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PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, December 6, 1973
IN NEW JERSEY
School Equipment Auction Causes Hard Feelings
BLACKWOOD, N.J. (NC) - Tensions
and tempers have been rising here ever
since October’s court-ordered auction of
state-owned school equipment provided
to nonpublic schools under a New
Jersey law which was declared
unconstitutional in April.
In July a three-judge federal panel
ruled that the equipment had to be
returned to state control. But the
logistics of moving $7.5 million worth
of equipment from the state’s 752
private schools proved too formidable,
and an auction was held in October.
Many of the people of St. Agnes
parish here have decided to show their
dissatisfaction with the situation by
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INNKEEPER: MARGUIRITE FITZGERALD
attacking the public school board at the
polls and in the purse strings, according
to the Catholic Star Herald, the
newspaper of the Camden diocese.
For the moment their objectives are
threefold:
--Defeat a public school referendum
calling for a 12-month school year.
--Reject an accompanying $500,000
bond issue for air conditioning systems
in public schools.
--Unseat those members of the board
of education up for reelection in
February.
Daniel Riiff, member of St. Agnes
parish and leader of the movement,
outlined the reasons for the cam Dai en.
“This goes far beyond just being a
little upset with the township school
board,” Riiff told the Star Herald, “and
has nothing to do with politics or
Church interference in government.”
The larger question, he added, is
whether parents who send their children
to Catholic schools should be penalized
financially.
But it wasn’t until the public board
of education voted unanimously against
a motion to return the equipment
obtained in the auction that St. Agnes
parishoners, spurred by their priests and
lay leaders, adopted a militant stance.
Joseph Celletti, a member of the
public board of education and a. St.
Agnes parishoner, said that his
responsibility was to see that the public
schools give the best education possible,
which, he said, included seeking all
avail a hi p rpsnnrpps
a?
TIME FOR PRAYER
Southeastern Charismatic
Augusta. (Photo by George
- Three groups gathered for prayer during
Renewal Conference held last weekend in
Champion)
WE'LL
DO YOUR
CHRISTMAS
SHOPPING
THE HOLY FATHER’S MISSION AID TO THE ORIENTAL CHURCH
Christmas is Christ’s Birthday. This year, to
show Him you love Him, give your presents to
the poor. . . . For instance, train a boy for the
priesthood. We’ll send you his name, he’ll write
to you, and you may stretch payments to suit
your own convenience ($15.00 a month, $180 a
year, $1,080 for the entire six-year course). The
friend who has everything, if you sponsor a
seminarian in his name, will appreciate this
more than a gift he doesn't need. We’ll send
your friend our attractive Gift Card before
Christmas, telling him what you have done. . . .
Or sponsor a Sister-to-be ($12.50 a month, $150
a year, $300 altogether), a homeless child ($14
a month), or feed a refugee family for two
weeks ($5). Your friend will be pleased you
thought of someone else when you remembered
him. . . . Please write to us today to be sure
the Gift Cards reach your friends before Christ
mas. We’ll send the cards as soon as we hear
from you..
NO
NEED
TO
LEAVE
THE
HOUSE
MORE
GIFT
CARD
SUGGESTIONS
OUR
GIFT
TO
YOU
We’ll send a Gift Card (or a letter, if you prefer)
to the person you designate for each of these
Christmas gifts:
□ $10,000 will build a complete parish 'plant’
(church, school, rectory, convent) where the
Holy Father says it’s needed overseas. Name
it for your favorite saint, in your loved one’s
memory.
□ You can build a church now for $3,800, a
school for $3,200, and the Bishop in charge
will write to vou.
□ Your stringless gift in any amount ($5,000,
$1,000, $500, $100, $50, $25, $10, $5, $2) will
help the neediest victims of the war in the Mid-
East. Your generosity will supply the food, cloth
ing, shelter, medicine, blankets, pots and pans
these innocent people need to survive. You can
make Christmas a little brighter for them.
The Midnight Mass in Bethlehem will be of
fered for the members of this Association. This
is our Christmas thank-you gift to you. Please
pray for all of us, especially our priests and
Sisters overseas. And have a happy Christmas!
Council
Endorses
SODA’
The Savannah Deanery Pastoral
Council held its monthly meeting on
November 20 at 8 p.m. in the Rose of
Sharon Apartment building. It was
conducted by Mr. William Trees,
Chairman.
Sister. M. Catherine Moore, newly
appointed chairman of the Jail
Committee, distributed copies of
recommendations for the contemplated
new Savannah-Chatham County prison.
The Council approved all the
recommendations and requested that a
letter incorporating these be sent to
officials responsible for the planning
and construction of the jail facility.
Mrs. Robert Lingenfelser outlined for
Council members a drug counseling
program called “SODA” (Stamp Out
Drug Abuse). 107 student volunteers
from Saint Vincent’s Academy and
Benedictine Military School are
attending an 11-week training course to
prepare them to enter elementary
schools with a program of information
and counseling, Mrs. Lingenfelser said.
She also said that SODA will
welcome financial contributions from
area parishes to help underwrite the
program’s cost. SODA received the
unanimous endorsement of the Deanery
Pastoral Council.
“If those resources include the legal
removal of state equipment from
parochial schools,” Celletti added,
“then I see nothing immoral or
unethical in following through with a
plan which will benefit the school
system.”
“An individual has every right to
agree or disagree on this issue and vote
the way he sees fit,” he stated.
Almost as controversial as the dispute
itself has been the role of the pastor,
Msgr. Edward A. Buckley.
“I have preferred to keep out of this
as much as is humanly possible,” Msgr.
Buckley said, “and from the way things
have gone, our laity have done and are
continuing to do nearly all work with
regard to steps which are being
contemplated against the public school
system.”
But he added that it would be very
difficult for him not to have strong
feelings on the subject.
“In this instance I heartily support
those members of the parish who are
seeking to be represented at the polls
and through our system of democracy.”
Noting that Celetti no longer attends
St. Agnes parish because of
confrontations at the church, Msgr.
Buckley said: “I certainly don’t wish to
have anyone leave the parish as a result
of the incidents of the past several
weeks, but certainly an entire
congregation cannot be asked to reverse
its opinions to satisfy one or two
people.”
In New Brunswick, N.J., however,
cooperation has been the result of the
loss of school equipment.
St. Peter’s High School band lost all
of its musical instruments when they
were auctioned. But thanks to the
students of New Brunswick High
School, St. Peter’s cross-town rivals, the
St. Petrean band was able to perform in
the city’s Christmas parade.
The New Brunswick band members
loaned their instruments to their rivals
while St. Peter’s is cranking up a fund
drive to replace the musical instruments.
WITH IRISH EXTREMISTS
British Accused of Collusion
BY VINCE CURRAN
PHILADELPHIA (NC) - A priest
from Northern Ireland accused British
security forces there of being “in
collusion” with Protestant gunmen who
have recently been killing 40 to 50
Catholics a month.
The priest, 58-year-old Redemptorist
Father Christopher M. McCarthy, whose
parish is “along the so-called
‘peace-line’” in Belfast, said the
situation of Catholics in that city “is
worse than ever before.”
In an interview here with the
Philadelphia archdiocesan newspaper,
The Catholic Standard and Times,
Father McCarthy said there is little hope
that the newly formed coalition Cabinet
in which Protestants and Catholics are
to share the governing of Northern
Ireland can settle the conflict there.
The British “propaganda machine”
has lulled the world into believing that
peace is at hand in Northern Ireland, the
priest said, but the truth is that “in a
month 40 to 50 people are being killed
--absolutely indiscriminately-because
they are Catholic.”
“Protestant gunmen roam the streets
at will with 20,000 so-called British
security forces around,” he said.
“There’s only one thing I can conclude.
It’s in collusion.”
Father McCarthy, a former professor
of religious studies at Villanova
University in Pennsylvania, was
pessimistic about the propsects for the
executive body to which Britian is to
entrust the administration of the affairs
of Northern Ireland, with the exception
of security, justice, foreign relations and
some financial matters.
The executive is to consist of an
11-man inner cabinet and four members
without voting powers. Six seats in the
inner cabinet are to go to the Unionist
party, which holds about half the
Protestant seats in the Northern Ireland
Assembly, the province’s legislature.
Four are to go to the predominately
Catholic Social Democratic and Labor
party (SDLP) and one to the small
non-sectarian Alliance party.
Unionist party leader Brian Faulkner,
former prime minister of Northern
Ireland, is to be chief executive and
SDLP leader Gerry Fitt is to be his
deputy.
The Unionists in the coalition,
however, represent “only a small
number of Unionists,” said Father
McCarthy. Other Unionists, under the
leadership of men such as the Rev. Ian
Paisley and William Craig, leader of the
militant Protestant Vanguard party,
have “broken away” and “are out to
wreck the executive through their place
in the assembly,” the priest said.
“And the wrecking will by no means
be confined to parliament,” he added.
“There will be bloodshed on the streets.
Catholic properties are being bombed
day and night. Catholics are being shot,
indeed killed every day.”
Craig has already said that “we shall
do nothing to help the executive to
work, and our only function is to
destroy it.”
The day after the announcement of
the executive’s formation, four shots
were fired into the home of Austin
Currie, one of the four Catholic
members of the executive. The next
weekend was one of the worst in many
months with three soldiers and two
civilians killed throughout the province.
The death toll is now more than 900 in
the past four years.
The militant provisional wing of the
outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA)
has also pledged to destory the new
executive which, they claim, is a British
creation “based on the principles of
concession.”
The IRA, however, “is all but
non-existent, at least in Belfast,” Father
McCarthy said. “They’ve all been
interned, or shot or killed.”
Militant Protestants, on the other
hand, number “a couple hundred
thousand,” he said, and are “armed to
the teeth, so much that they’ve said we
can take care of the British army...”
Father McCarthy lamented that
“American Catholics have been turned
against the Catholics in the North,” who
have been “stereotyped” in the news
media. The Irish Catholic stereotype, he
said, is “a very low type of
humanity-dirty, lazy, won’t work,
drunken, always fighting. Since he
won’t work, he has to be supported by
welfare, which the Protestants pay. He
speaks a weird language and worships
idols and breeds like a rabbit.”
The Protestant stereotype, he said, is
“a special type of man and woman,
clean living, industrious, his word is his
bond, absolutely just, fiercely loyal to
his friends, beloved by God with a true
religion.”
To help solve the problems of
Northern Ireland, Father McCarthy
suggested that U.S. Catholics “get the
correct information” and “insist that
Catholics be given fair treatment” in
terms of jobs and housing. ,
He also called for a group of
observers “to see the justice is served”
by the coalition government. He
encouraged U.S. businessmen to set up
industry and job training in Catholic
areas of Northern Ireland. “Protestants
can come to Catholic areas but
Catholics can’t go to Protestant areas,”
he said.
The priest said that “there would be
no trouble in the North at all if
Catholics had been given their civil
rights. The question of a united Ireland
was not a question at all. The IRA was
non-existent, North and South. When
Catholics started a strong civil rights
movement, it was crushed by the
government with violence. Despair led
to the growth of the IRA.”
Heat Down Lights Turned Out
(Continued from Page 1)
problems for those attending
visibility
Mass.
The weekday cut involved leaving the
lights out near the back of the church.
“Every priest wants his congregation to
sit to the front of the church, and this
has been one of the positive responses
from turning off the lights,” Father
Mire said. “We have also effectively
eliminated the side aisles for most
Masses because they are in the
darkness.”
Msgr. Joseph Lyons of St. Eulalia
Church, Winchester, Mass., told his
parishioners to sit in the front of the
church so the back lights could be
turned off, and he urged them to walk
to church or join car pools in order to
save gasoline.
Some schools on fuel-saving
campaigns have relaxed dress codes to
allow girls to wear slacks in cooler
classrooms, and many have begun
consciousness-raising campaigns to get
students
closed.
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Some schools have resorted to more
drastic measures. Father Anthony
Fassbender, treasurer of Kenrick
Seminary in St. Louis, told the St. Louis
Review he has had the handles taken off
corridor windows in the seminary “so
they won’t be opened unnecessarily.”
He explained that on warm days the
students often open the windows but
forget to close them again when it cools
off.
Several diocesan education offices
have sent detailed energy conservation
suggestions to schools, and many are in
the process of developing contingency
plans for closing schools if necessary.
Diocesan offices have been affected,
too. For example, Catholic Social
Services for the Philadelphia archidocese
has directed its case workers to use
public transportation whenever possible,
and Cardinal Medeiros has directed
Boston archdiocesan personnel to limit
archdiocesan-wide meetings to
centralized locations in order to save
gas.
At least two archidocesan cathedrals,
in St. Paul, Minn., and Philadelphia,
have turned off their exterior spotlights,
and the Philadelphia cathedral has no
plans at all for lighted Christmas
displays.
Even in the Los Angeles archdiocese,
where temperatures are still warm, Msgr.
John Rawden, archdiocesan chancellor,
issued a directive to parishes and
institutions to curtail lighting, air
conditioning and heating “where health
and safety are not jeopardized.”