Two boys and two girls were in the convertible that turned suddenly into the driveway by the Cathedral, and continued at a speed of probably 40 miles per hour. They zoomed out on Wesley Road, apparently unaware that hundreds of school children, Cathedral parishioners, Sisters and Chancery visitors walk on that private drive.

On Easter, some 12 to 15 thousand college students picketed the White House demanding that the president stop the Vietnam war. One of them, heard on radio, said: “We’ve just discovered that we are the little people, and we’re going to be heard.”

One of the chief publishers of pornographic books in the U.S., recognizing the disappearing barriers to obscenity, is quoted in Time (Apr. 16) as saying hopefully: “Who knows if the limits have been reached? Just because the scientists split the atom, did they sit back and say ‘Well, that’s it!’”

Some Questions

Did the driver of the convertible, the young woman in Washington, the publisher of pornography have anything in common? It seems to me that they did. They all lacked a sense of the responsible.

It is characteristic of a child that he is not responsible; his mind and his will are just emerging from a welter of feelings, demands and satisfactions. He cannot be guilty before the law because he lacks competence, i.e. responsibility. He is not guilty before God because God intended his life to begin this way.

That’s why we have laws to prevent children from driving. Why we have colleges and universities where young men and women may learn about reality. Why we praise the decent, the clean, and the courageous, and find humanity cheated in one who uses the law (or its laxity) to spread filth.

Where do the driver, the protester and the pornographer fit in? Must we conclude that the young man, driving forty miles an hour through a school yard is still as irresponsible as a child? How much history or philosophy have the thousands of picketing students learned? Are they aware that similar demonstrations against fighting by Oxford and Cambridge students in the late 1930’s encouraged Hitler to think that England would not defend Western Civilization?

What leads the publishers, writers, artists, drugstore peddlers of obscene books to ply their trade -- freedom of speech or a quick buck?

A Catholic Parallel

The ease with which incompetent drivers can get a license; the distortion of values in radio and television which gives national and world coverage to many who have evidenced no particular knowledge of the complexity of war and peace; the protection of pornography by the law -- are these the culprits? They contribute, of course, but the greater responsibility lies on the parents who let an incompetent drive, the universities which give a hearing to every teaching except moral values, and the adults (young and old) who buy the junk paperbacks.

We have relaxed as a nation. And it is in men’s nature to relax more. Is the Church faced with this situation today?

I do not mean the modified laws on the eucharistic fast or Lent or any of these steps which the Church has taken to foster frequent Communion or to deepen and spiritualize practices, that if only externals, can be dangerous to man’s quest for God. I do not mean the aggioramento of Pope John, and the first stages of it. We worship now in English, not that it is easier than Latin, but that it be understood by the people. We meet our baptized but separated brethren more readily, not because it is easier, -- and nicer, -- but because we share so much. We can learn so much without losing one iota of the deposit of faith entrusted to the Catholic Church.

I am speaking rather of an attitude that can pervade married life, vocations, our pursuit of virtues like humility, the Catholic education of the young, our understanding of the sacraments and sin, the Scriptures and personal opinions, authority and obedience.

The Church is not relaxing; it is calling us to a new and far greater responsibility. We live in a time that calls us to live as men, struggling, discerning men. “The Christian,” said Pope Paul in his first letter, “is not soft or cowardly, he is strong and faithful.” It is probably harder to be a Catholic in an age of complacency than in one of martyrdom. It is probably more difficult in the tolerant, easy-going United States than it is in communist Poland.

The Reply To David

When David sinned by adultery with the wife of Uriah, he then sent Uriah to the front lines of battle so that he would be killed. The prophet Nathan went to the King, and told him of a wealthy man who had forced a poor shepherd to give up his only lamb for a feast. David was angry, and ordered the aggressor to be severely punished. David did not immediately get the point of Nathan’s story. But he did when the prophet looked at the King, and said: “You are the man!”

We all are. Responsibility is our human trademark. Only to one who remains a child, deficient in mind and will, does God extend the lasting protection of His hand. For the rest of us, able to learn and to think to work and to live, to sow the seed and to reap the harvest of our aspirations, Nathan’s voice still echoes:

“You are the man!”

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta