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Pro-Life Attorneys Question
Wisdom of Court Justices
BY LOUIS A. PANARALE
(NC News Service)
GOODBYE TO THE DELEGATE -- Archbishop
Luigi Raimondi, apostolic delegate in the United States
since 1967, visits President Richard M. Nixon in the
White House Oval Room for a farewell conversation.
PAGE 3-March 8,1973
The archbishop received a new assignment when he
was made a cardinal at a consistory in Rome March 5.
(NC Staff Photo)
New San Juan Cardinal
Had a Dream...Still Has
If there was reticence among pro-life
leaders to criticize the U.S. Supreme
Court’s Jan. 22 rulings on abortion, that
reticience virtually disappeared when
the court nailed down its decision a
month later.
“Amateurish, mediocre, unscholarly”
were among some of the more
descriptive adjectives used by pro-life
leaders in the legal field who saw their
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Continuing
to make room for shifts in the Roman
Curia, the Church’s central
administration, Pope Paul VI accepted
the resignations of three more curial
cardinals.
With the resignations Feb. 28 of
Cardinals Guiseppe Ferretto, Maximilian
de Furstenberg and Paolo Bertoli six
cardinals had left curial posts in the
week preceding the consistory March 5
in which the Pope created 30 new
cardinals.
Among other new Vatican changes,
Pope Paul named Father Jerome Hamer
of Belgium secretary of the Doctrinal
Congregation. The priest, who at the
time of his new appointment was
secretary of the Vatican Secretariat for
Promoting Christian Unity, takes the
place of his fellow Dominican,
Cardinal-elect Paul Philippe.
Moving to the Christian unity
secretariat as secretary is Msgr. Charles
Moeller, another Belgian, who was
undersecretary at the Doctrinal
Congregation.
Father Hamer has a wide reputation
in Rome for theological learning and
acumen.
Msgr. Moeller has long been active in
faint hopes for court appeals snuffed
out on Feb. 26.
With appeals still pending in Texas
and Georgia, with other petitions
pending, the pro-life leaders were still
hoping for the legal door to be left at
least slightly ajar.
But on Feb. 26 the high court refused
to reconsider its earlier decision striking
down the Texas and Georgia abortion
laws. It also returned other cases to
lower tribunals in nine states, and
dismissed the appeal of the Fordham
University law professor who was
ecumenical affairs. He has attended
many meetings of the World Council of
Churches and was the first rector of the
Ecumenical Institute for Advanced
Theological Study in Jerusalem. He is
also the author of a standard work on
early Christology and is an expert on
Syrian and Byzantine culture.
Cardinal De Furstenberg was prefect
of the Vatican Congregation for
Eastern-rite Churches and Cardinal
Bertoli was prefect of the Congregation
for Saints’ Causes. Cardinal Ferretto was
major penitentiary, who acts in the
Pope’s behalf as a dispenser of mercy
and absolver of censures.
None of those three cardinals has
reached the normal retirement age of
75, which suggested the possibility that
the Pope had other posts in mind for
them.
On Feb. 26, three other leading
Vatican officials retired: Cardinals Carlo
Confalonieri, Luigi Traglia and Paolo
Marella.
Cardinal Confalonieri, prefect of the
Congregation for Bishops was replaced
by Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio of
Cagliari, on Sardinia. Pope Paul
abolished the office held by Cardinal
Traglia, who as chancellor of the Holy
Roman Church headed the Apostolic
chancery, which issued papal bulls
challenging New York’s liberalized
abortion law.
The court thus cleared its docket of a
backlog of abortion cases which had
been held back pending its ruling last
month in the Texas and Georgia cases.
“I cannot say that the court’s latest
ruling came as a surprise,” said Juan J.
Ryan of New Providence, N.J.,
president of the National Right to Life
Committee. “It is obvious that they
made up their minds well in advance of
hearing the suits.”
Ryan said that the January decision
made it a virtual certainty that the
Supreme Court justices would rule
against the petition of Fordham’s
professor Robert Byrn. Bym was asking
the courts to recognize that the unborn
have legal rights.
As a legally appointed representative
of all the unborn infants of expectant
mothers planning to have abortions in
New York municipal hospitals, Bym
appealed for the rights of the unborn.
He lost, first at the state level and
eventually before the Supreme Court.
Byrn called the decisions against
Texas and Georgia abortion laws “as
mediocre and unscholarly as any
decision of significance we have ever
had from the Supreme Court. I would
not have accepted such a premise in a
paper from a law school seminar
student.”
“As far as I know,” Byrn said, “this is
the first time in the history of this
country that human lives have been
condemned to death without a hearing.
“I don’t want to seem as though I am
exaggerating, but these decisions are
much worse than even the most
pessimistic pro-life people thought they
would be,” Byrn told NC News.
Jerome Frazel, NRLC vice president,
described the Supreme Court justices
who voted in the majority opinion as
men who mistakenly think they have
solved a moral problem.
“The whole opinion has a veneer of
scholarship, but in fact it is horrible
scholarship,” Frazel said. “Their
disclaimer in having any expertise as to
when life begins is incongruous because
they then proceed to make a ruling
based on the premise that they know
when life begins.”
These pro-life attorneys were in
unanimous agreement that the best legal
action now is a nationwide effort for a
constitutional amendment that would
overturn the Supreme Court’s decision.
“We need,” said Byrn, “an
amendment that mandates protection of
human life regardless of age,
imperfection of the condition of
unwantedness. This would protect a
human being at every stage of his life.”
Michael Taylor, NRLC executive
secretary, said the constitutional
amendment route “is the only
substantial recourse left to the citizens
of this country to re-establish the rights
of the unborn.”
Taylor suggested that the pro-life
movement should initiate immediate
action in Congress and in state
legislatures “to protect the rights of
individuals and institutions that will
now be increasingly under attack.”
Taylor expects that coercion to
comply to the high court’s rulings will
be aimed at pregnant women, medical
personnel, hospitals, and social workers
with limited budgets.
establishing dioceses and similar
matters. Cardinal Marella, who was
president of the Vatican Secretariat for
Non-Christians, was not replaced
immediately.
In other Vatican shifts in personnel,
two secretaries were named at the
Congregation for the Evangelization of
Peoples, replacing Archbishop Sergio
Pignedoli, who was named a cardinal:
Archbishops Bemardin Gantin, an
African, and Simon Lourdusamy, an
Indian.
In addition, Archbishop Guiseppe
Casoria was moved from the post of
secretary of the Congregation for the
Sacraments to the same post in the
Congregation for Saints’ Causes,
replacing Cardinal-elect Ferdinando
Antonelli, a Franciscan. Archbishop
Antonio Innocenti, former apostolic
nuncio to Paraguay, took Archbishop
Casoria’s post in the Congregation for
the Sacraments.
The history of the Apostolic
Chancery traces itself back to the fourth
century of the Church, when the early
Popes, freed from persecution, began
corresponding openly with bishops and
other important people.
Over the centuries the office grew in
importance until it reached a peak
during which no major papal document
BY MANUEL ARCE TRIAS
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (NC) -- He
had a dream, yet he never dreamed he
would become the first cardinal of
Puerto Rico.
Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez
of San Juan had dreamed of becoming a
priest since early childhood. As a young
boy he even gathered his friends and
classmates in the hilly town of San
German, where he went to high school,
to teach them the fundamentals of the
Christian doctrine.
But his dream stopped there.
He was born 51 years ago at the
seashore town of Lajas, where as a child
he could gaze for hours at the
phosphorescent Bay of La Parguera, one
of the ocean marvels in the world. He
was the eighth of 18 children of a
farmworker family, which also gave two
nuns to the Church. They were typical
Puerto Rican campesinos,, immortalized
in the Spanish-speaking world as
“Jibaros” by Puerto Rican composer
Rafael Hernandez.
In fact, when asked what he thought
of the honor conferred upon him by
Pope Paul VI, Archbishop Aponte
voiced two thoughts.
“I am the first Jibaro cardinal . . .1
can see the joy of my mother when she
learns about this . . .”
His mother Rosa, now 76 years old,
still takes care of family affairs at Ponce
since her husband Evangelista died four
years ago. Their first years in the small
farming town of Lajas were years of
poverty, like most of the people in the
area. Six of her children have died. Of
the surviving children, eight are married,
and two girls, Rosine and Elba joined
religious orders, although Rosine left
after a few years for health reasons.
Four of the Apontes live in the United
States.
Cardinal Aponte’s early years
are best remembered by his brother
Santos.
Personnel
was considered authoritative without
the seals of the chancery, which
included the seal of the Pope’s own ring,
known popularly as the Fisherman’s
Ring.
By the time of the 16th century its
workload grew beyond its capacity to
deal with the ever-expanding papal
correspondence. Among the “spin-off”
offices from the chancery there evolved
the Papal Secretariat of State, dealing
specifically with confidential diplomatic
affairs.
By order of Pope Paul the Apostolic
Chancery now “ceases to exist,” and its
functions are transferred to the
secretariat of state.
In his motu proprio abolishing the
Apostolic Chancery, Pope Paul
specifically made the point that the
“leaden seal and the Fisherman’s Ring
should be carefully kept” from now on
in the secretariat of state.
The leaden seal and the Fisherman’s
Ring, in which there is contained the
official seal of a Pope during his
lifetime, are affixed to important
documents issued by the Pope.
Traditionally, the papal seals are broken
as soon as possible after a Pope’s death
to be sure that spurious documents are
not authenticated with them.
“He sure wanted to become a priest,
a vocation fostered by our devout
mother. Besides organizing his friends
for catechism lessons, he went to Mass
and received Communion very often. He
said he wanted to be near his Teacher.
On many occasions he was late to
school because he was delayed in
church. There was a time when he had
to walk three miles to attend Mass.
“He also cut short rest and play time
to prepare his lessons and make up for
the hours spent for his spiritual
growth.”
Besides religious traditions, history
seemed to sink deep in young Luis and
follow his career. San German is the
oldest town in the island, founded by
Spanish explorers in the first years of
the 16th century. And the San Juan
archdiocese, which he now heads, was
established in 1511.
His links are also strong with the
continental United States. After his
studies for the priesthood at the Ponce
seminary in Aibonito, he went to St.
John’s Seminary in Boston in the mid
1940s. After his ordination in his native
diocese of Ponce in 1950, and after
serving in the chancery office and in
three parishes, he was made a titular
bishop and became auxiliary to Bishop
James McManus of Ponce in 1960.
There were again two extraordinary
events surrounding his ordination as
bishop: he was the second native Puerto
Rican to reacluthat rank in the 450
years of the ChuN^h in the island - the
first one was Alejo ae Arizmendi, early
in the 19th century - and a cardinal
ordained him.
Cardinal Francis Spellman of New
York came to Ponce’s Catholic
University of Santa Maria to ordain him,
out of his concern for the thousands of
Puerto Ricans then migrating to New
York. Significantly, the ceremony took
place on October 12, Columbus Day for
Americans and Dia de La Raza (Day of
the Spanish- speaking People) for Latin
Americans.
Four years later he was appointed
archbishop of San Juan to head a See
with a million Catholics, the largest
Church jurisdiction in the island. San
Juan has 97 parishes, over 1,200
Religious men and women and 309
priests. Many of the parishes have been
created by Cardinal-elect Aponte.
He recently acquired the building of a
Religious congregation--the Mission
Helpeos - to use it as central
headquarters of a renewal and
reorganization program for the
archdiocese’s parishes, schools, lay
apostolate, family life, liturgy and the
catechetical work.
“Teaching Christian doctrine to all is
still my dream and my mission,” he
says.
Adversities too have come his way as
part of his ministry.
Late in 1971 he had to defend the
use of archdiocesan funds after a
disgruntled lay administrator accused
his office of mismanagement of monies
collected to build a hospital.
Archbishop Aponte offered audits by
independent firms to show that the
charges were unfounded. Later the
administrator, Jose Luis Lugo, was
involved in a plane highjacking and
escaped to Cuba, where he is being held.
Archbishop Aponte was among the
signers of a strong joint letter by the
bishops of Puerto Rico in 1960,
protesting the educational and birth
control policies of the then incumbent
People’s Democratic party headed by
Gov. Luis Munoz Marin.
NEW CARDINAL: A FIRST IN PUERTO RICO ~ Cardinal-elect Luis
Aponte Martinez of San Juan dreamed of becoming a priest, but he never
thought he would become the first cardinal of Puerto Rico. He was among
30 new princes of the Church created March 5. (NC Photo).
Laity, Clergy Want
Catholics to Know
Church’s Stand
WASHINGTON (NC) - Laity and clergy are calling for more emphasis on
Church teachings to remind Catholics that the Church’s view of the sanctity of
life is far different from that of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The call came after the Supreme Court refused to reconsider its ruling of
Jan. 22 against Texas and Georgia abortion laws, thus opening the way to
invalidate abortion statutes in almost every state.
“First, we must read the decisions,” said Ferd J. Niehaus, president of the
National Council of Catholic Men. “We should form an informed conscience by
reading all we can about the subject. Particularly, we should study the ‘Pastoral
Message’ of the U.S. Catholic bishops.”
Msgr. James McHugh, director of the family life division of the U.S. Catholic
Conference, said the Church is now faced with a responsibility “to utilize her
educational resources so as to form values and attitudes that embody a respect
for human life.”
“I think the one thing that the court’s opinion emphasizes is that the Church’s
view of the sanctity of life is far different from the court’s view.
“To be specific, I see this affecting schools, adult education programs, and
long-range programs of national Catholic organizations,” Msgr. McHugh said.
He said he also sees a role to be played by physicians’ and lawyers’ guilds
which could show Catholics the long-range social effects of the Supreme Court’s
opinion.
Mrs. Thomas J. Burke, president of the National Council of Catholic Women,
said the task of her organization is very clear.
“We must continue to work by education and be legal means to insure the full
protection of all human life at every stage of its development,” she said.
Right to Life Group
Fights for Tax Status
ST. PAUL, Minn. (NC) - Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) is fighting
efforts to strip it of its tax exempt status because of charges that it is involved in
politics.
In the latest action the Minnesota Organization for Repeal of Abortion Laws
(MORAL) asked the Internal Revenue Service to withdraw the tax exempt status.
Earlier, the St. Paul IRS office had decided to revoke the exemption. MCCL is
currently appealing that decision.
In its current status contributions to MCCL are tax deductible. To keep this status,
organizations such as MCCL cannot devote a substantial part of their activities to
attempting to influence legislation.
MORAL officials said MCCL “has access to large church funds to carry out its
political activity which violates the IRS requirements also.” They said the MCCL is
“engaging in a massive political campaign to try to secure reversal of the recent
Supreme Court decision on abortion.”
They cited several newspaper ads and letters from MCCL urging supporters to write
to congressional leaders, the President, the Supreme Court justices and the attorneys
general of Georgia and Texas, the two states that were involved in the Supreme Court
case.
Joe Lampe, MCCL executive director said that the pro-abortion groups are “upset
that we didn’t fold after the Supreme Court decision. Instead, the level of public
support has increased tremendously. They would do anything to discredit us.”
Pope Continues Shifts in Vatican