Many sensible people write me letters. Aside from the drab monotony of the rightists and the naive platitudes of the leftists, many of my letters are well thought out, and put into honest prose. Sometimes it is sprightly as well.

All the letters help to form policy, one way or another. Occasionally I like to share some of them with you -- and my comment on them.

Vernacular Is No Cure All

“Interlarding (English and Latin) is not going to placate me. The vernacular is here to stay. I must accept it because the Consumer’s Reports from Rome say it is a good buy. No longer an issue... The only issue with me is that the changes are being presented as a panacea, a tremendous new leaven which will animate the relatively apathetic flock with a spirit never before shown by the underprivileged masses unlucky enough to live at times where the celebrant was seen from the South, and a pedantic foreign language “forced” upon “free Americans.” What gets my goat is that in almost every publication you find not one but several variations on the theme that ‘no one understood what was going on in Latin.’ Such words as ‘corpse’ or ‘cadaver’ refer today to the same liturgical language which only yesterday was ballyhooed as the ideal and majestic vehicle to preserve the texts due to 1,964 years of theological research from the vulgar encroachment of a constantly changing tongue of secular babble.”

“I can accept the vernacular but the grotesque insistence on reviling Latin is an uncalled for and as inelegant as the behavior of people who, because they have just bought a new brand of refrigerator find it imperative to knock the old iced-box.” The contention that, at long last, the enlightened laity are able to understand what’s going on is a deliberate distortion...”

“Even if one accepted this false proposition, can anyone in his right mind really believe that vernacular even in toto is going to turn the strong into athletes of the faith, the weak into aggressive Christians, and the rest of the people who apply their religion (in vernacular) to their daily needs? The vernacular is not going to do what Latin has been unable to do for so many centuries of use. Your deeds must shout out loud the extent of your devotion to the Christian principles.”

Comment: No basic disagreement. The new law on the liturgy opens up the vernacular as one good way to arouse finer understanding and participation. Judging from the popular reaction, our people want it. Any comments, pro or con, on my favorite letter writer’s thesis?

Priests For Parishes, Not Schools

“The increasing amount of our priests’ time and effort in the field of formal education of our children is depriving the Church’s adult members of their most needed services. My thought is that a priest’s primary mission is to administer the sacraments to the People of God, and secondly to instruct and teach.” “In areas like Atlanta where there is a disproportionate number of priests to the number of laity, the priest must concentrate on the first of these roles and bring the sacraments together with spiritual guidance and inspiration to as many people as he can.”

“While the Catholic religion can be taught effectively by priests, the formation of Christians can be best accomplished within the home and the parish. It seems to me that part of the magnificent renewal in which we are all engaged is teaching us that we must be formed Catholics, and not just informed Catholics. I am not at all suggesting that formal Catholic education be abandoned. I am suggesting, however, that our priests be given more time to spend with the adult people -- the parents of our children.” “If the parents are not renewed in the Christian life, I submit that any amount of classroom instruction will not develop this life in their children...”

“I am suggesting, however, that the priest be allowed first to remain in the parish house and not in a faculty house, and second be allowed to spend more time in parish work.” “The latter can only be accomplished by cutting down their teaching loads unless the ‘new breed’ have developed in themselves the perpetual motion.”

Comment: First, the actual figures are revealing. Not counting 42 Trappist priests in the monastery, 13 Marist priests at their private school, and three military chaplains, there are 87 active archdiocesan and order priests in our archdiocese. Three of these have staff positions and four are special chaplains or spiritual directors. That leaves 80 priests of whom 69 are engaged full-time in parish work and 11 in education -- seven in high school, four in colleges (Newman).

In other words, 86% are in parishes, offering Mass and bringing the Sacraments to their people, - and instructing children, those to be married, those of other faiths, preaching sermons, giving counsel. In this framework, the formation of Catholic adults must be worked out. In the schools are 14% including four in the pastoral-and-teaching Newman apostolate.

Why are these seven archdiocesan priests at Pius X, St. Joseph’s and Drexel? To teach and counsel and administer, but to do much more. To bear witness by their presence to the Church’s relevance to the complex world of teenagers. To demonstrate by their example that virtue is approachable, and with their lay and religious colleagues, to make that approach and encourage it.

Formation, as my correspondent holds, is more significant than information. It must begin in the home and parish -- and 86% of our priests are there to guide it. But it must keep up with growing minds, and 14% of our priests are in the high schools and colleges to help it grow.

This is a stimulating subject. More comments?

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta