April 13, 2012

What was in the news on April 13, 1962?

School prayer goes before the United States Supreme Court, and priests ‘debate’ right to work laws

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 April 13, 1962, issue of The Criterion:

  • High Court told to bar public school prayers
    • “WASHINGTON—American public schools are wholly secular institutions from which efforts ‘to inculcate into the children a love for God’ must be banned, the U.S. Supreme Court was told. Attorney William J. Butler of New York made this claim in a challenge to the constitutionality of prayer recitation in the public schools of New York State. Butler appeared before the court on April 3 on behalf of five parents and nine children in New Hyde Park, N.Y., public schools. He maintained that recitation of a prayer in their schools violates the provisions of the Federal Constitution which ban an establishment of religion and guarantee religious freedom. But attorneys for the local school board and for 16 intervenor parents of 41 public school children told the high court that excluding prayer from the schools would contradict an American tradition that extends back to the earliest days of the nation. They said that to bar prayer from schools would be inconsistent with such practices as the recitation of prayer in Congress and in the Supreme Court itself, whose sessions open with the invocation: ‘God save the United States and this honorable court.’ … The 22-word prayer [in question], whose recitation is non-compulsory, reads: ‘Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.’ ”
  • Nun charges deficiencies in schools
  • Fatima Retreat House finance plan endorsed
  • Bloomington will be host to parley
  • Traditional Holy Week rites slated
  • Two priests ‘debate’ Right to Work laws
  • ‘Separation a sin’: Times dictate unity, Lutheran leader says
  • Raps sugar-coated lures to religious vocations
  • Priest in Russia: A cathedral of horrors
  • Named to Council steno corps
  • Urgency of racial problem cited by Atlanta prelate
  • Suggests methods to spur Latin American vocations
  • Pontiff endorses cardinal’s drive for Latin America
  • Ceylon lifts ban against teachers
  • Jesuit deplores flaws in higher education
  • Lutheran leader lauds pontiff as ‘Pope of peace, concord’
  • Pope names four African archbishops
  • Calls pope’s encyclical prime anti-Red document
  • Heart attack fatal to Montana bishop

(Read all of these stories from our April 13, 1962, issue by logging on to our special archives.) †

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