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PAGE 4 — The Southern Cross, February 26,1970
Published at Waynesboro, Ga.
Most Rev. Geraid L. Frey, D.D. President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
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Freedom Of Choice
On Wednesday last week, the U.S.
Senate voted to apply Federal school
desegregation rules in the North as well
as the South, with no distinction being
recognized between schools segregated
by law (de jure) and those segregated as
a result of ethnic neighborhood patterns
(de facto).
The next day, liberals in the House of
Representatives lost, on a non-record
vote, a move challenging amendments
which would outlaw busing orders by
the Department of Health, Education
and Welfare, and legalize ‘freedom of
choice’ school assignment plans.
We have no quarrel with Senate
action finally giving official recognition
to the fact that the evil of racial
segregation is at least as much a part of
society outside the South as it is in
Dixie. Black Americans should have their
rights to equal treatment under the law
safeguarded not only in the South, but
everywhere else.
However, we have very serious doubts
concerning the ability of ‘freedom of
choice’ school assignment plans to
achieve racial justice in the nation’s
schools.
It is being said that ‘de facto’
segregation which exists in the North as
well as the South is simply the result of
residential patterns, rather than outright
design by authorities. This is only partly
true.
Segregated residential patterns didn’t
just ‘happen,’ willy-nilly. Black
neighborhoods sprang up around the
country because of social pressure.
Blacks, both North and South, were
denied ‘freedom of choice’ to buy homes
where they desired and could afford tp
live. Job discrimination assured that
most of them would never be financially
able to live in most ‘middle-class’
neighborhoods. Hence, the birth of the
country’s Black ghettoes.
To the extent that authorities on the
federal, state, and local levels have, over
many decades - in some cases, right up
to the present time - refused to fight for
equal employment opportunity
legislation and ‘freedom of choice’ in
housing, de facto segregation is just as
much the result of outright design by
authorities as was the de jure, or
legislated, segregation outlawed by
federal civil rights laws.
With regard to present difficulties in
achieving school desegregation, we are
willing to admit that there sire parents
and public servants who are ONLY
concerned that American parents should
have the right to choose the schools
where their children will receive their
formal education.
However, we are firmly convinced
that many who carry the banner of
‘freedom of choice’ as a principle they
hold is guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution do so for dishonest, ignoble
reasons at variance with their stated
purposes.
There is one way to find out who is
honest and who is dishonest in the
swelling crusade for ‘freedom of choice.’
If they also espouse the concepts of
equal employment opportunities and
‘freedom of choice’ in the purchase of
housing -- concepts which would
guarantee the gradual disappearance of
black ghettoes along with the now
defunct “little Germanies, little Polands,
little Israels and little Greeces” and a
consequent end to de facto racial
segregation in schools, then let them
publicly declare themselves.
If, on the other hand, they are
unwilling to support legislation designed
to assure the right of every citizen to
equal employment opportunities and
open housing occupancy, then we say,
without qualification, they are racists -
traitors to everything the Holy Bible
teaches about the unity of the human
race and mockers of Jesus Christ who
died for the love of every man, woman
and child who ever lived or will live on
the earth, regardless of color or race.
Reader, make your choice. If the fact
that a man’s skin is black means that you
treat him differently than if his skin
were white -- if you accord him and his
children less respect than you extend to
his white counterpart and his children -
then, you are in serious spiritual trouble.
You run the risk of divine condemnation
for rejecting Christ in the person of the
black men, women and children for
whom he died, even as he died for you.
And that’s Gospel. Believe it!
TUITION GRANTS FOR PARENTS
T he B ackdrop...
By John J. Daly, Jr.
The Nixon Administration reportedly will
experiment next school year, probably in
several major cities, with the plan that is the
darling of conservative parents’ groups-the
tuition grant system.
Its intention was disclosed in what was
patently a trial balloon floated in the Feb. 2
issue of the weekly, The National Observer. The
paper reported at length on a grant of nearly
$200,000 by the
Office of Econo
mic Opportunity
to the Center for
the Study of Public
Policy in Cam
bridge, Mass.,
where educators
and researchers are
exploring adminis
trative and philosophical problems.
Tuition grants, as most regular readers of
Catholic newspapers will recall, are the core of
the program put forward by Citizens for
Educational Freedom to resolve the financial
difficulties of nonpublic schools today. CEF is
the interfaith, but predominantly Catholic,
organization of private school supporters which
has waged several strong battles for a bigger cut
of the tax pie for parents who choose to put
their children in nonpublic educational
institutions.
Under the OEO’s plan, “educational
vouchers” would be established for parents.
Each voucher would be worth a child’s share of
taxes raised to support public schools. Parents
could use the vouchers as tuition payments at
any accredited school-public, private, parochial
or even newly established institutions created
by community groups.
The idea is now new. What is new is that it
apparently is going to get its first trial after a
string of defeats in state legislatures.
Public school leaders have been chiefly
responsible for its lack of success. They are
fighting it at the moment, for example, in
Missouri, Wisconsin and New Mexico. They are
terrified of it because of the control it would
place in the hands of parents. It is conceivable
an entire public school system could be wiped
out if parents united to do so, they say-and
they are right.
It also faces stiff challenges from some civil
rights groups. They have seen the concept
abused in some areas of the nation by
state-financed tuition grant plans designed to
aid white parents in evading court-ordered
desegregation in public schools.
On the other hand, however, there are some
militant black power groups, situated chiefly in
northern cities, who embrace the idea. They
reason that black parents could use the
vouchers to escape inferior ghetto schools.
These groups would, of course, open schools
themselves to enroll many of the children, at
the least setting up schools along the lines of
ethnically-oriented parochial schools of the past
and, at the most, creating them to further
various black power philosophies.
Finally, there is the attitude of Catholic
school leaders, men who represent institutions
that apparently would be the most immediate
beneficiaries of such a plan. It has always struck
this observer that Catholic school spokesmen
have been only lukewarm to the idea, for the
same reason that their public school
counterparts dislike it: the weakening of
professional control over schools by putting
enormous financial power in the hands of
parents, or alliances of parents.
This background hints at what the Nixon
Administration has tackled: a complex,
revolutionary system of school finance. At the
same time, however, it does hold substantial
promise, as a tool of school reform and as an
official endorsement of the basic role of parents
in their children’s schooling.
Standard'Bearer
It Seems To Me
Joseph Breig
SEX EDUCATION
Tracts For
The Times
By Marvin R. O’Connell
I approach the subject of this column with a
good deal of trepidation because I know so
little about it. “Well,” I can hear many of my
faithful readers saying, “You never let that stop
you before.” Ruefully I must admit to the
charge. Yet in the past, even at my worst, I
could usually claim some small comDetence as a
springboard for what not a few would call my
disagreeable opinions. So perhaps in this
instance I had best state my
inadequate view and then prepare
to run. I think Catholic schools,
particularly at this moment in time,
could offer a genuine and
important service by introducing a
program of sex education.
Before I flee, however, let me
suggest some explanation and
perhaps qualification of that flat statment. If
you start with the proposition that human
sexuality, like the history of Rome or the
construct of an atom, has a distinct intellectual,
informational aspect, then obviously it deserves
a place in the curriculum. I suppose much of
this sort of thing is already covered in courses
in biology and anatomy. But information about
sex has to do with more than just technique
and scientific fact; indeed to reduce the subject
to mere motor response and manipulation is to
And here of course is the difficulty.
Sexuality has to do with love and with the
deepest human values. A Christian would add
that it involves also a sublimely sacred
character, in that, as St. Paul tells us, sexual
love is the eloquent and effective sign of God’s
love for his people. So the most profound level
of instruction about sex cannot proceed
without reference to an agreed value system
and, for Christians, without reference to the
supernatural order in which sexuality plays
such an important part.
The Church has the
authority, of course, to revise
canon law to make priestly
celibacy optional rather than
obligatory, leaving to each
seminarian and priest the
decision to marry or not. But
the question which Pope Paul
must answer (and is
answering) in the sight of
Uod-a ques
tion which the
anti-Celibacy
people do not
seem suffi
ciently to
cons^der-'is:
Would such a
change make
for a holier
priesthood? A holier Church?
Would it enable the Church
to fulfill better the commission
given by Jesus Christ,
incarnate God, to teach and
sanctify mankind, to lead the
world toward the fulfillment
of the great petition in the
Lord’s Prayer: “Father ...
thy kingdom come, thy will
be done on earth as it is in
Heaven”?
It is important that each
generation should drink anew
from the wellsprings of
Scripture, lest we lose or dim
the vision of the Church’s
reason-for-being. This is one
of the reasons for the reform
and renewal of the liturgy,
and for the change from
Latin to the tongues of the
people in the Mass.
“Go out all over the
world,” Jesus commanded his
followers (Mark 16:15-16)
“and preach the gospel to the
whole creation.”
And again, in Matthew 28,
18-20: “All authority in
Heaven and on earth has been
given to me; you, therefore,
must go out, making disciples
of all nations, and baptizing
them . .. teaching them to
observe all the command
ments which I have given
you. And behold I am with
you . . . until the
consumation of the world.”
“Father, thy kingdom
come” . . .
It is an observed fact that
dedicated celibacy, and
dedicated virginity too, are
sources of imminence energy
and boldness-one might say
audacity-in the service of
God and of fellowmen.
In the practical order, the
celibate unmarried priest and
the dedicated virgin are free
to drop everything at any
time and to go where the
Spirit calls, where the
religious need is greatest; to
face hardship, hatred,
persecution, even
imprisonment and death for
the spreading and defense of
the Faith.
In the spiritual order
(which is equally practical)
the celibate and the virgin are
normally much more keenly
and constantly conscious of
the supernatural; more
prayerful, more sensitively
aware of the prime
importance of the spiritual
and moral aspects of life.
Even a cursory reading of
the history of the missions
discloses that the celibate
priesthood (and
Brotherhoods) and the
virginal Sisterhoods have been
the principal sources from
which flowed the great tides
of missionary enterprise from
Jerusalem into Rome and
Greece and Africa and around
the globe, carrying with them
not only the Faith, given first
through the prophets and
then by the Son of God, but
all that goes with the
Faith-education, reverence
for human rights and
dignities, and the rest.
These are some of the
considerations which Pope
Paul surely has faced, and
which seem not to have been
fully faced by Dutch
Catholics in their clamor for a
change in the law of priestly
celibacy. I think the pope is
right and the Dutch are
mistaken; and I am convinced
that the overwhelming
majority of the world’s
Catholics feel the same.
OUR PARISH
“Since we switched from self-denial to self-fulfill
ment, we’ve all gained weight.”
I suppose this is the reason why the public
school programs in sex education are stirring up
so much controversy. In an age marked by swift
change, moral uncertainty and consequent
confusion. It is perhaps impossible that a
neighborhood public school could arrive at a
policy in this matter which would satisfy its
whole constituency. Some parents resent their
children being instructed in matters sexual in a
certain way or at a certina pace or by certain
types of personnel. They argue that their
values, which they want their children to share
with them, are being systematically subverted
in the school. Other parents at the same time
are angered that a program they value and feel
they need is threatened by vigilante forces
outside the school.
Now it strikes me that the kind of problem
which appears insoluble in the public education
context could be avoided in Catholic schools.
Of course as we stand now it would be naive to
persume a monolithic unanimity about sex or
about anything else among Catholics. Still there
is a broad agreement which one could scarcely
hope to find even in the most homogeneous
public school. We agree, for instance, on the
sacredness of the subject and consequently on
the immorality of certain patterns of sexual
behavior. We understand that the sexual
commitment possesses a sacramental dimension
which elevates it quite literally to the divine
level. We agree, in short, a great deal more than
we disagree.
Above I said I thought the Catholic schools
could serve well in this area particularly now.
What I meant was that the ideal of parents as
the primary educators of their children-always
honored in theory is much closer than ever
before to practical realization. In Catholic
schools everywhere there is at work a lively
process of cooperation between parent and
teacher which, if employed in sex instruction,
could strike just the right balance. The Catholic
community, if it chooses to, can influence
policy decisions in education to a degree
unthought of in the public sector. That is why I
say that right now home and school together
can strive with a better chance of success than
ever to provide Catholic youngsters with sexual
information and attitudes which can spare them
the ravage of both Jansenism and hedonism and
thus spare them much unhappiness later.
I admit that this involves a lot of
presumption. No sensible man, at this juncture,
is betting that the Catholic schools will survive
at all. But maybe, in this delicate and terribly
important consideration, we might find another
reason to try to save and even expand our
schools.
CATHOLIC CONGRESS ON WORSHIP
THE ATLANTA CONGRESS
ATLANTA CIVIC CENTER AUDITORIUM
April 16, 17, 18/1970