June 17, 2016

What was in the news on June 17, 1966?

Playing God, smearing a good woman, Catholic schools run by lay people and the Index again

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 June 17, 1966, issue of The Criterion:
 

  • Rule Index no longer has the force of law
    • “VATICAN CITY—The Doctrinal Congregation has ruled, with Pope Paul VI’s concurrence, that the Index of Forbidden Books ‘no longer has the force of ecclesiastical law.’ But, it said, the Index ‘preserves its moral force insofar as it teaches the conscience of the Christian faithful to avoid, as the natural law itself demands, those writings which can put faith and good morals in danger.’ ”
  • Dutch laity take control of schools
    • “UTRECHT, The Netherlands—Cardinal Bernard Alfrink of Utrecht announced that the Dutch bishops have given up their exclusive responsibility for Catholic education, assigning it to the parents of school-going children, the teachers’ unions, and the school boards. … ‘Today your bishops lay the full responsibility for the well-being of the Catholic schools on your shoulders: on you, parents; on you, teachers; on you, school boards; who together constitute our faithful, over whom we have been appointed as helpers and whom we wish to serve with our pastoral care.’ ”
  • Center, left coalition wins election in Rome
  • Card. Ritter urges study of papacy
  • Prefers gradual approach: Pope delays action on council decrees
  • Reject suit-type habit for Sisters
  • Editorial: Playing God
    • “Six months or sterilization, the judge said. What began as a run-of-the-docket case in a California municipal court boiled over into an international controversy recently when a 21-year-old mother of two, convicted of a misdemeanor, chose to serve out a jail term rather than submit to sterilization. Last week, however, justice triumphed. A high court decreed that the original ruling was ‘arbitrary’ and un-called for. … Has American society become so beguiled by expedience that it will countenance attempts at enforced sterilization as a remedy for social ills?”
  • Editorial: Why are they that way?
    • “It was not the best way to start the week. We opened the neatly typed but unsigned letter and read: ‘To the Editor of The Criterion: For shame that you should say in your scandalous sheet under a picture of the infamous Dorothy Day that she is “a person of God.” If you would tell the truth, just this once, you would say that she is “a member of the mystical body of Satan.” ’ This is not the place for a critical analysis of Dorothy Day and her controversial Catholic Worker Movement. But she is, indeed, a person of God, and a most self-sacrificial one at that. What disturbs us is that any Catholic would pass judgment on another human being as ‘a member of the mystical body of Satan.’ Particularly when the letter writer is plainly motivated only by disagreement with Miss Day’s socio-economic views.”
  • Sister seeking funds for Brazil hospital
  • Bar ‘Jazz’ Mass in Germany
  • Cadet baseball title captured by Lourdes
  • Girls to open camp season Sunday
  • Vatican official deplores ‘death’ of many vocations
  • At Brownsburg: Pupils given Spanish course
  • Urges nurses’ training in behavioral sciences
  • Jesuit Brother, Carmelite wed 53 years
  • Brothers in Christ: Pope calls doctrine on unity of baptism key to ecumenism
  • Rules against women at altar
  • Teaching Brother wins discrimination battle
  • Religious theme to be used on ’66 Christmas stamp
  • Hibernians set state convention

(Read all of these stories from our June 17, 1966, issue by logging on to our special archives.) †

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