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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, December 1, 1966
Advent
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P. O. Box 180, Savannah, Ga.
Most Rev. Thomas J. McDonough, D.D.J.C D., President
Rev. Francis J.» Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
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Coercion Or Not?
A statement of the American bishops, print
ed in this edition of THE SOUTHERN CROSS,
charges that through tying birth control pro
grams in with public welfare assistance pro
grams, government agencies are, as a mat
ter of practice, if not of policy coercing the
consciences of the poor in the field of family
limitation.
This particular statement of the bishops has
come in for sharp criticism from several
quarters. Its charge of government intrusion
in the highly sensitive realm of conscience
has been labeled both “untrue” and “unfair.”
We think it is neither.
It has been faulted as presenting serious
allegations against the highest echelons of
government without adducing scientific data
to support its claims.
We join others in hoping that the bishops
will bring forth facts and figures illustrating
the factual nature of their charges - not be
cause we question either their knowledge or
their motives, but simply because such data
will serve to silence those who do.
t
It seems to us, however, that with or with
out statistical proof, the government has al
ready made out a prima facie case against
itself.
For, there is no denying that when the poor
are constrained to seek government aid, they
have no choice but to approach an agency in
which family limitation programs are as im
portant a part as financial assistance. The
government is saying to them, in effect, “the
fewer children you have, the less assistance
you will require and the less intolerable will
be your lot.”
Now, government officials and their apologists
can argue as much as they want to that this
does not constitute coercion to practice birth
control. But we say such an attitude toward
the poor on the part of the public authority
which controls the amount of public assistance
to be received does constitute coercion and
invidious discrimination.
The government claims that its family plan
ning programs are only aimed at fostering
among the citizenry an attitude of responsible
parenthood - that it is genuinely neutral with
regard to the various means of family limi
tation and has no desire to force any such means
on any segment of the population.
If this is so, the question remains - Why
are government efforts in the field of family
planning not completely separate from pro
grams which NECESSITATE contacts between
public authority and one segment of the popu
lace, the poor? Why does not government pro
vide complete freedom for the poor as well
as the more fortunate to approach public a-
gencies promoting birth control programs or
not to approach them?
It is true that the Catholic Church is opposed
to any and all programs of contraceptive birth
control as immoral.
It is not true, however, as has been charged
in some quarters, that the bishops are simply
using their statement on the government and
birth control as a lever with which to mobilize
Catholic opposition to any and all government
controlled programs of birth control.
They are simply, and only, contending that
public authority, by intertwining its programs
of public welfare assistance and family plan
ning, is engaged in a policy of discrimination
against the poor and is, in fact, bringing the
power of government to bear to force them,
however subtly, to practice birth control re
gardless of the dictates of their consciences.
The bishops have called for opposition “vigo
rously and by every democratic means, (against)
those campaigns already underway in some
states and at the national level toward the active
promotion, by tax-supported agencies, of birth
prevention as a public policy, above all in con
nection with welfare benefit programs.”
We endorse the bishops’ statement and their
call for action. We urge our readers to make
their voices heard, by whatever means are at
their disposal, in protest against government
discrimination against and coercion of the con
sciences of the poor.
(F.J.D.)
REUNION DEMANDS REFORM
The People’s Church
Rev. William V. Coleman
Screen On
'Vatican //
0 DccttiHeat&
American Catholicism is a child of Ireland,
in the main. It has inherited many of its cus
toms, outlooks and attitudes from the emerald
isle. This will make the venture into the ecu
menical world difficult for many, and under
standably so.
From the end of the middle ages, the Irish
people have fought
a see-saw battle
with the English for
national identity.
They alone among
all the ancient
peoples of the Bri
tish Isles have at
length found their
freedom. In the
darkest days of domination, only their adherence
to the Church marked them as a separate
people. They were Catholic, the persecutors
Protestant. To be Irish was to be Catholic.
When callous unconcern in Britan drove the
immigrant to America he brought with him this
conviction. It served him well in the new land
for it preseved his Faith amid manifold dangers.
It limited him too, however, for it forced him
to look upon the Church with an almost jealous
eye. This was his Church and those who wished
to enter it must enter on his conditions.
This tendency to see everything Protestant
as evil and everything Catholic as good must
now be given up, if we are to follow the direc
tion indicated by Vatican H. The Decree on
Ecumenism clearly calls for a reformation
of thought within the Church. “There can be
no ecumenism worthy of the name without a
change of heart. For it is from newness of
attitudes, from self-denial, and unstinted love,
that yearnings for unity take their rise and
grow toward maturity.”
“The primary duty (in Ecumenism) is to
make an honest and careful appraisal of what
ever needs to be renewed and achieved in the
Catholic household itself, in order that its
life may bear witness more loyally and more
luminously to the teachings. . .which have
been handed down from Christ through the
apostles.”
The need for such a returning of our posi
tion, our customs and our whole attitude to
ward the Church and toward those who do not
fully share our faith is presented in these
stinging words:
“For although the Catholic Church has been
endowed with all divinely revealed truth and
with all the means of grace, her members fail
to live by them with all the fervor they should.
As a result the radiance of the Church’s face
shines less brilliantly in the eyes of our
separated brethren and of the world at large,
and the growth of God’s kingdom is retarded.
Every Catholic must therefore aim at Chris
tian perfection. . .”
The reason for our continued separation is
our continued unwiUingness to respond to the
humble love of Christ who sought reconcilia
tion with the full force of His loving word.
Just how this is to be practiced in the con
crete is outlined in several steps:
1. We must remove from our formulation of
doctrine, our religious customs and our trucu
lent attitudes all that is offensive to those
outside the Church. This includes aU attitudes
which offend the sincere Christian or Jew.
2. We must enter into dialogue with our broth
ers — sincere discussions which will lead to a
better understanding of one another. There is no
call to compromise in essentials, only to a deep
er understanding that the Spirit is at work in
areas we had not guessed.
3. We must work together with our brothers
in work which will be helpful to all men.
4. We must seek opportunities for common
prayer especially for prayer for unity on Christ’s
terms not our own.
5. Finally we are called to examine the Church
carefully and seek every opportunity for reform
and renewal appropriate to the times.
When we are convinced of our own need to
reform iand dialogue with an open heart then
and only then will ecumenism begin to take
shape.
It will be difficult to shake off an ancient,
Irish heritage but the faith of the Irish will
assist us. It would be sad indeed to look to
the emerald isle and find that those who stayed
at home were less Irish than we.
SEES NO FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE
It Seems To Me
I thoroughly understand the
spiritual and psychological
problems encountered by
young people in the matter
of the size of the families
they are able to rear. After
all, my wife and I are not
without experience.
Our early
married years
coincided with
the Great De
pression; and
we will never
stop being
grateful for the
fact that if you
use a big pot,
and put in enough vegetables
and water, and keep it sim
mering, soup can be a satis
factory and inexpensive diet.
Our family was spread out
through the years, and even
at this late date we are still
educating a son and daughter.
We hope, too, to be of some
help to our grandchildren.
Everybody talks nowadays
about the affluent society; and
of course affluent it is. But
as incomes increase, needs
and obligations tend to keep
pace — and sometimes even
to race ahead.
Going back only to the child
hood of my parents, an ele
mentary school education was
greatly to be prized. High
school graduates were among
the highly privileged. Few
could afford college.
Today, a bachelor of arts
degree (or its equivalent) sim
ply enables you to compete
on equal terms with the people
Joseph Breig
all around you. If you are
aiming for the front ranks,
you go on to a master’s, and
if possible to a doctorate.
In other fields there is the
same upgrading. Parents who
care about their children make
sacrifices not only for their
education, but for medical and
dental care unheard of a few
generations ago, and for cul
tural formation and the like.
Further, it is belaboring the
obvious to say that children
no longer are economic assets,
as was the case when people
lived on farms.
The consequence is that in
many cases some family limi
tation is necessary. And as
Pius XII said, there are many
reasons — medical, eugenic,
economic or social — which
justify such limitation.
In this connection, it is su
premely important that the
means used for spacing births
be moral means.
Nobody who really believes
in God and God’s boundless
goodness can doubt that every
thing He requires of us is for
our happiness.
AU through the centuries,
the teaching authority of the
Church has told us that con
traception (direct frustration
of the power of the marriage
act to generate life) is in vio
lation of divine natural law.
In recent years, there has
grown up a body of opinion
claiming that in the light of
modern knowledge about psy
chology and physiology, and of
modern advances in medica
tion (the pill) this teaching is
not true, and should be altered.
The Church’s teaching au
thority, in order to serve us
well, must examine these
claims in depth, and give an
answer. Pope Paul is facing
up to that responsibility.
Meanwhile, he reiterates
that the traditional Catholic
teaching remains in force and
“demands faithful and gener
ous observance.”
It is not true, Pope Paul
says, that the teaching autho
rity is “in a state of doubt.”
It is not in a state of doubt;
and theologians and confes
sors who have been saying
that it is, and that therefore
the traditional teaching does
not bind, are in error, and
are doing the people a serious
disservice.
Pope Paul, it seems to me,
is giving us time to prepare
pur minds for a definitive
statement which will not
change one jot or tittle con
cerning the fundamental prin
ciple that contraceptive mea
sures are immoral.
We ought to do as the pope
urges — dispose ourselves to
accept his statement when it
comes, and to give “faithful
and generous observance” now
and thereafter. This way lies
great spiritual and moral
growth and happiness. Diffi
cult it may be — but the re
wards will be tremendous.
(Continued Next Issue)
"Isn't he a little bit too efficient?"
CABBAGES AND KINGS
Rev. William V. Coleman
On Youth
In September America presented an editorial
calling young, Catholic Americans to task for
their lack of discipline in the face of the many
problems in the Church today. The editorial
writer implied that they were unfaithful to the
long tradition of the Church. Many adult Ameri
cans share this feeling.
I would like to question such an attitude. In
my view, few generations of
American Catholics have made
as significant a contribution to
the Church as has today’s
younger set. If the Church has
assumed a more dynamic pos
ture in the past few years, it
is primarily because of the
young people who have forced
i the rest of us out of our well-
worn rut into the daylight of a rapidly changing
world.
Youth tends to see things in black and white.
They are, as yet, uninvolved in maintaining
the “status quo” and are not convinced that
it i s the best of all possible worlds. While
they may at times want to throw out the baby
with the bath water, they are courageous enough
to call for a reformation of real abuses. They
would seem to be the prophetic voice crying,
often enough, in the wilderness.
May I list some of the problems youth sees
and demands help in solving. Perhaps you, too,
may in your heart of heart agree that it is high
time something was done to get the ball rolling.
1. Race Relations: Why is it that Christian
people, dedicated to love and brotherhood among
all men, have failed to be the real leaders in
improving the feeling between black and white?
Why is it that the Church has not been the vital
force in this area?
2. Poverty: How is it that there are so few,
poor Catholics? Is the Church becoming middle-
class? Why are so many Catholics missing
the point in attacking the government for try
ing to do what they have refused to do in help
ing the poor?
3. War: Why must there be war? How can those
who say they love all men call for the utter
destruction of the enemy as if he were a thing
not a person?
4. Religion: How can a man say he loves God
whom he cannot see and not love his brother
whom he can see? Will religious observance
mark a man as saved? Is there something
more needed to be one with Christ?
If space permitted, I would propose their
questions on Liturgy, Ecumenism and all the
rest. But it does not. It aHows only one search
ing query, “Isn’t there just a bit of the old
fire of youth left in that aging heart of yours?”
QUESTIONS
Our F aith
Msgr. Conway
Q. Who were the wives of Cain and Abel?
There is no mention of it in the Bible; so may
be that is where the idea of evolution comes in.
I know that the Bible does not mention every
detail; many things are simply taken on Faith.
A. The story of Cain and Abel is certainly
not a scientific account of the origin of the hu
man species; there is no hint of evolution in it.
Neither is there much of history
in it, except as symbolic and
religious history. The story
is told for several purposes:
(1) to show how man continued
in sin after the Fall, finally be
coming so bad that the Flood
was necessary as punishment;
(2) to illustrate the enduring
conflict between the settled
tiller of the soil - Cain - and the nomadic
shepherd , Abel; (3) to demonstrate God’s punish
ment for sin and His protection of the sinner;
(4) to provide a fabled account of the Kenite
clan - descendents of Cain - who were closely
associated with the Hebrew people in early
centuries - and (5) to show how the younger
brother is preferred to the older, a sign of
God’s free choice, which wiU often be similarly
manifested in Hebrew history.
The story is taken by the sacred writer from
sources quite distinct from the stories of
Paradise and the Flood, and he makes no
great effort to fit it in harmoniously. Note
that there is already a developed civilization
at the time of Cain and Abel, established forms
of worship, and enemy clans which will be a
threat to Cain’s life unless the Lord puts a
tribal mark on him for protection. Cain, him
self, built a town; and he must have found
people to live in it. In a society like that he
evidently had no need to worry about finding
a wife.
There is no evidence that Abel was married.
We do well to read the Bible as it is written,
without trying to find in it solutions to our own
historical, scientific and theological problems,
about which the sacred writer evidently couldn’t
care less.
Q. Is it necessary to kneel always when pray
ing? If we are able to kneel for morning and
evening prayer, but rather say them sitting or
lying in bed -- where we seem to pray better —
is this a sin?
A. No.