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Abortion Rulings Are Called Serious Blow
WASHINGTON (NC) -- Three new U.S. Supreme Court decisions on
abortion-related issues have prompted swift and severe criticism from Catholic officials
and other pro-life figures.
The court ruled, among other things, that states may not require parental consent in
the case of an unmarried minor, spousal consent in the case of a married woman,
before an abortion could be performed.
The president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), Archbishop
Joseph L. Bernardin of Cincinnati, called the ruling “a serious blow at parents and
families.”
He said that the decision “makes abortion more constitutionally significant than the
right of parents to rear their children.”
“For more than a century before Jan. 22, 1973, abortion was a socially abhorrent
crime proscribed by American law,” the archbishop said. “Since that date - the date
of the Supreme Court abortion decisions - it has moved to the status of a highly
favored constitutional ‘right.’ This about face offends both logic and morality,” he
went on.
The decision “gives abortion precedence over the right of husbands to participate
fully in all decisions affecting their marriages,” and will “remove an important,
intimate aspect of decision-making from the family and lodge it with third parties
totally unrelated to the family,” the Cincinnati archbishop added.
Ellen McCormack, the Merrick, N. Y., housewife who campaigned for the
Democratic presidential nomination largely on the abortion issue, called it “The most
horrendous decision they’ve yet made.”
Calling it “a terrible intrusion,” Mrs. McCormack - who received about 200,000
votes in the Democratic primary campaign - asked: “What agency of the state will act
as mother to the 13-year-old who has just had an abortion? Who will she turn to?”
“Please God, the people will rise up when they realize what this decision means,”
she added.
Her campaign manager, Frances Watson, also of Long Island, said: “The public must
challenge the authority of the court. Too many right-to-life people - and lawyers -- are
naive about the Supreme Court. We have a massive educational job ahead of us, and
until it’s done, we’ll just spin our wheels.”
From Berkeley, Calif., University of California law professor John T. Noonan Jr.
told NC News the verdicts represented “continuing agression by the court on the
family structure. They’re obviously still committed to the Roe and Doe mentality.”
Noonan, who has authored a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the
Constitution, was referring to the 1973 Roe and Doe decisions which struck down
most state laws governing abortion.
Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York, chairman of the Bishops’ Committee for
Pro-Life Activities, said the decisions “will serve to intensify a morally intolerable
situation.”
They will also “surely tend to weaken the mutual trust and understanding between
father and mother which is so fundamental to stable and happy family life,” and
“undermine the relationship between parents and children,” the cardinal noted.
“The intransigence of the court in opinions issued today emphasizes the absolute
necessity to obtain passage of a constitutional amendment to protect unborn human
life,” he went on, and called for an intensification of “efforts during this election year
to move the Congress more swiftly toward the passage of such a constitutional
amendment.”
Msgr. James T. McHugh, director of the secretariat of the bishops’ pro-life
committee, had specific criticism for Justice Harry Blackmun’s reasoning in the area of
“viability,” that is, the child’s capacity for survival outside the womb.
Calling Blackmun’s majority opinion “vague and confusing” in that area, Msgr.
McHugh pointed out that Blackmun calls it “a medical decision to be made in each
individual case . .. But he also refers continually to the error of (the 1973 decisions)
Roe and Doe holding that viability occurs between 24 and 28 weeks.”
The issue is not viability, said Msgr. McHugh. “Science shows that life begins at
conception,” and with no interference, birth will normally occur nine months later.
He was especially harsh with the court’s “tunnel vision approach ... in regard to
marriage and family relationships. The court “destroys our customary understanding
of parenthood,” and “deprives the young woman of the support of her family when
she needs it most.”
William Cox of Washington, director of the National Committee for a Human Life
Amendment, called the decision “very distressing.” It points up “the need for a human
life amendment to the Constitution,” he noted.
But one right to life leader, Nellie J. Gray of Washington, said that the new
decisions present a new opportunity for pro-life forces.
“I am exceedingly pleased,” said Miss Gray, an attorney who heads the March for
Life Committee, “that the court has seen the importance of written, informed consent
before a woman kills her child.”
This means, she continued, that “the mother must be told the physical state of the
child - its size, its age, the fact that its heart is beating - and also that the operation
does indeed tear apart the pre-bom child. Anything else could not constitute
‘informed consent.’ ”
“I urge every right to life group to work to get this written into their state abortion
laws,” Miss Gray said.
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 57 No. 26
Thursday, July 15,1976
Single Copy Price — 15 Cents
EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS SPEAKER - Mother
Teresa of Calcutta will be one of the speakers at the
41st Eucharistic Congress to be held next month in
Philadelphia. Mother Teresa will speak Friday, August
6th. Mother Teresa is pictured above as she greeted
visitors to the Quality of Life for the Handicapped
forum at last month’s UN Conference on Human
Settlements (Habitat) in Vancouver, Canada. (NC
Photo)
Father Douglas Clark
Ordained For Diocese
Savannah gained a new priest on
Saturday, July 3, as Bishop Raymond
W. Lessard imposed his hands on
Deacon Douglas Clark and invoked the
Holy Spirit to bless and consecrate him
for the service of others.
Mrs. Joseph C. Schreck directed the
choir, composed of 35 members of the
junior and senior classes of St. Vincent’s
Academy.
The musical program highlighted the
solemn moments of the ordination rite,
which included the reception of
Savannah seminarian Michael Lubinsky
as an official candidate for the
priesthood for this diocese and the
advancement to the ministry of acolyte
of John Lyons, Jr.
After the Bishop had chosen Douglas
and the people’s consent had been
manifested by applause, the ordinand
lay prostrate before the altar while the
choir and people called on all the saints
to pray for him that he might be
strengthened for his sacred duties.
Then the Bishop, followed by all the
(Continued on page 3)
Father Douglas Gark
MACON-JULY 31
“Hunger For Bread” Theme
For Eucharistic Pilgrimage
BY GERALD T. CANTWELL
"If a brother or sister be naked; if they lack
their daily nourishment and one of you says
to them: ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,
without giving them what is necessary for the
body, what good does it do?” (James 2:14).
St. James’ stricture against faith
without good works will underlie one of
the three themes upon which the
Savannah Diocese’s Eucharistic
Pilgrimage will focus in Macon on July
31.
Along with Hunger for God and
Hunger for the Spirit, the diocesan
observance of the 41st International
Eucharistic Congress will emphasize
humanity’s “Hunger for Bread” within
the context of the Congress’ overall
theme of “THE EUCHARIST AND
THE HUNGERS OF THE HUMAN
FAMILY.”
In their observance of this theme, the
celebrants will have recalled to them
Pope Paul’s admonition that the rich
must exercise great generosity, much
sacrifice, and unceasing effort if there is
to be a world “where freedom is not an
empty word and where the poor man
Lazarus can sit down at the same table
as the rich man.” “Let each one
examine his conscience, a conscience
that conveys a new message for our
times,” the Pope challenges. (On the
Development of Peoples).
Two of the Eucharistic day’s events
will remind the Savannah pilgrims of
their call to serve God in community; a
third will give them the opportunity of
at least token discharge of their
Christian obligations.
The partaking of the sparse meal at
noon will dramatically remind them of
the deficient diet of their
underprivileged brothers from whom
they and their bountiful table are often
separted only by a few blocks.
Immediately following the meal, Ms.
Barbara Clowers will present a program
emphasizing humanity’s “Hunger for
Bread”. It will call to mind that the
Eucharist is the celebration of Christians
in assembly. At the Eucharist each
individual drinks the blood and eats the
flesh of the Son of God within the
context of the common meal. So will
each individual be raised up as part of
the general resurrection. But, the
pilgrims will further reflect on the truth
that the eucharistic cup is the cup of the
new covenant and that covenant was
made with the “many”. And there will
follow the final, hard, logical truth that
insofar as the individual Christian
participates in the mission of extending
the covenant to the many through
righteousness, peace, joy, and justice,
to that extent the individual will share
in the common resurrection.
The pilgrims, finally, will be given the
opportunity to contribute to a money
collection, the proceeds of which will go
toward defraying the celebration’s
expenses and to easing the material path
of God’s poor in the diocese.
Franciscan Assignments
Bishop Raymond W. Lessard, of Savannah, has approved the following
personnel assignments of the Franciscan Friars, Holy Name Province,
effective immediately:
FATHER RAYMOND GOVERN as Pastor of St. Mary’s Parish, Americus.
FATHER VENARD MURPHY as Pastor of St. Augustine’s Parish,
Thomasville.
FATHER ALVIN MATTHEWS as Associate Pastor of St. Augustine’s
Parish, Thomasville.
FATHER RAYNER DRAY as Pastor of Our Divine Saviour Parish, Tifton.
Church Officials Express Concern At Death Penalty Ruling
(NC News Service)
Church officials and others from
around the country have expressed
concern that the U.S. Supreme Court’s
ruling upholding the death penalty
threatens the value and dignity of
human life.
The high court ruled July 2 that the
death penalty does not under all
circumstances violate the constitutional
ban against “cruel and unusual”
punishment.
The rulings came in challenges to
capital punishment laws in Georgia,
Florida, Texas, Louisiana and North
Carolina. In upholding those of the first
three and striking down the Louisiana
and North Carolina statutes, the court
said that the death penalty is
unacceptable when it is the mandatory
punishment for a crime, without
exception.
According to the Associated Press,
572 men and 10 women on death rows
in 30 states were awaiting the court’s
decision. The American Civil Liberties
Union estimates that almost 60 percent
of the condemned are non-white and
poor.
Citing the 1974 statement by the
U.S. bishops opposing capital
punishment, Francis J. Butler of the
Department of Social Development and
World Peace, U.S. Catholic Conference,
said, “This decision can only mean a
further erosion of the value of human
life and an increased brutalization of
our society.”
“It is important to note that in the
context of the actions which may be
taken as a result of this decision that
Christ teaches us that we must be
bearers of His love and forgiveness to
those who are most distant and
alienated from our society,” he said.
In Worcester, Mass., Bishop Bernard
J. Flanagan scored the court’s decision
on a number of points:
“I feel the restoration of the death
penalty at this time is counter to the
Christian crusade of respect for life,” he
said. “I question also whether the death
penalty is a deterrent to grave crime.”
Bishop Flanagan added that the death
penalty is applied unfairly, saying that
the “affluent and clever have often been
able to avoid it” while the “poor and
not so clever have not.”
Bishop Carroll T. Dozier of Memphis
asserted that the decision “reflects an
absence of up-to-date psychological data
in relationship to cruel and unusual
punishment.”
Noting that the court said that the
death penalty is not in itself cruel and
unusual punishment, Bishop Dozier said
tersely: “If the death penalty is not
cruel and unusual, what the hell is?”
In a prepared statement, Aryeh Neier,
executive director of the American Civil
Liberties Union, which strongly opposes
capital punishment said that “no system
of justice ... is infallible and that we
ought not to put people to death when
errors of judgment are unavoidable and
irreparable.
“And even if we had a perfect system
of justice, absolutely fair and absolutely
reliable, the intentional killing of people
by the state is barbarous in principle
and violates the fundamental
commitment to a decent and humane
society.”
The same point was stressed by
Bishop Ernest L. Unterkoefler of
Charleston, S. C., who said in an
interview that he accompanied six men
to the death chamber while a prison
chaplain at the Virginia State
Penitentiary in the 1940s.
“I still think personally that capital
punishment has certain barbarous
aspects to it,” he said. “The idea of the
electric chair and putting people to
death in this manner is abhorent to our
society in 1976.”