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HEW Considering Funding Abortions As Family Planning BY JIM CASTELLI WASHINGTON (NC) - The Department of Health, Education and Welfare is considering allowing states the option of funding abortions through Medicaid as a means of family planning. The proposal would reverse earlier proposed regulations which specifically excluded abortion from family planning coverage. The federal government reimburses states for family planning services to those eligible for Medicaid at a rate of 90 percent of costs. The original HEW regulations, issued in December, 1974, allowed states to be reimbursed for abortions performed on Medicaid patients at the rate for medical services, between 50 and 78 percent, varying from state to state. The 1974 regulations were seen as an attempted compromise between strong congressional prohibitions against the use of federal family planning and research funds to promote abortion as a method of family planning and several court rulings that Medicaid must pay for abortions as long as it continued to pay for maternity care and childbirth. HEW officials acknowledge that abortions are now being funded at the 90 percent, family planning rate. Individual services are not itemized, they say, so that the total amount billed by a state for either medical services or family planning will not reflect just how abortions are funded. HEW has estimated that Medicaid pays for about a quarter of a million abortions a year. HEW is also considering guidelines which would allow federal medical facilities to disregard state abortion laws which are more restrictive than the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in its January, 1973, abortion decisions. The Court basically ruled against state restriction of abortions in the first six months of pregnancy. The HEW proposal comes shortly after the Defense Department issued guidelines allowing military hospitals to disregard restrictive state abortion laws. A department spokesman said HEW Secretary David Matthews has not yet seen the abortion regulation proposals. Msgr. James McHugh, director of the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities, called the proposed Medicaid regulations “a calculated effort to override congressional intent” that abortion not be considered a means of family planning. Msgr. McHugh said the proposals advocated states’ rights in allowing states the option to have abortions reimbursed as family planning at the same time they disregarded states’ rights concerning abortions performed on federal installations. He also criticized the proposals as an effort to increase the number of abortions performed in the United States and to increase the number paid for by the federal government. The Southern Cross DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER Vol. 56 No. 37 Thursday, October 23,1975 Single Copy Price — 15 Cents 250 Delegates Meet At Vatican For Laity Council Consultation MORTGAGE BURNING -- Bishop Raymond W. reduction program. As an expression of gratitude the Lessard bums mortgage at banquet held by St. Teresa’s parish presented a check in the amount of $1,000.00 Church, Albany, on October 14. Looking on are Bill to the bishop to provide food for the poor. At the Burgess and Fernando Colon. The parish was Banquet Fernando Colon, longtime parish treasurer, celebrating its freedom from debt. St. Teresa’s recently was honored. (Additional photos on page 3.) made the final payment in its “Giant Step” debt SAYS LITURGY NOT CAUSE Sociologist Reports On Attendance Drop BOSTON (NC) - Changing Catholic attitudes toward birth control, divorce and papal authority -- not liturgical changes - account for severe declines in Catholic Mass attendance over the past decade, a leading sociologist said here. Dr.' William C. McCready of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in Chicago was reporting to a convention of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (FDLC) on conclusions drawn from a recent NORC study of changing Catholic attitudes and practices. He told the liturgical specialists gathered here that, while Mass attendance by Catholics in the United States dropped more than 30 percent from 1963 to 1974, almost none of the decline could be attributed to the liturgical changes that have taken place. Analysis of the research data, he said, showed no correlation, or only insignificant correlations, between declines in churchgoing and attitudes toward a number of important changes in liturgical and devotional practices: Mass in English, guitar music at Mass, the handshake of peace, distribution of Communion by laypersons, or the reduction of paraliturgical events such as novenas. On the other hand, McCready said, an analysis of the data revealed some significant correlations in other areas. “About half of the decline in Mass attendance can be accounted for by the changing attitude toward birth control,” he reported. “About a quarter of the decrease in churchgoing is accounted for by attitudes toward divorce and another quarter toward the Pope as head of the Church.” McCready’s full report, 40 pages long, had been commissioned by the FDLC as a followup to determine some of the causes behind the Mass attendance decline which NORC surveys had revealed. He submitted the report in writing and also spoke to the group, summarizing and explaining the report. He noted that in the decade between (Continued on page 7) VATICAN CITY (NC) - Bishops, priests, Religious and laity met here in an eight-day world consultation (Oct. 7-15) to review and project lay participation in the life of the Church. Suggestions and recommendations from the some 250 delegates to the consultation will be evaluated by the Vatican’s Council for the Laity here during the week of Oct. 20-26 before being sent to Pope Paul VI for his decisions. Bishop Lucas Moreira Neves, vice president of the laity council, told a press conference Oct. 16 that the consultation had been called for a three-fold purpose: so that the Laity Council could “take its bearings” 10 years after the Second Vatican Council, to give a new stimulus to the council’s renewal movement, and to intensify the holy year’s stimulus for reconciliation. During the eight-day meeting questions were raised on the possibility of ordaining women to the priesthood in the Catholic Church. “A possible future ordination of women is always raised at such meetings,” said Bishop Moreira Neves. “It is a perennial and came from Africa, Europe, the Americas and elsewhere. But this question was not within the competence of the council.” A delegate confirmed to NC News Service that ordination of women was widely advocated by delegates of every ethnic group and geographical area. Africans, especially, were vocal in calling for women priests.” “But over and above the cry for the priestly ordination of women was a call for a ‘formal lay ministry’ in which lay people would be invested in certain functions within the Church,” he noted. These functions, said this informant, would be in addition to the present lay functions of acolyte and lector. He said requests were made for creation of the ministries of musician and catechist -- both to be formal ordination-type ministries. “It would also be open to the local episcopal conferences to inaugurate other lay ministries which they might consider appropriate for the area,” he said. At the press conference, Bishop Moreira Neves noted: “How to deal with Marxist tendencies is a question that arises daily from those in areas affected. The Church tries to approach this with its clear teaching on universal justice, equality and humanity one towards the other.” A Congress delegate said that Latin American delegates tried repeatedly to get the congress to urge the Church to intervene on political levels. This was rejected by the majority of members. “There was a very strong Latin American tendency to say that the Church had missed out on the great socio-economic movements and that the Church should intervene politically,” this delegate reported. “However, an Irish delegate insisted on the theme of ‘render unto Caesar . . .’ and this was generally agreed upon, meaning that the Church had no business mixing in politics,” he said. This source stated that a “Third World liberation theology was mentioned by a number of Latin Americans, some of whom were even militant, but was not supported by the Africans. “The tenor of the African representatives was: teach U!> how t,o pray, how to educate, how to understand the issues at stake and our simple family-life - which is the greatest apostolate in Africa.” Mass Obligation Explanation Attendance at Mass on Saturday evening in order to fulfill the Sunday Mass obligation does not at the same time fulfill the obligation to attend Mass on a feast day of obligation that happens to fall on that Saturday. This decision was arrived at by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy in 1970 and was approved by Pope Paul VI. It means that Catholics cannot fulfill the double obligation of attending Mass on Ail Saints Day (a Saturday this year) and Sunday by attending one Mass on Saturday evening. All Saints’ Day is Nov. 1. A HEADLINE t HOPSCOTCH , .... -J Sister Lucia In Portugal LISBON, Portugal (NC) - Reports first started at Fatima that Sister Lucia dos Santos, the only survivor of the three children who described the apparitions of Qir Lady there in 1917, was transferred from her convent in politically-troubled Portugal to Spain are not true. Sources at her Carmelite convent in Coimbra, some 40 miles north of Fatima, said Sister Lucia, now 68, has never left Portugal. German ‘‘Church Tax’ BONN, West Germany (NC) -- A survey recently conducted by Catholic authorities in Frankfurt reveal that the majority of those who leave the Church do so because of the high church taxes here. West Germans registered with a particular denomination face a “church tax” amounting to 10 percent of their personal income tax. Of those questioned, half named the high tax rate as the primary reason for leaving the Church, while a fourth voiced personal objections to church policy and a fourth said they simply lacked faith. Ask Aid For New York LEVITTOWN, N.Y. (NC) - Members of the Holy Name Societies of New York have been urged by their regional vice president to petition the President and Congress to grant federal aid to ease New York City’s fiscal crisis. “Failure on the part of the President to provide these funds may result in foreclosure of homes, business bankruptcies, and cause many big corporations and the financial district to move to other states, leaving behind many residents unemployed and making New York a ghost city,” said John P. Kilbride, national association vice president of the New York State Holy Name Societies. Unrest In Philippines MANILA, The Philippines (NC) - The underground Civil Liberties Union (CLU) has described the majority of Catholic bishops in this country as subservient to the martial law regime of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The censure of the bishops by the CLU is a 100-page pamphlet assessing three years of martial law in the Philippines was clandestinely distributed Oct. 1 and has since enjoyed the status of a best-seller. The CLU, which went underground when martial law was imposed by Marcos on Sept. 21, 1972, also claimed the conservatism of the bishops was hurting the credibility of the Church’s efforts to get martial law lifted. However, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines is on record as having demanded that President Marcos end martial law and restore democratic processes in the country 7 . Commission Criticized MILWAUKEE, Wis. (NC) - The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has criticized the U.S. Civil Rights Commission for holding that a fetus is not legally a person and therefore not protected by the 14th Amendment. A report by the Civil Rights Commission in April opposed passage of any constitutional amendment “designed to deny the right to terminate a pregnancy” and said such an amendment “would infringe upon the fundamental liberty to limit child-bearing without the due process required by the Fourteenth Amendment.” The report said the unborn, at least until viability, are not persons in the constitutional sense, whereas women are. The League contended that the state did not have to establish the existence of a person to justify legal restraint on any activity. “Dogs, cats and baldheaded eagles are not persons nor do they have constitutional rights, yet that does not mean that the state cannot forbid their slaughter,” the League said.