CAPT S. M. SHELTON, USN
Commanding Officer
CDR G. T. STOUT, USN
Executive Officer
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EDITOR: H.T. DAVIS, YN1
055 J or 365
CHAPLAINS CORNER
This idea that religion is all right
for-the women and the kids but nothing
for real . men to bother about hurts
here and now among ' some ccmponets of
our Churche. All of us who have been
in the pastoral ministry any length
time have seen again and again bright
and friendly youngsters who- never
missed Religious Education or anything
in chruch while they were of school
age, drop everything when they come
out. They get the idea from their
parents' example that it just goes
with School days.
Well, if the astronauts in the NASA
program have not changed all that,
they have done more thah anything that
has happened in a long time to help.
They have " not • only put the United
States back in the space race, they
have put religion back in the man’s
world.
LT. COL. GLENN'S simple statement
that religion was part. of . his da,ily
life and not something trotted out to
please the politically powerful
Continued Next Column
churches nor a grasp-any-straw-in-a—
crisis sort of thing helped more than
a. thousand • sermons.' Much more*
How religion ever got itself asso
ciated . with the inconsequential and
the merely sentimental is hard to see.
It is a basic impulse. It is an effort
on the part of man - who is forever
trying to explain whatever he sees -
to explain himself and relate himself
to his origins* ' From the very
beginning of human consciousness man
has been '' trying. to elaborate a
religion and' proptiate his Maker*
There are archeological evidences for
all .to see. that .just as soon as man
was able to make anything, he began to
make crude altars and symbols of
sacrifice.
The Soviets, of. all people, have
proven that. They have not really
abolished religion, they have just
substituted a brand of their own. They
have new gods, new motivations, new
holy days and a new ritual - the
chucking out of Stalin’s body from
their, holy of holies in Red Square
shows the. importance they attach to it.
Unwittingly, maybe, they are
demonstrating the truth of Our Lord1s
dictum that "man cannot live by bread
alone.” He needs some mystique, some
integrating force, some sense of
direction, some reason for being,
which everybody but the Communists call
religion
All of us owe Colonel Glenn a great
vote, of thanks for reminding the- world
so powerfully that religion is still a
mighty force, and much, much more than
a becoming pre-occupation of the
ladies, like music, current affairs
and good books.
By
Father Keefe