Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, March 23,1972
The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Gerard L. Frey, O.O. President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
Second Class Postage Paid at Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
Send Change of Address to P.O. Box 10027, Savannah, Ga. 31402
Published weekly except the second and last weeks
in June, July and August and the last week in December.
At 202 E. Sixth St., Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
Subscription Price $2.76 per year by Assement Parishes Diocese of Savannah Others $5 Per Year
Amnesty Question
At their meeting near the end of
1971, the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops made an important
statement which agreed that Catholics
have a religious right to be conscientious
objectors to war. Important as that
judgment was to present and future
Catholic men of draft age, it was not as
potentially explosive as the final two
paragraphs of the pastoral letter.
Here the bishops took a dramatic and
courageous step: they recommended
that amnesty be granted to “those who
have been imprisoned as selective
conscientious objectors, and giving those
who have emigrated an opportumity to
return to the country to show
responsibility for their conduct and to
be ready to serve in other ways to show
that they are sincere objectors.”
Since the bishops made their
announcement, the amnesty issue has
been given political substance. Hearings
in Washington indicate that the
controversy stimulates deep passion and
emotion. Hopefully, from the
discussions will emerge a consensus that
the nation, as a whole, can find
palatable.
Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan of
Worcester, Mass., told a senate
subcommittee that he would support
amnesty for those who have gone into
exile, are in jail or living underground.
“If I were a young man today, in the
light of my reflections on the immorality
of this war which has gone on now for
ten years and has wreaked havoc beyond
all proportionality for good, I would
find myself in the same position in
which these young men find themselves
today,” the bishop testified.
For a look at the issue from another
side, here’s what Joseph Duerr had to
say in the Louisville Record, official
publication for the archdiocese of
Louisville:
“If an individual, acting in good
conscience, believes that the Vietnam
war is unjust and thus refuses to be
drafted, then he must be prepared to
accept the consequences of his action.
We can respect his sincerity, his
conscience and his judgment, but society
does not owe him a pardon for his
offense - whether he has been
imprisoned or has fled to another
country.”
With whom do you agree, Bishop
Flanagan or Duerr? Although there is
always the danger of over-simplification,
it seems to us that these contrasting
attitudes will dominate what promises to
be a long and acrimonious debate. Let us
hope that Christian charity - not pagan
venegance - characterizes the dialogue
and decision.
-- (Catholic Herald Citizen)
U.S. Policy-
Zero Growth
Msgr. James T. McHugh
Director, Family Life Division, USCC
The Commission on Population Growth and
the American Future has completed its
two-year study and issued its final report. The
report is being presented to the American
people by a series of press conferences over a
three-week period. Consequently, it is difficult
for the average American to evaluate the
Commission’s research and recommendations,
because the press is only allowed to report on
the piecemeal releases. This not only throws
serious questions on the objectivity of the
Commission’s work, but it makes it impossible
for reporters and writers to provide a careful
and critical analysis of the substance of the
final report.
Despite these obstacles, there are certain
important conclusions in the first two sections
that deserve comment. The primary and
determining conclusion that the Commission
reached is that although the United States does
not have a crisis of population growth, “no
substantive benefits would result from
continued growth of the nation’s population.”
The Commission gives only token recognition
to the continuing drop in birth rates,
re-enforced by lower birth expectations of
American women. Consequently, the
Commission holds to its principle that “fewer is
better,” and recommends population
stabilization as a national policy. The
Commission admits that zero growth will not -
of itself - solve the problems of population
distribution, economic affairs, governmental
service, or the environment. Nor will it alleviate
the problems of racism, poverty, or unequal
opportunity for minority groups. But in the
absence of specific solutions to these problems,
the Commission argues that population
GROWTH may not help, so therefore we
should move in the direction of limiting the
population. Presumably - though by no means
certainly - at least things won’t get worse.
According to the Commission, improving the
quality of life is the principle objective of a
national population policy, and abortion on
request - in their view - is a necessary part of
such a population policy. Consequently, this
Commission - for the first time in the abortion
debate in the United States - is recommending
abortion in eugenic terms. Killing the unborn
child is justified to achieve population
stabilization, because, in the Commission’s
words, “alongside the challenges of population
growth and distribution is the challenge of
population quality.” Abortion is further seen as
h
an alternative to the birth of an “unwanted
child,” though no effort is made to define that
term carefully. The Commission simply
recommends that this society withdraw legal
protection for the unborn child, “particularly
when the child’s prospects for a life of dignity
and self-fulfillment are limited.” Every state is
urged to adopt a permissive abortion law,
similar to the New York statute, and the federal
government is urged to support the states by
funding abortion services.
This report does not consider abortion in
terms of moral judgments or the so-called “hard
cases” of balancing the child’s right to life
against a danger to the mother’s life. Abortion
is seen as a backstop for unused or faulty
contraception, on the ground that a woman
must be perfectly free to determine whether or
not to bear a child.
Ultimately the Commission chooses personal
freedom over continuation of life for the
unborn child. This principle has enormous
implications, and the Commission showed
awareness of this in its statement that “some of
the policies we recommend are irreversible in a
democratic society, in the sense that freedoms
once introduced cannot be rescinded lightly.”
The report admits that “population, then, is
not the whole problem,” but “it is the part
given us as the special responsibility of this
Commission.” After two years of research,
public testimony and regular meetings, the
Commission recommends zero population
growth, an increased lobbying effort for
population legislation, and a New York-type
abortion law for the Nation. The only response
to questions about the results of such radical
recommendations is the bold statement. “We
are not really certain of the demographic
impact of some of the changes implied by our
recommendations.” ,
Population growth is a serious question, and
Americans deserve accurate information and an
honest acknowledgement of our presently
inadequate knowledge. This Commission has
failed to provide this, and has presented
recommendations that conform to its own
pre-suppositions. The basis of this was the
Commission’s inability to understand or
unwillingness to take seriously the “ethical
values and principles of this society,” as the
philosophical foundation on which its study
was to be conducted.
OUR
PARISH
dcCHMtf (
“Women’s Lib.”
Mothers And Fathers
— And Work
Reverend Andrew M. Greeley
In War
And
Peace
Doctor David Beebe
Minister United Church of Christ
Dwight David Eisenhower died on March 28,
1969. He died not in crisis but in the course of
things. Yet in his passing, as in that of John F.
Kennedy, there was “greatness passing by” from
which in this season of Lent we may do well to
learn.
The death of a President is an occasion of
state. It is also an occasion of the heart. For
whether great or small, each of us finds his life
bound up in the lives of those who lead, or have
led, our nation.
When a President dies in office, then the
timbers of the ship of our Republic shake; the
storm passes only when a new President is
firmly at the helm; and because the crisis
confronts us all with danger and reality, it
brings to the surface our own griefs, our own
hopes, and our own fears.
Yet even when a President dies, as Dwight
David Eisenhower died, long after stepping
down from office, and following the extended
illness of age - even then our personal lives are
affected, for we know that this dying is an
event in history. And all of us are a little older.
There’s a lot to be said for Woman’s Lib. If
one cuts through the manhating paranoid
rhetoric of some of its extreme spokeswomen,
the fundamental thesis of the woman’s
movement seems to me to be unassailable: the
occupational and psychological division of
labor in contemporary society is no good for
either men or women.
Let us leave aside the question of whether
certain psychological differences may be
biologically linked to sex. Most feminists think
that the issue is closed. I doubt it, but I think it
is mostly irrelevant. Let us also leave aside the
issue of whether in other and more primitive
eras men had to be the aggressive warriors and
women the childbearers and watchers. We have
evolved beyond the stone age and there is no
reason rooted in physical survival of the species
that requires such a division of labor.
The old Cana cliche that the man is the head
of the house and the woman the heart is a fair
statement of the prevailing cultural norms. But
these norms - however pertinent they may have
been in an age of wresting a living from the soil,
fighting off barbarians, multiple pregnancies,
and a high infant mortality rate - are no longer
necessarily valid. On the contrary, a strong case
can be made that for many people and for
many marriages, those prevailing cultural norms
are counterproductive.
I am not arguing that at this point every
woman should feel obliged to seek a career. Nor
am I suggesting that every man should review
his notion that home, meals, and children are
his wife’s sole responsibility (though it might be
a good idea). What I am suggesting is that such
options ought to be open for as many people
who want them, and that we should begin to
consider the possibility that such options will,
in many cases, make for happier men and
women, happier children, and happier
marriages.
The fully developed human personality is
androgenous, that is, a blend of those elements
which we call “feminine” and “masculine.”
Unfortunately, in the present cultural
definition of things, men are not encouraged to
develop their capacities for tenderness and
gentleness, and women are not encouraged to
develop their capacities for achievement and
professional commitment. Talk about
exploitation of one of the other is beside the
point; both are exploited by a culture that they
did not create and which will change only very
gradually.
The feminists insist, quite correctly, I think,
that a woman has a right to a professional
career if she wants one. They also argue that
the economy should be arranged in such a way
that women can pursue their careers on a part
time basis while their children are young. I can
find no fault in such an argument at all.
(Although if the upper middle class wants day
care centers, it ought to pay for them and not
expect the taxpayers to do so. For the less
affluent, the matter is obviously different.)
But more than that must be said. In the ideah
order of things, men, too, should have part time
careers when their children are young. It is not
fair to women that they should bear the full
burden of raising children. Nor is it fair to men
that they should be deprived of the joy of
raising children. Finally, it is not fair to
children that they should spend their most
formative years in a one sex environment.
There are few things wrong with American
upper middle class adolescents and young
people that would not have been prevented if
they had their fathers around the house more
when they were young.
It will be argued that a man simply cannot
afford not to work full time. That this is the
way society is presently organized is not to be
questioned, but then let us change society. A
young business or professional man is
frequently judged by the quantity not the
quality of his work. If he comes in at 9:00 A.M.
and leaves at 5:00 P.M., his professional
commitment is questioned no matter what the
quality of his work. Yet in the professional
world there is little reason to think that peak
efficiency can be maintained 40 hours a
week. I would guess that after 25
hours of work rather little is accomplished.
Coffee breaks, washroom conversations, long
lunches, and late afternoon trips to the bar fill
up the rest of the time for a substantial segment
of the white collar world.
I have nothing against post mortems on the
Rams, the Vikings, the Colts, and the Dolphins
(forget the Bears - I don’t even want to think
about them); but men could just as well have such
conversations over the phone while they are at
home getting to know those peculiar strangers
they have begotten.
Under these circumstances, only celibates
(such as may be left) will have full time careers.
But they are the only ones that should.
It was, I remember, back in the 1940s when
I, as a small boy in a south Arkansas village,
watched the endless passing of the troop
convoys on the way to war games in Louisiana.
Later I learned that in one of those jeeps there
rode a young officer, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Like all small boys in America then, I think, I
made a hero of the hero of Normandy. And
later, when he became our President, I applied
to him the epigram which I had learned for
another President-general: “First in war, first in
peace, and first in the hearts of his
countrymen.” Now the hero of my childhood is
dead and I am thereby so much diminished and
so much older.
History has not yet been fair to President
Eisenhower. It remembers him as a lofty man
above the warfare of political partisanship. Yet
it has still to write with a bold pen the
accomplishments of his presidency. He bought
a tragic war to conclusion. He signed into law
the first of the new civil rights bills. He began
the space program that led to orbiting
astronauts. He began the federal program of
medical care for the aged. And although he
warned against the dangers of military
establishments, he kept the nation strong in
peacetime for the first time in its history.
Like Cincinnatus of ancient Rome, he
answered his country’s call both to leadership
in battle and leadership in peace. Like
Cincinnatus, he returned to the quietude of a
farm. Now he has passed over into history, into
the mercies of the historians, and into the
kindlier mercies of God.
Keep Radio
Free Europe
Joseph A. Breig
As a journalist and a defender of human
rights, including the right to know the truth
about public events, I hope that the U.S. Senate
will find a way to override the dictatorial
actions of Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas
in trying to starve out Radio Free Europe and
Radio Liberty.
During the Second World War, before Pearl
Harbor, I interviewed a bishop who had been
forced to abandon his post as rector of the
American College in Rome. Speaking of the
Hitler-Mussolini darkness that had descended
upon Europe, he said that it is impossible for a
person in a free country to imagine the crushing
effect of totally controlled communications
media.
This bishop noted that personally, he had
had access to some U.S. publications and to the
Vatican daily, Osservatore Romano. But even
so, it was not until he returned to America that
he realized how deeply he had been affected, in
spite of himself, by the incessant barrages of
fascist-nazi propaganda.
“That being so,” he said, “you can imagine
the effect on the people generally, who heard
and read only what Hitler and Mussolini
chose.”
Then this bishop, a mild and moderate man,
voiced his feeling about the fearful results of
the cataracts of lies loosed on the population.
“Europe,” he said, “has gone mad.”
So long as the policy of communist
governments is the Big Lie, endlessly repeated
and proliferated, the world will forever be in
danger of similar madness, if nothing is done to
propagate the truth. Radio Europe and Radio
Liberty provide factual reports which pierce the
iron curtain. And this is a great “work of
mercy” for hundreds of millions of oppressed
persons - if we have not totally forgotten that
the works of mercy are spiritual as well as
corporal.
As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Fulbright is blocking further
appropriations for Free Europe and Liberty,
although Congress overwhelmingly favors them.
There must be some way to override this
obstructionism.
ANSWER: There are so
is difficult
was given her, finally, that she might unite herself to Him in closest conformity of will, as
only a most holy mother can, during His hidden life, His apostolic life
iifr
Him, by Him, and in Him.
The poet, Paul Claudel, has expressed the reason for the eminent dignity conferred on
Mary in the following verses:
“Three months after the Angel’s message - at the end of June,
The Woman who is bright as the sun and fair as the moon
Feels the Heart of her Infant throb beneath hers.
“In the womb of the Virgin Immaculate a new world begins,
The Child who is older than time enters time for our sins,
Like the dove of the Canticle in the crannied wall.
“She moves not, she speaks not a word, she adores - no more;
Her life is within, her God is within to adore,
Her work and her son, her child, her all.”