St Bernards High School - Bernardian Yearbook (Fitchburg, MA)

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GC) Oe = a Gee AOT TOF At 9:30 a.m., Monday, October 4, 1965, an Italian jet settled gently on a runway of the John F. Kennedy Airport. A ramp was rolled and out stepped Pope Paul VI. It was a bright day, crystal and cold, and the events which followed made it a day without parallel. Soon Pope Paul was seated in a large black automobile and the chilly 24-mile ride ahead into the heart of Man- hattan began, through Harlem and Central Park to St. Patrick’s cathedral and on to a meeting with President Johnson and then to the United Nations. His Holiness was the first reigning Pope ever to visit the New World and he came primarily to address a message of peace to the United Nations. He called himself a pilgrim, a simple mes- senger of the gospel of peace. Without rest for a day and a night, his was a true pilgrimage which entailed sacrifice and devotion to the cause of peace. His presence at the United Nations reminded men of all nations that they are members of the same human family. His appeal was to the hearts of men urging them to turn away from pride and power and see all men as brothers and as friends. “If you wish to be brothers, let the arms fall from your hands,” he said; “one cannot love while holding offensive arms.” At Yankee Stadium, Pope Paul said Mass with great dignity in this great ball park, at which a hundred thousand were present. He called upon all present to serve the cause of peace which must be built up every day by works of peace—first of all, social order; then, aid to the poor, to the needy, the weak, the sick, the ignorant. And if this peace was to be sincere and stable it had to be based on moral and religious principles and have its roots anchored in wis- dom which must draw nourishment from the true concept of life—the Christian concept. At 11:00 o'clock that night he was back in the jet again, which in a little more than seven hours would bring him back to Rome. As he boarded his aircraft, it was to the whole nation he spoke: “God bless America,” he cried, “God bless you all.” In spite of his frail body simply robed in white, this pilgrim, who had made this exhausting journey to persuade temporal rulers that the human race is begging for peace on this earth, was a forceful figure with the power to move men by his humility, simplicity, sincerity, gen- tle firmness of his bearing, and the quiet warmness of his countenance. If Pope John was the Pope of aggiornamento, updating of the Church, Pope Paul has been called the Pope of avvicinamento, which means neighborliness with other creeds and faiths. In his visit to Bombay, he quoted with respect from the pre-Christian sacred writings of India. Just four days before he was to bring the Second Vatican Council to a solemn close, Pope Paul took part in a prayer service for Christian unity with a group of Protestant and Orthodox ob- servers at the Vatican Council. Memorable also was the effort which he made through the Council to repair the damage to Christian unity which has existed for over nine hundred years between East and West, when in both Rome and Constantinople, a declaration was read lifting the excommunications which had been hurled at one another in 1054 and which brought about the great schism.

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1962 moo MHOY COO 4Zreonrgs = 2700 ae 1965 6 Our bishop, His Excellency, the Most Reverend Bernard J. Flanagan, D.D., has attended all of the sessions of the Second Vatican Council, since it opened on October 11, 1962, the date set by His Holiness, Pope John. In announcing this Ecumenical Council, the first since the Vatican Council of 1869, Pope John assigned to it, among other tasks that of furthering Christian unity. For those, who though baptized, are separated from the Apos tolic See, he hoped the Council would be an in- spiration to seek out that unity which Jesus Christ prayed for so ardently from his heaven- ly Father. He also recalled the words of St. Augustine: “Whether they will it or not, they are our brethren. They will cease to be our brethren only when they cease to say ‘Our Father.’ ” Unity has become the great longing of our days, a world-wide unity which extends to the religious sphere as well, the unity of all Christians. It is the wish of our Holy Father that there may come about for the family of Christians of our time what we know existed in Jeru- salem after Christ’s ascension into heaven, when the newly-born Church, in perfect harmo- ny, gathered about Peter, the shepherd of the lambs and the sheep, and prayed with him. One great religious movement of our century has been the ecumenical movement which seeks to unite all the baptized in one flock with one shepherd. The decisive phrase in the question of unity might well be, “God wills it,” as Christ, a few hours before his passion and death, implored from his Father the everlasting unity of his Church. The spirit of our ecumenical efforts might well be expressed also in St. Paul’s words: “We are to follow the truth in a spirit of charity...” (Eph. 4:15). Truth and charity are inseparable in the task of promoting unity. Truth without charity is hateful and repelling; charity without truth is worthless and cannot endure for any length of time. Furthermore, our bishops and heads of the Church are bound by a most grave obligation to keep and to transmit intact and unchanged the basic dogmas of the Catholic Church There can be no question of seeking a compromise on dogma, on divinely revealed doctrine. When the Church once and for all declares a certain truth to be an article of faith, she does so under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that Spirit whom Jesus promised to send to the Church, “to guide you into all truth’ (John 16:13). No ecumenical council has the power to decree new articles of faith or revise old ones. Its role has always been to decide with the help of the Holy Spirit, and in accordance with scripture and the tradition of the Church, what is a divinely revealed truth. But a Council does give effective help in recognizing the whole truth more clearly and clearing up wrong notions and misunderstandings of Catholic doctrine. Few could participate at the Vatican Council, but everyone was asked to help by prayer and sacrifice, asking the Holy Spirit to assist all those taking part. Christ is the sole salvation of mankind. But that all may acknowledge Him, it is necessary that we all become one, accord- ing to the prayer of Jesus, and that we all love one another, seeking always after the truth in justice and charity. j One obstacle to unity is the kind of lives led by some Catholics who are faithless to their re- ligious and moral duties. On the other hand, a good Catholic life illustrates what Jesus means when He says that our good works are a light by which we shine before the eyes of men and by which God is glorified.