Catholic ecumenical move blossoms
By PATRICIA PRUITT
(Beditor's Note—"Many are the paths of men," says Krishna of the God of gods in Hindu literature, "but they all in the end come to me."
Especially on a campus this eternal quest of the finite for the infinite is spotlighted. Here the religions of the world meet and co-exist, in a community of young, active, and questioning minds.
In this four-part series, the relationships of KU students to their religions is under study. By definition, college age is a questioning time, and this aspect will crop up most frequently.)
The flower seeded and grew tall, and the sunshine of Vatican II let it finally blossom out.
This, says Father Mike Alchediak, is the ecumenical movement in the Catholic Church. "It didn't happen overnight; it simply had not had expression before. Many years of thought preceded it."
Thinking such as this brought about the necessity for and the advent of the Ecumenical Council in Rome. The attitude was questioning, says Jack Kehoe, a Jesuit seminarian like Father Alchediak. "It is a self-examination and self-identification of the Church's role in society, rather than a defensive, apologetic legal system of abstracts."
KU'S PRESENT generation of Catholics questions more than preceding generations, Father Brendon Downey, campus pastor, said. "There is a greater need on the part of contemporary university students for relevancy than when I was in college.
KU gets $85,000
The Program for Progress has added $85,000 more to stuff into its elastic wallet.
its customer.
The First National Bank
pledged $35,000, and the Douglas
County State Bank and the Law-
rence National each gave $25,000.
All are local banks.
The Program for Progress drive began last September and its campaign for capital will extend over a three-year period.
WARREN RHODES, president of the First National Bank, said, "The stockholders of the First National Bank consider it a privilege to participate in a significant way in helping to launch the second century of the University of Kansas. No contribution to the Program for Progress fund now under way will ever match the contribution which the University has made to Lawrence, to the people of Kansas and to the wider area it serves. We express our gratitude to the University and our confidence in its future through helping to underwrite
continued progress in the second century ahead."
Other gifts from Lawrence include $50,000 from a Lawrence family; $10,000 from a KU official; $5,000 from a KU dean; $4,000 from a KU professor; $4,000 from an area businessman; $4,000 from another Lawrence businessman; and other sizeable gifts from area residents.
Paul Gillis, professor of chemistry, is the chairman of the University division of the drive. Working with him are Edward E. Smissman, Raymond Loehr, James Logan, George Anderson, Charles Oldfather and Marilyn Stokstad.
The Program for Progress has set a goal of $18.6 million to be used as follows: $4.1 million, student aid; $5,292,000, faculty development; $6,225,000, supporting resources, Lawrence; $1.4 million, supporting resources, KU Medical Center; and $1 million, unrestricted opportunity fund.
"Students look for it in the ecumenical movement. In search of relevancy, they are talking with other people their own age, examining their ideas and relating them to their own, and becoming more aware of other traditions," he said.
Emotional distress is sometimes the result of the movement's practical work. The emphasis has changed from rigid rules and tradition to individual responsibility. This new laxness within the structure of the Church is frequently in direct conflict with past strict teaching.
"Yesterday it was a mortal sin to eat meat on Friday. Today, nothing," a short blonde said. "What did it mean in the first place then, if it can be so easily removed? Was it ever God's law, or was it man's? How fallible is the Pope?"
THEY ASK QUESTIONS, but this time the Church, too, is in a questioning mood.
No basic dogmatic change was made in Vatican II. The change was ultimately in emphasis.
"Today," says Catholic extension worker Lorrie Bonafede, "the Church is now saying that it doesn't possess truth, but that truth possesses the Church. Law is the means, not the end; love is the fulfillment of the law."
"Most importantly, they're saying, 'We don't know.'"
REACTIONS AMONG students to the new emphasis varies. For the most part, they question.
"All Catholics are doing is Protestantizing the Church. It seems hard to defend the Catholic religion," said a boy in a weekly lecture-discussion by Jesuit seminarians.
"In that case," seminarian Kehoe answered, "we must admit that the Protestants were right about something. On the other hand, Protestants are becoming Catholicized, especially in their governmental structure."
"The Church isn't really bring-in in songs that can be sung as a
community. I can't understand what's taking the Church so long to make their liturgy into a meaningful thing, although they have already come a long way," said a young man on the front row.
THE LECTURER did not counter, but rather elaborated in agreement. "Liturgy is the center of community life, which is a basis of the Church, and if it is not meaningful, then it will have no meaning and no law."
The boy went on, "I've been to ten Protestant services in the last year, and have been more inspired by any one of them than by all the Catholic masses put together. One service especially felt modern, alive and real—just great."
Keho answered, "I agree that the celebrant makes all the difference, and a celebrant who prays to himself does no good."
"WHY AM I A Catholic?" repeated a men's dormitory counselor, "Because I am. I'm sticking, but I'm really giving it a test, believe me."
He had just walked out of St. Lawrence Chapel following the discussion. As he revved the engine and waited for it to warm up, his companion said, "The only thing the Catholic Church has got is the sacraments, and that's all it means to me. When Protestants gather, Christ is there, but the sacraments are not. They're not there (in the Protestant service) in the sacrament principle, anyway. That's why I stick."
Not all KU Catholics say this. But they question.
They question for explanation, be they believers or doubters. Yet most of the doubters have not really shaken loose from the faith.
"It's funny," said a girl with long hair and hoop earrings, "I don't believe in the Church and I haven't been to Mass since I came to the Hill, and it doesn't bother me. But I know that I have to go to Midnight Mass, Christmas Eve. I just have to."
Lawrence blaze—
Continued from page 1
up. Some offered coffee. The Salvation Army did. Some kid went from fireman to fireman with a five-gallon can of coffee.
GLOVES BECAME a prized possession—especially dry ones. Individuals gave firemen the gloves they were wearing. Some man came up with a box of brand
new dry gloves—a sight very welcome to the firefighters. The temperature was about 12 degrees.
The crowds resembled an excited throng at a Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey circus. Crowds were on hand as long as the firemen were—watching, helping and sidewalk-superintending. Fun, huh?
Police search for killers of Algerian nationalist
MADRID—(UPI)—An eyewitness description by the wife of assassinated Algerian opposition leader Mohammed Khider today aided Spanish police in a search for the two killers who shot the controversial nationalist on a busy Madrid street.
Khider, one of the powerful nine "historic chiefs" of the Algerian revolution for independence from France, was shot Tuesday night as he left his apartment in northwestern Madrid.
POLICE THEORIZED the assassination was politically motivated, but there was speculation Khider might have been killed for the remainder of the $12 million he took when he broke with the Algerian government in 1963.
With Khider when he died was his wife, Fetta Touder, and her brother. Neither of them was injured when the assassins fired two shots at Khider as he entered his car and five more when he leaped out and tried to flee.
The two gunmen, believed Algerians, escaped. Khider was dead on arrival at a hospital 500 yards from the shooting site.
Khider was one of the oldest and toughest fighters of the Algerian nationalist movement, and one of the original revolutionary groups which waged the eight year war for Algerian independence from France.
POLICE QUESTIONED the distraught widow early today in search of information that could lead to the capture of the killers.
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"I FEEL LIKE A Sunday Catholic up here. And I don't like it," said a redhead. "Somehow the Church has no place in my life here; I don't know whether it's because I don't work at it or because something in the Church is wrong."
This jam session adjourned with the opinion that their talk was useless. "We're all talking in circles; we're just criticizing, not answering."
"I would never send my child to a Catholic school," says a veteran of the system.
"Questioners ask for relevancy," a girl said. "They ask for a deeper meaning to the Church and God than laws. They won't accept blind acceptance. It's a reaction from their youthful upbringing in the atmosphere of unquestioning."
Daily Kansan 3 Wednesday, January 4, 1967
"But you can't teach such basic philosophy to young children of six, not even about love," countered another. "What are the schools supposed to do. Even we are having trouble understanding now."
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