March 4, 2011

What was in the news on March 3, 1961? Housing bias and Queen Elizabeth II

By Brandon A. Evans

50 Year LogoThis 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, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Here are some of the items found in the March 3, 1961, issue of The Criterion:

  • Catholics are urged to take lead in the elimination of housing bias
    • “WASHINTON—Archbishop Patrick A. O’Boyle has urged Catholics here to join in a broad attack upon economic and other factors that prevent successful open occupancy of housing for Negroes. The Archbishop of Washington also praised local Catholics in a Brotherhood Week message ‘for the manner in which they have exemplified the spirit of Christian understanding, sympathy and fair play.’ … The prelate noted that before the 1954 Supreme Court decision, Catholic schools here were integrated, that no Catholic church has closed its doors because of a change in neighborhood population, and that hospitals and charitable homes have welcomed all persons.”
  • Miami bishop asks U.S. Catholics to help refugees
  • Bloomington parishioners take Passion Play roles
  • Education aid proposal evokes wide criticism
    • “Federal aid to education and its relations to Church-related schools has brought comments from Catholic Church leaders, educators and secular newspapers. Many spokesmen opposed the proposal of President [John F.] Kennedy as discriminatory to private and parochial pupils. In Jefferson City, Mo., Bishop Joseph M. Marling, C.PP.S., said he favors a program of long-term, low-interest loans from the federal government to both public and private schools.”
  • ‘Vocation Day’ program to cover nine professions
  • Go easy in seeking school aid, priest-educator urges
  • New York bishop: Says Catholics ask only equality
  • Urges Jewish day schools to seek government aid
  • Oklahoma priest again joins sit-in demonstration
  • Two priests die in China prison
  • Ecuador’s bishops hit neglect of the poor
  • Vatican officials elated at news of Queen’s visit
    • “VATICAN CITY—Authorities of the Vatican Secretariat of State expressed deep satisfaction at the forthcoming visit of Queen Elizabeth II of England to His Holiness, Pope John XXIII. The British legation to the Holy See pointed out that the visit will be an official state visit. … Well-informed persons in the Vatican rejected all suggestions of any connection between the royal couple’s coming visit and the previous visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, Primate of the Church of England.”
  • FBI official lauds clergy for stand against Reds
  • Anti-Christian pressure in Egypt is mounting
  • Says English in the Mass would not be a ‘cure-all’

(Read all of these stories from our March 3, 1961, issue by logging on to our special archives.) †

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