“One of my mailbags is mentally marked PRO and CON. A pastoral letter, signed editorial or column comment on any one of a dozen topics, e.g., changes in the Church, segregation, United Nations fills that bag right to the top. The recent Catholic stand on the immorality of racial discrimination ran about 90 percent in favor of the Catholic position, the rest (including the usual unsigned curiosities) about 10 percent.

After a few anonymous letters it’s refreshing to go over the fine letters, cards, gifts, gimmicks etc. from our boys and girls in school. It’s impossible to answer them all, but in this paragraph, I’ve tried to show how much they meant to me while I was in the hospital.

Snoopy The Bishop

Take a four-color greeting (home-made) with a distinguished prelate wearing a miter and bearing a crozier -- it’s SNOOPY! And of course, his style is right out of Peanuts -- “Happiness is being friends with an archbishop.” I’d say that happiness is having friends like M.N., J.P., S.A. and B.L. Or the highly imaginative artists who drew a backfield in motion.

The archbishop is apparently heaving a forward pass (or Vatican II) while the priests give him good support, and the greeting hoped that I would be back in action soon.

J.P. is an impulsive young woman. As soon as she heard I was sick, she “decided at the moment to write a get-well letter.” And this no-nonsense approach carries right through. “May I part with a thought from me saying that I pray to God for a quick recovery.” Thanks, Jan! Football Is Big

Football and cheerleading are big with my letter writers. But in one school pupils are studying Our Lord’s apostles. “We learn that bishops and priests are their successors and the Church today is very much the same as it was when Christ founded it. I am beginning to understand more and more about the dioceses today and the Church of the Apostles long ago. The Church itself is the same, but it has grown and developed.” L.B., V.T., C.K., I beg to pass on to you Cardinal Newman’s compliments. He died in 1891 - 70 years before Vatican II opened -- but he would have been right at home in St. Peter’s, and in your classroom too! D.S. And Her Dog

In the words of D.S. and her dog, “Augie,” I recently blessed a convent in her parish: “Well, that time, you also blessed our puppy. The blessing helped, but he hangs around school all day.” P.S. to D.S. Do you suppose I used the wrong book and blessed a professor instead of a pup?

Here’s another:

“Dear Sir: Why don’t you and your Church keep your nose out of politics?” Sorry, that’s out of the other mailbag.

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta