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PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, October 11,1973
CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC CHARITIES
Resolutions Support Boycott, Health Care
BOYCOTT IN ATLANTA ~ Members of the
Industrial Union Department, AFL-CIO, picket
Davison’s Department Store in Atlanta, protesting the
sale of Farah slacks. The union members were
supporting the workers who have been on strike for a
year against the El Paso* Tex., manufacturing firm.
Davison’s, a division of the R.H. Macy Co., is the
largest carrier of Farah products in Atlanta. (NC Photo
by James Brown)
SACRED HEART SAVANNAH
Parish Installs Council Members
Twelve members of Sacred Heart
Parish Council, Savannah, were installed
recently at a Mass celebrated by the
pastor, Father James Costigan.
In his homily, Father Costigan
reminded the Council members of their
responsibilities to the entire
community, quoting from documents of
Vatican Council II. “There are laymen,”
he said, “chosen by God to devote
themselves to apostolic labors. Through
the Parish Council, the Church shares
with the members her power and
authority in guiding and directing that
people.”
During the homily, the pastor lit a
five-wick candle, marking the beginning
of a parish fund-raising drive. The
candle, he said, should serve as a
reminder to the people of the “many
ways in which Sacred Heart parish as
‘lighted other candles,’ such as the
mission on the Isle of Hope and St.
James parish in the days when it was a
mission of Sacred Heart.”
After the homily, each Council
member was invited to approach the
altar, where they received from Father
Costigan the commission to be true and
loyal servants of the Church and their
parish. The pastor prayed that the Holy
Spirit “might strengthen and guide them
in their mission.”
Special TV Broadcast
Bing Crosby will narrate a special television program titled “You
Can Still Change the World” to be broadcast by WJCL-TV, channel
22, Savannah on Sunday, October 28. Air time is 7:30 a.m.
Crosby is helping “The Christophers” to celebrate 20 years of
religious broadcasting on both radio and television. The broadcasts,
begun by the late Father James Keller, M.M. made famous a motto
which the Maryknoll priest brought back to the U.S. from his days as
a missionary in China - “It is better to light one candle than to curse
the darkeness.”
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BY GENE HORN
MILWAUKEE, Wis. (NC) - A
resolution supporting the boycott
against Farah Manufacturing Co.
received strong support from the
National Conference of Catholic
Charities (NCCC) convention here.
Other resolutions receiving the
support of the convention called for
“more equitable” welfare and health
care systems, alleviating the housing
crisis, requiring federal revenue funds be
spent on the poor, and an overall federal
economic policy to provide more jobs.
Members of the NCCC agreed to
refrain from purchasing Farah products
and to encourage local merchants to
discontinue the Farah line until strikers
and the company reach agreement.
Charities delegates commended
Bishop Sidney Metzger of El Paso, Tex.,
and Auxiliary Bishop Patrick Flores of
San Antonio, Tex., for their support of
the Farah strike.
The NCCC urged that Congress
undertake immediate reconsideration of
the present social service programs and
institute a new system which is less
complicated, more equitable and truly
responsive to human dignity.
The resolutions stressed NCCC efforts
must assure that:
-Family stability be supported
through income maintenance and
service programs directly proportioned
to need.
-Human dignity be affirmed by
programs which enable the unborn,
aging, emotionally ill and imprisoned to
achieve fullness of life.
-Specific attention be given toward
developing “a continum of care in the
community for all in need such as the
blind, deaf, physically handicapped,
retarded, alcoholic, mentally ill and
elderly.”
The conference suggested that Sen.
Edward Kennedy’s (D.-Mass.) proposed
National Health Care Program “assure
universal eligiblity and availability of
adequate health care to all citizens,
especially those of low and fixed
incomes.”
NCCC recommended that bold but
practical programs be developed within
the current legislative session to alleviate
the progressively worsening housing
crisis.
The resolution explained, “if congress
fails to do so, it must bear a large part
of the burden for the callous failure of
the nation to keep its 1968 solemn
commitment to provide new or
rehabilitated housing for all who need
it, particularly the poor and the
elderly.”
The charities organization advocated
that revenue sharing include federal
guidelines which assure local response to
the needs of the poor and “higher
visibility and accountability on the local
level for the process by which priorities
are determined.”
The NCCC called for the
“unemployment rate experienced by
minority groups and women” to be
directly confronted by an overall federal
economic policy which will result in job
growth by the government “serving as
an employer of last resort, and by
programs of training and placement.”
In a preface to the resolutions, the
NCCC explained that “the first national
priority is to respond to a call being
heard throughout the land, a call which
is surfacing from a hunger for human
dignity.
“There is an awareness of the need to
re-allocate our resources and create a »
new human care system, pursuing this
priority will involve the establishment
of budget priorities for human growth
rather than for the military.
“Congress must become more
accountable for the balance between the
cost of what it proposes and the
available income. The executive branch
must become more responsive to the
needs of the disadvantaged people.”
Both “local and central
administration must serve human
dignity by making services and
assistance more readily available,” the
preface said.
DROUGHT-STRICKEN AREA
Catholic Aid to Africa Praised
VATICAN CITY (NC) ~ U.S.
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is a
“tremendous help” to millions still
threatened with death in the
drought-stricken Sahelian zone of
Africa, according to a top official of Cor
Unum, Pope Paul’s coordinating agency
for international Catholic relief efforts.
At a press conference here Oct. 2,
Swiss Dominican Father Henri de
Riedmatten, secretary of Cor Unum,
praised the, efforts of CRS - the
oversears aid organization of American
Catholics - in the six stricken African
countries.
Father De Riedmatten, recently
returned from a mid-September meeting
in Ouagadougou, Upper Volta, with
government and Church leaders, said the
situation is still perilous but that relief
efforts are paying off.
At the Vatican press conference the
Dominican priest said that, although
some rain had come to some countries,
government leaders consider it necessary
“to maintain a state of emergency for
the coming year.”
One of the “plus” factors in the
devastation that overtook Mali, Chad,
Niger, Mauritania, Senegal and Upper
Volta last year is the aid delivered by
government and charitable
organizations, the relief coordinator
said.
“I know the CRS personnel working
there in three of the countries,” Father
De Riedmatten told NC News in Rome.
“Catholic Relief Services is a
tremendous help to countless people
with their food program and their
efforts to organize and train the people
to help themselves.”
Msgr. Joseph Harnett of Philadelphia,
Rome-based director of CRS activities
in Europe, North Africa, the Middle
East and India, said that CRS, through
its fulltime personnel in Upper Volta,
Mauritania and Senegal, had provided
$444,719 worth of food, medicine and
self-help utilities.
The Philadelphia priest, who has
spent much of his life helping millions
across half the globe, said that CRS has
“a much bigger program in the works to
assist in developing water resources in
several of the African nations.”
At his Vatican press conference,
Father De Riedmatten highly praised
the relief organizations on the local
scene in Africa that helped coordinate
and distribute the aid sent from around
the world.
Recognizing the “considerable
assistance contributed by the Catholic
world outside Africa,” Father De
Riedmatten concluded:
“The tireless zeal of clergy and laity
of the local churches has played an
indispensable role up to this point.
“One can add that the Christian
contribution has not been lacking in any
of the six Sahelian countries.”
Father De Riedmatten attended a
government conference in Ouagadougou
from Aug. 30 to Sept. 12 with the
leaders of all six nations and then
attended a Catholic relief meeting in the
same city with Catholic bishops of the
six nations to plan future strategy.
JS&mSS
MEMBERS OF SACRED HEART PARISH
COUNCIL, SAVANNAH, gather around the altar after
their official installation at a special Mass in the parish ,
church.
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