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PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, October 18,1973
SPENT MONTH OF JULY IN ISRAEL
Savannah Priest Views Arab-Jew Relations
(Last July, Father John Cuddy,
pastor of Savannah’s St. James parish,
spent an entire month in Israel, visiting
many cities and towns there, talking to
scores of the nation’s citizens, Jews and
Arabs alike. The recent outbreak of war
between that country and the
neighboring Arab nations in Egypt,
Syria and Iraq prompted Father Cuddy
to submit the following article.)
Last July when I journeyed all over
Israel and the Administered Territories
it captured from Syria, Jordan, and
Egypt in 1967, I promptly fell in love
not only with the Holy Land itself but
also with its people, both Jews and
Arabs. I came to admire them very
much.
The deep attachment of young
Israelis to their country was particularly
inspiring. It was much more than the
love anyone of us would have naturally
for the land of his birth. It was a keen
awareness that Israel was the land of
their ancestors, of Abraham and David
and the Maccabees and Bar Kbchba.
And they were proud that it was their
land once again after so long an exile,
their NATIVE land. But they were
disturbed that their Arab neighbors had
been heavily armed by the UJS.S.R.and
were pledged to destroy them.
When we reflect at all seriously on the
past almost 2,000 years of history, we
can’t help but marvel at the continued
existence of the Jewish People as a
People. They could point to no land on
the earth as their own land. They felt
like “strangers” in all the European,
Asian, and North African lands to which
they had migrated when Rome’s armies
wiped Judea off the face of the map in
135 A.D. And they soon knew from
bitter and bloody experience how
quickly peoples in their adopted lands
could turn against them, as the most
obvious minority, and blame them for
all or most of each country’s problems.
They really meant it when they
prayed at each year’s Seder that they
would observe the Passover “next year
in Jerusalem!” For had not the Land of
Israel been promised by the Lord to
them as their eternal inheritance?
We can understand how Hitler’s
Holocaust convinced them that there
had to be a country where any Jew
could go and live in peace, a country he
could truly call his own.
It is heartbreaking to recall the
6,000,000 Jews, men and women and
children, who died in the Nazi massacre
and to recall how the nations of the
world, including our own, did nothing,
really, to rescue the potential victims
while there was still time. And to recall
how many Christians turned their backs
on their Jewish neighbors all over
Europe as they saw them carted off like
animals to camps like Auschwitz and
Buchenwald.
Can we wonder why the Jews
concluded that if they did not solve the
whole matter once and for all in their
own way in their own country, there
soon would be no Jews left?
Israel stands now as a solemn
reminder to the nations of the world
how they failed “the strangers” in their
midst, and as a warning that Jews are no
longer going to sit back passively,
trusting in the justice their Western and
Eastern neighbors preached far more
often than practiced. They would
fight -- and die -- for freedom.
When war broke out again two weeks
ago between Israel on the one hand and
Egypt and Syria, on the other, I had the
same sick feeling I had back in 1967.
What if Israel loses? What will happen
to the 1,250,000 Jews who have been
born in Israel since its birth in 1948?
They have no roots anywhere else on
the earth. They speak Hebrew. They
think as Israelis, a unique breed of
people, proud, independent, brave,
determined.
Will their enemies drive them into the
sea, as they threatened they would in
1948 and 1967? Will Hitler’s Final
Solution be applied all over again as the
United Nations stands by protesting
loudly, but ineffectively.
And what about the other 1,250,000
Israelis -- the Jews who came as refugees
from North Africa and Asia and Europe.
No one could suggest that they would
be welcomed back to native lands that
no so long ago rejected them. Would
they, too, be slaughtered?
On the other hand, if Syria loses or
Egypt loses, what would they really
lose? Israel doesn’t want to and doesn’t
have the power to occupy, much less
destroy, either nation. All Israel wants is
to be recognized by its neighbors as an
independent nation that wishes to live
in peace with all its neighbors so that,
together, they can solve the massive
economic and social problems of the
entire Middle East.
Israel has so many of its own internal
problems to solve, such as the tensions
that exist between Jews of European
background and Jews of Moroccan or
Iraqi background; the tensions that exist
between religious Jews and
non-observant Jews; the role Arab
citizens play in a Jewish State.
Israel’s first twenty-five years have,
overall, been ones of remarkable
achievement. But it needs a stable peace
so badly for continued progress.
Israel would be the first to admit that
it has made mistakes in its challenges or
reactions to the Arab States that
surround it. And the whole question of
a just resettlement of several hundred
thousand Palestinian refugees weighs
heavily on her national conscience.
But for Arab States to cry for Israel’s
destruction as THE solution to these
problems is totally unacceptable.
I talked with many Palestinian Arabs
last July, and they frankly resent living
in a country that they do not run
politically. But they also know that
they must discover the solution to this
problem together with their Jewish
neighbors.
They, too, are a proud, independent
people, and they don’t want other
nations, even Arab nations, determining
their fate. I was encouraged at how
many felt that they could resolve their
conflicts with the Jews, especially with
the native-born Israelis, whom they
could accept as fellow-Mideasterners.
It is sad to think of the hundreds,
even thousands, of young Israelis and
Egyptians and Syrians who have already
been killed in the past two weeks. I pray
that this war will end soon with Israel’s
independence reaffirmed, and that all
the people of the Middle East will
discover how to live together in
harmony, respecting each nation’s
cultural and territorial integrity and
sovereignty.
Like the Psalmist long ago, let us all
pray that the Lord will give to Israel
what each Israeli wishes his friends
when he meets or leaves them:
“SHALOM-PEACE.”
The Quick and the Dead
WEAPONS OF WAR - A column of Israeli tanks passes the remains of
a burned-out Syrian tank during fighting in the Golan Heights. (RNS
Photo)
Budget of the Diocese of Savannah
For the Fiscal Year of 1973-1974
Expected Income
From Sources Outside the Diocese
1. American Board of Mission
2. Indian and Negro Missions
3. Extension Society:
a. General contributions
b. Salary subsidies
c. Campus Ministry
d. Education
e. Gift for seminary education
4. Mission Appeals
$60,000.00
50,000.00
20,000.00
3,600.00
10,000.00
1.200.00
5,000.00
12,000.00
TOTAL:
From Sources Inside the Diocese
Parish Contributions:
1. Confraternity of the Laity
2. Parish assessments for diocesan
administration
Communications:
SOUTHERN CROSS Collection
Education:
1. Seminary Collection
2. Flannery Trust Fund
3. Catholic Laymen’s Assn.
4. Spalding Trust Fund
5. Kuhn Trust Fund
6. Walker Trust Fund
Mission Parishes:
Annual Mission Collection
Welfare:
1. Christmas Collection
2. Flannery Trust Fund
TOTAL:
TOTAL:
$140,000.00
60,000.00
$12,000.00
$8,000.00
2,000.00
3,500.00
2,000.00
2,000.00
400.00
TOTAL:
TOTAL:
$15,000.00
$23,000.00
10,000.00
TOTAL:
Other Sources:
1. Rent
2. Interest from loans and
savings
$2,700.00
61,000.00
TOTAL:
GRAND TOTAL:
$161,800.00
$200,000.00
$12,000.00
$17,900.00
$15,000.00
$33,000.00
$63,700.00
$503,400.00
* The grants from the American Board of Catholic Missions, the Indian and Negro Mission Board, and
Extension Society are contingent upon the budgets of these organizations. They are not necessarily given
every year.
Expenses
Administration:
College Campus Ministry:
Communications:
1. Diocesan Communications Center
2. SOUTHERN CROSS
Diocesan Commissions & Organizations:
1. Diocesan Pastoral Council
2. D. C. C.W.
3. Liturgy & Music Commission
4. Ecumenism Commission
5. Family Life Commission
6. Social Apostolate Commission
7. Diocesan Finance Board
8. Personnel Board
9. Priests’ Senate
Education:
1. D.C.F.
2. Diaconate Program
3. Camp Villa Marie
4. St. John’s Center
5. Education of Seminarians
6. Post-Ordination Education
7. Vocation Recruitment Program
8. Diocesan School Office
9. Financial Aid for Black Students
Georgia Catholic Conference:
Marriage Tribunal:
Mission Subsidies:
Welfare:
1. Clergy Welfare Fund
2. St. Mary’s Home
3. Diocesan Social Apostolate
4. Augusta Social Apostolate
5. Columbus Social Apostolate
6. Macon Social Apostolate
7. McRae Social Apostolate
8. Savannah Social Apostolate
9. Valdosta-Brunswick Social Apostolate
Contingency:
Capital Improvements:
New missions, repairs & property
purchase
TOTAL:
TOTAL:
TOTAL:
$9,600.00
40,850.00
$1,250.00
1,300.00
1,600.00
1,000.00
600.00
335.00
250.00
2,000.00
500.00
$32,000.00
3,000.00
5,000.00
3,300.00
40,000.00
10,000.00
3,000.00
10,104.00
20,000.00
TOTAL:
SUBTOTAL:
GRAND TOTAL:
Projected Income:
Projected Expenses:
BALANCE:
SUMMARY
$79,800.00
$10,000.00
$50,450.00
$8,835.00
$126,404.00
$3,500.00
$15,000.00
$22,800.00
$17,000.00
58,000.00
20,000.00
4,000.00
4,000.00
4,000.00
1,500.00
4,000.00
1,200.00
$113,700.00
$12,000.00
$442,489.00
$60,000.00
$502,489.00
$503,400.00
$502,489,00
$911.00