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The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 56 No. 6 Thursday, February 6,1975 Single Copy Price — 15 Cents
TO GET BACK TO REAL ISSUES’
Inter-Faith Group Challenges Theologians
UN WORLD PEACE RITES ~ Cardinal Terence
Cooke of New York presides at an ecumenical
observance of the World Day of Peace held for United
Nations personnel Jan. 27 at Holy Family Church in
Manhattan. Behind him are members of the UN singers
HOLY YEAR THEMES
dressed in costumes of their home countries. Theme of
the service was reconciliation, a topic of Holy Year
observances in the Catholic Church. (NC Photo by
Chris Sheridan)
‘Heart of the Catholic Press’
BY JAMES SHEA
CINCINNATI (NC) - Renewal and
reconciliation -- themes of the 1975
Holy Year -- are “at the very heart of
what we’re doing in the Catholic press.”
That is the conviction of Father
Jeremy Harrington, O.F.M., editor of
the prize-winning St. Anthony
Messenger, vice president of the
Catholic Press Association.
Interviewed on the eve of the annual
Catholic Press Month (February)
observance, the Franciscan journalist
said he saw reason for optimism about the
future of Catholic publications despite
economic setbacks of recent years. And
he cited two areas in which the
publications -- particularly the diocesan
newspapers -- provide unparalled service
to the Church:
“They are the most effective means
of communication within a diocese.”
“They are without a doubt the best
means of adult education.”
Father Harrington, who in 1972
received the Catholic Press Association’s
highest honor, the annual St. Francis de
Sales award, spoke of the “renewal”
theme of the Holy Year, observing:
“That’s just what the Catholic press
endeavors to do - to help its readers
achieve a deeper faith, a stronger
commitment to Jesus, a better
understanding of their membership in
the Christian community.”
As for the “reconciliation” theme of
the Holy Year, Father Harrington
emphasized the need for knowledge
such as Catholic publications provide.
“If we don’t know each other and what
each other is doing -- and why, how can
we act as members of the Body of
Christ?” he asked.
Father Harrington recalled a talk by
Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin of
Cincinnati at a regional Catholic Press
meeting here in which the archbishop
said: “Many are suffering from a gap
which has developed between what they
learned years ago and their
understanding of recent developments.
This gap can be closed only through
knowledge, which is the basis for
understanding. The Catholic press is in a
unique position today to provide
needed information about our faith and
its relevance to the contemporary
scene.”
Father Harrington does not
downgrade the radio and television
media and he sees no need for conflict
between them and the print media. But
he takes issue with those who suggest
that reading and the printed word must
take a low place in human
communication.
The printed word, he pointed out is
“available when you want it” and serves
as “an aid to reflection.”
“You can stop and think about what
you’re reading and go back and read it
again or discuss it,” he said.
Also, when it comes to the reporting
of complex ideas or activities, they can
be treated more fully and carefully in
print media, he added.
The Catholic Press Association in the
U.S., Canada and the West Indies
includes more than 150 newspapers,
most of them diocesan newspapers, and
nearly 300 magazines with an estimated
total circulation of nearly 23 million.
And the quality of the publications is
“improving,” Father Harrington aid.
“For some years we were stressing the
need for professional competence,” he
said. “And more recently we’ve been
stressing the need for Christian
commitment -- for professional
journalists who also are fully Catholic
and dedicated to the work of the
Church.”
What needs to be done now, he said,
is to “get at the heart of the deep
concerns and interests of people - not
just those who are active in the
institutions and programs of the
Church, but all of the people,” he said.
“Sure, we have to inform readers
about the meetings of Catholic
organizations and the activities of
Church departments and institutions.
But we also have to bring enlightenment
to people in their very human and
personal concerns - moral problems,
teaching values to their children,
developing a mature grasp of Christian
doctrine.”
“A good example of theis approach,”
he added, “is the Know Your Faith page
in this week’s Catholic Telegraph, with
its full discussions of the meaning of
conscience.”
BY JERRY FILTEAU
HARTFORD, Conn. (NC) - “Let’s
get back to the real issues” was the
substance of the challenge that 18
Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox
thinkers issued here to their fellow
Christian theologians and academic
leaders.
The Hartford statement, “An Appeal
for Theological Affirmation,” was
issued after three days of detailed
discussion and debate on the campus of
the Hartford Seminary Foundation, Jan.
24-26.
Its signers, many of whom have
suffered charges of liberalism or
radicalism from more conservative
factions in their own denominations,
came with the credentials to speak to
the more liberal members of their own
communities -- and they did it without
pulling any punches.
They charged that there is a “loss of a
sense of the transcedent, today,” and
cited 13 “superficially attractive
but . . .false and debilitating” themes
that they said are pervasive in
theological thought and Church life
today.
The themes they repudiated revolved
around three main areas: attempts to
limit the Christian message to one or
another modern worldview, letting the
worldview take priority over the
message instead of the other way
around; reducing the Gospel to a
message of social change and liberation
and ignoring the other facets of the
whole Christian mystery; and taking
“human fulfillment” on this earth as the
primary goal and criterion for the
interpretation of the Gospel.
The Rev. Richard Neuhaus, editor of
Worldview magazine and one of the
initiators of the Hartford statement,
said the challenges in the statement
were aimed at “the intellectual leaders
in the Christian field, the people who
market the metaphors” by which
Christians understand themselves.
But to the participants at the
meeting, mostly theologians, the
metaphor marketers are not just some
way-out elite of higher academic types.
According to Pastor Neuhaus, confusion
is rampant in pulpits and religious
education classes as well.
In an anecdote typifying the sort of
‘pop’ theology the Hartford group was
objecting to, Jesuit Father Avery Dulles
of the Catholic University of America,
Washington, D.C., recalled an incident
in which, as he was kneeling for a brief
prayer in a small chapel in Maryland he
found himself facing a large banner on
the altar proclaiming, “God is other
people.”
“I resisted the temptation to go up
and insert the missing comma after
‘other,’ ” Father Dulles said with a wry
smile.
The Hartford statement does not
name villains, and its purpose or some
of its targets may not be too clear to the
average Christian.
But in the process of the meeting,
which was open to the press, the
concerns of the participants were
evident.
For example, the word “appeal” in
the title of the statement -- “An Appeal
for Theological Affirmation”
expressed an often-repeated concern of
the participants that their statement
should not be looked upon as a sort of
Lenten
Message
Bishop Raymond Lessard’s Lenten
Message will be found on page 4 of this
issue of the SOUTHERN CROSS.
INSIDE STORY
Religion in Russia Pg. 2
I
Media’s Moral Decay Pg. 3
Book Review p g . 6
Sr. Evelyn Honored Pg. 7
20th-century “Syllabus of Errors,” such
as the one Pope Pius IX published in
1864, condemning such “errors” as the
belief that the Catholic Church should
not be the state church to the exclusion
of any other religious cult.
This, rather, was a group of leading
theologians and other Church thinkers
saying in effect to their fellow leaders:
“This is where we stand and believe
we must stand as Christians. We see
trends in contemporary American
thought that we think are draining
(Continued on Page 2)
EUNICE SWINGS ALONG - Mrs. Eunice Kennedy Shriver swings along
with a youg square dancer during a visit to St. Mary’s School for
Exceptional Children in St. Louis. Mrs. Shriver was at the school to
demonstrate the Kennedy Foundation-sponsored family-child recreation
program, “Families Play to Grow." (NC Photo)
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HEADLINE
HOPSCOTCH
F
Is
2,000,000 Lbs. of Aid
NEW YORK (NC) -- Last year the Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB) sent
more than two million pounds of medicines and medical supplies to the needy around
the world, according to a 1974 CMMB report released here. “The board shipped
2,141,799 pounds ... to 56 mission countries,” said Jesuit Father Joseph Walter,
director of CMMB. “Altogether, 2,121 medical mission facilities received these free
gifts which had a wholesale value here in America of $5,231,703.”
Food Stamps for Unborn
SAN FRANCISCO (NC) -- In a landmark decision, a U.S. District Court here has
granted food stamp rights to an unborn child of an eight-month pregnant Daly City
woman. Judge George G. Harris (Jan. 30) ordered the Agricultural Department to
permit Mrs. Pamela Hickman an extra $38 worth of food stamps in order that she
receive additional nourishment until her baby is born. Under the judge’s ruling, the
unborn fetus is to be treated as a separate, living human person. Mrs. Hickman is
therefore entitled to obtain food stamps for two persons instead of one.
U.S. Leads in Arms Trade
WASHINGTON (NC) - The United States accounted for 52 percent of the world’s
arms exports and 36 percent of world military expenditures during the 10-year period
1963-73, according to a study done by a federal agency, the U.S. Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency. In the same 10-year period, U.S. arms exports to South
Vietnam were more than double the total arms sent to North Vietnam by China and
the Soviet Union according to the study called “World Military Expenditures and
Arms Trade 1963-73.”