June 29, 2012

What was in the news on June 29, 1962?

The separation of Church and state comes to a head at the Supreme Court

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 June 29, 1962, issue of The Criterion:

  • High court strikes down New York school prayer
    • “WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a 22-word prayer in New York public schools on the grounds that it was ‘composed by government officials.’ Associate Justice Hugo L. Black, speaking for the six-man majority of the court, held that the so-called ‘Regents’ Prayer’ is ‘wholly inconsistent’ with the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. ‘In this country, it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government,’ Justice Black said.”
  • Raps reports of friction between clergy, laity
  • Classrooms being added to schools
  • ‘Direct’ action advised to stem race prejudice
  • Construction begins on Martinsville church
  • New horizons in Catholic thought
  • Editorial: The decision
    • “Cheer up, folks. We have a hunch the United States will survive the Supreme Court decision forbidding prayer in the public schools. Our own first reaction to it was to moan and groan, but the more we think about it the more we feel that this decision is what the country has needed for some time. Sort of like a sharp slap in the face that brings a hysterical person back to his senses. … But the great contribution this decision can make to the sanity of the nation is to wake the people up to what the Supreme Court did to the law of this land back in 1947. That’s when Justice Black [in the Everson vs. Board of Education decision] concluded from the metaphor of the wall of separation between Church and State that, contrary to the traditional practice of the nation, not one penny of tax money could be used to promote or benefit religion. From that moment, the public schools became irreligious in theory.”
  • Asks special apostolate for family life groups
  • Church urged to use TV to ‘introduce’ the Faith
  • Orthodox official speaks on reunion
  • Preparatory phase closes: Study Council’s agenda, pontiff urges bishops
  • Public aid to education ‘inevitable’

(Read all of these stories from our June 29, 1962, issue by logging on to our special archives.) †

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