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PAGE 4—The Southern Cross, May 8,1975
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The Southern Cross
MOCKS! OK SAVANNAN NIWSPAMR
Business Office 225 Abercorn St. Savannah, Ga. 3 1401
Most Rev. Raymond W. Lessard, D.D., President
Rev. Francis J. Donohue, Editor John E. Markwalter, Managing Editor
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Published weekly except the second and last weeks
In June, July and Augusta and the last week in December
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Subscription Price $3.60 per year by Assessment Parishes Diocese of Savannah Other $6 Per Year
Cardinal Mindszenty
The death of Cardinal Joseph
Mindszenty truly marks the end of a
unique ecclesiastical career - one
highlighted by heroism of the highest
order, yet one which apparently ended
in the kind of personal tragedy which
makes one happy that the God he served
so well and for so long shortened the
days of his final ordeal.
Second only to his love for God was
an almost mystical devotion to the land
of his birth. It was these two loves,
almost twin loves, which impelled him to
rise up in opposition to enslavement by
Godless Nazism and equally Godless
Communism. He paid dearly for his two
loves, spending the better part of his last
thirty years in prison, under house arrest
or in exile.
It seems to us that his greatest
suffering, one which he could never have
foreseen, was his public differences with
Pope Paul concerning agreements
entered into by the Communist
Hungarian government and the Holy See.
While the Holy See felt that certain
agreements would result in a lessening of
tensions between church and state in
Hungary, the Cardinal felt that whatever
short-term gains might accrue to the
church through such bilateral accords,
the long term effect would be to weaken
the spiritual leadership of his country.
Who was right and who was wrong in
the Cardinal’s dispute with the Vatican
will become clear only with the passage
of time.
But one thing cannot be denied,
Cardinal Mindszenty’s life, certainly the
last thirty-five years of it, was one of
self-immolation on the altars of God and
Country. And if his country’s rulers
despised and disowned him, surely God
has granted him the final victory
eternal life and happiness.
What One Person Can Do
Rev. Richard Armstrong
When teenagers in Paramus, New Jersey,
don’t know where else to turn, they can always
find haven, counselling and friends at Joseph
and Maureen Niland’s “crisis home.”
For five and a half years the Nilands have
used their home as a temporary refuge for drug
users, potential suicides and runaways. They
receive no money and have never even
estimated the costs.
“I’ve never considered the cost of food,”
says Maureen Niland, “there’s always enough
for one more.”
Joseph, 35, is an executive in the emergency
road service department of the Automobile
Club of New York. Maureen, 34, works part
time at the County Children’s Shelter. They
have two children of their own, and a foster son
and daughter, but their home is always open to
any youngster who needs them. Some are
referred by the police, and some hear about the
Nilands from friends. On call day and night, the
couple sometimes end up talking with troubled
teenagers until 3 or 4 a.m.
A police juvenile officer recalls that before
the Nilands offered their home to teenagers,
“we were just bumping along, placing kids in
motels or having them spend hour after hour in
the station. Many times kids were sent to the
shelter who honestly shouldn’t have been
there.”
Friendship, hospitality and understanding
can go far in giving new direction and meaning
to a troubled young life. We can’t all offer all of
these as the Nilands have. But each of has the
gift of caring to share with someone. It doesn’t
cost a cent to be a friend.
‘Called by Name’
Bishop E. L. Unterkoefler
Diocese of Charleston
VOCATIONS
Some families have a tradition of vocations
to the priesthood and religious life. Could it be
that the ministry of Christ is more real for some
young people who have closer contact with a
blood-relative who is a priest, deacon, Brother,
Sister? At one point in the history of the
Church, relatives and family relationships were
a cause of controlling certain interests or
positions in the Church. Nepotism was a real
problem at one time. The meaning of the word
is not well known today.
The difficulty seems to be the reverse today.
Many families are not very supportive of
vocations. Some candidates for the priesthood
and religious life have to weigh the
announcement of their intention to be a priest
or religious in light of family opposition.
On the other side, we have the unusual
situation in which a young man goes to a
seminary simply to please his mother. The
mother has the vocation, not the boy. Such a
young man lacks a strong sense of responsibility
to the Church. The Church has been very
careful to discern the dependent vocation. Such
men are asked to leave the seminary.
The more difficult problem is the family that
stands adamantly against a vocation. This
creates much tension for the candidate. To have
to choose between allegiance to the family and
loyalty to a genuine vocation is a heavy human
problem and a burdensome decision. Jesus gives
us a guideline in telling us about the choice we
should make when called:
“And every one who has left houses or
brothers or sisters or father or mother or
children or fields for my sake, will receive a
hundred times more, and will be given eternal
life.” (Matt. 19,29) “Then Peter spoke up:
‘Look, we have left everything and followed
you.’ ‘Yes,’ Jesus said to them, ‘and I tell you
this: anyone who leaves home or brothers or
sisters or mother or father or children or fields
for me, and for the gospel, will receive much
more in this present age. He will receive a
hundred times more houses, brothers, sisters,
mothers, children, and fields - and persecutions
as well; and in the age to come he will receive
eternal life.” (Mark 10, 28-30)
Such strong direct and categorical language
cannot be watered down. The Gospel does set
priorities within the call to being a disciple of
Christ. Discipleship is a precious gift of the
Spirit. Gathering disciples opens the mission of
the Church.
I am sure that the father of the sons of
Zebedee was shocked when his sons without
much notice took off with Jesus when He
called them to join Him in His public ministry.
“He went on and saw two other brothers,
James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They
were in their boat with their father Zebedee,
getting their nets ready. Jesus called them; at
once they left the boat and their father, and
went with Jesus.” (Matt. 4, 21-22)
A vocation needs time to mature, prayer to
nurture it and support from the community of
faith. Certainly a young man or woman should
normally look to his father, mother, brother
and sisters for support in a vocation to serve the
People of God. Even though the Lord requires
the first love and expression of loyalty,
members of the family are drawn closer to
Christ.
Can we depend on families to pray for
vocations? I am sure we can when their son or
brother chooses to follow Christ in the life and
ministry of a priest.
CARDINAL DIES ~ Cardinal Josef
Mindszenty, 83, died May 6 in Vienna.
The Hungarian prelate, who took
refuge in the U.S. embassy in Budapest
for 15 years after the 1956 uprising,
visited many American cities in 1973
and 1974. His memoirs were published
last year. (NC Photo by KNA)
Battle of San Diego
John Reedy, C.S.C.
A month or two back I wrote a column stating
that “head-butting controversy rarely
contributes much to the awareness and
understanding of the community that is
served.”
As though to illustrate my point, the
Catholic community of San Diego has just
whipped up such a first-class, head-butting
controversy. Bishop Leo Maher issued an order
that the sacraments were not to be
administered to persons who publicly advocate
abortion or publicly admit membership in
organizations which promote abortion.
He explicitly cited the National Organization
For Women (NOW) as such an organization.
The reaction was predictable. Some of the
NOW members, who were spoiling for a fight,
pinned on their organization buttons and
presented themselves to receive the Eucharist.
Many, if not all, were turned away.
Some of them, I’m sure, were delighted at
the confrontation; it provided an opportunity
to voice their complaints to reporters outside
the churches.
For years, members of NOW have been
searching for ways to challenge the pastoral
position of the Catholic Church on legalized
abortion.
Still, in this dispute, the organization suffers
from an embarrassing public relations problem.
Not many months ago, in Columbus, Ohio,
NOW “excommunicated” one of its own
members for just the opposite position, for
publicly advocating strict legislation AGAINST
abortion.
It’s a bit difficult to see how NOW can claim
the right to exclude members on this issue
while denying that right to the Catholic
Church.
But my basic point about such controversies
holds. It seems to me that this one is muddying
the waters, confusing many issues and
generating emotional obstacles destructive of
the community of Christians which is the
Church.
There’s no doubt whatever about the
Church’s basic teaching on the immorality of
abortion directly sought for any reason other
than to correct a pathological condition in the
mother’s body. (And pregnancy itself is not
regarded as a pathological condition.)
According to canon law, the person who
knowingly and responsibly performs or seeks
such an abortion is automatically
excommunicated. And so is anyone who
knowingly and responsibly encourages and
recommends such an action.
That much is clear. People who cannot
accept it should have the honesty and dignity
to recognize that they stand outside the
community of the Catholic Church on this
matter.
But opinions regarding the role and formula
of civil law are much more complicated, far less
clear and definite.
Personally, I share the opinion repeatedly
stated by the bishops - that civil law has the
obligation to protect the basic rights of all
persons in this society, and I regard the unborn
human as a person in this civil society.
However, suppose someone told me, “I share
the Catholic position on the immorality of
abortion, but I cannot believe that, in the
circumstances of our nation, it is practical or
desirable to make that position a matter of civil
legislation.” It would be hard for me to see that
this position alone would necessarily exclude
the person from the community of Catholics.
I’m fully aware that on some issues of this
kind the Church can and has imposed restraints
on public activity as a matter of religious
obedience. (I recall Cardinal Ritter’s order,
clearly stated as a matter of obedience, for
Catholics to avoid a film which was distributed
as a challenge to the standards of the Motion
Picture Code.)
My only point is that when you have such
confrontations which generate hot emotions
and which require a lot of distinctions, the odds
are that confusion and bitterness will outweigh
the good that can be achieved.
Some reports indicate that the conflict was
forced on Bishop Maher, that he had no way of
avoiding it. That can happen.
There are times, however, when our recent
experience suggests that the Church would be
best served by refusing to accept a
confrontation, by saying, “We simply will not
enter a dispute on your ground rules. We can
teach, encourage and exhort more effectively
without doing it in the dust of personal
conflict.”
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What
Catholics
Are Like
Joe Breig
For too long I had been glued to an editor’s
chair, pouring most of my attention and energy
into the day to day job of getting newspapers
prepared and published. Then at last there came
an opportunity to get away for an auto tour,
and for some observing, some interviews, some
conversations, and some quiet thinking.
Gradually I began to realize that the world of
most readers differs markedly from the world
of the journalists.
A longstanding and profound trouble with
the communications media is the fact that they
are little conscious of the quiet, devoted lives of
the people. They do not consider it news; in
their minds it is not worth studying, reporting
and interpreting. As Shakespeare might put it,
the evils of the world stand forth; the good is
interred.
We journalists are sadly infected with the
man-bites-dog philosophy of joumalism-with
the idea that a dog biting a man is not news
because dogs do tend to bite; but if a man bits a
dog--ah, that is exciting and important because
it is crazy.
So it is that a handful of demonstrators, by
doing something bizarre, can get
nationwide-nay, worldwide-attention; whereas
the thoughts and feelings of the people remain
ignored.
I say “we journalists” because I now see,
after my travels through half a dozen states,
and my talks with pastors and people, that
although I have repeatedly criticized the
man-bites-dog approach in journalism,
nevertheless I was not myself untouched by it. I
did not clearly see that the communications
media, in recent years, have been tragically
manipulated by people who understand that it
is the crazy things that capture the headlines.
As a consequence of my travels, interviews,
conversations and observations, I have gathered
certain strong impressions and conclusions. One
of these is this: the Catholic people of America
are solid in the Faith; and in no way are they
represented by the kinds of Catholics who get
the big publicity, especially in the secular
media.
The huge majority of the people, I am
convinced, are very little affected, for instance,
by the far-out speculations of theologians, or
by the far-out proposals of gungho Sisters,
gungho lay people, and gungho priests.
I see our Catholic people as a vast, deep,
calm but irresistible river of faith and devotion,
flowing along with the liturgy and with the life
of their parishes; flowing along with the Gloria
and the Creed, living with the Eucharist, and
neither impressed by, nor much interested in,
such absurdities as theological questionings of
the physical reality of the Resurrection, or
proposals that the Church turn away from the
firmness of Christ concerning such matters as
chastity and purity and the oneness of
marriage.
What is really happening in the Church -
What is truly important in the Church - is not
what goes on in lecture halls or in publicized
notions of theologians or self-conscious
“liberals,” but rather the constantly deepening
participation of the people in the intimate life
and activity of the Church, and the deepening
cooperation between the laity and their priests
in the liturgy and in parish life. In future
columns, I will have more to say about what I
learned in six weeks of travels and observations.
Word
Power
Rev. James Wilmes
There is an old jingle chanted by quarrelling
children: “Sticks and stones can break my
bones, but names will never hurt me.” This
simply means that flimsy words go in one ear
and out the other. However, adults know
better, for words can hurt to the quick,
whether they call someone a “name” or sound
a message of ill omen.
A word of evil suggestion can undo the good
work of a lifetime. A discouraging word has all
the crushing impact of a blow of a fist. A word
carrying fear can render a strong man weak as a
child.
Fortunately, words have healing power, too.
Kind words are a benediction, and the good
word refreshes more than a cup of cool water
on a hot day. Small miracles are worked in
depressed minds with words of hope. The
encouraging word revives the spirit of one who
has lost self-confidence. A single word of truth
will tumble a fabrication of lies like a house of
cards.
Written words are a peg to hang ideas on.
The poet Byron said, “A small drop of ink
falling like dew on a thought, produces that
which thousands, perhaps even millions, think.”
The printed word is the molder of public
opinion, the free world’s most powerful
corrective of abuses of power.
We are individuals steered by words, even the
words we say to ourselves, or hold in the silence
of the mind. Keep telling yourself, “It’s no
use,” and nothing will seem worth the effort.
Tell yourself that you can and will, and nothing
can stand in your way for long. So speak the
good word to yourself and to others. Bury the
hurtful word in the pit of the great unspoken!
Reflect daily the living Word of God.
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