Newspaper Page Text
PAG' 0 -July 22. 1971
SEN. BUCKLEY
OVER ORDINATIONS
Forgeries Charge
In Controversy
‘Anti-Military Binge’
Weakens U.S. Defenses
SILENT — All eyes are on the “speaker.” This group was among some 400 who attended the
International Catholic Deaf Convention in Baltimore and later toured Washington. Here at
Washington’s National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception they are given a tour in sign language.
(NC PHOTO by RENI)
VATICAN SAYS:
No Yugoslavia Trip
WASHINGTON (NC) -
Conservative-Republican
James L. Buckley issued a
gloomy forecast for world
peace, saying that the United
States may not have the
military strength he thinks
necessary to achieve
international harmony.
An “anti-military binge,”
the New York senator told a
National Press Club luncheon,
has allowed the nation’s
mu clear and conventional
forces “to deteriorate to a
point where the ability of the
president.. .to assure the
defense of vital national
interests may be in
jeopardy.”
Sen. Buckley said there can
be no defense of a defense
system which is larger then
necessary to meet the needs
of national security, “but the
adequacy or inadequacy of a
nation’s defenses is not
determined by considerations
NIXON’S
VATICAN CITY (NC) -
News of President Nixon’s
forthcoming visit to Red
China has been received here
“with satisfaction,” the
Vatican’s press officer has
stated.
“It is hoped these meetings
will serve effectively to
consolidate peace and
collaboration among
peoples,” Federioc
Alessandrini told NC News
Service.
President Nixon
announced on July 16 in a
television broadcast to the
United States from the NBC
studios in Burbank, Calif.,
that he had accepted an
invitation from Red China’s
Premier Chou En-lai to visit
China some time before May,
1 972.
The invitation was
extended to the President by
the Chinese leader through
Henry A. RisSinger, assistant
to the President for national
security affairs, who visited
Peking on his recent
round-the-world tour.
It was the first time a high
American official has visited
the Chinese capital since the
By Steve Landregan
FORT WORTH, Tex. (NC)
— Catholic schools in Tarrant
County have suspended
registration of new students
in an effort to cooperate with
Fort Worth public schools in
integration efforts, Father
Robert Wilson, diocesan
superintendent of schools,
announced here.
The action followed
approval by the Fort Worth
public school system of an
integration plan involving
busing of students in 27 of
the city’s elementary schools.
The plan will go to U.S.
District Judge Leo Brewster
as the public schools board’s
recommendation for
accelerating racial mixing.
The Catholic system of the
Fort Worth diocese includes
18 schools with 5,472
students; in Tarrant County,
there are 12 schools with
3,871 students.
Father Wilson said in a
statement:
“In a special vote July 12
the Catholic school board of
the diocese of Forth Worth
and its ex officio chairman
Bishop John J. Cassata closed
registration to transfer
students applying to Tarrant
of domestic priorities, but by
the power relationships
within which it must
operate.”
He warned that American
foreign policy objectives may
soon seem irrelevant “because
we will be without the means
of implementing them.”
For instance in the Middle
East crisis, he said, it is no
longer at all certain that the
United States will continue to
have the capability of
meeting its objectives to keep
that area from blowing apart.
Unless the United States
takes action to modernize
and reinforce the Sixth Fleet
assigned to the Middle East
and unless it can develop and
deliver to Israel weapons
which can challenge those the
Soviets can provide Arab
states, Sen. Buckley said “we
will find our Mideast options
communists gained control of
the country more than two
decades ago.
Meanwhile in Hong Kong,
an editorial in the Sunday
Examiner, the Hong Kong
diocesan weekly, commenting
on many cynical comments
voiced there on President
Nixon’s visit, said that
“President Nixon’s honor, his
honor as Mr. Richard Nixon
and his honor as President of
the United States of America,
is deeply involved.”
“There are people who,
though they may not doubt
President Nixon’s sincerity,
do seem to doubt his good
sense and think that he will
be like the more gullible
tourists who, after a guided
tour of a carefully selected
commune, announced that all
is prefect throughout the
People’s Republic .. .It is
unwise to assume that any
man who has travelled the
hard way to supreme political
eminence can still retain a
childlike readiness to believe
everything that he is told.
“The President hopes that
his journey will help toward
world peace. Peace be with
him.”
FORT WORTH
County Catholic schools.
“The ban does not apply
to transfers from one
Catholic school to another.
“Children from Catholic
schools outside the system
will also be accepted.
“Catholic schools have
been integrated for years, and
we feel bound to support the
increased integration efforts
of the Fort Worth public
school system. Non-Catholics
have always been welcomed
into the Catholic school
system, and will be in the
future. For the present, a
code similar to the Fort
Worth public schools, a
“minority to majority”
policy will be adopted; that
is, minority transfers may be
accepted by principals.
“It is our hope that the
Catholic school system and
other accredited private
schools may exist side by side
with public schools, in order
to provide parents with
freedom of choice in
education. At the same time,
all schools have the obligation
to provide quality education
to every student and schools
should cooperate with each
other in seeking compliance
with the laws of our
country.”
/
foreclosed.”
In a showdown, he said he
suspects the United States
“will have no choice but to
back down.
“And once we begin
backing down under pressure
here and there around the
globe, we will court the
disaster of a third world
war,” the senator added.
Buckley insisted that the
nation was “falling critically
behind in the necessary
business of military research
and development” because of
cutbacks in defense spending.
“We have not simply cut
the fat out of military
budgets, we have been
hacking away at the sinews
and muscles as well,” he said.
“We simply cannot any
longer afford the blind
attacks on just about every
program for military research
or military procurement
which continues to be made
in the name of an overriding
need to reorder our
priorities.”
‘‘We are rapidly
approaching a point where nc
American president will be
able to emerge from a
political confrontation with
the Soviet Union with our
foreign policy objectives
intact,” Buckley said.
Buckley, a Catholic,
responded to a question on
abortion by calling the
operation “one of the horrors
of our time.” He said that
any society that talks about
legalizing abortion on
demand “will be talking
about euthanasia later.” He
sharply attacked a feminist
theory that women should
have the right to control their
bodies and have abortions if
they desire.
When asked if he thought
the United States should help
Catholics in strife-torn
Northern Ireland, Buckley
said that although he may
disappoint his Irish
constituents in New York, he
would have to say “no.” He
explained that he does not
think America should
intervene in such affairs
unless they largely affect U.S.
foreign strategy.
Buckley, who jokingly told
a questioner that he wore a
crew-cut “because it’s the
most efficient hair cut
around,” said in a more
serious vein that he has no
presidential aspirations for
1972 and plans to support
the Nixon-Agnew team.
Similar action to suspend
registration was taken a week
earlier by the Dallas diocesan
school board for Dallas
County Catholic schools.
The Fort Worth diocesan
school board members were
polled by telephone July 12
after the public school
hearing, at which Father
Wilson announced that
Catholic schools might
suspend their registration.
The board members
contacted, Father Wilson
said, approved the action
unanimously, with one
abstention. Of the nine
elected members of the
diocesan school board, seven
are laymen.
“We feel bound to support
the Fort Worth public schools
in their efforts to comply
with the law,” Father Wilson
said, “and we agree morally
with the necessity to provide
quality education for all
children.
“We also feel,” he
continued, “that we would be
of no service to the
community at large if we
impeded the progress of the
public school system.”
(:■
By Father Leo
E. McFadden
(NC News Service)
VATICAN CITY (NC) -
Pope Paul has made no plans
for a trip to a Marian Shrine
in Yugoslavia in mid-August,
informed Vatican sources
told NC News July 14.
The Vatican Press Office
gave its customary denial to
press speculation of a papal
trip either to Yugoslavia or
Poland.
A papal trip to Yugoslavia
has been rumored for
months.
In a recent interview
Rome-based Yugoslav
Franciscan Father Karel
Balic, internationally known
theologian and president of
the Pontifical International
Marian Academy, told Glas
Concila, a Catholic weekly in
the Croatia region of
Yugoslavia that a papal visit
was possible “even if it is not
yet definitely decided.”
Father Balic’s associate at
the academy in Rome, Father
Paolo Melada, said that his
fellow Franciscan carefully
specified in the interview that
“if the Pope goes to
Yugoslavia he will go as a
pilgrim” and avoid any brush
with politics.
Some Church sources in
Rome said that if the Pope
does fly into Zagreb to
appear at an international
Marian congress at the nearby
shrine of Mariga Bistrica, he
will also go on to Belgrade, to
visit Marshal Josip Broz
(Tito), president of
Yugoslavia.
An informed observer who
was recently in Yugoslavia
said that if the Pope visits
Zagreb, capital of Croatia -
one of Yugoslavia’s six
constituent republics - he
should visit the Yugoslav
federal capital of Belgrade as
well. In the present political
climate of Yugoslavia, a visit
to Zagreb would be widely
read as encouragement for
Croatia’s powerful separatist
movement unless it were
counterbalanced by a visit to
the federal capital as well, the
observer said.
By going to Belgrade, he
added, the Pope would be
able to return the visit paid
him in the Vatican last March
by Tito.
Father Balic was quoted as
saying that “if the Pope
goes,” he will fly into Zagreb,
take a helicopter to the shrine
for a religious service and
shortly thereafter return to
Rome.
“Such a plan seems
entirely unlikely to me,” a
Yugoslav expert said in
Rome. “Zagreb is a main
ce n ter of a strong
anti-federalist movement. The
Pope may. go there as a
pilgrim, but to lend balance
to his trip, he simply must go
on to Belgrade, the center of
federal unity.”
The fact that Pope Paul has
not shared preparations for a
trip to Yugoslavia does not
mean that he will not go. It is
known that one of his
international flights was
arranged with only 10 days
notice.
At this time, however, this
latest of rumored papal trips
may be just that.
There had been
expectations that Pope Paul
would visit Poland’s national
shrine at Czestochowa on or
WASHINGTON (NC) -
Few Catholic women think it
is feasible or desirable to
form a National Pastoral
Council at this time,
according to a survey by the
National Council of Catholic
Women (NCCW).
Slightly over 10 percent of
NCCW members, polled in 42
dioceses across the country,
said the time is ripe for such a
council, but more than 40
percent disagreed.
According to Helen B. :
Brewer, who coordinated the
study for NCCW, about 50
percent of the respondents
were ambivalent about a
national council. Some
suggested alternatives such as
fuller use of existing
structures, regional pastoral
councils, pastoral
consultations and national
issue-centered meetings.
Women said they opposed
the council at this time
because they believed there is
WASHINGTON (NC) -
Priest-Congressman Robert F.
Drinan returned draft cards
sent him by 11 Jesuit
seminarians from St. Louis
University, saying he could
not remain faithful tohis job
as a U.S. representative if he
retained the cards.
“Because I have chosen to
seek radical change in
America as a congressman,”
Rep. Drinan wrote the
seminarians, “I have sworn to
uphold the Constitution and
to avoid forms of civil
disobedience...
“Although I respect your
cause of conscience and do
not pretend to judge the
moral integrity of civil
disobedience in this case, I
cannot remain faithful to the
path I have chosen by
retaining the Selective Service
cards you sent me.
The congressman told the
seminarians he took their
action seriously and cherished
“the fact we Jesuits share a
common commitment to end
this war and reorder
America’s priorities.”
around the Feast of the
Assumption (Aug. 15) and
beatify Polish Franciscan
Father Maximilian Kolbe
there. But the Holy See now
has scheduled Father Kolbe’s
beatification for Oct. 17 in
Rome.
a need for fuller development
of existing parish and
diocesan pastoral councils
and that a national council
would pose practical
problems of money and
representation. Some said
they feared polarization
might result.
The NCCW, one of a
number of national
organizations invited to
record grass-roots opinion of
its members on the feasibility
of a National Pastoral
Council, reported that almost
without exception women’s
groups at the province level,
diocesan level, deanery level
and parish level agreed that
bishops, priests, Religious and
laity should serve on such a
council, if developed.
A majority of the
respondents, Miss Brewer
said* suggested a combination
of appointment and election
to the council, but an almost
equal number said they
favored election only.
The 11 who mailed their
draft cards to the priest are
part of a group of 27 Jesuit
seminarians who have
publicly announced in St.
Louis that they will not
cooperate with the Selective
Service in any way, including
carrying their draft cards or
accepting exemption from
the armed service.
A spokesman for the
young Jesuits said the
congressman’s response had
encouraged them. “We fully
understand his position,” he
added.
In a statement to Father
Drinan, Pope Paul VI and
several American bishops, the
Jesuit seminarians called
themselves “eleventh hour”
protestors.
“Indeed the time is late
but the work is far from
complete,” the statement
said. Several of the Jesuits
previously had sent their
draft cards to local draft
boards and had them
returned three times.
ST. LOUIS (NC) - Letters
officially recommending five
Contemporary Mission priests
for ordination were
denounced here as forgeries
by persons alleged to have
signed them.
Three persons, two from
St. Louis and the other from
Austin, Tex. disavowed the
letters after the St. Louis
archdiocese released
documentation concerning
the five priests’ ordination.
The Contemporary Mission
priests, denied priestly
faculties in the archdiocese,
were ordained by Bishop
Peter Sarpong of Kumasi,
Ghana, on May 11 in
Cromwell, Conn.
Cardinal John J. Carberry
of St. Louis has refused to
grant the priests faculties to
offer Mass and distribute the
sacraments in his archdiocese,
saying that they have not
given him information he
requested about their
academic and theological
training and about the
reception of clerical orders
leading to the priesthood.
The five are Fathers
Donald Middendorf, Robert
Cassidy, John O’Reilly,
Joseph Valentine and John
Coyne. They have said they
were ordained for the Kumasi
diocese, but released to work
in their ministry to the poor
in St. Louis’ inner-city.
Members of a singing group
called “The Mission,” they
are former seminarians of the
Monfort Mission, who left the
order following a seminary
training dispute in 1968.
The alleged forgeries were
contained in documenta-
tion--part of the
authentication required for
ordination-submitted by the
five priests to Bishop
Sarpong. The bishop sent the
documents to Father Leo J.
Ovian, M.SsiA., rector of
Holy Apostles Seminary,
Cromwell, Conn., where the
priests were ordained. Father
Ovian, in turn, made the
papers available to the
Hartford and St. Louis
archdioceses which requested
them.
The St. Louis archdiocese
ZAMBIA
LUSAKA, Zambia (NC) -
Allegations by a Catholic
archbishop here that
Zambia’s doctors are
performing illegal abortions
have provoked a fierce
counterattack from a
government beset by rapidly
rising illegitimacy rates.
Social Service Minister
Fwanyanga Mulikita said that
Archbishop Emmanuel
Milingo of Lusaka is using the
pulpit for ‘‘cheap
sentimentalism and
sensational religious
propaganda.”
But the archbishop has
continued his charges.
Speaking before the
Archdiocesan Council of
Apostolates in Lusaka he told
of unborn babies “crushed,
smashed, and chopped” in
state-run hospitals.
He said he knows of
government officials who
send contraceptive pills “to
their little girl friends in the
schools.”
Officials claim the
archbishop is exaggerating.
But most Zambians concede
that this country - in
common with most other
newly created African nations
- must cope with sharp rise in
the rate of illegitimate babies.
In this prospering,
copper-rich land the collapse
of traditional tribal codes
with the advent of a Western
way of life has been swift and
dramatic.
One recent estimate
suggested that as many as
one-fifth of all Zambian girls
also released:
-Documents on the priests’
alleged academic training
which St. Louis University
officials said were not official
university transcripts.
--A letter from Bishop
Sarpong to Father Ovian in
which the bishop said he did
not incardinate the priests
into his diocese.
-The same letter quoting
Bishop Sarpong saying that
he had been assured by
Father Patrick J. Berkery,
Contemporary Mission
director, that Cardinal
Carberry and Bishop J. Hines
of Norwich, Conn., “had
been informed of my coming
and my mission and that they
had no objection.”
St. Louis chancery officials
said they did not receive such
information from Father
Berkery.
Robert L. Hasenstab,
formerly assistant dean of St.
Louis University’s divinity
school, where the five priests
studied, called a letter of
recommendation allegedly
signed by him a forgery.
Father Peter J. McCrann, a
Monfort priest and pastor of
a local parish, also said a
letter allegedly signed by him
was a forgery. The letter
praises the Contemporary
Mission priests.
“The letter is not only a
forgery, but I had no
knowledge of the existence of
such a forgery until this
date,” Father McCrann said
in a notarized statement.
Father Edward F. Jordan,
secretary of the bishop of
Austin, disavowed a letter,
allegedly signed by him in
which he explains the status
of the Contemplatives group.
The letter was addressed to
Cardinal Carberry.
“I have not written the
letter . . . regarding the
Contemplatives in Solitude,”
Father Jordan said.
“Furthermore, this is not my
handwriting.”
Contemporary Mission
members, who have defended
the ordinations as valid and
licit, could not be reached for
immediate comment.
between 17 and 20 are
unmarried mothers.
Earlier this year, Zambia
Airways announced plans to
have a birth control expert
lecture trainee stewardesses.
The airline said it lost
one-third of an earlier group
of trainees because of
pregnancies.
More recently, the airline
gave pregnancies among
Zambian girls as the reason
for recruiting stewardesses
abroad -- a reversal of its
“Zambianization” program.
There is alarm also at the
academic loss to the country
as pregnancies among girl
students terminate school and
college careers for which
other Zambians have paid
taxes.
The Times of Zambia in a
recent survey called the
problem “Zambia’s running
sore.” According to the
paper, 136 girls dropped out
of teacher-training colleges
because they became
pregnant during the year
1969-70. Only 34 Zambian
girls qualified as
state-registered nurses in the
past six years - also because
of pregnancies.
An educator found that
teen-age girls in their final
year of school run the highest
risk. A girl in her last year, he
said, is under great pressure
“as possibly the only woman
in a class of 25 men - a
five-year survivor of the sex
race.”
Red China Visit
Pleases Vatican
Suspend Registration
NCCW SURVEY
Women Oppose
Nat’l Council
TO JESUITS
Congressman
Returns Cards
Archbishop Leads
Abortion Fight