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PAGE 2- September 18,1975
ECUMENICAL GATHERING - Prior Roger Schutz
of the ecumenical community of Taize, France, welks
with Cardinals Julius Doepfner of Munich, and
ANGLICAN- CA THOLIC
Francois Marty of Paris at a Day of the People of God
in Taize. The gathering attracted some 5,000 young
people and adults. (NC Photo by KNA)
Progress On Authority Discussion
BY ROBERT NOWELL
OXFORD, England (NC) - An
international panel of Catholic and
Anglican theologians reported
encouraging progress in their discussion
of “authority in the church” following a
meeting in the first week of September.
the theological group, which is called
the Anglican-Roman Catholic
International Commission (ARCIC).
Following its meeting ARCIC issued a
brief statement Sept. 7 explaining the
nature and direction of its current work.
It said:
Christian Church is kept faithful to the
truth of the Gospel. Traditionally
Anglicans and Roman Catholics have
explained this process in different ways.
The commission went behind these
continuing expressions to find out to
what extent there is a shared
understanding.
Respect Ethnic Differences
Catholic Teachers Told
BY RICHARD HIGGINS
WORCESTER, Mass. (NC) -
American Catholics have a lot to
contribute to American society by
facing and accepting their cultural and
ethnic diversity, Msgr. Geno C. Baroni,
founder and president of the National
Center of Urban Ethnic Affairs in
Washington, said here.
Delivering the keynote address of the
25th annual Diocesan Teachers’
Convention, Msgr. Baroni said “the
Church should make the case for
pluralism and for a transmission of
ethnic and cultural values.”
“American society is guilty of
cultural injustice toward the American
Catholic,” he said, adding: “Our idea of
a melting pot has been to melt away the
distinct Catholic ethnic and cultural
values that are a part of us.”
“It is time for us to educate Catholics
to share our diverse traditions, to teach
that it is legitimate in a pluralistic
society, such as ours, to be both
Catholic and American,” he said.
Msgr. Baroni charged that we “should
face our cultural pluralism in our
schools .. .
Catholics, like all other Americans,
today are forced to discover themselves,
to ask who we are as Americans in the
Bicentennial Year and what it means to
be a Catholic.”
Telling his audience of teachers that
“today we need a more sophisticated
understanding of our roots,” the ethnic
specialist said a “better appreciation of
where we are coming from will enable
us to better direct where our nation and
our Church is going.”
“This search for our identity, for a
respect for pluralism, should lead us to
question the image of the ‘melting pot’
which has too long dominated the
rhetoric of educational and social
philosophy.” Msgr. Baroni said, adding:
“It is tolerable, if not openly desirable,
for a nation to be united and diverse.”
He continued:
“We live, whether we accept it or not,
in a global village where racial, cultural
and ethnic traditions should not be
snuffed out, but shared and developed.”
He said the ethnic diversity and
pluralism of the Church should help
Catholics recognize and accept such
diversity in the rest of American
society.
An example of this, Msgr. Baroni told
reporters before the speech, is the
attitudes of some Irish Americans in
South Boston toward the Black
communities such as Roxbury over the
forced busing of school children.
“Being informed and proud of one’s
cultural or community identity doesn’t
mean being exclusive, selfish or
unsympathetic of other groups in a
society. Respecting cultural differences
stems from remembering one’s own
origin.”
“The problem of education is how do
we prepare ourselves to live together,”
Msgr. Baroni told the teachers, “how do
we get in touch with our own story
enough to respect others. American
society is polarized and divided; we
must use our Catholic schools to teach
children to share their multi-cultural
ethnic diversity.”
He posed several questions facing
Catholic teachers, including:
“How do we develop personal and
professional sensitivity and competence
among our educators?”
“Can we teach the next generation of
Catholics to have more respect for
‘second culture’ experiences, to respond
more openly to persons with racial or
ethnic identities unlike their own?”
“But we really haven’t been taught to
deal with our own,” the ethnic specialist
observed.
He concluded: “America’s diversity
makes tolerance of others more than a
virtue, it makes it a condition of
survival.”
BY CATHOLIC BISHOP
Bio-Medical Discernment Stressed
The question of church authority,
particularly of papal primacy and
infallibility, is one of the chief issues
dividing Catholics and Anglicans. It will
be a significant step toward reunion of
the two churches if substantial
agreement on this issue is reached by
Authority in the church, including
primacy and infallibility, was discussed
at a meeting of the Anglican-Roman
Catholic International Commission in
Oxford this week. The basic question
facing the commission was how the
“The progress made at Oxford
encourages the commission to look
forward to its meeting next year and to
continuing work in preparation for it.”
ARCIC was established in 1970 by
Anglican and Catholic authorities in
order to discuss differences between the
two churches and see if they could agree
on the substance of the faith each
church holds.
To Mark Respect Life Week
ST. LOUIS (NC) - Catholic hospitals
will emphasize the positive aspects of
health services they provide during a
Respect Life Week program Oct. 5-12.
The St. Louis-based Catholic Hospital
Association (CHA) is coordinating the
program with the U.S. Bishops’
Committee for Pro-Life Activities,
Washington, D. C.
During the week, local activities and
programs will explore the characteristics
that underlie the nation’s 860
Catholic-sponsored health facilities.
Emphasis will be given to
religious-motivated qualities and
services, including the role of Sisters,
priests, Brothers and laymen; the right
to health care by all Americans; and the
policies and practices that affirm the
sanctity and dignity of human life and
deny the practice of abortion and
euthanasia.
“A major aim is to detail and
promulgate the governing beliefs of
Catholic health institutions,” said Mercy
Sister Mary Maurita, CHA president.
The end result, she said, will be to
explain to the public how the ethical
and religious values and principles
professed affect patient care and
community-wide programs of service to
persons of all races and religions.
“Although Catholic-sponsored
facilities may be singular in their basic
philosophies, they are nevertheless an
integral part of each community
served,” she said.
The commission’s agreed statements
do not, however, automatically become
the official positions of either church.
Rather, they are presented to the
churches for serious discussion and
consideration.
Since the commission was established
it has stated fundamental doctrinal
agreement among its members on two
major issues: the Eucharist (in 1971)
and ordination and ministry (in 1973).
Both of these statements are still being
considered within the two churches, but
neither has been acted upon officially.
In its statement on ministry, ARCIC
warned that, despite its agreements in
that area, it had “not yet broached the
wide-ranging problems of authority
which may arise in any discussion of
ministry, nor the question of primacy.”
House Subcommittee Passes Amnesty Bill
WASHINGTON (NC) - A House subcommittee has approved
by a 4-1 vote a bill that would provide amnesty for Vietnam war
resisters, draft evaders and deserters who sign a sworn statement
that their offenses were motivated by disapproval of the U.S.
military involvement in Indochina.
The bill would cover draft evaders, deserters and members of
the military who disobeyed orders that “a member could
reasonably have foreseen, under ordinary circumstances, to have
as its possible consequences the death of another human being.”
Amnesty would be withdrawn from anyone convicted of
perjury or making a false statement in signing the declaration
that his actions resulted from opposition to the war.
Those in the military who sign such a statement would
receive a “certificate of resignation.” The status of such a
certificate is not clear, but subcommittee members indicated the
certificate alone would neither qualify nor disqualify a recipient
for veterans benefits.
The bill, entitled the “Vietnam Era Reconciliation Act,” is
not an unconditional amnesty, but it moves closer to it than the
President’s Clemency program which has an alternative service
requirement.
Rep. Robert Kastenmeier (D-Wis.), chairman of the
subcommittee on courts, civil liberties and the administration of
justice and a sponsor of the amnesty bill, said the bill had a
“fighting chance” in the full Judiciary Committee. But, he said,
he is “not sanguine” about passage on the House floor.
Support for the bill by Rep. George Danielson (D-Calif.) was
considered significant by many observers, who thought his vote
might help passage in the Judiciary Committee.
Another sponsor of the bill, Jesuit Father Robert Drinan
(D-Mass.), had earlier called on U.S. churches to support the
amnesty bill.
Rep. Thomas Railsback (R-Ill.), who voted against the bill
said he would offer a substitute if he could get help from the
Administration.
BY JOHN MAHER
WASHINGTON (NC) - Bishop
Maurice Dingman of Des Moines, Iowa,
chairman of the committee on health
affairs of the U.S. Catholic Conference
(USCC), stressed here the need to seek
the mind of the Holy Spirit in making
bio-medical decisions.
“We are not General Motors,” Bishop
Dingman told the annual meeting of the
National Federation of Catholic
Physicians’ Guilds (NFCPG). “We are a
divine institution. We must always make
our decisions in terms of the guidance
of the Holy Spirit.”
Emphasizing the principle of shared
responsibility, the bishop told the
physicians, “We are the people of God.
You are the Church.”
Dialogue and prayer, he said, are
needed “to find the mind of the Holy
Spirit.”
In bio-medical decision-making,
Bishop Dingman said, it is necessary to
gather facts, to listen to people who
have the necessary knowledge.
“The final decision is in the hands of
the magisterium (the official teaching
authority of the Church) but the
magisterium must be credible.”
The bishop attributed polarization in
the Church, the failure of shared
responsibility to work, to a “conflict of
mentalities, a conflict of world views.”
He described the conflict as one
between a static and a dynamic world
view, the static “fastening on the
general, the universal, the
unchangeable,” and the dynamic
stressing “the concrete, the changeable,
the experiential.”
“Polarization occurs,” he said, “when
the static rejects all experience and the
dynamic rejects all absolutes. We have
to make two positive affirmations which
are different and live with the mystery.
We must live in balanced tension.”
In questions of bio-medical ethics, he
said, “its easy for bishops to accept the
static point of view. Its easy for
Lisbon’s Patriarch Calls
For Return To Freedom
LISBON (NC) - As it became obvious
that communists were losing ground in
Portugal, Cardinal Antonio Ribeiro of
Lisbon appealed for a return to
freedoms, particularly in the
communications field.
All through the communist-inspired
drive tor control of public opinion in
the armed forces, the trade unions and
the government, Church leaders tried to
recover the Church’s Radio Renasenca
and other communications media.
Cardinal Ribeiro, patriarch of Lisbon,
said in a week-end speech published
Sept. 8 that important sections of the
press, radio and television were sowing
“seeds of hatred, promoting division
and practicing ideological and religious
agression.”
The term religious aggression was also
mentioned in a statement issued at the
end of August by the Portuguese
Bishops’ Conference in condemning all
forms of violence. The bishops also
defended the right of Catholics to
protest violations of freedom of
conscience as well as the wanton
destruction of property.
Cardinal Ribeiro said the Portuguese
people had been swindled and reviled by
radicals striving to control the
revolution, but warned that Christians
could never fall into the temptation of
violence, because of their riespect for
other people and the legitimate
institution of society.
“The Portuguese people want a
peaceful society in which minorities do
not try to impose totalitarian systems or
ideologies that are foreign to their
Christian traditions,” the cardinal said
without mentioning the communists.
As he spoke Portugal was virtually
without an organized government while
moderates and radicals in the armed
forces wrestled over the formation of a
new government.
Pro-communist Gen. Vasco Goncalves
was temporarily back in office as
Portugal’s premier Sept. 9 four days
after other military leaders had stripped
him of all power.
The government said Goncalves, in
response to a request from President
Francisco da Costa Gomes, had agreed
to withdraw the resignation Costa
Gomes had accepted earlier. It said he
would serve with his cabinet in a
caretaker status until his successor, Vice
Admiral Jose Pinheiro de Azevedo, can
form a cabinet.
The communique said the admiral
expected to announce his cabinet Sept.
11. The admiral reportedly was trying
to bring the Socialist Popular
Democratic parties back into the
government along with the communists
and a number of military men.
The two anti-communist parties,
which together polled two-thirds of the
vote in the April election of a
Constitutional Assembly, pulled out of
a coalition cabinet headed by Goncalves
in July after the communists were
allowed to take over the Socialist
newspaper Republica and the Catholic
Church’s Radio Renascenca.
physicians to act on experience and
ignore bishops.”
The key to a resolution of such
conflict, he said, is discernment - the
identification of areas of ambiguity and
prayerful reflection on the facts in the
light of faith.
“I challenge physicians to join with
others in making the process of
discernment operative in the Church,”
Bishop Dingman said.
The questions, he said, are how much
research is to be done and how to
safeguard the rights of the human
subjects.
He pointed out that all
experimentation on man involves a
certain degree of risk and that it is
difficult for investigators to be objective
about the risk. “Peer review,” he said,
“is extremely important in keeping
balance.”
He suggested that instead of starting
with principles, those making
bio-medical and other ethical decisions
start “where people are.”
He added that “with the structures
that are developing we have the means
of incorporating the whole people of
God into decision-making.”
In a discussion of human
experimentation, Doctor Joseph
Dellanti, professor of pediatrics and
micro-biology at Jesuit-run Georgetown
University here, said that physicians and
researchers generally agree on the
necessity for such experimentation.
“Without it we would not be where we
are today in terms of advances made.”
Informed consent, he said, consists of
telling the patient the full details of the
experiment and the risks and benefits
involved. In the case of non-theraputic
research, or research not designed to
help the one on whom it is performed,
the patient must have a clear
understanding that he or she will not
benefit from the research, he said.
Dellanti stressed the importance of
separating the issue of fetal research
from that of abortion. “There is a need
for fetal research,” he said. “It should
not be inextricably bound up with the
issue of abortion.”
Emphasizing that as a Catholic he did
not approve of abortion, he said “I feel
that we have been able to perform this
investigation in good conscience.”
EAMON DE VALERA, former president of the Irish Republic, who died
August 29 in Dublin at age 92, is shown visiting Pope John XXIII in 1962.
Pope Paul expressed sorrow over De Valera’s death calling him one of the
most outstanding figures in Irish history. (NC Photos)
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