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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, March 22,1973
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The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
rtev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
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Nixon Cutbacks
Church officials are worred about the effects
of the proposed Nixon Administration budget
for the 1973-74 fiscal year, which would
abolish or cut back 100 social services,
construction and school aid programs.
Fear over the budget is great in some
dioceses, which could lose hundreds of
thousands of dollars in federal aid.
The budget, according to administration
officials, would save the government $39 billion
by abolishing or trimming programs that aid the
unemployed, tenants, students, veterans, the
mentally ill, farmers and small businessmen.
In the Philadelphia archdiocese, church
officials have estimated the potential loss of $1
million and the elimination of several programs
if the budget emerges from Congress intact.
And in the Chicago archdiocese, the largest
in the nation, officials foresee a loss of almost
$1 million in social service programs alone.
“It’s very crude,” said Father William V.
Macchi of the Oakland diocese’s Catholic
Charities Office, which may be affected by the
proposed budget.
“There was no evaluation of which programs
were good, which weren’t. At worst there
should have been a phase-out period.”
The church officials agreed with Father
Macchi.
Bishop William G. Connare of Greensburg,
Pa., chairman of a Pennsylvania interfaith
group, said, “Re-examination and reform of
federal funding formulas for existing programs
is desirable but programs should not cease while
this re-examination takes place. Further, any
examination should include the Congress as
well as the administration. Unilateral
administrative action terminating authorized
programs is unconscionable.”
In Philadelphia, the program that would
suffer the most would be diocesan library
development. Other programs possibly affected
are Operation Discovery, an inner-city training
program; the Neighborhood Youth Corps that
employs inner-city youths, and a day care
program.
Sister Mary Arthur, archdiocesan library
services director, said subsidies for the past
seven years ranged from $193,000 to $512,000
for school libraries under Title II of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The
aid helped establish 269 new libraries.
If the aid is lost, parents will not be able to
keep the programs going and “we’ll lose all the
good that has accrued,” Sister Arthur said.
The plight of the Philadelphia library
program is indicative of the situation found in
the Chicago archdiocese. A spokeswoman for
the diocese said eight archdiocesan programs
“are potentially endangered” under the
administration’s proposed budget.
Hardest hit, the spokeswoman said, would
be the day care program, which would lose
$240,000 in federal assistance. She said other
threatened programs include college
work-study, $165,000; job training, $156,000;
and aid for unwed mothers, $77,000.
In all, she said, the social service programs -
which do not include school and construction
projects possibly affected by the budget cuts -
would lose almost $1 million.
Such cutbacks have distressed archdiocesan
officials concerned with social services, which
had burgeoned in the 1960s under the Kennedy
and Johnson Administrations. Under the Nixon
Administration, local governmental and
charitable units will have to shoulder the
burden.
Father Robert Pena of the Brownsville, Tex.
Catholic Charities office, saw some good in the
shifting of burdens.
“I think local people - priests and sisters
representing the diocese - could bring about
community development,” Father Pena said. “I
see greater opportunity for the diocese to give
leadership in the war on poverty. I see a greater
challenge now for the Church.”
How’s Your
Anti-Divorce Insurance?
Mary Carson
Being a mother, particularly a mother of
young children, is a full-time job.
With the cost of living, food, shelter and
clothing for a family are expensive. If the
family is trying to provide Catholic education,
the expenses can become astronomical.
Many fathers are working two jobs, or father
and mother are both working, often taking
turns caring for the family while the other
works. Consequently, they spend little time
with each other.
Often, in the first fifteen years of marriage,
the wife is dedicated to the care of her family,
and possibly holding a job besides; the husband
is dedicated to his job, striving harder and
harder to provide the support for the family.
A day comes when the children are grown
and gone. The parents now have more time and
more money for themselves. But that is all they
have. Suddenly they find they have nothing else
in common!
Government statistics now show that more
and more long term marriages are breaking up.
Thirty years ago, the divorce rate for “older”
marriages was 4%. Now, of divorces granted,
40% go to couples married more than 10 years;
25% to couples married more than 15 years.
And this is just divorces granted. It doesn’t
include separations, or those residing at the
same address, but in effect “separated.”
To compound the tragedy, a poll conducted
by Elmo Roper says that 2/3 of the older
couples felt their love was no deeper than when
they first married.
Why? And more to our concern, can we do
anything to prevent ourselves from being added
to the soaring statistics?
Personalities can change over the years. One
partner can grow intellectually or culturally,
while the other stagnates. A man whose job
required him to travel could find little in
common with a woman who tied all her
interests to her children, whose mind never
grew beyond her own four walls.
A woman who expanded her interests,
through education, books, her work, or
volunteer services, could find herself miles apart
from a husband who vegetated in a routine job
all day and TV every night.
It seems to me that as responsible parents
and marriage partners we must prevent it from
happening to ourselves. We have a duty to
ourselves to develop common interests. This
duty holds just as great an urgency as feeding
our families!
Parents must take time for
themselves .. .even if it’s only an hour a week,
to start something, something of vital interest
to both husband and wife.
It may take some money. But it also may
be that it’s a more valuable expenditure than a
new car or a new piece of furniture.
Start a hobby together . . .something you
both find interesting. In sharing that activity,
your interests will grow. Use it as a goal you
can acieve when the children are grown. But
build your interest on it now!
Plan for those years when the children are
gone . . .plan on doing things together that you
can begin now. Start building a vacation home
yourselves ... a home you can move to when
it’s just the two of you.
Too expensive? Start a little garden. Get
books out of the library; read and discuss them.
Learn a craft together. Get yourselves involved
in volunteer work.
Start anything! But start it now, while
you’re willing to learn something new .. .while
you still care enough about each other to want
to work together.
Learn to enjoy being and working together!
It’s insurance against adding your marriage
to the statistics!
Are you working on your “retirement” plans
now, or have you other suggestions for enjoying
life together after the children are gone? Write
to me care of THE SOUTHERN CROSS and I’ll
combine them into a future column so your
experience can help someone else.
XvXv!
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Call God What
You Please?
Reverend Andrew M. Greeley
Copyright 1973, Inter/Syndicate
I have been struck recently that some of my
kook mail and some of the kook
correspondents of the Catholic right wing press
have taken umbrage at the use in my writings of
the word “Yahweh.” At first I was so baffled
by this reaction that I didn’t take it seriously.
But as the nasty comments piled up I began to
suspect that something really strange was going
on.
There are a number of reasons for using the
name Yahweh. First of all, it happens to be the
name that God revealed to us on Sinai. If it is
good enough for Him, then it surely is good
enough for us. It is also the Hebrew equivalent
of the Greek “Kyrions,” the Latin “Dominus”
and the English “Lord” (through the Hebrew
“Adonai” which was used as a code for the
Sacred Name). It stresses the continuity of the
Jewish and Christian traditions (or, as I would
prefer to put it, the Jewish and Christian strains
of what is essentially one religious tradition); it
makes clear the absolutely decisive importance
for all subsequent religious development of the
Divine self-discoclosure on Sinai. I hardly insist
that everyone use that particular divine name; it
just happens to be one that is comfortable for
me to use.
Why then the outrage from critics? First of
all, I thought it might be anti-Semitism.
“Yahweh” is a Hebrew name (though of
pre-Israelite origins apparently). Maybe some
people are offended by the fact that our God is
a Jewish God. Or perhaps they are offended at
my presuming to speak the Sacred Name that
was unspoken for a considerable period of
Jewish history.
But then, why say, as one columnist did, that
the ust. of the name is “supercilious?” Finally,
it dawned on me. However hallowed the
tradition, however legitimate the symbolism,
however sound the theology, the name
“Yahweh” is offensive to a certain kind of
Catholic mentality because it sounds “strange.”
With so many other things changing, can’t we at
least use the old name for God? Why do people
have to show off by using unusual names? Isn’t
it enough that the Mass is in English and nuns
are wearing miniskirts? Can’t we at least have
stability in how we address God? Isn’t there
anything that is free from change anymore?
One can, I think, call God whatever one
pleases. I don’t imagine that it offends Him
very much whether we use familiar or
unfamiliar forms of address. He is not likely to
think that we are trying to communicate with
someone else if we use a new name. Those
who wishes to continue to address Him by
traditional titles are surely free to do so. But I
wonder if they are free to insist on a religion
that is immune from the extraordinary, the
unexpected, the surprising.
Quite the contrary, our religion is a religion
of surprise and our God is a God of surprises.
Yahweh’s sudden intervention in human affairs
in His self-disclosure on Sinai was the greatest
surprise in human history. Unannounced,
uninvited, and, as it turned out, frequently
unwelcome, He announced, “I am Yahweh
your God.” And the human race has yet to get
over that surprise.
Jesus was another surprise and his
resurrection the biggest surprise of all. One can
imagine how the first witness to the
resurrection must have felt; and we have St.
Paul’s description of how the surprise hit him.
You want stability, predictability, immutability
in your religion? Then I’m afraid you should
get another God.
John Shea, in his booklet WHAT A
MODERN CATHOLIC BELIEVES ABOUT
HEAVEN AND HELL, concludes by observing
that the best way a Christian can prepare for
death is to develop his capacity for surprise.
Gregory Baum, in MAN BECOMING, tells us
that the essence of our faith is that “tomorrow
will be different;” no matter how bad things are
today (even if today is the day of our death)
something new and different will happen
tomorrow.
Yahweh, then, is not only a wonderful God;
he is also a God of wonder. When we are no
longer startled by His surprises, we may have
the wrong God; the right one is somewhere else.
OUR PARISH
Got Your
Ashes Yet?
Joseph A. Breig
“Have you got your ashes yet?” a friend
inquired on Ash Wednesday morning.
I broke into helpless laughter because I was
struck by a certain incongruity in the query.
He was not asking whether I had been at
Mass that day, or had received Communion. He
merely wanted to know whether a priest had
formed a smudged cross on my forehead with
the ashes of burned palms, reminding me that I
am mortal as well as immortal, and that to
attain permanent immortality - to enter into a
new and endless life - I must some day go
through the humbling (or should I say
humiliating?) experience of death.
“Death.” That is our word for the
awe-inspiring moment which reduces every
beholder to silence and wonder and reverence;
the moment when the spirit separates from the
flesh with which it has been identified, and in
which it has known and been known, and has
loved, learned, communicated, laughed and
wept, worshiped its Maker, and done good and
evil.
Oh, it is vital - it is life-giving - that we be
reminded, periodically, that we shall certainly
die, and be judged concerning what use we have
made of the time and grace which God has
freely given to us. And so the Ash Wednesday
ashes are important - but nothing like as
important as the Mass and Communion which
unite us, here and now, with the divine life of
our Creator and Redeemer.
That was why laughter welled up in me at
the question. “Have you got your ashes yet?”
The right query would have been, “Have you
been at Mass and Communion and been marked
with the Lenten ashes?”
We should keep our priorities straight; and
although the ritual of the ashes is important,
Mass and Communion are infinitely more
important. Measurelessly more. Inexpressibly
more.
I went into the cathedral, and it was filled.
On any other weekday, a comparative handful
would have been present. But this was Ash
Wednesday, a day when countless Catholics
make a point of “getting the ashes.”
This is good. It would be better if, each day
or most days, we would be at Mass and
Communion. Nevertheless, it is good that
people receive the ashes at the beginning of
Lent - and the palms toward the end.
The Church deals with us as she finds us,
leaving nothing undone to try to lead us toward
our eternal destiny by keeping before us the
great realities of our existence. With palms and
ashes, with processions, with the ringing of
church bells, with the Sunday Mass obligation,
with a bit of fasting and abstaining, the Church
tirelessly reminds us that we cannot totally die
- that we must live forever because that is the
way we are made, and we should be about the
business of making it a good forever.
>XwX , X*XX-X*X , XvXvX‘X , XwXwX , XvX , XwXiv
Peace
Of Mind
Rev. James Wilmes
Have done with fault-finding. Look for merit
and speak in praise of it. Where you find it or
not, be sparing of blame. Be large-minded in
thought and word, generous in deed. Follow
the lead that Jesus gives us in his mercy.
Rid yourself of pretense. Meet others as you
are, and as they are. Live amicably with your
fellowmen. Remember: everyone is Someone.
Each one has Jesus for a Brother.
Be slow to pass judgment. Where you must
judge, temper judgment with mercy. If you
could know the secret history of others, you
would find sorrow and suffering enough to
disarm hostility.
Follow the promptings of your heart. Act
upon every noble impulse. Ask the Holy Spirit
to come in all of his fullness.
Take time for all things worthy of your
attention. Stay your haste; make delays.
Cultivate serenity. Above all, be mindful that
every human heart is human. Even as you,
everyone craves love, fears rejection, hungers
for understanding, and longs for a place in the
ongoing life of the community. So be kind.
And where you cannot be kind, be fair. For
every man bears his own burden; and the road is
often up hill.
RESOLUTION: Since the supernatural
builds upon the natural, form common sense
virtues admitting God is our Creator and we His
Creatures put here to see His Will more clearly,
unite ours with His, and relax in His Love.
SCRIPTURE: “All the Sanhedrin were
seeking false witness against Jesus to put Him
to death . . . but Jesus held His peace.” Mt.
26,63. “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give
to you.” Jo. 14,27.
PRAYER: Lord, make me an instrument of
Your peace. Help me to console, to understand,
to pardon, to give, to love. Amen.