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The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 55 No. 4 Thursday, January 24,1974 Single Copy Price — 12 Cents
NFPC President Addresses Province Priests
The new vision of “Church”
following Vatican Council II, “asks for a
new pattern of leadership behavior”
founded on an “actual living belief in
the concept of the dignity” of those for
whom the leader is responsible, said
Father Reid Mayo at a meeting in
Augusta Jan. 21-23 of the Atlanta
Provincial Congress of Priests’
Federations.
Father Mayo is the President of the
National Federation of Priests’ Councils.
Attending the meeting were more than
fifty priests from the dioceses of
Atlanta, Charleston, Charlotte, Raleigh
and Savannah. Four bishops were in
attendance.
Father Mayo characterized leadership
behavior before Vatican Council II as
one based on the concept of authority
seen as “Power.”
This view of leadership finds itself
“threatened” by the principles of
collegiality and subsidiarity which imply
greater delegation of authority, because
it sees authority as being diminished
when it is shared by others, the NFPC
President said.
However, he said, a leader of hope,
faith and love enters “into a process by
which one assists the life and growth of
a person, a group or an organization.”
When leadership is thus seen “in terms
of service,” he continued, “then such an
approach obviously enhances the
authority of the leader rather than
diminishing it.”
This type of new leadership, Father
Mayo said, is emerging and should be a
sign of hope for the church. He cited
the establishment of Priests’ Senate and
Councils and Diocesan Pastoral Councils
as vehicles which “allow and foster the
new styles of leadership that are
required” in the modem church.
In the exercise of shared leadership,
Father Mayo called for “recognition and
respect for the rights and obligations of
each partner.” He conceded that
“conflict and stress will occur” but
contended that “these tensions. . . will
be constructive if there is a fundamental
element of trust and respect: trust in
God’s word of promise, and respect for
the dignity and personhood of our
fellowmen.”
The NFPC head declared that within
“the last few years some have felt a
diminution of authority in the exercise
of their office as bishop or priest.”
Some bishops still feel that “their
authority is being whittled away in this
quest for collegiality. Similarly, some
priests feel that their priestly powers,
once uniquely theirs, are being shared
by deacons, by seminarians, by the
laity” and represent a diminution of
their leadership role, he said.
Still, he said, the “signs of the tims
point to more shared responsibility,
greater involvement by all in
decision-making.”
As examples of these “signs,” Father
Mayo cited Pastoral Councils, the
International Synod of bishops and the
use of professional research and
planning techniques.
New forms of leadership, he said, will
help the church in “moving what we
believe into action.” He illustrated this
contention by outlining two approaches
to moving ideals into action.
“There is the classical approach taken
by St. Francis of Assissi, who moved
down the road not to show us the leper,
but to kiss the leper.
“.. . But we also need another
approach. We could perhaps call it a
contemporary approach. It does not
deny that the leper has been seen and
kissed, but it is also open to the
question of why there need be lepers”
at all.
Father Mayo called for a
“moratorium among Christians on
mutual distrust and unjust accusations
in the name of “orthodoxy” and asked,
“until we do, how can men of God look
upon us as people who truly love one
another?”
AREA CLERGY TOLD
Viewers React to “Exorcist”
BY JOHN MUTHIG
(NC News Service)
The opening of the film “The
Exorcist” has caused sleepless nights,
fainting at movie theaters, much
conversation and a wave of calls to some
Catholic rectories, including a few
requests for exorcisms.
The film, based on an exorcism
performed in 1949 by a Jesuit from
Georgetown University on a 14-year-old
boy in a Washington, D.C., suburb, has
attracted near record-breaking crowds
since opening in 20 cities after
Christmas. Many filmgoers reportedly
have fainted, become physically ill, fled
to the lobby for a prolonged smoke, or
INSIDE STORY
Death of Village
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Key to Unity
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Entertainment
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Dialogue
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left the theater before the final scenes.
While chancery offices in most cities
report only a few calls on the film,
priests in some parishes say they have
had long conversations with filmgoers,
many of whom were severely upset.
At St. Jude’s parish in suburban
Denver, some young people began
wearing crosses and rosaries afer seeing
the film, according to Father Vince
Connor, assistant pastor. He said that a
23-year-old man “who was into Sanaic
cults and worship of'the devil” came to
the rectory supposedly experiencing
some of the strange audio-visual
sensations shown in the movie.
“We said the prayers of exorcism over
him,” said Father Connor, “more for his
own sake than as part of the ritual.”
Since then, the young man has attended
daily Mass faithfully, the priest said.
At Denver’s Cathedral of the
Immaculate Conception, Father Walker
Nickless picked up a long-distance
phone call at 5:30 a.m. from a woman
who wanted Archbishop James V. Casey
to perform the exorcism rite for her. At
10 p.m. Father James W. Rasby,
cathedral pastor, was called to calm a
man who was screaming in the cathedral
alleyway after seeing “The Exorcist.”
But the climax of the week at the
cathedral came when a man entered the
church “half naked,” Father Rasby said.
“It took the police, two ambulance
attendants and the assistant pastor to
get him out of the sacristy,” said Father
Rasby, who attributed the incident to
“The Exorcist.”
The Denver Post reported that
Archbishop Casey tried to see the movie
but had to return for another showing
because of the long lines. Msgr. William
H. Jones, Denver vicar for education,
alerted all high school religion teachers
to be prepared for questions on “The
Exorcist.”
Georgetown University in
Washington, where part of the film was
shot, had about 20 calls on the film
during the week of Jan. 7, according to
a switchboard operator. Mrs. Elizabeth
Barchers, secretary at the campus
ministries office, said two callers - one
from Kansas - had requested exorcisms.
Mary Flannery, who conducts some of
the twice-daily tours of the campus, has
been stopped several times to point out
the settings of various scenes in the
movie.
In Detroit, the chancery office has
been getting only a few calls, according
to John Lynch, archdiocesan director of
communications. He said a report that
many young people had been calling the
chancery could not be verified, and he
suspected that the rumor was a
publicity stunt. But elsewhere in the
Detroit archdiocese, “The Exorcist” has
caused some problems.
“About 20 people, at least half of
them college students on vacation, have
come to the rectory really rattled,” said
Father James Cichon, assistant pastor of
St. Hugo’s parish, Bloomfield Hills,
Mich. “Most of them have been highly
exposed to the occult on campus.”
Visitors at St. Hugo’s have included a
student who lost five nights of sleep
because of the movie and a policeman
who fainted in the theater lobby.
CARDBOARD CRIBS -- Sister Jutta Hamadek helps
feed starving children in a relief camp at Bati, Ethiopia.
The children are kept in makeshift cribs made from
cardboard boxes which had contained food. Sister
Jutta helps manage a secretariat Jn Addis Ababa that
coordinates all Catholic aid and deploys doctors and
relief workers. See story on page 3. (NC Photo by
KNA)
Minority Priests 9 Bishops Needed
Priests attending the seventh annual
meeting of the Atlanta Province
Federation of Priests’ Councils at
Augusta, Ga. Jan. 21-23 were told that
if the body of priests surrounding a
bishop to aid him in his work is to be
more effective than it has been in the
past, special attention must be given to
the development of priestly vocations
among racial and ethnic minorities and
to the selection of religious order priests
to the episcopacy.
Father Ivan Rohloff, O.F.M. Conv.,
FOR SAY. DIOCESE
speaking on the topic of “The
Formation of the Presbyterate,”
declared that “very few members of
minority groups enter our seminaries
and practically none persevere to
ordination.”
He charged that under present
seminary practice, minority students
face a dilemma They must either
conform to an alien culture and lose
their own cultural identity, or retain
their cultural identity at all costs.
In the first case, Father Rohloff said,
Confession Lenten Theme
The long lines that used to form
outside the Confessional are no longer
there. The decrease in use of Confession
has been estimated at about 50 per cent
in Europe, and as high as 75 per cent in
this country. Many adults are asking
“What’s happening to Confession?”
The Lenten Program for 1974,
prepared by the Department of
Christian Formation, takes this question
as its title. The main aim of the Program
this year will be to bring about a better
understanding of the Sacrament of
Penance, and a renewed awareness of
the place and value of the Sacrament in
the lives of today’s Catholics.
The Program, centering on the
sacrament of “Reconciliation,” will also
represent an effort on the part of the
Diocese to join with the universal
Church in celebration of this Holy Year
theme.
The starting point for the sermons
which will be preached each Sunday
during Lent at churches participating in
the Program will be the reasons which
used to draw people to frequent
Confession. Some of the topics to be
covered will include conscience
formation, changing attitudes towards
fear and guilt, the ever-present need for
reconciliation, and the growth in recent
times of new forms of the Sacrament.
Materials for the Program include
sermon outlines, liturgy aids, complete
outlines for adult study groups and for
high school and elementary school
classes. Leaflets will be handed out each
week in church. A preliminary historical
sketch has been prepared to fill in the
background to the Sacrament of
Penance as we know it today.
The materials for the Program will be
presented to priests, sisters and
educators of the Diocese at a series of
meetings to be held in each Deanery.
SCHEDULE
SAVANNAH - Mon. Jan. 28, 7:30 -
9:00, Sacred Heart Gym.
AUGUSTA - Tue. Jan. 29, 7:30 -
9:00, St. Mary’s School.
MACON - Wed. Jan. 30, 8:00 - 9:30,
St. Joseph Social Hall.
COLUMBUS - Thu. Jan. 31, 8:00 -
9:30, St. Benedict’s.
ALBANY - Sat. Feb. 2, 12:30 -
Lunch, St. Teresa’s School.
STATESBORO - Sun. Feb. 3, 3:00 -
4:30, St. Matthew’s Hall.
WAYCROSS - Sat. Feb. 9, 12:00 -
Lunch, St. Joseph’s Academy, 12:30 -
2:00 meet.
a minority student “may make it
through to ordination, but will so have
lost his cultural roots that he will be
ineffective with his own people, or in
the second case he will leave the
seminary because the cultural shock is
just too great.”
The Franciscan priest, who is Rector
of Assumption Seminary, St. Paul,
Minn., offered what he termed “two
very urgent suggestions” to deal with
the problems of vocations among
minority groups.
“The first,” he said, “is to open
national or regional seminaries as soon
as possible for these minority
seminarians, staffed by their own
people. The minority seminarians would
then be given a choice of attending a
(Continued on Page 7)
Father Rohloff
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Roman Collar Banned
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (NC) - A priest was told by a judge to remove his Roman collar
while serving in court as a lawyer because it would prejudice the jury. Father Vincent
LaRocca, an attorney for the Legal Aid Society, refused to obey the order of Judge
Morgan Lane. He is defending a woman accused of attacking a public school teacher.
The Legal Aid Society said it would support the priest in his fight to wear his Roman
collar in court.
"Superstar” Praised
VATICAN CITY (NC) - A Vatican Radio commentator has called “Jesus Christ
Superstar” a film of “high artistic level.” The movie, the commentator added, portrays
a “mysterious and fascinating Jesus” and “raises questions which men and ideologies
continue to ask about Jesus.” But the film, the commentator concluded, invites loving
contemplation of the figure who was Christ.