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PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, January 31,1974
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FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICIAL SAYS
Israel Pleased With Vatican’s Position on Jerusalem
By John Maher
WASHINGTON (NC) - The Vatican’s
position on Jerusalem “is to our liking,”
an official of the Israeli ministry for
foreign affairs said here.
The official, Michael Pragal, director
of the Church relations division of the
ministry for foreign affairs, told NC
News that the Vatican position, which
the “Holy Father has come out on a
number of occasions and defined,” is
that the Holy Places in Jerusalem
“should have a special, legal,
international, guaranteed status.”
Pragai, who visited Rome earlier in
January and talked to “a number of
Vatican officials,” said that the points
of the Vatican definition “are important
elements in setting up a situation that
would allay the fears of others” and
allow the Israeli government to share
the responsibility of administering the
Holy Places.
The present Vatican position, he said,
“is definitely not the same as
internationalization,” which the Vatican
favored in the past.
“Internationalization,” the
administration of Jerusalem by an
international body, “has been
abandoned by the Vatican,” Pragai said,
because “it would bring in elements that
could and would create chaos.”
Mentioning the Soviet Union and
Communist China, he said that “the
Vatican is most unkeen to bring in these
people.”
Israel’s point of view is clear, Pragai
said. It is that the city of Jerusalem is
the capital of the state of Israel and will
remain so forever and that the city is
unified and will remain so forever. The
government of Israel is on record that
other religious interests should have
“complete and totally free” access to all
religious sites, he said.
Maintaining that all who wish to visit
the Holy Places can now do so in
“complete safety,” Pragai said “the
situation is as it should be and as it
should have been.” But he added, “We
feel there ia a heavy responsibility on
our shoulders and we would like to
share it.”
Stating that the Israeli government
believes that the “Holy Places should be
under the administration of those who
hold them sacred,” Pragai said, the
government would welcome an
arrangement that would allow the
sharing of responsibility for the Holy
Places.
Concerning the administration of the
Holy Places, “the Vatican would like to
have a stronger say but realizes that
there are various components that make
up the question of Jerusalem,”
including Moslems and other Christians,
Pragai said.
Concerning suggestions that Moslem
and Christian areas of Jerusalem should
have local autonomy, diplomatic
immunity or some other status, Pragai
said that the Israeli government’s view is
that “the time is not ripe” for
implementing such suggestions. Israel’s
position is that any change in the
manner of administering Jerusalem must
be part of an overall settlement.
Pragai also discussed the concern that
some Christian leaders have expressed
for the situation of the Palestinian
refugees. It is “a falsehood,” he said,
that Israel has refused compensation to
the refugees for property that they
owned in Israel. But, he said, the
government has made it a condition of
giving such compensation that it be used
for useful and productive purposes, such
as resettlement in Arab lands.
“It is not only a question of Arab
refugees,” Pragai said. “The number of
Jewish refugees that we have taken in
from Arab countries is about the same
as the number of Arab refugees who
have left Israel. They too (the Jewish
refugees) left behind property as did the
Arabs. There was an exchange of
populations.”
Arguing that the Palestinians, unlike
other refugees, have remained refugees,
Pragai said that after the Second World
War, there were 34 million refugees, or
displaced persons, in Europe. He said
that about 17 million Germans who left
parts of Germany that were taken over
by the Soviet Union or Poland were
absorbed in West Germany and
contributed to “the fantastic economic
comeback” of that country.
Conflicts between India and Pakistan
had produced about 14 million refugees,
he said, adding “none are any longer
refugees.”
But, he maintained, the 600,000
Palestinians who in 1948 left land taken
over by Israel, have become twice that
number and “not a single Arab
government lifted a finger to absorb
them.” Referring to the “fantastic
amounts” of money that Arab oil
producers have at their disposal, he said
that “not a penny was invested in
resettling their own kith and kin.”
Pragai said that he had been a refugee
who left Germany at the age of 14
before the Second World War. He had
not considered, however, settling in a
refugee camp, but sought to acquire an
education and make a future for
himself.
IT LOOKS LIKE AN AMUSEMENT PARK MAZE 26. Members of the parish viewed the exhibits during
but it isn’t. Students at Savannah’s St. James school an ‘open house’ on Sunday, Jan. 27.
entered these exhibits in the school’s science fair Jan.
Augusta Series Continues
This Sunday the fourth in the series
of six lectures at St. Mary’s on the Hill
Parish, Augusta, will take place from ten
until eleven o’clock.
Dr. Edward Cashin will begin
lecturing on the Catholic Laymen’s
Association dividing his talk into three
parts. It will be continued February 10
and concluded the seventeenth.
Father Barry Stanton will continue
his talk on Scripture in the Parish Hall
and William Beatty, the series on Life in
the Spirit in St. Anne’s Hall.
Despite the inclement weather and
the fact that this series is the same one
presented in the fall, over one hundred
parishioners were present last Sunday.
Pacelli Honor Roll
Sister Patricia Vanden Berg will
discuss the divisions within Christianity
and on February 10, her class will meet
at the Adas Yeshurun Synagogue to
study Judaism.
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Mary Hall, Kay Morgan, Veronica
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A Day Off, Alaskan Style
(Father Payne is a priest of the Savannah
diocese temporarily on leave to serve in the
far-flung diocese of Juneau, Alaska. He is
pastor of St. Catherine’s church, St.
Peterburg, Alaska.)
By Father Tom Payne
It was supposed to be a day off. I
hadn’t seen a priest for seven weeks so
one Thursday morning I decided to
catch the ferry “Taku” about noon and
ride over to Wrangell for an overnight
visit with Father Jim Manske. I would
then reboard the vessel on her return
trip north the next day.
With some shrimp and king crab in
my bag, I arrived and was met at the
ferry terminal by Fr. Manske. He told
me he was also housing two visiting high
school wrestlers from Hoonah, who had
been on the ship with me.
That night, my host bowled in his
league while I kept house and put on
the “seafood boil” replete with wine.
When he returned, we both ate our
evening meal and fed the wrestlers, who
were determined to keep their required
114 pounds, a hard boiled egg and a
grapefruit. It was the same story the
next day when they weighed in three
times in preparation for the evening
matches. High school wrestling is very
popular in these parts in lieu of football
that cannot be played.
The next morning, Father and I
concelebrated in the small but beautiful
chapel built by one of the pioneers of
Alaska. The records of St. Rose of Lima
parish go back to the 1880’s. Shortly
after Mass, the Bishop called me from
Ketchikan. He could only have known
where I was by a special episcopal gift
of intuition.
He would be on the northbound ferry
I had planned to take and wished to
visit Petersburg for the weekend. A very
serious snow storm raged all day adding
another foot to the already deep drifts.
The pastor went to work with shovel
trying to keep up with the wind. In the
evening we attended the wrestling
tournaments involving Juneau, Wrangell,
Hoonah, and Petersburg.
Immediately afterwards, I grabbed
my bag from the rectory and headed on
foot for the terminal. The beautiful
“Taku” was already docked and the
Bishop was searching for me in the
terminal.
Very shortly, the ship’s whistle
blasted once as a signal of departure. It’s
one of the warm and friendly sounds in
this quiet north country. At Petersburg,
the echos resound for almost thirty
seconds as they travel from mountain to
mountain and through the passes.
BY USCC DIVISION
We had three hours together in the
forward lounge of the ship. The
beautiful colored buoys in the Wrangell
narrows have not and won’t be affected
by the energy crisis. At one a.m. they
look like Broadway in New York as the
ship threads its way through the narrow
channel bordered by two and
three-thousand foot mountains.
Enroute, I asked the bishop if, since
he would be in Petersburg over the
weekend, he would mind if I stayed on
board and went to Haines, two-hundred
miles north to visit Father Ed McHugh,
OMI. Graciously, the Bishop granted the
request. When he disembarked, I
secured a cabin for the remainder of the
trip and went to bed.
The next day after a very calm
passage we reached Sitka for a two hour
layover. Father Jim Ryan, S.J. came
aboard for a short visit as Bishop Hurley
had called to say that I would be
aboard. Time was too short to ride the
seven miles into the first capital of
Alaska. I’ll be there in February,
anvwav, for a priests’ meeting.
The next leg took us to Juneau by
eleven p.m. Saturday night. Then we
continued to Haines up the Lynn Canal
(a natural body of water). I arrived at
4:30 a.m. Sunday morning.
Father McHugh was nowhere in sight
so I begged a ride the four miles. When I
reached the church and rectory, I
entered and quietly took the bed in the
spare room and could hear the pastor
snoring a peaceful sleep. When his alarm
rang, he took care of normal duties and
noticed the door to my room closed.
Later, he told me, that he just figured
a native from his mission at Klukwon
had decided to spend the night, and was
truly shocked to see me lying there. The
Bishop had not informed him of my
arrival.
Father McHugh took the first
morning Mass and I the second.
After a light lunch, we rode up to the
Canadian border about 35 miles north.
On the way, we were on the lookout for
moose which roam the area. The snow
was deep everywhere and the higher we
got the colder was the air. When we had
about given up seeing a moose, lo, I
spotted one lying in a clearing in the
thickets. We stopped and began
catcalling from the shoulder of the road
to urge him to rise so we could get a
good look. Finally, the cow or bull
obliged us in a rather bored and sluggish
manner. Moose are the color of a mule
but a mule is a beautiful animal
compared to a moose.
Just as it’s dangerous to judge a book
by its cover, to discount or to spurn a
rhoose because of its ungainly
appearance would be to miss probably
the most delicious meat one could
desire. For me, it easily surpasses even
the best beef.
The rest of the trip was breathtaking
with the shapely hemlock and spruce
groaning under the weight of two or
three feet of snow. That evening we had
dinner with the Hannon family. The
Hannons number two parents, eleven
children, and one more due in May. No
two of the children are alike and what a
pleasant evening they afforded us with
their gaiety. They closed their day by all
kneeling in the dining room before an
image of the Sacred Heart and reciting
their night prayers together, a rare but
beautiful sight these days.
It was during the meal, that one of
the high school girls informed me that
Notre Dame had beaten U.C.L.A. at
South Bend.
My day was complete.
Father McHugh persuaded me to stay
over Monday and fly back to my parish
on Tuesday morning. So for Monday
night’s supper, I prepared some
„ southern fried chicken which Father Ed
thoroughly enjoys. We had eaten it
“Yankee” style at the Hannon’s.
Tuesday dawned favorably for a
flight out of Haines, but on calling
Petersburg airport, I found that no
planes would get in there that day. This
resulted in another postponement till
Wednesday morning. When we rose, we
looked out despairingly at a snowstorm
with 200 foot visibility ceiling and
lowering. No planes would get into or
leave Haines today! Father and I settled
down to the third day of “my day off”
.low reaching Genesis proportions. It
was a good day to prepare spaghetti that
we had for supper since some cold
chicken was left over from yesterday.
I could now catch the Ferry for
Skagway to pay a brief visit to Father
Dave Melbourne. A brief visit was all
one would care to have there on such a
day. The wind was howling and the
snow blowing and stinging the face.
Since the ferry was late, it did not tarry
at Skagway, and before long she nosed
southward for the overnight trip to
Juneau.
Leaving the capital city at 4:30 a.m.
we had smooth passage into Petersburg
at 12:30 p.m. The Bishop was gone and
my day off ended exactly a week to the
day and hour it began. If I could report
that this is typical for the priests in this
diocese, I’m sure there would be no
priest shortage here.
Rare though they be, yet tonight as I
write this, I’m wondering if in good
conscience, I should plan a day off for
next week!
Visa Refusal to Cuban Deplored
WASHINGTON (NC) - The U.S.
State Department was sharply criticized
here by the Division for Latin America
of the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC)
for refusing to allow a Cuban film
maker to attend an awards dinner in
New York.
Father Frederick A McGuire, director
of the division, and Father J. Bryan
Hehir, director of the USCC Division for
Justice and Peace, cosigned a letter of
protest sent to Jack B. Kubisch,
assistant secretary of state for
inter-American affairs.
In the letter, they noted that Cuban
film maker Tomas Gutierrez Alea had
been denied a visa to the U.S. to receive
an award from the National Society of
Film Critics. The award was voted for
his film “Memories of
Underdevelopment,” which is currently
being shown in several U.S. cities.
The letter said that the embargo
against Cuba by the U.S., and the
Organization of American States (OAS),
was “a totally outmoded and
inappropriate policy whose effects are
almost entirely negative.” The policy,
discriminates against both those who
wish to come to the U.S., and those
who have extended invitations, the
letter said.
“In the long range,” the letter added,
“it continues to deprive our two people
of the necessary opportunity of learning
more about each other and of thus
breaking down the walls of needless
hostility that presently divide us.”
Father McGuire told NC News that
the letter was not calling for diplomatic
recognition of Cuba but “for an
evaluation of the situation indirectly.”
His organization is not qualified to
decide on the question of recognition,
he said.
The Division of Latin America, he
said, is mainly concerned with “the
lifting of the blockade” which he said is
inconsistent in light of the detente with
both the Soviet Union and Communist
China.
The Division for Latin America called
the embargo “ineffective and cruel” in a
1972 statement.
In 1969, a collective pastoral letter
signed by all Cuban bishops said that
the embargo had “unjustly led to
adverse conditions for the weak, small
and undeveloped countries” and
“burdened our workers in the cities and
in the fields, our housewives, our
growing youth and children and the
sick.”
A Treasury Department official
warned the National Society of Film
Critics that anyone accepting the award
for Gutierrez would violate the Trading
with the Enemy Act and would be
subject to a maximum penalty of
$10,000 and 10 years in prison.