Newspaper Page Text
*
A
A
t
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 56 — No. 8 Thursday, February 20,1975 Single Copy Price — 15 Cents
CARDINAL KROL EXPRESSES FEARS
Millions Are Facing
ORTHODOX COUNCIL MEETS - Russian Orthodox church “guards the faith with all the zeal it
Orthodox churchmen gather for a council at Zagorsk. can exert.” See related story on page 7. (NC Photo by
NC correspondent Father Javier Solis found that the KNA)
Priests’ Senate Chooses Priorities
BY MSGR. D. J. BOURKE
The Priests’ Senate of the Diocese of
Savannah met in the Cathedral Rectory
on Thursday, January 23rd, at 10 A.M.
for the first meeting of 1975.
The Priests’ Senate is composed of
twelve priests, one priest from each of
the seven deaneries and five priests
representing the priests who work in the
diocese according to their years of
ordination. The Senators serve for three
years. The priests representing the
deaneries have served eighteen months
of their term of office which will
terminate on June 30,1976.
The priests representing the deaneries
are: Father Ralph E. Seikel, Savannah;
Father Patrick Adama, O.F.M., Albany;
Father Robert Baker, S.M.,
Valdosta-Brunswick; Father Joseph W.
Dean, Macon; Father Ronald Madden,
Augusta; Father Joseph C. Otterbein,
Columbua; and Father Clement F.
Borchers, Statesboro.
The priests representing the various
age groups are: Monsignor Daniel J.
Bourke, Group 1; Father Aelred Beck,
O.S.B., Group 2; Father Joseph L.
Stranc, Group 3; Father Michiael Smith,
Group 4; and Father Liam Collins,
Group 5.
The Senate is the highest policy
making body of the diocese, but it is
not the body to implement decisions.
This is done by other executive bodies
and committies. Father Ralph E. Seikel,
the Senate President, presided. The first
item of business was the election of new
officers.
Those elected were: Father Michael
Smith, President; Father Joseph C.
Otterbein, Secretary; and Father Robert
Baker, Treasurer. After the election,
Father Seikel relinquished the chair to
Father Smith. All of the Senators were
appointed Diocesan Consultors by the
Bishop. It was proposed, seconded and
passed by unanimous vote that
“automatically when a Senator’s term
expires or he forfeits membership, he
will submit to the Bishop a letter of
resignation from the Board of
Consultors”.
The Diocesan Senate is a member of
the National Federation of Priests’
Councils, the convention of which will
be held in St. Petersburg, Florida, from
March 9 through 13. The convention
theme is: Reconciliation: Risks and
Possibilities. Local Senates were asked
to choose two of the five nationally
indicated dominant areas of concern
which are:
1. Distribution of World Resources.
2. Alienated Youth. 3.
Liberal-Conservative Catholics. 4.
Maronite
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope Paul
VI officially recognized newly elected
Maronite-rite Patriarch Antoine Pierre
Khoraiche of Antioch in a telegram
expressing his pleasure over the election.
Divorced and remarried Catholics. 5
Resigned Priests.
The Senate chose as priorities:
Divorced and remarried Catholics with
Father Liam Collins as the convention
delegate, and Liberal-Conservative
Catholics with Father Joseph Dean as
convention delegate.
The Bishop stressed the need for
greater communication with the People.
They should be kept abreast of some of
the things that were developing and not
hear after all was cbmpleted and settled.
For example, much work has gone into
a Mediation Board and people probably
know very little about it. It was decided
that news items of the Senate meetings
be put in the SOUTHERN CROSS.
Father Smith asked Msgr. Bourke to
provide these news items.
The next Senate meeting will take
place on Monday, February 24th. The
priests of the diocese as well as the
people are encouraged to communicate
with the Senators and inform them of
their views on developments within the
Church. It will be good for the Senators
to know what the Catholic man in the
street thinks and how he reacts.
Patriarch
The recognition is known as the
extension of ecclesial communion by a
Pope following the election of an
Eastern-rite Patriarch.
“We learn with great joy that your
beatitude has been canonically elected
by the Maronite Episcopal Synod to the
patriarchal See of Antioch of the
Maronites,” wrote Pope Paul.
“While congratulating your beatitude
on this happy occasion, we willingly
1 accept the request for ecclesial
communion and the gift of the pallium
made by your beatitude and by the
synodal fathers.”
Pope Paul added: “We wish also to
inform your beatitude that he may as of
now carry out all acts inherent to the
position without waiting for the pallium
to be conferred on him.”
INSIDE STORY
Pope on Penance Pg. 2
Book Review Pg. 6
Religion in Russia Pg. 7
Cook’s Nook Pg. 8
Imminent Starvation
PHILADELPHIA (NC) - Within the
next few weeks, as many as 2 million
persons may die from starvation and
malnutrition unless immediate aid is
forthcoming, Cardinal John Krol of
Philadelphia said here.
At a symposium on Hunger and the
American Conscience held at St.
Joseph’s College, Cardinal Krol said a
total of 813 million individuals now
face famine and starvation in
underdeveloped nations throughout the
world.
Though he admitted that shortages
and increased cost domestically have
affected the degree to which the United
States can provide direct aid, the
cardinal said “scarcity doesn’t dissolve
our moral responsibility.”
“The right to eat is a basic human
right,” he said.
i
The symposium, which centered on
the moral aspects of hunger and
malnutrition, focused on the question,
“Are we, as Americans, doing all we can
to alleviate the specter of world hunger
and malnutrition globally?”
In a joint presentation at the
symposium, two St. Joseph’s professors
agreed that the United States is in a
better position than any other nation to
deal with hunger and malnutrition.
However, the professors, Dr. Lawrence
Bell, an economist, and Dr. James E.
Dougherty, a political scientist, said
certain variables affect agricultural
productivity annually. These include
weather conditions, fluctuating national
incomes, governmental stockpiling
policies and acreage available for
cultivation. Such unknowns cannot be
forecasted accurately, they said.
In spite of such uncertainties, Bell
and Dougherty offered as tangible
solutions the “wider adoption and
adaptation of already known
technologies, and the search for new
edible entities that people can be
persuaded to consider as food.”
One proposal, generally discussed
favorably at the symposium, was the
question of an international food
stockpile, stored at strategic distribution
points throughout the world. Such a
stockpile would enable needy countries
to receive aid as quickly as possible.
Mrs. Diane Miller, director of the
Food Distribution Centers Program for
the Cardinal’s Commission on Human
Relations in Philadelphia, addressed
herself to the local food problem. “In
order to be well fed, one must have
resources, knowledge, access, and
motivation,” she said.
“Often people eat poorly because
they are poorly educated about
nutrition,” she said. “Even though
about 30 percent of (individual) income
is spent on food, very little of the
purchased food may contain nutritional
value.”
Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, national
director of interreligious affairs for the
American Jewish Committee, who
spoke on the traditions of the religious
communities, said “Hunger is the
greatest moral and humanitarian crisis
of the latter half of the 20th century.”
He said the failure of the rest of the
world to deal adequately with the
Jewish holocaust in World War II has led
many today to be relatively insensitive
to social problems. He added: “Because
of the food surplus several years ago,
American giving was an act of charity.
Now, it is an act of justice,” giving
others something rightfully due them.
said “The problem here and abroad is to McHale said that fundamental
meet the growing dangers of a world changes are needed in our agricultural
outstripping its ability to produce food. policy, the most basic of which is to
The common feeling (at the World Food give farmers the financial incentive to
Conference last November) was that we produce. The answer, he said, is for
can divert a fraction of the billions of Congress to enact legislation to give
dollars spent yearly on military farmers price supports and price
hardware to invest in making farming a protection on a scale that reflects the
paying operation here and in other sharply increased production costs they
countries. f aC e today.
“Instead of exporting agricultural
know-how to take up the slack of Organizers of the hunger symposium,
sagging food porduction,” McHale well attended by Catholics, Protestants
stated, “we continue to export and Jews, urged participants to fast
destructive know-how to a world long often and to share food so that global
weary with war.” starvation can be eliminated.
ST. PATRICK SHRINE -- Irish women wrapped in shawls visit the
national shrine to St. Patrick near Westport in County Mayo. Nearby is
Croagh Patrick (Patrick’s Mountain) where the saint is said to have spent
the Lent of 443 in prayer and fasting in gratitude for the conversion of
Ireland. His feastday is March 1 7. (NC Photo by Peter Keegan)
i
HEADLINE
ft
if
HOPSCOTCH
r ¥,/
Parenthood Report Hit
WASHINGTON (NC) - The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) has called
“seriously deficient” a Feb. 3 Planned Parenthood report on abortions conducted in
the United States in 1974 and said the report does not mention “that 900,000
abortions were performed in the United States in 1974, or 53 percent more than in
1972, the year before the Supreme Court struck down most state restrictions on
abortion.
Taxpayer Suits
Ms. Patricia Young, chairperson of
Crusade Against Hunger, a National
Council of Churches program, was
principal speaker at a luncheon of
alternate protein options.
ST. LOUIS (NC) - Groups of taxpayers in St. Louis City and County and in Kansas
City, Mo., are awaiting the outcome of suits they have filed to protest the allotment of
part of their real estate taxes to the public schools. The plaintiffs are claiming that the
public schools are teaching a form of religion - secular humanism - and that taxes are
being unconstitutionally used, therefore, for the establishment of a religion.
“We must commit ourselves to a
struggle that will go at least until the
end of the century,” she said, adding,
“It’s only the well-fed who get bored
with the subject (of hunger and
malnutrition).”
In remarks prepared for presentation
at the symposium, James McHale,
Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Agriculture,
Priests Protest Arrests
PAMPLONA, Spain (Nfc) - Protesting the arrest and fining of brother priests, 266
clergy of this diocese said that “to denounce the sin of injustice and the need for
conversion is a duty the Gospel demands from the priestly ministry.” The convicted
priests had expressed sympathy for striking potassium miners. Strikes are illegal in
Spain. Amid this unrest. Archbishop Jose Mendez Asensio of Pamplona warned that
without social justice, “our society runs the very serious risk of being destroyed by ill
will and hatred.”