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PAGE 7—The Southern Cross, August 23,1973
FOR DIVORCED CA THOLICS
A BYGONE ERA -- This engraving of the classic
American painting, “Snap the Whip,” by Winslow
Homer (1836-1910) recalls the bygone era of the
one-room schoolhouse and the simpler days of
America’s past. It is from the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (RNS Photo)
Bishop’s Dream Causes Misunderstanding
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (NC) - When
Bishop Andrew McDonald dreamed his
dream about Catholic schools, many of
his people misunderstood.
Many parents thought the bishop was
downgrading the value of their sacrifices
and the value of Catholic education, but
the Bishop said that was not his goal. He
was simply “interested in finding
families to meet the Christian ideal.”
That’s how Bishop McDonald
explained his recent proposal that 10
percent of middle income families with
children in Catholic schools here, should
voluntarily withdraw their children and
finance the education of a
disadvantaged child who would replace
their own child.
More than forty letters and phone
calls from parents opposed to this
“dream” came within a week of the
announcement by the Little Rock
bishop.
Not only did people misunderstand
his intentions--calling them indifferent
and callous--but Bishop McDonald told
NC News he also found that many had
misinterpreted his term “disadvantaged
child.”
“Some thought it meant only the
poor . . .only the black . . .only the
Protestant . . .or only the Catholics on a
waiting list” to be enrolled in one of the
schools which is presently filled to
capacity, he said.
“How about a rich child, lonely and
without guidance who lives in an
immoral climate,” he saked. “he can be
the most disadvantaged child I know.”
A rumor was even circulating that
this “dream” was actually a directive
and that Bishop McDonald was going to
reduce enrollment by 10 percent.
“What happened was that the people
thought of me as a decision-maker when
I announced this, instead of as a
dreamer and they panicked,” the bishop
said. “They said, ‘here’s a man who has
the power to execute this.”
“But how could I determine which
families could afford to do this?” he
asked. “I could never have gone up to
any family and said, ‘well, you’re the
one.’ ”
“I love Catholic schools and we’ve
got good schools here,” Bishop
McDonald said. “One of the missions of
the Church has always been to hear the
attitude, ‘I’ll put up the money, let the
church do it.’ ”
“Instead of using their leisure time to
play tennis or something like that,”
Bishop McDonald said, “parents should
study, read and participate fully in the
religious education of their children.”
Only one family so far has decided to
withdraw their two children from
Catholic schools so that other
disadvantaged children can have the
chance to learn about God.
The parents, who feel their decision
will help their children reach out to
others, will continue to pay the tuition
to the school so that the children who
replace their own will be completely
cared for.
“This is a high-level dream,” the
bishop said, “When you dream on
that level, you don’t expect a big
flock.”
Bishop McDonald, who believes that
it will take time for the good of his
dream to become apparent, added:
“If ten percent of the families using
our school respond favorably to the
challenge of this idea, it would be a
moral miracle. If just one family
responds, the mission of the church will
be that much closer to full realization.”
Need More Than Money
NEW ORLEANS (NC) - “You just
can’t throw money at this problem and
expect it to go away,” the priest from
Appalachia said.
Msgr. Ralph W. Beiting was talking
about poverty, and he was speaking
with authority. He was born and raised
in eastern Kentucky and for the past 23
years he has been working in Wolfe
County, Kentucky-the “poorest county
in the United States” with a per capita
income of $1,000 a year, according to
recent statistics.
Msgr. Beiting and his Christian
Appalachia Project (CAP) work year
round to try to bring the tarpaper
shacks up to livable standards and to
keep the residents of Appalachia fed.
The big, silver haired priest admits that
it has often looked like a losing battle.
But CAP has always managed to meet
the needs of the people.
“I guess the hardest thing we’re
trying to do is to influence attitudes,”
Msgr. Beiting said in an interview here.
“There’s tremendous apathy in
Appalachia. The people have seen social
welfare programs come and go and
church programs come and go and
nothing ever really changes. You just
can’t throw money at this problem and
expect it to go away. It will take people
with sincere determination and a solid
sense of dedication.
“We’re going to get to the children
and show them that once they have an
education that they can put that
education to work in Appalachia; that
they shouldn’t run off to the big cities.”
CAP helps people develop skills and
trades for these people. “This is the
whole idea, helping them to help
themselves,” Msgr. Beiting says. “More
giveaway programs just aren’t the
answer. When the money for those
giveaway programs run out, we’re right
back where we started.”
The group has taught auto mechanics,
retailing, leather skills, forestry and
farming, all of which have begun to pay
off in dollars and cents for the people of
Wolfe County. The group has also gone
into tool and dye, printing, upholstery,
has opened construction companies and
from a barn yard operation has built the
country’s largest natural Christmas
wreath manufacturing company.
“The skills are there,” Msgr. Beiting
says. “We’ve just got to recapture them.
We’d look at these poor folks in the past
and they’d say ‘My God, after the food
stamps, and welfare, what is there to
live for?’ But the attutudes are
changing.”
But all the problems of Appalachia
aren’t over. Attitudes don’t change
overnight. And inflation isn’t helping
matters. While in more affluent circles
inflation hits the price of autos and
color television sets, in Appalachia it
eats away at the basics of
existence-simple food, things like milk,
bread and on very rare occasions, meat.
dream is to evaluate peoples’ vision to
this mission.”
Philip Batastini
“This dream can help parents
Tailors -- Cleaners
understand the plight of the
407 - 12th St.
DORIS
disadvantaged and the responsibility of
FA 2-5900
JEWELERS
parents,” he added.
Columbus
AUGUSTA, GA.
The bishop said that relinquishing
places to disadvantaged children would
give them “an opportunity to leam
about God.” While this also means
giving up an education in Catholic
schools for other children, he said, “this
does not have the effect of giving up a
Catholic education. This very act of love
is education in itself.”
He feels that parents who don’t
actively work on the religious formation
of this children, and instead, “let the
Catholic schools do it,” are shirking
their responsibility.
“It is said that 80 percent of what we
are today comes from our mother and
father. Parents-qualified spiritually,
materially, academically-could do 100
percent Catholic formulation with their
children,” Bishop McDonald said. “The
parent is the first educator.”
He feels that too many parents take
advantage of the Church” by having the
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Burial Regulations Changed
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Divorced
Catholics who have remarried outside
the Church may be buried with a
Catholic funeral under certain
circumstances, according to a new
regulartion to be issued by the Vatican’s
Doctrinal Congregations.
The congregation has also informed
the world’s bishops, in a separate
notification, that they must be on guard
against “new opinions which deny or
seek to cast doubt on the doctrine of
the indissolubility of marriage.”
In a letter dated May 29, the
congreation stated that numerous
conferences of bishops had asked if
there has been a change in Church law
which in the past has denied a Catholic
funeral and burial to Catholics who have
died while married irregularly in the
eyes of the Church.
The congregation, which deals with
matters of faith and morals, said the
question was studied by the plenary
session of the congregation in 1972,
which decided “with the approval of the
Supreme Pontiff, to make it easier to
celebrate Church funerals for Catholics
who were not permitted such under
canon law 1240.”
The Church’s Code of Canon Law is
undergoing a total revision at the
present time but the revision has not yet
been issued, the letter noted.
The congregation will issue a new
regulation which provides that
“celebration of religious funerals will no
longer be forbidden for faithful who,
although finding themselves before their
death in a manifestly sinful situation,
have preserved their attachment to the
Church and have shown some sign of
repentance, but always on condition
that public scandal for other faithful is
avoided.”
The letter went on to say that
“public scandal for the faithful and the
ecclesial community can be diminished
or avoided when pastors explain at the
right moment the meaning of Christian
funerals, which many see as a recourse
to the infinite mercy of God and as a
testimony of the faith to the
resurrection of the dead and of life
everlasting.”
The letter specified that “these
opinions, together with other motives of
a doctrinal or pastoral nature, are being
used here and there as an argument to
justify abuses which are contrary to the
present discipline governing the
admission to the sacraments of persons
who live in irregular (matrimonial)
union.”
To offset these opinions and
tendencies, the bishops were advised to
exercise the “greatest care so that all
who are given the assignment of
teaching religion in schools of every
level and in higher institutions” or who
are officials of Church tribunals ‘remain
faithful to the teaching of the Church in
all that regards the indissolubility of
marriage and maintain in practice this
teaching in the ecclesiastical tribunals.”
Residential bishops were also
admonished to see to it that the present
discipline of the Church regarding the
admission to the sacraments of persons
living in “irregular unions” be strictly
observed.
In another letter, the congregation
advised the world’s bishops that
erroneous opinions concerning the
indissolubility of marriage are being
circulated “in books, Catholic
newspapers and even in seminaries and
Catholic schools and also, in practice, in
some ecclesiastical tribunals.”
The present discipline regarding those
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in “irregular unions” is that the
sacraments may be administered to
those hwo have separated but not
remarried, to those who have been
reunited to their legitimate spouse, and
those who have received a declaration of
nullity from the first marriage. To these
are added a separate category of persons
who though remarried have, according
to a practice that is approved by the
Church, undertaken to live as brother
and sister in sexual continence.
HOW COULD SHE MISS? What with her religious habit and that
church and cross in the background, there’s no chance that Sister Eleanor
Joseph will miss the hoop. The nun, who teaches at Our Lady of Angels
College near Media, Pa., is teaching the finer points of basketball to
youngsters from underprivileged neighborhoods in the college area. (RNS
Photo)
HOW
HAPPY
THE HOLY FATHER'S MISSION AID TO THE ORIENTAL CHURCH
When are you happiest? Happiness lies in giv
ing. You’re happiest when you give yourself to
the people who need you most. ... A mother,
for instance, hums with happiness when she
bathes and dresses her baby. A good nurse al
ways has time for a smile. Good fathers whistle
at their work. . -. . The best sort of giving in
volves more than writing checks—still, how bet
ter can you help the children now who need
you overseas? Boys and girls who are blind,
lepers, deaf-mutes, orphans—your money gifts,
large and small, will feed them, teach them,
cure them, give them a chance in life. . . . Want
to be happier? Give some happiness to a child.
You’ll be happy, too!
GIVE
SOME
HAPPINESS
TO
A
CHILD
HAPPINESS
IS
A
SISTER
HAPPINESS
IS
REMEMBERING
A
LOVED
ONE
HAPPINESS
IS
CLOTHING
HAPPINESS
IS
A
SCHOOL
Dear
Monsignor Nolan:
In Marathakara, south India, a young Indian
girl in training to be a Franciscan Clarlst Sister
will learn, among other things, how to care for
orphans. Her training costs $300 all told
($12.50 a month, $150.00 a year), a small in
vestment for a Sister's lifetime of service. Like
to be her sponsor? We’ll send you her name
and she will write to you.
* r
Why not send us your Mass requests now?
Simply list the intentions, and then you can
rest assured the Masses will be offered by
priests in India, the Holy Land and Ethiopia.,
who receive no other income,
Brighten the heart of a blind boy in the Gaza
Strip (where Samson lived). $3 gives him
shoes, $5 clothes, $10 a set of braille readers!
4k
Where there is none in south India, you can
build a six-room permanent school for only
$3,200. Archbishop Mar Gregorios will select
the village, supervise construction and write to
thank you. The children will pray for you, and
you may name the school for your favorite
saint, in your loved one’s memory!
ENCLOSED PLEASE FIND $ ,
FOR.
Please name_
return coupon
with your street.
offering-
cur
.STATE.
.ZIP CODE.
THE CATHOLIC NEAR EAST WELFARE ASSOCIATION
NEAR EAST
MISSIONS
TERENCE CARDINAL COOKE, President
MSGR. JOHN G. NOLAN, National Secretary
Write: Catholic Near East Welfare Assoc.
330 Madison Avenue-New York, N.Y. 10017
Telephone: 212/986-5840