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SERVING 88 SOUTH - GEORGIA COUNTIES
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 51 No. 9
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26,1970
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$5 Per Year
FAMILY LIFE DIV.
USCC Blasts
HEW Plan To
Curb Births
WASHINGTON (NC) A suggestion that parents
can improve the environment in America by limiting
their families to two children has been denounced as
“irresponsible and simplistic” by Father James T.
McHugh, director, Division for Family Life, United
States Catholic Conference.
AN APPEAL TO WARRING NATIONS in the Middle East to “desist forthwith from military
conflict” and begin peace talks was issued jointly by leaders of the three major religious
denominations in Philadelphia. Shown signing the appeal are, left to right: Dr. Rufus Comelsen,
executive director of the Metropolitan Christian Council of Philadelphia; John Cardinal Krol,
archbishop of Philadelphia, and Rabbi Elias Charry, president of the Board of Rabbis of Greater
Philadelphia. Copies of the appeal were sent to the leaders of all the nations at war in the Middle
East, to President Nixon, U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers and U Thant, secretary general
of the United Nations. (NC Photo)
NCEA BOARD-NIXON MEET
White House Conference
On Non-Public Education
Father McHugh’s
comments were leveled at
statements made here by
Health, Education and
Welfare Secretary Robert
Finch at a conference on
environment.
The priest said Finch’s
remarks are “inconsistent”
with the Nixon
administration’s policies on
population study.
Finch made the statement
to reply to a question posed
by a member of the audience
who asked what people could
do on a voluntary basis to
improve the quality of life in
this country.
“I would begin with
recommending that they start
with two children,” the
secretary responded.
Finch also said the
government might have to
invoke “disincentives” to
discourage parents from
having big families. But he
did not elaborate on what he
meant.
Contrasting Finch’s
remarks with the
Administration’s policies,
Father McHugh noted that
President Nixon has asked
Congress to enact legislation
to establish a commission to
study Population and The
American Future.
Mr. Nixon, he said, has
also urged passage of other
bills calling for specific
research in establishing goals
to protect the environment.
“One might wonder,”
the family life division
director said, “if the Finch
proposals are not the policy
of the Nixon administration,
DALLAS (NC) - Youthful
protestors who staged a
three-hour pray-in at the
main Planned Parenthood
Center here plan to ask the
U.S. bishops to denounce
family planning programs
assisted financially by the
federal government.
Michael Schwartz,
spokesman for the protestors,
said he believes if the bishops
speak out forcefully on the
issue, it would cause the
government to reconsider
funding local family planning
programs through the Office
of Economic Opportunity.
The Dallas Planned
Parenthood agency is
financed by private monies.
However, it operates four
neighborhood centers, as part
of the war on poverty, which
are federally funded.
Schwartz said his group,
known as the Dallas Ad Hoc
Communittee for Life, would
concentrate on petitioning
the bishops rather than
since they are clearly
different from the proposals
that President Nixon made in
his message on population in
July, 1969.”
“Specifically, Mr. Finch
asks for a voluntary
commitment to the two-child
limit, but in the next breath
threatens governmental
interference and coercion by
means of disincentives.”
Father McHugh said that
approach conflicts with the
administration’s policies. He
quoted the President as
having stated earlier that the
activities of the government
would not “be allowed to
impair the absolute right of
individuals to have such
matters of conscience
respected by public
authorities.”
Attacking the Finch
proposal, the priest added:
“Without in any way
showing that such play will in
fact improve environment
conditions in our country, he
suggests that the American
people embark on this new
social experiment.”
The National Council of
Catholic Women also opposed
Finch’s suggestion in a
telegram sent to him (Feb.
20) by Mrs. Norman Folda,
NCCW president.
It stated: “Your
s u ggestion that the
government intervene with
disincentives is a violation of
the couple’s rights to size of
family and frequency of child
bearing. The National Council
of Catholic Women considers
this in oppositon to the
whole concept of responsible
parenthood.”
holding any more public
protests.
Led by Schwartz, a group
of 19 young people entered
the city’s Planned Parenthood
Center about 5 p.m. Feb. 14
to protest “the fascism of
birth control.”
The group knelt down and
began to recite the rosary as a
“penitential public prayer to
Mary ... to seek her
intercession and beg
forgiveness of the sins of
society.”
The group, which Schwartz
said included Catholic,
Protestants and one agnostic,
remained at the center urtfil 8
p.m. when police, summoned
earlier, asked them to leave.
Schwartz, a 20-year-old
junior at the University of
Dallas, said the purpose of
the demonstration was to
“alert the public of the
dangers of the public
acceptance of planned
parenthood and birth
control.”
WASHINGTON (NC) - A
White House conference with
officials of the National
Catholic Educational
Association (NCEA) may be
the catalyst which will set in
motion a “task force” on
noripublic education.
President Nixon told
NCEA board members,
summoned by special
invitation to the briefing, that
he saw “grest value” in two
educational systems, public
and private, and that it would
be “a tragedy if either one
should collapse.”
The delegation was headed
by Bishop Raymond J.
Gallagher of Lafayette, Ind.,
and Father C. Albert Koob,
O. Praem., NCEA board
chairman and president,
respectively.
In response to questions
by the NCEA board members
at the briefing, Nixon
repeated his wish to initiate a
special “task force” on
nonpublic education which
would study the needs of
private schools and make
recommendations to the
President as to how these
needs can be met. The task
force is now expected to
assume tangible form in the
near future.
NCEA board members also
questioned the President
about his position on funds
for Title II of the Elementary
and Secondary Education
Act, providing library books
and textbooks to nonpublic
schools. Title II is one of the
few federally funded
programs in which private
schools participate equally
with public schools, and last
April’s Administration budget
had appropriated no funds
for the program. Congress
had hiked up the figure to
$50 million for Title II
programs, but this was one of
the provisions of the $19.7
billion Health, Education and
Welfare appropriations bill
which President Nixon vetoed
(Jan. 26) as inflationary and
misdirected.
The President had been
(Continued on Page 2)
INSIDE STORY
Biafran Misery Pg. 2
Westside Story Pg. 3
Editorial Pg. 4
Know Your Faith Pg. 5
PRESIDENT MEETS WITH CATHOLIC EDUCATORS - Board members and staff of the
National Catholic Education Assoication (NCEA) met with President Nixon in his White House
office, and heard the President say he sees “great value” in the two educational systems, public
and private, and it would be “a tragedy if either one should collapse.” Speaking with the President,
left to right, are: Msgr. Edward Hughes, school superintendent of the Philadelphia archdiocese; Fr.
John Meyers, executive secretary of the NCEA's school superintendents’ department; Bishop
Raymond Gallagher of Lafayette, Ind., NCEA board chairman; Mrs. Jane Wolford, Detroit
archdiocesan adult education director; Fr. John P. Carter, executive secretary. National
Association of Episcopal Schools, New York, and Fr. A. Albert Koob, O. Praem., NCEA president.
(NC Photo)
RAP GOV’T ROLE
Youths Oppose
Birth Control
ISAT’L ADVISORY GROUP
Bishops Ask For
Study To Create
Pastoral Council
WASHINGTON (NC) — The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB)
has asked an advisory body of bishops, priests, nuns and laity to study the
possibility of creating a National Pastoral Council.
John Cardinal Dearden of Detroit, president of both the NCCB and the United
States Catholic Conference (USCC), announced the action in Washington on Feb. 20
following a meeting earlier in the week of his administrative bodies.
They had been
contemplating for some time
the idea of getting initial
studies started, a spokesman
said, and had included the
broad question of National
Pastoral Councils on the
agendas for their separate
meetings here Feb. 16-18.
Cardinal Dearden asked
that the 50-member Advisory
Council of the USCC-a
bishop, a priest, a Religious, a
layman and a lay woman from
each of 10 geographic areas
of the United States--look
into these four basic
questions:
--Exercise of shared
responsibility in the Church.
-Nature of a National
Pastoral Council.
-I&w NPC membership
would be determined.
--How an NPC would
relate'to other bodies in the
Church, including the NCCB
and the USCC, the National
Federation of Priests Councils
(NFPC), the Conferences of
Major Superiors of Men and
Women Religious, the
National Council of Catholic
Men and the women’s
counterpart, and other laity
groups.
A National Pastoral
Council might eventually play
a role on the national level
similar to that played on the
diocesan level by diocesan
pastoral councils, which are
basically consultative in
nature.
the NPC question already
included.
The men and women
invited some of the bishops
to their 50th anniversary
NCCM-NCCW dinner the
previous night and, during
informal discussion before
the dinner, passed around a
six-point set of proposals.
One of those proposals
was that the NCCB take
immediate steps to establish a
National Pastoral Council,
with the NCCM and NCCW
included in any study group
set up for that purpose.
The two laity groups also
advised the bishops that they
intended to form their own
task force to look into the
possibility of creating a
National Council of the
Laity.
The Catholic men’s and
women’s councils also
proposed:
--Formation of an NCCB
Committee for the Lay
Apostolate, for better
relations between their own
organizations and the
bishops. *
-Inclusion of clergy,
Religious and laity on the
USCC administrative board,
which is now composed of 25
bishops.
-Unofficial membership
for both the NCCM and
NCCW on the USCC Advisory
Council.
A HEADLINE {4
HOPSCOTCH
CPA Names Wall
NEW YORK (NC) - A.E.P. Wall, editor of the Catholic
Review, newspaper of the Baltimore archdiocese, has been
named chairman of the editor-publisher relations committee of
the Catholic Press Association. TTie committee plans and
conducts a program of meetings and other contacts between
bishops and religious superiors, in their role as publishers, and
editor-members of the press association. In December it
sponsored a three-day conference on the Catholic press in
Dayton, Ohio.
Israel Criticized
The Second Vatican
Council’s Decree on he
Pastoral Office of Bishops
(Christus Dominus)
recommended establishment
of diocesan councils. More
than 80 now exist or are in
the process of formation in
the 160 dioceses and
archdioceses throughout the
country. Parish councils have
also been established in
thousands of Catholic
parishes in the U.S.
The USCC Advisory
Council was established in
March 1969 to help guide the
work of the U.S. Catholic
Conference, the
National-level action agency
of the Catholic Church in the
United States.
The next meeting of the
Advisory Council will be in
Kansas City, Kan., from
March 13 to 15. In asking it
to study the question of a
National Pastoral Council, the
USCC administrative board
and the NCCB administrative
committee encourage it to
consult other interested
groups.
Two such interested
groups-the National Council
of Catholic Men (NCCM) and
the National Council of
Catholic Women (NCCW) -
broached the subject publicly
one day before the NCCB and
USCC administrative bodies,
composed of 56 bishops,
took up their agendas with
AMMAN, Jordan (NC) — Israel’s occupation of the west
bank of the Jordan River and takeover of the entire city of
Jerusalem drew the condemnation of a joint Moslem-Christian
conference here. Moslem leaders holding a worldwide
emergency session on the Palestine situation were joined by the
heads of all the Christian churches in Jordan at the conference.
Brother Bishops
WASHINGTON (NC) — When Bishop-designate of Juneau,
Alaska Francis T. Hurley is ordained a bishop March 19, his
brother, Bishop Mark J. Hurley, recently installed as the
Ordinary of Santa Rosa, Calif., will be his principal consecrator.
The brother-bishops will join seven other pairs of
brother-bishops in the history of this country’s hierarchy; they
will be the second pair in this century.
'Ignorance Of Judaism 1
BOSTON (NC) — Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston said
here that the “greatest enemy” of the Jewish people within the
Christian community is a “simple ignorance of Judaism.”
Cardinal Cushing issued a statement to open a series of 10
Sunday evening lectures on Judaism, presented for religious and
lay teachers by rabbis and other Jewish leaders. Tlie cardinal
said, “I am aware that despite genuine advances we have hardly
come to grips with many problems. Today, Christians must deal
with Judaism as a genuine living community of faith which was
called forth by God of old, and is still being called forth today
to carry out a divine mission, to be a witness to God, and a
blessing for manicind.”
Confirmation Schedule
His Excellency, Bishop Gerard L. Frey will
administer the Sacrament of Confirmation at the
Church of the Nativity, Darien on Sunday, March 1 at
10:00 a.m. and at St. William’s church, St. Simons
Island on Sunday March 1 at 6:00 p.m. All members
of both churches are cordially invited to attend.