Texas Gulf Coast Register (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 3, No. 42, Ed. 1 Friday, February 7, 1969 Page: 7 of 8
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Through the Glass But Darkly ...
Aggressive Postures:
Discipline
When it comes to the public display of
virtue, writers in general and newspaper
columnists in particular have never been
able to take much pride in their humility.
For how could any reasonably humble
person convince himself (and attempt to
convince his readers) that he is in posses-
sion of sufficient knowledge, wit and wis-
dom to warrant their attending to his
words week after week?
Yet it Beems this abundance of ego,
however ill-founded, is one of the requis-
• ► ites for undertaking to fill a column each
week (even with buch humble observations
as you read here).
And, ead to say, this distorted self-
image is an affliction common to many
writers, large and small. One symptom is
the progressive wasting away of all inhi-
bitions against making impolite criticisms
and from-the-hip predictions.
It was the prediction business that
caught our attention in recent weeks as a
number of publications have undertaken
not only to "tell it as it is,” as they say,
but to tell it as it will be.
AMONG THESE predictors were the
■. editors of America magazine, who devoted
an i3sue last month to forecasting the
* future state of things, including the Cath-
olic Church; the staff of the Institute on
Man and Science (Rensselaerville, N.Y.),
who have published a pamphlet titled
Man Is Destroying Himself: Can This Be
Prevented? and writer David Poling,
whose recently published book is called
Z The Last Years of the Church.
Z Of these, the grimmest glimpse into
^ the future comes in the pamphlet Man Is
■y Destroying Himself published by the Insti-
tute on Man and Science. In the fore-
word, the editors list the chief problems
which threaten to exti^gjlish human life
' on our planet Among them are "environ-
Z. mental hazards,” such as air and water
I pollution, pesticides and nuclear radiation
*i — and the uncontrolled growth of popula-
tion.
Of the "people problem,” they say:
"The population of the world is increasing
at the rate of two per cent per year,
whereas food production is increasing at
the rate of only one per cent per year,
the result of which is that 35 million
babies are born each year for whom there
is insufficient food. This is in addition to
the vast number in the world who have
insufficient food at the present time. The
consequence is mass famine in many
countries if this continues.”
Mankind’s only hope, according to the
Institute thinkers, "is in reducing the rate of
population growth and increasing the rate of
food production until the percentage of in-
creased population and increased food prod-
uction are equal.”
BY COMPARISON, America maga-
zine’s view of the future (in the Jan. 11
issue) is a bit rosier, but only by a faint
shade.
When mankind turns the corner into
the 21st century, according to the Ameri-
ca writers, there will be about 318 million
inhabitants living in the United States of
America. It will be a leisure-oriented so-
ciety in which most Americans can antic-
ipate three-day week ends and 13 week
vacations every year. The problems of
racism and urban decay will not only
persist, but likely grow worse.
How will these changes in our society
shape the Church of the future? Here is
the way Jesuit Father William Byron
answers that question in an America arti-
cle titled "The American Church in the
Year 2000”:
• CHURCH TEACHINGS - "The
magisterium of the Church will probably
take a less authoritarian, didactic stance
and move toward a seminar style where
authority is not at all diminished but col-
legiality is acknowledged and consensus
consciously sought. This will affect
Church life at all levels. But for most
Catholics, the effects of this development
will be most clearly visible in parish
councils and an open pulpit... The doc-
trine taught will deal more directly with
broader social concerns.”
• EDUCATION — "Adult religious
education will be of much more impor-
tance than in the past. .. . . The Catholic
schools that survive will do so because of
proven financial viability and academic
excellence. They will have something dis-
tinctive to offer for which there will be a
solid demand. Their economic viability
will not be the result of subsidization by
non-salaried teachers.”
• PARISH STRUCTURE - "I think
the day of the territorial parish is
dead. . . . Parish churches will still be
used by congregations . . . found or built
by the active, outgoing pastor who will
have long since learned that he cannot,
wait for people to come to him. . . . Pas-
toral counseling centers located in subur-
ban shopping plazas or downtown office
buildings will be as common as medical
arts centers are today. . . . The domi-
nant parochial school of the future may
well be sponsored by the ecumenical par-
ish offering private, religiously oriented
education.”
THE FUTURE of the institutional
Church doesn’t fare much better in David
Poling’s dolefully titled book, The Last
Years of the Church. Actually, though,
the book, which is subtitled "A Compas-
sionate Critique,” is not all that apoca-
lyptic; it is really rather hopeful.
Poling, who is a former editor of The
Christian Herald and who now writes a
newspaper column that is syndicated in
600 papers, has this to say about the
Church trends in "the new era:”
"Construction of church buildings, sem-
inaries, schools should cease,” according
to Poling, because cities already are
"loaded with empty and half-empty
churches.”
Alluding to the current controversies
over authority and organizational struc-
ture in the churches, Poling says that in
years to come "the layman will emerge
as the man of this century. . . . Organ-
ized religion will depend more and more
on the brainpower of the layman. The
advance thinking and planning that must
come forward will not wait on the mus-
ings of conservative clergymen. . . .
Ideas, initiative, and adventure of the
early church came from young people.
Jesus was a young man. . . . Laymen
need to be an uncontrolled force if the
Christian fellowship is going to make it
into the 2lst century.”
But "the real story of the Christian
impact,” according to Poling, "will be told
in the whirl and wonder of business.”
"The real church,” he says, "comes for
the man of faith when he decides to
make this Christian commitment effective
in the combat of his work. Here the
Christian can be invisible and silent, or
articulate and, at times, combative. The
focus is no longer his faithfulness to
Sunday ushering, his usual allotment of
canvass calls, or his helping out with the
family-night supper. Rather, it will be
found in all the pain and progress of
human relationships right on the job or
wherever that job takes him.”
TO CLOSE THIS brief survey of the
soothsaying scene, and to end on a cheer-
ful note, let us quote a few fortuitous
forecasts from one Alexander Tanous, a
professor of theology at St. Anselm’s Col-
lege in Manchester, N.H. Dr. Tanous’
credentials as a clairvoyant are that he
claims to possess "creative perceptive
energy” — a quality akin to extra-senso-
ry perception. His story was told in the
Church World, Catholic weekly of the
Portland, Maine, diocese.
Creative perceptive energy, Dr. Tanous
explains, is not something supernatural,
as many people believe. Rather, he says,
the phenomenon "has to do with the en-
ergy in the universe” which, he contends,
all people are able to pick up.
"All past and present knowledge as
well as that knowledge which we think of
as in the future” is present in the uni-
verse, Dr. Tanous explains. The knowl-
edge is "impressed on our brain cells and
interpreted by our minds.”
In other words, everything that has
happened, is happening or will happen
already exists in the universe. Creative
perceptive energy is merely the successful
utilization of a person’s ability to "tune
in” on this knowledge.
Well, you get the idea. Anyway, since
many people tend to disbelieve that he
can indeed predict an occurrence before it
happens, Dr. Tanous records his predic-
tions before witnesses. His "batting aver-
age” thus far is about 85 per cent.
Here are a few of his sunny forecasts
(delivered on Nov, 2, 1968):
• Peace will be achieved in Vietnam
"within 90 to 120 days after the elec-
tion.” (According to our calculations, the
clock will run out on this prediction on
March 5. So keep your fingers crossed, or
better yet, say a few more prayers for peace.)
• Some event will trigger a new con-
sciousness among the American people so
that they will demand "much more be
done” about the racial situation. This will
occur within the next 18 months.
• The moon may prove to be the
common ground for a longed-for coopera-
tion between the Soviet Union and the
United States. Moon maneuvers will
bring "a very close exchange of informa-
tion” between the two nations.
By Rev. Joseph A. Hughes
One of the finest and Ivliest men I
know is a fellow with one foot of clay.
Apparently he has no sense of responsi-
bility toward money. He is in turns gen-
erous to those in trouble and profligate in
supplying his own needs.
Some observers may feel inclined to
commend this man for his "detachment”
and his indifference to a materiality that
is called "the root of all evil.” Actually
his changing moods dramatize a poverty
of studied discipline.
Discipline is a continuing source of
concern for spiritual directors in our age.
This is so because in the Gospels and
Pauline epistles mortification is projected
as a basic substance of Christian spiritu-
ality.
DISCIPLINE is an added concern at
present because the dedication of modem
Christians — even Christian theologians
— to the evangelical idealism of the cross
as an instrument of witness and personal
fulfillment has been steadily and sadly
waning.
There is a trend toward substituting
"love” for mortification in the current
schedules of Christian aspiration. In theo-
ry this trend could possibly be justified.
In practice, it is a far cry from able spir-
itual statesmanship because the product
often comes out as undisciplined love.
And undisciplined "love” frequently
covers a vast complex of softness, confu-
sion and emotional dissipation.
No scholar, writer, artist, athlete,
scientist has ever reached the apex of
his professional career without an un-
ceasing imposition upon himself of drudg-
ery, ideals, schedules, restraint, pain and
discomfort. By a deeper logic no human
has ever fulfilled the rigid demands of
sainthood without submitting to the evan-
gelical regimen of the sermon on the
mount.
The sermon on the mount is eminently
a call to creative discipline: Happy those
who mourn; happy those who hunger and
thirst for what is right; happy the merci-
ful; happy the pure in heart; happy the
peacemakers; happy those who are perse-
cuted in the cause of right; theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
IT IS IMPORTANT to key on the
positive, creative, relevant characteristics
of self-discipline. Then we can find an
adequate answer to the disenchantment
and peevishness with mortification that is
shown by many modem spiritual writers
and spiritual directors. They shift the
view of their clients to "love,” on occa-
sion, because they cannot understand or
stomach the negative, excessive and even
brutal components of the asceticism pro-
posed and practiced by many saints in
older ages of the Church.
Modem man may not be amenable to
a regime of hairshirts, fasts, silence, flag-
ellations and other exercises designed
for purification of earthly creatures. What-
ever the reason or the relevance of such
practices in medieval times, the logic of
Christian discipline in our time is differ-
ent both in substance and in motivation.
The need for discipline in our time is
different both in substance and in mo-
tivation.
The need for dicipline is always there.
Its moods and methods change with the
changing tides of men and manners.
The qualities of self-denial in a pro-
gram of spiritual enrichment for persons
of our generation must lean toward rea-
sonableness, relevance, balance. It may
even need to be sophisticated, for those
who are immersed in the life of an age
that is opinionated, refined, and, maybe,
touched with the instability of effeminate
fears.
ONE THING MUST be made clear in
the current aftermath of a secular age
dominated, in philosophy, by men like
Nietzsche, Freud, Schopenhauer and oth-
ers. That is that authentic Christian
asceticism does not seek to destroy hu-
man powers but to build them up.
Naturalists of the last century, misun-
derstanding supernatural ideals and the
Christian ethic, preached a gospel that
was opposed to pain and mortification.
Some thought that Christianity aimed at
the destruction of human passions.
Christian spirituality, however, is more
positive than that. Its plan is to purify,
correct and strengthen through sublimat-
ed denial. It seeks to reduce the excesses
and imbalances of conduct ia order to
help make the human person a ready
servant of virtues, an accomplished work-
er in the mission of redemption, an unen-
cumbered pilgrim on the way to final
peace.
Meaningful discipline would have to
have as an outstanding qualification a
high degree of relevance — relevance both
to the times aud to the individual needs
of the person most directly concerned.
DISCIPLINE that is legalistic, super-
ficial, or ill-considered in any way may
damage a Christian’s outlook and charac-
ter and prospects for spiritual growth.
That is why there is a call now for more
sophisticated spiritual direction on the
part of teachers, preachers, confessors and
others.
In addition to that, there is a call for
an enlightened, persistent, tailored plan
of disciplinary action and sacrifice and
love on the part of the little men and
women of the Church. Now, there is op-
portunity as well as a duty for sincere
Catholics with correct motivation to bal-
ance their knowledge of the new theology
with new patterns of discipline and cour-
age.
Slate Language
Trip to Japan
New Jersey
Seton Hall University is directing the
second Overseas Language Institute in
Japan this summer, under a special grant
from the U.S. Office of Education.
The twenty elementary and secondary
teachers of Japanese will go to Sophia
University in Tokyo for seven weeks
(July 1 to Aug. 18).
Language, culture, social and educa-
tional systems will be std&ied. Teachers
will have the opportunity actually to feel
social currents at work in both urban and
rural Japan through field study trips to
various parts of Japan.
Teachers interested should contact Di-
rector Tadasbi Kikuoka, Institute of Far
Eastern Studies, Seton Hall University,
South Orange, N.J. 07079.
ST. SCHOLASTIC* ACADEMY
Canon City, Colorado 81212
RESIDENT SECONDARY SCHOOL for GIRLS
conducted by Benedictine Sisters
BROAD CURRICULUM
Colorado Climate
MODERN RESIDENCE BALL
Now accepting applications for 1969-1970
Write for details or call 275-7461
For the small fry:
CAMP SAN BENITO now enrolling for JULY 1969
AN INCOME YOU CANT OUTLIVE
Writ* to mo
today at The
Society for the
Propagation
of the Faith for
full informa-
tion
Annuities art invnstmnnts for pooplo who
want a guaranteed fixed income for lifo. Wo
give you that — plus tho assurance that,
after death, the principal of your invostmont
will continue to further Christ's work in mis-
sion lands.
You Will Eijoy Substantial Tax Reductions
O A charitable-contribution deduction on your income tux
roturn
• A saving* on capital goint if locuritios are vied in ex-
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O A saving* on estate and inheritance taxes.
t Write,, including the date of your birth
I
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Name
Address.
I c*ty —
Zip
Cede .
State
RIGHT REVEREND EDWARD
366 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK,
:ara
☆ ☆ ☆
WHY
BUILD
CHURCHES
THf HOLY PATH IN'S MISSION AIO TO TMS O (KINTAL CHURCH
YOU
CAN
DO
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NOW
BY
: #
:
The answer is easy: they welcome the oppor-
tunity to do something needed where it's
needed. Sometimes, besides, they build the
church in memory of their loved ones, name it
for their favorite saint . . . Where is a new
Church needed? In hundreds of towns and vil-
lages in our 18-country mission world. In Puram,
India, for instance.... Archbishop Joseph Pare-
Cattil writes that the growing Catholic popula-
tion of this small industrial area in the Arch-
diocese of Ernakuiam does not earn enough to
build a permanent chapel. "They have expressed
their desire for a place to worship by pur-
chasing a site for a chapel from what little in-
come they receive," states the Archbishop.. . .
You can build this church all by yourself for as
little as $3,800. You'll be doing something
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people who cannot do for themselvesl ... Do
something at least, as much as you can ($100,
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help build this churchl Where the weekly income
is only $1, even the change in your pocket will
be a Godsend) . . . Have you been looking for
something meaningful to do this Lent (Ash
Wednesday is February 19.) Help the people of
Puram build a simple but lasting church.
Tell your lawyer, when you discuss your Will,
our legal title is Catholic Near East Welfare
Association:
Stringless bequests are used where the Holy
Father says they're needed.
The Masses you arrange for will be offered
by poor missionaries.
$600 will train a native priest, $300 a native
-Sister, who will pray for you always.
$10,000 will build a parish "plant’’ (church,
school, rectory, and convent) somewhere over-
seas ... a memorial foreverl
$10 will feed a family of Palestine refugees for
POOD .one month. In thanks we’ll send you an Olive
BARGAINS Wood Rosary from the Holy Land.
V RES
Dear enclosed please find $__
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TOR____
WHILE
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Please name_
return coupon
with your street.
offering
city._
-ZIP CODE.
TH« CATHOLIC NIAH EAST WELFARB ASSOCIATION
NEAR EAST
MISSIONS
MOST REV. TERENCE J. COOKE, President
Write: Catholic Near East Welfare Assoc.
330 Madison Avenue • New York, N.Y. 10017
Telephone: 212/YUkon 6-5840
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Gough, William. Texas Gulf Coast Register (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 3, No. 42, Ed. 1 Friday, February 7, 1969, newspaper, February 7, 1969; Denver, Colorado. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth835311/m1/7/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .