March 13, 2015

What was in the news on March 12, 1965?

The pope’s Mass in Italian, horror in Selma and St. Meinrad is closing its high school

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 March 12, 1965, issue of The Criterion:

  • Pope offers Italian Mass at altar facing the people
    • “ROME—Pope Paul VI marked the introduction of Italian in the Mass on the first Sunday of Lent by going to a downtown parish and celebrating the Eucharist at an altar facing the people. About 5,000 people overflowed All Saints’ Church on the new Appian Way for the Mass [March 7]. Despite pleas to the contrary by the master of ceremonies, the Bishop of Rome was applauded as he entered the church. … Instead of the traditional Roman or fiddleback chasuble, he wore a fuller Gothic-cut one of Lenten purple. … After the Gospel was proclaimed, the pope began a half-hour homily in which he called the celebration of the vernacular Mass ‘a truly extraordinary event.’ ”
  • A priest’s report: Nightmare in Selma
  • Clergy, Sisters join Selma protest march
    • “SELMA, Ala.—Hundreds of priests, ministers and rabbis gathered here in defiance of a federal judge’s injunction and threats of violence to join the Rev. Martin Luther King in a protest march demanding equal voting rights for Negroes. ‘They feel that the Church is really on trial—just as it was in Nazi Germany—and this is the moment of truth,’ declared Father Geno Baroni of Washington, D.C. ‘They know that a man would be dead in spirt if he is not free to follow his conscience,’ the priest said. Several hundred clergy from many parts of the country—among them an estimated 35 to 40 Catholic priests—flocked here. … Later on, a number of Catholic sisters joined the demonstrators. They planned to march the 50 miles from Selma to the state capital at Montgomery in protest against denial of voting rights to Negroes. When the demonstrators were turned back by state troopers firing tear gas and wielding clubs in an outburst of violence, they knelt in the streets in prayer vigils.”
  • St. Meinrad closing its high school
    • “ST. MEINRAD, Ind.—The high school department of St. Meinrad Seminary, which has educated priests for the archdiocese for nearly 100 years, will be discontinued, according to an announcement this week by Archabbot Bonaventure Knaebel, O.S.B. … Archabbot Bonaventure cited the need to expand seminary facilities on the college and theology level, and the existence of other high school programs for the secondary education for priesthood candidates as reasons for the action.”
  • Msgr. Hamill dies; former chancellor
  • Jeffersonville man in ordination class
  • $24,000 willed to Church agencies
  • 51 percent ‘favor’ private school aid
  • Clergy shortage acute: Married diaconate called a necessity
  • Is minimum wage of $1.25 realistic?

(Read all of these stories from our March 12, 1965, issue by logging on to our special archives.) †

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