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SERVING 88 SOUTH - GEORGIA COUNTIES
The Sow
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DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol.52 No. 22
Thursday, June 3, 1971
Single Copy Price — 12 Cents
EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL IN ITS OWN WAY. The brightness of a cluster of balloons on the
breeze seems to add to the light-heartedness of a young man and woman in love. (NC PHOTO)
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Church Officials Back
Chatham Desegregation
Bishop Gerard L. Frey, the
Diocesan Superintendent of
Schools, The Southern Cross,
and pastors in the Savannah
Deanery moved last Saturday
to support the Savannah-
Chatham County Board of
Public Education’s plan to
further desegregate the
county’s public schools in the
fall.
The board’s plan, unveiled
last Wednesday (May 26), has
drawn fire from segments of
both the black and white
communities of the Savannah
area, as well as from the
Savannah Morning News.
Bishop Frey sent a
telegram of support on
Saturday to School Board
President Julian C. Halligan.
Halligan has not yet released
the text of the telegram.
In a companion action,
Father Ralph E. Seikel,
Diocesan Superintendent of
Schools, reaffirmed a
statement of policy issued in
January, 1970, when public
schools in Macon were
ordered to effect greater
desegregation bya federal
court.
The 1970 statement was
read at Savannah Catholic
churches last Sunday (May
30). It urged pastors and
school administrators to be
aware of the possibility that
some parents might try to
enroll their children in the
parochial schools to avoid
public school desegregation.
The statement declared.
“We certainly do not want
any students, Catholic or
non-Catholic, who apply
simply because of racial
reasons.
Monsignor Andrew J.
McDonald, Vicar General of
the diocese, also prepared a
statement last Saturday,
when he sent to all Catholic
churches in the Savannah
area, asking pastors to join
him in declaring that Catholic
schools would not become
“Haven(s) for the
prejudiced.”
“ .. .because we are in no
position to distinguish the
reasoning behind applicants”
for parochial schools since
the public school board’s
desegregation plan was
announced on Wednesday,
Monsignor McDonald said no
more new applications for
admission to Blessed
Sacrament parish school,
where he is pastor, will be
accepted.
The editorial in this week’s
Southern Cross also supports
the action of the public
school board.
Summer Schedule
There will be no paper next week, as we are on
Summer Schedule. The Southern Cross does not print
the second and last weeks of June. July and August.
INSIDE STORY
Liberty And Justice Pg« 2
Dialogue In Print Pg* 3
'Know Your Faith’ Pg- 5
Readers Reply Pg* 3
The Presidents of three
area Ministerial associations
approved a joint statement of
support last Friday. Their
statement will be brought up
at the next full meeting of
each of the three groups for
endorsement.
The Savannah branch of
the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) was to meet
Wednesday evening (June 2)
to prepare a statement on the
board’s action.
URGES OPEN, COMPLETE REPORTING
Vatican Pastoral Backs
F reedom
In News Media
Six Years Study
The pastoral was given
simultaneous worldwide
release here and in foreign
capitals by national
hierarchies. Published with
the approval and
endorsement of Pope Paul VI,
the pastoral instruction was
six years in the making by the
Pontifical Commission on
Social Communications. It
was written to carry out the
brief and all but forgotten
1962 Vatican Council decree
on communications.
Chief Aims
‘ ‘The unity and
advancement of men living in
society: these are the chief
aims of social communication
and of all the means it uses,”
the document says in its
opening words, in a global
approach beyond any
self-serving Church concept
of the media.
Entitled “Communio et
Progressio” (Unity and
Advancement) from its first
words, the pastoral’s
English-language translation is
called “Mass Media, the
Pastoral Instruction” in
England and “Co
mmunications: a Pastoral
Instruction on the Media,
Public Opinion and Human
Progress” in the United
States.
Must Be Competent
Speaking to and about
persons working in the
communications industry, the
pastoral states that media
professionals “have a duty in
conscience to make
themselves competent in the
art of social communications
in order to be effective in
HU
HEADLINE f4
HOPSCOTCH At
Century Of Killing
HELSINKI, Finland (NC) — Liberal laws on abortion and
euthanasia may turn the 20th century into “a century of
killing,” Lutheran bishops were warned here. Archbishop Martti
Simojoki of Helsinki opened the spring session of the Lutheran
bishops’ conference with a statement of concern about liberal
abortion laws passed here in 1970, and euthanasia laws
currently under study. “Social evils ought to be removed in
other ways than by such primitive methods,” he stated.
VATICAN CITY (NC) — The Vatican issued today an unusual 23,000-word
pastoral instruction on communications that calls freedom of information and
expression “absolutely essential” in the Church, rejects needless secrecy, favors
interpretive reporting, and in general contrasts sharply with a past record of news
media mistrust by Church officials.
The new document puts clear demands on both bishops and laity to keep
themselves informed on what is happening in the Church and the world, saying that
building a healthy public opinion requires open and complete news reporting.
Two To Be Ordained For
FATHERS O’CONNELL, COLLINS
their work.”
It goes on to cite dangers
and difficulties that
communicators face and to
raise some unanswered
questions: how can people
properly evaluate and
understand “this swift and
haphazard and endless stream
of news.”
No Neutral Stance
“The media are bound to
seek a mass audience and so
they often adopt a neutral
stance in order to avoid giving
offense to any section of
their audience. How, in a
society that is committed to
the rights of dissent, is the
distinction between right and
wrong, and true and false, to
be made?”
The pastoral does not try
to reply to such questions.
Mentioning a decline in moral
standards in much of modem
life, it cautions against
blaming the communications
media in its job of reflecting
“what already exists in
society. ”
Freedom Essential
The Vatican document
(Continued on page 3)
DOCTOR IN THE (OPERA) HOUSE - Segi Ozawa, ebullient
Japanese conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, was
awarded his first American degree on May 30. The University of
San Francisco made him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, but
not in person. Since the maestro was scheduled to be in his
native Japan on that day, he earlier invited Rev. Albert R.
Jonsen, S.J., president of USF, left, to visit backstage at the War
Memorial Opera House. (NC PHOTO)
C. O. Rights Backed
VATICAN CITY (NC) — An advisory group of the Holy See’s
Justice and Peace Commission recommends that all governments
recognize the right to conscientous objection. The working
Committee for Peace and the International Community,
meeting in Rome May 24-27, also tackled the possibility of an
international statute on conscientous objection.
Mitchell Called Dangerous
WASHINGTON (NC) — The nation’s only priest Congressman
labeled U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell “the most
dangerous attorney general we have ever had” in a television
interview here. Father Robert Drinan, Massachusetts Democrat
and former dean of the Boston College law school, said Mitchell
“claims that he has the inherent power to wiretap, contrary to
our tradition,” and that “one cannot really believe the
statements he makes about segregation.”
No Marriage Document
VATICAN CITY (NC) — News reports that Pope Paul VI is
planning to issue a document soon that will speed up the
handling of marriage cases in Church courts found no
confirmation in reliable Vatican offices. Officials of the Roman
Rota, the Church’s major marriage court, and of the
Congregation of Sacraments said they had not heard of any
intent to issue a motu proprio (a special document issued by the
Pope on his own authority) on the subject of new norms to
speed the processes of Church courts in the handling of marriage
cases.
Mission Singers Nixed
ST. LOUIS (NC) — Although the need for more priests in
today’s church is a theme he has often repeated, Cardinal John
J. Carberry of St. Louis has made it clear that he does not think
five newly ordained members of the Contemporary Mission are
needed in the inner city here. The five, all associated with the
recording group, The Mission, were ordained by a West African
bishop in Cromwell, Conn., on May 11, and returned here to
continue their inner city work and their studies at St. Louis
University school of divinity. Cardinal Carberry told newsmen
that he would “never have accepted them” as priests of the
archdiocese.
Service In Sav. Diocese
For Daniel Patrick
O’Connell and William Jerard
Collins, June 12th will be a
red letter day. It will be a red
letter day for the Diocese of
Savannah, too.
June 12th is the day the
two young Irish Deacons will
be ordained to the
Priesthood. But, although
ordained thousands of miles
away in Ireland, they will
carry out their ministry in the
Savannah diocese.
Father O’Connell
Father O’Connell, who will
be ordained in the Cathedral
of the Assumption at Carlow,
is the son of Jeremiah and the
late Margaret Lynch
O’Connell of Cork. The
family are members of Our
Lady of Lourdes parish,
there.
Father O’Connell attended
elementary and secondary
schools in Cork before
entering St. Patrick’s
Seminary in Carlow in 1965.
He has two brothers -
Michael and Francis, and two
sisters - Carrie and Mary.
Father O’Connell will be
ordained by Bishop Patrick
Lennon of Kildare and
Leighlin.
Assisting Bishop Lennon
at the Mass of Ordination
will be the President, Vice
President and Junior Dean
of St. Patrick’s Seminary.
First Mass
Father O’Connell will
celebrate his First Mass at his
home parish in Cork on June
13th.
Father Collins
Father Collins is a native of
County Tipperary and the
son of Michael and Sarah
Collins of Nenagh. After
attending elementary school
in Nenagh, he enrolled at Mt.
Mellery College in Waterford
in 1962, graduating from
REV. MR. O’CONNELL
there in 1967.
He began his theology
studies at St. Patrick’s
College, Thurles, in 1967 and
will be ordained from there.
The ordination will take
place at Thurles Cathedral
with Archbishop Thomas
Morris of the diocese of
Cashel as the ordaining
prelate. The President and
Vice President of St. Patrick’s
will assist Archbishop Morris.
First Mass
Father Collins will
celebrate his First Mass at his
home parish on June 13th.
REV. MR. COLLINS