To those who think, as they read the papers beyond the negative headlines of war and riots, there have been a few encouraging signs lately.

Jack Spalding’s column of Sept. 21 was a perceptive piece of “Keeping Atlanta United”. It was a sane and solid portrayal of what is happening; “the old sense of neighborliness and unity is gone…now we’re all compartmented by income level, freeways and race…the sense of community is suffering.”

We live and die in a fraction of Atlanta—our entertainment, schools, friendships, even marriage.

Spalding sees two optimistic signs: rapid transit all over town not just to the nearest supermarket; and the excellent work of the Metro Planning Commission. He wishes the state and city officials would pay more attention to it.

No Room for Hyphens

The same day, the Christian Science Monitor had an editorial with that title. The politicians have been playing the nationality and racial game for decades. In New York, there are Irish-American, Italo-American, Negro and Puerto Rican blocs to keep happy. In Milwaukee, the powers will have to make up their minds. The German-Polish combine is threatened by growing Negro discontent. In many American cities, the white Anglo-Saxon is no longer in power.

But our nation, despite its start in an unworthy compromise on slaves, was not founded on any bloc, hyphenated European or just plain white and black, the Monitor points out.

It was founded on a principle much closer to the Christian spirit of the gospel. Every man is a child of God and has a human dignity with inalienable rights and duties. Jewish immigrants and oriental religionists came to the United States with a theology of man at one with the Christian idea of human dignity.

Christianity Suited To Change

At the recent Southeastern Conference of the National Council of Churches, listeners were deeply impressed Emory’s Dr. Earl D. Brewer’s address: “It is a paradox that the South, which by every objective standard is the most religious region in America, could be so blind to the practical implications of Christianity.”

Ralph McGill summing up “the Bible Belt” in a recent column, traced the “grand era of the revival,” the War of 1861-65 and its terrible aftermath. Under the impact of the periods, many Christian churches (pastors and congregations) have often distorted religion.

It became, not the Christ-inspired word and mission, but a defense of “the southern way of life” with the evil fruit of segregation and white supremacy. Add to this the rejection of new thought and research not only in the sciences but in the Bible and theology themselves. Then notice the escalation of “fleshly sins” like gambling and drinking are higher than those “sins of the spirit” like pride, hatred and injustice.

We might add, too, to Southern “religion” a fear and distrust of “city-living”. It was not long ago that a righteous politician said he would spurn the votes of these folks “who lived in a town big enough to have street-car tracks.” In a few years, 80 per cent of the American people will live in great cities.

As Brewer and McGill agree, so do we: “Tradition and attitudes became literally merged with ‘religion.’ They were (and are) for many Southerners one and the same thing.”

‘I Didn’t Hear The Bell’

Cities grow but we are not ready, either physically or morally, for their numbers, anonymity, crime and the despair that they spawn. Millions of rats overrun the people there, but Congress couldn’t care less. One member referred cynically to the “Civil Rats Bill.’ Thank God, in a second vote, the people won and the rats lost. (A rat crawling over you has eyes that gleam and a mouth that bites deeply—at least they did in the South Pacific, and I would think that those in Harlem and parts of Atlanta are no more cultured.)

The Senate, but not yet the House, is learning something of the deep unrest that set more than 60 cities aflame this year. The question is still with us—“Who’s fault?” Certainly the outsider rioters, the ill-trained National Guardsmen, blind public officials share the occasion, but not the whole blame.

The blame is white Americans—you and I who were silent during the decades of segregation, prejudice and degradation of millions of American citizens. In fact we were all so blasé’ that we did not even realize that the 1960 census had overlooked almost mostly black young adult males. They had dropped out of organized society; they were the invisible underclass.

Not all the senators are voting for the bills that will help local communities move ahead. The “Model Cities” project will affect 3,000 acres of Atlanta and a sum of $869,086 for six Georgia cities. You would expect our senators to be pushing boldly for its passage.

But one of them said, “I didn’t hear the bell,” and apparently the other hadn’t looked at the calendar- 1967. Thomas Jefferson, a wise American, foresaw the disastrous Civil War as early as 1820. He heard the bell, “This momentous question, like a fireball in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.”

It is ringing again. But a present the Georgia senator doesn’t hear it and it is getting very late.

Are Catholics Divided?

Like our city, there is danger of compartmentalization in our Church too. Are Catholics divided? Some are emerging from the “Bible Belt” mentality of southern tradition, and the renewal of Vatican II is helping them. “The Church in the World” calls for a vigorous unity and a flexibility that builds this unity.

Most of our people are loyal to the Catholic concept of racial justice, social concern and Christian involvement in the community. They do not want a Catholic ghetto, and some are joining their energies to ecumenical, civic and other private instruments of living together.

But there are other Catholics who are silent or non-involved or isolated from the “other Atlantas.”

There is also a minority which continues to fight the Church—by letter, by phone call, by threats—because their idea of “religion” is what Dr. Brewer described.

We have been slow. It is high time for our parishes, regardless of racial predominance or economic differential, to move forward. There are so many avenues by which we can bring the gospel alive. The St. Vincent de Paul Society is fast outgrowing its parochialism. Lay groups like the Christian Family Movement, Legion of Mary and the Cursillo have great potential—if they move. Individuals can help in Headstart and Vista, the WICS program and the many projects of our Council of Catholic Women and other religious associations. The work of our new Franciscan Sisters and the Community of Christ Our Brother are experimental ventures where the emphasis is on working together.

Dr. Brewer was kind to the Catholic Church: “The upsurge of Roman Catholicism in the South promises, especially since Vatican II, to provide the most liberal and ecumenical religious voice in the region.” We must not wear this as a badge; we can accept it only as a great call to responsibility.

Atlanta And The Church

It would be a tragedy if Editor Spalding’s plea for community were ignored. We would all suffer.

It would be a tragedy, too, if the Church lost its impetus toward unity. We need vibrant parishes, in a moving archdiocese in a universal Church. Our great danger is self-contained groups of dying cells in the living body. That way lies cancer.

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop Of Atlanta