The Catholic Hour (07-21-1946)

The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated Independence Station, for operation with the National House of the Catholic Man, presents the Catholic House. Today the Catholic Hour continues the series of talks by outstanding Catholic laymen. Generally entitled, the road ahead, our speaker will be Mr. G. Howland Shaw, former Assistant Secretary of State. The choir of men and boys of St. Aloysius Church, here is the city New Jersey, under the direction of Edward Vincent the Kiel, will provide the music. Here in the choir loft of St. Aloysius Church, we turn towards the richly decorated marble altar, in whose tabernacle reposes the body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ under the form of bread. In honor of this hidden guest, the choir sings Sir Edward Elgar setting of the hymn of a valum corpus, hailed true body of the Savior. The choir of men and boys of St. Aloysius Church, here is the city of St. Aloysius Church, here is the city of St. Aloysius Church. The choir of men and boys of St. Aloysius Church, here is the city of St. Aloysius Church, here in St. Aloysius Church. The castlical are now comes to that portion of the program devoted to a talk by an outstanding Catholic Lehman. In the series, generally entitled, The Road ahead. Our speaker is Mr. G. Howland Shaw, former Assistant Secretary of State, and noted sociologist who has chosen as his subject, the Church, and interracial justice. In his very first encyclical after his election, Pope Pius XII declared, those who enter the Church, whatever be their origin or their speech, must know that they have equal rights as children in the House of the Law, where the Law of Christ and the Peace of Christ prevail. And again in a magnificent passage of that most magnificent of recent encyclicals, the mystical body of Christ, the same Pope has said, men may be separated by nationality and race, but our Savior poured out His blood to reconcile all men to God through the cross, and to bid them all unite in one body. He has taught us not only to have love for those of a different nation and a different race, but to love even our enemies. We chant the length, the width, the height, the depth of the charity of Christ, which neither diversity of race or culture, neither the wasteless tracks of ocean nor war be there cause just or unjust, can ever weaken or destroy. We read or we hear such words, we admire them, we say to ourselves, yes, that is what I believe. And then we forget them. Rather should these words make us hang our heads in shame, so great is the distance between that in which we claim to believe and a state of things radically at variance with those beliefs, for which we cannot escape personal responsibility. It is a convenient alibi to say that individuals guilty of acts contrary to interracial justice and charity have blended or were tactless, that they would not have blended, they would not have been tactless if you and I translated our Christian beliefs into practice. And it is easy to say that these things are very unfortunate, but that there must be a long process of education before they can be changed. That puts our consciences effectively to sleep and relieves us of any compulsion for immediate action. What are we Christians to do? There are three important things we must do as individuals. Let us at least know just what Christianity teaches with respect to race relations. Obviously, that is basic and primary. And then let us get some clear picture of what the interracial problem is in this country at the present time. There are countless excellent books and pamphlets and magazine articles on the subject, and they are readily available. They can easily be supplemented by first-hand observation. But we should go further than study and observation. We should make every effort to get beyond such facts as high infant mortality, poor schooling and worse housing and discrimination of all sorts. In the measure that is such as possible, we must feel with the victim of discrimination as he or she faces the conditions of living. There must be at least some real and emotional identification. There is a final stage in this preparation, this schooling of the individual Christians. The human mind is curiously likely to function in watertight compartments, and there are undoubtedly many Christians who keep their theology in one compartment and such knowledge of the interracial problem as they possess in a quite different and very tightly separated compartment. Christian teaching and the realities of that problem must be consciously confronted and compare and the incompatibility between them vividly understood. That is the conclusion at which we must individually arrive before we can so much as begin to participate in any useful program of action in the interracial field. There are many such programs as the interracial counsel organized on a religious basis. Today there are Catholic interracial counsels in New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington, Brooklyn and Chicago. They bring together, Negro and white Catholics to know each other, to pray and to work together and to study the implications of their faith with respect to race relations. The members of the Washington Council, for instance, pledged themselves, first of all, to act with justice, with equal justice, courtesy and consideration towards white and colored Jew and Christian. Secondly, to condemn any discriminatory practice. Thirdly, to fight any interior bitterness that may have resulted from past and present experiences of racial prejudice. And fourthly, to do all in their power to obtain the acceptance of these principles by others. To implement this pledge, to make it a reality in their lives, the members of the Washington Council have prepared and used a very specific examination of conscience. Young children are naturally tolerant and unaware of racial and national differences. Through adult influence, they are warped into intolerance. They become aware of racial and national differences. They are led into the un-Christian interpretation which many adults placed upon these differences. The role of the school therefore in correcting racial and national tensions is paramount importance and has received wide recognition. A greater stress, however, must be placed on intercultural relations in our school systems. For American and Catholic principles demand a marked emphasis on the effective teaching of interracial justice in the curricula of those schools. An example of what can be done is to be found in the arch-dasis of New York, where at the direction of Cardinal Spelman, a very complete syllabus of intercultural education was prepared well over a year ago by the Office of the Archdiocesan Superintendent of Schools in collaboration with Fordham University. During the past scholastic year, that syllabus has been in use in one-third of the Paris Schools of the Archdasis. The results have been high-laced satisfactory and at the opening of the school year next autumn, the syllabus revised and made more concrete as a result of teaching experience will be in use in all of the parish elementary schools of the Archdasis. In the field of higher education there are also significant moves to record. Fordham University, for instance, at its School of Social Service, has offered during the past year a course in community organization and cultural relations. And St. John's University in Brooklyn has given its students the opportunity to enroll in a course on interracial problems and the principles of the insecticlet. The School of Social Studies founded in Chicago by Bishop Scheele, has likewise made an outstanding contribution along similar lines. Two weeks ago, under the auspices of the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Wells Air Conference and with a strong support and personal interest of the apostolic delegate, a seminar on the Negro problem was held in Washington. For four days, a group of leaders, clerical and lay, Negro and white, discussed with utmost frankness, all aspects of the problem and arrived at a series of recommendations to stimulate as well as to guide Catholic action in this field. The racial tension thrives upon rumors. Dealing with such rumors is of course a negative approach that it has its value and its importance. As an example, maybe sighted the back of the yard's neighborhood council in Chicago. The art council has always taken a particularly serious view of the danger of irresponsible rumors. On one occasion, not so long ago, a rumor to the effect that Negroes were causing disturbances on streetcars was gaining wide local credence. Three priests, after careful investigation as a result of rewriting the streetcars, satisfied themselves that the rumor was unfounded and they so reported from the poor bits of their respective churches on the following Sunday. These are samples of Christian programs in the interracial field, but there is one more aspect to the problem which must not be forgotten. Just for the past few years have shown that the time has passed when the world of cloth could be pushed aside and classified as inferior, colonial or uncivilized. That world is in process of taking its rightful place in contemporary life. The process may be long, but it is already well advanced. From a Christian and a Catholic point of view, it should present no difficulties, religious or intellectual, quite the contrary. Catholics, however, do not always realize how Catholic the Catholic Church really is. There are those who are astonished when they are told that the Church, besides Latin, recognizes Greek, Armenian, Syriac, Slavonic and Coppic as the surgical languages, and that the rights in these languages are protected to the point of decreeing extcommunication for anybody who encourages a person of an Eastern right to pass to the Latin right. They have also perhaps failed to grasp fully the meaning of certain important acts of the present Pope. His consecration, for instance, of twelve visions of different races and nationalities in Saint Peter's Church as one of the first acts of his pontificate. The creation of 32 Cardinals representing 19 different nationalities, including the Chinese and most recently, the change of status of the Catholic Church in China from the missionary category to one of complete equality with the Church in the United States and Europe. When we are considering what we as Christians should do in efforts to solve the interracial problem, let us never forget that we shall not be judged by the prudence we display nor by the skill with which we compromise, but by that part of our conviction, which we translate into action and with which we challenge the world. Mr. G. Holland Shaw has just delivered a talk entitled The Church and Interracial Justice. We shall be glad to send our listeners a free copy of this talk if they will write to the National Council of Catholic Men, Washington 5 DC, or to their favorite NBC station. The men of Saint Aloysius Choir now offer homage to our Lord as they sing Joseph Murphy setting of the hymn, Jezou Dulce's Memoria. Jesus, the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breath, but sweet as far as I face to see and in thy presence rest. The Church and Interracial Justice, the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breath, but sweet as far as I face to see and in thy presence rest. The Church and Interracial Justice, the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breath, but sweet as far as I face to see and in thy presence rest. The Church and Interracial Justice, the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breath, but sweet as far as I face to see and in thy presence rest. We invite you to join us now in offering up this Catholic hour prayer for a just and lasting peace. O God from whose hands come at the peace of men and of nations, grant us in thy mercy to dwell in concord with all people, give prosperity to our own dear land and fill it with love of thee. We pray for our president, for our Congress, for all who have worked and fought and died to preserve our country. Grant we befeat the a heaven of rest to our returning heroes and eternal happiness for those who have laid down their lives that this nation might live. Reunited's all-o dear Lord in heaven, that city of everlasting peace, where after the shadows of this life, we may dwell in the eternal morning of thy blessedness. And now the boys of the choir whose voices reflect the innocence of youth, sing a hymn to Mary whose the queen of innocence and our protector on life's stormy seas, of a modest stellar hailed star of the sea. And now the boys of the choir whose voices reflect the innocence of youth, sing a hymn to Mary whose the queen of innocence and our protector on life's stormy seas, of a modest stellar hailed star of the sea. And now the boys of the choir whose voices reflect the innocence of youth, sing a hymn to Mary whose the queen of innocence and our protector on life's stormy seas, of a modest stellar hailed star of the sea. And now the boys of the choir whose voices reflect the innocence of youth, sing a hymn to Mary whose the queen of innocence and our protector on life's stormy seas, of a modest stellar hailed star of the sea. And now the boys of the choir whose voices reflect the innocence of youth, sing a hymn to Mary whose the queen of innocence and our protector on life's stormy seas, of a modest stellar hailed star of the sea. And now the boys of the choir whose voices reflect the innocence of youth, sing a hymn to Mary whose the queen of innocence and our protector on life's stormy seas, of a modest stellar hailed star of the sea. Today is a Catholic hour presented at talks by Mr. G. Howlin Shaw and music by the choir of men and boys of St. Alawish's Church, Jersey City under the direction of Mr. Edward Vincent McGill. Next week our speaker will be another outstanding layman, Mr. Neil McNeill, assistant managing editor of the New York Times. And the music will again be provided by the choir of St. Alawish's Church, Jersey City. We cordially invite you to be with us then. And now we will be another outstanding layman, Mr. G. Howlin Shaw and music by the choir of St. Alawish's Church, Jersey City. Your announcer is John Patrick Cotsellow, the National Council of Catholic Men, has presented the Catholic hour through the facilities of the National Broadcasting Company and its independent affiliated station. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.