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SERVING 88 SOUTH - GEORGIA COUNTIES
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 52 No. 24
Thursday, July 1, 1971
Single Copy Price — 12 Cents
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NEW YORK - “THE ELECTRIC COMPANY” is television’s
newest educational series designed to help teach reading to
children between the ages of seven and 10. Here Academy
Award winner Rita Moreno and Morgan Freeman show their
obsession for the printed word, whether it be on a matchbook, a
clothing label or a dollar bill (NC PHOTO)
TV KIDDIE SERIES
Electric Company’
‘The
By Doris Revere Peters
NEW YORK (NC)-The
Children’s Television
Workshop has unveiled its
second experiment in
educational TV-a series to be
called “The Electric
Company” designed to help
teach basic reading skills to
second, third and
fourth-grade youngsters.
The title refers to a
repertory company of players
assembled by the workshop
to dramatize its daily lessons.
Among the seven actors and
actresses who will be regulars
on “The Electric Company”
are Comedian Bill Cosby and
Academy Award winner Rita
Moreno.
Mrs. Joan Ganz Cooney,
president of CTW and
mastermind of its famous
“Sesame Street” series, said
at a news conference here
that the Workshop undertook
the new project in response
to a request by the Nixon
administration, which has
designated the 1970’s as the
“Right to Read” decade with
universal literacy a major
national goal.
“Most people aren’t aware
that literacy is still a major
problem in the United
States,” she said. “One recent
study says that perhaps as
many as half of all U.S. adults
can’t read well enough to
advance in their jobs, to fill
out a drivers license
application or read a
newspaper.”
Reading difficulties, she
noted, are not problems of
the poor or any minority
group alone but affect
children at all socio-economic
levels.
The new reading series,
which will combine
entertainment and education,
will be aimed at children
between the ages of seven and
10, Mrs. Cooney said.
“These are the years when
reading is learned or not
learned. If the student falters
at this point, there is still
time for midcourse
correction. After third grade,
reading becomes a tool to
explore all other subjects
rather than a subject itself. If
the child isn’t reading up to
his grade level after that, the
chances of frustration and
failure are heightened
dramatically.”
The bullseye of the target
audience is the child in the
lower half of the second
grade in reading achievement.
But the program hopefully
will be useful to older
children and perhaps even to
teenagers and some adults.
The new series will be
deliberately different in style
and tone from “Sesame
Street.” Excerpts from test
programs just completed,
which were shown at the
news conference, vividly
demonstrated the difference.
Most television
programming, “Sesame
Street” included, uses the
television tube as a picture
frame to take the viewer to
recognizable, if far-away,
places. “The Electric
Company” won’t have a
regular address. If anything, it
will appear to be happening
right on the surface of the
screen.
Stylized, color
backgrounds and sets with
outsized electronic screens
will flash print messages,
often in the form of the type
of jokes that are dear to the
seven-to-10-year-old mind.
The series is composed in a
“magazine” format-short,
varied segments with a liberal
use of music, color, animated
cartoons and electronic
effects-and each show hews
(Continued on page 2)
INSIDE STORY
City Honors High School Pg- 2
'Know Yoor Faith’ Pg* 5
Celibacy For Religious Pg* 6
Right To Life Pg- 7
TWO PLANS OUTLAWED
Supreme Court Rules On
Non-Public School Aid
By Father Charles M. Whelan, S.J.
WASHINGTON (NC) — The U.S. Supreme Court rendered on June 28 its long-awaited decision on the
constitutionality of public assistance to church-related schools, ruling that college aid is permissible, but outlawing
Pennsylvania’s purchase of services arrangement and Rhode Island’s teacher salary supplements.
The court did not invalidate all forms of assistance at the elementary and secondary level, but ruled that aid to
those nonpublic schools must not take the forms adopted in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
Chief Justice Warren E.
Burger wrote the majority
opinion in Lemon and
DiCenso, the Pennsylvania
and Rhode Island cases.
Justice Byron White was the
only member of the court to
vote for the Rhode Island
program. He was also the
only justic who wished to
send the Pennsylvania case
back to trial rather than
declare the statute
unconstitutional as a matter
of law.
In the college case, Tilton
V. Richardson, Burger’s
opinion in favor of the
federal statute joined only by
three justices (John M.
Harlan, Potter Stewart and
Harry Blackmun), so that
there was no majority
opinion Justice White
concurred in the favorable
result, to make the majority
of five.
Justice William J. Brennan,
the only Catholic on the
court, voted against the
church-related institutions in
all three cases, as did Justices
Hugo Black and William D.
Douglas. Justice Thurgood
Marshall voted against the
federal and the Rhode Island
programs, but did not
participate in the
Pennsylvania decision.
In a statement released
shortly after the decisions
were issued, Bishop Joseph L.
Bernardin, general secretary
of the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops and the
U nited States Catholic
Conference, highlighted the
mixed picture presented by
the Supreme Court’s actions.
“While supporters of
nonpublic education are
gratified, by the court’s ruling
in favor of federal
construction aid to
church-sponsored colleges,”
said Bishop Bernardin, “the
decisions overturning two
state programs of assistance
to nonpublic elementary and
secondary education
naturally comes as a keen
disappointment to them. The
serious impact of this
decision on nonpublic schools
cannot be overestimated.”
Bishop Bernardin said that
the decisions do not spell the
end of nonpublic schools in
the United States. Some
forms of public assistance,
such as transportation and
textbooks, have been clearly
established as constitutional
by prior decisions of the
Supreme Court and are still
valid under the Pennsylvania
and Rhode Island decisions.
Moreover, the court’s
decisions still leave open the
constitutionality of public
assistance provided directly
to students and parents
(scholarships, tuition grants,
tax credits and deductions),
and of programs under which
public school teachers are
made available to nonpublic
schools for certain subjects.
The Supreme Court
decisions in Tilton, Lemon
and DeCenso are already
under intensive study by legal
and constitutional specialists
on the staff of the U.S.
Catholic Conference.
FATHER ARTHUR WELTZER, pastor of Holy Family parish, Columbus, greets well-wishing
parishioner at dedication rites for the new parish social center June 13th. Bishop Gerard L. Frey,
who officiated at dedication looks on approvingly. (Photo by Bynum)
HOLY FAMILY
Social Center Dedicated
At Columbus Parish
The Church of the Holy
Family, oldest Catholic
Church in the Columbus area,
dedicated a new parish social
center and educational
building on Sunday, June
13th.
The Most Rev. Gerard L.
Frey performed the
dedication service and the
Rev. Arthur Weltzer, Holy
Family pastor and dean of
the Columbus Deanery,
presided. In addition to
parishioners of Holy Family
and other parishes, the
Mayor, members of the
Columbus Council, area
pastors, other community
leaders and citizens were
present. The 4th Degree,
Knights of Columbus
functioned as honor guards of
the Bishop.
#
The new building cost
some $180,000 and joins the
body of the church by means
of a cloister lit by
English-style lanterns. It is of
cement block with veneer of
wood-mold brmk.
A two-story structure, the
4
center has 9 upstairs Sunday
school classrooms.
Downstairs are a large
fellowship hall, a bride’s
room and a kitchen.
The structure was designed
by architect Ted Szutowitz
and built by Brannan-Cum-
mings Construction
Company.
A
HEADLINE
HOPSCOTCH
CBS News Chief Cited
NEW YORK (NC) - The president of CBS News has been
awarded the National Catholic Office for Radio and Television’s
1971 distinguished service award for “his personal integrity and
commitment to the highest standards of broadcast journalism.”
Cuban Airlift Threatened
WASHINGTON (NC) - A U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC)
official has expressed “deep concern” over a Congressional
committee’s proposal to cut off funds for airlifting Cuban
refugees to the United States. “Should the resolution proposed
by the U.S. Senate appropriations committee be accepted by
the Senate,” said John E. McCarthy, director of USCC’s
migration and refugee service division, “it would indeed show a
marked departure from this nation’s historic role as the ‘mother
of exiles,’ and it would have many repercussions on the
humanitarian concern this nation has for those less fortunate
than ourselves.”