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PAGE 3-The Southern Cross, December 16,1976
General Absolution Given To Thousands At Mass
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (NC) -- More than
11,500 persons on Dec. 5 attended a
nationally unprecedented Day of
Reconciliation liturgy here at which
general absolution was granted in a
move to woo inactive Catholic back into
full communion with the Church.
Many of those who attended the
two-hour-long ceremony in the
Mid-South Coliseum said they received
Communion during the liturgy for the
first time in years. Bishop Carroll T.
Dozier of Memphis, who began planning
for the unique service last June, said he
was delighted “with this great
outpouring of love and forgiveness and
deep reconciliation that we saw here
today.”
“It was a clear demonstration that we
accomplished all the dreams which we
had begun to think about last June,” he
added.
A similar liturgy was also,
concelebrated on Dec. 12 in Jackson,
Tenn., for Catholics residing in the
northern area of the state.
For many of those who received the
Eucharist for the first time in years it
was a visibly emotional event. Some had
tears in their eyes as they returned to
their seats in the cavernous arena after
receiving Communion from one of the
POPE PA UL :
60 priests or lay ministers of the
Eucharist.
Traffic heading to the arena became
so heavy that it delayed the start of the
service by more than 30 minutes.
In his sermon, Bishop Dozier said:
“We promise one thing in return for
God’s love and mercy. We will truly
make the diocese of Memphis the Good
Samaritan on the banks of the
Mississippi, pouring the oil of mercy and
love unto our fellow man, healing those
whom we can reach.”
At the close of the service, the
audience broke into spontaneous
applause as the bishop left the elevated
altar where he had concelebrated Mass
and moved into the crowd to shake
hands and exchange greetings.
“It was a beautiful day,” the bishop
said. “The mood and the feeling of the
people demonstrated an interior
spiritual motivation. Their attitude
spoke clearly of the concept of
reconciliation - reconciliation with
God, reconciliation with each other and
reconciliation with themselves.”
The bishop said the liturgy was “a
joyful one” and explained that “you
could sense that the people who were
there were glad that they had come.”
After reciting the words of general
absolution -- which were echoed by the
60 priests spread out in the crowd - the
bishop prescribed the singing of the
Gloria as the penance.
A few weeks after plans for the
liturgy were announced, the head of the
diocesan marriage tribunal reported a
“marked increase” in the number for
applications of marriage annulments
reaching his office.
Many Catholics are forbidden to
participate in the full sacramental life of
the Church because of marriages that
conflict with canon law. In such cases,
usually involving divorce and
remarriage, an annulment of the first
marriage is required before the person
may receive the sacraments. The
tribunal handles applications for
annulment.
To publicize the liturgy, two
half-page advertisements costing a total
of $1,700 were placed in a Memphis
daily. Some 150 persons reponded to an
invitation to call the Church
headquarters for further information.
“Most of those who called wanted to
know if there were any strings attached
to the general absolution,” said one
diocesan spokesman. “These mostly
were people who had just fallen away
Church Must Be 6 On Side Of Women’
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The Church
must be “on the side of women” who
are discriminated against on the job or
manipulated by power-seekers in
society, Pope Paul VI declared Dec. 8.
“Like the early Church, the Church
of today absolutely must be on the side
of women, especially when they are
demoted from the role of active and
responsible subject to that of passive,
insignificant object,” Pope Paul told
members of an Italian Christian
women’s organization here.
The 79-year-old Pope said the Church
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope Paul
VI said Dec. 6 that he was maintaining
for the time being a “thoughtful
silence” on the Detroit Call to Action
conference, called by the American
bishops in October.
Speaking from his apartment window
to a small group of pilgrims in St.
Peter’s Square, the Pope indicated that
the Call to Action was among several
events of “extreme interest in the life of
the Church.”
Other events he listed were the
current revision of the Vatican’s
Concordat with Italy and the rebellion
of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. The
Pope told several hundred pilgrims who
withstood a hailstorm to hear his words,
that he was “keeping a thoughtful
silence” on these and other current
events.
During a recent visit to the Vatican,
Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, president
of the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops (NCCB), and Bishop James
Rausch, NCCB general secretary,
discussed the Call to Action with high
Vatican officials.
Both denied that they had been
summoned to Rome to report on the
Detroit conference which generated
controversy over some of its
recommendations, such as those
is opposed to job discrimination, but
also to “even worse forms of
manipulation by the mass media,
society and the family.” ' t
“One could say that women represent
the easiest way for some people today
to call attention to their own tendency
toward violence and social injustice,”
the Pope charged.
According to the Pope, the “bitter
and even violent way of answering
back” which characterizes some
feminist groups can be “explained and
even partially understood” by attempts
favoring women’s ordination and
married priests, opposing right to work
laws, and calling for a complete ban on
nuclear weapons and on U.S. arms sales
abroad.
In his noontime talk, the Pope told
the group that the “spiritual weather
forecast” was much brighter than the
bad weather of Dec. 6.
“We see, for example, a reawakening
of religious and moral sensitivity in
some youth circles . . . We say ‘good for
you’ to those young people who
joyfully join in common prayer.”
Such youth, he said, “are perhaps
more aware and are more disposed to
give some external active social witness
than was the previous generation.”
The Pope also praised what he said
was a general willingness among
believers to “give a more generous, more
genuine and personal significance to the
Christian character of their lives than to
the customs they have inherited from
their families and from the
environment.”
He also lauded an upswing in
membership in Catholic organizations.
The Pope may have been thinking of the
recent news that membership in Italy’s
Catholic Action Movement increased
somewhat this year after suffering
several years of decline.
of others to manipulate the feminist
cause.
Pope Paul assured the group that the
“very lively” public debate about the
role of women is being followed “with
interest and trepidation” by the entire
Church.
“We fully believe that the
participation of women at various levels
of society must be not only recognized
but also promoted and above all
appreciated,” the Pope added.
He warned Christian women,
however, that the women’s movement
should not reject the natural differences
between the sexes.
“Women must not reject the fact that
they have their own nature . .. which
differentiates woman from man - not in
the sense of natural dignity, but rather
with regard to difference of functions,”
the Pope said.
“We must guard against a crafty
form of undervaluation of the female
condition through which the
diversifying traits written by nature in
both sexes are misunderstood,” warned
the Pontiff.
“It is part of the order of creation
itself that women fulfill themselves as
women - certainly not through a
context of mutual oppression with man,
but rather in harmonious and fruitful
integration, based on respectful
recognition of each other’s distinct
roles,” continued the Pope.
In his speech - one of the most
positive he has given on the topic of
women’s liberation -- the Pope asserted
that “Christianity, more than any other
religion, has given a special status of
dignity to women, right from its very
beginning.”
He said that the role of women in the
structure of the early Church was so
“remarkable that perhaps its essence has
not yet been clarified.”
f >
Call To Action Is Listed
Among Events Of Interest
from their Church. No marriage
problems. They just became lax for one
reason or another.”
The spokesman said the callers were
See Related Story
On Front Page
assured that they would not be required
to “go to Confession” before receiving
the general absolution and the
Eucharist.
They were told, however, they would
be expected to confess their sins to a
priest within a “reasonable time after
the liturgy.”
The use of general absolution in such
a ceremony attracted a great deal of
attention among clergymen and others,
not only in the United States but also
abroad.
Dozens of letters and telegrams were
sent to the bishop in recent weeks
seeking further information about the
planned liturgy and the general
absolution aspect.
Asked why he had decided upon the
use of general absolution, the bishop
said: “I read the new Rite of
Reconciliation and I found that it fitted
into this type of use. For so many years
I have heard people crying about ‘those
who no longer walk with us.’
“So, I decided that here was a
wonderful instrument we could use to
do something more than just talk about
those who ‘no longer walk with us’.”
Similar reconciliation efforts with
general absolution were used on a much
smaller scale recently in Great Britain.
One man, who had been away from
the sacraments for 22 years because of a
divorce and remarriage, told a reporter:
“This was the first time I went to
Communion in all that time. I had gone
to Mass regularly all those years and
never could go up to the altar rail to
receive. Today I did and I want to tell
you, it was some glorious feeling. I
already have begun the process of
getting an annulment of my first
marriage. I know I never would have
done it if I hadn’t gotten this boost.”
In his talks and writings on the
reconciliation crusade, Bishop Dozier
repeatedly stressed that it was not
aimed only at those Catholics who had
become lax in the practice of their faith.
“I feel this is a drive to have members
of families reconcile with each other,”
he said. “To have people who work
together become reconciled with each
other. Just "because you go to church
every Sunday doesn’t mean that you
don’t need reconciliation with
someone.”
Asked two hours before the start of
the liturgy how he felt the
reconciliation effort would fare, the
bishop replied: “It has already been a
greater success than I ever dreamed. It
has changed people in this diocese
already.”
Asked at the same time if he felt the
crusade and the general absolution on
which it was built might set a national
and international trend, the bishop said:
“I can see that possibility. And if it does
and if it helps people, then I am for it.”
There are about 45,000 Catholics in
the diocese of Memphis *• about 38,000
in the Memphis area and the rest
scattered throughout the northwest
section of the state. It is estimated that
another 15,000 Catholics in the area are
inactive.
RHODESIAN VIOLENCE VICTIMS - Missionary
Bishop Adolph G. Schmitt (left), 71, of Bulawayo,
Rhodesia, a priest and a nun, were killed by Rhodesian
terrorist while touring a remote area of the Bulawayo
diocese. A fourth member of the party, Missionary
Sister of the Most Precious Blood Sister Ermenfried
Knauer, 47, rests in Bulawayo hospital after being
wounded in the leg. She survived the attack by rolling
under the bishop's car and feigning death. (NC Photos)
Vocation Picture Seen Brighter
WASHINGTON (NC) - Most of the
80 vocation, directors of men’s religious
orders answering an informal survey said
vocations to their communities are
increasing or staying about the same, a
report published here said.
Thirty-three of the vocation directors
said vocations in their communities are
“on the increase and looking better for
the future” and 42 said vocations are
“staying about the same -- holding their
own,” according to the report of the
National Conference of 1 Religious
Vocation Directors of Men. Only five
said vocations are “decreasing - slowly
going down.”
The survey was conducted at the
recent Midwestern and Eastern regional
assemblies of the national conference.
The vocational trend cited most often
by the vocation directors was
application by candidates older than
those in the past.
The vocation directors said that those
applying had completed college and
worked after graduation and that their
average age was in the mid-20s.
Another trend noted by vocation
directors was greater interest among
members of their religious communities
in working to attract new members.
Others said more candidates of college
age are entering.
The vocation directors reported a
total of 4,405 candidates in formation
programs, including high school and
college seminaries, theologates,
novitiates and other training programs.
The most commonly cited means of
attracting vocations or sources of
vocations were contacts with members
of the religious community, and with
graduates of schools run by the religious
community, and literature and
advertising.
The vocation directors said
provincials of their religious
communities could help them by
stimulating the involvement of other
members of the community in
attracting people to the religious life.
Ways of doing this, they said, included
talking informally with community
members about vocations and formation
programs, encouraging local
communities to be aware of what they
can do to attract candidates and
stressing the question of vocations for a
definite period of time.
Lithuanians As Well As Soviet
Jews Suffer, Priest Says
CHICAGO (NC) « A Lithunian
Catholic priest took issue here with the
statement that the Jews have suffered
“more than anybody else” in the Soviet
Union.
“It all depends on what you use as a
yardstick,” said the priest, Father
Casimir Pugevicius, executive director of
Lithuanian American Catholic Services,
Maspeth, N.Y.
He told participants in the second
National Interreligious Consultation on
Soviet Jewry that he felt offended “at
least six times in the past 24 hours” by
comments that were as insensitive to the
Lithuanians’ problems as “serving pork
to Jews” at an ecumenical banquet.
One participant immediately
responded: “Now you are offending
me” and asked him to be more specific
about his complaints.
The U.S. Catholic bishops have
“made more statements in favor of Jews
than Lithuanians,” Father Pugevicius
said. The feeling is that the
Lithuanians’ problems are taken care
of, so “let’s help the Jews,” the priest
complained. He said he had never heard
the priests and Sisters who are working
on behalf of Soviet Jews speak out for
the Lithuanians.
Father Pugevicius was a member of a
panel on “Religious and Ethnic
Communities in the USSR,” one of
seven seminars held during the two-day
meeting.
Another panelist, Rabbi A. James
Rudin, assistant director of
interreligious affairs of the American
Jewish Committee (AJC), said the
Jewish community is not used to
dealing with oppression of other
minorities in the Soviet Union and that
the seminar on that topic was “a
pioneering effort” at this meeting.
There was opposition within the Jewish
community to scheduling this seminar,
he said.
That the U.S. Catholic bishops have
not paid enough attention to the
Lithuanians “is a matter the Jewish
community should know about,” Rabbi
Rudin said.
Attended by about 250 religious and
civic leaders from around the United
States, the consultation was a follow-up
to one held in 1972 which dealt
primarily with the problem of Jews
trying to obtain visas to leave the Soviet
Union. The 1976 meeting was attended
by more than twice the number that
attended in 1972, and by three times as
many Christians, Rabbi Rudin noted.
“Christians are beginning to realize
that human rights are at the center of
our problems,” he said.
Father Pugevicius acknowledged that
Jews “have broken some barriers”
which would make it easier to free
Lithuanians and others. He explained
that he did not mean to say that
Christians should not champion the
rights of Jews.
Another panelist, Dr. Thomas Bird,
professor of Slavic languages at City
University of New York and a Catholic,
said the Jewish community in the Soviet
Union “is uniquely disadvantaged. More
than identity is at stake, he said, their
very existence is being extinguished,
their nationality taken away. Jews are
“being systematically destroyed,” he
said.
Bird told the Jewish and Christian
participants: “The people who would
have you hate one another are
increasing day by day. I beg you to be
patient with one another and work with
one another.”
Rabbi Marc H. Tannenbaum, the
AJC’s national director of interreligious
affairs, one of the leaders of the
National Interreligious Task Force on
Soviet Jewry, addressed the closing
session of the two-day consultation.
“What we are grappling with here
today is nothing less than an effort to
stem the tide of a dehumanization that
is taking place throughout the world,”
Rabbi Tanenbaum said. He cited
examples of apathy in response to acts
of violence.
“I don’t believe that the prospect for ■
human survival in our time” has much
of a chance, unless there is “the deepest
turning of the human spirit,” he said.
“There are distinctive features in the
Soviet Jews that are a foretaste of what
can be possible for others in that
society,” he added.
One of the keynote speakers, Jesuit
Father Robert Drinan, a Democratic
member of Congress from
Massachusetts, said the United States
has an obligation to live up to the 1975
Helsinki agreement before putting
pressure on other governments, like that
of the Soviet Union, to do so.
The 35 nations that Signed the
agreement pledged to respect European
borders as they were at the end of
World War II, to renounce the use of
force as a general principle, to promote
the free circulation of information and
persons and to acknowledge the
principle of religious freedom. The 35
nations are to meet in Belgrade,
Yugoslavia, next September to report
on what they have been doing about the
agreement.
“We’d better get our house in order
before Belgrade or we’ll have no power
there whatsoever,” Father Drinan said.
We suggested that the United States
halt trade with the Soviet Union as a
means of pressuring that country into
permitting Jews to emigrate.
Father Drinan cited a recent item in
the Jerusalem Post about a decree in the
Soviet Union “that places new
restrictions on the right to worship” for
the first time in 46 years. It requires
that a person have a special permit for
each occasion when a religious service is
held, he said,
Although this applies to Christians
also, it places particular hardships on
Jews who frequently hold services in
their own homes, Father Drinan pointed
out. This new decree specifically
violates the Helsinki agreement, he said.