Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, April 12,1973
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The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Gerard L. Frey, D.D. President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
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Subscription Price $2.76 per year by Assement Parishes Diocese of Savannah Others $5 Per Year
Countdown to Easter
Only ten more days until Easter. That
means only ten days left in the
Penitential Season of Lent. If there are
very many readers who have observed
Lent as we did, then there are a lot of
people who haven’t made as good use of
it as they could have -- should have.
But it doesn’t need to be a total loss.
There are still ten days left.
Going to cut down on food
consumption as an act of penance? Fine.
Why not also do something to help feed
the hungry, especially hungry children.
Going to make special efforts not to
be impatient with others? Good. Why not
also resolve to go out of your way to
offer a cheery greeting to everyone you
meet in the course of your daily
activities?
Going to stay away from the movies
for the next ten days? (Sorry about that,
theater managers.) That’s all right, too.
Why not also try to do something to
bring a little joy to someone who needs
it -- like a sick friend or elderly shut-ins
at the local home for the aged?
You can probably think of a lot of
other ways to observe these last days of
Lent in a spirit of penance and service to
others.
Do it. You won’t regret it.
Mom Stoutheart
And The School Nurse
Mary Carson
There aren’t too many days that Mom
Stoutheart’s seven kids are all in school. It
always seems one of them brings some kind of
sickness home and shares it with the others.
The other morning, she did send them all to
school Two of them didn’t look too well, but
she figured that’s where they got the germs in
the first place .. .maybe they could give them
back.
She called me and invited me over . . .to
celebrate the first day in weeks with no one
home sick.
She had just poured coffee when the phone
rang.
“Yes, this is Mrs. Stoutheart.”
“The school nurse?”
“WHICH child?”
“Patrick? That’s strange. This morning his
sister looked worse than he did.”
“Now, what about Patrick?”
“All over his desk?”
“Did you call the custodian?”
“Getting the custodian is his teacher’s
problem.”
“Have you tried just letting him rest?”
“He keeps jumping off the couch and
running to the bathroom?”
“That would make it difficult for him to
rest.”
“Do you think it’s just an upset stomach, or
is he really coming down with something?”
“Well, does he have a temperature?”
“You haven’t taken it yet.”
“Does his forehead feel warm?”
“You haven’t been able to catch him to find
out.”
“Well, he doesn’t sound terribly sick if he’s
doing all that running around.”
“Have you an antacid tablet you can give
him?”
“Even if I tell you to?”
“Only if you have written orders from the
doctor.”
“You’re only allowed to administer
band-aids.”
“No . . .I’m afraid a band-aid won’t help.”
“Yes, I can understand that you’d like me to
come get him. If I were you, I’d want to get rid
of him too.” “He's back? You’d like me to talk
to him?”
“Hello, Patrick. This is your mother.”
“You knew that.”
“ ‘Cause that’s who the nurse said she was
going to call.”
“Okay. Now, how do you feel?”
“Fine?”
“Then why have you been running to the
bathroom?”
“Patrick?”
“PATRICK?”
“PATRICK, why aren’t you answering me?”
“Oh. Yes, nurse. Now YOU need the
custodian.”
“Yes. I know you want me to come get him.
But I don’t have the car. And it looks as if
every car on the block is gone.”
“Can’t you just let him wait there? Maybe
he’ll feel better by the time the school bus
leaves.”
“All you are allowed to do is let him rest,
and put an ice pack on his forehead.”
“WE11. . .that’s all I can do for him here.”
“Look. I’ll try to find a car I can borrow,
and I’ll call you back.”
She hung up the phone and said, “Maybe I’d
better call a cab.”
As she was looking for the number, the
phone rang again.
“Yes, this is Mrs. Stoutheart.”
“Oh, yes, nurse.”
“Patrick’s sister just came in your office.”
“Please . . .just stay calm. Nurse . . .stop
crying. It’s alright. I’m coming. I’ll get there as
fast as I can. But I have to call a cab.”
She dialed another number, “Hello, Ace Cab
Company? Can you come quickly to 222
Pine?”
“It’s an emergency!”
“The school nurse is going to be sick.”
OUR PARISH
‘Somehow I liked the old
retreats better.”
A
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A 1
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YOGA
AND
prayer
WEEKEND
BR/fJG You'R
OU/M MATS'
Jn Peace
AND
TRanquiiITY
c^ADVAWCE
prayei?...
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What Do Clients Think?
Reverend Andrew M. Greeley
Copyright 1973, Inter/Syndicate
One of the interesting social phenomenon of
contemporary Catholicism that even
professional anticlerical journals like the
COMMONWEAL have missed is the surge of
anticlericalism among the upper middle-class
laity. One of the reasons why the old-line
anticlericals haven’t noticed it may be that it is
not an anticlericalism of the left (or the right
either). Many well-educated Catholics have
developed an intense dislike for priests - quite
independently of whether their ideology is left,
right, or center.
This dislike for priests is especially obvious
when you ask a member of the upper
middle-class between thirty and forty why he
or she is going to church irregularly. The answer
has little to do with the English liturgy (which
everyone likes) or semi-literate lay readers
(which everyone dislikes) or miniskirted nun
guitarists singing songs of revolution at
Communion time (which everyone thinks is
blasphemous). These things may be metioned
occasionally, but the universal answer is that
the sermons are so bad. ‘L^ey are not merely
bad,” one woman remarked . ' me, “they are
aggressively awful. They are ai. msult to the
intelligence and the religious st Ability of
everyone in the congregation.”
The objections one hears to clerical hon. ,J es
is not that they are “irrelevant” politcally or
socially. Indeed, if the respondents in my
informal survey are to be believed, those
members of the younger clergy who strain for
“relevance” are even worse than their elders
who repeat the language of the Baltimore
Catechism or their seminary manuals. “At least
the older fellows believe in something,” I was
told by one lawyer.
It is very hard to sort out the specific
criticisms aimed at Sunday sermons, since they
usually come pouring out with strong
emotional intensity when one asks the
question. But there seems to be a number of
different points that most people I talked to
repeat:
1. HYPOCRISY. “I know what kind of life
that man lives and what kind of a person he is.
What right does he have to tell me to live a life
of faith?” I have heard comments like this time
and time again. The charge is obviously
extremely serious and probably much too
harsh. But priests ought to take it very seriously
none the less. To many of the laity their
religious faith as reflected through their Sunday
sermons does seem not to have much
authenticity or integrity.
2. FEAR. Closely related to the charge of
hypocrisy is the charge that priests are
frightened - frightened of their congregations,
frightened of the more aggressive and intelligent
laity they must deal with, frightened of the
changes in the Church and the changes in
society. Hence, I was told, they retreat behind
barriers of moralism and cliche. “It’s not that
they are irrelevant,” one young woman told
me, “but that they are completely out of it. For
most of them, marriage would be one more way
to escape from a world that terrifies them.”
3. STUPIDITY. This is the charge that I
heard most frequently. Sermons, according to
my informants, are completely devoid of
intelligence. A man in another profession who
was that inept at one of his principal
professional responsibilities would soon go out
of business, but a priest can go on insulting the
intelligence of his congregation Sunday after
Sunday with no penalty at all for his
incompetence. “Didn’t they train any of you in
the seminary to think and to express yourself?”
one extremely irate man asked me. The answer-
to that question is that such matters were
hardly important in the pre-Vatican seminary,
and that emotions are far more important than
disciplined intelligence in the psychiatric
institutions that many post-Vatican seminaries
have become.
My survey was informal because no one is
willing to fund serious research on the clients’
reaction to what is going on in the Church. It
may well have been a biased sample, and it
certainly was not very large. Many of the
respondents would cite one priest who was an
exception to their charges. Surely many priests
work very hard on their sermons. Yet anyone
who has talked to. the laity for more than five
minutes on the subject of Sunday sermons
should know how angry and outspoken they
are on the subject.
I am unaware of any priest association or
senate that has devoted serious energies to impro
ving the quality of preaching in a diocese. The
senate in my diocese is currently concerned
with such earthshaking issues as imposing a five
year term on curates (you don’t want to leave
someone in a parish too long if he is happy and
doing good work, do you?), and determining
whether the seminary rector has the right to
insist that seminarians who are living in black
parishes should spend some of their nights in
the seminary building. With such major issues
on the agenda, who can possibly devote any
time to such minor questions as why the
educated laity are much less likely to go to
church and why there is so much dissatisfaction
with sermons. And of course the issues before
the Chicago priests’ senate are not untypical.
The sad truth is that priests have been
spoiled. In the old Church we were spoiled by
the excessive respect that made us immune to
serious criticism. In the new Church we have
been spoiled by the mass media concern with
our “problems.” Under both sets of
circumstances it has not seemed necessary to be
concerned about what their clients think.
Clients are irrelevant.
Questions
And Answers
Monsignor John F. McDonough
QUESTION: Recently I had a rather violent argument concerning the relationship of
the Church to the salvation of man. I argued that God had instituted the Church as the
necessary means of salvation. Can you direct me to some information about this matter?
ANSWER: I suggest you read the DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH
found in the Documents of Vatican Council II.
Concerning the matter in question, I quote in part from that Document, CHAPTER II,
THE PEOPLE OF GOD, Sections 14 and 15:
Section 14. This sacred Synod turns its attention first to the Catholic faithful. Basing
itself upon sacred Scripture and tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on
earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. For Christ, made present to us in His Body,
which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique Way of salvation. In explicit
terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mk. 16:16; Jn. 3:5) and
thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door
men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made
necessary by God through Jesus Christ, would refuse to enter her or to remain in her
could not be saved.
They are fully incorporated into the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit
of Christ, accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and
II
through union with her visible structure are joined to Christ, who rules her through the
Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. This joining is effected by the bonds of professed faith,
of the sacraments, of ecclesiastical government, and of communion. He is not saved,
however, who, though he is part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity.
He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a “bodily” manner
and not “in his heart.” All the sons of the Church should remember that their exalted
status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they
fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word, and deed, not only will they not
be saved but they will be the more severely judged.
Catechumens who, moved by the Holy Spirit, seek with explicit intention to be
incorporated into the Church are by that very intention joined to her. With love and
solicitude Mother Church already embraces them as her own.
Section 15. The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who,
being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the
faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter.
For there are many who honor sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and of
action, and who show a true religious zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father
Almighty and in Christ, Son of God and Savior. They are consecrated by baptism,
through which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and receive other
sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesial communities. Many of them rejoice in
the episcopate, celebrate the Holy Eucharist, and cultivate devotion toward the Virgin
Mother of God. They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits.
Likewise, we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit,
for to them also He gives His gifts and graces, and is thereby operative among them with
His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of
their blood. In all of Christ’s disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully
united, in the manner determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He
prompts them to pursue this goal. Mother Church never ceases to pray, hope, and work
that they may gain this blessing. She exhorts her sons to purify and renew themselves so
that the sign of Christ may shine more brightly over the face of the Church.
Watergate?
Yawn!
Joseph A. Breig
I’m sorry, folks, but I just can’t get excited
about the Watergate case. The reason is that I
am weary of the hypocrisy of the press in such
matters. Seems as if the moral code of the
communications media, all too often, boils
down to whose ox is getting gored.
The newspapers have been throwing fits of
righteousness because, during the presidential
election campaign, somebody tried to plant
listening devices in the Democratic Party
headquarters in Washington.
That is to say, somebody tried to eavesdrop.
That isn’t ethical; but I doubt that there’s
anything particularly new about it. My
recollection is that people have been peeking
through political keyholes ever since voting was
first invented.
I don’t condone it, but it isn’t the giant issue
that the newspapers have been trying to make
out of it. What is worse, the newspapers
glorified Daniel Ellsberg; and somehow I can’t
see how it is noble for unauthorized persons to
filch government papers, but ignoble to listen in
on a political party’s strategies.
The newspapers, furthermore, published the
classified Pentagon Papers. They did so in the
name of what they call the public’s right to
know. They . preened themselves on this
splendid service to their readers. Then, when
Ellsberg went on trial, one of the chief
arguments offered in his defense was that after
all there was really nothing new and important
in the papers. Virtually everything in them, said
his lawyers, had already been public knowledge.
I find it difficult to understand why it is
reprehensible to try to eavesdrop on the doings
of a political party, but admirable to remove by
stealth, and publish, secret government
documents obtained in violation of sworn trust
by some government employe.
I oppose both actions; but the newspapers
praise Ellsberg while damning the people who
tried to bug the Democrats.
The press also has found little or nothing
wrong with the actions of the Fathers Berrigan,
of some nuns, and of some other people who
burglarized government offices, and stole and
burned, or defaced, government records.
Indeed, the general tone of the press toward
those people has been one of approval, not to
say of heroizing them.
This double standard of morality in the
communications media turns my stomach -
especially in view of the fact that the media
carefully suppress the truth about abortion; the
truth that it is the callously cruel cfestruction of
the most innocent of all human lives. The
media go into frenzies of morality against child
abuse - and should do so - but coldly wash
their hands of the blood of unborn children,
and praise a Supreme Court which declares such
murders legal.
So it is that I can’t help yawning over the big
black headlines and the breast-beating in the
press about listening in on a political party’s
strategems.
F orgetmanship
Rev. James Wilmes
Recently a popular politician, after being
heckled by a particularly offensive fellow
during a street-corner speech, leaned over the
speaker’s platform railing and said to him, “My
friend, I have the reputation of never forgetting
a face. But in your case, I am going to make an
exception.”
There are various mail-courses to help one
improve the memory, but perhaps a course in
the fine art of forgetmanship is needed. An art
it is! - to recognize those things which are best
forgotten, and then, as an old sea captain use to
say, “Stow it in the forgettery.”
The forgettery is the place for that seeming
slight or insult we suffered, which remembrance
enlarges out of all proportion. Down in the
forgettery with that hasty word which others
have long forgotten! Stow it in the forgettery!
-- that time when we were our worst and
meanest; we have chewed out of it all the good
that recollection can derive from it.
That undeserved hurt that life hit us with: to
forgettery! Had we not endured it, it might
have fallen on another less able to bear it.
Indeed it is an art, this fine art of
forgetfulness. The artistry lies in looking away.
For the events of the past, the things best
forgotten, often have the power of a snake over
a bird. To break the power, to consign the
useless memory to the forgettery, LOOK
AWAY! Take a new tack, new direction, new
hope. Stow the useless and the harmful in the
forgettery of your ship of life!
For the amount of psychic energy we burn in
useless regret, or anger, or resentment is
enough, if converted into electricity, to light up
New York City for a week!