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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, September 20,1973
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Failure in Chile
(Chile seems such a long way off to
many Americans that the failure of
democracy there may not appear to
forebode any lasting effects on the
concept of government of, by and for
the people anywhere else. Perhaps the
following editorial reprinted from the St.
Louis Review, newspaper of the
Archdiocese of St. Louis, may help them
to see that the poet’s words “no man is
an island” can apply to nations as well as
individuals.)
The tragic drift of Chile toward civil
war must raise some questions among
Americans, questions not only about
Chile but about the future of democracy
in general.
The first question that confronts us is
the question of why Chile went Marxist
in the first place. Moderate Eduardo Frei
was a popular leader and seemed to have
Chile firmly set in the ways of
democracy. Chile is also traditionally
one of the most stable of the South
American democracies. Still a Marxist
government was elected in a free election
and confirmed in a subsequent election --
not by absolute majorities, but by
enough of the Chilean people to cause us
to wonder why capitalism, if not
democracy, was defeated.
We must also be concerned about the
impact of multinational companies based
in the United States on the governments
of other people. Watergate testimony
leaves no doubt that the multinationals
were deeply involved in Chilean politics.
We must wonder now not only about the
propriety of such actions but even about
their utility, since no corporation can
operate efficiently in the chaos that now
afflicts Chile.
It is also a complete reversal of our
usual experience with matters of this
sort to realize that the duly elected
government -- in this case Marxist -- was
thrown out by a military coup. It is
usually the Marxists who act against the
duly elected government. We must
reexamine our attitude toward
revolution against an elected government
as certainly as Marxists across the world
must ask themselves about the inability
of Chilean Marxists to govern.
Perhaps the key question, though,
involves the future of democracy in
America and across the world. Chile has
become a nation bitterly divided along
ideological lines. Allende, supported by
the workers, was overthrown by the
middle and upper classes and their
strikes in transportation and medicine.
It is not unreasonable to expect that
any new ruler of Chile who would be
more acceptable to the upper and middle
classes would expect the same disruptive
opposition from the poor. The main
factor that has kept America from
following the route of class and
ideological divisions is our much
maligned two-party system. Goldwater
and Percy are both Republicans,
McGovern and Wallace both Democrats.
Our political parties wheel and deal,
compromise, and hardly have a cohesive
philosophy, but they do represent a
microcosm of the country. Should they
ever represent class or ideological
divisions, we would be on the same
course as the aborted Chilean
democracy. The dangers to government
and to the vitality of the parties
disclosed by Watergate saps the very
stuff of which America is made.
The Second Vatican Council did not
endorse any form of government but
made it clear that the dignity and
freedom of man demanded his
participation in the decision-making
process. The failure of Chile’s democracy
is a threat to this freedom across the
world.
Looking For the Lord
Reverend John Reedy C.S.C.
About seven years ago, I co-authored a little
book called THE PERPLEXED CATHOLIC.
Some of my friends remarked at the time that
for me it was the perfect subject because I was
a good example of the confusion with which
the book dealt.
Then, and now, I consider that
characterization to be a pretty fair qualification
for a Catholic journalist.
There are times when I wish I had the kind
of knowledge and certitude which is expressed
by various religious experts. Some of these
people seem to have all the new approaches
packaged as neatly as they were in the
BALTIMORE CATECHISM.
But I don’t have that clarity. My
commitments and basic beliefs are clear, but
I’m still searching for ways of fitting these new
insights into my basic beliefs. Since this seems a
commom problem, I hope to share some of that
search with the readers of this column.
Nevertheless, unlike some spokesmen, I’m
glad that my introduction to the Church came
under that old system. Its orderliness-perhaps
unsophisticated-allowed us to avoid excessive
concern about marginal issues and
inconsistencies. It provided an atmosphere in
which the more substantial directions and
commitments of our lives could develop.
As an introduction, I’m a middle-aged priest,
raised and trained in that complete
family-parish-school system most of us knew
before the last council. Also, I’m a member of a
religious congregation . . .and I’m happy about
being in both the priesthood and this
congregation, even though I didn’t foresee all
that would be involved when I was admitted.
Since ordination, I’ve worked in Catholic
journalism and publishing. For 17 years I edited
a weekly magazine which tried to understand
and interpret what was going on in the Church
and what the Church had to say about some of
the social problems of the world. At present, I
direct a book publishing printing plant here at
the University of Notre Dame. We also write
and edit a . small bi-weekly, A.D.
CORRESPONDENCE.
This background obviously colors my
thought and judgment. I’ve seen relatively little
of these years from the viewpoint of a parish
priest. I’m sure that such experience would
have given me a more personal knowledge of
where American Catholics are at this time.
On the other hand, my own work has
provided a rare opportunity to observe and
think about the major patterns of change we
have been living through. It amounted to a
front row seat on two of the most exciting,
tumultuous decades of recent Church history.
That’s the perspective I hope to bring to this
column . . .along with an attempt to recognize
and describe glimpses of the Lord’s image as it
appears in the faces and lives of ordinary
people.
This, incidentally, is one of my basic
conclusions from these two decades: too many
of us have allowed the fireworks and spectacles
of ecclesiastical life to blind us to an obvious
fact which most of us have experienced.
It’s the fact that most of the important
religious influences of our lives have come not
from formulas, programs and organizations of
the Church, but from persons in whom dignity,
reverence and fidelity expressed the human
reality of Christianity.
I would like this column to be a reminder
that as we search for Christ in our daily lives,
we need to look at the world and the Church
portrayed in the news reports of this
paper . . .AND as it is mirrored in the faces of
people with whom we live.
“In other words you want a piece of
the action.”
More on ...
Back to Our Schools
Mary Carson
Last week I said the recent Supreme Court
decisions barring aid to nonpublic schools
might be a blessing in disguise because they
may jar us into a vigorous and very successful
period of fund raising for Catholic education.
While we have been campaigning to get
government assistance for our schools we seem
to have convinced ourselves, I believe
erroneously, that we can’t support our schools.
There is a good deal of evidence that we can.
The famous Gallup poll that was done for
“Newsweek” magazine, contrary to the way
“Newsweek” interpreted the poll, revealed
some facts that show great pro-Catholic
sentiment.
Of the Catholic parents surveyed, 49% said
they would be willing to give more to keep
Catholic schools going. Even more startling,
one-third of the Catholic parents whose
children attend public schools indicated they
would be willing to contribute more to keep
parochial schools going.
Part of the reason for this may be that
people realize if the Catholic schools close,
their school taxes will up, and they would
rather contribute something to keep the schools
open than to have to pay a greater amount in
increased taxes.
That concept of taxes going up can also be
used, I believe, to successfully raise money
from business, and not only those owned by
Catholics.
Mr. Gallup says his polls show a great deal of
pro-Catholic sentiment among non-Catholics.
Among some Protestants, he says, the Catholic
Church and its schools are viewed today as a
“refuge in the storm” where meaning and order
in one’s existence can be found.
Another interesting set of facts appears in a
study done in 1971 by William E. Brown of
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He gathered and
tabulated a wealth of statistics in terms of
population, school enrollment, school costs,
Catholic’s income from wages, contributions,
etc.
The study concludes: “Despite increasing
Catholic school costs - even greater than
increasing public school costs - we will be able
to finance all of the Church’s needs as easily in
the future as we did in the past and as we can
do today.
So I have to believe the money is there and
that people are willing to contribute it.
All that is needed is a commitment on the
part of our bishops to lead us in a drive to raise
funds for Catholic education.
From the tone of the pastoral letter issued
by the bishops of the United States in response
to the Supreme Court decisions I believe that
they now will start an all-out drive in this
direction and we will be enormously successful.
Eventually, I believe, the use of tax money
to fund non-public schools will be accepted by
the people of the United States based on
justice.
In the meantime, however, instead of
destroying our school system by closing schools
to prove we need that money, I think we will
be enjoying a new vitality in Catholic
education.
One more reason for this thinking is the fact
that the birth rate among Catholics is
substantially lower than a generation ago. There
will be little or no need for building new
schools during the immediate years ahead.
The money that is raised for Catholic
education in the next few years can therefore
be devoted to improving the operation of
existing schools, rather than for construction as
has been the case in the past.
So I sincerely do believe we are on the verge
of a period when every Catholic parent who
ernestly desires a Catholic education for his
child will find it physically and financially
available.
The recent Supreme Court decisions that
may have at first looked like a disaster, will
actually herald a golden age in Catholic
education!
Evangelize...
What’s That ?
Reverend Joseph Dean
•Evangelize? Catholic people are going to hear
and to read about this word during the coming
year from every direction. “Evangelize” has
many shades of meaning but within the
Catholic world community it is used in this
sense: “that activity whereby living faith is
awakened in non-Christians and fostered in
Christians through the proclaiming and
explaining of the Gospel.”
Put more briefly, it is that activity whereby
the whole Church proclaims the Gospel so that
faith may be aroused, may unfold and may
grow.
In the world of today the judgement and the
very scale of values in men’s consciences are
undergoing tremendous change. In this new
form which the world is taking on, Christ Jesus
must become present as the foundation of
men’s entire hope.
There are many obstacles to effective and
successful evangelization, but here are several
elements and trends which favor disposing men
to the true spirit of the Gospel, as listed by the
U.S. Catholic Conference:
1. People are seeking a new life style,
freedom from all types of servitude, and the
development and promotion of the whole man.
2. In human society individuals as well are
seeking the meaning of life and are daily
becoming more involved in the discussion of
this matter.
3. Dissatisfaction springs not only from lack
of progress; it also increases with the advent of
progress itself.
4. The Church is becoming progressively less
identified with society’s political structures,
and is able to manifest her religious nature
more clearly.
5. There is an evident reaction against
conformism and immutable traditions. The
reaction manifests itself in the questioning of
structures imposted from without.
6. New community forms of every kind
arising everywhere demonstrate people’s urge to
foster mutual solidarity.
7. There is an increase in the sense of
personal responsibility.
8. The less elevated forms of religious
practice are coming to be recognized as lacking
in substance and are being either rejected or
corrected. A more genuine religious experience
is prized and sought after.
9. The various religions and world ideologies
are coming together in the quest for peace and
justice.
(Next week: the very core of evangelizing.)
Joe Breig
The axiom that power tends to corrupt those
in power remains true as always. It is signally
illustrated by the forced sexual sterilizing
proposals issued by the enormous federal
bureaucracy called the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare (HEW).
HEW wants to set up “review committees”
across the nation to recommend to courts that
certain minors and persons “legally incapable of
consenting” should be forced to undergo
operations depriving them of the power to
become parents.
This is one more outcome of the insanely
anti-life attitudes of the day. It is HEW’s
response-a response that is truly
contemptuous-to widespread denunciations of
the forced sterilizing of two poor black girls in
Alabama.
The pretext of the social workers who
engineered that callous procedure was that the
operation had been authorized by the mother
of the girls. Aside from the fact that she had no
right whatever to authorize anything of the
kind, the fact is that she was illiterate, signed
with an X, and clearly didn’t know what she
was doing.
It need hardly be said that the first victims of
this sort of bureaucratic despotism would be
the poor, the black, the defenseless, the
retarded, the uneducated, the unwanted. But
they would not be the only victims. The history
of Nazi Germany richly illustrates how swiftly
such tyranny can be turned against anyone who
stands in the way of those in power-against
Jews, Christians, intellectuals; anyone.
But is it necessary to appeal to that motive
of self-protection in order to arouse Americans
in such matters? Do we not have enough heart
and enough brains to realize that there is no
meaner or more inhuman kind of bullying than
the bullying of the poor, the uneducated and
the inexperienced by the powerful, the learned,
the sophisticated?
The viciousness of such behavior is evident to
everyone when the bullying is crude-say when
someone abuses a child, or cheats an aged
widow out of her Social Security money. But it
is equally contemptible when it tries to robe
itself in an alleged self-righteous concern for the
good of its victims.
Isn’t it high time for Americans to demand
an end to every form of playing God? We have
no more moral right to force a sterilizing
operation on someone than to severe his optical
nerves to deprive him of vision, or to cut off his
hands.
Bullying of those who depend on welfare
payments for food and shelter and life itself has
always been a low temptation for social
workers and welfare investigators, and for the
bureaucrats who head up such government
agencies. We should have stringent laws to
remove such temptations insofar as possible,
and to protect the poor and the powerless.
Ask
Three
Questions
Reverend James Wilmes
Among the meaner streaks in human nature
is the pleasure some people take in spreading
rumor or gossip. To ease their conscience, they
say they do not want to cause trouble, “so keep
my name out of it.” But why the secrecy if it is
not trouble these busy-bodies want to make?
There are laws which protect one who speaks
the truth about another, however, scandalous.
The anonymous rumor-monger avoids the law’s
protection for obvious reasons; he is passing
along unsupported hearsay, and knows it. From
what does this pleasure come in such a
miserable role?
Are the lives of these people so drab and
unexciting, their own concerns so petty that
they find self-importance in peddling trifles? Or
is it plain envy that drives them to ruin the
reputation of others? You may not know, but
these are possible explanantions.
But this we do know: there is nothing more
contemptible than to pass along the grapevine
that which not only hurts another human
being, but leaves him or her defenseless. Even
the worst criminal is given his day in court!
Let those who would keep their conscience
clear of such an offense against common
decency, ask three questions before passing on
what is told them in whispered confidence: Is it
true? Is it kind? Is it necessary to repeat? If
not, then bury the tale in the pit of the great
unsaid. Trust that it will not burst you asunder.
RESOLUTION: If we cannot say something
good about another, let us say nothing. Make
two or three compliments to or about someone
daily to form good habits.
SCRIPTURE: “If anyone does not offend in
word, he is a perfect man. The tongue is a little
member, but it boasts mightily. Behold how
small a fire but how great a forest it kindles!”
James 3, 2.