Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, January 3, 1974
^25*
The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Raymond W. Lessard, D.D., President
i*ev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
Second Class Postage Paid at Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
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Published weekly except the second and last weeks
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At 601 E. Sixth St., Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
Subscription Price $2.76 per year by Assement Parishes Diocese of Savannah Others $S Per Year
Church Papers in Danger
The January issue of Reader’s Digest
contains a message from its editors titled
“Will Congress Kill The Magazine
Industry?” The article tells its readers
that the U.S. Postal Service has
announced rate increases for second class
mail (those applied to magazines and
newspapers) that almost certainly will
spell the end of a large segment of the
magazine business. These postal rate
increases are being put into effect
because the Postal Service is obeying the
law passed by Congress that requires
every class of mail to pay its own way.
The editors of Reader’s Digest call on
Congress to take action to save the
periodical industry.
Because of Reader’s Digest’s large
circulation (it goes into one of every
four homes in America), many people
will get the chance to learn about the
seriousness of the scheduled postal rate
increases. However, the article doesn’t
tell the whole story because, as serious as
the matter is for secular publications, it
is far more serious for the religious press
and the publications of non-profit
organizations.
This is because the percentage of
increase for non-profit publications is
considerably higher than that of secular
publications. Granted that religious
publications would still be paying less
total postage, the percentage of increase
in postage will be much higher.
For example, one Catholic diocesan
newspaper, with a circulation of 38,000,
now has an annual postage bill of
$17,800. With the annual increases now
scheduled by the Postal Service, that bill
will be $65,000 by 1981. This is on top
of large increases experienced during the
past two years (the annual postage bill
was $10,000 in 1971). Thus, in ten years
time the postage will have increased
from $10,000 per year to $65,000 -- a
550% increase.
Another Catholic diocesan paper with
a circulation of 11,000 now pays about
$4,500 a year in second class postage.
Scheduled increases will raise that to
$18,300 by 1981. A paper with a
circulation of 23,000 now pays $11,500
and this would increase to $41,600 by
1981.
The Reader’s Digest article makes it
clear that “there is no doubt whatever
that the rate rise will force a large
number of magazines to stop
publishing.” If the problem is serious for
large secular publications (and it is) it is
even more serious for religious
publications that have fewer possibilities
for adding to their revenue to cover the
increased cost. It would take an annual
subscription price increase of about
$1.25 just to cover the increased postage
costs, to say nothing about increased
costs of paper, printing and other
publishing expenses.
Officials of the Catholic Press
Association have presented these facts in
testimony before both Houses of
Congress and before a panel of the Cost
of Living Council. Legislation is being
considered in Congress that would phase
in the increases over an additional five
years and we support that legislation. We
also support the Reader’s Digest
contention that Congress made a mistake
in their decision that periodicals must
pay their full mailing costs and that this
decision should be repealed.
We urge you to read the Reader’s
Digest article in its January issue and to
write to your senators and
representatives about this problem -
particularly concerning the special plight
of religious publications.
Mother Mary
And Teen-Agers
Every mother I know has troubles and
worries with her teen-agers. In fact, the only
teen-agers who are always absolutely perfect
belong to mothers who are under psychiatric
treatment, or are pathological liars.
There are times when teen-agers are pretty
nice. And these are interspersed with times
when they are absolutely rotten.
But God, in His goodness, has designed
teen-agers so that the good moments come just
often enough to keep parents from murdering
them. I’m sure the Blessed Mother has a hand in
this.
When I get exasperated with my teen-agers, I
talk it over with her. She had a teen-ager that
knew everything that was wrong with the
ancient faith she believed in. He knew
everything wrong with the establishment. He
knew how to cure all the problems in the
world. He knew. He knew.
And I’ll bet she sometimes wondered where
she missed the boat in instilling the religion of
her forebears.. .the ideals that had been so
important to her.. .and in teaching Him
patience.
I’m sure she didn’t really understand their
lives then, as we do now, for she was living it
instead of looking on it in retrospect. If she
really understood, why was she pondering all
the time?
So the Blessed Mother is my support during
these years. I just wish she’d get her Boy to
speak to my boys.
The other night, for example, I was up to my
eyeballs with typing that I had promised to do
for my husband for his business. One kid after
another kept interrupting with vital questions:
“Can you drive 20 miles to a track meet this
Saturday?” “Can I go to the movies?” “Can
you type my term paper? I need it for
Mary Carson
tomorrow?” “When are you going to take me
practice driving?”
The more they interrupted, the more
mistakes I was making. Finally, one of them
stood there watching me, and said, “If you
were better at that, it wouldn’t take you so
long.”
I said a silent prayer. “Dear Mother of
God. . .please . . .either help me to keep my
mouth shut... or teach him to keep his shut!”
One afternoon, I had to rush one of the kids
to the emergency room for a few stitches. At
five o’clock this afternoon, the breakfast dishes
were still on the table. One son was lying on the
couch, playing checkers with
himself. . .fascinating mental stimulation.
I asked him to clean up the kitchen for me.
He looked up from a particularly challenging
decision over whether his right hand or left
hand would win, and said, “What did you do all
day?”
“Dear Mary, keep me from knocking his
teeth out!”
It’s not just my sons. The other night my
daughter had “just a little to be typed for the
school paper.”
She helped by breathing down my neck
while I tried to get it done. As soon as I hit a
wrong key, she said, “The lady who does the
typing in school doesn’t make mistakes.”
“Mary, will they ever learn to put their
brains in gear before their mouths are running in
high?”
I’ll continue to pray to the Blessed Mother.
But it’s a good thing that orthodontia is so
expensive. Otherwise I might break some
teen-age teeth.
OUR PARISH
“I only asked her if she had
her faith lifted.”
Happiness Isn’t
A Full Gas Tank
Reverend John Reedy C.S.C.
I have the feeling I’ve just been exposed to
one of those “previews of coming attractions”
- though what’s coming is not very attractive.
Instead, it’s a New Year which promises
inconvenience, irritation, clashes between
special interests.
I’ve just returned from one of those days
when all the massive machinery of O’Hare
airport groaned and creaked and finally ceased
functioning under the force of a winter storm.
The crowds and confusion were incredible:
Mobs of people who had been waiting most of
the day teased by the hope that their planes
might eventually take off; others hung up
midway in journeys trying to get some kind of
information which they could pass on,to people
who were waiting for them in other parts of the
country; still others waiting endlessly in >
unmoving lines in an effort to reschedule so
they wouldn’t find all flights filled when the
regular traffic began again.
Lines of people waited for phones; other
lines waited for a shot at motel rooms which
were in short supply; still others waited for
food or for a drink.
Many, looking as though all choices had been
closed to them, simply sat and waited.
Surprisingly, there were very few signs of
anger or bad temper. The mood said: “We’re all '
in this together. There’s nothing we can do
about it. There’s no one to blame.”
It now seems very clear that in the coming
year the energy shortage is going to plunge us
into many inconveniences and privations like
this.
Most of the difficulties will be endurable,
though I fear that the poor, as always, will bear
the heaviest burden. For some of them
cutbacks and bureaucratic inefficiency will
threaten health and life rather than comfort
and convenience.
It’s not likely to happen, but I would like to
see our energy specialists give top priority to
these needs, even before the incentives they will
dangle before oil companies and corporate
employers.
I would hope that all of us, in our experience
of this hardship, will keep in mind those who
exist on the borderline of survival as we also
think of our own needs.
On the whole, though, I suspect that the
nation will respond to the energy shortage as
those crowds to the breakdown at O’Hare.
Most of us are not temperamentally
explosive. Most of us, I believe, have some dim
realization that we have had no real right to all
the fringe benefits of the affluent life America
has enjoyed in recent years.
And most of us, if we have any wisdom at
all, realize that happiness and a good life have
very little to do with luxury cars, constant air
conditioning and the ability to hop back and
forth across the country with little
inconvenience.
The two elements I fear most are
scapegoating and vested interests.
If we learn or suspect that some groups are
being spared the inconveniences unfairly, we
shall probably react the way that airport crowd
would have if they saw a V.I.P. line being given
special service not available to others.
The tolerance, good humor and resignation
could have turned very ugly if that had
happened.
Also, we can expect politicians,
commentators, public officials to capitalize on
the national concern by pointing fingers in
every direction. That’s already beginning.
Which administration was most at fault?
How much of the national inconvenience is
related to our diplomatic relations with Israel?
Who is making exorbitant profits?
As long as the accusations are scattered, they
will be relatively harmless, but if one scapegoat
begins to emerge as the favorite, we would find
ourselves living with the mood of a lynch mob.
All of this suggests that, in our thoughts and
plans for the New Year, it would be good for all
of us to prepare our attitudes and values for the
crunch - along with our wardrobes and
vacation plans.
If we are going to grow as a people through
this experience, the growth is more likely to
come from our individual stability and
resilience rather than from any magic plan or
from any inspring leader. We shall have to find
the resources and stability within ourselves.
May it turn out to be a good year - if a chilly
one -- for all of us!
A New Beginning
Rev. Joseph Dean
Am I willing to take on a new attitude on
life, a change of viewpoint, a re-orientation of
thought, based on the gospel message of Jesus?
Do I realize that this message and this way of
Jesus is significantly different from the ways of
ordinary modem men today?
Am I willing to accept Jesus fully into my
life as my Lord and Savior? Am I willing to let
Jesus make a spiritual change in my life? Am I
willing to let Jesus send His spirit into my life?
Am I willing to come into an association with
others who have determined to share their
Christian life and the glad tidings of Jesus with
others?
God made the world to be a place of peace
and justice and happiness, a place in which He
could rule as Lord. He still wills that the world
be that way. But something has gone wrong in
the world, not only with individuals, but with
society as a whole.
Men have abused their free choice and have
rejected God’s kingdom. They have permitted
themselves to pass from the power of God to a
rebellion against God, to a dominion of
darkness and of evil. All of men’s efforts to
improve the world have failed one by one. Even
the promise of science has soured with the
problems it has caused in turn, such as
pollution, nuclear bombs, even the need for
more and more fuel and energy which all of a
sudden are in short supply.
These are only a few symptoms of deep
disorder. Only some power, greater than men
and their merely human power can handle what
is wrong with the world today. Only God can
break the cycle of evil now and help us get the
new and better kind of life we need. Only
under God’s rule, only in a change-over to
God’s dominion, can we begin to attain true
peace, justice, and truth.
The spiritual realism is not an optional extra.
So where do we go from here? How can we
move from the culture we are in to a new way
of life? The answer is one we have heard before,
but until now we have not taken it seriously.
God gave full power and authority to Jesus
to bring freedom and new life to those who
accept Him as Lord of their lives. Jesus did live,
and did die for our sins, and rose to give us new
life. But salvation is much more than just
getting to heaven.
It is a whole new way of life as well. Into the
lives of most of us Jesus has already sent His
spirit. But have we accepted the power of His
spirit, used it, released it, shared it?
To accept Jesus means allowing Him to take
the center of our life, to take the driver’s seat,
to let His spirit use our faculties, work through
our hands, live fully and totally through our
lives in every way, in every place, at every time.
Tell Him, “Take over, Lord, Keep me under
Your power! Release your energy in me.
Amen.”
Always
Avoid
Running
Joe Breig
In a moment I’ll explain how it happens that
I am sitting here thinking about Mark Twain.
That deathless author of such classics as “Huck
Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” once uttered the sage
advice, “Whenever you feel an urge to exercise,
lie down and be quiet until the urge passes.”
I am thinking also of the ageless Chauncey
Depew, the oldest man ever to serve in the U.S.
Senate. On his 90th or 95th birthday, he was
accosted (as is the barbaric custom on such
occasions) by newspaper reporters clamoring to
be told the secret of his seeming immortality.
One of the journalists put to him one of the
standard queries: “What kind of exercising do
you do, Senator?”
Senator Depew gazed upon the questioner
with the limitless tolerance which politicians
grant to folly, and replied, “Young man, the
only exercise I have ever taken was acting as
pallbearer for friends who exercise.”
The reason that such recollections are
thronging into my mind is the scene that
greeted me when I arrived at my newspaper
office Monday morning.
As I emerged from the elevator and looked
about for people to whom to say hello, here
came the city editor, leaning on a cane and
favoring a Charley horse in one leg. And here
came the advertising manager, hobbling on a
sprained ankle. And here came the managing
editor, commenting about muscles stiff from
playing tennis. And as I reached my desk, I
found a letter from a sister of mine who had
broken a small bone trying to open a stuck
window, instead of ignoring the blame thing, as
Chauncey Depew or Mark Twain would have
done.
It is reaching the point, I tell you, at which
this country is a disaster area after the
Saturday-Sunday holiday. Maybe, in the
interest of community health, we should
eliminate all holidays and work people seven
days a week, 52 weeks a year. Either that, or
we should educate them concerning the wisdom
of shunning all exertion.
Of course even I indulge in moderate exercise
such as walking to the mail chute occasionally,
or even puttering in the back yard or painting a
fence with plenty of pauses for rest,
recuperation and refreshment. But I do not
overdo things.
I am a devoted disciple not only of Mark
Twain and Chauncey Depew, but also of the
immortal (in more ways than one) baseball
pitcher, the incomparable Satchel Paige, who
gave us two of the greatest health rules ever
formulated: “Keep the juices flowing by
jangling about gently whenever you move,” and
“Avoid running at all times.”
Uncharitable
Charity
Rev. James Wilmes
“Do not unto others as you would they
should unto you,” warns George Bernard Shaw.
“Their tastes may not be the same as yours.”
His witticism reminds us of a fact of human
nature which we too easily forget:
doing-unto-others according to our idea of what
is desirable for them can be very offensive even
though we mean well.
When we think of the times that
well-meaning friends or relatives have
undertaken to “do unto us” what they believe
needs doing, we recall the exasperation we then
felt, even though we may have managed to
conceal it. The wise men will find it easy to
imagine how another feels faced with the
prospect of being “done unto” from even the
highest motives of good will.
The cry these days is all for
self-determination, for the right to share in
making decisions which affect one’s own life.
Like all good things, this can be carried to
excess - just as the altruistic generosity of doing
as you would be done by can be carried to
excess. But in both cases, the underlying
principle is sound and enduring.
Do unto others, then, as you yourself truly
want to be done by; but grant others the
profoundly human right you demand for
yourself: the right to choose their own way.
And the accompanying right to your
affectionate acceptance of their way as right for
them.
RESOLUTION: Diplomatically ask others if
the charity we wish to do them is pleasing.
Resolve beforehand not to be offended, to
pout, if our charitable proposals and overtures
are rejected; or if our gifts be refused and
shared with others.
1 SCRIPTURE: “Jesus said to the centurion, ‘I
will come and cure your paralyzed servant.’ But
he replied ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you
enter my house, but only say the word and my
servant will be healed.’ Jesus marvelled and
said, ‘Go, and be it done to you as you have
believed. ” Matt. 8,9
PRAYER: Lord, teach me to
love-with-consideration, unselfishly. Amen.