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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, August 2,1973
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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The ACLU Strikes Out
(The following editorial appeared in the July 27
issue of The Providence Visitor, the newspaper of the
Providence, R.I., diocese.)
The American Civil Liberties Union
has long portrayed itself as a protector
of individual rights and a champion of
the free exercise of conscience.
With this background and with a
history of involvement in controversial
causes that backs up much of this claim,
it comes as a surprise to find the ACLU
vigorously heading an insidious campaign
that if successful, will force thousands of
Americans to participate in medical
exercises that seriously violate their
consciences.
In an article in today’s paper NC news
tells us that the ACLU’s Women’s Rights
Project is mounting a national attack on
legislation that would permit hospitals to
refuse to permit abortions and
sterilization operations on their
premises. Challenges to such laws are
now in process in some 25 states, the
story tells us.
The ACLU is aiming at laws
protecting “institutional” conscience,
arguing that hospitals operated by the
Catholic Church and other religious
organizations take patients from the
general community and so should offer
all medical services.
We certainly do not quarrel with that
point, although we take exception to the
ACLU’s conclusion that abortion and
sterilization are legitimate operations
that people have a right to demand. We
also reject the conclusion offered by the
ACLU spokeswoman in the NC story
that there is no such thing as a
“Catholic” hospial.
This is nonsense. A Catholic hospital
is more than a mere physical institution,
it is a state of mind and a moral climate.
Because of its existence medical ethics
that pursue a clear course of life over
death continue to play a significant role
in our society. It is crucial that we all
labor to insure that the ethics of life
always have a loud and influential voice
in our society.
It is indeed unfortunate that an
organization like the ACLU has so
succumbed to the “do your own thing”
philosophy of today’s society that it is
willing to abandon an historical concern
for the right of people individually and
collectively to exercise their own
conscience without fear of retribution.
Learning Increases Happiness
Reverend Joseph Dean
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” We
are beginning to find out that this old saying is
just, not true!' v In fact, senior citizens are
discoverning that learning new tricks, new
skills, new approaches have given them a whole
new outlook on life.
Learning increases happiness because
happiness is so akin to learning: It is a process
of how we travel through life. We accomplish
one goal after another and then have the vision
to see more significant goals appear.
Learning increases better health habits which
result in more enjoyment of old age. People
who are in the habit of learning tend to make
use of better medical attention.
Learning helps an older person take the
normal risks of daily life and go through
difficult periods of change more satisfactorily.
For instance, a learning person is not so fearful
in making an expenditure, or in going into debt
for a while, whereas a person who is not in a
learning stage, becomes very possessive and
wants to avoid spending any money even for
necessities.
Learning helps older persons to become more
flexible, creative, more able to cope with
tensions and prejudices and problems that exist
in the lives of all human beings no matter what
their age.
We can all encourage our local community to
provide, not more shuffle board courts, which
promote artificial activities to “kill time,” but
more reality centered experience.
Some examples are these: Travel tours,
flower growing contests, art classes, use of tools
to make bird houses, discussion groups on
books and personal experiences, shopping
expeditions to nearby cities, participation in
lectures for young people, seminars on how
senior citizens can join hands to tackle local
community problems.
A widening range of interests, new areas of
living, creative thinking and creative action, all
help toward self fulfillment toward using more
and more of God’s many gifts, toward building
up the total Christian man. Jesus Himself said,
“I am come that you may have life and have it
more abundantly.” John 10,10.
By increasing our capacities to learn, to
develop, to live fully at every age in life, we are
honoring God’s work of both nature and grace.
Then we can begin to appreciate all the more
the words of Jesus “I am the Way and Truth
and the Life.” John 14,6.
Teen Years Cause Trauma...
To Whom?
Mary Carson
I have six teen-age children at the present
time. Our first seven children are all a year
apart. The six oldest range from 18 through
13, and these are difficult years for
them . . .and worse for me.
One of the most aggravating qualities of
teen-agers is their sense of “superiority.”
No matter what I say, they answer, “I
know.” Before I am half through with
instructions, admonitions - or even the time of
day - “I know.”
Their knowledge of everything gives them
complete “superiority,” particularly to a feeble,
bumbling, senile parent . . .me.
It’s somewhat similar to the superiority
wardens feel toward the inmates of an insane
asylum. And I’ve used that comparison
purposely. Because sometimes I think that part
of their pain is to drive me crazy, that this will
prove their superiority. They work at it
diligently, methodically . . .apparently
sadistically.
For example, one son arrives home two
l ours late for dinner.
I question his whereabouts.
He says, “I told you I had to work late.”
If I remember he told me, then my memory
is failing. I’m getting senile.
If I don’t remember, then I don’t LISTEN to
him. I’m indifferent to him.
Either way, it’s proof that I’m cracking up.
Of course, there is NO possibility that he
forgot to tell me. He KNOWS he told me!
Another problem: I won’t let boy friends
visit our girls when neither my husband nor I
are home.
Rebuttal: I have a suspicious mind. I don’t
trust them. NOTHING’S going to happen.
On that point, we agree - if I have anything
to say about it. But I don’t think we have the
same thing in mind.
One boy complains that he can’t “talk” to
me. This, too, proves my feeble-mindedness. I
have the misguided notion that “talking” is an
exchange of ideas. His idea is that he dictates his
demands, and I should respond, “Yes, son.
You’re absolutely right, son.” If I raise a
question, disagree, or object to something, then
I am at fault . . .I’m not “talking” to him.
From commiserating with other parents of
teen-agers, I find that they are all going through
the same turmoil. My mother-in-law lived
through it, and assures me that if I can just
hang on to my sanity, teen-agers eventually
become people.
I think there is a chance. I’ve seen sparks of
understanding in some of my teen-agers. There
may be hope that it will catch fire.
The other day, one of mine was on a tirade
regarding HIS “rights,” and MY
“responsibilities.” He covered my injustice,
unreasonableness, and lack of understanding.
Every other sentence was laced with, “I know.”
One of the others commented, “If you know
so much, why don’t you know when to keep
your mouth shut?”
There’s hope.
But I do wish I had more spiritual support.
Why does the New Testament say absolutely
nothing about Christ as a teen-ager? Is it
possible Mary preferred not to talk about it?
Oh well, things could be worse. In fact, come
to think of it, they will be.
Next year I’ll have SEVEN teen-age children!
OUR PARISH
“It’s not a man’s world up here, buddy!”
When Women
Are Ordained ...
Reverend Andrew M. Greeley
Copyright 1973, Inter/Syndicate
On the Catholic lecture circuit nowadays
there are always two sure-fire questions: one
about abortion and the other about the
ordination of women. They rarely come from
the same people. Those who are concerned
about the rights of women seem less concerned
about the rights of the unborn. And those who
worry about the unborn generally seem little
worried about the rights of women. But no
matter what the subject of the talk, no matter
how far removed it might be from these two
issues, the two question still pop up-usually in
one-two order.
In fact, one gets the impression that the
questioners really can hardly wait for you to
finish your talk and are so busy getting ready to
ask their questions (or to make their point, to be
precise about it) that they really don’t pay
much attention to what the speaker is saying.
But then they didn’t come to hear the speaker;
they came to grind their own axes.
Charles Meyer’s forthcoming book MAN OF
GOD (Doubleday) leaves little doubt that
women have been in Sacred Orders and have
held ecclesiastical jurisdiction many times in
the course of the history of the Church.
Consider some of the cases (based on an article
by Joan Morris in the TIMES OF LONDON):
Until the reign of Pius IX there were abbesses
NULIUM (of no diocese) in Spain with their
own separate territory and such episcopal
emblems as mitre, cope, pallium, crozier and
ring. The Cistercian abbey of Las Huelgas (in
Burgos) had control over some 64 towns with
parish churches. No bishop had the right to visit
these parishes, and the abbess appointed the
clergy and confessors. It was her duty to punish
any offense in the execution of clerical office.
Sins normally reserved to bishops could not be
forgiven by confessors without her permission.
In short, as far as jurisdiction goes, she was for
all practical purposes, a bishop.
The question about the ordination of women
is usually raised by a tense, tight-lipped female
with a twinge of righteousness in her voice. I
know I’m in trouble. And I’m even more in
trouble when I begin my prefabricated reply.
“The ordination of women is a non-issue . . . .”
A look of pain and outrage flits across the
questioner’s face; she closes in for the kill of
another male chauvinist pig. “There is
absolutely no reason in the world why women
should not be ordained,” I continue, “and we
should ordain them and get on to issues which
are worth fighting about.”
And that’s the end of that.
When the first women are ordained (I hope
next year or even next month) I suspect my
interrogators will find another crusade to be
angry about. But it’s time we stop letting them
have that issue. There are no grounds, historical
or theological, for not having women priests.
The refusal of the male leadership in the
Church to recognize this fact is a reflection on
their biases and their fear of change. I don’t
suppose that ordaining women will solve any
major problems in the Church. But it will at
least remove one foolish, irrational bit of
historical injustice. And it won’t cause anyone
anything-except perhaps a little hurt masculine
pride.
The historical research, reviewed in detail in
In the fifth century in Ireland there were
women in the “first order” (bishops) of church
office though by that time, according to the
historians who lived in that era, there were no
longer women in the “second order” of the
hierarchy (priests). But there was a time when
they were in :he “second order,” too.
Some German abbesses were called
“sacerdotes maximae.” The Cathedral of St.
John in Monza in Italy was served by men and
women “sacerdotes.” The mixed community of
St. Hilda in England was the site of the synod
of Whitty (and the area was considered to be
her “diocese.”) One of her successors, the
Abbess Aelfelda, was the main speaker at the
Synod of Nidd.
There is certainly no grounds for arguing that
such “sacerdotes” were common in the Church.
And there is only dubious evidence that they
said Mass-though some historians I know think
that further research will indicate that they did.
The point is that the historical argument against
women priests is in a state of collapse. And the
theological argument-which presumes that
women are inferior-is no argument at all.
Come to think of it, m? be we ought to
begin by restoring some of these abbesses
NULIUS and send them off to the meeting of
the American hierarchy. They certainly
couldn’t make things any worse in the
American Church than they are now.
Questions
And Answers
Monsignor John L. McDonough
QUESTION: Why is the marriage of a man and woman likened to the union of Christ
and the Church?
ANSWER: St. Paul calls marriage a great mystery and likens it to the relation of Christ
to His Church. This is perhaps the most astonishing paragraph of Christian revelation on
this Sacrament. Marriage contains a meaning which is not at first apparent. It contains a
mystery: it is symbol and a figure of the union existing between Christ and His Church.
Christ loves His Church. He offers Himself for it that it may be without blemish in the
eyes of God, thereby actualizing a holy and supematuraal union that is infinite and
indissoluble as well as loving and fruitful and devoted until death. And Christian marriage
ought to be the image and figure of this union. Married people must not betray this
profound meaning of their union. For all, and in the eyes of all, they ought to love each
other in a perfect manner, which is at once holy and supernatural, stable and faithful,
affectionate and fruitful, and devoted unto the end, in order that the sign of the union
between Christ and His Church may always be seen in them. This symbolism of marriage,
this profound meaning which heretofore was hidden from the eyes of men, has been
revealed by the New Testament. This is the great “mystery” spoken of by St. Paul.
In many ways marriage is a mystery of loving union between husband and wife, a
union of activites, a union of character, as well as union of bodies and souls. In a word
that Christian bride and groom are a living tangible reproduction of the invisible but real
union of love between Christ and the Church. This reality gives rise to spontaneous
conclusions: submission, love, self-surrender, and salvific mission in a renewed act of
giving that will surpass all types of selfishness. The opposite would be a real betrayal of
the dimension of sign and life that the marriage sacrament has, as a tangible expression of
the mystery of love and giving from Christ to His Church.
Bullying
The Poor
Joe Breig
There is no crueller or meaner kind of
bullying than the bullying of the poor, the
uneducated and the inexperienced by the rich,
the powerful, the learned, the sophisticated.
This has always been the lowest temptation,
for example, for social workers and welfare
investigators who dispense government aid. It is
a temptation, too, for policemen and
bureaucrats. But it is likewise a temptation for
every one of us who is in any sort of position to
manipulate or tyrannize others.
The viciousness of such bullying is evident to
everyone when the bullying is crude-say when
someone abuses a child. But its contemptible
wrongness is no less real when it tries to robe
itself in self-righteous alleged concern for the
good of its victims, as in the cases of the
coerced sexual sterilizing of girls (mostly black
girls) by a federally-funded Family Planning
Clinic in Montgomery, Ala., and by doctors in a
county hospital in Aiken, S.C.
Bishop John L. May of Mobile, Ala., placed
his finger precisely on the central immorality
and menace of this sort of thing when he said
that people living on welfare payments “are at
the mercy of social workers,” and that “This
(Montgomery) case again shows the power of
government, expecially when it gets into the
field of eugenic engineering, telling people who
can, and who cannot, have children.” He
condemned it as “almost a form of genocide”
(murder of a people.)
Yes. And it is also a graphic reminder to
each of us that not only social workers and
policemen and doctors and others in positions
of power, but every one of us must make a
crucial decision, with eternal consequences,
about our attitude toward our fellow human
beings.
Shall we serve them-or exploit them? Shall
we give-or take? Will we try to enrich ourselves
at the expense of others, or will we devote
ourselves to helping them?
In short, are we to be like Christ The Savior,
or like Satan the Devourer?
And before we set out to do good, will wt
first take the time and trouble, in humble study
of Christ’s example, to learn .what true good is?
No doubt the people in the family planning
clinic, and the doctors in the county hospital,
convinced themselves that they were acting for
the best. But in truth they were morally and
historically ignorant.
The fact is that neither the good of an
individual nor of society can be served by
sexual sterilizings, which only turn people loose
to plunge deeper and deeper into the filth of
promiscuity, degrading themselves and others,
and spreading disease and lawlessness.
Even worse, this sort of thing propagates
contempt for womanhood, rather than the
profound reverence which is due it because of
its power to bring forth new images and
likenesses of God.
Wind Up
Rev. James Wilmes
Jewelers say that if a watch is wound up in
the morning, it will be better prepared to
with-stand the shocks of the day. The
mainspring, taut and operating at full power, is
able to act more reliably than one that begins
the day half-run-down.
For want of a better term, we humans call
our inner-springs of life and power the “soul”.
We sense a self within, fully involved in
moment-by-moment living and yet sufficiently
apart to observe and reflect on the how and
why of living. Should one take time out to
“wind up” the soul before plunging ahead with
the day? Or is it enough to just meet life in a
half-prepared condition? Human experience
suggests that winding up is essential. The
athlete warms up before the contest; the
performer before going on the stage; the
salesman before beginning his rounds.
Wind up, to start the day right and finish it
triumphantly. Call it meditation, call it
planning, call it prayer, but do it. The
wound-up spirit will maintain its even pace,
whatever the shocks and changes a day may
bring. One man daily prays for “the gift of a
mind unafraid to travel, even though the trail
be not blazed.” Rarely has the brave and
wandering intelligence more to work on than
the unmarked trails of today. It sometimes
seems that every system, relationship and
fundamental truth is being reviewed, restudied
and rethought. As men pray and wish for
stability and virtue, let them pray for that
condition of progress: “a mind unafraid,
unafraid to travel.”
RESOLUTION: Retire 15 minutes earlier so
as to rise earlier in order to “wind-up” when we
feel freshest and have the least distractions.
SCRIPTURE: “Jesus said, ‘Which of you
wishing to build a tower does not first sit down
and reckon ... or what king about to war does
not first sit down and think . . .?” Lk. 14,28,sq.
PRAYER: Lord, help me remember that
when I am too busy to spend time with you I
am too busy!