Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 54 No. 38
Thursday, November 1,1973
Single Copy Price — 12 Cents
RETURNED $16.50 FOR EVERY DOLLAR, IN 1972
Mission Collection — Bonanza for Diocese
BY F.J. DONOHUE
If you could get back $16.50 for
every dollar you invested you’d have
stumbled on a real bonanza -- right?
Well, if you contributed at least one
dollar to last year’s Mission Sunday
Collection in the Savannah diocese,
that’s exactly what you did. Last year,
Catholics of this diocese contributed
$4,300.00 in that collection and the
Diocese of Savannah received
$70,000.00 in return. This year’s
collection will be taken up next Sunday
(Nov. 4).
Of course, disbursements are made
from this national collection on the
basis of need, and not in accordance
with the generosity of those who
contribute to it. And when you stop to
consider that there are about ten
thousand Catholic families in this
diocese, the average contribution by
them to last year’s collection was less
than fifty-cents.
In an interview with this writer,
Bishop Raymond Lessard hazarded the
opinion that “perhaps our people did
not contribute more last year because
they simply didn’t know how important
this nation-wide fund raising effort is
for a small diocese such as our own.
“Approximately one-third of the
annual income during the past fiscal
year for diocesan expenses, as distinct
from parish expenses, came from
sources outside the diocese, and more
than one-third of that amount, or
$70,000 came from funds raised around
the country in the Mission Sunday
Collection.
“We are, indeed, grateful for the
invaluable aid extended to our diocese
through this collection and I am
ECUMUNICAL PRAYER SERVICE. Three bishops,
Catholic, United Methodist, and Episcopal led a
city-wide ecumenical worship service last Sunday
(Oct. 28) in Savannah’s historic Trinity United
Methodist Church. They are (1. to r.) Bishop Raymond
U.S. JESUIT CHARGES
W. Lessard, Catholic diocese of Savannah; Bishop Wm.
R. Cannon, United Methodist Church; Bishop Paul
Reeves, Episcopal diocese of Georgia. Combined choirs
from four area churches provided a program of sacred
music for an overflow congregation.
Movie Total Distortion of History
ROME (NC) - A noted Church
historian has challenged claims by an
American author, Robert Katz, that
Pope Pius XII had been informed
beforehand of the Nazi massacre of 335
Italians in Rome during World War II
and did nothing to stop it.
Jesuit Father Robert Graham, an
American Jesuit who has been working
with Vatican, U.S., and German archives
for several years and who is a specialist
in the wartime work of Pope Pius XII,
challenged Katz in connection with the
INSIDE STORY
Mideast War
Pg. 2
Fr. Reedy
Pg. 4
Life in Music
Pg. 6
CHD Helps Poor
Pg. 7
release of a new movie starring Richard
Burton and Marcello Mastroianni.
Father Graham said the movie,
“Massacre in Rome,” is a total
distortion of history..
The film (classified PG - parental
guidance suggested) opened in New
York Oct. 24. It is based on the book
“Death In Rome,” by Katz, who also
helped write the screenplay.
The massacre is an historical fact. The
Germans in wartime Rome killed 335
Italians, selected totally at random in
reprisal for the Italian partisans killing
of 33 SS soldiers.
What Father Graham is furious about
is that, as he puts it, “Pius XII remains
as the only bad man as the film ends.
They (the Germans, Nazis and Italian
Fascists) are all innocent except the
Pope.”
Father Graham made the point that
Dr. Eugene Dollmann, Heinrich
Himmler’s wartime representative in
Rome and now living in Munich, “has
repeatedly stated that he did not know
himself of the order for the reprisals
until after it was all over.”
Said Father Graham: “This very clear
statement of Dollmann appears
differently in the movie, where he is
even shown taking the execution order
off the teletype himself. This calculated
misrepresentation, blandly disregarding
the repeated witness of Dollmann, is a
measure of the historicity of the film. It
is also a measure of the accusation
against the Pope, which rests on
Dollmann’s alleged role as portrayed in
the film.”
Worship Congress Schedule
The planning committee for the fourth Catholic Congress on Workship for the
Atlanta Province has released the schedule for workshops which will highlight activities
on Friday (Nov.9) at the Savannah Civic Center. At 2:30 p.m. and again at 4 p.m. The
Dance as Prayer, room 1; Family Prayer, room 2; Approaches to
Prayer within the Protestant Tradition, room 3. Renewing Traditional Forms of Prayer
at 2:30 in room 4; Praying the Scriptures at 4 p.m. in room 4; Liturgy and Pastoral
Care of the Sick at 4 p.m. in room 5. Workshops held Friday at the DeSoto Hilton
Hotel at both 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. are: Environment That Help Us Pray; Using Audio
Visual Aids to Support Prayer; Celebrating Baptism and Penance Prayerfully; Using
Music to Foster Prayer.
confident that our people will
demonstrate their gratitude by
increasing their contribution to the
special collection to be taken up in our
churches next Sunday.”
Funds realized from the Mission
Sunday collection are almost evenly
divided by the American Board of
Catholic Missions and the Society for
the Propagation of the Faith.
The American Baord of Catholic
Missions channels its share to needy
dioceses in the United States, and it was
from this board that the Savannah
diocese last year received $70,000. It is
mainly from grants such as these that
the diocese is able to subsidize some of
the smaller rural parishes of the diocese
which are not financially self-sufficient
and to purchase new mission properties
and build mission churches.
The Society for the Propagation of
the Faith disburses its share of Mission
Sunday funds to needy dioceses in other
countries, especially to those in the
underdeveloped nations of the world.
It is currently helping to maintain
300,000 missionaries; 100,000 schools;
1,000 hospitals; 127 leprosaira; 2,374
orphanages and 867 homes for the aged
in 833 mission territories.
How important are these overseas
needs in addition to our own home
missions? Vatican Council II answered
that question by reminding all Catholics
that each is a missionary sharing the
command of Christ to “Go, teach all
nations ...”
USCC OFFICIALS THINK SO
Were ‘Maude’ Episodes a Setup?
NEW YORK (NC) - Were the
controversial “Maude” CBS television
episodes on abortion and vasectomy set
up by some pressure group?
The evidence seems to point that
way, according to two officials of the
United States Catholic Conference
(USCC).
“The information points to the
conclusion that the ‘Maude’ abortion
shows, like Maude’s abortion itself, were
not spontaneous but induced,” say
Robert B. Beusse and Russell Shaw,
respectively secretary and associate
secretary for communication of the
USCC.
Evidence “suggests that the programs
may in large part have owed their origin
to the efforts of a hard-driving pressure
group called the Population Institute,”
they said.
Beusse and Shaw examine the
background of the controversy over the
“Maude” episodes in an article entitled
“‘Maude’s’ Abortion: Spontaneous or
Induced?” in the Nov. 3 issue of
America magazine, a national weekly
published here by the Jesuit Fathers.
During the controversy, Beusse and
Shaw say, “one important question
went unasked: How did it come about
that a prime-time situation comedy not
only tackled the topic but resolved
‘Maude’s dilemma’ by having its heroine
opt in favor of abortion?”
They cite evidence that an important
role in the development of the programs
was played by the Population Institute,
a private organization with offices in
Washington and New York, which was
established in 1969 to “perform a
unique catalytic function in halting
population growth.”
Among the facts Beusse and Shaw
cite are the following:
- A statement by the Population
Institute, in its descriptive literature,
that “Maude’s” producer, Norman Lear,
“made it clear that the attention his
scripts have given to abortion and
vasectomy originated in his attendance”
at a conference which the institute
sponsored for “creative” people in the
TV industry.
- A New York Times interview with
Lear, suggesting that writers were
“probably prodded” to direct scripts on
abortion and vasectomy to him by a
Boston-based population organization,
that the treatment of abortion and
vasectomy in the “Maude” series was
“the direct result of a program of the
Population Institute to make the TV
industry aware of the ways in which its
programming may affect people’s
attitudes.”
Commenting on these and other
media-related activities of the institute,
Beusse and Shaw say:
“Protest after the fact is often
necessary and sometimes . . . can
produce results,” they say. “In the long
run, however, it is even more important
that the pro-life movement take a leaf
from the book of groups like .the
Population Institute and conduct the
well-planned, well-organized efforts
needed to get a fair hearing in the
communications media today.”
MR. & MRS. RALPH E. SEIKEL receive a certificate commemorating
their 50th wedding anniversary from Bishop Raymond Lessard following a
special Mass at Savannah’s Cathedral last Sunday (Oct. 28). They were
among 23 couples celebrating silver and golden anniversaries who attended
the Mass. Mr. & Mrs. Seikel are the parents of Rev. Ralph Seikel,
Superintendent of Savannah diocesan schools. They live in Canton, Ohio.
(V.
HEADLINE
HOPSCOTCH
Catholic-Jewish Talks
WASHINGTON (NC) - The first National Workshop on Catholic-Jewish Relations
will be held at the Bergamo Center in Dayton Ohio, Nov. 27-29, it was announced
here. Father Edward H. Flannery, executive secretary of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat
for Catholic-Jewish Relations, said the secretariat will sponsor the workshop in
collaboration with the Cincinnati archdiocesan ecumenical commission and the
Dayton Christian-Jewish Dialogue group. The theme of the workshop will be
“Dialogue, Dynamism and Direction.”
Czechs Check Clergy
BRATISLAVA, Czechoslovakia (NC) - The education of seminarians and the
functioning of newly ordained priests has been severely restricted by authorities of the
Slovakia region of the country. Of the 90 seminarians scheduled to be ordained in
1974, 41 have been ordered into military service for two years, despite the fact that
students are exempt from military service. In addition, only 20 of 80 newly ordained
priests are unable to function as priests, not even to say Mass. The only Mass many of
them have said was one of their ordination.