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PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, January 10,1974
AN NC NEWS ANALYSIS
Vatican Wants Jerusalem Universalized
BY PATRICK RILEY
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Prospects of
settling the Middle East’s 25-year-old
recurrent war have once again set
controversy afoot over the holy city of
Jerusalem and the Vatican’s hopes for
its future.
Only one day after the Arab-Israeli
peace conference opened in Geneva
Dec. 21, leaders of several African states
met with Pope Paul VI to urge upon
him their view that Jerusalem “must not
be placed under the exclusive control of
a single religion.” By “a single religion”
they meant, principally, the Jewish state
of Israel, which has made Jerusalem its
capital.
Among those African leaders were
Christians such as Emperor Haile
Selassie of Ethiopia and Moslems such
as President Gaafar al Nimeiry of the
Sudan. Their religious distance from one
another and their geographical distance
from Jerusalem point up the peculiar
interest Jerusalem has for the most
diverse and distant peoples.
That “little summit” in the Vatican
occasioned some sharp rebukes in Israel.
The leaders of Israel’s National
Religious party, Yossef Burg, wondered
aloud in an election speech where Pope
Paul was when Arabs were misbehaving
against Israelis. The daily newspaper of
the General Federation of Labor, Davar,
accused Vatican press officer Federico
Alessandrini of anti-Semitism. It also
asserted that some people in the Vatican
are “seeking to resuscitate the plan for
the internationalization of Jerusalem.”
That the Vatican is trying to revive a
plan for internationalizing Jerusalem
can be denied confidently, even
categorically.
The Vatican has not spoken on
internationalizing Jerusalem since 1967.
Yet the Vatican’s basic aim has
remained the same: insuring respect for
the holiness of the holy city, respect for
the rights of all three religions for which
Jerusalem is holy-Christianity, Judaism
and Islam. This necessarily implies,
among other things, free access to the
holy places of those religions, and the
preservation of the holy places.
If the Vatican does not want to
achieve that through
internationalization, how does it think
it can be achieved?
“There is no single, detailed plan
drafted and tucked into somebody’s top
drawer,” one Vatican official told NC
News.
But another high official outlined
some specifics of the Vatican’s
approach. Summing it up, he said:
“The Holy See wants Jerusalem
universalized.”
“The universalization of Jerusalem
means,” he said, “making Jerusalem not
mine or yours but everybody’s.”
Universalization differs radically from
internationalization. To internationalize
Jerusalem would be a political solution,
making the city a body separated from
any state and putting it under the role
of an international agency.
To universalize Jerusalem would be a
juridical solution.
The state in possession of the city
would exercise jurisdiction over
Jerusalem. But it would not do so in the
name of its own state sovereignty or
according to its own laws. It would
administer Jerusalem according to a
special law for Jerusalem only, as
declared and guaranteed by an
international body. The occupying state
would rule the city in the name of that
international body. It would exercise a
delegated power.
The official explained some
drawbacks of internationalization.
“Internationalization would require
not only a settlement but an
international police force. That is
unrealistic nowadays. You can see what
happens in a place like Cyprus when
foreign police are in charge.
“The holy city would become a
plaything of international politics.”
(The other official commented
independently that an international
city, such as Tangier had been, tends to
attract undesirables and become a
potpourri of international intrigue and
rackets.)
If internationalization would entail
such crippling disadvantages, why did
the Vatican ever favor it?
The answer probably lies in historical
circumstances. In 1947, when Palestine
was still under British mandate, the
United Nations General Assembly
resolved that Palestine should be
partitioned into two states, Jewish and
Arab, with Jerusalem and its environs as
far as Bethlehem as an international
zone to be administered under a special
international regime. It was to be an
enclave surrounded by the Arab state.
Even after the 1948 war between
Jews and Arabs had relegated this plan
to the status of a piece of paper, the UN
General Assembly adopted in 1949
another resolution restating its intention
that Jerusalem and a zone around it be
placed under a permanent international
regime.
Pope Piux XII supported that plan. In
Study
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (NC) -
“Catholic schools, it turns out, may
have worked better than most people
thought,” two Catholic sociologists
conclude in an article published in the
NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER
here.
Father Andrew M. Greeley and
William C. McCready based their
conclusion on a study that found a
greater sense of hope among Catholics
who attended Catholics schools than
among Catholics who attended other
schools.
WASHINGTON (NC) - Twenty-eight
educational, civic and religious
organizations that oppose public aid to
nonpublic schools banded together here
to form the National Coalition for
Public Education and Religious Liberty
(National PEARL).
The new coalition, which takes its
name from an organization of nonpublic
school aid opponents in New York,
includes the National Education
Association (NEA), the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU), and Americans
United for the Separation of Church
and State (AUSCS).
One small Catholic organization, the
National Association of Laity, is also a
member.
National PEARL was created as a
result of a conference in Washington last
spring, when representatives of about 50
organizations which oppose nonpublic
school aid agreed that a national
coalition was needed to coordinate
anti-aid efforts.
A committee formed at that time
declared that the purposes of the
coalition would be:
“To collect and disseminate
information on proposals for supplying
federal, state or local aid to nonpublic
schools.
-- “To collect and disseminate
information concerning the adoption of
such proposals and their administration.
October 1948, after the creation of the
state of Israel and while Jerusalem was
divided between the forces of Jews and
Arabs, he issued a carefully worded
public letter speaking of his “persuasion
that it would be opportune to give
Jerusalem and its environs.. .an
international character which in the
present circumstances seems best to
guarantee the safeguarding of the
sanctuaries.”
What were those “present
circumstances” that made the
internationalization of Jerusalem seem
“opportune?”
One was that the plan had the
backing of the United Nations. It
therefore had some prospect of
realization, of enforcement.
Another circumstance was that
Jerusalem was divided politically. It was
divided between two hostile
administrations. Under that
circumstance, the Vatican’s present
proposal that Jerusalem be administered
by the possessing power in the name
and under the law of an international
authority would have been
impracticable. Further, it would have
left Jerusalem divided. One of the
principal aims of the Vatican, free
access to the holy places, would have
been blocked by a perilous and ugly
no-man’s-land between the two sectors
of the city.
That circumstance changed in the
This group - labeled “hopefuls” by
the sociologists - “faces squarely the
problem of evil. . .does not try to cover
it over, but still believes good to be
stronger than evil,” McGready and
Greeley said.
The sociologists, who work at the
National Opinion Research center in
Chicago, said the hopefuls “are also
more likely to be confident of human
survival, to enjoy higher levels of
psychological well-being more satisfying
marriage relationships, and to be both
less racist and more trusting of others. ”
coordinating activities in opposition to
such governmental action.”
At another meeting in Washington
Dec. 19, representatives of participating
organizations elected coalition officers,
authorized them to select an executive
director, and made arrangements for a
permanent office in the NEA building
here. Public announcement of the
coalition’s formation was withheld until
the elected officers could be notified
and their acceptance received.
Suffragan Bishop John Walker of the
(Episcopal) Washington National
Cathedral was elected president of the
coalition.
Edd Doerr, of AUSCS, a member of
National PEARL’s executive committee,
said that after an executive director is
chosen the coalition plans to begin
publishing a newsletter, prepare research
materials, analyze state and federal
legislation and court decisions, establish
a speaker’s bureau, hold an annual
conference, and serve as an information
clearinghouse for national, state and
local anti-aid groups.
Besides the NEA, ACLU and AUSCS,
members of National PEARL include:
American Ethical Union; American
Humanist Association; American Jewish
Congress; Anti-Defamation League,
B’Nai B’rith; Baptist Joint Committee
on Public Affairs; Central Conference of
American Rabbis; National Association
of Laity; National Council of Jewish
Women.
1967 war, when all of Jerusalem was
brought under Israeli control. But if the
fact of a divided Jerusalem had been the
decisive factor in the Vatican’s support
for internationalization, the Vatican was
slow to realize the implications of
Jerusalem’s new single administration.
About a fortnight after the six-day
war ‘ended, the Vatican formally
reminded the United Nations of that
organization’s own repeated resolutions
for internationalizing Jerusalem.
The Vatican’s formal note stated that
it remained “convinced that the only
solution which offers a sufficient
guarantee for the protection of
Jerusalem and of its holy places is to
place that city and its vicinity under an
international regime.”
Jerusalem had hardly been under
Israeli control a month when the
Vatican daily newspaper, L’Osservatore
Romano, drove the point of the note
home. In a July 6 editorial described by
the Vatican’s press officer as
“authoritative,” the Vatican daily
declared:
“Jerusalem is the holy city above all
for Christians but it is also that for
Moslems as well as for Jews. The reasons
which led the United Nations to decide
in favor of internationalization are still
valid, because they are founded on truth
and on justice.”
The reasons, yes, but the
Describing their findings as “good
news” for those who support Catholic
schools, Father Greeley and McCready
said that their good news “has an ironic
twist. It may have come too late.”
“Ten years ago, or even five years
ago,” they said, “such information
might have turned the tide; but many of
those who staff and administer Catholic
schools today seem willing no longer to
believe in what they are doing. The
deterioration of self-confidence is such
now that it is improbable that any good
news can reverse the process. It is
National Women’s Conference,
American Ethical Union; Union of
American Hebrew Congregations;
Universalist-Unitarian Association;
United Methodist Church; New York
PEARL: Michigan Council Against
Parochiaid; Missouri Baptist Christian
Life Commission; New Jersey Public
Funds for Public Schools; New York
State United Teachers Federation; Ohio
Free Schools Association; Wisconsin
Preserve Our Public Schools; plus local
affiliates of New York PEARL and
ACLU affiliates in Washington, D.C. and
Connecticut.
circumstances or conditions, no. And
before the year was out Pope Paul
showed he had realized that and had
already taken action. On Dec. 22, 1967,
he said he had sounded out various
governments and the Orthodox and
Anglican Churches on “a beginning of a
solution” to the problem.
His solution would have two parts.
“The first concerns the holy places
properly so-called and considered such
by the three great monotheistic religions
concerned, that is, Jewish, Christian and
Moslem. It seeks to safeguard the
freedom of worship, the respect for,
preservation of and access to those same
holy places, protected by a special
immunity through a proper statute
whose observance would be guaranteed
by an international institution.
Particular concern would be taken for
the historical and religious physiognomy
of Jerusalem.”
That is a sketch, as the Pope himself
called it, of the Vatican’s plan for
safeguarding Jerusalem. And if its
wording leaves doubt about the Pope’s
intention that not only the holy places
of Jerusalem but Jerusalem itself should
come under that immunity, he referred
to “Jerusalem and the other holy places
of Palestine. ”
- The other part of the Pope’s plan
dealt with “the free enjoyment of
religious and civil rights which
Schools
almost as though no one wishes to
believe in the possibility of good news
about Catholic schools.”
Father Greeley and McCready found
that those Catholics who went to both
Catholic grammar school and high
school are much more likely (29 percent
versus 17 percent) to be hopeful than
those who went only to public schools.
The sociologists described the
hopeful response as more sophisticated
than others and expressed surprise at
their finding that college-educated
Catholics who had attended Catholic
grammar school and high school
belonged to the hopeful category in
much higher proportion (42 percent
versus 19 percent) than college-educated
Catholics who had attended only public
schools.
“This,” they concluded, “is not an
unimpressive performance, to say the
least.”
Their findings are reported in the Jan.
issue of the NATIONAL CATHOLIC
REPORTER, a weekly lay-edited
Catholic newspaper published here. The
two sociologists reached their
conclusion in a national sample study
commissioned by the Henry Luce
Foundation and soon to be published
under the title “The Ultimate Values of
Americans.” In the study, they sought
legitimately regard the persons,
properties and activities of all
communities present within Palestine.”
That seemed to refer to fears that the
Christian population - largely Arab -- of
Jerusalem and the West Bank of the
Jordan river would emigrate from the
holy city once they were under Israeli
rule. In fact, within about two years of
the Israeli victory in 1967, between six
percent and nine percent of the
Christian population had abandoned
those areas.
Since the 1967 war one of the
Vatican’s main objectives has been to
stem the ebb tide of Christian Arabs out
of Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
“You can’t speak of universalizing
the holy city unless it has a Christian
community,” the high Vatican official
told NC News.
“The civic and religious rights of
Christians must be assured. But laws
safeguarding these rights could be
abolished overnight if Jerusalem is
subject to the law-of a single nation.
“The Israelis often speak of the
immunity of the holy places, and that’s
fine. But if Jerusalem is the capital of
any one nation, or even belongs
exclusively to one nation, whatever
status may be accorded to the holy
places, the religious leaders of the state
will have their own way.
“It will be their holy city and our
holy places. ”
Work
to measure the ultimate values held by
Americans.
In the study, they presented
respondents with a series of six “life
situation” vignettes that asked them
how they would respond to critical
events in life which would challenge
their ultimate values.
One such vignette was: “Imagine that
one of your parents is dying a slow and
painful death and try to figure out for
yourself if there is anything that will
enable you to understand the meaning
of such a tragedy.”
The study divided people on the
basis of responses to these questions
into five groups: religious optimists,
hopefuls, secular optimists, grateful or
accepting pessimists " and angry
pessimists.
The largest percentage of Catholics in
all categories - those who had attended
both Catholic grammar and high school,
those who had attended either and
those who had attended neither -
belonged to the religious optimist
group.
“This group,” Father Greeley and
McCready said, “slides rather easily over
evil, suffering and tragedy, arguing that
no matter what goes wrong God will
make it all right in the end. ”
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JOHN R. HOWARD was named Knight of the Year
by Columbus Council 1019, Knights of Columbus at
ceremonies Deceber 23 rd. The award was in
recognition of Howard’s efforts toward renovation of
the Knights’ Home during 1973 and his work in
spearheading a program of action for the Counc
Howard (extreme left in photo) receives certifica
from award committee members (1. to r.) Joe Batastir
Phil Batastini, Past Grand Knight Jim Lowery, Tor
Comeauz and Larry Laughlin.
School Aid Foes Band Together
Shows Catholic
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