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PAGE 4 — The Southern Cross, January 18,1973
The Southern Cross
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Peace And ...
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Loss of Real Talent i
In Washington
Reverend Andrew M. Greeley
Copyright 1973, Inter/Syndicate
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If peace is the work of justice, then
brotherhood is the face of justice.
Hence, there is no climate for peace, no
desire for brotherhood, unless we all
thirst for justice. And here we are not
too concerned about legalism; rather we
speak of justice as it relates to man’s
dealing with man - love, hate, pride,
humility, anger, meekness, greed,
sharing, and all the other vices and
virtues which attend our daily lives.
We must accept the fact that all this
has some place in the follow-through on
Vatican Council II. The Council Fathers
did not change the Church or its
doctrine. They set about the task of
erasing the centuries of dust which had
somewhat obscured the masterpiece of
Christianity. They up-dated the methods
through which the Church continues
Christ’s mission on earth. Reform and
renewal is not a cliche. It is the urgent
need. If we are to be renewed in Christ,
we must reform as individuals and then
as the community which we call the
Church.
Where does peace and brotherhood fit
in? Everywhere! Peace is the major
theme of the pontificate of Pope Paul
VI. And he has shown the finest
examples of brotherhood in his
pilgrimages to almost all the continents
of the earth. He emphasizes the basic
unity of the human race.
We are all made in the image and
likeness of God. It is sound Catholic
doctrine. Let us see if we can bring it
down to everyday life.
When we look at a photo of ourselves,
our first reaction could be: “This is very
elevating theology. There is no doubt
about it. I am made in the image and
likeness of God. How lucky God is.”
Secondly, we might react: “When I look
at my neighbor I begin to have doubts. It
is difficult to see the image and likeness
Last weekend, spurred by an irrepressible
craving for homemade coffeecake, and 12
packages of yeast that were about to “expire,”
I spent a day making yeast dough. I found a
recipe in my “Freezer Cook Book” that is
supposed to make enough dough to last a
family for a month. With my eight kids, I
figured it would last about two days.
I hadn’t baked in years, and now I wonder
why. There is something theraputic about
kneading a batch of dough. I don’t know if it’s
the physical exertion it requires, the
anticipation of all the goodies to eat, or if it’s
something of a primitive instinct that makes
you want to do something old-fashioned.
The recipe called for using a very large bowl.
I don’t have any bowl big enough, and used two
large soup pots.
My oldest son came in with his girl friend.
She looked over the tremendous pots of stuff,
and asked, “What are you doing? It smells
funny?”
Two seconds later, she was helping knead
dough.
I’ll never forget the first time I tried to knead
dough, years ago. The recipe I was using said
that if the dough stuck to your fingers, simply
add a bit more flour. It didn’t say what to do if
you had the dough stuck all the way up to your
elbows.
By the time I added enough flour so I could
handle the dough, I had bread that would have
made excellent building blocks.
I finally learned that you DON’T add more
flour . . .you keep buttering your hands!
We soon had two pots of dough rising on the
stove. The kids wanted to know if it was
growing because the yeast is alive. When I
punched it down, one of the little ones wailed,
“You killed it!”
After dinner, four loaves of bread were
rising, while I was rolling out cinnamon buns
and coffeecakes. As the kids were getting ready
for bed, the house was filled with the inimitable
fragrance of yeast bread, cinnamon, brown
sugar and currants.
X f
of God in him for he has a big nose and
flat feet. And there’s that fellow at work
or school - he doesn’t even have the same
colqr as God.”
Of course, it is difficult. Religion is
never easy. Our neighbor is the image of
God, just as we are. We may not like the
way he walks, talks or combs his hair.
We may not like his taste in clothes. We
may not like the things he says behind
our backs. In short, we just do not like
him (nor he, us, for the same reasons).
But we cannot say that we love God and
say that we despise our neighbor. As St.
James tells us “Whoever says he loves
God and hates his neighbor is a liar.”
In all our searching for peace we
should begin with the recognition of
God’s likeness to everyone, because
everyone in the world is made in the
image of the other. What a difference it
would make for peace and brotherhood
if everyone did justice to his neighbor
and saw in him, not an enemy, not a
bore, not a nuisance, but a creature
made to the image of God.
Maybe we are getting a little too
subtle. Or is it that we are finally coming
to grips with a major problem in human
relations? Is the lack of peace in the
world a question of false values? Is it
that we do not see God anywhere but in
ourselves? And if so, is it not because we
believe we are our own little God
destined to flout the true God through
pride and avarice? A true recognition of
the image and likeness of God is possible
through a mirror. The only time it means
anything is when we see it in our
neighbor. When did we last see our
neighbor? When did we last see God?
When we have found the answers to these
questions we will have taken the first
steps to peace through brotherhood.
Justice automatically follows. (The
Monitor - San Francisco)
One of the girls was in the kitchen as I took
the first pan from the oven. “Go check who’s
still awake. Any one who wants can have some
cinnamon buns.”
In seconds the kitchen was crawling with
kids.
“Boy .. .Mom .. .this is GOOD!” “Can I
have another?” “Why don’t you make this all
the time?”
My number two son was on the telephone
with a girl who lives around the corner. When
he’s not there, and she’s not here .. .they’re on
the telephone.
He excused himself from the conversation
for a minute, ran to the kitchen, grabbed a bun,
and was back on the phone in a flash.
I don’t know what he talks about for hours
to the girl because he rarely says two words
around the house.
As he was headed back to the phone, he
called, “Not bad, Ma.”
Seconds later he was back in the kitchen.
“Can I have two buns and go meet my girl
friend on the corner? She’s got a roast beef
sandwich. She’ll trade me half a sandwich for
two buns.”
Then back on the phone .. .He hadn’t hung
it up. They still had to compare notes on the
shared snack.
Twenty minutes later, he came down looking
for more buns.
I asked, “How was your sandwich?”
“Good. But she says your cinnamon buns are
great!”
The next morning the kids took sandwiches
to school on homemade bread. That night, we
again had a bedtime snack of hot coffee cake.
For me it was a sort of caloric “lost
weekend.” I found all I lost the next morning
when I got on the scale.
This is going to be a peculiar column. I am
writing in defense of a man for whom I was
once a confessor. (Note to Dale Francis, Dan
Lyons, Frank Morris, Paul Hallett and other
such types: l am not going to violate the seal of
confession, fellows, so put down your
thumbscrews.) The man’s name is Robert A.
Podesta. The president has just fired him from
his post as Assistant Secretary of Commerce.
Podesta has been a loyal and diligent
Republican for a long time and a loyal
supporter of Mr. Nixon for as long as I’ve
known him. He even supported Nixon in 1960,
a fact for which I hope his Irish ancestors will
forgive him, though I shall not. Four years ago
he was appointed head of the Economic
Development Administration, an agency which
supports income-producing projects in
underdeveloped areas of the United States.
According to all the Washington contacts I
have, Podesta did a remarkably effective job in
this post. One highly placed White House staff
member remarked to me a couple of years ago,
“There aren’t very many effective people over
in Commerce, but he is at the top of the list.”
Even more important was the reaction of the
civil service personnel in the agency. As one
said to me - without knowing of my friendship
with his boss -- “Most of these business types
that come to town during Republican
administrations never learn what’s going on and
turn out to be rotten administrators. Bob
learned right away. What’s more,” and my
informant shook his head in amused disbelief,
“he actually seems to like the job. I guess that’s
why he’s so good at it.”
The EDA is the sort of American capitalistic
venture that Richard Nixon, if he really were
the kind of American Disraeli that Pat
Moynihan has tried to persuade him that he is,
ought to support with whatever vigor he is able
to muster. But if you need money to bomb
Asian coolies back to the Stone Age, you can’t
afford to support economic development in the
United States. So the EDA appropriations bill
was vetoed and Bob Podesta was shipped back
to Chicago (along with his boss, Secretary of
Commerce Peterson, who spent too much time
in Georgetown and was too friendly with
Senator Percy for the beetle-browed
troglodytes on the President’s staff).
The republicans obviously have a large
supply of intelligent, efficient and imaginative
administrators and can afford to waste talent.
Podesta’s real crime was not merely that he
supported a program that the Disneyland
lawyers who currently run the country didn’t
like. His sin was that he is smart and
independent. There is no room in the present
administration for anyone with those two
qualities - as one can easily see in going over
the list of his recent appointments. With the
exception of George Shultz, Mr. Nixon’s
cabinet is one of the worst collections of
nonentities ever assembled.
The Podesta family will not starve. Nor will
Bob’s restless, creative personality long lack for
new challenges. The problem is not that one
man has been stupidly and shabbily treated.
The problem is that for four years the country
will be run by nitwits of negative I.Q.’s while
real talent, even real Republican talent, goes to
waste.
Monsignor John F
: I have noticed a
me what it is.
The book to which you have reference is the new
Sundays and other occasions. It is a provisional text prepared b
Committee on English in the Liturgy, approved for interim use in
Committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and
It is part of the ongoing general revision of the Roman Missal
3, 1969, Pope Paul VI promulgated the new Roman Missal ”
missal of Saint Pius V. prepared by decree of the Coi
the Western Church with texts and guidelines for
370
The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, in
“Both texts and rites should be drawn up so
lify” (art. 21).
more clea
may be more easily accomplished” (art. 50).
ttp more lavishly, so
Word” (art. 51). “A new rite for concelebration
the Roman Pontifical and Missal” (art. 58),
The revision of the missal (1964-1970) was a gigantic and arduous task. In order that
the fruits of the reform might be readily achieved, the missal was published in parts. The
General Instruction or preface of the book and the rite or Order of Mass (Ordo Missae)
were published in 1969, as was the Lectionary for Mass. The large collection of Mass
formularies was published in 1970 as the Missale Romanum'; the Latin edition
incorporated the new General Instruction and the rite or Order of Mass.
The Sacramentary contains the Mass formularies for all Sundays and for those
solemnities and feasts which may occur on Sunday. Some ritual Masses (baptism,
confirmation, marriage, and funerals) and Masses for special American celebrations have
also been included. The Order of Mass with its many options has been incorporated so
that this provisional Sacramentary can be a complete substitute for the present
Sacramentary' on Sundays and these other occasions. In addition, it will be of use on the
of the ordinary Sundays
Nothin’ Spells Lovin’ Like
Somethin’ from the Oven
Mary Carson
A Shield
For
Reporters?
Joseph A. Breig
Following the jailing of two reporters,
newspapers began demanding passage of special
“shield” laws to protect newspeople from being
required, by courts and grand juries, to disclose
sources of information, even when such
disclosure is considered necessary to expose
crimes.
My sympathies, as a longtime journalist,
naturally tend toward the newspeople’s side,
even though I can imagine gross abuses of legal
immunity by questionable characters calling
themselves reporters for questionable
publications. But in the light of certain
considerations which have come to my
attention, it may be that the media have fouled
their own case by less-than-honest reporting of
it.
The two jailed newsmen were Peter Bridge
and William Farr. The media said they had been
jailed for declining to disclose to public
authorities the sources from which they had
obtained certain information-sources to whom
they had promised anonymity.
Relying on the media accounts, the
Jesuit-edited magazine AMERICA took the side of
the reporters. This brought two letters to the
magazine.
John D. MacGregor of San Francisco wrote
that neither Farr nor Bridge had been jailed for
any legitimate protection of an information
source. In fact, he said, Bridge did name his
source-a housing commissioner who alleged
that someone had tried to bribe him.
MacGregor said that Bridge was jailed for
refusing to answer questions, answers to which
might either have exposed the identity of the
would-be briber, or have exposed Bridge’s
article as baseless.
As for Farr, MacGregor wrote that Farr
admitted publishing a pre-trial deposition in the
Sharon Tate murder case-a deposition given
under court authority, and ordered by the
court to be withheld until the witness had
testified.
Farr said he got the deposition from a
defense attorney. If so, surely he must have
known that the attorney was violating law and
also violating his own oath and integrity as an
officer of the court. What possible right, then,
could Farr have had for accepting the
deposition, publishing it, and promising
anonymity to the attorney?
The other letter to AMERICA magazine called
attention to a book in which Anson Phelps
Stokes indicated that “privileged
communication” (shield) laws are not based on
any rights of lawyers, priests or physicians, but
on the rights of clients, penitents and patients.
And in the case (for example) of gunshot
wounds, the physician must report to
authorities. By what reason, the letter inquired,
should reporters be granted an immunity
denied to lawyers, priests and doctors as
professional people? Can informers be
considered to have the same right to anonymity
as patients, penitents and clients?
I would guess that I am not alone in
wondering what the press, radio and TV would
have to say in reply to those letters.
Beginning
Again
Rev. James Wilmes
Pessimists warn against trying to teach old
dogs new tricks; but a healthy optimist
counters, “It’s never too late to begin again.”
“To begin,” that is, to break free of the old
patterns and ways and habits established in
early life before we started to think for
ourselves, dealing with real rather than
imagined situations.
Psychologists say that the patterns of life are
set before one is five years old. Thereafter,
unguided and inexperienced youth often wastes
the only years free enough from responsibility
to allow time for study and pursuit of what
helps us most in life. If it is true that youth is
wasted on the young, the comedy or tragedy of
each human life is that it is planned by an
urchin of pre-school age, who has a very limited
knowledge of the world and its ways, and
whose heart is filled mainly by stuff put there
by his parents.
Some say, “life begins at 40,” or even 50 or
60 or 80, - but at least let it begin TODAY!
Somewhere along the life-line, there comes the
time to break out of the role adopted too early.
We must begin again, but this time with greater
knowledge and wisdom, this time with one’s
own heart and mind, and feel what is real, just
as if we had died and been born again with all
the memories, knowledge and values from our
first life.
If the time of liberation and renewal is long
overdue for you, take courage from this
thought: you have within you all it takes of
experience, reason, and clarity to live life day
by day as yourself, and no longer as a character
in some role scripted by your urchin-self of
long ago. Whereas the urchin role ever seeks self
and what it can get, true liberation and self
renewal follows the generous victimhood of
Jesus, serving all men for no reward other than
pleasing His Father.