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SERVING 88 SOUTH GEORGIA COUNTIES
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 54 No. 3
Thursday, January 18,1973
Single Copy Price — 12 Cents
DEACON AND DAUGHTERS - Permanent deacon marriage at which the deacon officiated was his
David O’Brien and his daughters Anne, 21, and daughters’ double wedding in Perth, Australia. (NC
Margaret, 19, look over a scripture reading. The first Photo
Pope Forms ‘Committee for Family’
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope Paul
VI has set up a Committee for the
Family to forge a unified pastoral
approach to the family throughout the
Catholic Church and its administrative
offices here in the Vatican.
Cardinal Maurice Roy of Quebec is
president. He is also president of the
Pontifical Commissions for Justice and
Peace, and Vatican Council for the
Laity. The new Committee for the
Family will be “linked with the Council
for the Laity without, however, being
dependent upon it,” an official
statement of the Vatican press office
specified.
information about the family, to
promote studies of the family, to
maintain contact with all national or
international efforts to promote family
values, and to develop a pastoral
approach “aimed at the good of the
family and its members.”
The Vatican announcement stated:
“This undertaking of the Holy Father
has no other purpose than that of
achieving in the Church and within the
Roman Curia itself (of which a number
of offices are involved in the problems
of the family and of marriage) a unity
of thought and pastoral orientation to
meet the many aspects and needs of the
family.”
The new committee is run by a
coordinating group consisting of the
president, two vice presidents (one of
(Continued on P?ge 2)
Fr. J. Kevin Boland
Bishop George W. Ahr of Trenton,
N.J., was named a committee consultor.
As has been customary with new
Vatican organisms, the committee for
the Family has been given a temporary
life-span of three years “as an
experiment.”
Its functions will be to follow
problems of marriage and the family as
they evolve, to receive and distribute
INSIDE STORY
....Pg. 4
Movie Ratings
Pg. 6
"Maude” Show
Pg. 7
Readers Reply
Pg. 8
Named Administrator
The Reverend J. Kevin Boland, Pastor
of Savannah’s Blessed Sacrament Parish,
has been elected Administrator of the
Diocese of Savannah. The Diocese
encompasses forty-three parishes in the
Southern half of the State of Georgia
and includes approximately 38,000
Roman Catholics.
The selection of Father Boland was
made at a meeting of the Board of
Diocesan Consultors held on January
11. The Board is composed of a group
of priests who were appointed by the
Most Reverend Gerard L. Frey, former
bishop of the Diocese of Savannah, to
advise and assist him in major affairs of
the Diocese.
As Administrator of the Savannah
Diocese, Father Boland will take over
jurisdiction over the temporal and
spiritual concerns of the Diocese,
exercising that jurisdiction until a new
Bishop is appointed for the Savannah
Diocese by Pope Paul VI. Father
Boland’s powers are approximately
those of a Bishop, except that he may
not ordain priests or appoint pastors for
the parishes of the Diocese. If vacancies
occur, however, he may appoint
administrators to fill them until a new
Bishop is appointed.
Father Boland
New Document Spells Out
Basic Church Teachings
WASHINGTON (NC) - The new 8,000-word document, “Basic
Teachings for Catholic Religious Education,” which has been approved by
the U.S. bishops is a listing of doctrines that are considered an irreducible
minimum of content in religious education.
There is some order in the presentation of doctrines, but it is an order
which is explicitly not one of importance of teaching methodolgy. “This
text does not give guidance concerning a hierarchical order of importance
of doctrines, or concerning methods of religious instruction,” says the
introduction.
Basic Teachings says that there must
be “three themes.. .which carry
through all religious education”: prayer,
liturgical participation and the Bible.
It then lists the basic doctrines about
God who is one and personal, the
Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. It
speaks of the worship of God and the
knowledge of Him.
The document says that creation is
the beginning of the history of man’s
salvation, and Christ, the firstborn of all
creation, is the center of God’s saving
works. Christ, it says, is both man and
God, the savior and redeemer of the
world.
The Holy Spirit, it says, “carries out
Christ’s work in the world” and “is
present in a special way in the
community of those who acknowledge
Christ as Lord, the Church.”
It then speaks of the Church as the
“universal sacrament” and discusses the
seven sacraments as “the principal
actions through which Christ gave His
Spirit to Christians and makes them a
holy people.” The Church’s basic
understanding of the individual
sacraments is then presented “in broad
outline” with special emphasis on the
Eucharist, which “has primacy among
the sacraments.”
A section of the Church’s doctrine on
man is introduced in the context of the
“new man” sanctified by God. While
man’s freedom “has been badly
impaired by the sin of humanity,
original sin,” says the document, “the
resultant weakness is overcome by
grace.”
The document warns that “religious
instruction must not be silent about the
reality of sin, the kinds of sin and the
degree of gravity and personal
willfulness which indicate mortal sin.”
It speaks of the requirements of
Christian morality and the need for a
rightly formed conscience which “must
pay respectful and obedient attention to
the teaching authority of God’s
Church.”
Christian morality is characterized in
terms of “its total relationship to the
love of God, or charity.” But, the
document adds, “The duties and
obligations flowing from love of God
and man are to be taught in specific,
practical fashion.” The “overall
framework” for this teaching, it says,
should be the Ten Commandments and
the Sermon on the Mount, “especially
the Beatitudes.”
In two appendices, the document
summarizes:
- The Ten Commandments and the
eight Beatitudes.
Some “specific duties of
Catholics,” including the traditional
Precepts of the Church.
The section on morality is concluded
with a listing of basic duties that the
Christian has towards God, his fellow
man, and himself. “Obviously this
listing does not cover all morality or
immorality,” it says. “But it indicates
the practical approach which will help
the Christian to form a right conscience,
choose what is always right, avoid sin
and the occasions of sin, and live in this
world according to the Spirit of Christ
in love of God.”
The Church “founded by Christ” is
discussed as the people of God, as an
institution for salvation and as a
community. The document speaks of
the“unity of all men under God” and
the quest for Christian unity.
It speaks of Mary as the “Mother of
God, Mother and Model of the Church,”
and calls for religious instruction that
will “lead students to see Mary as
singularly blessed and relevant to their
own lives and needs.”
Finally, the Basic Teachings
document discusses what religious
education ought to say about the saints,
death, judgment and eternity.
The extensively footnoted document
took two years to prepare. During that
time it underwent numerous revisions as
the result of extensive consultation with
bishops, theologians and educators.
The final version was approved by the
Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy,
the congregation which was responsible
for the General Catechetical Directory
(GCD) which the Vatican published in
1971. The American document is
essentially a rewritten version of the
GCD chapter on “The More
Outstanding Elements of the Christian
Message,” but it is a version adapted to
American culture.
It is not an American National
Catechetical Directory. A bishops’
committee has been formed to develop
a national directory adapted to the
situation in the United States, and the
National Catechetical Directory and
Basic Teachings will be complementary
documents.
The Directory is intended to provide
the basic principles of pastoral theology,
discussing the whole process of
catechesis (teaching the faith). The
Basic Teachings document is meant to
be only one component of that - the
minimum content of the faith.
A third American document, the U.S.
bishops’ 1972 pastoral letter “To Teach
As Jesus Did,” is also a complementary
document. It outlines the philosophy
underlying the Church’s extensive
involvement in Christian education and
discusses the institutional structures
used to deliver the Christian message.
AWAY WE GO - A tobogganist finds that his technique needs polishing
as he is thrown for a loop at the bottom of a hill. (NC Photo by Robert L.
Miller)
Wj
HEADLINE
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HOPSCOTCH
Priests’ Senate
Elections were held during the first week of January for Deanery representatives to
the Diocesan Priests’ Senate. Those elected are: Rev. Ralph Seikel, Savannah Deanery;
Rev. Raphael Toner, S.T. , Macon Deanery; Rev. Roy Cox, Columbus Deanery; Rev.
Robert Baker, Valdosta-Brunswick Deanery; Rev. Frank Patterson, Augusta Deanery;
Rev. Clement Borchers, Statesboro Deanery; Rev. Patrick Adams, O.F.M., Albany
Deanery.
Controversial Mural
FERROS, Brazil (NC) - This mining town of 5,000 people is divided over the value
of a church mural showing Adam and Eve as they came into Paradise, in the nude. The
artist, Iara Tupinaba, is being supported by the town’s mayor, Jose Virgilio Goncalves,
and the pastor, Father Jose Cassimiro. The priest said he will not cover the mural
unless ordered to do so by his bishop. Others in the town called the painting
“immoral” and said they will not attend religious services in the church as long as the
mural is there.