Centennial moment: 'The voice is stilled'

Today, Our Sunday Visitor marks a somber milestone. It was on this date 56 years ago that OSV founder Archbishop John F. Noll died after suffering a series of strokes. 

Our Sunday Visitor announced the archbishop's death in the Aug. 12, 1956, issue with the headline "The voice is stilled." The following week's issue, OSV published the homily given by Cardinal Samuel Stritch of Chicago at Archbishop Noll's funeral Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Fort Wayne, Ind. The homily read, in part: 

"Archbishop Noll will be remembered for his gigantic work in the Apostolate of the Catholic Press. When he was a young priest, he was distressed when he saw the calumnies uttered and printed by the enemies of the Church. Spontaneously he took up his pen, not so much with the thought that he could convert the propagators of these falsehoods as to protect the ignorant and the exposed. While he despised falsehoods, he was always willing to face a difficulty and find a solution of it. However, his great understanding saw the opportunity of the press to spread a knowledge of the Church and present to men the whole wonderful synthesis of Revealed Truth.

 "Our Sunday Visitor grew. It met a need. It required rare talent to guide its growth. Sometimes distinctions were necessary to define its place in the Apostolate of the Catholic Press ... It was a work which was for him indeed precious."

Archbishop Noll's grave at Victory Noll in Huntington, Ind.

Archbishop Noll chose to be buried on the grounds of his beloved Victory Noll, motherhouse of the Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters, rather than in the crypt of the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, which is the traditional resting place for the bishops of Fort Wayne. He apparently had quipped to a sister that he figured he'd get more prayers there with the sisters than he would at the cathedral.

Centennial moment: Legion of Decency

Many Catholics these days are concerned about the dearth of quality, family friendly entertainment media. It was not so different in Archbishop John F. Noll's time.


In 1933, the Our Sunday Visitor founder was among four bishops named to the Legion of Decency, which classified movies based on their morality. Movie moguls at the time cried foul and accused the Legion of censorship. "Nonsense," Bishop Noll replied. "Each viewer is allowed to make up his own mind as to what he wishes to watch."


Soon after its founding, the Legion's influence began to grow. A "C" classification (for condemned) persuaded many a Catholic to stay away from a movie and spurred movie studios to create their own code of moral standards though the Production Code Administration, which is now known as the Motion Picture Association of America.


Bishop Noll published the classifications in Our Sunday Visitor. See the image below for the list of classifications in a 1939 issue of OSV.


Here's a fun fact: Some of the now-classic films that earned the "C" classification from the Legion include the Marilyn Monroe-Jack Lemmon-Tony Curtis comedy "Some Like it Hot," the Kirk Douglas epic "Spartacus" and the Alfred Hitchcock thriller "Psycho."

Shaw: How the 'decline of community' in America affects parishes

By Russell Shaw

In recent years social critics like Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone) and Charles Murray (Coming Apart) have documented and deplored a decline of community among Americans. It’s a development that affects churches along with other institutions of civil society.

But “decline of community” is an abstraction and hardly self-explanatory. A story told by a man I know offers a concrete illustration.

“My wife and I have lived for many years in a nice, quiet neighborhood inhabited by nice, quiet people. In many ways, we’re very happy. But as time passes, I become increasingly aware that everything isn’t as it should be.

“Let me tell you about the Smiths — not their real name, of course. They lived here almost as long as we have, and they’re nice, quiet people too. A few weeks ago, my wife phoned their house hoping to chat with Mrs. Smith. Mr. Smith answered.

“'Betty is out,’ he told my wife, ‘and I can’t talk now. I’m packing.’

“‘You’re taking a trip?’

“‘We sold the house to our daughter and her husband. We’re moving.’ It turned out that they were going to a gated townhouse section several blocks away. The movers would be coming in two days.

“I was flabbergasted when my wife told me. As I mentioned, the Smiths had lived near us for many years. We weren’t particularly close friends, but our daughters had babysat their kids, and they were the only churchgoing Catholics in the vicinity besides ourselves. Yet here they were, all set to move, and they’d have gone without a word if my wife hadn’t happened to call.

“Now that, frankly, is what I call weird. Yet as I think about it, it’s also typical of life in our neighborhood. People here are strangers who happen to live near one another. In all the years we’ve been here, only one person — one! — has been truly friendly, really behaved as you might expect a neighbor to do. That was a woman who lived across the street from us, and she, I’m sorry to say, moved into a retirement home several years ago. Now it’s entirely a neighborhood of nice, quiet strangers.”

And that, I suspect, is the “decline of community” in one isolated but perhaps not atypical case.

To some extent, it may be a regional phenomenon. I suspect there are other parts of the country — perhaps even other parts of the city where the man who shared this story lives — where neighborliness and community can still be found. But if the Putnams and the Murrays are right, there are other places where they can’t.

Is that really so bad? Writing in The Weekly Standard, author Gertrude Himmelfarb maintains that it is. “Individuals are increasingly removed from the traditional networks of ‘civic engagement’ — family, friends, professional organizations, and other associations. This erosion of civil society results in a decline of ‘social capital,’ which bodes ill for democracy at home and for democratization abroad.”

And also for religion. Himmelfarb notes the problem this poses posed for “traditional denominational, neighborhood, family-centered churches.” The churches currently doing well in America, she observes, are megachurches where thousands gather to hear charismatic preachers and small, nondenominational “spiritual” churches “unstable in doctrine as in membership.”

In theory, a Catholic parish, understood as the locus of a eucharistic community, holds the key to a solution. But in practice? There are lively, vibrant parishes that are true communities. There are others that are not. We need to know a lot more than we do about what makes the difference.

Russell Shaw is an OSV contributing editor.

Centennial moment: Christ, the Light of the World statue

Our Sunday Visitor founder Bishop John F. Noll used the pages of the newspaper to advocate for many an important Catholic cause in the United States. One such cause was a campaign for the creation of a statue of Jesus Christ to be erected in Washington, D.C. That statue, titled "Christ, the Light of the World," now stands in front of the headquarters of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and it was funded by OSV readers.

Bishop Noll speaking at the dedication
ceremony for the statue in April 1949.

The campaign began in 1936, when a reader, Marjorie Russell of Topeka, Kan., sent Bishop Noll a 

note suggesting that OSV begin a drive to erect a statue of Christ in Washington. She included a dollar bill, which was to count as the first donation. Russell pointed out that since Washington had statues of many famous people, one should be there to represent the greatest person who had ever walked the planet.

The idea appealed to Bishop Noll, who published the letter in the newspaper. The idea clearly caught on with OSV readers. Soon, donations for the project totaled more than $150,000. 

Bishop Noll later arranged for the 17-foot bronze statue, created by University of Notre Dame art professor Eugene Kormendi, to be placed outside the National Catholic Welfare Conference headquarters. Bishop Noll presented the statue to the conference, and was present at its 1949 dedication. It was later moved to its current home in front of the USCCB offices.

Click here to see more recent images of it. 

Centennial moment: The bishop and Victory Noll

Eighty-seven years ago this month, OSV founder Bishop John F. Noll dedicated Victory Noll, motherhouse for the Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters in Huntington, Ind., home of Our Sunday Visitor's headquarters. It was his first public act after becoming bishop earlier in 1925, which was only fitting since as Father Noll, he had been instrumental in bringing the community, previously known as the Society of Missionary Catechists of Our Lady of Victory, to Huntington in 1924. The Victory Noll sisters now have missions throughout the United States and South America.

Bishop Noll publicized the work of the catechists through Our Sunday Visitor, and published a weekly column in which the catechists detailed their work of visiting homes, locating children in need of religious instruction and even starting new parishes.

Victory Noll held a special place in the bishop's heart for the rest of his life. He had an office there, and chose to be buried on the grounds, rather than in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Fort Wayne.

Bishop John F. Noll conducts a profession ceremony at Victory Noll. He
rarely missed a visit to Victory Noll each Aug. 5, which was the day of
reception and profession for the sisters. OSV archive photo

Shaw: To be effective, Vatican's new media adviser needs Roman Curia's total, unflinching support

By Russell Shaw
            

“Smart move.” That’s how many loyal Catholics reacted to the announcement that the Vatican had hired a veteran American newsman as a consultant to grapple with its communication problems.

In many respects, the reaction was correct. As an experienced professional with Fox News and Time, and a serious Catholic, Greg Burke is an excellent choice for a tough assignment. (Disclosure: he’s also an old friend.) But the question remains: Will he be permitted to do the job? Neither Burke nor anyone else can be of much help to the Roman Curia unless it’s open to being helped.

Goodness knows the Vatican needs PR assistance. Recent disasters have included an embarrassing series of leaked documents, seemingly evidence of serious conflict within the Curia (Pope Benedict XVI’s butler is said to have purloined the documents but few believe that he’s the only one involved); the unceremonious sacking of the Vatican bank head amid a jarring torrent of personal abuse; and fumbled communication about apparently snarled negotiations with the Lebebvrist Society of St. Pius X.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. As anyone even casually familiar with the situation realizes, the underlying problems in Rome go deeper and have existed for years.

Burke is eminently well qualified to tell his new employers what the problems are and what should be done. What isn’t so clear is whether they’ll listen and act.

During three decades spent directing public relations at the national and international levels for several Catholic organizations, including the U.S. bishops’ conference, I found that people at the top not infrequently imagine that good public relations is a matter of technique. Push a couple of buttons, do a little tweaking here and there, and behold — your previously tarnished image will glow.

Good technique is certainly important in communication, but seldom are problems like the Vatican’s only or mainly failures of technique. Instead they’re problems of attitude and philosophy. In the case of the Vatican, the difficulties tend to be the bitter fruit of an entrenched clericalist culture linked to a similarly entrenched reliance on secrecy as a routine management tool. The result is a counterproductive approach to communication and media that lies far beyond correction simply by tweaking and technique.

Often, too, communication problems get blamed on the media: “The journalists are out to get us.” In fact, some reporters really are hostile to the Church, as are some news organizations. But most professional journalists, including many personally at odds with Catholic views, want only to do a good job according to the standards of their profession, which means getting facts straight and correctly explaining what they mean. Where these men and woman are concerned, the explanation that “They’re out to get us” is neither fair nor helpful. It’s a non-explanation that impedes solutions instead of encouraging them.

All that said, it must be added that there are many good, dedicated people in the Vatican. One can only imagine how badly they — to say nothing of Pope Benedict himself — have been hurt by the recent shenanigans. A serious effort to understand the underlying causes of what’s happened as well as the more immediate ones would be a service to them as well as to the rest of the Church.

Burke has what it takes to give the Curia good advice. But the problems run deep, and for Burke’s expertise to matter, he needs total, unflinching support from the top — from the pope himself. Unless it’s forthcoming (and here’s hoping it is) don’t look for much improvement.

Centennial moment: Archbishop Sheen

Catholics throughout the country have been thrilled to learn that Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen has been declared venerable. 

Our Sunday Visitor joins in rejoicing. It was during the 1930s that then-Father Sheen began writing for Our Sunday Visitor newsweekly. Already famous for his "Catholic Hour" radio program, Sheen discussed the problem of living the faith in an increasingly secularized world. 

A line from his 1938 article was all too prophetic: "The vision of the cross is fading; the borderland between light and darkness is growing dimmer and the world is about to pass over into the hinterland of darkness and ruin."

Shaw: George W. Bush, revisionist history and 'Catholic sensibility'

By Russell Shaw

Does George W. Bush have a “Catholic sensibility”? Tim Goeglein thinks so, and he’s better situated than most people to know. For seven-and-a-half years Goeglein was deputy director of the public liaison office of the Bush White House, with frequent opportunities to observe the president up close.

The results can be seen in his memoir “The Man in the Middle” (B&H Books) — a volume that might be called “Bush and I.” When revisionist historians come to the Bush presidency, Goeglein’s admiring portrait will need to be taken into account.

Bush left office in January 2009 on the crest of a tsunami of unpopularity. Two grinding wars, a botched response to Hurricane Katrina, an ill-timed tax cut, soaring deficits, and a deep recession were viewed as his legacy.

In his new book "Bad Religion" (Free Press), Ross Douthat, a conservative Catholic columnist for The New York Times, maintains that Bush administration missteps combined with the president’s own very visible religiousness damaged the Evangelical cause through a kind of guilt by association.

But in Goeglein’s eyes Bush could do no wrong. “Despite [the critics’] venal attacks on his integrity,” he writes, “George W. Bush is in fact a man with a great soul whose internal moral compass made him a gifted leader.”

Leaving aside policy issues, Bush really does emerge in these pages as a decent man of strong religious faith. Goeglein, deeply religious himself, was at home in a White House where — in striking contrast with today — the boss often prayed in public and wore his Evangelical faith on his sleeve.

What Goeglein calls Bush’s “Catholic sensibility” may have to do with his relationship with Pope John Paul II. Pope and president met three times and the experience seems to have made a deep impression on Bush. Says Goeglein: “His personal regard for John Paul II was probably higher than for any other world leader of the Bush presidency, their worldviews rooted deeply in the ancient faith that was the lifeblood of each.”

The author sees John Paul’s persuasive powers at work in Bush’s policy on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Bush limited it to already existing cell lines rather than allowing for new ones created by destroying human embryos. That cautious approach was discarded by President Obama.

Goeglein acknowledges “serious concerns and differences” between the White House and the Vatican over Iraq. But he doesn’t mention that on the eve of the U.S. invasion John Paul took the unusual step of sending Cardinal Pio Laghi, former papal nuncio to America, to Washington to try to talk President Bush out of war.

The episode that opens "The Man in the Middle" may also shed light on Bush’s Catholic sensibility since it concerns his capacity for extending forgiveness — in this case, to Goeglein. Well into his White House years, it came to light that Goeglein had plagiarized material for columns he wrote for his hometown paper back in Indiana. As Washington scandals go, this was small potatoes, but Goeglein bit the bullet and resigned.

Summoned to the Oval Office for what he supposed would be a terminal chewing-out, he got a “miracle” instead. “Tim,” said the president, who years before had kicked a drinking habit, “I have known mercy and grace in my own life, and I am offering it to you now. You are forgiven.”

This was George Bush at his best. It’s easy to see why Goeglein admires him. How those revisionist historians will view him in the future will be for them to decide.

Russell Shaw is an OSV contributing editor.