Religion: Red Mass

The priest turned from the altar. Facing the congregation he said, “Orate, fratres.” The brethren prayed.

More tangible than the nominal brotherhood of man was the relation between the priest and the congregation. All were lawyers. The Rev. Joseph B. Creedon, celebrant of the mass, is a onetime Manhattan attorney. The Rev. Joseph Stack, a onetime Washington attorney, and the Rev. William I. Lonergan, onetime Manhattan attorney, were present in the sanctuary.

The occasion was the celebration of the first Red Mass or Mass of the Holy Ghost ever read in the U. S. Each year in France & England this Mass (differing from the conventional form only in the insertion of added prayers to the Holy Ghost) takes place on the day the courts open. Similarly it was timed last week in Manhattan. Many a non-Catholic barrister sat with the kneeling Catholic Lawyers’ Guild,* heard words of good counsel from Jesuit Paul L. Blakeley, listened to Patrick Cardinal Hayes. Said Cardinal Hayes: “In Catholic countries the great Crucifix is suspended high—it is impressive. It speaks—every wound in the body of Christ speaks, appeals to judge and to advocate, and also pours out mercy upon the guilty. And while we cannot have that symbol in our courts in our own beloved land, at the same time every Catholic lawyer ought to have it in his heart. Yea, in his mind, in his conduct; and if such a high ideal of your profession is before you—oh what a minister of justice you will be!”

Inspiration & Fellowship

Vicarious churchgoers, participating in divine service by fiddling with the dials of their super-heterodynes, are affected only by voices, miss the presence of preachers. The massiveness of a Stephen Samuel Wise, the momentum of a Charles Reynolds Brown, the gestures of a Robert Norwood, the urbane asceticism of a Henry Sloane Coffin, are lost to the radiowner unless he goes to see what he has heard. Sometimes a voice allures and the radiowner goes to meeting when next a favorite preacher (previously known only as a voice) comes to town. And if the town is Chicago, the radiowner a Chicagoan, almost inevitably the radiowner’s favorite preacher will come to Orchestra Hall to talk to the Chicago Sunday Evening Club.

For 21 years the Sunday Evening Club has maintained “a service of Christian inspiration and fellowship in the business centre to promote the moral and religious welfare of the city.” Principally this service has consisted of bringing noted divines of all faiths to speak to audiences made up of all faiths. It is as non-sectarian as a subway train. The club’s season begins in October, ends in May. The infrequent churchgoer, the stranded salesman, the sedulously religious, the homebody, the student, the tycoon, the clerk, these people and their like attend.

A Presbyterian, than whom few U. S. Presbyterians are more famed, revealed himself last week at the opening of the Sunday Evening Club Season. Dr. Henry Van Dyke was a new presence to many who remembered his radio talk of a week be fore, wherein he flayed intolerance. His unequivocal pronouncements led many to think of him as an ox-boned fullback with a brain. Instead they saw a bristling little man, no taller than many a grammar schoolchild. Similar surprises, some dis appointments will occur every Sunday night during the season.

And as the season progresses encomia will accrue to the Club’s directors, but especially to Clifford Webster Barnes, founder of the club, onetime (1900-1905) Illinois College president, onetime (1918) Red Cross worker, capitalist, altruist, di vine. At Yale, Student Barnes, secretary of the Y. M. C. A., made his first efforts to bring sectarians together. Later, in Paris, Student Barnes assembled a small interdenominational group. Luncheon friends among Chicago business men he persuaded to become trustees of the original Chicago Sunday Evening Club and the beginning and continued existence of the club have been due to his efforts. Looked upon as experimental, the club found instant favor, had an average at tendance its first year of 800 persons. In 19 years it has grown to an average at tendance of 2,500 persons. A vested choir of 100 voices sings at the hebdomadal gatherings.

Founder Barnes has preserved the col egiate informality of his early meetings. At bon mots the Evening Club audiences laugh as they dare not in formal church. Points well-given and taken are applauded not by silent acquiescent nods but by vigorous beating of palm on palm. When the meeting closes, people go out on Michigan Avenue. Some look up at the Chevrolet sign that gives the time every 60 seconds, and set their watches with nobler intentions.

In Washington

Under virile oaks, in a natural amphitheatre in the close of the growing Cathedral of St. Peter & St. Paul on Mount St. Alban’s, D.C., 20,000 churchmen gathered last week. It was the opening of the two-week General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

In a fortnight much can be done; there was much to do. There was the question of remarriage of divorced persons; the place & work of women in the Church; a $4,000,000 budget; there was an impending controversy over a joint commission’s recommendation that healing by faith be commended.; the election of a President of the House of Deputies* but principally there was the Prayer Book. More than 30,000 churchmen had signed a memorial protesting against the proposed exclusion of the 39 articles of religion, heritage of the English Church. The 39 articles, said the protestants, give to the Church an identity apart from the Roman Catholic Church. Should the articles be excluded, they argue, a not-to-be-desired tendency toward Romanism will be followed. Neither the “high” nor the “low” churchmen have taken either side. It was probable that the matter might be referred to a joint commission of bishops & deputies, which would report in 1931, lest an embarrassing controversy arise at the convention. Against the inclusion of the articles is Manhattan Bishop William Thomas Manning; a leading signer of the memorial is Dr. Alexander Griswold Cummins, secretary-treasurer of the National Church League, which sponsored the petition.

Atonement

The Angel of the Lord bade Moses tell his people that when the Passover came they should sacrifice lambs and smear their doors with the blood, that the Angel of Death, passing by, might know where righteous men lived. Long after the death of Moses, Jews celebrated their Passover with the death of lambs; and in the ghettos of walled cities, there were bloody marks upon the doors. In the Middle Ages, when the Jews were hated most bitterly by Christians, the legend arose that the blood upon their doors was that of Christian children whom Jews deemed the most suitable sacrifice to their Jehovah.

True or not, to the legend can be traced many recorded persecutions and many pogroms, which have now been forgotten, in which Jews were driven out of their ghettos and killed.

Three weeks ago (TIME, Sept. 17), Jews celebrated Yom Kippur, their Day of Atonement. On the eve of Yom Kippur, in Massena. N. Y., Barbara Griffith, 4, disappeared. Her parents asked policemen to find her. At about this time, someone remembered the legend of the sacrifice. A State police trooper named H. M. McCann summoned Rabbi Berel Brennglass to headquarters where, in accordance with an arrangement previously made with Mayor W. Gilbert Hawes, he questioned the rabbi as follows:

“Is tomorrow a big holiday, a fast day? Can you give any information as to whether your people in the old country offer human sacrifices?” A crowd of several hundred people were waiting outside the police headquarters; they dispersed, gradually and angrily, when they heard that Barbara Griffith had been found walking in a forest, and that the rabbi had denied that Jews murdered children, or, nowadays, even animals, in any of their ritual.

This dispersion did not end the incident. Famed Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise heard of it and complained to Major John A. Warner, Superintendent of New York State Police. Louis Marshall, president of the American Jewish Committee, called “the most distinguished Jew in America,” sent to Mayor Hawes of Massena a long message in which he demanded an apology. Excerpts from the message.

“To me it seems inexpressibly horrible that this vile slander, which has been demonstrated over and over again to have no foundation in fact, should be resurrected in this State of ours by public officers, upon whom rests the duty of protecting every member of the community against acts of bigotry and fanaticism . . .

“What has occurred does not merely affect the Jews of Massena, whose very lives were placed in jeopardy, but the entire Jewish population of this country and of the world. … I deem it my duty to demand of you an immediate and public written apology to the Jewish people for the terrible wrong which you have inflicted upon them.

“This apology must be couched in such terms as will meet with my approval, so that the world may know that the remorse which you have expressed is genuine. As further evidence, you should also resign from the office which you now hold.”

This message brought an answer from the Mayor of Massena. Excerpts:

“I am confirmed in my conviction that I have committed a serious error of judgment. . . .

“I clearly see and I have no hesitation in affirming that when first the suggestion was made that the disappearance of the Griffith child might be associated with the alleged practice of human sacrifice by the Jews, far from giving hospitable ear to the suggestion, I should have repelled it with indignation and advised the State trooper to desist from his intention of making inquiry of the respected rabbi of the Jewish community of Massena concerning a rumor so monstrous and fantastic.

“I do not make this statement of pro found regret because of any fear on my part that charges will be brought against me looking to my removal from the office of Mayor to which I have been elected five times, four of these elections being unanimous.”

Major Warner reported to Governor Smith that he had suspended Corporal McCann after a severe reprimand.

*Formed last May by the Rev. William E. Cashin, Manhattan priest, onetime chaplain at Sing Sing.

*There are two separate houses in the convention; the House of Bishops, in which each bishop holds a seat, although votes are denied suffragan bishops, and the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, consisting of four laymen and four clergymen, elected in each diocese, and, one clergyman, one layman, from each of the subsidized missionary districts.