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SERVING 88 SOUTH - GEORGIA COUNTIES
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 53 No. 22
Thursday, June 1,1972
Single Copy Price — 12 Cents
CHILD AT PRAYER - “The eye of the camera in the hands of photographer William I. Kaufman, who made this picture, “but
the sensitive human often reflects hate, filth, degradation, the challenge lies in turning the camera the other way to find
disease and despair because they are all around us,” says joy and love .. .and hope.” (NC PHOTO)
AMERICAN RELIEF
CRS Active Among Refugees
NEW YORK - Over 110,000
Vietnamese refugees in the Danang area
are receiving aid provisions from Catholic
Relief Services, the American Catholic
overseas aid and development
organization, according to Rev. John
McVeigh, the agency’s program director
in Vietnam.
Officials estimate there are some
260,000 refugees in the Danang area and
INSIDE STORY
Life In Music
Pg. 3
Population Problem
Film Ratings
Pg. 6
DCCW Notes
Pg. 8
possibly as many as one million newly
displaced persons living either in refugee
camps or with relatives in more secure
areas as a result of the past month’s
increased warfare.
In a report dated May 17 to the
agency’s world headquarters here, Father
McVeigh states that Catholic Relief
Services is. distributing kits containing
food, clothing, blankets, soap, small
kerosene cooking stoves and other
supplies to refugee families as they arrive
in the Danang area from the war affected
zones.
Catholic Relief Services is carrying out
its emergency refugee aid program in
conjunction with Caritas the Vietnamese
national Catholic charities agency.
Refugee camps have been set up on the
grounds of schools, churches, pagodas,
convents, hospital and empty military
bases. Sister-nurses, refugees themselves,
are rendering medical care to the
displaced while hundreds of Caritas’
volunteers are distributing the emergency
rations.
Father McVeigh reports that Catholic
Relief Services and Caritas are baking
over 12,000 loaves of bread daily, on an
around-the-clock basis, to help feed the
refugee families.
Catholic Relief Services dispatched
from the United States earlier this month
200 tons of clothing and blankets to meet
the increased needs caused by the combat
around Hue, Quang Tri, and other areas.
In addition, Father McVeigh has
purchased over $60,000-worth of relief
goods in local markets, made possible by
cash grants from Catholic Relief Services,
Danish Inter-Church Aid and Oxfam of
England.
The largest private overseas aid agency,
Catholic Relief Services conducts
programs of assistance for the poor of all
races and religions in 70 countries. It has
operated aid and development programs
continuously in Vietnam since 1954.
Summer Schedule
There will be no paper next week, as we are on Summer Schedule. The
Southern Cross does not print the second and last weeks of June, July and
August.
EXPECT OVER 300
Ordinations To Increase
Ranks Of U.S. Deacons
WASHINGTON (NC) — The number of permanent deacons in the United States is expected to quadruple
following a series of ordinations this summer and next winter.
One hundred men will be ordained deacons this summer, more than doubling the number of permanent
deacons in the country. There are now 72, according to Father William Philbin of the U.S. bishops’ Committee
on the Permanent Diaconate here.
By next February officials expect the
total to rise to over 300. A class of more
than 100 men now studying for the
diaconate in Chicago will account for
most of the increase. They are expected
to be ordained next winter.
Earlier this year, Bishop Gerard L.
Frey announced the formation of a
training program leading to ordination to
the permanent diaconate in the diocese of
Savannah. Father William V. Coleman,
pastor of St. Joseph’s parish, Macon and
Diocesan Coordinator of the Department
of Christian Formation on was named as
director of the program. It is expected
that candidates for the permanent
diaconate will be accepted into the
program within the next year.
The biggest group to be ordained this
summer comes from the
°alveston-Houston diocese. Bishop John
V V Morkovskv will ordain 38 deaeorr i
five ceremonies, mcludiilg one moiiJiiiMi, v
in the first week in June.
The Baltimore archdiocese will have 19
deacons ordained in a series of
ceremonies through the summer, and the
San Antonio archdiocese will have eight
ordinations each in the home parish of
the deacon, through the summer.
Ten ordinations were scheduled in the
Phoenix diocese, eight in the Des Moines
diocese and one in the Richmond, Va.,
diocese in late May and early June.
Seven deacons will be ordained in the
Detroit archdiocese between June and
August, while the Washington archdiocese
will ordain nine men in September.
6,000 Honor
Bishop Sheen
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (NC) -
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was honored
by more than 6,000 persons at the
National Shrine of Our Lady of
Czestochowa - and praised in a letter
from President Nixon - as “Catholic Man
of Action” for 1971.
Beautiful holiday weekend weather
and a colorful program that included a
procession and Mass at the shrine here,
bands and choirs, a trooping of flags and
a jet squadron fly-over drew an immense
crowd May 28 for the annual award
ceremony on the shrine’s Knights of
Columbus Day.
In a personal letter written just before
he went to Moscow, President Nixon said
he was greatly pleased to learn that the
Pennsylvania State Council of the Knights
of Columbus had chosen Archbishop
Sheen for its third annual award.
“I wholeheartedly join in the
sentiments of those who applaud your
religious and humanitarian achievements
and who uphold your contributions to
man’s spiritual and moral well-being,”
said the presidential letter read to the
gathering. “Your life and ministry have
indeed been a strong force for good in
our society and throughout the world.”
In his keynote address, Archbishop
Sheen said he knew that his listeners
wanted to hear where their Church is
going and where their country is going in
such difficult times.
In addition to the summer ordinations,
eight are planned for late in the year,
probably in November, in the Hartford
archdiocese.
Almost all of the permanent deacons
now active in the United States continue
their regular work while working in a
variety of church activities. The total of
72 includes 11 black men and seven men
from Spanish speaking backgrounds.
Father Philbin reported that 40 of the
nation’s 164 dioceses have permanent
deacons or candidates for the diaconate.
Another 25 dioceses are preparing deacon
programs.
THE TWO FACES OF JIMMY - It can be a long, hot summer when there’s nowhere to
go and nothing to do. A child can be idle and bored -- or busy and happy. A week at
Camp Villa Marie, with sports, swimming, crabbing, fishing, archery, and plenty of
company can make the difference. A scholarship fund has been set up to help those
children whose parents would not otherwise be able to afford to send them to Camp
Villa Marie. If you would like to help send a child to Camp this summer, please mail
your donation to: Scholarship Fund, Camp Villa Marie, Grimball Point Road,
Savannah, Georgia 31406.
HEADLINE
HOPSCOTCH
CRS Film
NEW YORK (NC) -- “The Dignity of Man,” a film showing the development
programs of Catholic Relief Services, is being offered for free showings by schools and
other organizations. The film, narrated by newsman Bob Considine, was filmed mostly
in Honduras and shows self-help agriculture projects, leadership training, literacy
campaigns and construction projects sponsored by CRS. The film is available from the
CRS office, 350 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10001.
Birth Rate Dropping
WASHINGTON (NC) -- The national birth rate - number of children born per 1,000
people in the country - has remained even lower than it was during the Depression
years of the 1930s. According to the National Center for Health Statistics here which
computes the U.S. birth rate monthly, the nation averaged 15.8 children per 1,000
people in the first three months of 1972. The new figures indicate the U.S. birth rate
has now dropped for 13 of the last 14 months. In the first quarter of 1970, the rate
was 17.5 compared with a rate of 18.6 in 1936, lowest birth rate during the
Depression. The new figures also show that in March 1972 although there were about
800,000 more women of child-bearing age than there were a year earlier, there were
31,000 fewer births than a year before.
Convicts Receive Degrees
SANTA FE, N.M. (NC) — For six of the 182 graduates of the College of Santa Fe,
the walk up the aisle to receive a diploma began in a prison cell. Four of the six are
currently inmates at the New Mexico State Penitentiary, and two are on parole. Five
received associate of arts degrees and one a bachelor of science degree with honors to
become the first graduates since the prison program began in 1968. “Students enrolled
in the program at prison are as good as students on our main campus,” said Brother
Regis, who works at the prison and the college.
2,000 Requests
“Who is going to save our Church?” he
asked. “Not our bishops, not our priests
and Religious. It’s up to you, the people.
You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to
save the Church. Your mission is to see
that your priests act like priests, your
bishops act like bishops, and your
Religious act like Religious.”
WASHINGTON (NC) — Nearly 2,000 requests for funds have been received this
year by the Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. bishops’ anti-poverty
program. The proposals submitted by local poverty groups ask for more than $125
million - far more than the $7 million raised in the campaign’s collection last year.
National and diocesan campaign officials are examining the requests to decide which
will be funded. The proposals come from groups which have previously sought
campaign funds - Chicanos, blacks, Indians, Puerto Ricans and whites -- and from two
new groups - Orientals and Eskimos.