Father Leonard Feeney - The Point 1952-1959

The Point was a Catholic monthly published from 1952 to 1959 by the Saint Benedict Center in Cambridge, Massachussetts. The Point was originally named The Catholic Observer. The Catholic Observer had its premiere issue in October 1951. The name change to The Point occurred with the February 1952 issue.

The Point tackled the problems confronting Catholicism in the modern world by Americanism, Communism, Ecumenism, Freemasonry, Judaism, Protestantism, and Zionism.

Note:

Photostatic images of The Point mostly supplied to the FBI by the Anti-Defamation League and B'nai B'rith can be found in the FBI's Freedom of Information Act file on Father Leonard Feeney, which can be downloaded at the following link:

https://archive.org/details/LeonardFeeney/page/n6

With this issue, The Catholic Observer changes name to The Point. It is a name we feel is wonderfully fitting. If there is any adjective that describes American life today, it is pointless. What are we here for? where are we going? what is the point of it all? are questions that are left unanswered. Our particular concern, though, is that Catholics are sharing in this general regime of pointlessness. And for them it is especially tragic, for they have been entrusted with keeping the one true Faith, and today they are losing sight of the point of that Faith. They treat it as an efficient organization for the suppression of Communism, as a fund-raising, enterprise as almost everything, except what it is, the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation.

If you want to get The Point, send us your name and address, and we will put you on our mailing list. We can promise you a monthly [edition] of notes and comment in which all of the remarks will be pointed, pointed in the direction of the Catholic Faith.

Christmas has passed for another year, and the Infant God and His Mother were no more noticeable in this Christmas than in any of the past few. It was once again a day of Seasons Greetings, Santa Claus, department store gifts, and package-store spirits. Boston Catholics, however, were given the privilege of observing Christmas in the traditional Catholic manner. They were thoughtfully provided with Midnight Mass on television, enabling them to witness the real absence of the Real Presence in the comfort of their living rooms.

The boys and girls of Saint Benedict Center have in the past month been going around Boston selling Catherine Goddard Clarkes new book, Gate of Heaven. In the course of doing this, they have spoken with some 70,000 Boston Catholics. Needless to say, their experiences have been many and diverse. Some of these experiences we will tell you of in future issues. But, in general, they have this to report: While there remains a large number of those unworthy Catholics who are ashamed of their faith or indifferent to it, yet there is unmistakably a new vitality among Boston Catholics a kind of waking up a growing concern for the state of the Faith and determination that it be not lost. These are the people who have been responsible for making Gate of Heaven the most widely read and discussed book in all of Boston.

Incidentally, Gate of Heaven will soon be available through bookstores, in a clothbound edition coming out March 3.

To say regardless of race, color, or creed is like saying regardless of butcher, baker, or murderer. The people who want us to disregard our creed are usually people who have no creed of their own worth regarding.

The following question appeared, so help us, in a Harvard Philosophy Exam: 7. Prove that when an irresistible force meets an immovable body, Hell freezes over. (This can be done by pure logic.)

Which shows what you can get away with when you have ivy on your walls.

Archbishop Cushing, in a recent address: One-half of the world today is anti-God.

Father Keller, of the Christophers, in a recent pamphlet: Less than one percent of the world is causing all the worlds troubles.

Things seem to be a lot better in the New York diocese.

Saint Benedict Center is the third point of a triangle whose other two points are St. Pauls Church, pastored by Msgr. Hickey, Vicar General of the Archdiocese, and Adams House, one of the Harvard dormitories. The arrangement is an extremely interesting one, as the occupants of each of the three points can testify. It is also a much-visited one.

There are undoubtedly many places in greater Boston with more mossy traditions than the Center, but there seems to be no place currently so fascinating or notorious. For instance, there is a woman we know who was visited recently by a friend from California. Since it was her first trip to Boston, the woman asked her friend what she would like to see first in the historic old city. Take me to Cambridge, the friend replied. I want to see Saint Benedict Center.

The reason for all this interest and excitement is, of course, Father Leonard Feeney, the Centers spiritual director, the priest who dared to decry the carefully-established methods of expediency and to proclaim the Catholic Faith in its traditional purity. By doing this, Father has disturbed the peace of mind of more people than any other man in the United States. Many people are quite prepared to be charmed by Father, who made his first reputation as a poet and lecturer, until they find he is really saying what rumors have reported him as saying that without the Catholic Faith you cannot save your soul. People who never had any interest in salvation, who laughed at Hell as a medieval superstition, become suddenly alarmed when they find that this priest says that, unless they change, they are going there. They gasp in horror, step back, and cry that Father is preaching hate. In this land of religious freedom, there seems to be only one thing that must not be said, and that is that Jesus Christ is God and that He founded one Church for the salvation of all men.

Harvard College has been particularly upset by Fathers Christian challenge. This stems not only from the proximity of the Center to Harvard, but also from the fact that almost half of the Center boys are ex-Harvard, most of whom resigned before receiving their diplomas, giving as their reason that attendance at an anti-Christian institution was incompatible with their Faith. This won for Father early recognition among the Harvard deans as a man of dangerous ideas. Then, too, Father has never pulled his punches when attacking Harvards teachings or its teachers. He has openly and strongly denounced J. B. Conant, the self-styled skeptical chemist who is Harvards president, for his answer to someone who asked him if he thought we were right in dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. Conants reply was, I think we should have dropped ten atomic bombs. He has also attacked such professors as F. O. Matthiessen, the Harvard English teacher who eventually jumped from a hotel window and thereby won for himself the veneration of all loyal Harvard men. (It is a Harvard custom always to refer to its own suicides as martyrs.)