December 12, 2014

What was in the news on December 11, 1964?

The hierarchy is critical of movie trends, and Catholics adjust to the ‘New Mass’

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 December 11, 1964, issue of The Criterion:

  • Pope back in Rome after triumphal trip
  • Pope asks for halt to arms race
  • Seminary to ‘absorb’ Passionist clerics
    • “ST. MEINRAD, Ind.—Arrangements have been completed here for the transfer of the Passionist Fathers’ Theologate [school of theology] from Louisville to St. Meinrad Seminary next September. According to a joint announcement by Archabbot Bonaventure Knabel, O.S.B., and the Very Rev. James Patrick White, C.P., Provincial of the Passionists’ Holy Cross Province, Chicago, the move will enable the Passionist clerics to use the physical facilities and educational resources of the Benedictine-staffed school of theology.”
  • Hierarchy raps trend in movies
    • “WASHINGTON—A warning against a ‘deplorable trend’ in films has been issued by the Episcopal Committee on Motion Pictures, Radio and Television, which calls upon religious leaders, educators, government officials—and particularly parents—to do something about it. The trend, the bishops point out, is ‘a substantial decrease’ in family films and an increase in objectionable fare noted in the annual report of the National Legion of Decency. This ‘moral brinkmanship,’ the committee adds, ‘is compounded by the double-billing of the few available family films with adult or objectionable films.’ This trend and practice, the Episcopal Committee says, reflect ‘an avid desire for mass audiences and high profits, and a disregard for the spiritual and moral requirements of the spectators.’ ”
  • Legion of Decency Pledge
  • New board announced at Alverna
  • English bishops: Ease bars on attending non-Catholic services
  • A loud ‘Amen’: New English Mass catching on
    • “Archdiocesan Catholics, along with their counterparts throughout the United States, are voicing a loud and distinct ‘Amen’ to the extensive use of English in the Mass. As the third week of the revised liturgy is about to begin, both clergy and laity are becoming more confident of their roles in the holy Sacrifice. Early signs of confusion are largely dissipating as prayer cards are increasingly utilized, microphones are adjusted, lay commentators and readers become more experienced, and the distribution of Communion is facilitated.”
  • 2 Catholic hospitals to get fund drive aid
  • Jesuit speaker: Supports Teilhard theory
  • Freedom is labeled ‘capacity for eternal’
  • Population data called misleading
  • Press raps Arab stand
  • Cincinnati schools have smaller classes
  • Freedom vote postponement for best, Father Murray says
  • Permits Masses for housebound
  • Gives good report on ‘shared-time’ in Oregon District
  • Alcohol is included in new fasting law
  • Catholics mark Jewish festival
  • Pope’s trend worries three Dutch observers
  • Catholic agencies aid job corps recruitment
  • Junior Legion member makes rosary necklace
  • Enrollment surge noted in colleges
  • Psychiatry is called sanctity’s handmaid
  • New school approach urged by Msgr. Ellis
  • ‘Blind’ leading the blind
  • Fulda native to aid in founding mission
  • Named vicar general of Evansville Diocese
  • Finish birth regulation study
  • Church hit by money crisis in England

(Read all of these stories from our December 11, 1964, issue by logging on to our special archives.) †

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