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The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Thursday, July 3,1975 Single Copy Price — 15 Cents
Diocese
The Diocese of Savannah is
participating in the national effort in
locating sponsors who will assist the
thousands of refugees from Vietnam to
find a place to live and a job to live by.
There are over 100,000 refugees from
Vietnam and Cambodia in the United
States at the present time. Sixty percent
of the families have chosen the United
States Catholic Conference Migration
and Refugee Services as the voluntary
agency to help them locate sponsors.
The Diocese of Savannah has indicated
its willingness to share in this national
effort. On May 17, Bishop Raymond
Lessard appointed Rev. Msgr. Daniel J.
Bourke as Resettlement Director for
this diocese.
During this past month, many
encouraging things have happened in the
diocese. To date, 26 refugee families
have been settled in the Diocese of
Savannah through the agency of the
Seeks Refugee Sponsors
United States Catholic Conference. This
represents a total of 89 refugees.
During this past week, the Diocesan
Office for Migrants and Refugees has
written to every parish in the diocese, to
the Deanery Councils of Catholic
How To Help?
See Page 2
Women, and to the various councils of
the Knights of Columbus, asking them
to consider whether or not they would
act as sponsors for a refugee family.
To date, several parishes have
responded.
At the present moment, Nativity
Parish and Blessed Sacrament Parish,
Savannah, and St. Teresa’s Parish,
Albany, are awaiting the arrival of a
refugee family. Cathedral Parish,
Savannah, is presently in the process of
making application for a refugee family.
Participating in the sponsoring
project are the Catholic communities in
Hazlehurst, McRae, Lyons-Vidalia, and
the Cairo community of St. Augustine’s
Parish, Thomasville. Many Vietnamese
families are already living and working
in these towns. It is hoped that in the
next few weeks several other parishes
and organizations within the diocese
will respond to this request.
Shared sponsorship is an ideal parish
or organizational endeavor. It is the
commitment to help new arrivals take
their first steps in our community.
Through shared sponsorship, the people
of a parish or of an organization join
together to give much needed support in
providing the following: a place to live
with basic temporary necessities; a
school for the children; and a job for
the family breadwinner.
Sponsors are not committed legally
or financially. Sponsorship is a moral
commitment to help a refugee family
secure independence and become
self-sustaining in as short a time as
possible.
Your parish can work together to
provide the basics needed to resettle
some Vietnamese or Cambodian
families. Since many refugee families
would welcome the opportunity to live
in somewhat close proximity to one
another, parishes are urged to sponsor a
group of families. Keep in mind that
funding, as needed, will be provided by
your diocesan resettlement director.
All are asked to support this Christian
endeavor with a welcoming hand from
your parish.
THIS FAMILY waits at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation in
Pennsylvania. Sixty percent of the families have chosen the USCC’s
Migration and Refugee Services as the voluntary agency to help them
locate sponsors who will assist them in finding a place to live and a job to
live by.
Bishops-Ford Meeting Called ‘Positive,
‘Constructive
BISHOPS MEET PRESIDENT - Five U S. bishops meet June 18 with
President Gerald Ford (center right) and White House staff members to
discuss Church positions and public policy on various issues. The bishops
(from left) are Bishop James Malone of Youngstown, Ohio; Bishop James
Rausch, general secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops
and U.S. Catholic Conference (NCCB-USCC); Cardinal Terence Cooke of
New York; Archbishop Joseph Bernardin of Cincinnati, NCCB-USCC
president; and Archbishop Thomas Donnellan of Atlanta. (NC Photo)
WASHINGTON (NC) ~ A White
House meeting between President
Gerald Ford and five American Catholic
bishops has been called “cordial and
positive” by the bishops and “good and
constructive” by an administration
official.
, r . - .
In the hour-long meeting, the bishops
discussed Church positions on the world
food crisis, the Vietnamese refugees,
illegal aliens, abortion and nonpublic
school aid.
The bishops were represented by the
executive committees of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB)
and U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC):
Archbishop Joseph Bernardin of
Cincinnati, NCCB-USCC president;
Bishpp James Rausch, NCCB-USCC
general secretary; Archbishop Thomas
Donnellan of Atlanta, NCCB-USCC
treasurer; Cardinal Terence Cooke of
New York, elected member of the
NCCB executive committee and Bishop
James Malone of Youngstown, Ohio,
elected member of the USCC executive
committee. (NCCB-USCC
vice-president, Cardinal John Carberry
of St. Louis, was out of the country and
unable to attend the meeting.)
The meeting was also attended by
Attorney General Edward Levi,
Secretary of Health, Education and
Welfare Caspar Weinberger, Deputy
Secretary of State Robert Ingersoll and
several members of the White House
staff. The President left the meeting
after about 45 minutes, while the others
remained.
Archbishop Bernardin said he was
pleased with the meeting “in the sense
that there was an understanding of our
concerns.”
Following is a summary of the
bishops’ positions, as described by
Archbishop Bernardin, and a summary
of some of the President’s responses, as
described by a White House official who
attended the meeting:
- Calling the food crisis “a serious
crisis requiring strong and creative
leadership for its solution,” the bishops
asked for continued and expanded
American food aid with a “high
percentage” devoted to humanitarian
needs, as well as efforts to increase
agricultural production in the
developing nations and an international
grain reserve.
The president, citing a poor crop last
year and budgetary problems, said he
approved the highest food aid option
presented to him for Fiscal Year 1975.
He said he would continue to watch the
situation on a quarterly basis and, with
a good crop' year expected, said he
expected increased aid next year.
-- The bishops said the USCC would
continue in its efforts to secure sponsors
for Vietnamese refugees and was
particularly concerned about the fate
of some 40,000 refugees still on
Phuquoc Island off the coast of
Monsignor Marvin J. LeFrois has a
key role in promoting, throughout the
Savannah area, the most historic
spiritual assembly convening in the
United States in the past 50 years.
He is a Diocesan Coordinator for the
41st International Eucharistic Congress.
Msgr. LeFrois
Vietnam and some 25,000 refugees now
in other countries in the Pacific.
The President “applauded and
expressed great gratitude” for the
Catholic Church’s response on the
refugees. He said the refugees are now
leaving the resettlement camps at the
rate of 700 a day, good in comparison
to an earlier lower rate that has been
criticized, but not good enough. He said
he will review the progress weekly.
- The bishops supported amnesty for
the illegal aliens now in the United
States, along with measures to prevent
the problem from recurring. They
supported family reunification measures
and the establishment of a preference
system for the Western Hemisphere
similar to the process used for Eastern
Hemisphere immigration.
The President and Attorney General
Edward Levi noted that the President
had established a cabinet-level
committee to study the illegal alien
issue and assured the bishops that their
views would be considered.
- The bishops asked the president to
“use the moral force of his office in
support of a constitutional amendment
to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court’s
abortion decision.” The bishops
discussed no specific amendment and
Cardinal Cooke, chairman of the
Bishops’ Committee on Pro-life
Activities, said proposed amendments
were now being studied in a Senate
committee where they were being
“clarified by the democratic process.”
The Congress is a gathering of world
Catholics and other Christians meeting
in Philadelphia Aug. 1-8,1976.
Monsignor LeFrois is pastor of St.
Mary’s Church of Augusta, and joined
nearly 100 U.S. religious leaders in
Philadelphia June 4-5 to help organize
local participation for the Congress
throughout the nation. For a year
preceding the Congress, Monsignor
LeFrois will be involved in
implementing a faith renewal program
throughout the diocese in preparation
for the event.
He will also coordinate, through area
travel agents, pilgrimages to the
Congress. And for those who are unable
to attend the event, Monsignor LeFrois
will work with parishes to arrange
liturgies similar to those being
celebrated in Philadelphia during
Congress Week.
Purpose of the Congress is to deepen
faith in and devotion to Christ in the
Eucharist.
The 28th Eucharistic Congress met in
Chicago in 1926. The last Congress met
in Melbourne, Australia in 1973. More
than 1.5 million faithful attended.
The bishops said the federal government
should not support permissive abortions
paid for with public money and said “in
every way constitutionally permissible,
the federal government should seek to
respect the rights of the unborn.”
The President reaffirmed as federal
policy a 1971 directive issued by
President Richard Nixon requiring that
military hospitals follow the abortion
laws of the states where they are
located. Because some states have
fought implementing new laws to
conform to the Supreme Court decision,
and because other federal agencies have
followed the 1971 directive, those
supporting the Supreme Court decision
have asked that the Nixon policy be
changed.
- The bishops asked that the
government support the inclusion of aid
to nonpublic school students under the
Elementary and Secondary School Act,
which provides auxiliary services similar
to those provided by a Pennsylvania law
recently declared unconstitutional by
the Supreme Court. The bishops said
they expected challenges to the federal
law, but believed it was constitutional.
The President said his administration
was sympathetic to the law, which he
signed last August.
The bishops originally requested a
meeting with the president on the food
issue shortly after approving a “pastoral
plan” on the world food crisis last
November. The meeting was delayed
because of a series of communications
problems and problems in finding a
mutually agreeable date. (The June 18
meeting took place during a USCC
administrative committee meeting when
a number of bishops were in
Washington.)
A conference spokesman said the
other issues were added to the agenda
because of recent events, not necessarily
because other issues were not
considered as important.
SISTER MARY CORNILE DULOHERY, R.S.M., Administrator of
Savannah’s St. Joseph’s Hospital, was sworn in as a member of The
Georgia Board of Human Resources by Governor George Busbee in his
office on Wednesday, June 18. Sister Cornile’s appointment marks the
first time that a hospital representative has been a member of this
important state board.
Funeral For Cardinal Raimondi
VATICAN CITY (NC) - American Cardinals John Wright and John Carberry and U.
S. Ambassador to Italy John Volpe were among participants in a funeral Mass June 26
at St. Peter’s Basilica for Cardinal Luigi Raimondi.
Cardinal Raimondi, Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints’ Causes and
former apostolic delegate in the United States, died June 24 of a heart attack here.
The Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Giuseppe Casoria, secretary of the
Congregation for Saints’ Causes. Seminarians from Rome’s North American College
acted as acolytes.
Cardinal Wright, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy, and Cardinal
Carberry of St. Louis are old friends of Cardinal Raimondi.
In the name of Pope Paul VI, Cardinal Luigi Traglia, dean of the College of
Cardinals, read the final prayers of Christian burial.
Cardinal Raimondi was to be buried in his hometown of Acqui-Lussito in Northern
Italy.
Msgr. LeFrois Coordinator
■ i
For Eucharistic Congress
Charismatic Committee Head
WASHINGTON (NC) - Bishop Gerard L. Frey of Lafayette, La., has been named
chairman of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (NCCB) Ad Hoc Committee
for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
The committee will serve as the official conference liaison with the charismatic
renewal movement. Formation of the committee was approved by the NCCB
administrative Committee last March, shortly. after the bishops’ Committee for
Pastoral Research and Practices published a statement on the Catholic Charismatic
renewal.
That statement called for continuing contact between leaders and members of the
movement with bishops and pastors as well as the full integration of charismatic
groups into the structures of parish life.
Members of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal are, in
addition to Bishop Frey, Bishop Raymond W. Lessard of Savannah, Ga., Auxiliary
Bishop Raymond A. Lucker of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn., and Auxiliary Bishop
Joseph C. McKinney of Grand Rapids, Mich.