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Vol. 53 No. 26
SERVING 88 SOUTH - GEORGIA COUNTIES
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Thursday July 20,1972 Single Copy Price - 12 Cents
POPE PA UL:
‘Brotherhood Key To Peace’
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Not
armaments but brotherhood among
nations is the key to peace, Pope Paul VI
told graduates of the 40th session of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Defense College.
“Peace in our time,” the Pope told the
57 graduates from 12 nations “is indeed
something weak, something not yet
perfected, and something circumscribed
by the many limitations of our age.
“We are convinced that you will
succeed in this mission if you work to
strengthen the bonds of solidarity and
union among peoples, the bonds of
friendship and the bonds of fraternal
collaboration.
“These--not armaments-are the means
adapted to your goal. With these means
you are assured of success.”
The Pope said that the NATO college
session was in itself a workshop in peace
because there was “an exchange of ideas
as well as an effort to listen to and
understand each other.”
The NATO Defense College, founded
in 1952 in Paris, was transferred to Rome
in 1966 when France dropped out as a
fully contributing member of the alliance.
During the twice-a-year, six-month
sessions, students are lectured on the
origin, historical progress and future
mission of NATO.
The Pope spoke to the graduates in
English and French, the two official
languages of the college.
The only eligible nations not sending
students to this session of the college
were Iceland, Luxembourg and France.
FROM CA THOLIC EDITORS
Death Penalty Decision
v ' . . '
Brings Varied Reaction
By NC News Service
Catholic editors varied widely-from
enthusiastic support, through thoughtful
skepticism, to outright opposition-in
their reactions to the Supreme Court
decision on the death penalty.
In a complicated ruling, the court held
that the death penalty as now
administered is unconstitutional, but it
left open the possibility of new laws
applying the death penalty for specific
reasons and in a fair manner.
While applauding the court for saving
the lives of 600 men now on death row,
the Criterion, the newspaper of the
Indianapolis archdiocese, was sharply
critical of the inconclusiveness of the
ruling.
“Rather than burying the issue of
capital pumishment for all time-as many
had hoped-the U. S. Supreme Court
decision of last week can be expected to
arouse a slumbering controversy to
frenzied pitch in many states,” a
Criterion editorial said.
The editorial, entitled “Resurrection
of a Deadly Issue,” said that “state
legislatures can be expected to rush to
revise those laws” which were ruled
unconstitutional. The result would be
new laws which automatically impose the
death penalty with no reference to
circumstances surrounding the crime or
the character of the defendant, the
editorial said.
Juries, in turn, will be reluctant to
convict persons for crimes carrying an
automatic death penalty and the result
will be “just the opposite of what the
legislatures would intend,” the Criterion
said.
“We are buying fool’s gold if we buy
the proposition that the death penalty
will protect the common good by
preventing murder, rape and similar
outrages,” the editorial said. “It never has
and it never will. In a passionate,
fear-propelled climate, however, it is
easily peddled and readily purchased.
Unfortunately, what the Supreme Court
may well have done last week was license
a nationwide marketplace of
non-solutions.”
The Tablet, the Brooklyn diocesan
paper, pointed out that members of the
court majority had held that the death
penatly is applied erratically and that it is
HEADLINE
HOPSCOTCH
Orders Demonstrators To Move
DETROIT (NC) — A circuit court judge here has ordered a troup of demonstrators
to remove themselves and their camping equipment from Cardinal John Dearden’s
private property. The protestors - seeking the reinstatement of Joseph Dulin as
principal of St. Martin De Porres High School - had been camped on the cardinal’s
lawn since June 17. Soon after the 15-member St. Martin’s school board had accepted
Dulin’s resignationa, he announced parents and students had pressured him into
changing his mind, and he asked for his old job back. When about 15 demonstrators
appeared at his private residence, Cardinal Dearden met with them and arranged a
meeting with the school board to reconsider Dulin’s resignation. The board said it
would consider Dulin’s name along with other candidates for the job. But on July 13 it
voted 12-1 to appoint Alvin Zackery, a high school administrator in Battle Creek,
Mich., to the post.
Nun Runs For State Senate
MUSCANTINE, Iowa (NC) — Sister Eleanor Anstey of The Sisters of Humanity,
first nun ever to run for a state office in Iowa, has filed for the Democratic nomination
for the State Senate. She has no opposition in the Democratic primary of the 38th
senatorial district. In the general election she will oppose Republican incumbent W.R.
Rabedeaux of Wilton. Sister Eleanor, 46, is ending a three-year employment as
religious education coordinator for two Catholic parishes.
Va. Law Requires B.C. Information
RICHMOND, Va. (NC) — The Virginia General Assembly has passed a law requiring
court clerks to furnish birth control information to couples along with their marriage
license. In addition to contraception information, clerks must also provide couples
with a list of nearby birth control clinics. Reacting to the new law, priests from
Arlington and Alexandria, Va. have adopted a statement, by a vote of 24-4, citing
official Church teaching on contraception and abortion. The statement will be
distributed to all persons attending pre-Cana conferences. Couples not attending the
conferences will receive a copy of the statement through area rectories.
often “selectively applied” to the black
and the poor.
“As it is our judgment that
unfortunately these accusations against
our system of purnishments are correct,
we applaud the decision of the court,”
the Tablet said in an editorial entitled “A
Death Blow Axes Death Penalty.”
The Tablet also noted that the
decision left the possibility of new laws
imposing the death penalty. Saying that
37 nations, including the Vatican, have
abolished the death penalty, the editorial
said, “It is hoped that the Supreme Court
decision will be mirrored in laws passed
by legislative bodies so that the U. S.
becomes the 38th country to abolish the
death penalty.”
An opposing view came from The
Monitor, the weekly of the Trenton, N.J.,
diocese.
An editorial entitled “Murders
Unlimited” described a sharp rise in
crime, particularly murders, in Trenton
and other cities. Police “cannot control
the crime situation,” the Monitor said,
and “law enforcement was dealt a further
blow” by the Supreme Court.
“One thing is certain at least: unless
the law lowers the boom without delay,
many cities and their people will be
wholly at the mercy of a constantly
growing breed of ruthless criminals,” the
editorial said.
The decision was praised by the Long
Island Catholic as “another step in
removing vengeance from the application
of criminal penalties.”
“The decision, we feel, should be
applauded by anyone who accepts
Christian standards of mercy and
rationality,” the Rockville Centre, N. Y.,
diocesan weekly said.
A similar view was expressed by the
Georgia Bulletin which said that “a
Christian moral position would not allow
for the death penalty as a means of
wreaking vengeance.”
“A Christian moral position always
seeks to broaden the perimeters of a
pro-life philosophy and thus to foster
official policies that promote the noblest
and kindest instincts in man,” the Atlanta
archdiocesan paper said.
The editorial quoted Justice Potter
Stewart’s opinion that the death penalty
is often “wantonly and freakishly
imposed” and it pointed out that more
than 95 percent of the men executed for
rape in Georgia were black.
The St. Louis Review praised the
court’s decision and urged legislatures to
initiate “enlightened and effective penal
reform.”
“Now it remains for our legislators to
take courageous action to begin to disarm
a gun-happy citizenry and to take steps to
prevent the extra-judicial impositon of
the death penalty by injudicious police
work or by modern lynch mobs taking
justice into their own hands,” the
editorial said.
WATERMELON TIME - SUMMER’S STAFF OF LIFE - Three-year-old Jody Schimelfanick and Gypsy, a German shepherd, vie
for a slice of watermelon Rev. Capistran Perrito, holds at Fourth of July Barbecue in Bogota, New Jersey. Rev. Perrito, is the
newly-appointed director of public-relations of the New York Franciscan Monks. NC Photo.
NEW DIOCESAN GROUP
Vocations Committee Meets
In an effort to find ways to develop
vocations to the priesthood and religious
life within the Diocese of Savannah,
Bishop Gerard Frey has established a
Diocesan Vocation Committee. Mr.
Joseoph Cobis, Columbus, was appointed
Acting Chairman of the committee.
Meeting recently in Dublin, Georgia,
with Bishop Frey and Fr. Robert
Mattingly, Diocesan Director of
Vocations, priests, sisters and lay people
from the diocese set about the task of
exploring avenues leading to the
development and attraction of vocations
to the diocese. Bishop Frey stated that, as
of this Fall, the diocese will have 20
students in this country in seminaries and
three seminarians overseas.
Fr. Joseph Dean, Pastor of Hazelhurst,
handed out suggestions for the committee
that could be used in planning volunteer
programs thereby hoping to introduce
young men and women from the diocese
and other parts of the country to the
needs of the people of the diocese with
the possibility of a seminarian and sister
working with individual groups of
volunteers.
At the same time the need for
recruitment from among the minority
races was cited and stressed. Father Dean,
along with Fr. Lawrence Lucree, Albany,
and Mr. William Brown, Augusta, were
appointed to an “ad hoc” committee to
draw up steps to put the volunteer
program into action.
Along with volunteer services program
were discussed the use of the
communications media and possible
programs on the parish, high school and
college levels in the diocese.
Present for the first meeting with
Bishop Frey and Fr. Mattingly were Fr.
Joseph Dean, Fr. Lawrence Lucree,
Sisters Mary Julian, Rose Phillipine, and
Misters Joseph Cobis and William Brown.
Sr. Camille Collini was present as an
observer. The Diocesan Vocation
Committee will also accent programs
leading to vocations to the religious life.
The next meeting of the committee
will be held in Dublin, Georgia, July 29,
with the increase of several, suggested
new members.
Confession Norms Reaffirmed
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The Vatican has extended - primarily to priests in
missionary lands - a wartime privilege of forgiving sins of a large group of people
when it would be impossible to hear individual confessions. The extended
permission issued by the Doctrinal Congregation and presented at a news
conference July 13, make clear that the “ordinary way” penitents are forgiven
their sins is still by confessing them to a priest and receiving absolution from
him.
The congregation said that individual confession is still mandatory under
normal circumstances and condemned the practice of forgiving mortal sins
without hearing individual confessions. Without specifying any particular
country, the Doctrinal Congregation said that “numbers of bishops” were
disturbed by “erroneous theories” and “the growing tendency and practice,
certainly an abuse, of granting general absolution to people who have only made
a general confession” as a group.
Stating that individual confession is still mandatory under normal
circumstances, the congregation said: “This implies a condemnation of the
practice which recently has appeared here and there which pretends to satisfy
the precept of confessing mortal sins to gain absolution by a mere general
confession, or through what is called a community celebration of Penance.”