Newspaper Page Text
Anti-Genocide Declaration
Backed by U.S.C.C. Unit
WASHINGTON (NC) - A campaign
of support for a United Nations’
declaration condemning genocide has
been urged by the Division of Justice
and Peace of the U.S. Catholic
Conference (USCC).
In a letter to diocesan justice and
peace officials, Father J. Bryan Hehir,
director of the USCC division, asked
that citizens in eight states begin to
write letters to their senators, who are
either uncommitted to or opposed to
the U.N.’s Genocide Convention.
Father Hehir noted that the
convention was first brought before the
U.S. Senate in 1949 and has been
supported by every administration. It
has been ratified by 76 nations, but not
the United States.
Genocide, he wrote, has been
condemned by the Second Vaticap
Council, and the U.N. convention has
received support from this nation’s
bishops in their 1968 pastoral, Human
Life in Our Day.
Opposition to the convention has
come from people who maintain that its
ratification by the U.S. would cause
some erosion of national sovereignty.
Senators listed by Father Hehir as
being uncommitted or opposed to the
convention were Peter H. Dominick
(R.-Colo.), Robert Dale (R.-Kan.),
Roman L. Hruska (R.-Neb.), Alan Bible
(D.-Nev.), Howard W. Cannon (D.-Nev.),
James L. Buckley (Con.R.-N.Y.),
Howard Metzenbaum (D.-Ohio), Dewey
F. Bartlett (R.-Okla.), Lloyd M. Bentsen
(D.-Tex.), John G. Tower (R.-Tex.),
Robert C. Byrd (D.-W.Va.), Jennings
Randolph (D.-W.Va.).
Ethiopia Battles Hunger
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (NC) - A
stream of goods, much of it provided by
the Catholic relief agencies of various
countries, has helped to prevent a
catastrophe in famine-stricken Ethiopia,
but the battle against hunger has not yet
been won.
Irish Holy Ghost Father Michael
Doheny, organizer of the Irish relief
Organization Concern, said, “We are
happy that a lot of lives have been saved
through the Church’s operation.”
Father Doheny, German Sister Jutta
Hadamek and a Dutch priest manage the
Catholic secretariat here that
coordinates all Catholic aid sent and
deploys doctors and relief workers.
LOUISIANA
BATON ROUGE, La. (NC) - A
three-judge U.S. district court here ruled
Louisiana’s 1972 tax credit law
unconstitutional.
The law granted credits of up to $50
per child to parents for tuition paid to
nonpublic schools during the 1972 tax
year.
One of the members of the court,
Judge E. Gordon West, said he would
have liked to support the
constitutionality of tax credits but was
not free to do so because the district
court held that it was bound by the U.S.
Supreme Court’s decision last June
ruling a New York tax credit law
unconstitutional.
Officials of the Louisiana federation
of Citizens for Educational Freedom
(CEF), a non-sectarian group advocating
parental freedom of choice in
Despite the aid, the severe drought in
Ethiopia resulted in thousands of deaths
either through starvation or epidemics.
The West German branch of Caritas,
the Catholic charities organization, has
sent more than $735,000 worth of
materials and money to Ethiopia.
The reaction of people living in the
refugee camps at Kobo, about 600 miles
from here, to a visit by Sister Jutta was
testimony to the impact that the
Catholic relief workers have had.
Women kissed her hands, and with tears
in their eyes stammered their thanks.
Children clung to her.
Catholic Religious and Irish, German
education, said the district court
decision “comes as a chilling reminder
that our lives, more and more, are
controlled by the nine members of the
United States Supreme Court.”
The CEF statement said:
“Tax credits are given for many
reasons, particularly in the field of big
business, and they are available to
people in the highest income tax
brackets, yet when it comes to credits
for parents who are paying for both
public and nonpublic education, the
court slammed the door on people who
really deserve consideration.
“The Supreme Court rules - and the
lower courts echo - the position that
such credits are aids to religion. They
are not - they are aids to parents for the
aid of their children.”
and other volunteer workers have been
working at Kobo since last May, long
before the extent of the famine in the
provinces of Tigre and Wello became
known throughout the world.
Sister Jutta recalled that when she
left her work in a hospital near Addis
Ababa to organize help in the
famine-stricken areas, she found people
starving and dying along the road that
runs through both provinces to the
north. Unable to walk any farther,
thousands sat by the roadside or outside
the blocked-off towns and waited for a
bowl of cereal or a little water.
Catholic relief workers brought in
grain, established kitchens and fed
thousands daily. They built barracks
and set up makeshift hospitals. They
housed orphans in. special centers. In
Kobo, a well, blocked up for years, was
made to work with a motor pump,
saving a seven-mile walk to the river.
At Makel'e, Sister Helen Lally, a
member of the Daughters of Charity
from County Meath, Ireland, said: “In
June and July, we had 300 deaths. Now
the death rate is almost nil.” The 90
youngsters in school there, ranging from
six to 16 years of age, are healthy and
happy-looking.
She recently admitted 107 derelicts
from the streets, mostly old men,
haggard and gaunt-looking, victims of
the famine.
There are still difficult cases of
undernourishment or vitamin
deficiencies, especially among children,
and relief workers still need more
medicine, blankets and clothing.
Despite all the aid, the real problems
remain unsolved. The United Nations
has calculated that there is a deficit of
almost 150,000 tons of grain cereals in
the provinces of Tigre and Wollo. Only
long-term plans for the improvement of
the irrigation system, road-building, the
introduction of better methods of
cultivation and the building of silos will
free the people from constant fear for
their lives.
Court Strikes Down
Tax Credit Law
PAGE 3—January 24,1974
KINKY COMET -- Telescopic photos of the Comet
Kohoutek, taken at the University of Arizona’s
Catalina Observatory, show the structure of its tail
including a “kink” (top and middle) perhaps caused by
solar wind. What was billed as “the comet of the
century,” has fizzled into such a dim mass that even
COMET KOHOUTEK
Skylab astronauts had trouble seeing it Jan. 6.
Scientists speculated that a sticky space cement
formed by solar heat and a chemical reaction may have
snuffed out the comet’s brightness. (NC Photo from
NASA)
“Fugitive Pilgrim of Space”
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope Paul
VI has described the comet Kohoutek as
a “fugitive pilgrim of space” when he
spoke to crowds in St. Peter’s Square
Jan. 13.
The Pope told them that he had gone
out on a terrace of the Vatican palace
recently to watch the comet through a
small telescope.
While admitting the comet was not as
bright as some other stellar bodies, Pope
Paul said it had caused him to meditate
on space and the cosmos.
“Once again we experienced the sense
of cosmic mystery, unlimited space,
time without end, the incalculable
siderial panorama, its perfect and
inexorable movement, its frighteningly
profound silence, its phenomena of
matter which today is widely explored
but which can be said to be still almost
unknown - the universe?”
The experience, the Pope said, once
again called to mind “the disturbing and
humbling comparison between its
dimensions and those of man.”
But he added that further reflection
shows that all this phenomena is
stamped with the name of God, the
creator.
ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM BAUM
“Conversion
BY JERRY FILTEAU
WASHINGTON (NC) - The drive for Christian unity will die “unless there is
personal conversion to Jesus Christ” according to Archbishop William W. Baum of
Washington, one of the leading ecumenical experts among the American bishops.
Archbishop Baum gave high marks to Efforts in the field of interfaith cooperation
and theological dialogue, but he said the lack of “spiritual ecumenism” or personal
renewal is serious enough to threaten the whole movement.
At the same time, the archbishop has great hope for the future. “Who would have
believed, who could have predicted 15 years ago, the ecumenical progress we see all
around us today?” he asked.
Archbishop Baum made his observations in an interview with NC News here shortly
before the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity celebrated by Christians around
the world Jan. 18-25.
The Washington archbishop led the U.S. Catholic Church into the ecumenical era as
first executive director of the bishops’ national commission for ecumenical affairs,
1964-67. In that capacity he laid the groundwork for the official Catholic dialogues in
the United States with Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, the Orthodox,
and even some Baptists. He is now chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ecumenical and
Interreligious Affairs Committee.
Archbishop Baum acknowledged that the slowness of Church officials to respond to
the work of ecumenists is a problem, but he said that the lack of grassroots ecumenism
is probably a more serious obstacle to unity.
While interfaith cooperation is often good on the local level, he said, in the area of
doctrine “there is a real lack of awareness, of understanding.. . Local ecumenism
needs more study, both of Scripture and of doctrinal understanding. We need more
emphasis on faith and order.
“We also need much more emphasis on spiritual ecumenism. I’m concerned very
deeply that the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity seems to have declined. All of this
progress in the past 10 years, all of the dialogue and cooperation, will not continue
without spiritual ecumenism.
“Ecumenism is primarily a spiritual pursuit. It’s a curious thing, but the obstacles
will not be taken away without conversion, without holiness, without prayer.
“That is what has been missing. With all the reform - even radical reform - of
structures, what has not come about is the change of persons, a personal conversion to
Jesus Christ, repentance.
to Christ” Is Key to Unity
“This is what the 1975 Holy Year is all about. I think Pope Paul chose the theme of
‘Reconciliation’ because he sees personal reconciliation to God in Jesus Christ as a
requisite for the other reforms.”
Archbishop Baum cited other obstacles to reunion, among them the need for
theologians of different faiths to work together on developing a “common
hermeneutic for Scripture” - a shared methodology or approach to the way they
understand the Scriptures.
He also said the frustration of those who want closer union now, including shared
worship and intercommunion, is a real problem.
“The authorities of the Catholic Church are rightly cautious about eucharistic
sharing, lest something essential of the episcopate or presbyterate (priestly ministry)
be lost,” he said. “We have a great concern with being faithful to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ as it is taught by the Church.
“We cannot accept all of our ecclesiastical structures as simple accidents of history.
Local churches are part of the universal Church. How do you encourage local initiate
and at the same time uphold the principle that it is the community of local churches
that forms the universal Church?”
He said he sees great hope for eventual reunion in the agreements on the Eucharist
and priestly ministry in the USA National Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue and in the
Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. “But how far these
understandings are reflected in the local communities is another question,” he said.
Another area of ecumenical relations that is largely ignored or unknown in this
country, said Archbishop Baum, is the dialogue with the Eastern churches.
“Western Christians, Catholic and Protestant, need the dialogue with the East,” he
said. “They bring something valuable. In the United States the presence of the
Orthodox and Eastern Catholics is not felt often enough ... I see great possibilities,
for example, in a common Catholic-Orthodox witness to the United States on issues
such as marriage and family life.”
Among the more recent ecumenical developments Archbishop Baum singled out the
increasing cooperation between Catholics and conservative-evangelical churches,
including cooperation in the Key 73 evangelization campaign last year.
“At the beginning of our dialogue, during the Second Vatican Council, we sought
out and were welcomed by those churches that had already been engaged in the
ecumenical movement for decades,” he said. “We found it easy to engage in dialogue
and cooperation with them.
“But the ecumenical movement was viewed with suspicion by conservation
evangelicals. They feared that doctrine would be watered down, they feared a
‘super-church’ that would drown out the smaller church groups such as themselves.
Not only that, they feared it would be a super-church that is not faithful to the
Gospel.
“But in more recent years they have come to look at us more favorably.
Understanding us better, they’ve been more willing to participate in dialogue.
“The same thing is true on our side. It was a mutual distrust and fear, and now some
of this has broken down among Catholics as well. ^
“A good example of this is in the regional meetings between Catholics and Southern
Baptists. .. These have been very enlightening, very helpful. Both Catholics and
conservative evangelicals have become more aware of what brings us together: our
common faith in Jesus Christ.”
Archbishop Baum expressed admiration for the extensive ecumenical work of the
theological dialogue groups on both the national and the international levels, especially
the highly successful dialogues with Lutherans and Anglicans. But he admitted that
there are real gaps between the theological work and church practice.
“The theologians rightly ask for a response to the work they’ve done,” he said.
“They are quite understandably disappointed when their reports do not get the serious
consideration or response they deserve.”
One of the major problems, he said, is that the church bodies “don’t have the
mechanisms to handle theological reports.”
Archbishop Baum, who is serving on ecumenical committees for the Vatican, said he
is working “to find ways to get careful, serious response” to the dialogue groups by
appropriate Church authorities. “My appeal to theologians is, be patient - a way will
be found.”
Over-all, Archbishop Baum said, he is optimistic about the movement towards
Christian unity.
Since the Second Vatican Council, he said, “the greatest gain has been in the
awareness among Catholics that we are one with other Christians in our faith in Christ.
The recognition of this bond of unity that does exist, our faith in Jesus Christ
together, this is a gift of the Holy Spirit.”