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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, May 2, 1968
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P. O. Box 180, Savannah, Ga.
Most Rev. Gerard L. Frey, D.D. President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor
John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
Phone 234-4574
Second Class Postage Paid at Waynesboro. Ga
Send Change of Address to P. D. Box 180. Savannah, Ga.
Published weekly except the second and last weeks
in June, July and August and the last week in December.
Subscription price $5.00 per .year.
The Savannah Plan
Georgia banker Mills B. Lane last week
unveiled a forward-looking proposal designed to
revitalize living and working conditions in slum
areas of Savannah.
Now known as “The Savannah Plan,” Lane’s
proposal would enlist the aid of area colleges,
schools, churches, businesses and anyone who
wants to lend a hand in providing volunteers for
a roundup of trash, abandoned old cars and
assorted eyesores, and a sprucing-up campaign
in blighted areas.
In addition, the Citizens and Southern
National Bank, which Lane heads, is
establishing the Citizen and Southern
Community Development Corporation to
provide money for home ownership and equity
capital for new small businesses. The
corporation will make available down payment
money as second mortgages to secure first
mortgages, and has pledged ten million dollars
for long-term, first mortgage home financing in
slum areas.
The development corporation will also
purchase some reclaimable but rundown slum
property, “to test the economics of renovation
and then sale to individuals,” and will aim at a
new housing unit, fully equipped, for sale by
the corporation.
It is an ambitious plan and one which we
feel deserve public support.
Thing In The Spring
A similar slum clean up plan - though one
without the financial follow-up envisaged by
Mr. Lane - has rejuvenated a 50 block area of
New York City from the Lower East Side to
the South Bronx.
There, it was the “Thing in the Spring”
taking over for a day -- a
renovation-relationship, a work-dialogue
bringing people from the suburbs into the city
to work with residents and to get to know
them. The emphasis was not just on clean-up or
changing the physical appearance of the blocks.
It was aimed at people.
According to reporter Chris Sheridan,
writing in the CATHOLIC NEWS of New York
last week:
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“They put into action plans they had made
at block meetings, painting murals, starting to
clean out basements and yards .. .
“On East 103rd Street, where a similar
successful day had taken place last fall, front
steps were given a fresh coat of paint and back
yards were prepared for cementing.
‘‘Further uptown, on 117th
Street. . . volunteers went up and down the
street, piling up trash, clearing lots, painting
anything that needed it. Everybody worked,
and everybody looked as if they enjoyed it.”
New York’s “Thing in the Spring” was
coordinated this year, as last, by Msgr. Robert
J. Fox. Said Msgr. Fox: “The Thing in Spring is
not meant to be a program run by complete
people reaching out to help the incomplete.
Rather, it hopes to be an organism of people
who profess to discover their common human
nature through experiencing their riches and
their poverty in one another.”
Of New York’s 1968 “Thing in the Spring”
Msgr. Fox pointed out that most important to
the success of this year’s effort was the
relationships which were begun between the
Negro, Puerto Rican and other Americans of
the inner city areas, and the white-middle-class
people who had been their guests in the
renovation project.
“Walls came down” that day, he said.
Let’s hope the “Savannah Plan” can bring
some walls down, too.
FAIRJIOUSING LAW NEEDS ENFORCEMENT
The Backdrop...
By John J. Daly^ Jr.
Despite the mumblings of a few black
separationists, there is no doubt that the new
Federal open-housing law is another milestone
in the march of American law against racial
discrimination.
On the other hand, it also seems true that
passage of the new law by Congress should not
turn off campaigns for comparable laws on the
local level or end the existence of local fair
housing groups.
The importance
of the new law was
underlined by the
Kerner commission
which said in its
study of the
summer riots of
1967 that only a
national fair-housing law could deal effectively
with racial discrimination in the sale or leasing
of residences. “Enactment of a national fair
housing law will eliminate the most obvious
barrier limiting the areas in which non-whites
live,” it said.
The moment it was signed by President
Johnson, the new law banned discrimination in
the leasing of apartments built with the
financial backing of government agencies, such
as the Federal Housing Administration.
On January 1, 1969, it takes another big
stride. Coverage is extended to apartment
buildings, no matter who financed them. The
same goes for new single-family homes in
subdivisions and other tract developments. The
following year, the law will cover all
single-family, owner-occupied homes which are
sold through a real estate broker. Homes sold
directly by the owner are exempt.
Enforcement will be largely in the hands of
the Federal Department of Housing and Urban
Development. But-and this is important-HUD
will step in only after the machinery of local
open-housing laws has been exhausted. The
local law must be comparable in scope and
severity to the new Federal law, but it would
seem that in most of the 13 states and 139
communities with local statues, initial action
will be taken there.
If there is no local law, or when the terms of
local law are deficient, then HUD acts. It
accepts a complaint, checks the charges, and, if
it agrees with the complainant, will try to
persuade the seller to accept the complainant as
a purchaser. If this procedure fails, then the
frustrated purchaser can go to court to prove
that refusal to sell to him was racially
motivated. If the court finds in his favor, it can
order the sale of the house, require the seller to
pay damages incurred by the purchaser and fine
the seller up to $1,000.
This is a stiff law, but as the Kerner report
indicates, much of its success will depend on
the good will and cooperation of local real
estate agents. If brokers permit many
attempted sales to end up in legal disputes, the
enforcement agencies may be swamped and the
consequent delay may frustrate the law.
“Open housing legislation must be translated
into open housing action,” the Kerner report
says. “Real estate boards should work with fair
housing groups in communities where such
groups exist and help form them in areas where
they do not exist.
“The objective of voluntary community
action should be (1) the full dissemination of
information concerning available housing to
minority groups, and (2) providing information
to the community concerning the desirability
of open housing.”
These, then, are reasons why fair housing
groups-many of them directly supported in the
past by churches-should not disband. In
addition there is some reason why these groups
should continue to push for the adoption of
local laws indentical to, or patterned on, the
new Federal law.
Effective local laws will not only make
enforcement speedier, but should be attractive
to those communities and individuals who,
while accepting the principle of fair housing
legislation, do not accept the surrender of the
enforcement obligation entirely to the central
government.
State rfntt
"pedertal
It Seems To Me
Joseph Breig
Following the
assassination of Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr., Negro
winner of the Nobel Peace
Prize, ghetto areas exploded
in burning, looting and
rioting in more than 100
American cities — but not in
Cleveland.
Not in
§ C 1 e v e 1 a n d,
where in the
Hough area
you can still
see the empty
windows and
the broken
blackened
walls which
speak of the disastrous fires
and pillagings of two years
ago.
The chief architect of
Cleveland’s peace this
year—as every Clevelander
knows — is Mayor Carl B.
Stokes. Mayor Stokes, like
Dr. King, is a Negro; but that
is by no means the whole
explanation of the change in
Cleveland’s atmosphere.
Rather, it is that—plus the
Stokes character, personality
and dedication to public
service and to American
ideals.
As in other cities,
Cleveland’s ghettos—Hough
above all—are a sin and a
scandal. Their existence, in
the light of the complex and
tangled historical
circumstances that produced
them, is understandable, but
no longer excusable. Every
American possessed of good
sense knows that is is now
intolerable that human beings
should be left to live in
rat-infested destitution so
desperate that even a bar of
soap is an unattainable
luxury.
Hough consists of roughly
150 city blocks, beginning a
couple of miles from Public
Square, and going east to he
University Circle area with its
great art gallery; its
planetariums and museums;
its acoustically perfect
Severance Hall, home of what
is perhaps the finest
symphony orchestra on earth
today; its splendid schools of
music and art; its
world-renowned clinics and
hospitals; its research center,
and its great Case Western
Reserve University.
Not so many years ago,
Hough was a desirable
residential-small-business
area. It can become that
again—and I think eventually
will. Meanwhile, it is an
affront to American
civilization, and a scene of
terrible frustrations rooted in
dreadful contrasts between its
poverty and the surrounding
affluence.
Day after day, after night,
following Dr. King’s
assassination, a sleepless
Mayor Stokes walked the
streets of Hough, smiling his
wonderful smile, and
reminding the people of what
Dr. King always taught: that
the future for Negroes lies
not in “bum, baby, bum”
but in “learn, baby, learn;”
not in separation from other
Americans but in entrance
into the Am erican
mainstream.
And so it was that
Cleveland was at peace in this
tragic spring of 1968; tragic
and yet rich in promise,
because in martyrdom there
is a power which is
understood only by the real
believer in God and God’s
providence.
Doctor’s orders finally
forced Mayor Stokes to get
some rest, but by that time
his Hough mission was
accomplished.
A few days later, he began
a series of “taking City Hall
to the people” visits to
various parts of Cleveland.
The first visit was to the
(white)near West Side, which
had overwhelmingly voted
against him in the election.
This time, Mayor Stokes
was received with such
enthusiasm that he needed an
hour just to make his way
from the platform to the
entrance of an auditorium
through throngs of
well-wishers shaking his
hands.
Such is the brighter side of
the American tragedy of our
time.
"What the Church sorely needs today, son, is another
‘Going My Way’ ”
4 U nder ground’
In the mind of Auxiliary Bishop James P.
Shannon of Minneapolis - St. Paul, a recent
institute at Boston College devoted to the
‘underground church’ points up the need for
some provision “for legitimate liturgical
experimentation rather than the present
widespread and unregulated underground
experimentation.”
(Vatican Liturgical authorities turned down
a number of proposals for controlled
experiment submitted by the American Bishops
in February.)
Bishop Shannon’s reasoning is logical and
solid. We hope someone in Rome is listening.
“Unity of Christians,” the goal of the
liturgy, is not promoted by underground
experiment, he said.
“People gather together at liturgical services
to join in acts of worship as a symbol of their
unity. The underground church, on the other
hand, results in a small coterie of clique, cut off
from the main body of the Christian
community. I do not say that it necessarily has
a snob appeal, but it has the result of drawing
together exclusive groups of similar and
somewhat narrow view. In this it is divisive,
rather than cohesive, and until it surfaces and
integrates into the total Christian community,
it will continue to be so.”
Amen.
GUEST EDITORIAL
The Ministry
Much is being written about troubled priests.
This is even the title of a recent book. However,
recent discussion is underlining that what is
troubled is not the priesthood but the whole
concept of religious ministry or service within a
Church of God’s people.
Last Sunday The New York Times featured
a front page article on the number of Protestant
ministers who are abandoning the parish
ministry for careers in secular jobs. The
Christian Century of Apr. 24, 1968, has an
editorial from London by Cecil Northcott on
“The Passing of the Parson.” He notes the
passing of many Anglican theological colleges
and the decline in Anglican ordinations. But he
joins these to “a world-wide phenomenon of
which the Church at large is only just beginning
to be aware.” There are many reasons for this,
he thinks, one being the uncertain theological
note that the Church is presently sounding.
Another is that no young man is going to give
his life to a Church “often fuddy-duddy in its
ways; a parish ministry tied to an outmoded
routine; a clergy held in lower esteem than was
the case in previous generations.”
In that same issue, Dr. Rory Pearson,
president of Andover Theological College, sees
the problem developing from “Trouble in The
Seminaries.” Here again, seminaries (and this
would seem to include Catholic ones) are
suffering from rising costs, the assumed
advantages of the university community (an
opinion he calls the “current orthodoxy”
among theological educators), and diminishing
interest by the young in careers in parish
ministry. More important, he notes what is
becoming an “alarming phenomenon — the
emotional immaturity of a large number of
ministerial candidates.” As he says, “Once they
came to schools of theology believing, now
more and more come in search of belief. Once
they entered the seminary sepcifically
committed, more often now they enter
committed, but vaguely.” As a result he thinks
that seminaries are going to be graduating more
and more students so entangled in their own
inner concepts that “they can offer society not
a bearer of burdens but simply another
burden.”
This becomes aggravated by another
problem common in both Protestant and
Catholic parish life-conflict in the rectory. In
the same Christian Century, Leroy Davis notes
from a recent study that three-fourths of the
men serving as assistant ministers report serious
conflict with the senior ministers. Naturally,
this idea of conflicts between men of God is
one that jars pious ears. Such conflicts are
seldom faced openly or discussed and usually
lie beneath the surface. Where a young minister
or priest tries to live up to the role of effective
leadership fostered by the seminary, he runs the
risk of aggravating conflict with his senior
officer. Where he conforms he becomes in his
eyes less a man, or seeks escape from an
intolerable situation through alchol, emotional
collapse, or aggressive behavior.
This is not to condemn the ministry, but
simply to point out that it is not merely the
priesthood which is being debated. What is
needed is an understanding and esteem of the
role of the man of God who can bring God’s
peace, God’s comfort, and God’s strength to his
brothers and sisters. What is needed is not so
much the minister priest as professional
counselor, psychologist, sociologist, but the
man of faith, himself caughi up in the
complexity of life, but who has a vision, who
has looked upon the face of Christ, and seeks to
portray that face to his fellow humans in words
and deeds of love. Maybe that ideal will still
inspire young Christian men to follow Christ
and serve.
(CATHOLIC Accent - GREENSBURG, PA.)