Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6 - October 30,1969
ASK OLD LAWS BE ABROGATED
Canonists Give Plan For
Due Process Operation
SYNOD FATHERS include representatives of the Religious Orders, among them, from left in
foreground: the Jesuits’ Superior General, Father Pedro Arrupe, SJ.; Abbot Rembert Weakland,
O.S.B., abbot primate of the Benedictine Confederation; and Father Constantine Koser, O.F.M.,
minister general of the Franciscans. (NC Photos)
MODERN CATECHETICS’
Catholic Superintendents
Come To Defense Of Texts
CLEVELAND (NC) -
Establishment of diocesan
conciliation and arbitration
boards, plus arbitration
courts for appeals by priests,
was urged by a due-process
committee of the Canon Law
Society of America.
The 34-page report was
released immediately after a
bishop buttressed its
recommendations by citing
Vatican Council II as the
fountainhead of efforts in the
Roman Catholic Church
toward a “more respectful”
ecclesiastical authority.
Auxiliary Bishop Thomas
J. Gumbleton of Detroit
emphasized that protecting
the right of persons through
legal machinery “doesn’t
weaken the power of the
bishop; in fact, it actually
increases his effective
leadership.”
He so quoted his superior,
John Cardinal Dearden of
Detroit, president of the
National Conference of
Catholic Bishops (NCCB),
and Leo Cardinal Suenens of
Malines-Brussels, Belgium,
exponent of collegial sharing
of authority on the theme of
“Co-responsibility in the
Church.”
The Canon Law Society,
with 1,180 members
including 25 Sisters and
laymen, attracted some 300
delegates to its 31st annual
meeting in the Statler Hilton
Hotel here.
The ad-hoc committee on
due process, made up of eight
Synod-
(Continued from Page 4)
This kind of thinking and
suggesting would change the
relation of the bishops to the
Roman Curia, which
continues to be the organ of
papal government, but in
whose guidance the bishops
would take a more active
part, with and under the
Pope.
The emphasis upon the
decentralization of some
Church power of decision
(power in marriage cases, in
the liturgy, etc.) continues,
but with an interesting
sidelight. Many bishops point
out that greater local
authority involves also greater
local responsibility: more
office staff, more decisions,
sometimes more headaches.
But it also means more
adaptability for the local
Church, within a broader
unity.
Pre-synodal talk
concentrated almost all
attention on the vertical
dimension: the bishops and
Rome. But the synod showed
remarkable interest in the
relations between the
bishops’ conferences
themselves. The notion of the
local or “particular” Church
is a rich re-discovery for the
Western Church. The
communion of the bishops
among themselves must be at
the service of the communion
of the Churches they
represent, promoting contact
and mutual service. This
requires real co-responsibility
within each of the local
Churches, on all levels, and a
much more serious living out
on the international level of
missionary action and of
international work for justice
and peace. In this regard, the
sounding phrases of the
council and of great recent
papal encyclicals have not yet
found an echo in the bulk of
our people, who remain
largely provincial, wrapped in
their own wants and
ambitions. There is much to
be done to rouse the
“particular” Churches to an
awareness of one another, to
mutual contact and
assistance, to mutual respect,
of different customs,
situations, and local
decisions, to serious efforts
and sacrifices for
international justice and
peace.
In the final analysis, it is
the synod itself, as an
on-going institution, which
offers the best instrument for
contact of the bishops among
themselves on the world level
and with the Pope.
priests and three laymen,
headed by Father Robert T.
Kennedy of the New York
archdiocese, emphasized that
due process, while not new in
the Church, needs structuring
in a time of change.
“The dignity of the human
person, the principles of
fundamental fairness, and the
universally applicable
presumption of freedom
require that no member of
the Church arbitrarily be
deprived of the exercise of
any right or office,” the
committee stated.
The committee, while
citing the contention “of
some that there cannot be in
the Church any separation of
powers (under) a hierachical
society in which the fullness
of government power is
vested in the espicopate,”
emphasized three
considerations:
--1) Many of the
requirements of due process
are relevant to all forms of
government, “even the most
centralized.”
-2) Canon law already
prescribes procedures which
“are in the nature of
procedural limitation upon
the bishop, and yet they have
been thought to be consistent
with the centralization of all
government authority in the
local bishop.”
--3) Due process places
limitations on a bishop’s
exercise of power, “but, so
far from undermining his
authority, it does much to
win respect for it... If they
are genuine rights, the bishop
loses nothing by being
required to respect them.”
A society spokesman,
Father Henry G. Bowen of
Worcester, Mass., - and
nominee for .1969-70
president-- s ai d j t he
committee’s recommenda
tions will be sent to 111
bishops before they meet in
November in Washington,
D.C.
The bishops, meanwhile,
are studying due process,
with recommendations
expected at the Washington
meeting.
Bishop Gumbleton
stressed in his talk that it is
“most important to develop
quickly good procedures for
handling justly and lovingly
every grievance or dispute
that arises in the Church.”
He was answering a critical
stand taken by the National
Federation of Priests’ Council
(NFPC) at its assembly in
New Orleans last spring.
The NFPC’s position was
spelled out by its president,
Father Patrick J. O’Malley of
Chicago. His contention: “It’s
about time my Church, which
preaches so much about
justice, finds some for the
priests themselves.”
Bishop Gumbleton
rejected a contention that the
Church’s present procedures
are adequate.
“If the Church is to be
true to her self-understanding
as an extension of Jesus
Christ, she cannot tolerate
procedures which are
offensive to the dignity and
freedom of the sons of God,”
he said.
He also observed that due
process does not present as
great a challenge to the
Church as the issues of
poverty, race and war.
“Still, it is a matter of
urgent concern and should
not be minimized,” he added.
Quoting Cardinal Dearden,
he said that “most often it is
not the authority of the
bishop that is being
questioned but the way in
which authority is exercised.”
* * *
The requirement that
every parish have a parochial
school is no longer either
possible of attainment or
desirable in today’s world.
That observation was
embodied in a report to the
Canon Law Society of
America, recommending that
“the remaining conciliar
legislation of Baltimore not
already supplanted or
abrogated by subsequent
legislation be abrogated.”
The committee, reporting
to the society’s 31st annual
meeting here at the Statler
Hilton Hotel, said the school
decree was one of 17 such
laws still on the books.
The committee, headed by
Father Dennis J. Bums of the
archdiocese of Boston’s
Metropolitan Tribunal, was
said to have made the study
at the request of the
canonical affairs committee
of the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops (NCCB). It
pointed out that the purpose
of the laws no longer existed,
or the purpose could be
provided for adequately in
some other way.
The committee therefore
recommended that the
American hierarchy ask the
Holy See to abrogate totally
what remains of that
legislation drafted by seven
provincial and three plenary
councils in the 19th century.
Other such legislation
includes prohibitions against
the clergy engaging in
banking operations-some
now do-and against clergy
attending certain types of
public performances.
The banking ban was
addressed to a problem
peculiar to an age when
immigrants were distrustful
of established banks. A
bishop in Cincinnati became
involved in civil suits over his
banking practices.
The committee also noted
that 19th-century statutes
requiring specific
ecclesiastical permission for a
civil divorce and
automatically excommunica
ting a person marrying again
after divorce go beyond the
general law of the Church.
Revocation of these
statutes, Father Bums said,
would not legitimize the
second marriage but would
remove the additional penalty
of excommunication.
Others on the committee
were Msgr. Charles J. Plauche
of New Orleans and Father J.
Richard Keating of Chicago,
as canonists, and Father
Robert F. Trisco of the
Catholic University of
America, Washington, D.C.,
as historian. Father Romaeus
O’Brien, 0. Carm., of the
Catholic University’s school
of canon law also served with
the committee.
Tax—
(Continued from Page 3)
“Today, as in the
beginning,” it explains,
“every state in the nation and
the District of Columbia
exempts church properties, at
least those used for purposes
of worship, from taxation.”
In asking the Supreme
Court to ponder the historical
aspect of tax exemptions,
USCC points out that the
court “has been turned to
relevant history in the
adjudication of constitutional
issues.” The brief calls that
history undebatable.
“From the time the nation
began,” it declares, “every
state and federal legislative
body that has taken the
question up has come down
on the side of permitting tax
exemption for church
properties used for religious
purposes.”
All of the pages of relevant
history tell the same story,
according to the brief:
“There is nothing in the
Non-Establishment Clause
that was intended to prohibit
the universal practice of
exempting church properties
from taxation.”
Over some 200 years,
thousands of legislators who
had sworn to uphold the
Constitution have seen no
conflict between the
exemption of church
properties from taxation and
the First Amendment of the
Constitution.
(Next week: the
constitutional argument.)
BY WILLIAM RYAN
WASHINGTON (NC) -
The nation’s Catholic School
Superintendents unanimously
endorsed a statement
supporting “Modern
catechetics” and defending
textbooks currently used in
many Catholic schools against
charges of unorthodoxy.
At the annual
superintendents’ meeting
sponsored here by the
National Catholic
Educational Association and
the United States Catholic
Conference (USCC), some
275 superintendents and
other Catholic school officials
from throughout the country
voted to reject the attacks on
modem textbooks. They also
formally supported a
statement made by a
Conference of Directors of
Religious Education held at
Metairie, La. last June.
“We deplore,” educators
at Metairie said, “attacks
made by some highly
organized groups, as well as by
individuals, against
catechetical developements
within the Church and against
all modern curricula.”
The Metairie statement
defended four elementary
school religion textbooks and
six secondary school
textbooks which are now
widely used in Catholic
schools. Use of the books has
stirred controversy in several
Catholic communities.
In Cleveland, for example,
the diocesan superintendent
of schools recently appointed
a panel to consider a charge
made by a pastors’ group of
“serious doctrinal errors”
allegedly found in textbooks
approved for school use. One
pastor said the books had a
“strongly Protestant” bias
and favored “situation
ethics.”
De f e nders of the
textbooks have acknowledged
they contain less formal and
detailed presentation of
Catholic dogma than has been
customary in the past but say
this is in line with the way
children actually learn. They
say the books’ emphasis on
such things as man, the
human situation and social
problems conforms with the
spirit of the Second Vatican
Council.
The Catholic school
officials meeting here urged
all Catholic educators to:
--“Support modern
catechetics--its aims and
developement.
-“Build the confidence of
your bishops in religion
teachers and solicit their
support for good training
programs.
-“Provide due process to
teachers who are questioned
or challenged, while retaining
due regard for the safeguard
of the Chruch’s teaching.
-“Accept as sound the
Metairie statement
concerning textbooks, but
realize that no text gives final
answers, and local work
should shore up deficiencies.
--“Support emergent
studies in religion curriculum
development, without
understanding the problem
entailed in these.”
A source at the meeting
said the superintendents
wanted to go on record
unanimously in favor of the
books “so that individual
superintendents and teachers
can no longer be picked off
one by one” by groups which
oppose them.
At another session of the
superintendents’ , meeting, a
member of the Task Force on
Sex Education of the USCC
Division of Family Life urged
WASHINGTON (NC) -
The U.S. Bishops’ chief
spokesman on parochial
schools was called “out of
touch with . . . new
developments in Catholic
education,” and criticized for
a “negative posture” on
Catholic schools, at the
annual school superinten
dents’ meeting sponsored by
the National Catholic
Educational Association and
the United States Catholic
Conference (USCC).
The criticism of Msgr.
James C. Donohue, director
of the USCC Division of
Elementary and Secondary
Education, was made by
Francis Scholtz, a layman
who is coordinator of
education in the diocese of
Sioux Falls, S.D.
Scholtz requested the
podium, saying he considered
it his duty to register a
protest against Msgr.
Donohue’s views in the name
of the Sioux Falls diocesan
office of education.
The bulk of Scholtz’
criticism was aimed at a
recent article in Look
magazine entitled “Are the
Catholic Schools Dying?”
The article, by Look editor
Jack Star, was based on an
interview with Msgr.
Donohue.
The article quoted Msgr.
Donohue as saying the
Church’s educational
apostolate has been “too
child-oriented” with a
disproportionate amount of
parish and diocesan funds
being pumped into Catholic
elementary and secondary
schools. It said he advocated
that more concentration be
given to adult education and
pre-school programs and on
serving the poor through
inner-city schools.
“Unless we change, we’ll
Catholic officials who want
to implement sex education
programs in the schools not
to “panic” in the face of
opposition from small but
vocal right-wing groups.
Father Walter Imbiorski of
Chicago sais polls have shown
that as many as 75% of all
parents favor sound programs
on human sexuality in the
schools.
The priest noted that sex
education programs, which
have been endorsed in
statements by the U.S.
bishops, are growing rapidly
in Catholic school systems
across the country, and
predicted that more than half
of all dioceses will have such
programs in at least some
grades within a year.
wither away, we’ll die,” Msgr.
Donohue said. “We’re losing
the kids anyway, and the
teachers too. We might as
well experiment.”
Scholtz said the Catholic
laity are looking for
leadership from the clergy on
the subject of Catholic
schools and added: “No
layman wants to take over in
any capacity a school system
that in the eyes of the
director of elementary and
secondary education is quite
likely a lost cause.”
“We feel that the director
is five years behind the times,
at least as far as our diocese is
concerned,” Scholtz said. He
said the Look article and
other news media
presentation of Msgr.
Donohue views “contained
many ideas that we could
certainly agree with
but.. . also contained some
basic statements
demonstrating that the
director seems to be out of
touch with the reality of new
developments in Catholic
education.”
“The truth is we have
adopted many innovative
programs in our schools,” he
continued. “In South Dakota
we are selling the idea that
the school is a resource center
for the entire community-for
adults and kids in and out of
schools. The staff
members . .. have a role to
perform for the entire
community.
“We in our diocese are not
throwing up our hands. We
are rolling up our sleeves.
What we now need is national
leadership, a positive view for
the future.
“The recent Look article
quoting the director ... has
hurt us,” Scholtz charged.
‘Negative’ Stance
On Schools Hit
HONDURAS-EL SALVADOR
Prelates Differ
On ‘Holy War 9
TEGUCIGALPA,
Honduras (NC) — Charges
made by a Hondran bishop
that the clergy of El Salvador
tried to justify the brief July
war with Honduras and called
it a “holy war” have been
denied by the archbishop of
San Salvador, capitol of El
Salvador.
Bishop Jose Carranza
Chavez of Santa Rosa de
Copan, Honduras, charged
that “the clergy of El
Salvador, by their speeches,
writings and attitude, have
tried to justify the
war.. .and called it a ‘holy
war.’ ”
In San S alvador,
Archbishop Luis Chavez
Gonzalez denied the charges
made by the Honduran
bishop against the clergy of
his country.
Bishop Carranza also
charged theat Salvadorean
troops desecrated churches in
territories they occupied
during the war.
Church authorities in
Tegucigalpa confirmed the
charges of desecration but
refrained from supporting
Bishop Carranza in his
charges that the clergy of El
Salvador tried to justify the
war.
Father Alonso Tejeda,
secretary of the archdiocesan
chancery office of
Tegucigalpa told NC News
Service that a Church-spon
sored investigation had
confirmed the descreation
charge at Ocotepeque and
other areas of the Santa Rosa
diocese.
“I also visited other areas
in Southern Honduras such as
Alianza, Aramecino and
Goascoran. Here the
Salvodorean troops not only
occupied the church but
committed the" sacrilege of
' -Spilling the consecrated hosts
on the ground to steal the
golden chalice,” Father
Tejeda said.
Bishop Carranza’s letter
was widely publicized by the
Tegucigalpa press and radio,
and its text was included in a
Honduras government White
Book on the war.
But the Honduras Bishops’
Conference has refrained
from making any public
statement on the charges.
And Archbishop Enrique
Santos of Tegucigalpa has not
issued any comment on the
charges against the clergy of
El Salvador
“During the war,
Salvadorean priests celebrated
religious functions for the
troops in Honduran territory.
When they returned, these
priests presided at solemn
religious functions ‘thanking
the Saviour of the World’ for
the victory,” Bishop Carranza
wrote.
“The war was typically
anti-religious and anti-sacred
(yet) Salvadorean priests
declared it to be ‘ a holy war,’
” he added. The bishop listed
the following:
-“The Salvadorean troops
systematically occupied
churches and converted them
into dormitories, kitchens,
stables and toilets.”
-“The soldiers used the
church ornaments and
vestments as sweating pads
and saddle pads for cargo
mules.”
- - “ F athers Xavier
McTaggert and Roderick
Brennan O.F.M. Cap., both
from the U.S. Capuchin
Province of St. Mary, were
arrested; two cars were taken
from the monastery and the
building was ransacked. Sister
Amparo Cortes, a missionary
from Columbia, was also
arrested.
“How can it be explained
that the clergy of El Salvador,
knowing of these insane
actions, held religious services
for the troops and decorated
their chests with medals?”
Wrote Bishop Carranza, who
added that people were
abused and their properties
ransacked at Ocotepeque,
Garita, Cololaca, Virtud,
Terlaca and Junigual.
In his denial of the charges
made by Bishop Carranza,
Archbishop Chavez told NC
News Service, “There has
been no document or public
pronouncement from any of
the clergy calling this a ‘holy
war.’ On the contrary, we
have been engaged in
mediation efforts for peace
and in intensive works to
assist the needy, particularly
among the refugees.”
In an obvious reference to
Bishop Carranza’s letter,
Archbishop Chavez stated
that “there has been no
answer from us (the bishops)
because we do not wish to
enter in a controversy nor to
give vent to unfounded
charges.”
“We cannot provide an
echo to war propaganda,” the
archbishop said.
When asked about the
charges of desecration of
churches by Salvadorean
troops he added:
“We are solely charged
with the spiritual assistance
of' the troops, and our
concern is to provide them
with religious services. But
the conduct of the war is
entirely out of our hands.”
He said tensions are
receding in El Salvador
“thanks to the precious virtue
of devotion to work that the
Salvadoreans have, and which
quickly turns them to
productive activities and
away from brooding over the
conflict.”
The only formal statement
on the war, Archbishop
Chavez recalled was a joint
appeal for peace made by the
seven Salvadorean bishops on
Aug. 15.
Archbishop Chavez said
some 60 families-or about
300 persons-were being
settled in farmlands given by
the diocese of San Vicente
under the Church’s
Populorum Progressio Fund
established last August. There
are both refugee families and
local farmers in need of land
in the program.
“We are engaged in this
program of human progress,
in line with the Church’s
social doctrine, acting on the
principle that justice brings
peace,” the archbishop
stated.
Much of the cause of this
conflict stem from heavy
migration of Salvadoreans
into vast unused Honduran
lands.
FAO—
(Continued from Page 3)
“The Indicative World
Plan estimates that by 1965
the demand for food in
developing countries is going
to be almost two and one half
times what it was in 1962,
and that two-thirds of this
increase will be due to
population growth alone,”
Boerma said.
This means that
production growth will have
to increase 50% faster than
previously-an annual increase
of about 4% in place of the
annual 2.7% increase in the
decade up to 1966.
“Now if this fails to
materialize,” Boerma said,
“the consequenses for the
developing countries are
going to be extremely
unpleasant.
“First,” he continued,
“the prices of food will rise,
and this quite obviously will
inflict untold hardship on all
but the rich minorities.
S e c o n dly, the developing
countries will have to import
even more food from the
wealthier countries than they
do at present.
“But, even more serious,
all this will mean that the
general economic growth of
the developing countries will
proceed at a much slower rate
than that envisaged in the
plan.”
Boerma said he believed it
was possible to achieve “this
radical increase” of about 4%
in developing countries. “But
I have no illusions about the
immensity and difficulty of
the undertaking,” he added.