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I i Vol. 56 No. 41 Thursday, November 20,1975 Single Copy Price — 15 Cents Value, Dignity Of Life Stressed PORTLAND, Ore. (NC) - Calling on “the people of God” to “bring about in our society' the recognition of the value and dignity of life for all citizens,” delegates to the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW) convention passed a series of resolutions on contemporary religious and social issues. “The great need is for leadership among the people of God and indeed within society at large -- leadership that will bring about the decency and joy in living that is the inherent right of every 7 person,” the delegates said. The resolutions, passed during the convention here Nov. 7-12, dealt with prayer, women in the Church, world hunger, respect for life, violence and indecency on television, treatment of rape victims, the International Women’s Year, and illegal aliens. The delegates resolved that the NCCW: - “Encourage people to develop more fully their personal prayer-lives and promote programs of prayer for special needs in the communities and the world; “Fully respond to Christ’s expectation of the ministries of women in the life of His Church, recognizing special talents and abilities in the administrative and liturgical functions in the Church; - “Recognize the NCCW program, Works of Peace, as our most direct means of reaching the poor, the sick, the aged of the world; that we translate our sacrifices into positive results by contributing what is saved to Works of Peace to be channeled to the poor overseas by Catholic Relief Services; “Promote throughout all communities the principles of a human life amendment which will protect human life from conception to natural death, and actively solicit support for its passage; -- “Support of the statement of the U.S. Catholic Conference (Administrative Board) seriously challenging the television networks and Savannah’s Bishop Raymond W. Lessard delivered the homily at the closing Mass of the convention on Tuesday, November 11. The text of Bishop Lessard's homily will be found in this week's DCCW Notes on page 8. the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider and review the policy known as family viewing; 1 - “Support criminal sexual conduct laws which protect the woman against ‘implied consent’ and provide her with competent medical and emotional care immediately upon her report to authorities - “Be an instrument of education, involvement and cooperation with existing agencies concerning alcoholism; “Support the International Women’s Year insofar as it urges the greater education, development and use of women’s talents, and the recognition of the accomplishments of women, past and present; • - “Call for meaningful amnesty that would allow (illegal aliens) already to adjust their status to that of legal residents.” Those elected to NCCW posts were: Mrs. Arthur Horsell, of the Oakland, Calif., Council of Catholic Women, president; - Mrs. Anthony P. Hillemeir of the New Ulm, Minn., council, first vice president; - Mrs. Robert L. Menconi of the San Antonio, Tex., council, second vice president; - Mrs. Leonard J. Tracy of the St. Paul-Minneapolis, Minn., council, third vice president; - Mrs. George Supplitt of the Chicago council, secretary; - Mrs. Raymond Jozwiak of the Greensburg, Pa., council, treasurer. » The apostolic delegate in the United States told members to preserve the heritage of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and to bring the values she represented to society. Archbishop Jean Jadot further urged that “uniquely feminine” characteristics be brought into the social life of the community as a means of establishing and building Christ’s kingdom. “From the time of Mary, our mother in faith,” the archbishop said, “women have played a central role in the mission of Christ.” And Mother Seton, the first U.S.-born saint, “epitomizes the invaluable and incalculable contributions that women have made to the Church.” The archbishop had high praise for the feminine traits of “courage, strength, indomitable perseverance and tenacity.” Because of these, “You are able to achieve miracles in situations that men would have long since impatiently abandoned,” he added. “One of the unfortunate side effects of the women’s movement has been the obscuring of much that has been done and is being done by members of your (Continued on page 7) Conference On Role Of Women In commemoration of the International Woman’s Year, Savannah’s Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent’s Academy and St. Vincent’s Alumnae Association is sponsoring a conference open to all persons interested in the role of women in the Church and in Society. Sister Elizabeth Caroll, R.S.M., staff associate at the Center of Concern in Washington, D.C., will be the main speaker. Sister M. Charlene Walsh, R.S.M., Provincial Councilor of the Sisters of Mercy, will also speak on Women in Biblical tradition. The Conference is scheduled for 4;00 p.m. Saturday, December 6, at St. Vincent’s Hall. Registration $2.00 per person. COLLECTION NOVEMBER 23 A ROSE FOR THE PRES -- An Oregon rose is pinned on Mrs. Arthur Horsell of Oakland, Calif., president-elect of the National Council of Catholic Women by Mrs. Anthony P. Hillemeier of New Ulm, Minn., first vice president. In the background is Mrs. Robert Menconi of San Antonio, Tex., second vice president of the grom\”»bv,'V held its annual ns* ; t iy Portland, Ore. (NC Photo) AT NCCW NATIONAL CONVENTION WASHINGTON (NC) Officials of the Campaign for Human Development (CHD), the U.S. Catholic Church’s five-year-old anti-poverty program, are hopeful that the 1975 collection will at least equal last year’s, which was an increase of almost 10 percent over the previous year. The amount contributed last year was higher than the average of the four preceding years and second only to the initial year of 1970. “It is extremely encouraging that these hard times have not made hard hearts,” said Father Lawrence J. McNamara, CHD executive director, in a progress report on the campaign. “People have been more willing than ever to share what they had. When it became necessary to cut back on something, it wasn’t on the help one had previously been giving to those who were suffering the most; it was on something for oneself, something one could live without. . .the kind of things we lived without just a few years ago anyway.” The 1975 collection to finance next year’s CHD projects is scheduled to be ♦ 4 .■■■/’ -/up on Sunday Nov. 23 in Catholic churches throughout the United States. these people, and thus make life better for the next generation, and perhaps make it possible that no more workers get brown-lung.” In New Mexico, he said, “a campaign grant helped win from the supreme court of the state the decision that every child in the state is entitled to bi-lingual education.” That decision will make a better life for generations of Spanish-speaking children in the state, Father McNamara said. Among the other projects funded by the campaign are: - The Black Belt Community Health Program in Epes, Ala. Residents of 11 communities and a health facility that provides ambulatory services and is introducing a preventive health care program. The program includes a sliding fee scale based on ability to pay and use of paraprofessionals to extend service. - Bootheel Area of Mississippi. Residents of six rural counties in poverty-ridden southeastern Missouri have established a community controlled and managed credit union providing savings, loans and financial counseling to over 900 black and white low-income members and their families. They have started the first community-controlled legal aid program providing legal assistance to low-income people in the areas of welfare, consumer affairs, housing, employment discrimination and law reform. They have built the first black community owned and managed supermarket in Missouri, serving 275 families. *- Legal Services for Hungry Americans, New York City. The CHD grant has enabled the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) to work with other poor people’s groups for basic changes in governmental institutions that administer food assistance programs. FRAC successfully sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture to release $278 million in funds appropriated by Congress for the Food Stamp Program for fiscal 1973. CHD-funded projects in these and other areas, such as education, transportation and communications, “all have the ultimate goal of building human community, of enabling people to come together to solve their own common problems,” Father McNamara said. Recently, announcing grants to projects in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.), including $46,850 to the Neighborhood Development and City-Wide Organizing Project in Wilmington, Del., Father McNamara said: “These projects embody many of the campaign’s high priority criteria for funding. He gave the example of the Carolinas Brown-Lung Project in Columbia, S.C., which received $27,500 from the campaign. “Brown-lung is an emphysema-like disease which strikes people who work in the cotton mills,” he said. “In this area of Carolina, there are some 25-30,000 persons who can’t work because they have the disease. “Up to this time, they couldn’t collect workmen’s compensation, because they couldn’t prove that brown-lung was occupationally cause. The grant of the campaign may release around $800 million in benefits owed to Romans Warned Of Corfimunism ROME (NC) - Pope Paul VI has warned Romans not to make compromises with the “inadmissable formulas” of communism and Marxism. The Pope, at Holy Year Mass for Rome, did not mention communism or Marxism by name. But he clearly associated himself with widely publicized statements against compromising with Marxism and communism made recently by his vicar for the Rome Diocese, Cardinal Ugo Poletti. “Basic Human Right” WASHINGTON (NC) - Man’s “basic human right” to housing requires living space “available in a manner consistent with human dignity,” not just a roof over his head, according to Msgr. Francis Lally, secretary 7 for Social Development and World Peace of the U.S. Catholic Conference, who made his comments at a symposium on World Housing Needs and Environment at American University here. Since 1970, more than $24 million from such collections have made possible the funding of about 900 projects by the national CHD. One-fourth of the amount collected in each diocese remains in the diocese to fund local anti-poverty programs. Last year, the total income to the national CHD, which consisted of three-fourths of the amount collected in the dioceses, of interest, special gifts and sales of printed materials and films, came to $6,219,000. The Southern Cross DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER “For example, the Wilmington-based project is bringing people of different racial and economic groups together to build a strong community organization that will identify common problems - and attempt to solve them. This type of effort has always received high consideration in CHD’s funding.” Additional criteria require that most of those benefitting from a project be from low-income groups and that poor people themselves have the dominant voice in the planning and implementing of the project. Father McNamara said also that funding is granted primarily to those projects that have been able to secure adequate funding from other sources, governmental or private, and to projects that demonstrate an ability or potential to bring about long-term institutional change. “We want to go after the causing problem of poverty, rather than fund temporary measures for a few people for a short time,” Father McNamara PEOPLE . . . HOPE -- “People together with hope” is the theme of the 1975 Campaign for Human Development fundraising plea. An elderly woman is among the people pictured on the campaign’s 1975 poster. The campaign, a self-help project for the poor, depends on parish collections every year (Nov. 23 this year) to fund its projects. (NC Photo) m HEADLINE HOPSCOTCH ft: Catholic Schools Cost Less CHICAGO (NC) - A recent survey of public and Catholic school systems in Illinois indicates that it costs, on the average, nine times more to administer public school systems than it does Catholic schools, on a per pupil basis. Human Development Drive Officials Hopeful For 1975