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PAGE 4 — The Southern Cross. November 30,1972
The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Gerard L. Frey, D.D. President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
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•0*
j Diary of an
i Unborn Child
JOct. 5>: Today my life began. My parents do not know it yet. I
am as small as an apple seed, but it is already I. The
whole big world cannot say I, but I can.
(oct.19: I have grown a little, but I am still too small to do
| anything by myself. My mother does just about everything
for me. Some say that I am not a real person yet, that
1 only my mother exists. But I am a real person, just as
a small crumb of bread is truly bread. My mother is.
j And I am,
©Nov. 2:1 am growing a.bit every day. My arms and legs are be
ginning to take shape. Even if I were to be deformed,
© without arms and legs, I could have artificial ones, as
grown people sometimes have — and even at the worst I
o would be I, — ready to have water poured on my head so
that I can see God.
I
o
|Nov.20:It wasn't until today that the doctor told Mom that
f . living under her heart. She is helping me already;
I am I
she is©
!
even feeding me with her own blood. She is so good.
It is smooth and bright and shiny.
I Dec.lO:My hair is growing
I wonder what kind of hair Mom has?
fDec.i3;I am just about able to see. It is dark around me. When |
| Mom brings me into the world, it will be full of sunshine j
and flowers. I have never seen a flower. But what I want*
2 more than anything is to see my Mom. How do you look,
Mom?
O '
|Dec.2l;:I wonder if Mom hears the whispering beat of my heart?
= Some children come into the world a little sick. And thenj
I i. the delicate hands of the doctor perform miracles to bring)
them to health. But my heart is strong and healthy. J
You'll have a healthy little daughter, Momi
I
o
|Dec.28:Today my mother killed me.
•<>«
Election Excuses,
But Not Analysis
Rev. Andrew M. Greeley
The liberal-left is busy trying to fashion an
explanation for the terrible drubbing it took in
the presidential election. Characteristically, it is
absolutely incapable of admitting that it made
any mistakes.
McGovern political advisor Frank
Mankiewicz, for example, blames “Hubert
Humphrey, Arthur Bremmer, and Thomas
Eagleton.” Senator McGovern blames the
“Wallace vote,” and many of the “liberal”
commentators and columnists echo this claim.
Anthony Lewis, whose column in THE NEW
YORK TIMES is usually an accurate reflection
of what the lemming liberals (to use Richard
Scammon’s word) are saying at their cocktail
parties, suggests grimly that the election was a
victory for crypto-racism.
As usual, the ideological liberals show that
they can’t count. Undoubtedly, Mr. Nixon
picked up many Wallace voters in the South,
but in the North in 1968, Wallace got only
about 6 per cent of the vote. If Wallace had run
it is doubtful that a single important state
would have changed from the Nixon to the
McGovern column. The Wallace vote - even if it
all went to Nixon - still was not needed in
states like New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Michigan, and California.
Furthermore, if all of the 1968 Wallace
voters had cast their ballots for Nixon and were
then disqualified on the grounds that Wallace
voters have no right to vote for anyone else,
Nixon’s lead would have been eleven percentage
points. However, not all the Wallace votes went
for Nixon, though we will have to wait detailed
survey analysis to know exactly what
happened. But let us go through the exercise of
subtracting the Wallace margin from Mr.
Nixon’s plurality.
If five-sixths of the Wallace votes went to
Nixon and one-sixth to McGovern, Nixon’s net
advantage would have been 8 percentage points.
Eight from 23 gives him a 15 percentage noint
non-Wallace margin. If three-fourths of the
Wallace vote went to the President, he would
have picked up a net gain of 6 percentage
points, leaving him a 17 point non-Wallace
margin. If he received two-thirds of the Wallace
vote, his net gain would have been four
percentage points, and his non-Wallace
advantage would have been 19 points.
One of my university colleagues assured that
it was a “backlash” election and that Mr.
Nixon, Hitler-like, had appealed to the hatreds
of the American people. I told him that he
might be right, but there was nothing in the
empirical data to indicate a strong backlash. On
the contrary, I suggested, all the evidence
indicated that racist attitudes were rapidly
waning in America. His reply was that all the
data proved was that Americans were becoming
clever at lying about their racism.
Why are liberals like Mr. Lewis and my
colleagues so eager to fantasize about a racist
population? (They usually drop the bussing
argument when you point out that almost half
of the blacks in the country are against it, too.)
Is it not merely that most liberals are too
intellectually arrogant to admit that they might
have made mistakes and that they might have
totally misunderstood what was going on in the
country?
More important, perhaps, is the liberal’s need
to feel morally superior. Ignorant and
uninformed people have beaten him in an
election. He is angry, bitter, frustrated. Why
have they not recognized his superior
intelligence? Why have they not granted him
the power of government to which his obvious
excellence entitles him? The poor, stupid fools
have in effect denied his intellectual brilliance.
What else does he have left besides his moral
superiority? At least they cannot take that
away from him.
So on to 1976 and another disaster.
A Knock at the Door
Mary Carson
Sometimes I make up stories to tell my
younger children. I try to make them
entertaining and also, to some degree,
instructive. You might enjoy this story which I
made up; you may want to tell it to your
children for the beginning of Advent.
Once there was a very large and successful
business. There were a great many
employees . . .but the strange thing was that
none of them had ever seen the president of the
company.
His presence was felt, though. Some
employees had gotten memos from him and a
few even said they had spoken to him on the
phone. There was a love, admiration, almost a
reverence as co-workers affectionately referred
to him as “the Old Man.”
While there was a great regard for “the Old
Man” in some quarters, others simply ignored
him. They just went their way, doing their job.
“The Old Man” wasn’t bothering them, so they
weren’t going to bother about him.
One employee was cynical as he flatly stated,
“I don’t believe there is an “Old Man”. This
company has been going on for years. Nobody
has seen him. They talk about him. Some claim
they have talked to him on the phone. But who
can prove it?
“I think ‘the Old Man’ is simply the product
of someone’s imagination. Someone decided we
needed this ‘Old Man’ image. The stories about
him are all contrived. And these people keep
believing it because it makes them feel good.”
But the janitor had a different story. This
old-timer was a pleasant, wrinkled, bit of a man
who gave out tidbits of information with the
secretiveness of a race-track tout sharing a hot
tip.
One day a young employee approached the
janitor and asked him, “You’ve been around
here longer than anyone. What do you know of
‘the Old Man’?”
He took the young employee by the arm,
and whispered, “He’s been running this place
for as long as I can remember. I know that
years ago, he brought his son into the business.
His son was doing a good job and a lot of
people liked him.
\ >
“But there were others who resented
him .. .didn’t like the idea of the boss’s son
taking such a big part.
“Then . . .the son disappeared.” His voice
lowered, so no one would overhear. “The
stories have it that he met a tragic
death .. .died a condemned criminal.”
“And they say that before the son died, he
promised that he’d be back.”
The entrance door to the company was
always kept locked. A visitor had to knock and
wait for the door to be opened from the inside.
One cold day, late in December, there was a
knock at the door. The secretary was going to
open it, but the telephone rang.
Several clerks started to answer it, but
remembered they had paperwork to be
finished, and shouldn’t leave their desks.
The young employee suggested to the man
next to him that he go answer the door. “Are
you kidding? I’ve got to get that report done to
take to a meeting in five minutes!”
On their way to the meeting, they could all
still hear the knocking at the door. Many
officers were filing into the conference room.
But not one of them stopped . .,.Someone else
could answer the door.
Being the last one going into the meeting, the
young employee turned to the door and saw
the janitor opening it.
On the step, a small, rough basket held a
bundle wrapped in a blanket.
They lifted a baby from the basket and the
corner of the blanket fell away. The janitor’s
eyes shone. . .then filled with tears.
Embroidered on the corner of the blanket
were the initials “J.C.” Almost no one had time
to let him in.
It’s the beginning of advent. Let’s listen for
the knock .. .and take time to answer the door!
Do you ever make up stories to tell your
children? Write to me at “THE SOUTHERN
CROSS” and tell me about them. Maybe we
can share them with other mothers.
ir John F
But certain of the faithful who have lived here below in a
of the Saints assured of success? Here we find ourselves in the
But the main significance which the
example. They are as we are. They have
from their youth, but others lived in a
we have
Of their vocation in a herioc manner.
Halt the Air
Immoralities
Joseph A. Breig
“It is no longer business as usual. Someone
has to act.” Thus spoke the president of the Air
Line Pilots Association, John J. O’Donnell, in
sending recommendations to President Richard
M. Nixon for an international attack on the
problems of airplane hijackings.
It was high time, in my judgment, for
someone to act. It was high time that vigorous
steps should be taken to correct one of the
gross immoralities of our time.
Immorality? Yes. The hijackings and
extortions are grievous sins and crimes which
cruelly endanger the lives and property of many
persons. And to my mind, moral principle
demands strong counteraction.
I do not see how it is possible, morally, to
excuse, or to blink at, a situation in which
heartless criminals and psychopaths can board
airliners with weapons, explosive devices and
parachutes on their persons or in their luggage.
This should be made impossible. If making it
impossible involves searching all the luggage and
all the passengers -- and all the mechanics and
crew members and anybody else in contact
with a plane - then so be it.
It is far better to be delayed and searched,
and reach one’s destination safely and serenely,
than to be blown up in midair, or hijacked, or
to spend the trip wondering whether one is
going to get down in one piece.
Neither I nor anybody else has any right to
neglect reasonable steps to protect myself and
others from serious danger.
Something is grossly wrong when men can
board an airliner, emerge at an airport, reach
into their luggage and pull out hand grenades
and machine guns.
Something is grossly wrong when dozens of
innocent persons on their way to and from the
Holy Land can be shot down by hired killers, as
happened at the Tel Aviv airport.
Something is grossly wrong when thugs
endangering the lives of passnegers, crew
members and stewardesses can extort hundreds
of thousands of dollars and parachute into an
American wilderness or a Cental American
jungle, or land in a foreign land with their loot,
as in the case of the hijackers who came down
in Algiers.
One of the recommendations of the Air Line
Pilots Association is that there be an
international boycott by all airlines of any
nation which harbors air pirates. “Even the
Russians,” said O’Donnell, “are with us. They
agree with us on swift, strict punishment.”
So should everyone. This criminality has
gone far too far.
Growing Old
Rev. Joseph Dean
Growing old comes as a shock to many
people who have been active in religious and
community service. When they were young,
they looked upon the personality traits and the
changing role of older people as a sad situation
which no one could possibly desire.
Now they themselves are caught up in this
process of aging. At first, they experience a
temptation to a total withdrawal from their
Christian activities. They are tempted to
discouragement. Their morale begins to
deteriorate. Actually, senior citizens can take
courage from many sources. The best source is
Sacred Scripture. Another source is the
developing field of Adult Education. God’s
grace and His creation of human skills go hand
in hand.
Educators are writing a lot these days about
the effects of learning on the aged and the
effects of aging on learning. They are finding
out that aging and learning do proceed
together. The brain continues to develop. The
experiences of the past help illustrate what is
being learned, and help persons appreciate more
the experiences of others, and help make the
learning process more meaningful. Older people
can weigh peaks anc^depths, joys and tragedies,
and can perceive in a more comprehensive way
than young people.
Yes, there is some loss of vision, some loss of
hearing, some loss of speed in reaction time,
but the capacity tp learn will increase, provided
we continue to develop new interests, new ways
of doing things. We can identify goals better
and travel more effectively towards them. We
are able to set more significant goals than ever
before.
There is more of a sense of accomplishment
and satisfaction. We are able to widen our
range of interests, and values and new areas of
living, through our curiosity and creativity,
through our ability to communicate and to use
leisure time profitably. We must be convinced
that we are never too old to learn; in fact,
“Life Long” learning helps a person have a
longer life.
Learning in older age is more important now
than several generations ago because of
developments in our culture.
If we want to do a favor for our elderly
friends, we can get them interested in some of
the many learning experiences available in our
own newly developing communities today.