Newspaper Page Text
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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, March 2,1972
The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Gerard L. Frey, D.D. President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor
John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
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Vietnam Judgment
President Nixon’s trip to Peking has
deeply overshadowed the Vietnam war
as headline news for the past two weeks.
But the war still goes on, wreaking its
havoc on the lives of countless people of
both sexes and all ages, and even if it has
been pushed out of the headlines, it
remains the most serious problem facing
this nation, and the one which is
affecting our every day lives more than
any other.
It is* perhaps, the most vexing
problem the American people have ever
had to contend with.
For, basically, we are a good people.
No other people in the history of the
world has poured out as much of its
blood and its treasure championing the
rights of other peoples, even succouring
its vanquished enemies at the cost of
cu-eat self-sacrifice.
But this war, though we entered it
with the same high-mindedness that led
us into battle against the onslaught of
Nazism and Fascism, is different from
any other we have fought.
As it has escalated in size and
intensity over the past decade, voices
have been raised with increasing
frequency and volume branding the war
as immoral, regardless of the political
and philosophical issues involved.
It has been difficult for us to face
such a charge, and since most of the
voices of criticism have offered little or
no evidence to document their
accusations against our country, most of
us have resolved all doubts in favor of
America.
But in 1968, the American bishops
warned us that we must constantly
re-’evaluate the actions of our nation in
Vietnam, lest we forget that any war
which inflicts greater evils on a people
than the good it is designed to
accomplish for them is an immoral war.
In 1971, they went even further and,
questioning whether our military
presence in Southeast Asia is productive
of any real good, urged our speedy
withdrawal.
Still, because what we believe about
our past history makes it so very
difficult, we are reluctant to see
ourselves as anything but saviors of a
people destined for slavery under a
communist dictatorship if we do not
protect them.
We think it’s time to take a long, hard
look at just what we are doing in
Vietnam and to the people we really do
want to help.
Last week, NBC television presented
what, in our view, is the most telling
filmed documentation of a charge often
made, that the war is inflicting more
damage on the people it is supposed to
help than it is accomplishing for their
good.
A segment of a program called
“Chronolog” detailed the terrible
suffering being inflicted upon the
children of South Vietnam, and
concerned itself with only a portion of
the children victimized by the war -
those so horribly maimed that they need
plastic surgery.
Some have been mutilated by Viet
Cong mines, grenades and booby traps.
Others have been pitifully disfigured by
American napalm, anti-personnel and
phosophorous bombs.
Teams of plastic surgeons from
seventeen nations are working as fast as
they can to undo whatever damage can
be undone. According to their estimates,
there are between 50,000 and 100,000
South Vietnamese children in need of
plastic surgery because of the ravages of
war.
Even if one takes the lower figure as
more nearly true, the projections which
grow out of it are staggering. For the
figure of 50,000 refers only to children
in need of plastic surgery. How many
more children are there who cannot be
helped by plastic surgery - children who
have lost eyes and limbs, children whose
minds have been destroyed? How many
more children are there who have died?
How many more innocent people are
there who are no longer children but
who also are in need of plastic surgery,
who have lost eyes and limbs and minds?
How many innocent women and old
men have died?
And what about the innocent in
North Vietnam?
Is it possible that anything could visit
more devastation on these people than
the war?
We don’t think so. No matter how
pure our motives in becoming entangled
in Vietnam, we think it is all too clear
that every day we stay there means
another day of a war which can no
longer be justified.
It is time to get out - completely -
and time to think about how we can
help a ravaged people back to their feet,
as we did in Europe and Japan after
World War II.
Too Much Emphasis
Is Placed On Sex
Doctor Armand DiFrancesco
Had the inventor of gunpowder been able to
foresee the future of his invention, would he
still have given it to mankind? Some people also
wonder if Almighty God, when He created sex,
really knew what a mess man would make out
of His gift.
Let us set things straight. First, the sexual
apparatus was created by God; therefore it is
not evil or dirty, but beautiful, as all His
handiwork is. Second, sex is a bodily appetite
just like eating.
Both appetites are concerned with
preservation of the self and the species, except
that eating is necessary for an individual to live
but sex is not. One does not die if he is celibate.
There is a connection in man’s mind
between both body instinctual appetites. In our
speech for example: “sweetie pie,” “lambie
pie,” “honey,” “I could just eat you up.” The
way some people kiss you would think they
were eating.
Through the centuries, there have been many
foods thought to be sexual stimulants. Olives,
oysters, truffles, celery and certain kinds of
fruit (“passion fruit”) have been considered
aphrodisiacs at one time or another; but there
are really no true physiological stimulants.
Both appetites of eating and sex are affected
by mental disturbances. Anxiety will either
inhibit or increase sexual desire. Fear most
definitely inhibits desire and ability to
function. Depression deadens and removes
desires for food or sex or, for that matter, any
enjoyment whatsoever.
As a child, nervousness, boredom, loneliness,
insecurity and tension are relieved by
thumbsucking, rocking, nailbiting and
hair-pulling and twisting. Body movement is
utilized to discharge tension. As we get older,
we still get bored, lonely, insecure and nervous.
So, some will suck on a bottle of beer instead
of a thumb; others overeat and still others will
indulge in masturbation. Often, promiscuity
and infidelity stem from loneliness, boredom
and insecurity.
To treat these conditions, which often are
due to mental compulsions, one must get at the
underlying causes. Get rid of loneliness,
insecurity, etc.; change one’s self-image;
develop self-confidence and healthier ways of
dealing with life.
Prayer, without good works, is of no avail. I
mean that if we pray to God for help, it also is
understood that we will seek the help and
guidance of professionals. *
Sexual activity has its place in marriage, but
it must be controlled just as eating is
controlled. We eat to live and we should not
live to eat. Too much preoccupation with sex
leads to inhibition of creativity and
productivity and a debasement of God’s
purpose in His creation.
Sex must be taught to our children as a
function created by God that must be
understood, controlled and not feared. The
abuse of sex in society must be fought, for
better mental and moral health.
OUR
PARISH
Shall we say Grace as a structured prayer
or free-forum conversation?"
British Go Home!
Reverend Andrew M. Greeley
British imperialism operates on a much
smaller scale than it did in the good old days
when the sun never set on the Empire, but it is
just as self-righteously stupid as it ever was. The
Derry massacre and the whole current policy in
Ulster is a replay of the British mistakes of
1916. The Heath government is doing all it can
to drive Ulster Catholics into the arms of the
IRA.
The facts of the case are clear enough. The
British have no right to be in Ireland. They
never had a right to be in Ireland. Despite the
Anglo-American editorial writers who are so
eager to sympathize with the British problem
(and so unready to sympathize with American
problems), Edward Kennedy is right: the
British should finally get out of Ireland.
But what about the Ulster Protestants? The
British brought them in, let the British worry
about getting out those who refuse to become
part of a United Ireland. The French COLONS
in Algeria had to be resettled in France. If the
Peid Noirs (as they were called) had to leave
Algeria because they didn’t belong there, let the
Protestants leave Ulster if they don’t want to
live as peaceful citizens of the Irish Republic.
Surely there is a lot of room in the English
countryside for them. They may have come to
Ireland long before the COLONS came to
Algeria, but they came for the same reason: a
conquering power sent them to subjugate and
hopefully replace an inferior people. That they
didn’t succeed was no fault of theirs. The
British brought the Lowland Scots to Ulster,
they kept them there even when it meant
starving Irish Catholics to death in times of
famine, and they tolerated and reinforced an
Ulster separatist movement in 1920 when such
a movement had no legal or moral right to
exist.
Mr. Heath argues that Ulster is a part of the
United Kingdom. It is in the same way much as
Poland was part of Russia till 1918. It is part of
the United Kingdom because Mr. Heath’s
remote predecessors like Cromwell took it by
force of arms and because his more recent
predecessors kept it by force of arms. The
treaty which Collins so reluctantly signed in
1921 was imposed on Ireland because the only
alternative was the continuation of a hopeless
war. The Storemont government is illegal,
immoral, and oppressive. It has no right to exist
and is supported by an army of occupation.
There will never be peace in Ireland until both
Storemont and the British army are gone.
Would there be a “blood bath” if Britain
turned Ulster over to its rightful owner, the
Republic of Ireland? That is the fashionable
argument that the British government and their
friends in the American press use. But the
Ulster Protestants are a canny bunch. If Britain
gets out, they’ll have no choice but to make a
deal with the government in Dublin. They have
used the threat of violence to provide Britain
with a pretext for keeping a foothold in its
former possession. But once such eagerly
accepted moral blackmail no longer works,
most of the Ulstermen may decide that they are
Irish after all. In any case, the Irish will be
much more likely to settle their own problems
if they don’t have to put up with any further
British interference.
It is worth remembering that the orange
band in the Irish tri-color commemorates the
fact that the Ulster Presbyterians joined the
Catholic farmers of Wexford in the rising of
1798 - headed by the Anglican, Wolfe Tone.
The present religious conflict in Ireland would
be much less serious if Britain had not made as
its historic policy the promotion of religious
strife to keep the Irish under a tyrannical rule.
It is time for the British to go home -
permanently.
Memo To
Marcus
Welby
By Marie Mulvenna
Sickness, even in its mildest form, is never a
very welcome visitor in our life. And yet,
although unwelcome, it is just about inevitable
and often even a bit educational.
When you’re bedded down with the elusive
bug and quite sure you have one foot in the
grave, did you ever suddenly realize the
beauties of everyday, down-to-earth, ordinary
old living? Looks so very wonderful doesn’t
it.. .and it is. But how seldom in our everyday
pattern of life do we appreciate the endless
bounty of gifts we possess? How often do we
say a profound “thank you” to our maker for
those many, many things we so often take for
granted. We really do take them for granted,
until one day they are not there.
Friends, too, can be taken for granted more
than we realize. They’re almost always around,
available for a chat, a visit, an everyday greeting
and smile. Then comes the dreadful day you are
alone - you and your fever and your trusty
decongestant. How easy it is to dive into
self-pity, to turn on the tears, to experience
anger that this plight has befallen us. And then,
like manna from above, you get a phone
call. . .a familiar and friendly voice, a sincere
offer to help, a cheerful wish for your recovery.
Or you struggle to your stoic
elbow-on-pillow position to look over the day’s
mail only to find a note or card from a dear
friend. The funnier the more therapeutic!
Somehow, new life surges through the old
frame and you forsake mentally re-writing your
last will and testament, as a smile lights up your
fevered countenance. Life is so very worth
living isn’t it, and people are such a wonderful
part of life.
Humor is a marvelous remedy for the
“blahs.” I recall a particularly bleak day once
spent in a hospital. Everything seemed “blah” --
the hospital food, the golf-ball-sized pills so
regularly administered, the arrival of that
sadistic young man from the lab with his
foot-long needle. Even the TV fare was subject
to severe criticism. A nurse in freshly starched
garb entered the room and said in her most
serious and professional tone: “Time for our
bath now.” (Everything is always the possessive
“our” when you’re hospitalized.) Instead of
grumbling and muttering in true martyr style,
my roommate cocked an eyebrow and in dulcet
tones said to the waiting nurse, “OK, you
first.” The room broke up in laughter, the gray
mood gave way to sunshine and the day became
so much brighter for everyone. Even the coffee
tasted like coffee.
Learning again how to pray during an illness
is truly an educational experience. Just plain
talking to God, in your own words and
thoughts, recalling the gifts received in the past,
petitioning for the future, adoring. It’s the most
basic communication between creature and
creator. And yet it too is something too often
overlooked, reserved for formal prayer or group
gatherings. How wonderful and easy it really is
to talk to God, and how indescribable are the
many benefits received.
All of us have endured, probably
impatiently, an encounter with illness, and the
doldrums that accompany it. Wouldn’t it be
marvelous if Marcus Welby could whip up a
special prescription, a patented blend of
appreciation for good health and life itself,
friendship in varied and wonderful forms, a
special dab of patience, an extra good portion
of humor and a very special helping of prayer.
With a prescription like that, nobody could
long be sick. Try it. . .you’ll like it.
Wrong-Way
Skull
Joseph A. Breig
A quarter-century ago, I was assigned by my
newspaper to cover a national convention of
the American Association for the Advancement
of Science. Something of a sensation was
created at one session by a scientist who had
made an intensive study of a life-sized
“apeman” which for years had stood in (as I
recall) the American Museum of Natural
History in New York as an alleged ancestor of
man.
The iconoclastic scientist reported his
discovery that the figure -- long a sacred cow, or
rather sacred monkey, for scientists, science
teachers and students - was in truth a fiction.
Its creators had constructed it on the basis of
their assembly of bone fragments from an
ancient skull, unearthed by archeologists. But
the skull, said the scientist, had been put
together all wrong -- a fact which he proceeded
to demonstrate graphically with skull models.
That was the way it was 25 years ago. The
other day, I opened a newspaper and came
upon the following item:
“Remember when anyone questioning
Darwinian concepts of evolution was
immediately dismissed as a Bible-thumping
fundamentalist, incapable of genuine
intellectual discourse? Now Prof. John N.
Moore, a Michigan State University naturalist,
has told the august American Association for
the Advancement of Science that Darwin’s
views are ‘more illogical than biological’ and
‘simply don’t make sense in view of today’s
knowledge’.”
Come to think of it, though, I don’t recall
that Darwin ever said anything about the
evolution of the human body. Wasn’t it Spencer
who added that idea to the “Origin of
Species”? Anyhow, things have changed. A
generation ago, descent from monkeys was one
of the infallible dogmas of scientism. Today, it
reminds one of bustles and high-button shoes.