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PAGE 4 — The Southern Cross, October 5,1972
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Vatican Decisions
‘I didn’t have to worry about my weigh*
when I was Sister Clarissa.”
Holding on to Summer
...and Sanity
Rev. Andrew M. Greeley
During the past month or so, Vatican
statements have been issued affecting
actual or contemplated practices of the
Church in America and elsewhere.
The Holy See, either through direct
statements by Pope Paul or by other
Vatican officials, has excluded women
from participating in the ordained
ministries of the church, called for the
cessation of- extra-legal (“good
conscience”) decisions in favor of
Catholics who have been divorced and
remarried, and refused to lower the
minimum age limit for ordained married
deacons from thirty-five to thirty, as
requested by the American bishops.
All three statements, especially the
one concerning women in ordained
ministries, have aroused criticism, most
of it directed at Pope Paul.
Our own reaction to the three Vatican
positions is one of regret and chagrin. We
do not believe, however, that
name-calling or invective are constructive
or Christian responses.
It is one thing to regret the decisions
taken by others. It is quite another to
dismiss, out-of-hand, and with no
attempt at fruitful dialogue, the reasons
they adduce for their positions.
At their semi-annual meeting held in
Atlanta last April, some U.S. bishops
spoke out strongly for a lowering of the
minimum age for married deacons from
thirty-five to twenty-five. Their petition
was not brought to a vote. Instead, a
request to lower the age limit to thirty
was placed before the bishops. They
adopted it and it was submitted to the
Holy See. The answer from the Vatican
was a refusal, generally, but a willingness
to dispense, under special circumstances,
from the age of thirty-five down to
thirty-three and one-half.
If effect, the Holy See compromised
and the bishops got half of what they
had asked for.
We are confident, therefore, that they
can succeed in securing another lowering
of the minimum age if they ask for it.
Aristotle, in his treatise “Nichomachean
Ethics,” remarks: “The generality of men are
naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than
be reverence, and to refrain from evil rather
because of the punishment it brings than
because of it’s own foulness.”
This description of one facet of man’s nature
over 2,000 years ago was vividly brought out in
a recent experiment at one of our universities
by some behavioral scientists. A group of
students rooming in pairs were randomly
selected. Their interpersonal relationships were
observed and noted. Later, one of each pair was
privately interviewed by a guidance counsellor
and during the session it was “inadvertently”
let out that his roommate “had a previous
history of some psychiatric treatment” but that
“he was O.K. now” and nothing was to be
mentioned about it.
Their interpersonal relationships were again
studied and the results were amazing. Attitudes
changed in the overwhelming majority of the
“informed students” towards their roommates
who were supposedly previously
“psychiatrically ill.” Coolness developed with
less friendliness and more suspicion. Anything
that the “psychiatric” student said was
discounted as of questionable value and any
joking was looked upon as “silly” or “odd.”
In fact, his thinking, feeling and behavior was
suspect, not to be trusted but always viewed
with suspicion. Needless to say, when the
students were informed as to what had taken
place, they received a first-rate lesson in the
nature of prejudice, an attitude based on fear
and ignorance.
Prejudice, defined as a judgment or opinion
made before all the facts are known, is our
No.l problem in human relations. It closes our
minds to the truths and knowledge which
would help us to work together in friendship;
to vote with intelligence (which most often we
don’t do); to worship in understanding and to
avoid international disputes.
Too many people’s opinions are based on
hearsay and tradition, that which Voltaire
called: “The reason of fools.” Long before this,
a philosopher of the Cynic school said that the
The practice of extra-legal marriage
decisions in cases where required
documents or witnesses cannot be
obtained, and where the church believes
that the party who is challenging the
validity of a former marriage is telling
the truth in good conscience, is being
studied in several dioceses in this and
other countries.
The Holy See in ordering a halt to the
rendering of such decisions has not, in
our opinion, flatly closed the door on
the concept. In fact, it has promised to
take the matter under study, itself.
Further, it is also under study by the
pastoral practices committee of the U.S.
Bishops Conference.
As to women in the ordained
ministries, for all practical purposes it is
a new and radical concept. For, while
there were ordained deaconesses in the
early church, there have not been any
for more than a thousand years. So it
should come as a shock to no one that
Pope Paul’s initial reaction to questions
concerning the reinstatement of a
practice which was abandoned many
hundreds of years ago is a negative one.
Senator Hubert Humphrey, speaking
to a group of students who believed that
confrontation and militant protest were
the only viable avenues to real change
reminded them that civil rights bills
introduced in the Senate and the House
in the late forties and early fifties were
beaten back, but through persistence and
reasoned argumentation they were
adopted in the sixties.
We don’t think it will take that long
for women to be recognized as worthy
and capable of carrying out ordained
ministries in the church, or for the
bishops to be able to ordain married
deacons of thirty years of age or
younger, or for the marriage laws of the
church to become less rigid and
legalistic.
But we don’t think the day will be
hastened by sniping at the Pope every
time his decisions are not in accord with
public opinion.
most necessary branch of knowledge is to
unlearn prejudices.
Some medical beliefs were based on
prejudice, before all the facts were gathered.
The National Institute of Health recently spent
$100 million in a research study to learn that
mothers who had gained 36 pounds or more
during pregnancy had only one-third the
number of brain-damaged children as those who
had gained from zero to 15 pounds, thus
refuting the old idea of weight control by
suggesting 24 pounds as the goal for weight in
pregnancy.
Dr. Tom Brewer suggested that the normal
healthy gain be 30 to 35 pounds and that the
quality of food intake is more important than
the weight gained. So .. .all you women who
got dirty looks from your obstetrician when
you got on the scales can go back, stick out
your tongue and go: “Br-r-a-ack!”
Most prejudices are due to the unquestioning
acceptance of the beliefs commonly held by
people around us; others are due to snap
judgment and others to wishful thinking.
Without wisdom the intellect remains the
slave of prejudice and superstition. Wisdom
comes from good judgment, and good judgment
-- well, that comes from having had poor
judgment. An intelligent person is not one who
doesn’t make mistakes but one who learns from
them. In order to be tolerant, we must try to
understand others. It is in understanding,
listening, communicating and in the free
exchange of ideas that we arrive at the truth.
Remember, few ideas are absolute and it is fear
that often underlies prejudice.
Any divergent view from our own seems to
threaten our security and we may lash out
blindly against it. Socrates said: “I am
extremely desirous to be persuaded by you, but
not against my own better judgment. Thus, if
we learn to think for ourselves, we will be in a
better position to make a value judgment on
the “other side.”
There are few gifts that one person can give
to another as rich as understanding the attitude
of recognizing sympathetically the beliefs of
others without necessarily embracing them.
Charity is still the greatest virtue.
I should like to make a strong case for a
major social reform in America. Americans
work too hard and in line with the newer liberal
political line of compelling people to be
virtuous (save on matters of sexuality and
narcotics and abortion), we must compel
Americans to work less.
There are two ways of doing this: we must
first of all, extend summer and secondly, we
must insist on a greater number of long
weekends each year.
Ending summer on Labor Day has always
been an arbritary and oppressive custom.
September, in most parts of the country, is one
of the finest months of the year and there is no
reason why it should not be redefined as part of
summer; especially since there is excellent
astronomical, as well as social, reasons for such
a redefinition.
As part of this redefinition, we will have to
ban all “back-to-school” sales which start in the
middle of July, and all advertising for
September television which usually starts, it
seems to me, in late May or early June, and of
course, we must lock up in mental institutions
those educators who try to make little children
go back to school before Labor Day. Pro
football games are difficult matters, but with
time one could probably define the football
season as being totally unrelated to the end of
summer and thus Mr. Rozelle’s schedules would
not have to be changed.
Adding a full four weeks of summer (ending
perhaps on Columbus Day) would only be the
beginning of the fundamental restructuring of
our society that is required. It is absolutely
mandatory that we increase the number of long
weekends. The five or six that we have now
simply are not enough to make an authentically
human life possible.
Every weekend in the summer, that is to say
from July 4th to Columbus Day, ought to be a
long weekend. The other nine months of the
year ought to have, at a minimum, one
additional long weekend. This would give us 20
long weekends a year and would make for a
much more civilized life style.
In October we have Columbus Day, in
November we would have Veteran’s Day, in
December a mid-winter festival day (which
might replace Christmas), in February
President’s Day, in March St. Patrick’s Day (of
course), in April a Spring festival, in May a
Mother’s Day long weekend, and Memorial Day
could be transferred to June. The only month
under such a plan who would lack a long
weekend would be January and perhaps a
celebration could be decreed towards the end
of the first week. Christians, such as these may
be, could call it the Feast of the Epiphany and'
the rest of the Americans could call it Hangover
Weekend - a weekend devoted to resting up
after the strenuous activities of the Christmas
(or is you wish, Winter Solstice) holidays.
The advantages to such social change are
obvious: more Sunday newspapers would be
thoroughly read by business and professional
men trying to find something to do with all the
free time, more people would watch TV, thus
moving up the advertising rates TV networks
could charge their clients. A tremendous
amount of goods and services would be
purchased (though, of course, not used), more
tennis lessons would be required, more jogging
suits would be sold, more divorce lawyers
would have income as a result of the intolerable
conflicts that would arise when husbands and
wives were forced to spend more time with
each other and more psychiatrists would have
to view disturbed children whose problems
came from suddenly having the rather
traumatic experience of seeing their fathers.
In addition, my reform might be a good
thing for organized religion, or if not for
organized religion (because a lot of people
might go off to their second homes and not go
to church on Sunday), at least for God. The
main arguments that are advanced for
postponing the God-problem have to do with
multiple obligations of career, children,
personal problems and family obligations.
Prolonging summer and increasing the number
of long weekends might just possibly force
Americans to face questions of the ultimate, to
ask themselves whether their lives have any
purpose or meaning or destiny. It would mean
more work for God, but presumably He
wouldn’t mind.
A jingle once popular among children tells of
six blind men who went to “see” an elephant.
One of the men felt the animal’s side and
decided he was very much like a wall. Another
took hold of his tusk and described the
elephant as something like a spear. Still
another, feeling his leg, said the elephant was
much like the trunk of a tree, while the fourth
clutching an ear, thought he resembled a fan.
The fifth blind man, touching his long trunk,
insisted that the elephant must be closely
related to the snake, and the sixth, having
caught hold of his tail, thought the animal
exactly like a piece of rope. The jingle
concludes: “And so the men of Indostan
disputed loud and long, each in his own opinion
exceeding stiff and strong, though each was
partly in the right and all were in the wrong!”
There are many who have caught only
occasional glimpses of the true Christian life.
They have seen only one aspect here, another
glimpse there . . .Is anything being done in the
world today to get a total view, not only to the
“half pagans” about us, but to ourselves as
well? Yes! The Christian denominations of
Canada and the United States are going to
participate in a year round program called,
“KEY 73.”
Baptist, Catholic, Methodist and African
M.E.Churches, in particular, are working
together on the project entitled “Calling Our
Continent to Christ.” One objective of this
effort at proclamation, and commitment, is
this: To share with every person in North
America, more fully and more forcefully, the
claims and message of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
“KEY 73” will begin on Thanksgiving Day
and will go through a preparation period during
Advent and Christmas. Six phases will then
continue throughout the twelve months of
1973.
Anti-life
War
Escalates
Joseph A. Breig
Today I am doing something which I do not
recall ever having done before in the 27 years of
this column. I am devoting my space to another
columnist, Richard B. Scheiber, editor of Our
Sunday Visitor. Here is a recent column of his:
Everybody better be prepared for a gigantic
attack on life. The first loud shot will be late
this fall in the form of a TV special on the
Public Broadcasting Network.
A major step in the anti-life campaign is the
recent formation of a committee to promote
the recommendations of the (Rockefeller)
Commission on Population Growth and the
American Future. Among these
recommendations is promotion of birth control
information, unrestricted abortion, and
discouragement of any family with more than
two children.
Earlier this year the National Assembly of
TV Arts and Sciences (which gives out the
Emmies) sponsored a population conference.
Nearly all the speakers were leaders of
anti-life forces, people like John D. Rockefeller
III, chairman of the pro-abortion Population
Growth Commission; Dr. Dennis Meadows of
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Lord
Caradon, Britain’s population consultant to the
UN (and Britain is the abortion capital of
Europe); Douglas Stewart of Planned
Parenthood-World Population, and Mrs. Ellen
Peck, author of the latest anti-life book, “The
Baby Trap”.
Who was invited to the Academy-sponsored
anti-people conference? The presidents of the
three major commercial networks and the heads
of some of the country’s leading TV production
and ad agencies, along with people prominent
in the theater, entertainment and ecological
industries, whose jobs are to influence mass
public opinion.
Was the conference open to all points of
view, as the chairman said? Hardly. Nearly
every speaker promoted limiting of population
by a variety of means, not excluding abortion,
and everybody went away with a special
information packet which included anti-life
books, the Population Growth Commission’s
(pro-abortion) interim report, Robert S.
McNamara’s anti-life speech at the University of
Notre Dame in 1969 (after which he was made
an honorary alumnus), a Wall Street Journal
article, “The Economy Doesn’t Need More
People,” and a report on “Population and
Family Planning in the People’s Republic of
China.”
So there you have it - the beginning of a
major campaign in the war against people. And
in late November, the citizen group formed by
John D. Rockefeller III plans to air, on Public
Broadcasting Network, an anti-population
special. Public Broadcasting, by the way, is
supported by your taxes.
Americans should remember that they can
fight anti-life forces by protesting to the
Federal Communications Commission that
anti-life propaganda is morally offensive to
them.
People who love life and freedom better be
ready to fight a battle against powerful forces
who would deny life to millions, and in time
would deny the freedoms guaranteed to us by
the Constitution.
Monsignor John F.
It and also the dates of the Council’s sessions?
A. On January 25, 1959,
of the Council, on December 4, 1963, The first two council documents were ready for
i: The Constitution on
The Council’s third session began on September 14, 1964 and lasted until November
Church. This session also brought forth the decree on ecumenism and the decree on
mm
1, 1965. Eleven documents were produ
mulgated on October 28, the ^
(3) The decree on
1,1965 and ended once
'ive were
i’s election: (1) The
On November 18, two more texts were promulgated:
Divine Revelation and the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity.
Finally during the last Council event held within St.
promulgated: (1) The Pastoral Constitution on
Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests;
on
111111
Prejudice Greatest
Relations Problem
Dr. Armand DiFrancesco