September 16, 2011

What was in the news on Sept. 15, 1961? A plea from the pope to negotiate for peace, and religion in the German election

By Brandon A. Evans

50 Year LogoThis week, we continue to examine what was going on in the Church and the world 50 years ago as seen through the pages of The Criterion, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Here are some of the items found in the September 15, 1961, issue of The Criterion:

  • Negotiate for peace, Pope asks world leaders
  • Five named New Delhi observers
    • “VATICAN CITY—For the first time in history, the Church will send official observers to a meeting of the non-Catholic World Council of Churches. Five Catholics have been named to attend the New Delhi, India, general assembly of the council November 18 to December 6. They were picked by the Vatican’s Preparatory Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. A U.S. priest and a Dutch layman are included.”
  • Sacred Heart landmark: Razing of old convent stirs fond memories
  • Bishop insists on union labor
  • Religion in the German election
  • Letter of German bishops cautions Catholic voters
  • Cubans ‘starving’ in body and spirit, priest reports
  • The trouble with Social Security
  • The beauty of Social Security
  • Ban nuclear tests now, Rome urges
  • Says coexistence peril seen in Cuba
  • Urges sermons on temperance
  • English-speaking priests score in Peru experiment
  • CYO grid jamboree set Sunday: Expect more than 6,000 attendance
  • Reads 11,000 words a minute
  • More New Jersey schools make use of tape recordings
    • “Elizabeth, N.J.—More and more students in the North Jersey area are getting some of their training in the sciences from tape-recorded lessons, according to boosters of the technique. The Catholic Round Table of Science … is one of the pioneers in taped instruction. Only two other taping centers for Catholic instruction are said to exist.”
  • Polish clergy meet in unity session
  • Books of the hour: Population explosion
  • Pontiff stresses duty of women to society
  • Movie industry plans smut drive
  • One killed, five wounded by Castro’s militiamen
  • Lauds Catholic progress in interracial justice
  • School to have bomb shelter
  • Americans give church, school to Bolivia parish
  • Citizens’ group urges seminars on federal aid
  • U.S. priest named British auxiliary
  • ‘Painfully ironic’: Scores indifference to educational TV
    • “‘Painfully ironic’ is what Bishop James A. McNulty of Paterson, N.J., called it. Thus he described the prospect that, if enrollment and financial pressures should force a cutback in the Catholic school effort, public schools might handle the influx of new students by using the very tool which could have saved the Catholic schools in the first place—educational television.”
  • Recalls early struggle for racial justice
  • Personal responsibility to be stressed at N.D.
  • Asks equal status for all at Council

(Read all of these stories from our September 15, 1961, issue by logging on to our special archives.) †

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