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The Catholic

Volume 4 Number 4 Volume 4, Autumn 1958, Issue 4 Article 10

Aliens and ; Kerala Education Bill; Sunday ; The Bishop of Prato

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Part of the Catholic Studies Commons, and the Immigration Commons

This Postscript is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Catholic Lawyer by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. POSTSCRIPTS

Aliens and Immigration admission as part of the small Asia-Pacific An article' recently appeared in America quota. The injustice of such a provision is discussing aspects of the McCarran-Walter apparent. But the injustice inherent in the Immigration Act.2 Read in the light of THE McCarran Act is even more basic than this. CATHOLIC LAWYER'S symposium on immi- Secretary of State Dulles, quoted by the gration,- presented in the Spring, 1958 author, put it succinctly: issue, it provides a searching critique of the In my opinion, the national origins quota law. The author indicates that despite the system, which draws a distinction between late Senator McCarran's insistence that the blood of one and the blood of "the law does not contain one iota of another, cannot be reconciled with the religious or racial discrimination," it has fundamental concepts of our Declaration of been strongly criticised by business leaders, Independence. of labor unions and prominent churchmen Also criticised are the provisions for de- all faiths. of naturalized citizens, giving Specified are several important defects in them a "second-class" ; the harrying to the Act. Most disadvantageous appears but largely ineffective screening processes be the "national origins" formula, which for preventing the entry of subversives; the assigns to each of the Eastern lack of provisions for emergency entry; and Hemisphere an annual immigration quota the virtually unfettered authority given the calculated at one-sixth of one percent of Immigration and Naturalization Service. the number of of that particular In short, the author concisely presents origin living in the at the time the brief for a greatly revised Immigration of the 1920 census. This naturally weights and Naturalization Act, utilizing arguments the annual quotas in favor of certain na- recommended by and practicality. tions. That of England is more than 200 These sentiments are similar to those times greater than that of . An voiced by the authors of THE CATHOLIC added factor is the provision that any per- LAWYER'S symposium. It is hoped that the son whose ancestry is even one-half Asiatic 86th Congress will take heed. must be included in the Asia-Pacific quota, rather than that of his country of birth. Kerala Education Bill Thus, a person of half-Asian ancestry, a In the last issue of THE CATHOLIC LAW- life-long citizen and resident of a country YER there appeared an article' on the with a large annual quota, must await Kerala Education Bill, passed in Septem- 1 Davis, Feelings run Strong oh hnigration, 100 ber, 1957 by the of Kerala, AMERICA 39 (October 11, 1958). . The bill purported to improve and 2 Immigration and Act (McCarran - safeguard the service conditions of teachers Walt& Act) 66 Stat. 163 (1952), 8 U.S.C. § I101 (Supp. V, 1958). 3 Inmigration - A Symposium, 4 CATHOLIC LAW- I Minattur, The Kerala Education Bill, 4 CATHO- YER 103 (Spring 1958). LIC LAWYER 233 (Summer 1958). POSTSCRIPTS in private schools, but was actually in- day except works of necessity and char- tended to curtail maintenance of schools ity. Section 2146 provides: "All trades, by the Catholic Church. To this end it manufactures, agricultural or mechanical subjected private institutions to a supposed employments upon the first day of the week power of the state to take over their man- are prohibited." Section 2147 makes un- agement, to acquire them or to direct them lawful "all manner of public selling of any not to charge fees for primary classes. upon Sunday." When the bill came before the President The defendants in this case were two of India for approval he referred it to the business organizations engaged in selling Supreme of India for its opinion (an custom-made products for the home. Both action unprecedented in the ten-year his- kept their showrooms open on Sunday, but tory of the Republic of India). On May 22, the goods displayed were not sold or 1958, the court advised that the above- moved. The employees took no orders or mentioned provisions of the bill were un- money, and no prices were quoted. The constitutional, as violating the right of re- employees' only task was to make appoint- ligious or linguistic minorities " to establish ments with showroom visitors. These ap- and administer educational institutions of pointments would be scheduled for some 2 their choice." Apparently accepting this later date at the visitors' homes. opinion, the President disapproved the bill. After analyzing the three sections in- Sunday Laws volved, the court concluded that the defen- dants could not be held to answer for a For the past few years, Sunday laws violation of Section 2147 because there have been the topic of much controversy. was no .that they attempted to Persons indicted for violations of the Sun- make any sales on Sundays. But the court day laws have usually defended upon the found the defendants guilty of violating grounds that this type of violates other sections. It reasoned that "labor" as due process, equal protection, and religious used in the is not restricted to ser- freedom as guaranteed by the . vile labor but includes both physical and For the most part, these claims have been mental work. Using this definition, the unsuccessful.1 court held that the task of the employees In New York State, Article 192 of the in making appointments with showroom Penal Law deals with the of visitors constituted labor within the mean- 2 the Sabbath. In a recent case, some of the ing of Section 2143. sections of this article came under further The defendants were also convicted of discussion and construction. The defend- engaging in a trade on the Sabbath in vio- ants were charged with violating Penal Law lation of Section 2146. The court con- sections 2143, 2146, and 2147. In brief, sidered "trade" in a broad sense, taking it Section 2143 prohibits all labor on Sun- to mean any occupation, and said the de- 2 INDIAN CONST. art. 30(1) (1950). fendants' activities met this criterion. 1 See 4 CATHOLIC LAWYER 91 (Winter 1958); 2 In reaching these conclusions, the court CATHOLIC LAWYER 260 (July 1956). 2 People v. Polar Vent of America, Inc., 174 overruled the defendants' contention that N.Y.S.2d 789 (County Ct. 1957). the conviction for laboring on the Sabbath 4 CATHOLIC LAWYER, AUTUMN 1958 could not be sustained since their activities had acted in the exercise of his canonical did not interfere with the repose and relig- office and consequently committed no . ious of the day. It held that evidence This was the position of the attor- showing that a substantial number of per- neys as well as the Public on the sons visited the showrooms on Sunday was of. the case. However, the lower court enough to show a "serious interruption" of decided to the contrary. the Sabbath's repose. The five-member appellate court denied a request by the plaintiff, a former commu- The Bishop of Prato nist, that the court raise damages to $4,800. The widely-publicized conviction of It ruled instead that he must pay all the costs Pietro Fiordelli, Bishop of Prato, has been of both the original trial and the appeal. reversed by the Court of Appeals of Flo- From this determination, plaintiff's attorneys rence.' The of Florence had found have indicated that appeal will be taken -to the Bishop guilty of defamation. Ina pas- the highest appellate court. toral letter, Bishop Fiordelli had called It appears that this latest opinion holds "public sinners" and "public concubinaries" that the Bishop acted within the rights of a Catholic woman and the atheist with his ecclesiastical office, guaranteed by the whom she celebrated a civil marriage after Italian Constitution. Article VII of the Con- refusing to have their marriage solemnized stitution incorporates by reference the 2 canonically. In reversing the trial court, undertaking of the Italian in the the Court of Appeals held that the Bishop Lateran , Article I, that bishops should be immune from state interference I N. Y. Times, Oct. 26, 1958, p. 37, col. 1. 2 Ciprotti, The Case of the Bishop of Prato, 4 in the exercise of their ecclesiastical juris- CATHOLIC LAWYER 244 (Summer 1958). diction.

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result MENTALLY ILL of a mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of (Continued) his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law. (2) The terms 'mental dis- The acceptance of these proposals might ease or defect' do not include an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or other- represent the beginnings of rationality in the wise anti-social conduct." ALI MODEL PENAL 40 of mental illness. CODE Appendix A §4.01 (tent. Draft No. 4, 1955). Substantially the same formula has been adopted by the Governor's Conference on the De- 40 These criteria are most nearly met by the Amer- fense of Insanity of the State of New York and by ican Law Institute's proposed Criminal Code. H.R. 13492 introduced in Congress by Represen- "(1) A person is not responsible for criminal tative Davis of Georgia.