Untitled - Digitizing America

parishes seemed to come and go, merge and
separate, with the shifting sands of time and fortune,
Catholic building and refurnishing programs
alternately suffered and prospered. ln some
areas, Catholic schools-even modern, not-yetpaid-for
facilities-+losed down as teaching orders
dwindled, costs rose, and enrollments
dropped. But even now, other congregations are
constructing institutions of learning for their sons
and daughters. And some of the over-ambitious
"white elephants" of the past are being adapted to
new uses.
The entire world joined in mourning as the two
Johns left this mortal life in 1963. The Pope was
taken in June. An assassin's bullet claimed President
Kennedy in November. Surely, John XXlll
had spoken for both of them when he said earlier
that year:
"All human beings ought to reckon that what has
been accomplished is but little in comparison to what
remains to be done . . . Organs of production, trade
unions, associations, professional organizations, insurance
systems, political regimes, institutions for
culture, health, recreation, or sporting purposes
. . . mustall beadjustedtothe eraof theatom, andof
the conquest of space: An era which the human
family has already entered, wherein it has commended
its new advance toward the limitless
horizons."
Here was a decade in which churches-their
priests and their people-became actively involved
in projects such as the building of community
centers, work programs, urban renewal, participation
in marches and picket lines, censustaking,
interdenominational councils, summer day
camps, vocational training, surueys, recreational
programs, senior citizens' facilities and activities,
Headstart and Montessori Schools, classes for the
retarded and handicapped, Red Cross bloodmobile
visits, sponsorship of sports programs for
youngsters-4rograms available to those of all
races and creeds.
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This is not to say that the Catholic Church has not
always been involved in missions to the community.
ln fact, the record of Archbishop James Quigley,
who came to Chicago from Buffalo, New York,
in 1903, is not unusual, even though impressive.
He not only founded seventy{ive new churches
and ninety schools during his thirteen-year administration
here, but he opened the Cathedral College
in 1905 as the nucleus of the archdiocesan
seminary, founded the Working Boys' Home on
Jackson Boulevard, the Ephpheta School for the
Deaf, St. Joseph's Home for the Friendless, and
developed Archbishop Freehan's project, St.
Mary's Training School. These were similar to the
works of the Sixties, but with one important difference.
Today's Church and her services are missions
of parishioners. To be first in extending a
helping hand is no longer the duty of the religious
alone.
On January 11, 1964, Pope Paul Vl said:
"We must give the life of the Church new attitudes of
mind, new standards of behavior; make it rediscover
a spiritual beauty in all its aspects-in the sphere of
thought and word, in prayer and methods of education,
in art and canon law. A unanimous effort is
needed in which all groups must offer their cooperation.
May everyone hear the call which Christ is making
to him through our voice."
And God's people responded. Even in the midst of
murder and mayhem. And sometimes in answer to
the murder and mayhem.
1964 was ayear in which Reverend Martin Luther
King, Jr., conferred with Pope Paul, and Archbishop
John Dearden, in the face of racial tensions,
organized the Archbishop's Committee on
Human Relations. But it was also a year of racial
disturbances in Harlem.
ln February of 1965, the United States bombed
North Vietnam and Malcolm X was shot as he