Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, July 5,1973
Religious Leaders React to Court’s School Decision
BY JERRY FILTEAU
(NC News Service)
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions
outlawing state aid to nonpublic schools
or tuition-paying parents of nonpublic
school children brought reactions
ranging from outrage to resigned
disappointment from religious leaders
who had favored such aid.
Bishop James S. Rausch, general
secretary of the U.S. Catholic
Conference (USCC), said the conference
“is in fundamental disagreement” with
the high court’s decision.
He said the court’s reliance on the
argument of “divisiveness” amounts to a
“gag rule for religion (that) is not
tolerable in a free society.”
Father C. Albert Koob, president of
the National Catholic Educational
Association (NCEA), said the NCEA “is
extremely disappointed” by the court’s
action.
“We cannot believe that the doctrine
of separation of Church and state was
ever intended by our forefathers to be
interpreted in this manner,” Father
Koob said.
The decision outlawing tax credits in
New York was described as “incredible”
by the Brooklyn diocese’s
superintendent of Catholic schools,
Father Joseph P. Bynon.
“It’s a terrible blow to parents,
teachers and Catholic kids in our state,”
he added.
The New York tax credit provision
would have granted tuition-paying
parents of nonpublic school children a
deduction from their gross taxable
income for each child in nonpublic
schools.
Father Bynon said the cutting off of
mandated services payments “is going to
hurt us.” The Brooklyn diocese had
expected $6 million a year from this
program alone, he said.
Speaking for the U.S. Catholic
Conference, Bishop Rausch said that the
court decisions barring aid to religious
schools are “a denial of the civil rights
of millions of citizens.
“To conclude, as the court has done,
that religious sponsorship of elementary
or secondary schools cuts off their
patrons from benefits which other
citizens enjoy is to penalize many
Americans on religious grounds --
something contrary to the
constitutional traditions of this nation,”
he said.
Bishop Rausch said that other forms
of governmental assistance, such as
textbooks, bus rides and auxiliary
services, have been established as
constitutional in earlier court decisions.
“The conference trusts that the state
and federal governments will continue
to seek ways of assisting nonpublic
education within the framework of
what has been held permissible and will
also continue to explore new
possibilities,” he said.
He said that Catholic schools “will
continue their service in the future” in
spite of the Supreme Court decisions,
and he called on supporters of
nonpublic education to “redouble their
efforts to maintain and strengthen their
schools, while working toward the day
when they and the schools will be
accorded more equitable treatment by
the courts.”
Bishop Rausch said he found it
“especially alarming” that the court
argued “that the involvement of
religious groups and religiously affiliated
individuals in public issues contributes
to divisiveness and must be opposed.”
The court majority found “a primary
effect that advances religion” to be the
chief constitutional bar to the laws in
question, but Justice Lewis F. Powell
Jr., writing for the majority, declared
that “assistance of the sort here
involved carries grave potential for
entanglement in the broader sense of
continuing political strife over aid to
religion.”
Powell further said that “one factor
of recurring significance” in the court’s
considerations was “the potentially
divisive political effect of an aid
program.”
Striking out at the court’s language,
Bishop Rausch called it a “gag rule for
religion.”
“This goes beyond aid to education
or any other specific question and
threatens all churches and church
groups by telling them, in effect, to
hold their tongues in the face of the
major issues of our times,” Bishop
Rausch said. “It must be rejected
promptly and firmly by all Americans
concerned that moral and spiritual
values continue to play a meaningful
role in the life of this country.”
Father Koob said it is impossible to
gauge the immediate repercussions of
the court’s decisions, but that the
decisions will certainly “add to the
already heavy financial burden carried
by nonpublic school parents.”
Father Koob also took issue with the
court’s assertion of political divisiveness.
“It is the right of all components of
education to discuss and argue their
relative merits and the extent of the
support due them,” he said. “When this
cannot be done, we are no longer
functioning in a democratic society.”
Father Koob said the NCEA hopes
supporters of nonpublic education “will
continue to expend every effort and
resource to maintain an educational
sector which has served the public
interest so long and so well.”
Other Catholic officials also
condemned the decision.
Cardinal Terence Cooke of New
York said the court’s action was “most
distressing.”
“The essential right of parents to a
free choice in the education of their
children is a keystone in the American
system,” the cardinal said. He called on
parents of nonpublic school children to
“work as never before” to preserve the
strength and quality of nonpublic
schools.
Cardinal Cooke also scored the
language of the decision. “People of
religious conviction will resent and
reject the comments of some members
of the Supreme Court on divisiveness,”
he said.
Auxiliary Bishop John B. McDowell
of Pittsburgh, diocesan vicar for
education, called the decision a
“staggering blow” to nonpublic
education and said it was “inconceivable
that the court could find (the
Pennsylvania law) in violation of the
Constitution.”
He pointed out that the Pennsylvania
law was substantially the same as tax
credit proposals endorsed by both the
Democratic and the Republican national
conventions last year, by President
Richard M. Nixon, the U.S. Department
of Treasury, and “a substantial number
of congressmen.”
“It had every conceivable safeguard
written into the bill,” Bishop McDowell
said.
David Hyatt, president of the
National Conference of Christians and
Jews, said the court’s decision “is the
law of the land and as such we must
abide by it and find ways to live with
the decision.”
CREDIT (Citizens Relief for
Education by Income Tax), the chief
interdenominational organization
fighting for tax credits across the
country, said the high court’s decision
“could hasten the day when the nation
will be deprived of one of its great
assets, namely, educational pluralism.”
In a joint statement Ivan Zylstra,
executive director of CREDIT, and
Rabbi Morris Sherer, CREDIT’S board
chairman, said the court decision
“virtually extinguished” any hope of aid
for nonpublic school parents in New
York.
“The impact of the ruling will
reverberate beyond the boundaries of
the state of New York,” the CREDIT
officials added. “The possibility of
federal tax credit enactment has
undoubtedly been substantially
reduced; however, CREDIT supporters
will continue their efforts to acquire
financial relief for parents whose needs
are so real.”
SUMMER BIBLE SCHOOL - An inter-parish bible
school was held recently in Millen, Georgia.
Participants and their teachers are shown in the
mid-morning photograph. The following churches were
represented; Sacred Heart, Waynesboro; St. Joan of
Arc, Louisville; Our Lady of the Assumption, Sylvania;
St. Bernadette, Millen; Holy Trinity, Swainsboro; and
Holy Family, Metter.
GAVE IT UP FOR PRIESTHOOD
Fr. Delea Was Once Professional Musician
KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS OFFICIALS with a group of new members
admitted to two Savannah Councils last week. They are (1. to r.) John F.
Shearouse; District Deputy of the First District of Georgia; Joseph F.
Dyer, Grand Knight of Council No. 631; William F. Carroll and Col.
Eugene C. Murphy, new members of No. 631; Msgr. Daniel J. Bourke,
State Chaplain; Dr. Prince Jackson, Jr., new member of No. 631; Michael
J. Arpaio, new member of Council No. 5588; Edgar C. Robertson, Grand
Knight of No. 5588 and William C. Broderick, retiring District Deputy, 1st
District of Georgia.
BY GRACE T. CRAWFORD
Macon News Staff Writer
Father Michael Delea made a
confession.
He lied about his age when he was 12
to join the Irish Federation of
Musicians.
The 29-year-old pastor of St. Peter
Claver Catholic Church laughed a bit,
said he was sure “they” knew he wasn’t
16, then proceeded to tell of his
adventures as the youngest member of a
traditional Irish dance band and its only
violinist.
It was the beginning of a musical
a*
for a stay
to be remembered
%
THE
ULTIMATE
in luxury & comfort
205 DECORATOR DESIGNED ROOMS
COLOR TV ‘HI-FI • MUSIC
GUEST DIALING IN EACH ROOM
FREE PARKING • SWIMMING POOL
RESTAURANT AND LOUNGE
ALL MAJOR CREDIT
CARDS HONORED
PHONE
233*3531
DOWNTOWNER
I MOTOR INNSl
N \/
201 West Oglethorpe
Savannah, Georgia
INNKEEPER: MARGUIRITE FITZGERALD
J?
How does 73°differ from 78°?
It takes 25 percent more electricity. Imagine what
that does to your electric bill. Air conditioning
can use more power than all your other appliances
put together. So, use electricity wisely. It's too
good to waste.
Georgia Power Company
A citizen wherever we serve®
career which ended at 19. He gave it all
up to become a priest.
As a 12-year-old, and one of six
children, his affiliation with the dance
band came after three years of violin
lessons and the discovery that after all,
music was not such a chore. The pay,
for one so young, was nothing to
complain of - a pound a dance, about
$2.50 in American money. He turned it
all over to his parents. “It went a long
way,” he said.
His musical career was a week-end
arrangement. It continued during his
school days in Cork City, Ireland, where
at 13, he was invited to join the Cork
City Youth Orchestra, a division of the
Irish National Orchestra.
After a series of concert tours about
the country, the young musician
deserted his violin and made the switch
- “to modem music and a bass guitar,”
he said. Then came the affiliation with a
rock group he helped establish, and
hundreds of engagements - four years
of them.
“But at the height of it all, I decided
to become a priest,” he said.
He smiled as he talked of it. Now
Father Delea is not a man to mince
words. No, his decision did not come as
dramatically as Paul’s conversion on the
road to Damascus. “Or in the middle of
the night, or at any special moment,” he-
said. “I didn’t have any sudden
realization of being ‘called.’ I just had
this vague idea that I wanted to help
people. It was very vague,” he said.
“But I thought it was something I’d like
to try. I guess I made the decision over a
long period of time - six years in the
seminary. It seemed the right thing to
do, and I felt good about it.”
After four years as a priest, his
feelings are about the same, “maybe
enlarged a bit,” he said. “It still want
the opportunity to help individuals as
well as society,” he said.
As a young man who did “an
enormous amount of dating,” he misses
the social life and believes that priests
should be allowed to marry if they
choose. “Would I? No, I don’t think so.
But who knows about the future?”
Father Delea is one of the youngest
priests ever to serve St. Peter Claver
Parish, and this is his first pastorate. He
came to Macon 18 months ago from
Savannah, where he was assistant pastor
ofSt. James Catholic Church.
“I get a great kick out of it,” he said,
“of seeing people mature, change for
the better, grow to a greater
understanding of how God fits intc
daily living.”
Some of his happiest moments as a
priest, he said, “come when I feel I’ve
said something in a sermon that really
gets through to them; when I see the
people work well together. One of the
saddest things,” he said, “is not being
able to reach someone who needs help.”
Father Delea would like to see
people “start singing better at mass,
being happier together, and to realize
that a church is like a family with each
member helping one another.”
He believes it is important for a
person “to see his own good points,
admit his weaknesses, yet like himself
and allow other people to do the same.”
Although Father Delea gave up his
musical career, he didn’t give up music.
His folk group, with two guitars and an
organ, plays for the 11 a.m. Sunday
mass, and often lends its talents to other
parishes for special occasions.
Friday night is Father’s night out. “I
usually get together with a few people,
friends outside the parish,” he said.
“Mostly for music.”
The Citizens
And Southern
Ed Schroeder's
Music Studios
Banks
(
Instruction On
WtP Spanish Guitar
In Savannah
Hawaiian Steel Guitar
Clarinet Drums Violin
String Bass Banjo Sax
Trumpet Trombone
Instruments For Sale
Trade Or Rent
eape
REPAIRS & SERVICE
Eleven convenient locations
232-4747
in Savannah to serve you!
18 W. LIBERTY
SAVANNAH, GA.
DORIS
JEWELERS
AUGUSTA. GA.
REBUILT MOTORS
AUTOMATIC
TRANSMISSIONS
NO MONEY DOWN
Central Motors
GARAGE MACHINE
SHOP
410-510 W.31St.
236-5707 Savannah
(Photo by Danny Gilleland.)
FATHER DELEA, (center) makes music with Mrs. Glenn Tomey and Lemuel Dean Mabry.