Non-Catholic Students Learn Prayers and Attend Mass

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, Aug. 11—Catholic schools are popular only as long as they downplay religion, right? Wrong, said a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

In Australia, the latest enrollment figures show that non-Catholics are flocking to Catholic schools as never before — knowing that they will be required to participate in religious education and regularly attend Mass.

In many parts of Australia, non-Catholic enrollment has grown as high as 25%. A spokeswoman at Australia's Parramatta diocese told the paper that “students come to the school knowing it has a definite ethos and commitment to religious instruction and prayer.”

It quoted one non-Catholic high school freshman student saying, “I don't see myself as being Catholic. But I pray to God at church and I learn about loving God and helping people.”

In recent tests, students averaged 97% on questions requiring that they know Catholic prayers, said the report. The schools want the students to get their scores on doctrinal questions up to that same level.

Said one school spokesman, “My hope would be that when these children finish [senior year] that there would not be any significant gaps in their knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith tradition.”

Polish Diaspora United by Church and Scouting

COLUMBUS DISPATCH, Aug. 12—The many Polish people uprooted by the devastation of World War II immigrated to the United States and other countries, assimilating to their new nations and leaving many of their former customs behind.

They haven't forgotten them, however, thanks to the International Polish Scouting Organization (which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year) and the Catholic Church.

There are Polish scouts in 11 countries. In the United States, the group now has more than 100,000 members in 11 states, said the Columbus Dispatch. Ohio was the site this month of the international group's jubilee, which is held every six years.

The Polish scouts stress their heritage, which includes Catholicism. Archbishop Szczepan Wesoly flew in from Rome to kickoff the golden anniversary jubilee with an outdoor Mass in Polish at the camp Aug. 16, said the report.

“Incorporating Polish language and heritage into programs keeps Polish-American youth in touch with their roots,” Scout leader Andy Stachowiak of New Britain, Conn., told the paper. “If you know your background, you fit in.”

Julian Green's Diary Ends

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Aug. 17—One man who figured largely in what has been called the “20th century Catholic literary revival” has died, reported the Associated Press (AP), which learned the information from French media.

Julian Green, born in Paris to American parents and educated at the University of Virginia, was the author of several novels about the American South — in French. But perhaps he was best known for his extensive diary that chronicled his life among the Parisian elite, and which expressed a profound faith and his struggle to keep it.

He also translated Catholic poet Charles Peguy into English in language that bilingual critics have called better than the original. AP reported that he was the first foreigner to be elected to the Academie Francaise that guards the purity of the French language. He died at age 97, but the report said that he had already stopped his ambitious schedule of spending hours every day writing in his journal.

The diary itself, 40 years before his death, offers a clue why.

“You will be a better man only when you have completely lost sight of yourself and will then think of your Creator,” he told himself. “No more diary, no more mirror, no more self-complacency. A fly, after long wanderings over a windowpane in search of the sun it sees but cannot reach, being separated from it by this sheet of glass, will fly out of the window when death opens it.”