Newspaper Page Text
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m AT LEAST TWO VS DIOCESES
Sex Education Controversies Brewing
PAGE 3-March 9,1972
POPE AT TISSERANT’S FUNERAL: Pope Paul VI blesses the coffin containing the body of the late Cardinal Eugene Tisserant
during funeral services in St. Peter’s Basilica (Feb. 24.) Cardinal Tisserant, Dean of the College of Cardinals died Feb. 22 in Rome.
NC Photo.
“LONG PAST TIME”
Kennedy Urges Stand
ST. PAUL, Minn. (NC) - A sex
education controversy which had been in
suspended animation for nearly two years
came back to life when tempers flared at
an Archdiocesan Council of Catholic
Women meeting here.
Similar controversies have arisen in
PHILADELPHIA (NC) - A
communications official of the
Philadelphia archdiocese has denied that
Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia
accused all who oppose government aid
to Catholic schools of being “Nativists”
or members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Nativists were members of the “Native
American” or “Know Nothing” party,
active in Philadelphia during the 1880’s,
whose slogan was “America for
Americans” and who felt “papists and
aliens” threatened the country.
News reports in the Philadelphia
Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News,
metropolitan daily papers here, accused
Cardinal Krol, president of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB),
of making the accusation at a recent
Temple University graduates’ club
meeting.
Both newspapers subsequently carried
editorials upbraiding the cardinal, with
the Daily News noting that the newspaper
had “not heard of a more prejudiced
statement in a long time.”
In a letter sent to the Inquirer and
released here March 1, Ed Devenney,
director of the archdiocesan
communications office, said the
newspaper’s coverage of the Temple
speech was wrong “and did an injustice to
the cardinal and to the contributions to
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (NC) -
The South African Bishops’ Conference
condemned the South African
government for its “deplorable failure to
protect ordinary human rights” and its
indifference to needs “that conflicts with
the spirit of Christianity.”
In a letter to Catholics in Southern
Africa, the bishops criticized South
Africa’s:
-Long-term migratory labor policies;
-Discrimination against blacks in
education and voting;
-Denying blacks the right to negotiate
as members of labor unions with
UN SPEECH BY METHODIST BISHOP:
Bishop Abel T. Muzorewa, a Rhodesian
United Methodist churchman speaks to
the UN Security Council. The Bishop
claimed that 99 per cent of the
Rhodesia’s black majority reject the
British-Rhodesia settlement aimed at
granting independence to Rhodesia. NC
Photo by Matjorie Hyer.
recent months in at least two other U.S.
dioceses - St. Cloud, Minn., and Green
Bay, Wis.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocesan
board of education drafted a general
policy statement on family life programs
in 1970. The project was tabled when
the total community of Catholics and
Catholic schools.”
A similar letter was also sent to the
Daily News.
“Although I heard the speech, I am not
asking you or the community to accept
my version,” Devenney told the Inquirer.
He cited another Philadelphia newspaper
- the Evening Bulletin’s version.”
“In Tanzania, England, the
Netherlands and Northern Ireland,” the
Bulletin paraphrased the cardinal as
saying, “schools that meet state standards
receive aid regardless of sponsorship.
When there is a chance for such an
arrangement in the United States,
however, he said, ‘the same little group
plays the same broken record - the
Nativists, the Ku Kluxers, raise the
specter of bigotry’.”
Devenney added that Cardinal Krol
said the “broken record” to which he was
referring “was of 19th century vintage.”
In his letter to the Inquirer, Devenney
also praised the Bulletin article for
reporting in its headline, lead and early
paragraphs Cardinal Krol’s “main point:
namely, Catholic schools help not only
Catholics but the community in general
in relation to education, moral values,
and enormous financial savings to the
taxpayers.”
employers;
-Discrimination against blacks in hiring
and job promotion;
-Requiring blacks to carry at all times
identification cards listing race;
-Inadequate housing, recreational
facilities, unemployment insurance and
pensions for blacks.
The bishops said that the long-term
migratory labor system “has disastrous
human consequences. The dehumanizing
effects of prolonged migratory labor can
be seen throughout the world, but it is
particularly serious here, where about one
and half-million men, around half of the
main African male labor force of the
country, are obliged to live more or less
permanently separated from their
families. It is the common experience of
mankind that such enforced separation
leads to the breakdown of family life, and
the increase of prostitution and
homosexuality.”
“A country claiming to be Christian
cannot countenance the humanly
destructive effects of this labor system,”
the bishops continued. “Nor can it
remain indifferent to life in compounds
and in hostels, where men and women are
denied a full human existence. There can
be but one answer to this situation, and
that is to work to eradicate the evils of
the system.”
The bishops called on South Africa to
grant voting rights to blacks, Asians and
persons of mixed races who make up 75
Dercent of the country’s labor force but
are denied full citizenship.
“We are deeply troubled,” the bishops
said, “by the memory of many people
who have been detained, banned,
silenced, or restricted, without public
trial, or who have become the object of
suspicion and harassment because of their
Christian concern for neighbors of a
different race. All that we know of many
of them is their struggle and protest on
behalf of the vioceless who suffer under
discriminatory legislation and way of life,
and this deserves our sympathy and
praise.”
The record shows, the bishops said,
that South Africans “have failed to cope
with racialism and reduce discrimination.
But a bold and sustained effort is not yet
beyond us, even at this stage. While the
evil exists no one may rest. The greatest
evil of all would be to disregard its
existence. When justice demands it, a
Christian must have the courage to act,
though what he hopes to achieve may
change his whole way of living.”
several pastors and others disagreed with
the proposed guidelines, and no policy
statement on sex education was issued.
The controversy reopened, however,
when the women’s council held a meeting
to familiarize archdiocesan women with a
widely used textbook series which
includes sex education material
“Becoming a Person” published by
Benziger Brothers.
A small number of archdiocesan grade
schools have been using the Benziger
series - a broadly-based guidance and
personality development program which
includes biological information along
with passages on the family, the
uniqueness of the individual, and the
importance of Christian values and
principles.
Following a presentation explaining
the series, Mrs. Phyllis Childs, a teacher at
St. Agnes High School here, charged that
“Becoming a Person” was deficient in
content, procedure and teacher training.
Defending the series was Mrs. Ed J.
Blees of St. Peter parish in North St. Paul,
who urged immediate implementation of
the series in a letter read at the meeting.
“It is inconceivable that anyone who
has, even casually, read one of the
parents’ handbooks or other material on
this series could possibly object to its use
in the schools,” Mrs. Blees said.
The presentation triggered a discussion
of the whole sex education issue, and
women’s council officials adjourned the
meeting early as questions and
interruptions from the floor increased.
Father John Gilbert, archdiocesan
school superintendent, told NC News he
personally considered the Benziger series
“very beneficial to children using it.” He
added, however, that the archdiocese haci
set no official policy on the series, leaving
it up to individual parish schools to
decide whether to use it.
A local television station in Green Bay,
Wis., recently aired a talk show giving pro
and con arguments on “Becoming a
Person.”
More than 50 of the 117 Green Bay
diocesan grade schools had chosen to use
the Benziger series this year, after it had
been tested in 15 schools last year.
A Green Bay archdiocesan spokesman
told NC News the controversy on the
series had “died down since the TV
show.”
The St. Cloud, Minn., diocesan board
of education endorsed “Becoming a
Person” unanimously, shortly after a
group calling themselves Citizens Against
Sex Education announced its opposition
to the series.
The series is now being used in nine St.
Cloud diocesan grade schools, following a
year-long orientation period.
Among Catholic school officials who
have praised the Benziger series is Msgr.
James McHugh, director of the U.S.
Catholic Conference (USCC) family life
division.
Noting that the series included much
more than just sex education materials,
provided for parental participation and
gradually unfolded biological and other
knowledge in language each grade level
could understand, the USCC official said
shortly after its release in 1970 that
“Becoming a Person” would help “to
point our children toward a more mature
development of Christian personality.”
WASHINGTON (NC) - The Catholic
Press Association (CPA) has criticized a
decision upholding large postal rate
increases for religious journals as based on
“insufficient and unsatisfactory”
evidence.
The criticism came in a brief filed with
the Postal Rate Commission on behalf of
the CPA, and Associated Church Press
and the Evangelical Press Association.
The organizations fear that hikes in
second class, non-profit postal rates will
sharply increase the costs of already
hard-pressed religious newspapers and
magazines.
James A. Doyle, executive director of
the CPA, said that the organization will
fight the increase before the full
commission and possibly through court
action.
Doyle said the commission examiner
based his Feb. 3 decision on a
misinterpretaton of postal legislation.
Congress did not demand that each
class of mail pay rates exactly reflecting
WASHINGTON (NC) - Sen. Edward
M. Kennedy (D.-Mass.) told the House
Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe
that “it is long past time for the Congress
of the United States to go on record
again, to take our stand on Ulster,” as the
United States did during earlier Irish
crises.
In a speech at the opening of hearings
on a House resolution dealing with the
Northern Ireland situation, Kennedy
criticized the U.S. policy of maintaining
an official silence on the conflict there.
“Were I neither Catholic nor of Irish
heritage,” Kennedy said, “I would feel
compelled to protest against the killing
and violence in Northern Ireland, just as I
have protested at other times in my years
against the killing and violence in other
parts of the world, in areas like Vietnam,
Biafra, the Middle East and Bangladesh.”
“Just as Vietnam is Britain’s Vietnam,
so Londonderry is Britain’s Mylai, and
the killings (of 13 demonstrators by
British troops) on Bloody Sunday (Jan.
30) deserve the widest and fullest
investigation, in an inquiry capable of
insuring that such a tragedy will not
recur,” Kennedy said in a hearing room
packed by 200 to 300 persons.
An inquiry into the killings is now
being conducted in Northern Ireland by
Lord Widgery, England’s lord chief
justice. Northern Irish Catholics and
others have claimed that the inquiry will
whitewash the incident.
During the early part of the 20th
century, Kennedy said, both the
Democratic and Republican parties, the
Congress and President Woodrow Wilson
the postal systems’ costs of handling the
mail, Doyle said.
He said this factor was only one of
eight in the legislation. The examiner,
Doyle said, ignored the other seven
factors “which are very important for the
non-profit religious press.”
The examiner also erred, according to
Doyle, by setting attributable costs as “a
floor below which rates cannot go” rather
than as a “ceiling” which the rates cannot
exceed.
The brief claims that the examiner
criticized the postal system’s method of
setting rates and then proceeded to adopt
the system’s recommended rate hikes.
Congress has stated that the postal
service may allow religious groups to mail
their publications at “a rate designed to
return less than” the cost of mailing
them, according to the brief.
Under the recommended rate increases,
nonprofit groups would be required to
pay the full cost of handling their mail,
plus a charge of 1.5 cents for each piece
of mail.
were active in seeking peace in Ireland.
Kennedy urged support for the House
resolution introduced by Rep. Hugh L.
Carey (D.-N.Y.) calling for an end to
internment without trial for suspected
terrorists in Northern Ireland, withdrawal
of British troops from the region,
dissolution of the Northern Irish
parliament and unification of Northern
Ireland with the Republic of Ireland to
the south.
Kennedy and Sen. Abraham Ribicoff
(D.-Conn.) are cosponsors of a similar
Senate resolution.
Comparing these proposals to a little
boy’s efforts to stop a fight between
husband and wife without knowing their
characters, the ranking Republican
member of the subcommittee, Rep. Peter
H.B. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, said
“What you are proposing is nothing less
than the dismemberment of our closest
ally. You are reaching for an instance
panacea for a problem that has been
going on for centuries.”
Frelinghuysen suggested that Kennedy
was interested only because of his Irish
Catholic background.
COLERAINE, Northern Ireland (NC)
— The bulk of the evidence in the first
several days of the inquiry into the deaths
of 13 persons in Londonderry Jan. 30
overwhelmingly supports the conclusion
that those killed and wounded were
unarmed and that most were running
away in terror.
Six priests and many journalists and
television crewmen, as well as numerous
other witnesses - both British and Irish -
gave evidence in the first week of the
Widgery inquiry. Lord Widgery, British
lord chief justice, is trying to conduct a
tribunal that will shed light on what
happened on so-called Bloody Sunday,
when British paratroopers fired at
Catholic civil rights marchers.
None of the witnesses in the first week
of the inquiry said he saw a gun or bomb
in the hands of anyone who was shot.
This is not to say that there were no
Irish Republican Army (IRA) men in
Londonderry’s Catholic Bogside section
on that day.
Father Edward Daly of St. Eugene’s
Cathedral said he saw a man step into the
open and fire a hand-gun several times at
the troops. But this was after a hail of fire
from the paratroops had cut down fleeing
civilians, he said.
Another witness, a young Englishman,
On Ulster
Kennedy and Ribicoff insisted that it
was as right for Congress and the United
States to express a view on Ulster as it
was for the United States to seek to
improve the lot of Jews in the Soviet
Union or to mediate the conflict between
India and Pakistan.
The hearing was held a day after the
New York Times published an interview
with British Prime Minister in which he
said he saw a united Ireland as a distant
and unlikely possibility.
Stating that there is much
misunderstanding of the Northern Ireland
situation “even in some of the highest
quarters in the United States,” Heath
said: “It seems not to be understood that
the great majority of people in Northern
Ireland are Protestants, that Northern
Ireland is part of the United Kingdom
and that the majority wish to stay in the
United Kingdom.”
(In London, several Conservative and
Labor members of parliament reacted to
Kennedy’s statement on Ulster by calling
on the House of Commons’ Committee
on Racial Problems to investigate race
relations in Massachusetts, Kennedy’s
home state.)
said he saw three carloads of men with
guns - presumably IRA men - arrive in
great haste in the area some 15 minutes
after British army shots had killed
civilians.
British army witnesses have not yet
given evidence. They are expected to
support the general contention of the
British army’s lawyers - that every shot
fired by British paratroops that day was
fired at a person “who was, or was
believed to be, a sniper or bomber.”
The army has not, of course, produced
all of its evidence. It admitted, however,
that tests for gelignite traces on the
clothes of the 13 dead were negative in all
but one case. It alleged that a nail bomb
(made of gelignite and nails) was found in
the pocket of one dead youth taken from
a car that drove him to a hospital.
The army’s lawyers have hinted that
they have more damaging evidence.
Paraffin tests on the hands of the
deceased, they hinted have shown that
most of them had recently fired guns.
The delay in bringing forward this
evidence was not explained.
When - and if - it is produced, it will
certainly be challenged by legal counsel
for the next-of-kin of the deceased. And
it will run counter to all the eye-witness
evidence so far produced, including the
stories of those who stood close by the
persons who were killed.
ONSCHOOL AID
Statement Attributed
To Card. Krol Denied
BY GOVERNMENT
South African Bishops
Condemn Racist Policies
Hits Postal Hike Decision
Inquiry Evidence Shows
Most Killed Running Away
BY DICK GROGAN