Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 55 No. 7
Thursday, February 14,1974
Single Copy Price — 12 Cents
--The reconciliation of many
penitents with individual confession and
absolution.
“What is significant about these rites
is a new attempt at enriching the
celebration of reconciliation,”
commented Father Thomas Krosnicki,
associate director of the U.S. bishops’
Committee on the Liturgy, in a
statement accompanying the
document’s release.
“Individual confession outside of
communal celebrations will be enhanced
by a fuller use of the word of God and
by a more open exchange between the
confessor and the individual penitent,”
he said.
The Ordo Paenitentiae (Order of
Penance) was the last of the major
liturgical rites left to be revised since the
project of revising liturgical books was
begun 10 years ago.
The new 121-page Latin text -- its
translation into English is now in
progress - outlines the liturgical rites for
Penace in four chapters:
-The reconciliation of individual
penitents.
WASHINGTON (NC) - The Vatican
has issued a new rite for Penance that
reaffirms private confession while
emphasizing the communal aspect of
the sacrament.
The revised rite, whose imminent
publication has been rumored for
several months, was made public here
Feb. 7, the same time it was released by
the Vatican.
The way of celebrating Penance has
undergone considerable change over the
past several years, and the new
document in effect brings the piecemeal
changes together under one cover.
to mission lands where, because of a
lack of priests, Catholics might receive
general absolution because they would
otherwise be deprived of the sacrament
and of the possibility of receiving the
Eucharist.
According to background
information on the new rite prepared by
U.S. bishops’ liturgy office here, the
first chapter of the rite includes “a
reminder that the priest should first
receive the penitent with words of
friendship and kindness and only then
invite the individual to have trust in
God in acknowledging his sins.”
conversion of heart,” the Liturgy office
said.
This is followed by the confession of
sins and a prayer of sorrow by the
penitent, either in his own words or in a
set prayer formula.
After the prayer of sorrow the priest
extends his hands over the head of the
penitent in a gesture of forgiveness and
reconciliation, and says the words of
absolution.
After the words of reconciliation, the
penitent answers “Amen” and joins the
priest in a short prayer of praise, “Let
us praise the Lord for He is good - for
His mercy endures forever.”
TO JOB CORPS TRAINEES
JACS Lend a Helping Hand
BY GILLIAN BROWN
Joe dropped out of school in tenth
grade. He drifted around for a while,
and then was accepted for training with
the Job Corps. Illness and trouble at
home brought his training to an end
after only six months. Now he’s home
again, and he has problems:
One. The employment situation is
tight. There’s no job for Joe.
Two. his mother, who is sick, needs
medicine and care she can’t afford.
Three. Some of Joe’s friends are
trying to persuade him to join them in
occasional experiments with drugs and
crime.
Four. Joe is losing heart. He’s a
two-time drop-out at only eighteeen.
There are many boys like Joe around.
INSIDE STORY
Ministry Program
Pa 2
••••••■*••••g# Jm
Know Your Faith'
• 5
Bethesaa Founder
DCCW Notes
Pg. 8
At a time when more fortunate youths
are beginning college or a business
career with bright hopes, the Joe’s of
this world are already tasting frustration
and disappointment.
What Joe needs is a friend. Someone
to turn to for advice and
encouragement. Someone who will help
him decide to return to the Job Corps
Center, or to go back to school. Failing
that, someone who will help him find
and keep a job.
One such friend is Sister Mary
Catherine Moore, who runs the
Savannah Deanery Social Apostolate
Office. Sister Catherine is the area
Coordinator for JACS (Joint Action in
Community Service), an organization
which now numbers more than 5,000
volunteers all over the nation who
provide personal services to Job
Corpsmen. Each volunteer contacts a
young man who is returning from a Job
Corps center and helps him make his
way towards self-reliance and stability
in the work-a-day world.
This help may take many different
forms. A boy who has successfully
completed his period at the Job Corps
Center may already have a good job
lined up for him, and needs little
assistance. His training as an auto
mechanic, carpenter, welder, or
electrician, puts him in a good position
on the job market.
But he may need help in finding a
place to live, or a little aid in opening
his first bank account, in which to put
the savings he has accumulated during
his training period. He may simply need
someone to welcome him to a strange
city, or to call him now and then for a
few friendly words.
Another’ boy, who dropped out
before his training was completed, will
have other needs. A little encouragment
might help him decide to go back to
complete his Job Corps training.
Some needed no more than a timely
telephone call or postcard. Cithers
involved working with all kinds of
human predicaments -- from tracing
down a missing birth certificate to
helping a young man get treatment for
epilepsy.
Volunteers are badly needed to keep
this good work going. For three years
now, Sister Catherine has been handling
this task with the help of only a handful
of volunteers. In that time, she has
handled well over 300 cases.
Taking an interest in individual cases
at present are four men: Danny Keane
and Bill Dorrah of the K. of C., Bill
Liebermann, a retired Police Officer,
and David Noble, a Professor at
Armstrong State College.
What does it take to be a JACS
volunteer? First of all a commitment to
helping disadvantaged youth. Secondly,
respect, sensitivity and tact. Thirdly,
stability and dependability. Lastly a
thorough knowledge of the community.
Volunteers may be able to assist a
Job Corpsman by knowing where to
turn for professional advice, for legal
aid, for medical services. It is a help too
if the volunteer has great patience and is
not too easily shocked by customs,
language or attitudes different from his
owa
Those interested in helping Sister
Catherine in her task may contact her at
the Social Apostolate Office, 501 East
McDonough St., Savannah, Ga. 31401.
INDIAN MADONNA -- An
Indian mother holds a blond Jesus
in this Chilean Christmas card
expression of a blend of Indian
culture and Christianity. The
Church in Latin America must use
pilgrimages, Indian customs, folk
dances and other elements of
popular religion to evangelize
people, a meeting of theologians
and anthropologists was told in
Santiago, Chile. (NC Photo)
The rite then provides “for the priest
to read brief text from the Bible about
God’s mercy and God’s call to
IN HAPPIER DAYS -- Pope Paul greets Cardinal
Jozsef Mindszenty as he arrives in Vatican City in
1971, after the Hungarian primate was persuaded to
leave his self-imposed exile in the U.S. Embassy in
Budapest. Cardinal Mindszenty said through a
spokesman that he did not resign voluntarily as
Archbishop of Esztergom as implied in some news
reports and the Vatican confirmed the cardinal’s
statement. (NC Photo by KNA)
-The reconciliation of many
penitents with general confession and
absolution.
-Texts for use in the celebration of
reconciliation.
The Vatican press office said the
word “reconciliation” was used in the
chapter titles because “this
term. . .shows more clearly that
sacramental Penance is an encounter of
God’s action and man’s, while the term
‘penance’ puts the accent on what is
done by man.”
The rites demand individual
confession and absolution for
sacramental Penance, even in communal
celebrations, except in very unusual
circumstances.
Those situations, which the Vatican
outlined in mid-1972, apply principally
FIRST MASS IN SAVANNAH. Mrs. Boston Williams receives Holy
Communion from Father Ron Pachence at his first Mass celebrated in
Savannah Jan. 27 at St. Benedict’s church. At left in photo is Mrs. Ronnie
Bell. Server in foreground is Stephen Heyward.
HEADLINE
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HOPSCOTCH
Vatican-Warsaw Talks
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Agreement to continue negotiations to bring about better
relations between Church and state have been reached at Warsaw by representatives of
the Polish government and a top Vatican diplomat. The Vatican published (Feb. 7) the
text of a joint communique agreed on in Warsaw at the conclusion of a four-day visit
by Archbishop Agostino Casaroli, secretary of the Vatican’s Council for the Public
Affairs of the Church. The joint communique described the archbishop’s visit with the
Polish officials as taking place in an “open and cordial atmosphere.” The two parties,
according to the communique, discussed general problems of world peace and had a
useful exchange of their respective points of view on the conference for European
Security and Cooperation.
No Sterilization
GREENVILLE, S.C. (NC) - An official of the state Department of Social Services
here has said that involuntary sterilization will not be allowed in South Carolina and
that regardless of what federal guidelines are issued, no Medicaid funds will be
allocated for that purpose in the state. Thomas Poteat, chairman of a committee to
draft voluntary sterilization legislation for the state, said that his committee has “gone
on record as flatfootedly opposed to involuntary sterilization,” no matter what
“fail-safe methods” are proposed by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and
Welfare.
Tax Credits Nixed
SAN FRANCISCO (NC) - A three-judge federal court here ruled unconstitutional a
California law granting tax credits of up to $125 to parents who pay tuition in
nonpublic schools. Joseph McElligott, director of the division of education of the
California Catholic Conference, said that the decision was disappointing but not
unexpected in the light of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions of last June.
Press Officer Complains
VATICAN CITY ONC) - The head of the Vatican press office said here that he was
misquoted by an Israeli newspaper on the Vatican’s position regarding the state of
Jerusalem. Federico Alessandrini said that his reply was not meant to imply that the
Vatican had changed its position. It is generally understood in the Vatican today that
the Holy See wants a “universalization” of the Holy Places which would guarantee
them an autonomous character, independent of any national soveriegnty, to guarantee
access by Christians and Moslems.
Vatican Issues Revised Rite for Penance