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PAGE 3—November 21,1974
of Holy Door Will Be Televised Worldwide
Opening
BY JAMES C. O’NEILL
VATICAN CITY (NC) -- The
ceremonial opening of the Holy Door at
St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve by
Pope Paul VI to inaugurate the
worldwide Holy Year will be televised
globally under the direction of famed
Italian motion picture director Franco
Zeffirelli.
Although the full rite of the
traditional opening of the Holy Door in
the main atrium of St. Peter’s has not
yet been fully worked out, informed
Vatican sources have indicated that the
inauguration will be “completely
modernized” to meet the time
limitations and attention needs of the
modem world.
The actual rite of opening the Holy
Door, one of the five main doors of St.
Peter’s and the only door which remains
closed for the usual 25-year period
between Holy Years, has been cut to
half an hour for TV viewing. It will
begin precisely at 11:30 p.m. Rome
time.
The full televised ceremony of
Christmas Eve, beginning with the
opening of the Holy Door, will also
include Solemn Mass in St. Peter’s
celebrated by the Pope on the high
altar.
The technical details involved in the
opening ceremonies are designed to
stress the Church’s openess to the
“Reconciliation and Renewal” theme of
this Holy Year, probably the last of the
20th century. The Pope will
symbolically tap the massive marble
door facing onto the atrium or front
porch of St. Peter’s.
The workmen of St. Peter’s will have
already uncemented the marble facing
from its present solid foundations and it
will be removed in a matter of minutes.
Meanwhile the inner bronze door,
behind the marble facing, will be swung
back to permit the entry of a liturgical
procession. Taking part in the
procession will be the canons of St.
Peter’s, the cardinals present in Rome
for the event, the diplomatic corps and
the Pope.
Television cameras, mainly supplied
by the Italian Television Network, RAI,
under the direction of Franco Zeffirelli
will be strategically placed in the atrium
and inside the church to catch the
details of the ceremony which will be
carried by satellite and other
communications networks throughout
the world.
When the Pope reaches the high altar
of St. Peter’s, the Mass of Christmas will
be begun with the intonation of the
Gloria in Latin as a sign of the jubilation
of both Christmas and the Holy Year.
According to well informed sources,
many of the traditional liturgical
prayers and ceremonies have been either
removed or changed so that the
ceremonies will be easily understandable
and significant to a world which, for the
first time in history, will be able to
participate in and witness the opening
ceremonies by television. The Holy
Doors of the other three major
patriarchal basilicas in Rome - St. Mary
Major, St. John Lateran and St.
Paul-outside-the-Walls -- will be opened
in separate ceremonies on Christmas
Day by papal legates.
U.S• Divorce Rate Rises Sharply
WASHINGTON (NC) - The
American divorce rate rose as much in
the period 1970-74 as it did in the
whole decade of the 1960’s, according
to a U.S. Census Bureau report.
CATHOLIC OBSERVANCE
WASHINGTON (NC) - The first of
six regional hearings for the Catholic
observance of the U. S. bicentennial will
be held here Feb. 3-5,1975.
Cardinal John Dearden of Detroit,
chairman of the Bicentennial
Committee of the National Conference
of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), will
preside at the hearing, which is expected
to be held at the Theological College of
the Catholic University of America.
Francis Butler, executive director of
the committee, announced the full
schedule of the hearings, which will
provide input for a major national
Church-sponsored conference on
“Liberty and Justice for A11” in 1976.
The other hearings, he said, will be held
as follows:
-- San Antonio, Tex., April 3-5;
- Minneapolis, Minn., June 5-7;
- Atlanta, Ga., Aug. 7-9;
- Sacramento, Calif., Oct. 2-4;
-- Newark, N. J., Dec. 4-6
The regional meetings will highlight
specific subtopics of the national
HUNTINGTON, Ind. (NC) - Dale
Francis, former editor and publisher of
the National Catholic Register and
nationally syndicated columnist, has
joined the staff of the national Catholic
weekly Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) as
executive editor.
He will expand that paper’s new
edition, which, when coupled with the
regular national edition, will form a
complete newspaper package, an OSV
spokesman said.
In mid-October, Francis was fired as
editor and publisher of the National
Catholic Register when the editorial
offices of that paper were moved from
Huntington to Los Angeles.
According to the OSV, Francis, who
wrote a weekly column for Our Sunday
The higher divorce rate was even
greater among those under 45, the
report said.
The report cited an estimate by the
\
conference in October 1976, which will
be held in Detrqit. The Detroit
conference is expected to recommend
policies and programs of social action
for the Catholic Church in the United
States for the five years following the
bicentennial.
Butler said the February hearing will
begin with a reflection on the
theological foundations of the Church’s
ministry for justice in the world.
“It will then proceed with an
exploration of social issues of an
international character which illustrate
the global dimensions of justice,” he
said.
“The world food crisis will be one of
these issues,” he added.
Butler said the committee will invite
authorities on international social issues
and representatives of the Church in
underdeveloped nations to offer
presentations to the Bicentennial
Committee at the February hearing.
He said those wishing to participate
at the hearings should contact the staff
of the NCCB Bicentennial Committee at
1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W.,
Washington, D. C., 20005.
Visitor for 15 years, will oversee the
expansion of OSV’s news edition. He
will also write a monthly article for
OSV’s national editior and work closely
with the publication’s book department,
evaluating and recommending material
for publication.
In addition to covering national and
international news, the OSV news
edition will carry editorial comment
written by Francis. While he will write
articles for Our Sunday Visitor’s
national edition, no regular column by
him will appear there.
However, Francis, who writes a
column for a number of diocesan papers
will continue to syndicate that column
through the J.P. Syndicate Service.
National Center for Health Statistics
that 925,000 people were divorced in
the year prior to March, 1974, and
increase of some 200,000 over the
previous year.
The report also found that more
young people -- those under 35 - are
remaining single.
Partly as a result of these two trends,
the percentage of households headed by
“primary individuals” - persons who
maintain their own homes while living
alone or with nonrelatives - has risen to
46 percent, an increase of about 25
percent since 1970.
There were about 2.3 million men
and 3.6 million women who were
divorced and not remarried in the U.S.
in 1974, according to the report. This
represents 63 divorced persons for every
1,000 persons who were partners in
intact marriages in the same year.
The rate was 47 per 1,000 in 1970
and 35 per 1,000 in 1960, the report
said.
The ratio for those under 45 was 66
per 1,000 in 1974 compared to 30 per
1,000 in 1960.
There were 49 divorced men per
1,000 married men in 1974 and 77
divorced women per 1,000 married in
1974. The rate was 58 per 1,000 for
whites and 112 per 1,000 for blacks and
members of other races, the report said.
Eighty-one percent of divorced
women and 61 percent of divorced men
were heads of households, the report
said, but four times as many women
were heads of households which
included children or other relatives.
The percentage of persons under 35
who are single has increased sharply,
while the percentage of those over 35
has decreased slightly, according to the
report.
In 1974 54.8 percent of the men
under 35 and 44.5 percent of the
women had never been married,
compared to 50.7 and 37.6 percent,
respectively, in 1960. The greatest
difference was an 11.2 percent increase
of single women aged 20-24.
The report, which did not attempt to
explain the changes, said: “Whether the
tendency among the younger group to
refrain from marrying represents merely
a postponement of first marriage or a
development of a trend toward life-long
singleness is not known.”
The report said that about 60 percent
of the 3-million-person increase in single
persons heading households from 1970
to 1974 was among those under 35.
Seventy-two percent of the increase
among men and 45 percent of the
increase among women was among
> those under 35, the report said.
Bicentennial Hearings Set
Dale Francis Joins OSV
HOLY DOOR, 1949 - Carrying a candle and a cross,
Pope Pius, XII crosses the threshold of St. Peter’s
Basilica Dec. 24, 1949, during ceremonies opening the
1950 Holy Year. The Pope entered after taking part in
traditional ceremonies during which the door was
WCC OFFICIAL SA YS:
unsealed and removed temporarily. The door, which
was sealed a year later, will be opened by Pope Paul VI
on Dec. 24 this year. The ceremony will be televised
globally. (NC Photo)
Population Issue ‘Smokescreen’
ROME (NC) - The secretary general
of the World Council of Churches told
the World Food Conference here that
proposals to remedy food scarcities
through population control are “either
inadequate or exercises in self-deception
or just demagogic.”
Dr. Philip Potter declared in his Nov.
11 address to the United
Nations-sponsored conference:
“It is being said that What is needed is
population control and this will enable
development aid and the transfer of
grain to the needy to be more effective.
But experience has shown that it is
precisely socio economic development
which reduces income inequality, and
this is a precondition for a decrease in
the rate of population growth.”
The Methodist churchman asserted
that available evidence “indicates that
where there is a determined effort to
promote participatory self-reliance and
an economic policy aimed at social
justice, as in China, the most populous
nation, the problem of hunger can be
substantially tackled.”
Dr. Potter said that churches have
“all too often been accomplices in
participating in the unjust structures of
society by their conspicuous wealth or
their pursuit of prestige and position in
society.”
Churches have contributed to social
injustice, he continued, by “their
devotion to acts of charity while being
attached to the existing economic and
political systems, by their failure to help
Christians to place the accent on being
attached to the existing economic and
political systems, by their failure to help
Christians to place the accent on being
rather than having, by their heretical
maintenance of the status quo in spite
of a dynamic faith which calls for
radical change in attitudes and acts
toward a more humane existence for
all.”
He recommended that the churches
utilize unused church lands, investments
and other resources for agricultural
development in rural areas “on a
cooperative basis,” and for promoting
community health care, education and
social development.
In a news conference Nov. 12, Dr.
Potter said that the issue of population
control “should not be used as an
excuse” to avoid facing injustices in the
economic and political spheres. In the
press conference, the WCC general
secretary repeated the point made in his
speech that advance in socio-economic
development is a “precondition for a
decrease in the rate of population
growth.”
Where people participate in their own
societies, Dr. Potter told the press,
“population control looks after itself.”
But where people are outsiders in their
own societies, “they have no control
over population growth and they just
breed.”
Dr. Potter told the news conference
that he was disappointed in the response
of wealthy nations to the food crisis. He
called on churches to “find more
effective ways to influence national
delegations at such “international
jamborees.”
World Can Double Food In Year, Farm Expert Holds
BY JOHN MUTHIG
ROME (NC) -- World food production could be doubled in a year if the world
decided to do it, according to a founder of the National Catholic Rural Life
Conference of the United States.
Msgr. Luigi Ligutti, who will turn 80 “on the first day of spring, 1975,” also
described the world food situation as “alarming but improving.”
In an interview before the opening Nov. 5 of the United Nations-sponsored World
Food Conference here, Msgr. Ligutti insisted that the way to end hunger is “not
through handouts but through helping little people help themselves.”
In his home off Rome’s ancient Aurelian Way, Msgr. Ligutti declared, “There’s a
miracle under every rock and an infinite potential in every drop of water. World food
production could be doubled in 12 months with available means, but that would take
a lot of intellect, ability, will and concern for social justice.”
The Italian-born American priest, who helped found the National Catholic Rural
Life Conference (NCRLC) during the depression, also said that the alarming world
food picture is improving for several reasons. First, “Our diet and nutrition is way
better than it was during the time of the French or our own American Revolution.”
He recalled that even at the turn of the century when he was growing up in a small
village in Northeast Italy, deaths from protein deficiency were rather common in Italy.
They are virtually unknown now.
The situation is also brighter because consciousness and concern about world hunger
is “getting to be universal -- not just felt by a few do-gooders. Fifty years ago we
couldn’t possibly have thought about holding a world food conference.”
Another hopeful sign, he said, is that Christians in the West as well as “ruling powers
and big shots in developing countries,” are “coming to realize that they must share in
the guilt” for food shortages.
But, according to Msgr. Ligutti, perhaps the best change of all is that “all of us -
Christians in the West, the developing world itself - are conscious of the fact that
suffering people are capable of self-help.”
The world’s simple “little people,” he asserted, “have the ability of a Michelangelo,
Da Vinci or an Edison.” The goal of the food conference, should be to unlock their
power, he said.
Seated at his desk before two broad shelves full of knick-knacks from around the
world, Msgr. Ligutti said that world hunger is not caused by too many people but by
three sins.
The first, he said, is the “sin of the will - we are too lazy to use God’s gifts.”
The second he called an “intellectual” sin: “We haven’t yet scratched the surface in
regard to what is possible. God the Father must be laughing in His beard when he sees
man as a beggar sitting on a chair of gold.”
The third sin is injustice: “When we refuse to give each worker a share of what he
produces or when we keep him away from the land and water, and from the
knowledge of how to use them or from knowledge about farm cooperatives or credit
unions.”
Msgr. Ligutti, who served in the ’50s and ’60s as the Holy See’s observer to the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) objected to arguments that mechanization
will solve hunger problems.
“We already have too many idle hands now, why should we further mechanize? So
that the people can sit and watch the tractors? Why should we have to go to Arabia to
get power for motorization when we have people out of work?”
What is needed, he insisted, is education so that more people can work the land by
hand. The Church, as the “biggest and best organized educational agency in
existence,” should help in this work, he said.
Christians in the West, Msgr. Ligutti said, must sharpen their sense of “stewardship,”
or “giving a return to God from what He has given us.” One way to do this, he
explained, is through changing wasteful consumption patterns. Current lifestyles are
doing an injustice to future generations to whom “we should hand on the world richer
than when we received it.”
The priest, who seriously farms land next to his one-story home, said he has just
ordered 200 trees to plant on his property. “I’m not going to see them fully mature,
but I am proud to say that I handed down something which I myself have not
received.”
Msgr. Ligutti suggested that American Catholics practice stewardship by helping
Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the overseas aid agency of U.S. Catholics. He called
CRS a “well-organized group which does the work where it counts,” in great part
through self-help projects.
He also urged that Americans try to convince the government to fund similar
projects.
“Hunger in the world won’t be cured by great big projects or great big machinery.
Give a missionary working on the local level a dollar and you are lucky to get 50 cents
worth of work out of it.”
Msgr. Ligutti’s fondest self-help project was one he started 40 years ago in Granger,
Iowa. With some government aid, he built 50 homes, with two or three acres attached,
for the very poor, half of whom were on welfare. Within 15 years, they owned their
own homes. Not one of them has been on welfare since, he said.
Above his desk, Msgr. Ligutti keeps a postcard of an Iowa cornfield. His bed was
made in Iowa and his study table is formed from a tree he cut down in Granger. He
also has a simple wooden cup carved from a piece of Iowa fencepost. “Out of
wormholes and burnt wood you can have a chalice,” he explains.
His home, which he designed himself, is perched on a small hill next to the convent
of the Little Sisters of the Poor, who will inherit it. The house is hugged by dozens of
trees -- several varieties of pines and other evergreen, and fig and olive trees - and by
patches of roses and marigolds.
Over the front door is inscribed: “Venit hospes venit Christus.” It means, “When a
guest comes, Christ comes.”
In addition to his Vatican service and his long association with the NCRLC, Msgr.
Ligutti is also president of Agrimissio, an organization which provides links between
FAO agriculture experts and Church workers engaged in rural development.