Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, May 3,1973
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The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Raymond W. Lessard, D.D., President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
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Onward and Upward!
The tumult and the shouting, the
excitement and joy -- first, of welcoming
our new Bishop, Raymond W. Lessard at
the Savannah Airport when he arrived
for his first glimpse of the diocese he
now heads -- and then of witnessing the
colorful and impressive rites by which he
was raised to the ranks of the
Episcopacy, have passed.
But, as we’ve noted in this space
before, it is the presence of a bishop in a
diocese which seems to breathe life into
it and to impart to it a very special, but
indefinable, character that is not present
without one.
So, to Bishop Lessard we say,
“Welcome aboard!”
We are back to the “real” world once
again -- a world of problems, challenges,
but also of promise.
Father J. Kevin Boland, who served as
Administrator of the Diocese during the
interim between Bishop Frey’s departure
and Bishop Lessard’s arrival, kept the
‘Ship of Church’ sailing along quite
smoothly. (The only Episcopal duties he
could not perform were the appointing
of pastors and the conferring of Holy
Orders.) The diocese is indebted to him
for the generosity and devotion with
which he performed his duties as
Administrator while, at the same time,
heading one of the larger parishes of the
diocese.
In his first remarks to the people of
the diocese at the close of the
Ordination and Installation ceremonies,
he pledged his devotion to the people of
the diocese and his prayerful best efforts
on behalf of their welfare.
Archbishop Bemardin, in the Homily
which he delivered during the
ceremonies, asked the people of the
diocese to receive their new bishop with
open hearts and minds, as a true
shepherd sent by the Lord.
We are confident that they will. They
have always done so. Ours is a great
diocese. Working together under the
leadership of Bishop Lessard and the
Grace of Almighty God, it will now
become a greater one.
A Saint for Today
Mary Carson
This year, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul
throughout the United States, is conducting an
intensive campaign to get their founder,
Frederic Ozanam, canonized.
There are three reasons why I find Ozanam’s
cause for sainthood particularly interesting.
First, as a mother I sometimes wonder about
today’s teen-agers. They see poverty, injustice,
and many of the social ills of our day. They
talk about the “establishment,” especially the
Church, and why those who preach love don’t
seem to practice it.
As a teen-age college student in Paris in the
early 1830’s, Ozanam found himself going
through the same turmoil about his Faith. He
became disillusioned by the way “Christians”
failed to practice charity. Some lived in luxury
while their fellow men starved. Cathedrals were
magnificent; while poor people existed in
hovels.
Meeting with a few of his college friends,
they took some of their own personal finances,
collected more, and began helping the poor.
They wanted to avoid any appearance of a
cold, heartless bread-line handout, so they
visited poor families in their homes, talking
with them, listening to them, counseling them
to help solve their problems, treating them with
dignity and genuine concern.
At first he wanted his group to remain just a
few friends working together anonymously. But
God has a way of taking the “one little candle”
and using it to start a big fire.
Word of Ozanam’s work spread. Other
young men wanted to get in on it. New groups
sprang up. Within 20 years, there were 500
groups in France, and it was spreading to other
parts of the world. Thus began the Society of
St. Vincent de Paul.
Today’s teenagers NEED a saint like
Frederic Ozanam.
My second reason for being interested in
Ozanam is that he too was a parent. For an idea
of the kind of parent he was, here is a quote
from a letter he wrote to a friend shortly after
the birth of his daughter.
“There is nothing more delicious on this
earth, than on coming home to find my beloved
wife with her little baby in her arms. I then
make a third figure in the group, and I would
willingly lose myself for whole hours in
admiring it, if presently a little cry did not
come to warn me that poor human nature is
very fragile, that many perils are suspended
over that tiny head, and that the joys of
fatherhood are only given us to sweeten its
duties.”
Today’s PARENTS need a saint like Frederic
Ozanam.
My third preason for being interested in
Ozanam is the fact that miracles are needed to
advance his cause and I’m a believer in miracles.
Regular readers of this column know that I’ve
been blessed with more than my share.
Some months ago I asked readers who
needed a miracle to write to me and tell me
about it. I would pray for their intentions. I
received over 500 letters from people facing
very difficult situations.
I am praying for these intentions, but I have
also enlisted the assistance of Frederic Ozanam
by placing these intentions under his
protection. He liked to help people and I have
every confidence that he will intercede for
people overwhelmed by today’s problems.
If you would like more information about
Frederic Ozanam, write to me in care of The
Southern Cross. Please enclose a stamped,
self-addressed envelope and I’ll send you some
literature about him.
i If you have a problem that requires a
miracle, tell me about it and I’ll pray to
Ozanam for you. When you receive a favor as a
result of Ozanam’s intercession, please let me
know about it so I can forward the information
to those responsible for advancing his cause for
sainthood.
X:X:'<
Do It Now!
Rev. James Wilmes
-!X!XtX?X?XtX
Have you heard the story of “the little old
lady on the plane?” She is off on a world tour
of several months duration, and is explaining to
a friendly young couple how at such an
advanced old age, she happens to be traveling.
“My niece and her husband are sending me,”
she says. “How wonderful of them,” they
remark. “Yes, indeed,” she agrees. “You see, I
am comfortably well-off, and I have no one to
leave it to but them. The first thing they will do
with it is take a world tour. They’ve always
talked of doing just that. They will see
wonderful sights and amazing places and
people. And everywhere they go they will say,
‘Oh, if only Auntie could see this!’ So I decided
the other day that I should see it all . . . and so,
you see, they are sending me.”
Here is a modem parable, if you will: Do it
now! Bookstores and magazines bring us the
delightful stories: the family bike-trip across
the nation; the family which abandons the big
city for a new life in some comparative wilder
ness. Experiences, travels, adventures once only
dreamed of or postponed until the family was
grown and gone, and one was too old to enjoy
it anyway, are now seized and molded into
present reality. “Do it now” is the watchword.
And even though the wildest dream is not
within reach, there are joys to be known and
shared daily, and close to home. Don’t wait.
Plan them and do them and enjoy them - now!
OUR PARISH
“We are so sorry you slipped during
the sensitivity encounter.”
Heading For a Fall
Joseph A. Breig
I am sitting here wondering who is going to
pay the Social Security for the generations of
Americans coming along after my
generation . ..
And who is going to buy the products of our
farms and factories ...
And whom our teachers will teach . . .
And who will subscribe to our newspapers
and magazines, and read the books, and
patronize the movies, the theater, the music
events. . .
And where customers will be found for
telephones, hi-fis, Teevees and the like . . .
And who will hire our carpenters,
bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, service
men . . .
And to whom insurance companies will sell
insurance . . .
And so on and on.
To put the matter in a nutshell, this country
is heading for huge trouble, because our birth
rate is now the lowest in our history, and going
down, down, down.
Even at the present rate, more than half of
all Americans, in less than one generation, will
be more than 50 years of age.
Within 27 years (also at the present birth
rate) one in three will be 65 or older.
In short, we have begun the process of
becoming an aging nation.
Before long, unless the situation changes
drastically, we’ll be an aged nation.
And an aged nation is a dying nation. It is a
nation going toward the grave. It is a nation
with a past but no future.
How long, one must ask, will fewer and
fewer younger workers be willing to pay higher
and higher taxes to provide Social Security for
the oldsters? Indeed, how long will fewer and
fewer younger people BE ABLE to provide for
more and more elders?
If you know human nature, you know how
easy it is for the young to neglect the aging; to
push them, aside and make them fend for
themselves - if they can - and to die off if they
can’t.
Especially is this so if the elders, when they
were younger, showed little or no love for
young people, refusing even to bring them into
the world. Selfishness can fly back in one’s face
with a frightful slap.
Wrote Sylvia Porter in her financial column
the other day: “Young couples, more and
more, are reporting intentions to have smaller
families or no children at all . . .”
And then, before they realize it, the young
couples will be older couples, and no one will
give a damn for them. They will face neglect
and bitter loneliness, and will look back on lives
that their selfishness made meaningless.
Their “golden years” will be brass.
And this once great and vigorous nation will
be heading toward Shakespeare’s seventh age of
man: “Last scene of all, That ends this strange
eventful history, is second childishness, and
mere oblivion.”
Questions
And Answers
Monsignor John F. McDonough
QUESTION: Is there anything inherent in man that can induce him to sin?
ANSWER: The Christian is redeemed and possesses within himself the seeds of his
glorious resurrection. But he remains a man. He remains a very unusual composition of
matter and spirit. The more we study man the greater becomes our astonishment at the
complexity of the human composite. It is easy to talk about the balance which ought to
exist and which can exist to a certain degree between the body and the soul. When one
has read a few articles on the innumerable factors which influence, organize or
disorganize the psychological equilibrium and when one reads a few noted on the
astonishing reactions and impulses of the subconscious on the living complexity which is
man, one is amazed to find in humanity so much balance and so much fundamental
stability.
The result is that man can be a source of temptation for himself: In his more vital and
more necessary instincts with their biological and subconscious aspects; In the manner in
which all the elements of man have accomplished their unity; In the complexity of
human psysiology; In the complexity of his psychological life. We will take up each one
of these points briefly.
1. All men bear within themselves the most fundamental vital instincts which are most
necessary for the preservation of the individual and the conservation of the species. These
instincts are inscribed in our very constitution. To a certain degree they ferment in each
one of us. Quite naturally, then, they are the origin of an attraction towards anything
that can nourish us and towards the union of the sexes. They provoke in us a sort of first
movement towards their object before any reflection at all can intervene. Doubtless it
would be easier to be able to eradicate these instincts, but they cannot be irradicated.,
They can be directed or dominated but cannot be suppressed, nor can their latent action
be confined.
2. All men are also constitutionally a complex union of matter and spirit. Now the
union of the two elements are not always equally happy. Some people of their very
nature are endowed with a marvelous balance senses and reason and of liberty and various
faculties. But others are, if we may use the expression, somewhat unbalanced. In the case
of a person who is unbalanced, for example, where is the human responsibility? Certain
people are of such a hot-blooded nature that even St. Paul advises them against celibacy.
Others are born with a marked weakness of will. In short, in every man there exists
certain constitutional malformations - sometimes minimal and scarcely perceptible,
sometimes startling and tragic which, in different ways, can give rise to moral difficulties.
3. What we have just said of the constitution of man, likewise finds its application in
the function of his biological and psychological life itself. Troubles of a biological nature
can be the origin of temptations, of difficulties, of evils and a moral order. Likewise,
illnesses or troubles of a psychological nature, such as mental depression can be dangerous
for the moral behaviour of the person. This is perfectly clear in serious pathological cases,
but how many of the faithful are not, without being aware of it, minor pathological
cases?
Thus it can be seen that in man there exist certain elements that can be a source of
temptation and possibly sin for himself.
O. K. Sisters..,
Misquoted
Again
Reverend Andrew M. Greeley
Copyright 1973, Inter/Syndicate
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Some Catholic psychologist of the twenty-
first century may well want to do a Ph.D.
dissertation linking psychology and history in
which he will try to explain the militant
self-hatred of the American Catholic elites in
the years after the Vatican Council. Such a
psycho-historian could argue that triumphalism
generates self-hatred.
We pretend for many decades to be slightly
better than perfect, but then admit grudgingly
to ourselves that we haven’t quite lived up to
our own publicity, and then we turn
vehemently on ourselves and castigate ourselves
for our failures. The self-hatred of the 1960s
and 1970s is but the other side of the
triumphalistic coin.
The standards haven’t changed any; we’ve
simply become more realistic about
performance.
How powerful the self-hatred can be was
brought home forcefully to me in recent weeks.
Someone sent me a copy of the “new nun”
newsletter PROBE in which I was informed
that I had said with conviction that the
“Catholic school makes no significant
difference in the lives of young Catholics.” I
confess to being intrigued by such a quotation
because while I can’t remember everything that
I’ve said in a long career of shooting off my
loud Irish mouth, I was pretty sure I had never
said anything like that. Indeed, the research I’ve
done on the subject leads me to believe exactly
the opposite and I’ve said so on so many
occasions that it has long since become
tiresome.
So I wrote to the editors of PROBE asking
for a correction. In response I received a letter
saying that the “group” responsible for the
article was checking to see if I had really said
what they had claimed I had said. I responded
by observing that I ought to know what my
own position was and that I thought an
immediate correction would be appropriate. I
was then favored with a particularly nasty
phone call from a nun who clearly hated all
men in general, priests in particular, and me in
even more particular, saying that “the group”
was still checking the quote.
I finally received a letter from the sister who
was apparently the chairman of the group. She
expressed some surprise that I would be upset
by the misquote because, after all, in the
introduction to THE EDUCATION OF
CATHOLIC AMERICANS Peter Rossi and I
had predicted that we would be quoted out of
context. It seemed to me that that was an
interesting sort of ethical argument. Because
somebody expects to be quoted out of context
it is therefore all right for those who are
responsible for the distortion.
She then went on to lift another paragraph
out of context to prove that Catholic schools
don’t make any difference. What Rossi and I
really say, of course, is that under some
circumstances Catholic schools make a
difference and under other circumstances they
don’t, and in some circumstances the influence
is slight, in some circumstances moderate, and
in some circumstances very considerable.
Everything I’ve ever written on Catholic
education has made these points repeatedly but
the PROBE “group” doesn’t care. They know
what my position is better than I know myself.
Of course, most of the sisters in the United
States still teach in parochial schools, and I
suppose most of the readers of PROBE do, too.
Why they would be so interested in denying
evidence that is favorable to their work and in
falsifying my position so that their work would
look unsuccessful escapes me completely. But
the demands of self-hatred are such that
reasonable evidence to the contrary simply has
to be rejected.
If the “new nuns” who are responsible for
PROBE could find anything in their own past
or in their own work or in the history of the
American Church or the work of the American
Church that had in any slight way been
successful then they would lose caste and not
be “new nuns” anymore. The only ones who
are not haters of themselves or their work and
their tradition are “conservatives,” and if
you’re a conservative you certainly can’t be a
“new nun.”
Besides, nuns have been oppressed by men
and particularly by priests (never mind that
women have more administrative and
check-signing power in the American Catholic
Church than in virtually any other corporate
institution in this country). Greeley is a man
and a priest and, what’s more, he even likes
being a priest. Therefore, he is an oppressor, so
he has no rights, and there’s nothing at all
wrong with falsifying his position. In fact, he
should reject that he’s given a chance to do
penance for his sins by having his position
falsified.
O.K., sisters. Your work is all worthless and
a waste of time. The parochial schools never
accomplish anything. Drive taxicabs. Work in
Marshall Field’s basement. Sell fabrics. Be
interior decorators. March on picket lines.
Denounce bishops. Plot kidnappings. Dance in
bikinis at offertory processions. Do something
REALLY apostolic.
And as for those black parents who so
enthusiastically support the Catholic schools in
the inner-cities of the country-well, they
probably don’t read PROBE. They probably
never even heard of it.