Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, January 23, 1975
The Southern Cross
Business Office 225 Abercom St. Savannah, Ga. 31401
Most Rev. Raymond W. Lessard, D.D., President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
Second Class Postage Paid at Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
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What’s So Funny?
(Reprinted from THE GEORGIA BULLETIN, Atlanta, Ga.)
Will Rogers, Jr., son of the late
American humorist-philosopher,
commented at a recent gathering in
Colorado that the nation needs
constructive humor to make it through
current hard times.
Too many American humorists have
become bitter, cynical or negative in
their attempts to cheer people up,
contends Rogers.
“All these guys have become the Don
Rickies type, trying to see who they can
cut down and how much better they can
do it than their fellow comedians,”
Rogers said.
“Some of the best moves made by our
government to bring us out of the
depression were the results of
constructive humor, like my dad’s,” he
added.
Perhaps it would help the nation’s
faltering economy if our political and
economic strategists would spend less
time trying to explain to us why we are
in the bind we are in and just sit back
and view the stand-up comedians on
television’s numerous variety and talk
shows.
After all, we’ve been engaged in a
comedy of political errors for countless
months and a little more humor couldn’t
hurt.
Now if some bright young comedic
mind could only come up with
constructive bon mots in the manner of
Will Rogers we could all laugh our way
to the poor farm.
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What One Person Can Do
Rev. Richard Armstrong
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What do you do when a caller says, “The
ceiling fell on my head,” and goes on to tell of
no heat, no electricity, no water and no help?
That was Ellen Sulzburger Straus’s first call
when she started Radio Station WMCA’s Call
for Action, in February of 1963.
Mrs. Straus, wife of R. Peter Straus,
president of WMCA, found a way to use the
power of a radio station to open channels of
help for individual citizens. When that first
phone call came in she took it, went to the
scene to verify details -- and got help.
Today 50 to 60 volunteers direct callers to
sources of help, follow up, then step in if
needed. They can also alert a reporter, using the
threat of unfavorable news coverage to get
action.
The suspicious called it a gimmick. But “45
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cities later,” says Ellen Straus, “they know
we’re for real.” Broadcasters and local groups
have contracted to work together on the same
basis. Mrs. Straus has a parallel interest --
winning for the volunteer “professional”
recognition. She started Volunteer Professional
Consultants in 1971. The goal is a trained
person who CONTRACTS to do a specified job
under specified conditions, with fringe benefits.
All of Call for Action’s volunteers have
professional status.
Ellen Straus’s twin effort, which won her
inclusion in LADIES HOME JOURNAL’S
“Women of the Year,” merge into one: to give
personal attention to people bewildered by
“the system” and to give professional
effectiveness to a prime resource, the volunteer.
Is respect for individual’s needs a prime
factor in your life?
Why Can’t We
Take the Easy Way Out?
Mary Carson
More than once I’ve faced the problem. Most
mothers will recognize it. Perhaps a few others
will identify with it, too.
It always happens at the end of a bad day.
I’m absolutely exhausted. When the children
finally settle down at night, I start to read the
paper and fall asleep in a chair.
My husband wakes me and suggests I go on
up to bed. I start up the stairs. Half way, I
consider sleeping on the steps because I’m just
too tired to make it up the rest of the way. But
I force myself to go on.
Upstairs, I do as little as possible to get ready
for bed. I’m so sleepy I could just flop down in
my clothes; my brain is so foggy I can’t
remember the words to my prayers.
Shoes have to go. Don’t want to sleep with
my shoes on.
Shower and shampoo can wait till morning.
Then I remember I’d better check if the baby
is covered. I really don’t have the energy to
walk down the hall . .. but conscience pushes
me.
I find the little one . . . uncovered . . . and
soaked from ankles to shoulders. I’m just too
tired to change her . . . but I don’t want to let
her sleep like that.
There are many possible solutions to the
problem.
I regret having gone to check in the first
place ... I never would have known.
If I hadn’t turned the light on, I probably
wouldn’t have noticed she was wet, and could
have just covered her with a clear conscience.
But knowing. .. then what can I do. I can
try to believe the old adage: “A baby never
catches cold in its own wet.” But I don’t
believe it.
I can just cover her, wet pajamas and all . . .
figuring the same principle as a diver’s wet-suit
will keep her warm. But then, I wouldn’t want
to sleep like that.
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Or I can carry the drippy baby to the
bathroom, give her a sponge bath, dress her in
warm dry pajamas, change her bed, and tuck
her in again. That’s clearly the best solution as
far as the baby is concerned . . . but I’m so
tired.
One other possibility crosses my mind. I
could go to bed, hoping I’ll hear my husband
when he comes up, and ask him to change the
little one. That’s definitely the best solution.
The baby will be comfortable. I can go to sleep.
But I know very well that I won’t hear him.
I’m sure many mothers go through the same
problem-solving process . . . and know which
solution to pick.
How similar all of us are in our thought
processes for solving problems . . . from wet
babies to world starvation.
We can not look for the problem at all. Then
we’ll never know it’s there.
We can look at the problem “with the lights
off.” That way we’ve salved our conscience. We
looked but didn’t find anything.
We can see the problem . . . and dismiss it.
Just say that’s the way God intended life to be.
There’s nothing we should do to interfere.
We can cover up the problem. Maybe no one
else will notice it. . . or know that we could
have done something, and didn’t.
We can contribute all we have to solve the
problem to the best of our ability.
Or we can,:,walk away from it, hoping
someone else will see it and take care of it.
Think about the problems in our homes, in
our communities, the Church, the world. How
do we handle them? How do we solve them?
I’m sure you know which solution I should
have chosen for that wet baby. What solutions
should we choose for the countless situations
all covered in “Love God. Love your
neighbor”?
It’s easier to know what we should do than it
is to do it.
OUR PARISH
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“You'll be happy to know that I've started a petition to
have St. Christopher reinstated!"
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g|*|| Curious,
Curious,
Curious
Joe Breig
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As Alice in Wonderland would say,
“Curiouser and curiouser.”
According to the most recent survey
conducted by Father Andrew Greeley and his
associates in the National Opinion Research
Center, 89% of American Catholics want
Catholic schools - but only 32% of them
believe that the pope is infallible - that is,
cannot err, cannot mislead us -- when he defines
Catholic teachings in faith or morals.
What are these Catholics saying?
They are saying that we ought to have
schools in which the Catholic Faith is taught --
but they’re not sure what the Catholic Faith is,
and they don’t believe the supreme teaching
authority in the Church can tell us.
So they want Catholic schools, but they
don’t know what Catholic schools ought to be
teaching their children about their Catholic
Faith.
Curiouser and curiouser.
What lies at the roots of such a mad
contradiction?
The answer is religious illiteracy. These
Catholics have only a superficial knowledge of
the Faith which they profess.
I wish I could give a written test to the
1,000-plus Catholics, scattered across the
nation, whose opinions Father Greeley
sampled.
My first question would be, “How do you
define the infallibility of the pope?”
I doubt that one in 10 could come up with a
good definition. On second thought, make that
one in 20.
Victims of History
Rev. John Reedy, C.S.C.
In short, when Catholics say they don’t
believe the pope is infallible, they don’t know
what they’re saying.
They are not informed about their Faith.
And the reason is that they are swamped in the
secularism of the newspapers, the magazines,
the radio, the TV, the movies. And they do
little or no reading or studying in their Faith.
The young Princeton coed was bright,
intelligent, attractive. On a recent TV special,
she was talking about the changes in the
situation of women which she had encountered
during her short life.
One of her comments set me to thinking, and
the connections established in those thoughts
prompt a few general predictions about some of
the effects which will arise from the women’s
movement.
In substance, the girl said, “Most of us were
raised in pretty traditional families. Our lives
were formed by the attitudes, activities and
expectations which had shaped the lives of
women for generations.”
“Then, about the time we got into high
school, that structure collapsed. We were told
that our lives were no longer controlled by the
traditional roles . . . that we could do or be
anything withir our personal abilities.”
She was still smiling, but a different,
troubled expression came over her face. “But
do we know WHAT we want to be? I welcome
the openness, but I kind of resent the fact that
all this change has been put on my generation.”
For me, the immediate association was with
the experience of changing customs, roles and
expectations in the Church during the past
decade.
On the basis of that experience, I see some of
the following problems developing for the
women whose lives are caught up in this
transition period.
Before long, these women will be subjected
to a new pressure, not from men and
institutions, but from a wave of reaction from
women themselves.
Already there is some of this, generally
expressed by the women who are speaking out
against the Equal Rights amendment. But it will
become much stronger. Patterns of life which
have been completely absorbed by many people
are not surrendered without pain and struggle.
The positive values to be found in traditional
roles will be argued much more forcefully than
they are now. Militancy for change will
generate militancy in opposition to change.
not offer the glowing rewards promised by the
crusaders, they are likely to become bitter and
resentful.
All of us have to carry our personal share of
limitation and insecurity; these difficulties,
however, are made much more painful when
they are aggravated by the feeling we’ve been
sold a bill of goods.
The fact is that freedom is not a rewarding,
comfortable experience. It hurts. It makes
demands. And it calls for a strength and
discipline which is rare among men and women.
None of this means that the condition of
women will ever revert to the image offered by
LADIES HOME JOURNAL in the 50’s -
anymore than Catholicism will revert to the
patterns of the 40’s. Once a change like this
begins, things are never quite the same. Nor is
the future ever that which has been predicted
by the crusaders.
The difficulties, the polarization, the
mangled lives now seem inevitable. Possibly the
end result for succeeding generations will make
the hardship of these women worthwhile. I
hope so.
My only purpose here is to suggest that some
few people might be better able to cope with
the coming pressures if they can foresee what is
coming, if they can realize that some of their
difficulties are not purely personal.
Individual suffering will not be lessened, but
sanity might be preserved and strengthened if a
person can appreciate what it means to be
caught in the hinges of history.
My second question would be, “Explain how
it is possible to be a Catholic - really a Catholic
- without believing in the infallibility of the
pope when he defines the Church’s teachings.”
I would guess that virtually everyone who
calls himself a Catholic would say he believes in
the Incarnation. He believes that Christ is true
God and true man. He believes it because the
Church has taught it from the beginning, and
because -- against the heresies - it was infallibly
defined by a pope and a council of the Church.
The infallibility of the pope likewise has
been a Catholic belief from the beginning, and
likewise has been infallibly defined by a pope
and a council at the First Vatican Council.
Therefore, the infallibility of the pope is a
dogma of the Catholic faith -- a teaching in
which Catholics are bound to believe.
Why, then, do 68% of a scientific sampling of
American Catholics say they don’t believe the
pope is infallible in teaching faith and morals?
As I say, they don’t know what they are
saying. They are religiously illiterate; they don’t
read and study their Faith.
One more clue. Eighty-three percent said
they approve of artificial contraception, and
73% approve of divorce and remarriage.
When you don’t accept the Church’s moral
teachings, naturally you tend to delude yourself
that they’re not infallible. We can all fall prey
to wishful thinking; we dislike facing the fact
that something we want to do, or to condone,
is wrong.
Becoming More Loved
Rev. James Wiimes
The strongest reaction will come from
women who see their lives too firmly patterned
to allow for substantial adaptation. This is not
just a matter of age; there are many young
people (usually not the most vocal) who find
such change just as threatening as it is for those
who feel they are too old to cope with a new
pattern of life.
Second, we are going to see the lives of many
of the women caught in this transition mangled
by the pressure of contradictory values and
expectations.
In its simplest form, some of those who
devote most of their energies to home and
family are going to see themselves as failures as
they look at the careers and achievements of
their contemporaries.
On the other Ijand, women who pour all
their energies into careers are going to
experience about the same kind of failure and
frustration now experienced by men. When
they look at the effort, sacrifice and pain they
have invested in this effort and find that it does
“The hand that is open to give is the easiest
hand to fill!” The reference is not to the giving
of material things. The way it goes with money,
for instance, is this: the more you give or
spend, the less you have. Not so with our other
spendings, of personality, gifts and skills. Here,
the more we spend or give, the mpre we have. If
your “capital” is Good Will, it will grow as you
give it away. People of sacrificial spirit become
more and more loved; their own stock of Good
Will increases.
The laws governing matter and spirit are
different. You empty your gas tank as you
spend gas in driving. But you never exhaust
your sympathies or your generous impulses as
you share these. Rather, they grow. So it is
with everything that makes us persons. Our
loyalties, our sins and ambitions, our hopes
grow by what they feed on. Our very capacity
to think through some knotty problem or work
out some baffling situation, enlarges as we call
on this capacity.
Call on your muscular energy and your
muscles grow as they are exercised. Likewise,
work a faculty of the mind and heart and it
builds up like an athlete in training. But let it
lie unsued, or hug it to yourself, and it shrivels
and dies.
Aging men and women should recognize this ,
law of the increase. They should never shorten
their outreach with the years, no matter how
they cut down physical activities. There is little
reason lor the dry-rot of the mind that too
often comes with age; nor the hardening of the
heart. These you may spend til the end of your
days, yet never be spent!
Therefore, be convinced that “flowers leave
their fragrance on the hand that bestows
them,” that you cannot do a kindness without
a reward (not of silver or gold, but of joy for
the Lord), that you cannot light a candle to
show others the way without feeling warmth
from its tiny, bright ray.
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