Newspaper Page Text
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PAGE 2 — The Southern Cross, January 11,1973
Hijacker Felt CardinaVs
Compassion, Priest Says
CARDINAL IS AIRPORT HERO -- Surrounded by man had taken over a plane at Baltimore’s Friendship
reporters, Cardinal Lawrence Shehan of Baltimore Airport and demanded to see the cardinal and the
tells how he and a psychiatrist talked'with an airline doctor. (NC Photo)
hijacker who eventually surrendered to them. The
Election of 2nd Black
Bishop Called ‘Hopeful’
BALTIMORE (NC) — Cardinal
Lawrence Shehan approached a
would-be plane hijacker with the
compassion and understanding that he
shows to all people, according to a
priest who witnessed the incident at
Friendship Airport here.
“It was just the way he does
everything,” said Msgr. Paul Love. “It
was just the cardinal acting as he always
does .. .The cardinal didn’t give any
thought to the danger involved. He saw
it as part of his priesthood.”
Card. Shehan, a psychiatrist and an
FBI agent managed to convince the man
to surrender peacefully after he had
held two stewardesses and the agent
hostage at gunpoint on a Piedmont
airlines plane Jan. 2.
No one knows exactly why Charles
A. Wenige asked that Cardinal Shehan
be brought to the airport, but Msgr.
Love said, “Perhaps he saw in the
cardinal someone who would be
compassionate, understanding and
interested.”
And, Msgr. Love said, that was the
way Cardinal Shehan acted as he talked
to Wenige first over a radio and then in
person.
The drama began at about 7 p.m.,
soon after Cardinal Shehan and Msgr.
Love had finished dinner at the rectory
of the Basilica of the Assumption here.
Msgr. Love is the basilica rector;
Cardinal Shehan lives at the rectory.
“The cardinal had a touch of the flu,
but he didn’t tell the FBI when they
phoned,” Msgr. Love said. “He
responded immediately.”
Later, the cardinal was unable to be
interviewed because of his illness.
Soon after the call, Cardinal Shehan
and Msgr. Love were sitting in FBI cars
parked behind the plane. Msgr. Love,
seated in another car, could see Cardinal
Shehan speak to Wenige over a radio.
Later the cardinal said that he tried to
convince the man to give up and told
him he would not be hurt.
“Then,” Msgr. Love said, “the man
released the two stewardesses, and the
cardinal talked to him again over the
radio for about 15 minutes.”
The cardinal then walked to the front
of the plane to show himself to Wenige.
“A few minutes later the man walked
down the steps with the FBI agent
(Thomas Farrow) at his side. Cardinal
Shehan met him at the bottom of the
steps and talked to him for a few
minutes.”
Inside the airport Wenige again talked
to Cardinal Shehan. Msgr. Love
recognized Wenige as a former
parishioner and spoke to him briefly.
“He responded quite well to the
cardinal,” Msgr. Love said. “The
cardinal was very paternal - not
paternalistic.”
“The conversation was mostly words
of encouragement - that he should seek
help and should want to keep on living.
He was very depressed at that point.”
“I think the cardinal’s presence and
the way the FBI handled the situation
contributed to the atmosphere of
calm,” Msgr. Love said, The priest
praised the FBI for “professional
control.” The agents were heavily
armed, “calm but alert for trouble,” he
said.
Wenige, a Catholic who lived in
Baltimore but had never before met
Cardinal Shehan, showed “respect and
dependence” toward him, Msgr. Love
said. “It was as if he felt protected, that
he saw in the cardinal the Archbishop of
Baltimore and he trusted the cardinal as
the Archbishop of Baltimore.
As agents took Wenige away, Msgr.
Love said, the man shook hands with
Cardinal Shehan and kissed his ring “at
least three times.”
Then, after an hour and a half at the
airport, the priest and 74-year-old
cardinal went home. “Typically, Msgr.
Love said, “the cardinal summed it up.
He said to me, ‘Well you just can’t tell
what’s going to happen these days.’ ”
Left $5
In Will
BOSTON (NC) — John Ross Truman,
great nephew of the late president,
received only $5 from the estate of
Harry S. Truman because he was
studying for the priesthood when the
supplement to the will was written.
Truman, who left the seminary to
study law and who became a member of
F. Lee Bailey’s law firm, said 15 other
great nephews and nieces received $500
each from the deceased chief executive.
“As a priest, I never could have
accepted the $500 and that’s why Uncle
Harry made the bequest as he did,”
Truman said.
Truman said he left the seminary,
located in St. Louis, when Truman was
about 81 years old. He added that no
changes were made in the will after he
left the seminary and he did not ask for
any.
BY JOHN MAHER
WASHINGTON (NC) - Father
Joseph Howze, who will be ordained
auxiliary bishop of the
Natchez-Jackson, Miss, diocese Jan. 28,
has been elected president of the
National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus
(NBCCC).
Bishop-elect Howze was elected on
the fifth ballot between hinself and
Father August Thompson of Mansura,
La., at the recent annual NBCCC
conference here, according to Marist
Brother Joseph C. Hager, NBCCC
executive director.
Bishop-elect Howze’s program
includes:
-Strengthening present NBCCC
membership and developing new
relations with other organizations of
black churchmen.
-Establishing an office for director of
vocations and initiating a program of
recruitment of candidates for the
priesthood, Brotherhood and permanent
diaconate.
-Development of a program for the
establishment of a national black
theological center and promotion of the
academic value of the black experience
from a theological perspective.
-Assisting in the higher education
WASHINGTON (NC) - Feasibility of
a national pastoral council is greater
than it has been since the idea was
formally introduced in 1970, according
to a special committee of the U.S.
Bishops’ Advisory Council.
Specialists in history, education,
and development of priests, Religious,
permanent deacons and seminarians
through professional training sessions,
institutes, workshops and lectures.
The election of Bishop-elect Howze is
a sign of hope, and it “gives us an added
voice in the bishops’ conference,”
Brother Hager said.
Bishop-elect Howze said that as
NBCCC president he is going to try to
“reach out to everyone,” Brother Hager
said. “He hopes to be able to move
across the country to visit every black
parish, and to visit seminarians studying
for the black community.”
Brother Hager, who became NBCCC
executive director a year ago, said the
organization has b'een “very effective”
in making black priests “aware of their
growing responsibility toward the black
community.” A series of workshops has
made white priests, Religious and
teachers who work in black
communities more aware of their
Christian responsibilities toward those
communities, he said.
The organization has emphasized
having black priests appointed pastors in
black parishes, he said, and five such
appointments were made during the
past year.
Although efforts to have black and
Indian Catholics determine how money
theology, canon law and other fields
met (Dec. 27-29) at Marriotsville, Md.,
Spiritual Center to explore questions
relating to a national pastoral council
(NPC).
The 10-man interdisciplinary
committee was set up by the advisory
council to provide “ongoing scholarly
taken up by the annual collection for
the Indian and Negro missions should be
used did not succeed, Brother Hager
said, the National Office for Black
Catholics, of which the NBCCC is a
part, “had a very successful fund-raising
drive” in the black community.
“Our programs for next year will be
funded and operable,” he said. The
success of the drive “shows that the
black community wants the NOBC to
exist,” he sa‘id.
Plans to establish a national seminary
for black candidates for the priesthood
are still pending. “We see a very definite
need,” Brother Hager said, “for a
graduate school of theology, of ministry
for developing skills in people who are
going to work in the black community.”
The NBCCC is not at present actively
pressing for the appointment of a black
bishop to replace Cardinal Patrick
O’Boyle of Washington who has offered
his resignation, Brother Hager said.
However, he said, “We haven’t
forgotten about the need for an
Ordinary (a bishop presiding over a
diocese) where there is a large black
population and a significant
concentration of black Catholics.” The
only black bishops in the United States
are both auxiliaries, Bishop-elect Howze
and Auxiliary Bishop Harold Perry of
New Orleans.
exploration” of questions relating to a
National Pastoral Council.
The NPC has been described as a
national body representing many
segments of the Church which would
meet periodically to discuss issues of
concern to the Church and society and
would make the results of its discussions
available on a consultative basis to
Church leadership.
A year ago the U.S. bishops approved
a report from the advisory council in
which it concluded that an NPC while
desirable was not immediately feasible.
At Marriotsville, the interdisciplinary
committee did not suggest that the NPC
was yet feasible but gave some
encouragement that such a council was
at least more feasible. As positive signs,
the committee cited:
- The admission of laity, priests and
Religious as observers at National
Conference of Catholic Bishops
meetings.
The advisory council’s
recommendation that regional pastoral
consultations be held in the spring of
1973, and the probability that a number
of regions will be represented by priests,
Religious and lay persons.
- A survey of diocesan and parish
councils showing continued growth in
these groups. (A survey conducted
earlier this year noted that out of 137
dioceses, 126 had established a pastoral
council or were planning one.
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BISHOPS^ ADVISORY GROUP SA YS:
Pastoral Council ‘More Feasible’