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RELIGIOUS EDUCATORS TOLD
PAGE 3—December 13,1973
“Hottest Places in Hell for Those Who Don’t Grow to Fullness of Self’
BY DAN M0THERS1L
TORONTO, Canada (NC) - The
hottest places in hell are reserved for
those who “in the face of crisis abandon
their call to grow to the fullness of their
self,” according to Passionist Father
Hank Simmons.
Father Simmons, a professor of
pastoral theology at St. Michael’s
College of the University of Toronto,
said this growth involves a continuous
effort to clarify personal values and
search to discover real ways of
becoming the person you want to
become.
He spoke at a workshop on “Values
Clarification in Religious Crisis” held at
the recent convention here of the
Religious Education Association of the
U.S. and Canada.
The Passionist priest told delegates
that the discovery of self does not end
in adolescence.
We know from experience, he said,
that the real discovery of self is
continually in the process of formation,
shaped out of the crises and choices that
give direction to every man’s life.
We must recognize that it is a
relatively normal process for tension
and ambivalence to accompany the
formation process, Father Simmons told
the religious educators.
“Few achieve in early life a state of
integration which allows them to act
always as befits man,” he said.
In his daily conduct, Father Simmons
said, man proceeds from a variable
combination of infantile and adult
morality; from sub-human to human.
In discovering a process for the
clarification of values it is important to
help individuals to determine their true
values that contain something prized
and cherished, freely chosen and acted
upon which consistency and repetition,
Father Simmons said.
Dr. Cynthia Wedel, former president
of the National Council of Churches in
the United States and the first woman
to hold that post, told the convention
that religious educators have a mandate
to break down the anti-freedom barriers
in society and inculcate the idea into
children that true personal freedom is
God’s greatest gift to mankind.
She said that secular and religious
educational systems have produced
people “who would obey orders, not
ask questions, be content to stay in one
spot, not talk and perform acts which
might seem meaningless in themselves.
Generations of docile, unquestioning,
dependent people have perpetuated this
system.”
Dr. Wedel said that true human
freedom requires an “open system and
an open society.”
Pluralism, humanness and mutual
support are earmarks of an open
society, she said.
“We must get over our fear of those
who are different and our consequent
efforts to make everyone over to be like
me. God made us all different. He
obviously likes variety.
“It is precisely in confronting
difference and variety that creativity
and new ideas are developed. Even
conflict between groups with different
traditions and different goals can
become creative and positive once we
get away from the win-lose attitude
which characterizes a closed system,”
she said.
Mutual support and caring will be
needed in an open society, she said. “If
individual freedom and growth are to be
possible, ways must be found to
inculcate in people an understanding of
the fact that freedom is indivisible.
“I can only be really free as others
are really free. Therefore, by helping
and supporting the freedom of others, I
will be helped.”
Religious institutions, she said, are
seen by the great majority of people as
restrictors of freedom. “We present an
image of rules, regulations and ‘thou
shalt nots.’ The day-by-day life of the
average religious congregation is seldom
a hot-bed of openness, creativity and
caring. ”
Dr. Wedel said she saw signs of hope
through the ecumenical movement,
which she said is helping people to
accept pluralism and difference and to
realize that it is possible to worship and
serve the same God in many different
ways.
She challenged religious educators
not to cling to the past while secular
institutions move into the future.
Churches, synagogues and
religious-sponsored schools, Dr. Wedel
said, have the freedom that publicly
supported schools do not have to
experiment and try new methods.
“We should not wait to see if a more
open kind of education works in the
public and secular schools and then,
perhaps, copy it,” she said.
“We are the ones who might see the
open society as a great step forward
toward what God wants for his human
children.”
FOR PHYSICIANS
Medical Advances Cause Problems
ANAHEIM, Calif. (NC) Medical
advances have created new moral
problems for physicians, including the
need to reevaluate the extraordinary
means for keeping apparently dying
patients alive.
This was the conclusion of speakers
at the Dec. 1-2 meeting of the National
Federation of Catholic Physicians
Guilds.
Dr. Garth Tagge of the University of
California at Irvine’s school of medicine
declared that advances in resusitative
medicines and heroic measures often are
continued long after any hope of
recovery. These frequently have
diastrous effects on family and staff, he
said.
When to stop treatment, he added, is
a question a physician must answer.
Dr. Will Shoemaker of Mt. Sinai
School of Medicine, said basic moral
concepts remain true and acceptable
“but the applications are difficult and
sometimes contradictory.”
Physicians must try to keep a dying
patient comfortable, he said, but the
morphine that lessens his pain may
speed his death.
The cost of maintaining a patient in
an intensive care unit, Dr. Shoemaker
noted, is so great that the physicain may
question its validity for a patient with
only one chance in a million of
surviving.
Sister Virginia Schwager, director of
the U.S. Catholic Conference’s health
affairs division, said Catholic hospitals
can survive in a pluralistic society, but
not all of them will.
Catholic hospitals, she noted, have
sought and accepted public funds in the
image of community institutions.
NATION'S BISHOPS MEET
Spanish Church-State Conflict
MADRID, Spain (NC) - Against a
background of Church-state conflict the
Spanish bishops ended their general
assembly here with a call for
reconciliation by their president,
Cardinal Vicente Enriquey Tarancon,
archbishop of Madrid.
As the meeting began Nov. 26, it was
reported that the Spanish government
has asked the Vatican to recall its
nuncio in Madrid as a consequence of an
anti-Franco sit-in by protesters at the
Nunciature.
It was also reported that the
government had brought a criminal
accusation against the bishops of Bilbao
and Segovia for “slander and insults”
against the government.
Cardinal Tarancon made a dramatic
call for reconciliation, saying that
“there is a clear division in the Spanish
Church.” Referring to the recent
incidents, he added that “we must
promote and defend justice . . .we must
not be silent to avoid conflicts and
division .. .but we must always speak
with prudence and charity, because only
that way can we be instruments of
reconciliation.”
Cardinal Tarancon also praised and
strongly supported the Vatican’s
Apostolic Nuncio, Luigi Dadaglio, who
in a short speech to the bishops
defended his actions after the
government’s protest to the Vatican.
Sources close to the government
report that several government ministers
who were to travel abroad have
cancelled their trips without
explanation. They added that the
regime is closely following the
Church-State confrontation and the
renewed wave of violence evident
specially in Catalonia and the Basque
provinces.
Meanwhile, the government took the
six priests who were the catalysts of the
conflict back to their prison in Zamora
where they had launched a hunger strike
in November. It was reported that they
initiated another hunger strike.
The same day the priests were
transferred back, the Basque separatist
organization ETA carried out a
campaign of violence with bomings,
sabotage and arson. The most
spectacular action was the burning of
the aristocratic Royal Club of Bilbao,
“Can we,” she asked, “insist that
non-Catholic patients and doctors
conform to our code of ethics? Can we
refuse health services that are legal and
accepted by many?”
Sister Schwager saw no need to
compromise with Christian principles or
Catholic guidelines.
“Conscience clause” legislation
appears to be safeguarding the right of
the hospitals to stand by their
principles, she said and added that the
cost of living, rather than the challenge
to ethical standards, is the greatest
threat to nonprofit, private health
facilities.
Dr. John L. Brennan of Milwaukee
was installed as the president of the
national federation, and Dr. John R.
Cavanagh of Washington, D.C. was
named president-elect for 1974-75.
Developing
which was totally destroyed. Five of the
six Smora priests have been convicted
of Basque separatist activities.
The Spanish bishops issued a
statement defending the right of
Spaniards to become conscientious
objectors and calling on the government
to decree an amnesty in
commemoration of the 1975 Holy Year
proclaimed by Pope Paul VI.
The prelates heard a report on the
Zamora prison by Bishop Antonio
Anoveros of Bilbao. The report was
heard in secret session and unofficial
sources say that the bishops decided
that the special priests jail cannot
continue to exist.
The present crisis between the Franco
government and the Spanish Church
became violent with the Zamora
rebellion by six priests. This sparked
demonstrations all over the country and
the occupation of the Bilbao diocesan
offices and the nunciature in Madrid by
priests, Religious and laymen. Earlier,
113 persons were arrested while
conducting a meeting at a Barcelona
Church. Heavy fines were imposed on
most of them.
TO SALVATION
Indulgences No Short-cut
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The regent
of the Apostolic Penitentiary, which
supervises the granting of indulgences
for the Pope, has denied that
indulgences are a short-cut to salvation
and a flight from sacrifice.
Msgr. Giovanni Sessolo, the Regent,
interviewed Dec. 4 on Vatican Radio,
also stated that the Church grants
indulgences to Catholics to spur them to
the service of needy neighbors.
The interview with Msgr. Sessolo,
Vatican Radio observed, was
occasioned by the Holy Year now under
way throughout the world and to
culminate in Rome in 1975. Vatican
Radio said the Holy Year “is beginning
to arouse fresh attention everywhere in
indulgences,” since it is a time when the
Church grants extraordinary
indulgences.
Msgr. Sessolo noted: “In offering
indulgences to the faithful, the Church
certainly has no intention of fostering
laziness or freeing anyone from the duty
of personal penance. Rather it wants to
meet weakness half-way and spur the
Christian to penance with generosity
and constancy.
“So it is not as an easy short-cut, but
a help along the narrow path the Gospel
speaks of.”
The Vatican Radio Interviewer asked
Msgr. Sessolo whether indulgences do
not lead to “notion of religion which
forgets about service to one’s neighbor.”
The regent replied: “On the contrary,
indulgences constitute a spur to do
good. For the current Holy Year, works
of mercy in favor of needy brothers are
recommended as a means of preparing
one’s soul for the great gift of the
jubilee indulgence.
“So in general we must remember
what the manual on indulgences says
about partial indulgences, that they are
granted to the Christian ‘who with a
spirit of faith and of mercy puts himself
and his goods at the service of brothers
in need’.”
Poll Shows Increased
Confidence in Religion
WASHINGTON (NC) - Public confidence in organized religion increased
during the past year but churches still ranked lower than many other
institutions, according to a poll conducted by Louis Harris and Associates.
Sponsored by the Senate Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, the
poll was primarily concerned with determining the degree of public confidence
in governmental and public service organizations.
Religion, while showing an increase during the past year from 30 to 36
percent of those questioned indicating confidence, has still not returned to the
1965 level when 41 percent indicated confidence in organized religion.
The poll was conducted Sept. 13-22 and questioned 1,596 adults in 200
locations. Each interview lasted nearly two hours.
BASQUE VIOLENCE IN BILBAO ~ Firemen
struggle to put out a blaze at a yacht club in Bilbao,
Spain, after it had been set by Basque separatists who
doused the floor with gasoline and ignited it while
FR. SULLIVAN:
holding more than 100 persons at gunpoint inside.
Three persons were injured in the blaze. Spanish
bishops have issued a call for reconciliation against a
background of conflicts in the country. (NC Photo)
“Catholics” Falls Apart
By NC News Service
“Catholics,” the CBS Playhouse 90
season opener of serious dramatic
works, received a critical review from
Father Patrick Sullivan, director of the
U.S. bishops’ Division of Film and
Broadcasting.
Father Sullivan said that the film
carried welkin acting and production for
more than two-thirds of the way. “But
things begin to fall apart when the
drama reaches for a conclusion,” he
said.
Author Brian Moore has called his
play a “fable” and he sets the scene near
the end of the 20th century. According
to Moore’s “fable,” Mass must be
celebrated in the vernacular. Latin is
expressly forbidden. Priests wear clerical
garb only “on special occasions.”
Private confessions are no longer
permitted.
In the story, as in Moore’s novella,
the two main characters pitted against
each other are the abbot of an Irish
monastery, played by Trevor Howard,
and a young investigator-priest from the
Vatican, played by Martin Sheen.
The ybung priest is an American
named Father Kinsella, and the abbot is
simply referred to as “Father Abbot.”
The priest comes to the old Irish
monastery to find out why monks insist
on saying the Mass in Latin, on hearing
private confessions and indulging in
other “old ways”.
At first the Father Abbot rejects the
young priest’s insistence that the monks
get in line with the Vatican’s
declarations. “Yesterday’s orthodoxy,”
the abbot complains, “is today’s
heresy.” But the abbot is caught in a
quandary. He likes the young priest
personally but abhors the new image he
represents.
One of the most heated
confrontations the monks have with
Father Kinsella is over the matter of
transubstantiation. In Moore’s “fable”,
the Vatican has decreed that the
presence of the body and blood of
Christ in the Eucharist is only
“symbolic.”
Meanwhile, another battle rages
within the old abbot who, in a moment
of candor, admits that he cannot defend
the old ways since he has lost faith in
the efficacy of prayer.
The film ends with the young priest
gaining some sort of concession from
Father Abbot and his monks. After the
priest leaves, Father Abbot calls the
monks to chapel for prayer. As the last
scene fades, the old abbot’s face shows
an expression of mixed agony and bliss.
Father Sullivan said that the last third
of the film “appears to fall apart when
the drama reaches for a conclusion.”
“The production is identified as a
fable. Precisely how the fable is to be
interpreted is difficult to say with
certainity,” he said.
Father Sullivan said one
interpretation of the fable involves the
changes which have taken place since
Vatican Council II and the hypothetical
excesses which could occur,
“particularly when those in charge of
change at the top are men without
faith.”
Father Sullivan said that the audience
is left wondering how the film really
ended. In the scene in which the abbot
leads his monks in prayer, “is this final
sequences concerned with the story of
the abbot’s personal conflict of faith, or
does it carry forward the theme of the
fable?” Father Sullivan asked.
“In this sense the production is less
than satisfactory.”
But Ann Fremantle, author of “Age
of Belief: The Medieval Philosophers,”
had high praise for Moore’s film. “It had
a tremendous theme and should have
meaning for everyone, no matter what
he believes in or doesn’t believe in,” she
said.
The British-born Miss Fremantle, who
studied at Oxford University, said the
problems depicted in the film “are
already with us.”
“I belong to the Latin Mass Society
in England,” she said. “It is a very
strong movement, and I know quite a
few priests who belong to it.”
She said that after seeing the film, she
was impressed with the character of the
abbot.
“I was left with the impression that
he was a holy man. Of course he had
doubts, but who doesn’t have some
serious doubts,” she said.
“I thought the young priest was
brash. He was an honoreable young
man, but he was not holy. And at the
last moment I think he realized how
really holy the abbot was. ”
Miss Fremantle said she did not agree
with those who found the film
depressing. “The film was gloomy at
times, but I think that the human
condition is essentially tragic,” she said.
“One of the things that differentiates
human beings from animals is that we
have doubts, we have fears.”
She said the film portrayed those
human feelings very well in the
character of the old abbot.