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I WROTE PROFILES OF NOTEWORTHY INDIVIDUALS for both Fr. Hanley and Bill. Most ran as full-page spreads; the following are excerpts. Bill hoped that providing lots of variety and details would keep readers engaged with The Canadian Register between weekly issues.
What impressed me about all these people was their clear focus on a purpose for their lives, and how positively they responded to opportunities.
NOVEMBER 19, 1960 family page
"one-woman apostolate
"DOREEN FURST'S PRIVATE CRUSADE
"KINGSTON - Doreen Furst has seen for herself how much the Church in at least one Central American country needs our help. The pretty, dark-haired young Canadian -- formerly Doreen Lambert of Kingston -- moved to Honduras after her marriage three years ago to Max Furst, whose home is there. They now have a one-and-a-half-year-old girl named Renata, and live in a quiet, luxurious house. Doreen has servants for the first time in her life, and a round of social engagements to fill her days. But she is acutely aware of the poor around her.
"She cannot agree with the social barriers in Honduras, between white people and the mestizo majority and the few Negros. The primitive economic and agricultural conditions, and especially the sinister activities of communists in the country, disturb her so much that she is determined to do something about them. When she recently visited her family here, Doreen sought help and advice. The Holy Name Society gave her some funds and she returned to Honduras on Nov. 6 with a plan to organize what Catholic action exists there.
"Four million people live in her new homeland; 80 per cent are poor. Most are Catholics, but only about 80 per cent of these practice their religion. North America has paid little attention to the country's welfare. The clergy and few nuns who are there belong to Spanish orders. There are good schools run by nuns or Brothers, but only children from wealthy families attend them.
"As a mother, Doreen has been most upset by the wretched conditions of children. Many are horribly bloated and undergrown because of tiny parasitic worms which enter their systems through the pores of their bare feet. Milk is distributed through CARE* to schools, but most children take it home to their families or sell it instead of drinking it themselves. A pediatrician is now president of Honduras. Dr. Ramon Villeda Morales is a Catholic and Doreen believes that he is doing a great deal to improve matters. But there remains an overwhelming lot to be done.
"Most Hondurans have no shoes and many sleep in the streets. The economy forces some people to be misers in the classic sense. One farmer who bought land bit by bit now has so much rent money in his shack that he dries it in the sun each Saturday so it will not rot, but he has neither the education nor a marketplace with goods to spend it on. It appears that the wealthy have 'kept the poor poor' so that wages will remain low.
"There have been occasions when the rich tried to relieve some of the misery. During a famine years ago, they set up food stations. But one society matron remembers that a peasant waiting to receive food from her spat in her face and denounced her because of her wealth. Since then she has been bitter and unsympathetic toward the poor. There is pride on both sides, says Doreen. She worries that the wall which that pride maintains between the peoples of Honduras is not only un-Christian but positively dangerous. It takes so little for a 'class struggle' to erupt in such conditions.
"What worries Doreen most is the communist activity in Honduras. Its Communist Party is led by a fallen-away priest who gives alcohol to peasants, and promises all kinds of unrealistic reforms in order to win votes. He goads the poor to rebel against the rich. His favorite 'joke' is that he 'was a Catholic priest, but finally woke up.'
"Doreen is convinced that the Honduran situation demands urgent action. She is not sure of her own strength, but is nonetheless determined to do all that is in her power -- in the face of tradition and greed and even the opinion of her own relations. But she understands that example is a sure way to success. Four or five years ago, she says, Honduras' first Jesuits, a half-dozen or so, settled in the country and began teaching by example. They used modern agricultural methods and eventually natives went to learn from them. They also began to bargain for local farmers, against traders who used to take advantage of them."
I haven't been able to find a trace of Doreen Lambert Furst. That fits with my feeling that she was exposing herself to grave dangers by wanting to change a culture she hadn't had time to know well.
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An article about pioneer research into stress at the University of Montreal by Dr. Hans Selye was one of my longest and most challenging. Since his discoveries underlie everything written and said about stress to this day I won't repeat them, but how his research began and how it was done may interest you.
Because a friend of my parents was an assistant of his, I had easy access. I remember well the awe I felt as Mariola guided me through vast, high-ceilinged and silent laboratories, glaring white, with strong strange smells. I had to ask the doctor succinct questions in the correct order because I couldn't waste his time during the interview or call him back if I missed a key point. Back in Kingston I wrote a draft and persuaded a third-year medical student named Arthur to edit my text. He was flattered, understood the importance of getting it right, but kept finding problems. Rewriting meant re-typing. Eventually, we both became thoroughly SICK of this item!
December 17, 1960
"THE 'SICK FEELING'
"Selye and stress
"MONTREAL -- For 24 years, Dr. Hans Selye has worked on the basis of a theory that something he calls stress is the origin of degenerative diseases and death in the animal body. His research on the subject has won for him world-wide fame and the indebtedness of millions of persons whose doctors explain why they should take it easy. A very slim, energetic man of medium height, Dr. Selye is director of the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Surgery at the University of Montreal.
"Stress, by his definition, is 'The consequence of the rate of wear and tear in a biologic system.'
"Born into a Viennese family which has produced four generations of doctors, his education was begun by Benedictine priests in Czechoslovakia and he earned his MD and PhD from the German University of Prague. As a medical student he became curious about 'The feeling of just being sick.' He came to North America on a Rockefeller Fellowship, to study at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and McGill University in Montreal.
"SIR FREDERICK BANTING VISITED McGILL in 1936, listened with interest to Dr. Selye's observations about stress, and secured for him a $500 research grant. The young doctor began to work, alone, against traditional medical thinking with its emphasis on specific diseases. In 1945 he was invited to set up his experimental institute at the University of Montreal. He now has a $400,000 annual budget.
"To observe the effects of strain and a body's reactions to them, Dr. Selye and his assistants expose rats to a variety of hardships. While such treatments go on, Dr. Selye experiments with various hormones and chemicals, observing their relation to physical fatigue. It is not possible to duplicate in an animal the mental or psychological strain which a human being may undergo, but any body's chemistry is affected by physical strain and all stress can be measured.
"At present, all the Institute's work relates directly to what we know as 'heart disease' and 'heart failure.' Some rats acquire heart ailments when exposed to stress for an exhausting length of time; healthy rats can take more than ones whose hormone balance has been upset. Recently, Dr. Selye has found that potassium or magnesium prevent damage to the hearts of rats under stress.
"Nevertheless, he believes that stress is a good thing, for it keeps us 'keen' if it is properly understood and used intelligently. Each individual has his own stress level. He should find it and learn to use his at the rate best fitted to his own mind and body.
"Over the years, Dr. Selye's laboratory and his fame have grown, but he has a one-track mind and maintains an energetic, steady and contented pace during long days. He is married and the father of three boys and a girl. He speaks nine languages (and says that 'After you have learned six you can learn them all'), holds six university degrees, has several medical awards and countless other honors, belongs to various societies and is a member of the editorial boards of many medical journals. He has published some 700 articles, 14 books and his works have been translated into eight languages.
"In 1957, Constance Beresford-Howe concluded a profile of Hans Hugo Bruno Selye by writing 'Not everyone accepts Selye's sweeping claim that stress has a bearing upon all diseases and indeed on all human activities. But he has the vision and zest to foresee a time when we may all live to be a hundred -- not by avoiding stress but by correction of the hormonal imbalances that cause disease. Fear, worry and resentment are disease producers, he says; hence it follows that happiness and peace of mind can produce health and long life."
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NOVEMBER 4, 1961
We published this on the occasion of Pope John XXIII's 80th birthday:
"'HE HAS A KIND FACE'
"This man is Pope
"During the suspenseful few days in October of 1958 when the world awaited the outcome of a conclave of Cardinals in Rome, a daily newspaper with pictures of every papal candidate came into the home in Fribourg, Switzerland, in which I boarded. The family's eight-year-old daughter joined everyone else in studying the faces, then chose her favorite -- Angelo Giuseppe Cardinal Roncalli. 'He has such a kind face,' Gabrielle explained.
"When on Oct. 28 he became Pope John XXIII, the adults in that home were taken aback. While they were weighing the chances of intellectual Italian Bishop Montini, and of non-Roman rite Cardinal Agajanian of Armenia, who was the leading candidate, a child simply chose 'a kind face.'
"IN THE THREE years since, the world has come to love the Pope. His life is a constant expression of charity, in both formal and informal actions. His understanding of people and mankind, his wonderful humor, his humility -- these appear in countless stories coming out of Vatican City.
"During the first week of Pope John's reign the president of Pax Romana, Ramon Sugranyes, had an audience with him and mentioned going to the United States. His Holiness enthusiastically said, 'You should fly! It's a wonderful way to travel. If I ever go to the States -- oh, but I'm the Pope now.' He has, in fact, been in a jet. It was in 1958, when he flew to Lourdes on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the apparitions to St. Bernadette.
"HISTORIANS WILL recall that, at an age when many men retire from public life, Pope John announced that he would convoke an ecumenical council [Vatican II], increased the number of members in the College of Cardinals to 85, canonized five saints within two years, issued five encyclicals in 25 months, and named the first Negro, Filipino and Japanese cardinals.
"When he was Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Roncalli often donned a plain cassock and walked through the streets, talking to shopkeepers and other people, sometimes stopping for coffee and a cigarette in a coffee shop. Eugenio Bacchion, president of Men's Catholic Action in Venice, recalls a time in 1953 when he was mourning the death of his wife. Cardinal Roncalli, whose sister had just died, called Mr. Bacchion and said, 'Tomorrow is Christmas. It will be your first Christmas with an empty place in your home. Would you come with your children and have Christmas dinner with me?'
"IN ACCORDANCE with tradition, Pius XII [John's predecessor] ate his meals alone, but Pope John 'tried to keep the tradition, but it didn't last eight days. After all, there is nothing in Scripture that says I have to eat alone.' He usually invites old friends to share with him his principal meal of raviolini or polenta, with fowl or game. He has lost about 20 pounds under the stresses of his office.
"His life is a busy one. Normally, he rises at 4 a.m. to shave, pray, read his breviary and meditate. He offers Mass at 7:30, has breakfast, then answers letters, glances through about seven newspapers and reads documents. Until lunch he grants audiences to visitors, speaking to them in Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek or Russian. After a late lunch, he prays briefly in his private chapel, then works alone until 7:45 p.m. Before dinner, at eight, he says his Rosary. He goes to bed at 10 o'clock."
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Pope John XXIII died 18 months later. My full article included many more anecdotes about his style of service. They were popular gossip among Catholics everywhere. Because his predecessor Pius XII (1939-58) had been an extremely ascetic and shy intellectual, my generation grew up thinking of popes as historical figures with power but no personalities. I didn't hear my favourite John XXIII story until the 21st Century: When a reporter asked him how many people work in Vatican City, he replied, "About half".
The current Pope Francis seems to be cut from an updated version of the same humane cloth as John XXIII. However, the very different styles of their times are measured by the facts: John joked about workers at the Vatican. Francis had to fire its financial board; he replaced it with international specialists, including a woman.
*An international disaster relief organization founded in 1945.
CHAPTER 20 of GLIMPSES -- 30