Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4 — The Southern Cross, October 23, 1969
Published at Waynesboro, Ga.
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Geraid L. Frey, D.D. President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor
John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
Second Class Postaqe Paid at Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
Send Change of Address to P. O. Box 10027, Savannah, Ga. 31402
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.
Editorial Freedom
The resignation of Donald Quinn as
managing editor of THE SAINT LOUIS
REVIEW, one of the nation’s finest
Catholic newspapers, will be a source of
personal sadness to his many friends in
the field of religious journalism and an
occasion of deep regret for all who
cherish the growth, health and welfare of
the Catholic Press.
Mr. Quinn submitted his resignation
to Cardinal John J. Carberry, Archbishop
of St. Louis last Friday criticizing what
he called a lack of freedom for REVIEW
staffers. In his letter of resignation, he
declared his belief that the Archdiocesan
paper’s “freedom and enterprise are
being limited” and said that criticism
and instructions the paper had received
“indicate to me that we do not enjoy the
cardinal’s trust and confidence.” He
indicated that the Cardinal has closely
supervised the activities of the REVIEW
and has frequently criticized
its operations.
It’s the old, old story of the conflict
between freedom and authority in the
Catholic Press.
It cannot be denied that since the
advent of the NATIONAL CATHOLIC
REPORTER, first paved the way, the
freedom of editors of Catholic
newspapers has been greatly enlarged.
Nevertheless, there is still a long way to
go.
But the ideal balance between the
authority of the Bishops -- who are really
the Publishers of Catholic newspapers --
and the freedom of the men who edit
the papers will never be struck if the best,
talents in the field of the Catholic Press
leave it, rather than continue fighting for
it, and Donald Quinn is certainly one of
its superior talents.
At the risk of being presumptious, we
would point out to Mr. Quinn that his
difficulty is essentially no different
from that of any editor who finds
himself at odds with his boss, the
publisher. We feel, however, that the
odds on resolving the dispute in favor of
editorial freedom are greater in Quinn’s
case than they would be in the case of a
secular newspaper editor versus his
publisher.
In the general press, newspaper
publishers are, for the most part,
competent, professional newspapermen.
Most have been editors and they know
both the problems of editors and their
desire for maximum responsible
freedom, based on respect for their
professional training and judgement.
Most bishops, however, inherit the
office of newspaper publisher along with
their diocese. Most will quickly admit
that they know little or nothing of the
newspaper business. They know only
that a newspaper can exert tremendous
influence on its readers -- for good or ill
-- and, in their zeal for the spiritual
welfare of their flock, they are acutely
aware that that welfare can be affected
by their own diocesan newspapers.
/
Consequently, they tend to hold the
editor in close check. But the experience
of many Catholic newapaper editors,
over the past five years or so has shown
that the policies and operations of organs
of the Catholic Press are being decided,
more and more, by editors, and less and
less by bishop-publishers..
The reason is obvious. The bishops
are aware of their own limitations in the
field of journalism and are reposing more
and more confidence in their editors.
Some editors simply took more
freedom and their bishops, observing the
beneficial nature of their action, have
not interfered. Others, through dialogue
with the bishop, have attained more and
more freedom to do their jobs in a
professional and responsible manner.
If those editors who chafed under
petty harrassment five or ten years ago
had simply quit, the Catholic press
would still be where it was then. It
would still be a sorry collection of
‘house organs.’
We urge Cardinal Carberry and
Donald Quinn to try again to achieve a
meeting of minds in a spirit of mutual
respect. Catholic newspapering needs
men of the caliber and experience of
Donald Quinn. The church could suffer
greatly through the loss of their talents.
CRISIS IN HO USING
The Backdrop...
By John J. Daly, Jr.
Americans are being mangled by the nation’s
continued high-pressure inflationary economy.
Those feeling the biggest squeeze from
inflation now includes tens of thousands of
low-income families and elderly persons on
fixed incomes who live in
government-sponsored housing.
They face not only physical deterioration of
their surroundings,
but also the
possibility that the
housing authority
which shelters
them may collapse
financially.
Operating
costs-supported by
tenants’ rents-have
risen so high in many housing projects that
essential services have been cut, maintenance
neglected and the future made to appear
uncertain.
George Romney, U.S. Secretary of Housing
and Urban Development, has characterized 15
major housing authorities as on the brink of
bankruptcy. Other officials said that if present
trends persist, as many as 200 housing
authorities across the nation will be in grave
financial troubles.
Cutbacks in operating costs have meant
different things. In some cities, it has resulted
in an end to security guards. This has produced
high crime rates. In others, it has been
translated into maintenance failures. Broken
windows are not replaced, grounds are not
cleaned and apartments go unpainted. This has
sunk tenants’ morale, producing neglect and
vandalism.
In virtually all, the gap between charges to
tenants and costs has meant higher rents,
although the increases generally do not match
the size of the deficit.
One housing authority with which I am
familiar recently raised rents an average of 20%.
I saw what this can do to elderly people on
fixed incomes. All were shattered emotionally;
some were forced to choose between rent and
medicines.
It is even more pressing on the elderly poor.
The basic Federal minimum eligibility standard
for an aged person who wishes to receive
Medicaid--state-Federal medical assistance
payments-is that he posses no more than $250
personally (usually that is an insurance policy
to pay funeral costs) and that annual income
total no more than $1,200. A rent increase for
an individual living within these limits borders
on a personal tragedy.
The New York Times said recently that in
Detroit, operating costs for public housing had
risen by more than 106% since 1952. But the
income of tenants-whose rent is supposed to
pay these costs-has gone up only nine per cent
in the same period of time.
Physical deterioration and crime-related
concerns have increased as operating cutbacks
have gone into effect. Indeed, in St. Louis,
nearly 40% of the local housing authority’s
apartments are vacant. The reason is thought to
be the authority’s financial inability to hire
security guards and the resultant fear of crime.
Low-income families would rather take their
chances in the slums.
There are bills in Congress to revoke the
policy of denying Federal funds for operating
costs. At present, U.S. tax dollars are used to
help local housing authorities meet interest
pavments on loans which financed the housing.
But they do not help run the housing project
itself.
Unless Federal funding for operating costs is
made available, it seems likely that either
deterioration of public housing will continue,
or those persons with low-incomes will be
replaced by families able to pay higher rents
necessary to meet operating costs. The latter
would be tragic.
»
76e Sbt&iCcf,
'Paar
The Contraceptive Society
SEX EDUCATION
Synod Of
Bishops
(Following is the second in a series of articles on
the extraordinary Synod of Bishops which is meeting
in Rome. The author is one of three synod members
who have been selected to make reports to the synod.
His synodal report concerned the relationship among
various bishop’s conferences.)
By Most Rev. Marco McGrath, C.S.C..
Archbishop of Panama
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The second Roman
synod is making solid progress. What is perhaps
more interesting, it even begins to appear in the
press that this is so.
Religious events are difficult to report in the
news media. They are seldom “news” in the
immediate, on the surface, head-lining manner
of the so-called “hard news.” Their themes are
dower, more subtle; their issues are more long
term, more complicated.
But something like the synod is news, and
the public wants to know about it. So the
events of the synod are reported, in the quick
style with which the public is informed about
war, politics, sports, earthquakes or landing on
the moon. The news is simplified, contrasts are
heightened for greater interests.
At the beginning of the Second Vatican
Council in 1962, a well-known western bishop
chided the press on its habit of labeling each of
the bishops in attendance as “progressive,”
“conservative” or “moderate” (read:
undecided). He insisted that the bishops agreed
on all the essentials and would work together
for the final results. But this is hardly very
newsworthy.
Besides there were differences among the
bishops and these were played up startlingly for
the public, Catholic and non-Catholic, whose
lasting impression of the council came from this
reporting.
It Seems To Me
Joseph Breig
There was much reporting in depth on the
council, but the immediate dispatches
continued to heighten the
conservative-progressive conflict, casting the
leading figures into one or other of the camps,
without much of a hint as to what each person
was conservative or progressive about.
“Efforts at formal sex
education, while potentially
useful, can be a waste of
time. Worse, such efforts can
be harmful in the sense of
stirring up adolescent
anxieties rather than helping
resolve them. Courses, to be
worthwhile, must be planned
to supplement spontaneous
learning, must
deal with the
age-specific
problems of
the y o u n g
people
in di vidually
and in groups
and must take
into account
the qualifications of the
teachers. Otherwise Western
society’s longstanding reserve
about formal sex education is
justified.”
Thus wrote Vann Spruiell
in Pediatrics Digest for
Ocotber 1966, in an article
titled Adolescent Sex
Education: A Cautious View,
reissued by Child and Family
magazine’s reprint booklet
series (Box 508, Oak
Park,Ill.)
I quote Spruiell because I
believe that parental anxieties
about sex education are not
without foundation and
should not be brushed aside,
and that educators should
move with great caution in
this area.
Sex education is greatly
needed. But the trouble is
that this science is in its
earliest infancy. We have an
enormous lot to learn.
No subject is more delicate
or difficult, As Spruiell
observes, Sigmund Freud
denounced the reticence and
diffidence of adults in this
matter, attributing it to their
“guilty consciences;” but not
surprisingly, Freud provided
no sex education for his own
children.
I say “not surprisingly”
because, although I agree that
parents have the primary
right and responsibility, I am
convinced that most of them
are not able to do this job.
This is not because they
are ignorant; it is because, as
Spruiell says, of certain
realities. One of these realities
is that precisely in this area,
children must grow away
from their parents. In
Spruiell’s words, they must
“separate their own sexual
needs from association with
those of their parents.”
Still, as he adds, the right
kind of home subtly
communicates much
knowledge about
sex-affection, love, stability,
naturalness about bodies,
arrival of little ones, and the
like.
I would add that the truly
religious home gives qiuch
more. It communicates an
awareness of the great divine
meanings of, and reasons for
sex; it keeps God vividly
present in the husband-wife-
child picture. And this is the
most vital, indispensable part
of true and complete sex
education. “In God we live
and move and have our
being” -and that goes for
husband and wife in their
most intimate moments. Here
is the deepest and most
necessary secret of happy
marriage and family life.
Spruiell notes that sex
education poses knotty
problems not only for parents
but for other adults in their
efforts to help. “Too often,
physicians, psychologists,
psychiatrists, or ministers, in
attempting to present sound
sex information .. .are met
by defensive, poker
faces . . .and choked-back
ridicule .. .It seems that
adolescents do not want to be
told, even if they want to
find out.”
In group instruction, it is
found that young people feel
that “to be openly frank
about a matter so personal, in
public and in the presence of
‘authority,’ is to expose
oneself to ridicule or
unwelcome criticism of
both .. .Groups can band
against the leader .. .freeze
him out or get out of
control.”
Along with the editor of
Child and Family, I feel that
Spruiell has written “the
wisest cautionary article the
reader is likely to find.” I
recommend it to every adult
concerned about this
problem.
HALLOWEEN
BALL
/OJt0 -Ct
S “Relax
everyone thinks we’re in costume.’’
The difficulty of reporting religious news
events is two-sided. It is partly due to the
reporter’s desire for news, for “hard news,” for
something that will be printed, that will interest
and that will be read. This may be secondary, it
may be accidental, it may be sensational or
over-simplified. But it is also quite obvious that
Churches, on the whole, are still closer to
Guttenburg than to McLuhan in their
appreciation of the communication media.
Both these factors hamper religious news
coverage and raise tempers on both sides.
Matters have improved somewhat in this
synod. But bishops still shake their heads in
dismay when they read about sharp conflicts on
the floor of the synod which they “have not
seen, and some reporters still long for more
direct and more ample information. This should
make us reflect. “The Church and the
communication media” is not merely a
question of moral problems or the spreading of
religious concepts. It is first of all, for
churchmen, an attempt to grasp the genius, the
rhythm and the impact of these media today.
Perhaps, with common effort, we may arrive at
ways of reporting religious events that may just
perhaps satisfy more of the people, churchmen,
reporters and readers, more of the time.
As this brief session of the synod has settled
into its work, much ambiguity is being
dispelled. There was no public procession and
Mass, to start it off, but rather a Mass in the
Sistine Chapel limited to the participants. This
was obviously meant to play down the
importance, not of the synod itself, but of this
brief two or three-week session. If this is to be a
permanent institution, we must look upon it as
such and expect its results to come not from a
single session but from the series of them, as
this new institution of collegiality builds itself
into the life of the Church.
For the same reason, the discussion on the
doctrinal aspects of collegiality was taken
seriously but with no sense of hurry or
deadline. There are serious and very entrancing
doctrinal and theological questions at stake.
Many of them were raised, some were
discussed, but it was generally felt that we must
avoid the tempation of theoretical and perhaps
overly juridical predeterminations of life
situations in the Church. Time and experience,
in the light of doctrine, are the conditions of
balanced reflexion. As one canonist put it:
positive laws should be made to serve the
Church, not to bind it.
The carryover into the area of practical
discussion was welcome. It introduced the new
form of discussion in round tables, by language
groups. Intimacy, frankness, down-to-earth
practicality mark the conversations. Above all,
confidence. The bishops, whatever their
supposed ideological position, show trust in the
good sense and the desire for the good of the
Church (bonum ecclesiae), of their brother
bishops. The Holy Father has contributed
enormously to this end. His presence in almost
all the plenary sessions, listening attentively to
each speaker, taking notes, courteously
speaking to each who approached him in the
coffee break, all brought through his obvious
contentment with the gathering, his trust,
whatever the criticisms expressed, his
confidence.
The various Roman congregations have
entered into a very healthy competition in
inviting the bishops to meetings with their
heads and staff, again in an atmosphere of
confidence.
Confidence is not all, but it is the fruit of
faith and the foundation of charity. The
spiritual aspect of collegiality, so stressed by
the Pope in his opening address, is really being
felt here. It is getting through to the press and
the public, indefinably yet. It has much to
define, much to do, to spread confidence,
co-responsibility, and mutual service through all
our churches. The next days will begin to point
out some of the more practical ways.