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The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 57 No. 17 Thursday, April 22,1976 Single Copy Price — 15 Cents
PILGRIMS JAM SQUARE -- St. Peter’s Square is
packed by thousands of pilgrims as Pope Paul VI gives
the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” blessing on Easter. In his
noontime message, the Pope staunchly defended
Christ’s physical resurrection. (NC Photo)
AUGUSTA-APRIL 24th
Convention Workshops Announced
BY TICKI LLOYD
The swank Executive House in
Augusta, site of the 37th DCCW Annual
Convention will abound with activity on
April 23, 24, 25 as women from the
Diocese of Savannah gather with Bishop
Lessard and priests and sisters to witness
a program of loving and learning.
Mrs. William A. Kempton, DCCW
President, stated that the five
concurrent Workshops scheduled for
Saturday, April 24, will offer an
opportunity for individual participation
in specific areas of concern. Individuals
may choose the Workshop best suited
for their needs.
The Church Communities Workshop
under the leadership of Mrs. P. Jones
Robinson, of Macon, Vice Chairman for
Church Communities Commission will
be held in the Sales Office of the
Convention Center. All Workshops
begin at 3:30 p.m. following the 2:30
p.m. business meeting.
The International Affairs Workshop
will be led by Mrs. William Schneider of
Savannah, International Affairs
Chairman of the Savannah Deanery.
This session will take place in one of the
living rooms adjacent to the swimming
pool.
SA VANN AH Mi Y 7-8
In the Italian Room, the Family
Affairs Workshop will have as its leader,
Mrs. Robert Delameter of Savannah,
Family Affairs Commission Chairman of
DCCW.
Mrs. Eugene V. Smith, DCCW
Chairman Organization Services will
conduct the Organization Service
Workshop in the Spanish Room.
Portions of this Workshop will be
presented by Mr. John Markwalter,
Editor of the Southern Cross and by
Rev. Joseph Stranc, Diocesan Vicar for
Communications.
Mr. Markwalter, in keeping with the
bicentennial theme, has chosen as his
subject “The Catholic Press in our
Diocese: Past and Present.” Father
Stranc will present a film and slides on
communications.
The French Room will be the setting
for the Community Affairs Commission
under the leadership of Mrs. I.J. Terry,
Community Affairs Chairman DCCW.
Sister Julian Griffin, VSC, Diocesan
Vicar for Social Affairs will present a
film. Also on the program will be Miss
Margaret Harrison of Albany, DCCW
Liaison with the Social Apostolate, and
Mrs. A.T. Cyganiewicz, also of Albany.
Mrs. Cyganiewicz is DCCW Liaison with
Girl Scouts.
A panel of five persons who work
under the Diocesan office for Social
Affairs will be on the same program
presenting a specific area of Social
Service encouraging the women in the
Diocese to become more involved in
church and community affairs.
The panel consists of Sister Catherine
Moore of Savannah, Prison Ministry;
Sister Maireid, Direct Services,
Columbus; Sister Dorothy of
Waynesboro, Rural Involvement; Mrs.
Wendy Lockwood, Macon, Direct
Services, Macon; and Mr. Ron
Bonitatibus, Augusta, Legislation
Process.
For those who may have misplaced
copies of convention articles we present
a brief summary of events.
Opening on Friday, April 23,
convention registration will take place
in the hotel lobby from 5 p.m. to 7
p.m., with a party following at St.
Mary’s Parish Hall. Registration again on
Saturday, April 24 from 10 a.m. to 2
p.m. The Walking Tour begins shortly
after 10 a.m. and an optional Mass at
Most Holy Trinity Church follows.
After the tour, Augusta Deanery
members will serve a sandwich buffet.
(Continued on page 7)
Fr. Brown Theology Seminar Speaker
Father Raymond E. Brown, S.S., well
known theologian and biblical scholar,
will be the featured speaker at the
annual Theology Seminar to be held this
year on May 7th and 8th in Savannah.
Father Brown is Professor of Biblical
Studies at Union Theological Seminary
in New York City. His topic at the
Seminar, “We Have Seen His Glory,”
will be a study of the Gospel according
to John.
The Seminar will open on Friday May
7th, at 1:00 PM, with Registration at St.
Vincent’s Academy Gymnasium, in
downtown Savannah. Lectures will be
given on Friday afternoon and evening
and during Saturday morning. The
seminar will conclude with a Liturgy at
noon.
Father Brown describes the Gospel of
John as “the most adventurous theology
in the New Testament.” He will start
with a basic analysis of the formation of
the Gospel, seeking to situate the
Fourth Gospel in the theological
spectrum of the late first century. He
will discuss the different ways in which
Johannine views of Christ and the
Christian community have affected
subsequent Christian thought,
comparing these to other New
Testament views in order to come up
with a proper evaluation of the
contribution of the Johannine school of
writers. Individual passages in the
Gospel will be chosen and commented
on to illustrate the uniqueness and
grandeur of the Fourth Gospel.
Father Brown is the author of some
ten books on the Bible, including a
two-volume commentary on John’s
Gospel in the Anchor Bible series. He
has been awarded honorary doctorates
in theology by the Protestant university
faculties of Edinburgh and Uppsala. In
1972 he was the only American named
by Pope Paul VI to the newly
reconstituted Roman Pontifical Biblical
Commission, an appointment accorded
to scholars “outstanding for their
learning, prudence, and Catholic regard
for the magisterium of the Church.”
He has lectured in nations all over the
world, including Australia, New
Zealand, Japan, the Philippines, Britain,
and Europe.
The Seminar is open to all interested
persons, with a Registration fee of
$3.00. Further information is available
from St. John’s Center (Department of
Christian Formation), Grimball Point
Road, Savannah, Ga. 31406.
Protestant Women’s Group
Formed To Fight
WASHINGTON (NC) - A leader of a
newly formed Protestant women’s
pro-life organization has charged that
religiously oriented pro-abortion groups
are using the issue in an “attempt to
drive a wedge between Protestant and
Catholic Christians.”
Mrs. Marjory Mecklenburg of
Minneapolis, a member of the advisory
board of the national women’s Task
Force for Life (WTFL), made the charge
as the new group elected officers at a
meeting here.
According to Mrs. Mecklenburg, “We
cannot keep silent and allow an absurd
statement such as ‘Protestants think
human life begins at viability,’ ” a claim
which she says was made by a member
of the Religious Coalition for Abortion
Rights (RCAR), “to go unchallenged.”
The president of the task force, Mrs.
Judith Fink of Pittsburgh, also attacked
the contention that Protestants are
generally pro-abortion.
“Some of our Protestant
denominations have been maniplated at
executive levels into actively promoting
abortion legalization,” said Mrs. Fink.
“However, the committed Christians in
the pews are recoiling from this blatant
disregard of the teachings of Christ,”
she added.
Dr. Mildred Jefferson, a Boston
physician prominent in the national
pro-life movement, called on “Every
member of a Protestant denomination
who finds the name of their church in
any ‘coalition’ described as ‘for abortion
rights’ (to) insist that the members’
names on such lists be represented as
Abortion
individuals,” and ask that the
denomination’s name be removed from
such lists.
According to Dr. Jefferson, a
Methodist, silence “is being interpreted
as consent to allowing the acceptance of
abortion to gain recognition as a
Ifrotestant promotion.”
Mrs. Jean Garton, WTFL secretary,
“abortion advocacy is a departure from
the historical . . . position of the
Protestant churches. Until the late
1960s, when the secular push for
legalized abortion began, it was
unthinkable among church people to
encourage the killing of unborn babies.
We must re-evaluate where we now
appear to stand, and correct the wro*>,;s
done by those few who would make tlie
world believe we have repudiated our
heritage.”
Committee Urged: ‘Fight Abortion’
NEWPORT, R.I. (NC) - The former
Speaker of the ‘ U.S. House of
Representatives told the Democratic
Platform Committee that the “natural
home” of most pro-life people is the
Democratic party - but instead, those
people “feel disfranchised along with
the unborn.”
John W. McCormack, House Speaker
from 1962 to 1970, urged his party to
“reaffirm life,” saying that “as a party
we ignore this challenge at our peril.”
adoption of a plank for the Democratic
paltform backing a mandatory human
life amendment.
Former speaker McCormack did not
endorse a particular amendment, but
asked the platform committee “To
hammer out in clear, simple language
for all to see, a statement affirming
anew the basic premise on which this
nation was founded. That basic premise
was not convenience for some at the
expense of life itself for others,” he
added.
McCormack asked whether that
“newly proclaimed right” could “justify
a 24, 26 or 28 week baby being lifted
alive from the sanctuary of a moth »'s
womb or poisoned to death by a toxic
solution?”
Both speakers criticized the use of
the so-called “right of privacy” in the
Supreme Court abortion verdict.
APR. 29
Christopher J. Schreck
To Be Ordained Deacon
McCormack, who served his Boston
constituency for 42 years as
Congressman, criticized the Supreme
Court, saying “I know of nothing in the
nation’s history more callous and
shocking,” than the court’s language in
its abortion decisions of January, 1973,
when it overturned most states laws
restricting abortion.
The 85-year-old McCormack’s
statement, delivered here by Dr. Joseph
Stanton, a Boston physician, was one of
two pro-life messages heard by the
platform committee at its Eastern
regional meeting - one of four such
gatherings out of which a draft platform
will be constructed for submission to
the delegates to the Democratic national
convention in July.
McCormack’s call was echoed by
Nellie J. Gray, president of the March
for Life, who said the party “has
become too readily associated as the
party ‘for abortion’ and other far-out
utilitarian concepts” -- such as
euthanasia.
Miss Gray, a lawyer from Washington,
D.C., criticized party leadership for
acquiescing in “the killing of an
estimated one million innocent preborn
human beings annually.”
Christopher J. Schreck of Savannah
will be ordained a deacon for the
Diocese of Savannah on April 29, 1976,
at the North American College in Rome.
Chris, son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph C.
Schreck, attended Cathedral Day School
and St. John Vianney Seminary in
Savannah and graduated from St. John
Vianney Seminary High School in
Richmond, Virginia.
In 1970 he entered the College of
William and Mary of Virginia where he
obtained his BA in Latin and Greek. He
was elected to Phi Beta Kappa during
his Senior year at William & Mary.
In 1973 he began studies in the
School of Theology at the Gregorian
University in Rome where he is
currently in attendance.
Christopher J. Schreck
She said “much of this killing is done
with tax dollars,” and called for
“straight talk about .. .other
disparagement of human beings,
including fetal experimentation,
experimentation on institutionalized
persons, euthanasia, invasion of school
cirricula.”
“There is a stinking sickness in our
land,” Miss Gray said and she urged
HEADLINE
HOPSCOTCH
Complex Regulations
FR. RAYMOND E. BROWN, S.S.
WASHINGTON (NC) - Federal regulations have become so burdensome that “I
wish we could give back all the federal funds we’ve ever taken,” Jesuit Father Robert
Henle, president of Georgetown University, told a press conference. “We’re not
opposed to strings or accountability,” Father Henle said. But, he said, “the
complexities, the mass and the contradictions” of federal regulations are costing the
schools hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of time and threaten
their independent identities. Father Henle and other college presidents called for more
consultation with the schools in determining what is and is not administratively
practical and for reversal of a trend toward complex regulation.
Petition Soviet Leaders
HAMBURG, West Germany (NC) - Some 300 experts on mental illness, endorsing a
report by Amnesty International on cruelty to political and religious prisoners in the
Soviet Union, have petitioned Soviet leaders to stop confining dissidents in mental
institutions. The report by Amnesty International, a London-based organization
concerned with the fate of prisoners and others suffering political persecution, said
that some 10,000 persons suffer under inhuman conditions in prisons and mental
institutions in the Soviet Union “as a direct consequence of their political or religious
stand.”
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