August 23, 2013

What was in the news on August 23, 1963?

The U.S. bishops urge personal involvement in the fight against racial bias, and the pope calls for unity

Criterion logo from the 1960sBy Brandon A. Evans

This 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.

Here are some of the items found in the August 23, 1963, issue of The Criterion:

  • Become personally involved in bias fight, bishops urge
    • “WASHINGTON—The nation’s Catholic bishops have urged members of the Church and its agencies to get personally involved in the quest for harmony during the present racial crisis. Individual Catholics and Church groups should sponsor bi-racial discussions of mutual problems and concerns, the bishops said. They urged similar action by civic associations. ‘It is only by open and free exchange of ideas that we can understand the rights and obligations that prevail on both sides. Such knowledge is a prelude to action that will remove artificial barriers of race,’ they said.”
  • Twenty clergy changes announced by Chancery
  • Appeals for unity: ‘Let barriers fall,’ pope urges Eastern Churches
    • “GROTTAFERRATA, Italy—‘Let fall the barriers that separate us!’ His Holiness Pope Paul VI pleaded in a call to the ancient Eastern Churches. The pope’s appeal was made unexpectedly at the Oriental Rite monastery of St. Nilus here where he came to celebrate Mass on Sunday morning [Aug. 19]. He motored here from his summer villa at Castelgandolfo, about five miles away. The survival of the 960-year-old Oriental monastery, nursed and encouraged for centuries ‘at the very gates of Rome,’ said the Pope, is ‘a symbol, a presage and an augury.’ ”
  • See more exalted role for study of liturgy
  • CYO Youth Mission slated for teen-agers
  • St. Leon sets dedication
  • Council session to end Dec. 4
  • Many years in archdiocese: Hospital Sisters mark their 100th Jubilee
  • Says altar must be focus in Church architecture
    • “PHILADELPHIA—The altar must always be the focal point in the design of any church, Father H. A. Reinhold, liturgical expert from Pittsburgh, told a study session here at the 1963 North American Liturgical Week. ‘The altar must become the focus, whether it is one facing toward the people or one leading the people toward the Infinite,’ he said. ‘Never should it become a central altar which confuses its meaning and slits the congregation in two or four parts.’ ”
  • At sisters’ conference: Cites nuns’ obligation to seek racial justice
  • Senate votes to extend bracero program one year
  • 12 Episcopalian nuns attend parley at ND
  • Cites charge in concept of ‘mission’ in Church
  • CYO talent show set Sunday at Garfield
  • Annual bowling tourney slated at St. Philip’s
  • ‘Consoling picture’: 9,000 native priests now in mission lands
  • Hail growth in number of minor seminaries
  • Vincentians plan S. American aid
  • KC provides hostels for marchers
  • Lay missionary bound for Alaska
  • Pope names successor for Milan
  • Saigon prelate: Denies Church involved in Vietnamese politics
  • Heart attack is fatal to ‘Hoodlum Priest’
  • University parley set at Catholic U.

(Read all of these stories from our August 23, 1963, issue by logging on to our special archives.) †

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