The Catholic times. [volume], June 04, 1954, Image 4

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4—THE CATHOLIC TIMES
Friday, June 4. 1954
THE
CATHOLIC TIMES
Published Every Week by
The Catholic Times. Inc.
Columbus. Ohio
NOTICE: Send All Changes nf Address to
O Box 636 Columbus, Ohio
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to P. O Box 636, Columbus 16, Ohio
This Paper Printed by Union Labor
The H»1\ Spirit, the Third Person of the Blessed
Trinity, is equal in all things to the Father and the
Son from whom He proceeds as from one onlv
source As God. the Holy Spirit has wholly and
entirely the divine nature of the Father and the
Son so that all that is done by the Father and the
Son. He does. As a divine Person, that which char
acterizes Him in the Trinity His personal "quality”
—is to be an eternal relationship to the Father and
the Son since He proceeds from Them.
The Second Person of the Trinity, the Son. be
came man and in His human nature the means by
which God willed to give man a sharing in His life
as Father. Son and Holy Spirit. The Incaration has
thus ‘translated the deepest mystery of the Trinity
into something which is the basis and content and
purpose of the supernatural order. Thus the life
of the Church and the state of sanctifying grace
must be seen in terms of redeemed mankind’s shar
ing in the life of the Trinity by union with the
Incarnate who is our Mediator with God And
this sharing must not be looked at as a vague and
shadowy union with an obscurely phrased concept:
Rather do we share in the life of the Three Divine
Persons as They are one to another.
One Person, in His divine nature, does not do
something for us which the others do not. AU of
them, in their one nature, give us themselves as they
are to one another Thus we are sons, in the Son,
of the Father, and we are possessors of the Holy
Spirit of the Father and the Son. of that Spirit who
is in His Person an eternal relationship to Father
and Son ■•Because you are sons, God has sent the
Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying Ahha
Father.”
Pentecost is not then the feast of the Holy
Spirit considered apart from the Father and the Son,
for there is no feast of the separate Persons in
their divine nature Pentecost is the Feast of the
Holy Spirit considered in His relationship to the
Incarnation continued in the Church, the Mys
tical Body of (hrist, of which the Spirit is the soul,
the unifying and life-giving force. It is the Holy
Spirit who unites us to Christ our Head in His
Church who unites Christ with us His members,
who fills the Church and its members with the
divine-human life of the God-man who makes us
be in Christ and grow up into Christ.
But the Holy Spirit does not do all this by
activity .separate or distinct from the action of the
Father and the Son. Our lxrd has revealed the
Holy Spirit s place in the Trinity as the Spirit of the
Fathe and the Son. Once we understand this and
it is not difficult to understand, even if the Trinity
remains a deep and inexpressible mystery we can
go on to found our devotion to the Holy Spirit
on the basis of His personal character as Spirit of
the Father and the Son as this has been revealed
to us in the Holy Scriptures and Tradition Thus
He is the Spirit of the divine life which reaches
out to us through the mediating Incarnation. Thus
He is the Spirit of the Father whose sons we be
come in Christ. Thus He is the Spirit of Christ
whose members we become in marvelous unity and
identification with Him our Head Thus He is the
Spirit of the Incarnation, uniting us to the redeem
ing mysteries of Christ’s Life, especially the Pas
sion and the Resurrection.’ Bridging obliterat
ing space and time and making us all be “with
Christ from the beginning.” Thus He is the Spirit
of the Church, the life-giving Soul of the Mystical
Body of Christ, making it in its entirety the con
tinued existence of the God .Man.
"1 believe in the Holy Spirit, the Ixird and Giver
of Life es, He is this Uniting us to His divine
Person and carrying us back to and uniting us with
the Father and the Son in the wondrous my story of
our sharing in the life ot the Trinity by giving us
to shaie in the Incarnation continued in the Church.
The Spirit ot God makes of redeemed mankind so
many new humanities, as it were, in which the Son
lives on to continue His redeeming incarnation.
‘‘Conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin
Mary. These words of the (reed spoken of the
physical humanity of (hrist are true also in pro
portion of the mystical humanity of Christ, the
Church, and of all who aic in the (hurch. "Send
forth Thy Spirit, and we shall be created, and Thou
shait renew the face of the earth."
Month Of I hr Sacred Heart
Traditionally, the month o Ju ic is set aside
each year by Holy Mother Church a s a time of spe
cial devot ion to the Sacred He art if Jesus, atho
lies every wneie give special honor and devotion
to the he art of hrist, pierced and broken by our
offenses, iccause it is a symbe 1 Of His love lor u*
in our i ngratitude toward HuTL
This i one devotion whirl hr hurch urges
us all Hi make And rightly so v\ have all had a
part in vbounding that Heart E\•ry sin, mortal
and venia
His Heart apart.
hrust of the lance
Rcpara tion for our own sins and the sins of the
world should be a part of ever.f day s spiritual pro
gram thre ughout the month of June
Who could refuse to help e\ cn a fellow human
being if vre kneu that a word from us would help
heal a tei•nble hurt that hi Cl ven him’’ Could
we refuse to do as much for hns
Private Hospital Problems
With figures recently released by the American
Hospital Association stating that patients in non
profit hospitals received an average of $21.09 worth
of daily hospital care for an average of $19 49, many
people will he asking how it is possible lor this
to be, and why hospital costs are .so groat.
The answer is really simple. The average non
profit hospital has n its payroll a! least one and
one half employees lot every patient in the ho
pital. This large number of salaried workers is re
quired by the fact that there must be workers to
staff the hospital 24 hours a day and that there are
such a variety of services offered by a hospital,
inciud,: n jrse who cares foi the patient
the fireman who maintains the heat the janitor who
cleans the halls, the laboratory technician who stud
ies specimens the people in operating room labor
atory, X-ray department, emergency room, etc
With about 70G nf the expense of operating a
hospital taken up with these people it is easy
to see why the average cost of caring for a patient
for one day in non-profit hospitals throughout the
United States in 1953 was $21.09.
On the other hand, many people do not pay
the full cost of their care. The poor often receive
care free. The dishonest sometimes victimize the
hospitals. The migrant sometimes is gone before be
can settle his bill in full.
True, in about half the states something like
two-thirds of the people are covered by voluntary
hospital insurance plans. Many local governmental
units give grants for the care of the sick. But even
with these helps, the sisters who run our Catholic
hospitals frequently find it difficult to make the
financial ends meet. It would be well for the general
public to try to understand the problems of the
sisters better. Help is still needed in many ways by
the sisters who staff the hospitals.
Just Among Ourselves
Passing Comment Considered or inconsiderate
Time, the weekly newsmagazine, in the current
issue (May 31. 1954), says that scientists are not so
sure as once they were that they are “leading man
kind out of religious darkness.’ Further, the report
continues, “churchmen are speaking out quite bold
ly again about such old-fashioned concepts as Orig
inal Sin and the Last Judgment.”
It ought to be said,—-if indeed the point is not
too obvious,—that capable and honest scientists
have never attempted to substitute their findings
for religious truth, and many of such scientists have
been and are sincerely religious men. Religion
has been "darkness” only for the quack, the half
baked, the prideiuliy incompetent people who have
not a clear title to the name "scientist” at ail. And
the so-called quarrel between religion and science
has never been a quarrel on the part of true re
ligion. and certainly not on the part of genuine
science.
The Catholic Church is the mother and protec
tor of true science. This is the plain fact, despite
the cry of the unworthy scientist who wants to
make each unproved and momentarily exciting the
ory a universally accepted truth. The quarrel called
a war between science and religion is either a war
of science with false religion, or a war of quack
science with true religion.
Since the Piltdown business, the little bickering
boys who call themselves champions of scientific
progress have been rather silent. But now, as Time
reports, “a prominent scientist” has done his best
to strike out anew at religion. This lad is Marcus
laiurence Oliphant, who spoke recently before the
Royal Society of New Zealand in scientific con
gress assembled. Mr. Oliphant was stirred to his
valiant effort by statements of both Pope Pius Xll
and British l^borite Clement Attlee that the misuse
ot science is doing harm in the world and threatens
to do more.
Now, any scientist worthy of the name would be
the first to concede that the misuse of science is
a harm!ul thing, and to concede further that sci
ence today is notably misused. That modern science
tends to intrigue mankind with theories and gadget
ries which give him an outlook on life and its pur
pose which is materialistic and mechanistic, is hard,
ly to be denied by anyone, scientist or laic. There
fore the statement of the Pope, and of Mr. Attlee,
is a moderate and accurate statement. Yet Mr. Oli
phant resents it. he petulantly snaps back at "the
churches, whatever he means by that phrase.
Of course, the present sad state of the world is
a trying thing for the scientists who have been
promising for over a century, a glorious Progress,
a true Onward and Upward evolution of all things, a
Great Rosy Dawn. Science has progressed amazingly,
and the general state of mankind has deteriorated
almost unbelievably. Mr. Oliphant blames the whole
thing on “the ichurches.” vrhich, he says, have not
done their job. What that job was expected to be.
in thi» face of his jeering scientism, is not quite
clear. Since Mi•. Oliphant and his kind have been
doing their seifmtistic best to destroy the influence
of “the churches,” it is ungracious, and certainly
unscientific, of these gentlemen to complain that
"the churches” have not done a good joh.
Professor Oliphant says “We are told that
Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of
Eden because they disobeyed the law and ate of
the fruit of the tree Of knowledge. It seems strange
to me that the exercise of the greatest faculty with
which man has been endowed should ever have been
regarded as a sin ... By a deliberate act, probably
the greatest step he ever took, (mam chose to seek
knowledge, thereby setting himself apart from all
living things and ensuring his ultimate dominion
over the earth What is called the Fall of Man should
be known as the Ascent of Man.’
If proof were needed that Professor Oliphant
is a pseudo-scientist, nothing more would be requir
ed than the words here quoted from his New Zea
land speech For the real scientist takes all tacts
into account, and does not pick and choose, select
ing what serves his theory, and rejecting what dis
pleases him. But Professor Oliphant is a rare
picker. First, he admits, at least provisionally, the
scriptural account of Eden, in which he, as a non
religious scientist can have no belief. Then he dis
torts the facts, and says man was expelled from
Paradise for eating of the tree of knowledge. The
tree was not the tree of knowledge Adam and Eve
had splendid knowledge and awareness of respon
ability before they ate the fruit. The tree in ques
tion was the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
The first human disobedience brought knowledge
of sin. ot shame, ot guilt, of weakness, which cloud
ed the shining knowledge of innocence. The dis
obedience of Adam was not an advance in knowl
edge it was a darkening and a weakening of his
finest faculties.
et Professor Oliphant, having falsified the
name of the tree, proceeds to say that man’s dis
obedience was probably a sad adverb for science)
the greatest step man ever took. The Professor
does not realize, what Scripture makes manifest,
that it was a step into darkness, it was a rebellion
it was a shameful ingratitude it wax a darkening
and not an enlightening of the human mind. This,
thinks Professor Oliphant, is the "Ascent of Man.”
A wonderfullv scientific conclusion.
"It seems to me.” says the champion of science,
forgetting that science like Hamlet “knows not
seems." Science does not speak until it knows. The
opinion of Professor Oliphant, based on a misread
ing of a Scripture in which he and his kind have
no belief, is of no consequence whatever. Besides,
the Professor falls to notice that God gave men
dominion over all earthly creatures he seems to
think that man acquired this dominion by disobey
ing God and making sin the first great Onward and
Upward act the evolution of mankind.
Ttme is to be chided for referring to funda
mental Christian truths as “such old-fashioned con
cepts as Original Sin and the Judgment.” These
truths are not old fashioned, at least to Catholics.
They are no more old-fashioned than birth is old
fashioned. than death is old-fashioned. Fake science
w hich lives on baseless novelty must be shocked
and chagrined at the stubborness of these elemental
facts, and angered by the persistence with which
birth and death refuse to be evolved.
WASHINGTON TETTER
WASHINGTON The atten
tion now being given here to the
communist infiltration of Guate
mala focuses attention upon an
other important “beat” scored by
the Catholic Press.
The Red danger in Guatemala
has never before received the
widespread notice it is getting at
present. Virtually every day
there is some mention of it on
the floors of Congress commen
tators refer to it on radio and
TV, and news stories and col
umns in newspapers seek to
bring the reading public up to
date.
It has become such an im
portant issue that people who
are speaking out on the matter
sometimes take pains to say that
they sounded a warning some
time ago. It is to be doubted
that any one, or any agency, in
this country pointed out the dan
ger before the Catholic Press of
the United States.
Some members of Congress
have recently said that they
sounded an alarm a couple of
years ago, but it was as early as
1948 that the Catholic Press told
the people of the world that a
LOL IS F. Bl DENZ
In the midst of the fog with
which the Communists and their
friends have enveloped the Amer
ican scene, the
rays of hope
ful light. Not
the least of
these is the
resolution of
fered in the
United States
Senate by Sen
ators William
Jenner and Pat
McCarran de
manding that
the United
re appear some
States break off
diplomatic relations with Soviet
Russia and all of its satellite re
gimes. Such would be the be
ginning ot a positive American
policy, would cut through the
fog which at the present tune is
causing this country to stumble
from defeat to defeat.
Another bright ray is the sulky
dissatisfaction of the Soviet fifth
column in this country with the
way that the hearings on the
Senate Sub-Committee on Per
manent Investigation are going
in Washington. This dissatisfac
tion is sharply registered in the
pages of the Daily Worker in
the fact that for a number of is
sues in mid-May, it let up on
stressing these hearings, although
originally they fulfilled the Com
munist demand for an all out
fight against “McCarthyism,”
Ferreting Out Spies
On May 10 an element of the
fantastic is introduced into the
editorial columns of the Red or
gan. In its anger at the evidence
unearthed that attempts were
made to halt the Congressional
investigations of subversion and
alleged corrupion, the Red or
gan blurts out what all patriotic
Americans should know. It as
serts that “spies” for ‘McCarthy
ite fascism” are infiltrating th*
Smash Hit?
Catholic Press Scored 'Beat'
storm was coming. At that time,
the N.C.W.C. News Service re
ported, a pastoral letter by Arch
bishop Mariano Rosell y Arellano
of Guatemala, urging a social
justice crusade in that country to
halt the trend to communism.
The Archbishop said the coun
try was experiencing a wave of
vice, and that communism was
stimulating this outburst, by ot
fenng free love and other in
ducements, to further its own
ends. The prelate said the Reds
were offering the satiation of
brutal instincts as bait to win
support.
That was late in 1948. In the
summer of 1949. the Catholic
Press reported that the murder
of Col. Francisco Javier Arana
was a severe blow to the Church
and to anti-communism. Colonel
Arana was described as a de
vout Catholic and a staunch anti
communist. and would have been
a strong candidate for the presi
dency in 1950. It was believed
that, if elected, he would have
(reed the Church from many of
the shackles forged for her by
her enemies in Guatemala. Colo
nel Vana’s death marked the
Shades Of Espionage!
government for the purpose of
discovering laxity the moves
against subversion.
"It is not Marxism and com
munism that ‘steals documents’,”
declares the Daily Worker ang
rily, “and threatens our consti
tution and form of government,
but the ‘anti-Communist* crusade
of the fascist McCarthyites!”
It has the audacity to demand
that President Eisenhower de
vote the security forces to fer
reting out these anti-Communist
Though Smugglers
After giving page after page
from official records of the wide
extent of Red espionage within
the various government agencies,
Burnham declares “In further
ing public knowledge as well as
in expressing the public demand
for counter-action, the Congres
sional investigations play a con
spicuous and indispensable role.”
It is precisely this ‘'indispen
sable role" of the Congressional
inquiries which the Communists
have long sought to stop, and
which for the moment they have
succeeded tn doing.
In addition to espionage, upon
which Burnham concentrates,
there is also the poison of infil
tration for the purposes of in
fluencing public figures and non
Communist forces, as set forth
from documents my own re
cent book “The Techniques of
Communism The Communists
can make such arrogant and fan
tastic assertions appear in the
Daily Worker of May 10 because
they count upon the concealed
Communists and their friends to
smuggle this thought into even
responsible daily newspapers.
Grave Disservice
On May 13 the Philadelphia
Bulletin one of the outstand
ing newspapers in the Quaker
City—contained a long editorial
complaining about the scores of
turning point in the Guatemala
crisis. From there on, the Reds
grew power.
Then came stories about Reds
interfering with the celebration
of Mass in some rural areas of
Guatemala. And in 1951, the
N.C.W.C. News Service reported
that indignation stirred by the
unwarranted dismissal of three
nuns from the National Orphan
age of Guatemala City forced
the President of Guatemala to
curb temporarily the Reds in
government.
Since then conditions have
worsened. The Catholic Press has
reported developments as they
came along. Now the whole world
is alerted to the danger in our
hemisphere.
It is of the pattern of com
munist aggression to attack re
ligion and the Catholic Church
early in its infiltration of any
country. In detecting and expos
ing the attacks upon the Church
Guatemala, the Catholic Press
gave early warning of a situation
which was to assume senous pro
portions for the whole world
six years later.
letter* it had received from its
readers, protesting against what
they considered the mangled
newspaper reports on the Wash
ington hearings as compared to
the televised proceedings. In
that connection, the paper editor
ially declared that the investiga
tions of the McCarthy committee
were more damaging to the con
duct of the S^atf Department,
the Army, and other government
agencies than the Communists
in those departments could be.
This is so misleading a state
ment, which incidentally de
fends Alger Hiss by implication,
that it is a grave disservice to
the security of the nation.
Whether or not the Bulletin is
aware of the fact, that editorial
is right in line with the fantastic
utterance of the Daily Worker of
May 10.
Refute the “Reserves"
In this connection, we must note
the prominence given the name
of the columnist Joseph Alsop
tn the Washington hearings. It
now appears that he was shown
all the confidential files of the
counsel for the Army and was
allowed to examine the whole
memorandum against the work of
the Senate Sub-Committee one
month before any member of the
Senate saw it. The record of Mr.
Alsop ax an anti-anti-Commun
ist, for which he has been highly
praised by the Daily Worker,
could be given at great length. 1
will content myself with recom
mending ihe reading of the ar
ticle entitled "AIsop’s Fables."
which appeared in the Catholic
World for January 1954.
We must always remember
that the “reserves"—those who
defend the conspiracy by attack
ing its opponents are the
source of many of our difficul
ties. Tbetr attacks must be re
futed.
Inquiry Corner
Q. Who is the patron saint of
men tn the service?
A. In 1942 Pope Pius XJJ named
The Immaculate Conception as
patroness of soldiers of the Unit
ed States. Pope Pius XI named St.
Joseph as patron of those who
combat atheistic Communism,
so that would seem to make him
a special patron of service men
in our day. There are many spe
cial patrons of the branches of
the service. Our Lady of loreto
was named patroness of aviators
in 1920 by the Congregation of
Rites, and St. Barbara is patron
ess Of artillerymen.
Q. Is not the Sixth Command
ment repressive? Is not the
Christian life more positive than
the Catholic Church makes it
with its taboos on sex?
A. Order and intelligent self
control can scarcely be called re
pressive. Repression in a bed
sense refers to a buried or frus
trated experience, but the Ten
Commandments were given by
God. to make us happy. When
we control our physical drives, as
in the sacrifice of a starving
mother who gives the last food to
her child, we are not repressing
but ennobling our instincts. The
Catholic Church has no taboos at
all and certainly has none on sex.
but it insists that it be ordered
toward its human purpose not
for sub-animal pleasure. Sex has
it* meaning primarily in mar
riage and any use of it exclu
sively for the pleasure of the in
dividual. separating it from its
God-given purpose is irrational
and immoral. The Catholic
Church honors and celebrates the
Sacrament of Matrimony among
seven great means of grace and
centers its life in the Blessed
Sacrament and the Mass. Isn't
that positive?
Q. Who was Gallitzin?
A. Demetrius Gallitzin (1770
1840) was a Russian prince, who
became a Catholic at the age of
seventeen and came to the Unit
ed States when he was twenty
two. He was ordained a priest in
1795 and established a Catholic
colony in western Pennsylvania.
Into this apostolate he poured his
personal fortune and lived in
poverty, working heroically for
souls there for forty-one years.
Q. When would it be a sin to
attend a place of entertainment
where the show is indecent? I
mean a place like a night-club.
A. If we know the place is
showing an indecent act or ser
ies of acts it would be sinful tn
MON SIG OR HIGGINS
Father Healey------------------
Political Regulation
Norman Dodd. Director of Re
search of the Special Commit
tee of the House or Representa
tives to Investigate Tax Exempt
o u ndations,
recently made
a prelinun ary
e port cover
ing his direc
i o n of the
Committee
Staff for the
six months' pe
rio Novem
ber 1. 1953—
April 30, 1954.
The subject in
volved is one
that ought to
be debated freely and fully in
the forum of public opinion be
fore the Congress takes any ac
tion on it.
Under the terms of House Res
olution No. 217, the Committee is
charged with the responsibility
of answering the following ques
tions, some of which, in our
opinion, no agency of govern
ment has a right to ask of volun
tary. non-governmental organiza
tions:
Have Foundations used
their resources for purposes con
trary’ to those for which they
were established? for pur
poses which can be classed as
un-American? subversive?
for political purposes? Have
Foundations resorted to
propaganda in order to achieve
the objectives for which they
have made grants?
To enable the Committee to
answer these questions "on the
basis of impersonal facts,” Mr.
Dodd directed his staff to make
a study of developments and
trends in the field of American
education during the past 50
years and subsequently to in
vestigate “the accessory agen
cies to which these develop
ments and trends had been trac
ed.”
'Official' Definition of
'Americanism'
On the basis of this prelimi
nary investigation. Mr. Dodd has
come to the “tentative conclu
sion that within the social sci
ence division of education, the
foundations have neglected ‘the
public interest’ to a severe de
gree." According to Dodd, grants
by foundations have been used
for "directing education in the
United States toward an inter
national viewpoint (sic) and dis
crediting the traditions to which
it had been dedicated.” They
have also been used, according
to Dodd, for changing school cur
ricula "to the point where they
sometimes denied the principles
underlying the American way of
life.”
“It seems incredible.” says Mr.
Dodd in concluding his prelimi
nary report, "that the trustees of
typically American fortune-cre
ated foundations should have
attend at all. If it usually pre
sents such shows it would seem
difficult to justify attending even
if we think the particular show
is inoffensive, because of scan
dal. Where the place is defin
itely immoral and an occasion
of sin there can be no doubt,
but if the general atmosphere is
decent and attendance be for a
good and proportionate reason (e.
g. business reasons) there would
be no sin. Whenever any person,
place or thing becomes a prox
imate occasion of sin for us, how
ever. it becomes sinful to have
anything to do with it. A good
Catholic will seek his entertain
ment in more wholesome sur
roundings.
Q. If it came down to a decision
would Catholics have to obey the
Pope or the American govern
ment first?
A. “Render to Caesar th*
things that are Caesar’s, and to
God the things that are God’s”
(Matthew 22:21). There have been
conflicts throughout history be
tween the governments estab
lished by man and by the indi
vidual rights, dignity and duties
of the human person. When gov
ernment interferes with the “in
alienable rights” of a man we
recognize that the government is
wrong—we fought a Revolution
with that conviction. St. Thomas
More was posed the same ques
tion when Rich (one of Henry
Vni’s men) questioned him in
prison. Rich asked if he would
accept him (Rich) as king if par
liament so decreed. “Yes, sir.”
replied Sir Thomas. Then Rich
asked, “If Parliament should
elect me Pope would you accept
me?” More aswered with another
question, “Suppose the Parlia
ment would make a law that God
should not be God would you
then. Master Rich, say that God
were not God?”
Q. Who is the patron saint of
teachers?
A. There are several. Th*
principal patron is St. John Bap
tist de la Salle, whose feast day
is May 15th. St. Gregory th*
Great (March 12th) and St. Cath
erine of Alexandria are also list
ed. St. Thomas Aquinas (March
7th) is patron of schools and
there are various patrons of spe
cial branches of studies such as
St. Alphonsus Liguori (August
2nd) for theologians.
Send questions to Father Ed
w’ard F. Healy, The Inquiry Cor
ner. The Catholic Times, Box 636,
Columbus 16. Ohio.
permitted them to be used to
finance ideas and practices in
compatible with the fundamen
tal concepts of our Constitution.
Yet there seems evidence that
this may have occurred.”
To borrow the language of Mr.
Dodd, it seems incredible to us
that he or anybody else should
be authorized by an agency of
government to pass judgment on
the "Americanism” of voluntary,
non-governmental organizations.
It goes without saying, of course,
that the Congress has a right to
investigate tax exempt founda
tions to make sure that they ar*
not being used for political pur
poses in the partisan sense of
the word, and that they are not
engaging treasonous or sub
versive activities. On the other
hand, the government does not
have the right to exercise a form
of thought control over non
governmental organizations by
forcing them to operate within
the limits of an “official” defini
tion of “Americanism” or “th*
American way of life” or “th*
public interest." This, it seems
to us, would be the beginning of
the end of political democracy.
Evidence Highly Debetable
Mr. Dodd’s definition of
“Americanism” and “the Amer
ican way of life” is ultracon
servative. He implies, for ex
ample, that the so-called New
Deal was a "revolutionary”
movement in the bad (i.e., un
American) sense of the word.
Our disagreement with him on
this particular issue is, however,
completely beside the point. Our
criticism of his report has noth
ing to do with the validity of his
definitions or the accuracy of
his tentative accusations against
specific tax exempt foundations.
His evidence in support of
these accusations is, however,
highly debatable many cases.
But even if we could agree with
every syllable his undocument
ed report, we would still object,
on the basis of sound political
philosophy, to his or anybody
else’s definition of “American
ism” or "the American way of
life” being adopted by the Con
gress, or any other branch of
government, as an official norm
by which to judge the political
orthodoxy of non-governmental
organizations. This would consti
tute a dangerous threat to the
cause of freedom, including th*
freedom of religion.
If only for the reason that
the Catholic Church is the most
important single non-govern
mental organization in the Unit
ed States. American Catholics—
including those who may happen
to agree with the contents of
Mr. Dodd’s report—ought to be
the first to object to its under
lying assumption that govern
men! has a right to formulate an
official definition of political
orthodoxy.