February 26, 2016

What was in the news on Feb. 25, 1966?

More on Lenten fasting and abstinence, and deacons conduct a high school ‘experiment’

Criterion logo from the 1960sBy Brandon A. Evans

This week, we continue to examine what was going on in the Church and the world 50 years ago as seen through the pages of The Criterion.

Here are some of the items found in the Feb. 25, 1966, issue of The Criterion:
 

  • Link penitence for Lent to charity, pontiff urges
    • “VATICAN CITY—Pope Paul VI, in his wholesale revision of the Church’s rules of fast and abstinence, stressed that the goal of penitence is renewal and reform which is not only interior and individual but also eternal and social. The pope reduced the number of days requiring both fast and abstinence to two—the first day of Lent and Good Friday. But at the same time, he stated the Church’s teaching on the need for penitence, whose basic requirements consist of ‘prayer—fasting—charity.’ He therefore urged that the peoples of the world’s richer nations practice self-denial and charity on behalf of ‘their brothers who suffer in poverty and in hunger, beyond all boundaries of nation and of continent.’ ”
  • Deacons conduct ‘Whoozit’ for high school students: Experiment draws teenage support
    • “An experiment in creating a religious experience among teenagers was rated ‘A-plus’ by 175 Sacred Heart Central High Schools in Indianapolis last week. Nineteen deacons from St. Meinrad Seminary, aided by some first- and second-year theologian folk singers, presented a ‘seven-hour course’ in Christian love, brotherhood and developing a sense of Christian community. The Sacred Heart cafeteria, used daily by the Spartans to satisfy their nutritional needs, was transformed into a ‘religious workroom’ where the students heard a talk, held a group discussion of its meaning, expressed their discussion summaries with crayons on poster paper, sang, explained their art, sang, entered into impromptu crisis-dramatics, sang, and participated in an ‘Eve and Charlie-type’ dialogue about love. Halfway through the unique exercises, termed a ‘Whoozit’ by the deacons of St. Meinrad School of Theology, the teenagers experienced a ‘folk Mass,’ celebrated in the cafeteria by their superintendent, Father Patrick Kelly. Guitars accompanied the folk-type hymns, which were easily learned in a five-minute warmup session before Mass. The liturgical service also included an Offertory procession, during which the entire congregation placed their individual hosts in the ciborium, and a brief homily, preached by Rev. Mr. Richard Keil, of St. Andrew’s Parish, Indianapolis.”
  • Help needy, pope urges U.S. youths
  • St. Meinrad seminar speakers announced
  • No mere formality: Canterbury’s visit to Rome
  • Anglicans approve fixed Easter date
  • Text of Church in Modern World schema
  • Priest-guerilla reported killed by Colombia troops
  • Salvation Army Major to speak
  • Economic ‘blueprint’ reaction awaited
  • Directors of NCCW voice social concern
  • Cuban refugee influx seen a boon to Miami
  • St. Roch pulls upset over Latin School ‘A’
  • ‘Secret’ units spur vocations
  • Bishop, priests issue pastoral
  • Pope suggested for Nobel Prize
  • Ministers stress ecumenism need at Woods program
  • Only habitual breach of fast ‘grave sin’
    • “VATICAN CITY—Pope Paul VI’s new regulations for fast and abstinence are explained in a front page article by L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican City daily. It is asserted that individual violations of the Church’s penitential laws of abstinence from meat on Fridays and fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are not grave. … The document [from the pope] said ‘substantial observance’ of Friday abstinence and the days of Lenten penitence ‘obliges gravely.’ ”
  • Family Planning group schedules training courses
  • Fr. DuBay urges union for priests

(Read all of these stories from our Feb. 25, 1966, issue by logging on to our special archives.) †

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