new order
which could spring from workers'
unions — an awareness on the
part of the worker of his dignity
and his position in the soda)
framework, a sense of discipline
and solidarity, a spur to profes
sional and cultural advancement
a capacity to participate in the
productive cycle no longer as a
mere executive instrument, but to
some extent at least as a sharer
in responsibility and an interested
participant as well.”
THE POPE’S sixth axiom includ
ed his condemnation of the the
ories of Marxism, perhaps the
strongest statement he has made
on the subject since he became
pope.
The fact that it was made on
the eve of the Italian national
elections scheduled for June 12
was considered highly significant
by Italian newspapers, most of
which gave it considerable front
page coverage. Italian communists
have been devoting considerable
effort to starting a dialogue with
the Catholic Church in reversal of
their former tradition of antag
onism. They have often quoted the
Second Vatican Council in support
of their efforts.
This sixth axiom, the Pope said,
is the “most discussed and most
difficult of all of them. The
Church has not and cannot adhere
to social, ideological and political
movements which, in finding their
origins and strength in Marxism,
have maintained its negative prin
ciples and methods, which result
from the incomplete and therefore
false conception of man, history
and the world which is typical of
radical Marxism.
“The atheism which it professes
and promotes is not in favor of
the scientific concept of the cos
mos and of civilization, but is a
blindness which man and society
will have to pay for in the end
with the gravest consequences.
The materialism which derives
from it exposes man to experi
ences and temptations which are
extremely harmful. It extinguishes
his true spirituality and his trans
cendent hope.”
The encyclical and the celebra
tion honored, the Pope said, “ad
monishes us against placing our
trust in erroneous and dangerous
ideologies and invites us rather to
formulate another consideration
with which we will conclude these
summary observations:
“AND LET this be our seventh
axiom: . . . the indispensihle role
the Church has in the promotion
of social progress and in the so
lution of the well known and re
current social question. This role
is not merely instrumental but
we would say, transfiguring be
cause of the principles, energy,
consolation and hope which re
ligion — we mean the real one,
the one which is fortunately ours,
the Christian one — instills into
the entire world of labor.
“Christ as you know, calls
forth an experience of Himself, of
life, of society, of temporal things,
of time itself, of justice and love,
which has no parallel and for
which there is no definition ex
cept that of the beatitude He pro
claimed to the poor, the sorrow
ful. the persecuted, the righteous
and those who hunger after jus
tice and love.
“Well then, Christian workers,
we entrust you to Christ, to Christ
_ we exhort you — as the light
of your individual consciences, as
the center of the movement of
Christian workers to which you de
sire today to give worldwide di
mensions, an institution of which
we are happy and proud to salute
and to which we give our paternal
and confident encouragement.
And in order that you should not
lack the conviction that Christ
awaits you, that Christ welcomes
you, that Christ unites you, that
Christ strengthens and sanctifies
you, may there descend upon,
from his humble vicar an a dm
benediction.”
The Pope, who spoke in Itj
repeated this last paragrap
several languages to delegates
the next day were to begin
constitutional assembly 0{
World Movement of chrii
Workers in an attempt to (
together into a common org«
tion Christian worker, lay ap<
late and social action move®
from all over the world.
SACRED HEART COLLEGE ART STUDENT WINS HONORS
Miss Sybil Sellers, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Pete Sellers (
Belmont, has been selected to attend the Governor’s School (
Art on the campus of Salem College in Winston-Salem, Nort
Carolina. Sybil was one of 18 chosen out of 200 contestants ft
the honor. She was nominated by her teachers and submitte
a folder of her pictures for the contest. A special student o
Sister Mary Theophane, Sybil has been taking Art for the pat
three years.
SOUTHERN SCHOOL
SERVICE, INC.
Phone 648-6400 P. O. Drawer 867
CANTON, NORTH CAROLINA
m RKIHB MRWMATWM WRITE OK PHONE
PERLEY A. THOMAS CAR WORKS, INC.