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Public Housing Halt
Criticized by Bishop
DENVER (NC) - News that the
White House plans a moratorium on
public housing drew an angry response
from Auxiliary Bishop George Evans
who is in charge of the housing program
for the Denver archdiocese.
“I think it is terribly distressing,”
Bishop Evans said. “It just seems to me
that we do have a lot of problems but
the government instead of working for
solutions says that the problems are too
great and therefore we will stop the
entire program ...”
The bishop said that he was truly
fearful that the moratorium would go
into effect “unless there is a great
enough national outcry to stop such a
moratorium.”
The bishop pointed out that the
archdiocese has five housing sites in
Denver, and that new housing programs
are under study at three or four other
sites. He expressed concern that the
proposed housing will be stopped, at
least temporarily.
A moratorium would halt
construction of some 150 new housing
units, said Bishop Evans.
Bishop Evans said that he believes the
government is following the wrong
approach in trying to solve the problems
of public housing by declaring a
moratorium.
The more logical approach would be
for the government to take steps to
solve the problems and to cure the
things that are wrong. The task is so
great, the bishop said, that only the
federal government can solve it.
Bishop Evans also emphasized that
his criticism of the moratorium was not
an attack on the Republican Party, but
rather was directed to the lack of an
all-out commitment by the nation to
provide adequate housing for all
Americans.
The bishop admitted that there have
been many problems in the housing
programs in the country. Some
speculators have made large sums of
money on the projects, and some
projects have been too large, he said.
The problems facing the government
in housing, however, will not be solved
by the government’s walking away from
such difficulties, Bishop Evans said.
Rather, he said, the government should
go all out to solve these problems.
Gen. Franco Explains
His Stand with Church
MADRID (NC) ~ Gen. Francisco
Franco said in his 1973 message to
Spaniards that if he has favored the
Catholic Church, he has not sought
personal recognition but the good of the
nation.
The 80-year-old ruler who came to
power in the aftermath of the 1936-39
Civil War added, however, that
“Church-State relations must be based
on full independence from each other.”
The chief of state, appearing on
television, did not look well. His voice
was weaker than on previous similar
occasions.
However he gave hope to many
citizens that a program of moderate
transition will follow his resignation or
death. Indication of this was his
statement that he will stay at the helm
“for the time I can continue to serve
with efficiency the course of the nation,
God willing.”
He outlined a series of government
moves aimed at wider participation in
politics - thus far all political groups
but the government’s National
Movement are banned - greater freedom
of opinion against the present
background of muted censorship, and a
slow-down in the spiraling cost of living.
On the subject of Church-state
relations, which have been marked by
conflict during negotiations for a change
in the Vatican-Spanish concordat, Gen.
Franco said:
“Whatever we have done and will do
for the Church we do it following our
Christian conscience, without thought
of earning applause or recognition.
“Our government has responded to
the Catholic beliefs of most of our
people maintaining for decades an
attitude of respect and cooperation with
the Church. We provided all kinds of
support in the fulfillment of its sacred
mission in our society.”
The concordat negotiations are at a
standstill over the issue of present
state-control over the appointment of
bishops, a centuries-old privilege the
Franco government is hesitant to give
up without, at the same time, revising
subsidies and other state privileges the
Church enjoys in Spain.
In the only reference to a successor,
Gen. Franco praised the social and
diplomatic endeavors of Prince Carlos
de Borbon, who according to the results
of a 1947 plebiscite is to rule Spain
under a monarchy if Franco steps down
or dies.
For the Catholic daily Ya. the
general’s New Year’s message
represented “a hopeful message, yet to
be implemented.” It contrasted the
moderate tone of the televised speech
with recent “hard utterances” by
Franco aides.
THE BALL GOES THERE -- Thanks to a low camera angle, it looks like
only a short reach for assistant coach Obie Duffy of Bellarmine College in
Louisville to put the ball in the basket. But from where six-year-old
Jimmy Desmond stands, it’s a long, long way. Jimmy is one of the “junior
pros” being trained by Bellarmine coach Joe Reibel. (NC Photo)
PAGE 3 — January 18,1973
PRIESTS ORDAINED AT VATICAN -- This photo, taken from high minor illness. The Epiphany Sunday ceremony included candidates from
above the main altar at St. Peter’s Basilica, shows the men being ordained 16 countries. (NC Photo)
priests by Pope Paul during his first public appearance since suffering a
Non-Public School Aid Commitment Restated
WASHINGTON (NC) - Nixon
administration officials have restated to
public and nonpublic school
superintendents meeting here President
Nixon’s “forcefully stated intention to
provide financial relief to the parent of
nononpublic school children in
whatever ways that prove to be
compatible with the Constitution.”
Dr. Sidney P. Marland Jr., assistant
secretary for education in the
Department of Health, Education and
Welfare, made that statement in an
opening address to the conference
sponsored by HEW’s Office of
Education.
Marland recalled that the
administration supported the movement
in the last session of Congress to porvide
tax credits to parents for tuition paid to
nonpublic schools and added that “as I
WASHINGTON (NC) - Pro-life
groups expressed cautious optimism
after hearing that, the government has
temporarily halted plans to distribute to
public schools and colleges a
controversial film advocating legal
abortion.
At the same time, government
officials connected with the proposed
distribution candidly pointed to pro-life
groups as being the cause in halting the
program.
“It is not a technical decision now,
it’s a political decision,” said Dr. Louis
M. Heilman, assistant secretary for
population affairs in the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare.”
Heilman said that anti-abortion
groups had applied pressures to the
White House. These pressures, said
Heilman, have caused HEW Secretary
Elliot Richardson to call a halt to the
project.
HEW had authorized a total of
$170,000 for the project which
included $120,000 in Office of
Education funds to purchase study
guides for student and teacher use with
the film’s showing.
The White House investigation was
started by the office of John Erlichman,
one of President Nixon’s advisors, after
the Nov. 29 nationwide televising of a
filmed version of findings made by
President Nixon’s Commission of
Population Growth and the American
Future.
It was an edited version of that film,
along with study guide material, that
was to be distributed by HEW to the
schools. The edited version was done by
a privately financed non-profit
organization, Public Education, Inc.
The main objection that pro-life
groups have had against the edited
version is that it is based on the first
hour of a two-hour program aired Nov.
test the breeze, that effort will be
revived in the current session.”
In a discussion of options in public
school finance, Dr. Reed Saunders,
chairman of an HEW task force on
school finance, included nonpublic
school participation as one of the
conditions in each of the four
alternative models for federal aid to
education that he outlined.
In his talk, Marland emphasized the
value of improving communications
between public and nonpublic school
educators and of “creating a sense of
commonality as educators of all
children, with universal values about our
task.”
Improved communication, he said,
would enable officials of both school
systems to see “that there isn’t going to
be an either/or survival in the big cities
for public and private schools in a sort
29 over Public Broadcasting Service
(PBS) television stations. The three
major commercial networks have
refused to air it.
The objection from pro-life groups
over the edited version is that it is based
mainly on the first hour of the televised
program. That segment dealth mainly
with arguments in favor of holding
down population growth through
of ‘High Noon’ showdown. Both
systems are going to survive and to
prosper in some manner, shape, or form
or, quite frankly, we may come to face
the unthinkable possibility that neither
will survive in any hopeful and effective
form.”
Marland said that federal officials had
found that “in too many instances,”
nonpublic school children who are
eligible for federal assistance have not
shared equitably with public school
children.
“We are talking about law, not
prejudices or opinions,” he said, “and
are determined to correct this
inequitable use of public money, and we
have called upon all public and
nonpublic authorities to assist us in
making absolutely certain that federal
education programs are administered
various means, including legalized
abortion.
Mrs. Randy Engel of Pittsburgh,
executive director of the United States
Coalition for Life, said that her group
would like HEW to cease its
involvement in a program that promotes
the views of those in favor of abortion.
But if that is not possible, she said, most
pro-life groups would hope that an
according to the precise intention of the
law in this respect.”
Marland noted that while 98 percent
of eligible nonpublic school children are
participating in Title II of the
Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 1965 and nonpublic school
participation in Title I has improved
substantially,” a recent U.S. Catholic
Conference survey indicated that more
than three-quarters of all Catholic
School superintendents believe Title III
is not being administered fairly, and
that more than 12 percent feel that
prospects for improvement are so bleak
that the law should simply be dropped.
“We hope to show them,” he said,
“that improvement in this situation is
not only possible, but inevitable. It is
law, and we have no discretion to escape
it.”
Of Film
equal number of film prints be made of
the second hour of the program. The
second hour was a panel discussion in
which pro-life exponents criticized the
Population Commission’s findings.
She said furthermore that HEW
should provide an equivalent amount of
money which would allow pro-life
groups to produce their own teaching
aids for the schools.
MASS FOR BOGGS IN NEW ORLEANS - More than
1,000 persons attended a Resurrection Mass in St.
Louis Cathedral in New Orleans for T. Hale Boggs, the
House majority leader who was lost during an Alaskan
flight. Offertory gifts are presented to Archbishop
Philip Hannan by Boggs’ grandchildren, David Sigmund
and Elizabeth Boggs. Holding the ciborium is Boggs’
brother, Jesuit Father Robert Boggs, who
concelebrated the Mass along with the archbishop and
Father Reinhard Stumpf, C.S.R., pastor of the Boggs
family parish in New Orleans. (NC Photo by Frank
Methe and Hal Ledet)
edited version QE EQEULd tion commission report
Temporary Halt To Distribution