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PAGE 2—September 4,1975
NOBC HEAD
MARRIED MAN ORDAINED ~ Bishop Rudolf
Graber of Regensburg, Germany, ordains to the
priesthood Father Ulrich Schubach. The recent
ordination was unusual because Father Schubach, 43, a
former Lutheran pastor, is married and the father of
eight children. Pope Paul VI gave him permission to
continue his married life. He will work in two parishes
in the Regensburg diocese and teach religion in schools
in Regensburg. There are a very few former Protestant
ministers, most of them in Germany, who are now
married Catholic priests. (NC Photo by KNA)
“The Challenge For Blacks:
Be African And Catholic”
BY AL ANTCZAK
LOS ANGELES (NC) - “We are an
African people. We are a Catholic
people. Our challenge is to live up to
both.”
With those words Marianist Brother
Joseph Davis exhorted delegates to the
sixth national black Catholic convention
to retrieve their cultural heritage and
“to restore our people to their
greatness.”
Brother Davis delineated the basis of
African culture. Much of what he said
he had corroborated from his own
eyewitness experience as a teacher six
years in a Nigerian Catholic high school.
It is to Africa that we as black
Americans must go if we are to interpret
liberation correctly,” said Brother
Davis, who is executive director of the
National Office for Black Catholics.
African culture, he said, is based
“on a celebration of being.”
American culture, in contrast, is
based “on having.”
Brother Davis said that Africans from
earliest times had a system of beliefs
that was based on an awareness of God,
an awareness of an order and harmony
in the universe regulated by a supreme
power, an awareness of a rhythm in
nature.
That awareness, he said, dictated a
response from the people to live their
lives in conformity with this awareness
of God and nature. That life style, he
continued, produced awe, respect and
reverence for life. And that produced
community, a sense of community that
perdures in every place where Africans
live.
American blacks, he continued, are
heirs of that culture. The key word in
describing that culture, he emphasized,
is “spiritual.”
“Africans did not come here as
people devoid of culture, devoid of a
sense of God, devoid of any way of
explaining the world, but rather they
were solidly grounded in these spiritual
gifts despite efforts to stamp them out.
“Africans clung to and retained them.
That belief system sustained our people
through the struggle from slavery.”
The Africans’ spiritual culture, said
Brother Davis, was brought to its
fullness in Christianity, which taught
the intercession of the saints, “of our
own spirits,” and which taught the
supreme truth of Christ’s redemption of
man.
“Africans are a very spiritual people.
They respond to the deeper meanings of
life and live in relation to those deeper
meanings. The goal of a human being is
to live his own life in harmony and
rhythm with these spiritual meanings.”
From that, he said, ensue respect for
the person and a sense of community.
Those are key African concepts.
For contemporary American black
Catholics there is a guide here to follow.
“The effort to integrate the cultural
heritage of our people with the
teachings of the Gospel is going on all
over the African world -- in Africa, in
the United States -- to determine the
manner in which our world view and life
style and the policies and doctrines of
the Roman Catholic Church can relate
to each other positively.”
Brother Davis said the challenge to
Black Catholics and their organizations
was “to find a method of collectively
spreading these values in the society in
which we live.”
He asked delegates to conform
themselves first to this heritage and not
to be misled by false barometers of
success, cars, money. He said that
lamentably no newspaper would ever
headline the success stories of black
fathers and mothers “who had washed
dishes and scrubbed floors for wages so
that you and I could be here.” He asked
them to regard as successes those
families who were rearing their children
in according with their traditional
heritage.
He asked them to remember that
“our ancestors had a sense of God, His
power and His involvement with the
world. Our ancestory brought to this
country in slavery kept with them this
world view and life style. It is this
which has enabled us as a people to
survive the degradation of so many
centuries.
“I believe it still survives among us
and is very strong today.”
Brother Davis said that awareness
dictates to black Catholic organizations
three things:
“1 - There must be a serious program
of studies exploring and discussing the
cultural heritage of our people in order
to arrive at the truest and most realistic
understanding of it.
“2 - We should collectively improve
our understanding of the Scripture, of
God’s covenant with man which
basically is a covenant of justice, as well
as the redemptive act of Jesus Christ.
“3 - We have to find a way not only
to express our view of bringing these
areas together, but more importantly I
think we have to discover collectively
how to strengthen, and live out our
convictions about them. Our African
cultural heritage is not merely a
philosophical, a theological point of
view. It’s a way of life, a style of
existence. Africans not only believe it,
but live it. . . From our point of view,
our effort in this organization is to find
a style of worship and liturgy that is
culturally ours, to find a style that is
actually ours that will make the liturgy
an act of worship and not the mere
fulfillment of a regulation.”
Knights Of Columbus Head Says
Abortion ‘Most Shameful Blight’
MIAMI BEACH (NC) - The top
a ,oi$aial of the Knights of Columbus
* called abortion the “most shameful
blight on American life,” and urged
Catholics to reject “the standards which
permeate the secularized society
surrounding us.”
Supreme Knight John W. McDevitt,
head of the 1.2 million member
Catholic fraternal order, made the
remarks at the 93nd annual meeting of
the supreme council -- the top legislative
body in the organization.
About 2,000 delegates and their
wives were on hand for McDevitt’s
address, which contained strong attacks
on several features of life in America.
He called on Catholics to become
missionaries, and to refuse to submit
meekly to the evils of the day.
McDevitt strongly endorsed efforts to
overturn the “disastrous Supreme Court
decision of January 1973 striking down
laws designed to protect the unborn.”
Such efforts will not easily find success,
he noted. “The anti-life coalition,” he
said, “seems to have the support of the
major communications media as well as
that of some highly vocal public
figures.”
“We know that the crematories
burning human flesh were eventually
shut down in Nazi Germany,” he said.
“We only hope that God need not send
this nation a searing scourge like atomic
devastation to make us all realize the
heinousness of massacring the innocent
Seton’s Letters Record Her Trials, Joys
BY ANNE BINGHAM
MT. ST. JOSEPH, Ohio (NC) - Original letters of Elizabeth Ann Seton, preserved in
the archives of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati at Mt. St. Joseph, Ohio, give an
insight into the character and concerns of the woman to be canonized a saint Sept. 14.
The letters, sealed in transparent plastic and bound in a black leather album, record
Mrs. Seton’s side of her correspondence with Antonio Filicchi, her friend and patron
from 1804 until her death in 1820.
The collection was donated to the Sisters’ archives in 1949 by descendants of
Filicchi, and includes a letter dated Oct. 19, 1820, believed to be the last letter Mrs.
Seton wrote to anyone.
Also in the Mt. St. Joseph archives are photostats of many of Mrs. Seton’s other
letters, as well as the originals of seven letters to her son William; three to her
sister-in-law Rebecca; a journal she kept for Rebecca, and a letter to Sister Margaret
Cecilia George, who later came to Cincinnati to establish the Sisters’ mission at Mt. St.
Joseph. Originals of correspondence to Mrs. Seton include two letters from her
husband, six from her son William and a dozen from Antonio Filicchi.
The Filicchi family of Leghorn (Livorno), Italy, were long-time personal friends and
business associates of Mrs. Seton’s husband, William.
When William Seton died in Italy in 1803, the Filicchi family took the stranded
widow and her daughter Anna under their protection, and arranged for one of the
Filicchi brothers, Antonio, to accompany Mrs. Seton back to the United States, where
he could combine business with charity by seeing to her needs and checking on the
family’s business operations in America.
During the voyage to New York, the friendship between Mrs. Seton and Filicchi
blossomed, and they kept up a steady correspondence through the years he spent in
America.
Most of the letters preserved at Mt. St. Joseph are written on unlined paper slightly
larger than legal-size, in ink that either originally was brown or has become brown with
age. The handwriting in the early letters is small, carefully formed and closely spaced;
later script is about twice as large and sprawls across the page, as if written in haste.
Usually signed simply with her initials - EAS -- the letter paper was folded, sealed
with red or black wax, and addressed on a blank side. Several letters still bear traces of
the sealing wax. The letters evidently were mailed through the fledgling U.S. postal
system (one bears a postmark New York Sept. 13, 1804), sent abroad with mutual
acquaintances, or posted by ship (a letter of 1808 has stamped on its address a faint
red oval with the words “ship letter” and the image of a three-masted schooner).
Mrs. Seton’s early letters mirror her domestic concerns and her struggles to accept
the Catholic faith, to which the Episcopalian matron found herself very much
attracted.
She wrote in September of 1804 to Antonio, then in Boston:
“God will not forsake me, Antonio. I know that he will unite me with his flock, and
although now my Faith is unsettled I am assured that he will not disappoint my hope,
which is fixed on his own word that he will not despise the humble contrite heart
which would esteem all losses in this world as greatest gain if I can only be so happy as
to please him.”
By May of the next year, 1805, Mrs. Seton had resolved her doubts and had joined
the Catholic Church. She also had embarked on a career to help support her family.
With the help of two Protestant friends, the Whites, she began a small school. On May
5, 11 5, she wrote Mr. Filicchi about the reaction of New York society (largely
Episcopalian) to her venture.
“ .. . As soon as the report was circulated that there was a school intended ... it
was immediately added, according to the usual custom of our generous world, that Mr.
and Mrs. White were Roman Catholics and that Mrs. Seton joined them in their plan to
advance the principles of her new Religion.”
It took the intercession of an influential friend to assure the city “that Mr. and Mrs.
White were Protestants, and (that) Mrs. Seton’s only intention was to obtain bread for
her children,” she wrote.
A later letter to Filicchi apologizes to “dearest Tonino” for not writing sooner, “but
to tell.you the identical truth, I have been so buried in preparing winter clothing for
my children that I am at work at midnight and sometimes until one o’clock. If you can
imagine the occupation of mending and turning odd things to be best account . . . and
having the children always at my elbow, you would believe me that it is easier to pray
than to write .,. .”
After Filicchi returned to Europe in 1808, correspondence between the two friends
became infrequent. Mrs. Seton became immersed in the new Religious community and
school, for which Filicchi provided much financial support. In a letter at the end of
the War of 1812, Mrs. Seton wrote to give him some sad news.
Young Anna Seton, “the dear darling of her mother and the best example of her
brothers and sisters,” had died, and with two other little Setons was buried “in the
little wood nearest our dwelling” (in Emmitsburg). Rebecca Seton, the youngest, “fell
while playing two years ago and is now lame with a crutch for life, but by much
suffering is preparing and hastening, I believe, to her happy eternity . . . the two boys,
of an age now and strength to gain their own living, are the only objects of pity
because boys, being less solid in piety than girls, can be more easily led astray,
especially when drawn by Protestant connections, as mine very probably will be . . .”
Her fears for her sons were not groundless. While Antonio Filicchi provided for their
education and secured for them positions in his Leghorn business, neither adapted to
the business world. William left Italy of his own accord and joined the U.S. Navy,
eventually to be commissioned an officer, but Richard was dismissed by Filicchi as
much for his moral conduct as for his lack of industry, and was a great cause of worry
to his mother as he drifted through life.
Letters of Elizabeth Seton after 1815 are mainly introductions to Filicchi of
American acquaintances traveling in Europe, but the last two letters in the volume tell
something of the progress of the Emmitsburg community as well as her continuing
concern for her children.
"On April 8, 1820, she wrote that “our poor little mustard seed spreads its branches
well - they have written us from New York to come and take eight hundred children
in the state school, besides an orphan asylum.” On Oct. 19, in the last letter she was to
write, she told Filicchi:
“This then is the earthly fruit of your goodness and patience with us these 20
years . . . could you but know what has happened in consequence of the little dirty
grain of mustard seed you planted by God’s hand in America -- the number of orphans
fed and clothed, public and private ... we take the Dutch or any trusting to God, and
educate them with as much care and daily regularity as our pay boarders so as to
extend their usefulness whenever our sweet providence may call . . .”
The last letter also mentions her anguish over Richard, “Who wrote us he was in
Norfolk in some difficulty with a protested bill, and . . . might be arrested or anything
else. I wrote to General Harper to have the kindness to see about him . .. for many
years I have had not prayer for my children but that our Blessed God will save their
souls . . .”
At the end of the letter the writing, which had been fairly legible throughout, trails
off into a barely decipherable scrawl as Mrs. Seton confesses “ .. . the reason of this
writing - I received the last sacraments three weeks ago.”
and helpless through abortion.”
“There is no need for Catholics to be
apologetic about their beliefs and their
values,” McDevitt said. “We need
not. . . embrace the euphemistic
language by which the secular media
cloak the immoralities of our day.”
He attacked the “propaganda in the
media,” which calls abortion “the
exercise of a woman’s right to control
her own body. For Catholics it is the
callous destruction of the body of
another. The media gives a ring of joy
and gaiety to the term ‘the swinging
life.’” We Catholics know it as
adultery,” he said.
“Self-styled humanists defend the
shameless portrayal of sex on the screen
and in print as ‘freedom of expression.’
We characterize it as moral smut and
pornography.
“The new vogue is to refer to a
proposed death blow for the
incapacitated as ‘death with dignity.’ We
know it as killing the helpless.”
McDevitt also attacked what he called
“the false posture of ecumenism
promoted by some within the Church.
The Vatican II decree on the subject
“says clearly that ‘it is through Christ’s
Catholic Church alone, which is the
all-embracing means of salvation, that
the fullness of the means of salvation
can be obtained,”’ he noted.
Knights from all of the United States,
Canada, Latin America and the
Philippines attended the conference.,
They were called upon in a telegram
from Pope Paul VI to exemplify “the
courageous witness of Catholic
laymen,” as they confront vital social
issues.
Messages of encouragement were sent
by President Gerald Ford; Canadian
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau;
Ferdinand Marcos, president of the
Philippines; Archbishop Jean Jadot,
apostolic delegate in the U.S.;
Archbishop Guido del Mestri, apostolic
pro-nuncio to Canada; Archbishop
Mario Gaspari, apostolic delegate to
Mexico; Archbishop Bruno Torpigliani,
apostolic nuncio to the Philippines; and
George Newbury, sovereign grand
commander of the Northern
Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite Masons
in the U.S.
In his annual report to the meeting,
McDevitt announced that the
organization has entered an agreement
with the Vatican to provide for
worldwide televising of certain papal
activities.
According to McDevitt, the knights in
collaboration with the Pontifical
Commission for Social Communications
will fund satellite coverage of a
minimum of three 90-minute programs
from the Vatican each year, including
Christmas midnight Mass, certain Holy
Week observances and one other event
of general interest.
SETON LETTER -- This is a page from a letter written by Mother
Elizabeth Seton to Antonio Filicchi, her friend and patron from 1804
until her death 17 years later. It is an introduction to Filicchi, then in
Italy, for some American friends. (NC Photo)