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PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, January 6,1977
US Episcopal Women’s
Ordination This Month
NEW YORK (NC) -- When the
Episcopal Church starts ordaining
women to the priesthood after its new
ordination canon takes effect Jan. 1,
one of the largest groups of women
priests will come from the 10-county
diocese of New York.
The first woman nationally to cross
the line into the formerly all-male
domain is a Midwesterner, Jacqueline
Means of Indianapolis. But 10 of an
estimated 25 scheduled to receive Holy
Orders across the country in January
will be attached to New York, an
Episcopal stronghold which has
remained relatively calm throughout the
recent storm over ordaining women. An
additional three will be ordained later in
the year.
Controversy has swirled around three
of them. But for the most part, the 13
women now making ordination plans in
New York have been quietly working as
deacons in parishes or at hospitals or
colleges.
In an interview with NC News,
Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore of New
York outlined his plans for the Rev.
Carter Heyward and the Rev. Emily
Hewitt, who were ordained in 1974 in
an “irregular” ceremony. Their orders,
he said, would be “recognized” in a
liturgical ceremony Jan. 9 at the
Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
“I will say in the ceremony that since
they were ordained and now have been
recognized by the bishop and the
standing committee, and since the
Church has given permission to ordain
women, they are now recognized as
priests in good standing,” he said.
The recognition of the Revs.
Heyward and Hewitt, who live in
Cambridge, Mass., will be part of a
service at which Sister Mary Michael
Simpson, a counselor on the Cathedral
staff, will be ordained using the revised
ordination rite.
POPE SA YS:
BY JOHN MUTHIG
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Before
solemnly imparting his Christmas
blessing to what he called “a restless
civilization,” Pope Paul VI declared that
Christians should honor the “dawning
life of man” in the Christmas feast.
Wearing resplendent white vestments
and a gold and white miter, Pope Paul
read the special Christmas blessing from
a richly embossed lectionary as millions
worldwide heard the ceremony on
television and radio.
Before appearing on the main
balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica for the
blessing “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city -
Rome - and the world), Pope Paul
celebrated the third Mass of Christmas
with worshippers from all continents
inside the basilica.
Earlier that same day he quietly
celebrated the second Mass of Christmas
- the Mass of the Shepherds - in his
private chapel, decorated by leading
contemporary Italian artists.
The Pope opened the Christmas
celebrations with a midnight Mass in St.
Peter’s, viewed on television by an
estimated 800 to 900 million people in
about 40 countries.
At the midnight Mass, Pope Paul told
the throngs that faith should
“strengthen our honest dialogue with
the modern world which vacillates in
persisting doubts.”
The solitary figure seated under
Bernini’s monumental canopy then
exhorted Christians to live the two-fold
formula for Christian life: “A wise
consistency between thought and action
required of those who call themselves
Christians, and a genuine ability to
understand and communicate in all
proper and friendly social
relationships.”
The Pope, who was assisted during
the Latin-language Mass by seminarians
from Rome’s North American college,
In the period after the irregular
Philadelphia ordinations, relations
became strained between Bishop Moore
and the Revs. Heyward and Hewitt.
Disregarding the bishop’s wishes that
they not try to function as priests in the
diocese until the convention vote, they
concelebrated a Eucharist in 1974 at the
interdenominational Riverside Church.
The bishop again was in the eye of a
storm after he ordained an
acknowledged lesbian, Ellen Barrett, to
the diaconate in December, 1975. Two
Southern dioceses objected to the
House of Bishops, and called for a
censure of Bishop Moore, but the
documents died in committee. Instead,
a resolution calling for study of the
ordination of men or women
homosexuals was approved and sent to
the Commission on the Church and
Human Affairs.
“I had a good deal of flak,” Bishop
Moore related. “I’m not taking any
stand on anyone’s homosexual activity.
The issue is whether because they have
declared their homosexuality, they
could be ordained. I say yes.”
Bishop Moore will ordain Ms. Barrett,
a nonsalaried deacon of St. Mark’s
Church, Berkeley, Calif., a college
librarian and active member of
Episcopal gay organization, on Jan. 10.
She and Deacon Annette Ruark will be
ordained at the Church of the Holy
Apostles.
Several of the women priests to be
ordained in the next few months are the
wives of priests. The Rev. Margaret
Muncie, wife of the Rev. Stephen Bolle
of St. Luke’s Church in Katonah, N. Y.,
has been chaplain at Vassar College. She
hopes to be ordained in April.
“But, I’m not quite sure when,
because I’m very, very pregnant, and the
baby is due in February,” she said.
Should
said that Christ’s birth must be present
to Christians “even in life’s bitter hours
and when the liturgy is celebrated in
sorrow.”
Ancient pomp and ceremony
surrounded the traditional noon “Urbi
et Orbi” blessing of the Pope to tens
of thousands gathered in St. Peter’s
Square.
The Swiss guard, dressed in their
yellow, blue and red uniforms said to
have been designed by Michelangelo,
carried swords, pikes and halberds in a'
military procession in the square.
They were joined by military bands
and troops from Italy’s armed forces,
who greeted the Pope with salutes and
trumpet flourishes.
As the bells of hundreds of Roman
churches sounded, Pope Paul called on
“those who live in the shadow of a
restless civilization that is magnificent
and fascinating but often forgetful of its
transcendent and irrevocable vocation”
to “lift up their heads to the piercing
and radiant light of a brother.”
“Brethren, let us honor in the birth
of Christ the dawning life of man,” the
Pope intoned from the basilica’s central
balcony, festooned in maroon-colored
velvet.
“Let us honor infancy, it too a
creature of God, the joy of society,” he
continued.
“Let us honor women, equal in
dignity to men and called to the beauty
of the privileged love of consecrated
virginity, or more often to that likewise
sacrosanct love of conjugal life and to
the incomparable mystery of
motherhood.”
“Let us honor the young, to whom
the young Jesus is a brother ... let us
honor man in the fullness of his
manhood, in which Jesus was an
example of work, of life in society and
of the farsighted wisdom that looks
Christians
Pro-Life Brochure Prepared
WASHINGTON (NC) - An
educational brochure detailing the
meaning and impact of the U.S.
Supreme Court’s 1973 abortion verdicts
has been prepared by the U.S. bishops’
Committee for Pro-Life Activities.
Msgr. James T. McHugh, director of
the committee’s secretariat, called the
borchure part of the total prolife
educational effort, one of the primary
aims of which is to demonstrate the
humanity of the unborn child and its
right to legal protection.
The four-page brochure is designed
for distribution at Masses on Jan. 22
and Jan. 23. Diocesan directors of
pro-life activities will assist in getting
the brochures to all parishes throughout
the country’s 168 dioceses.
The U.S. bishops have all been sent
copies of the brochure and have been
asked to call it to the attention of
priests’ senates and pastors.
Jan. 22, 1977, will mark the fourth
anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s
decisions which overturned most state
laws restricting abortions.
Photo and Text by Carl J. Pfeifer
(Copyright, 1976, NC News Service)
LOVERS
Two young lovers . . . walk along together . . . absorbed in one
another ... as they round a bend . . . and walk into a woods.
Where does their path lead? . . . What lies around the bend of life’s
winding path? . . . What does their future hold?
What lies ahead . . . remains hidden from them . . . What is to come . . .
is veiled with uncertainty . . . What awaits them in life’s shadowed
woods . . . cannot be guessed.
But they walk into the unknown . . . together . . . trusting in their
mutual love ... as source of strength ... as unfailing guide ... as grounds
for hope.
Love is all that ... Love is stronger than life’s fiercest obstacles . . .
surer guide than reason ... a firmer ground of hope than power ... or
riches.
For love . . . partakes of God . . . who is life’s surest ground . . .and
unfailing light.
“Love bears all. . . believes all. . . hopes for everything . . . endures all
things . . . Love never fails.” (I Corinthians 13:7)
r >
An Ancient
But Current Prayer
BY FR. JOSEPH CHAMPLIN
—1 /
From the roof, six floors up, of our
North American College we have a
superb panoramic view of Rome. In fact
the rector, Newark, New Jersey native
Msgr. Harold Darcy, believes one can see
better from here than even from the top
of St. Peter’s because we are able also to
study the great dome of that basilica
which the person there obviously
cannot do.
Looking out over the city this
morning gave me a sensation of being
touched by the past, the present, and
the future.
In Rome, the past certainly stands
out before your eyes. Everywhere you
pass pre-Christian ruins, from thick
walls and still standing gates to
aqueducts and amphitheaters. The
location of chariot races like the one
filmed in Ben-Hur is clearly visible and
but a stone’s throw away as you drive
by in a small Fiat.
You also capture the martyr
atmosphere of those first Christian
centuries. Carved in Latin letters on an
upper side of our building is this phrase
which really says it all: “A happy
Rome, you have been consecrated by
the glorious blood of your two leaders.”
The catacombs and other churches
remind us that many Christians in every
age have followed the footsteps of St.
Peter and St. Paul by pouring out their
lives for the sake of Jesus.
St. Peter’s itself, but a five-minute
walk down the hill from the college,
brings us through many past centuries
into the present and onto the future.
Tomorrow, for example, Pope Paul will
canonize a saint, declaring that this holy
servant of God who labored perhaps
only a generation or so ago, now enjoys
the vision of our Father in heaven and
intercedes for us.
Holy Mass similarly links together the
past, present and future. In the
Constitution of the sacred liturgy,
article 45 reminds us: “At the Last
Supper, on the night he was betrayed,
our Saviour instituted the eucharistic
sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he
did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice
of the cross throughout the ages until he
should come again, so to entrust to his
beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial
of his death and resurrection: a
sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a
bond of charity, a paschal banquet in
which Christ is consumed, the mind is
filled with grace, and a pledge of future
glory is given to us.”
The eucharistic prayer through which
we celebrate this sacrifice likewise
contains elements which are both old
and new.
The Sanctus, for example, was added
at a very early stage in the development
of Mass. The inspiration behind that
acclamation came from the Old
Testament prophet Isaiah (6,3) who had
a vision of the Lord and heard Seraphim
crying out: “Holy, holy, holy is the
Lord of hosts ... All the earth is filled
with his glory.”
The Benedictus which follows
immediately after looks beyond and
above us. That song of praise takes its
inspiration and origin from sections of
the Book of Revelation or Apocalypse
like this one in 5,13: “To the one seated
on the throne, and to the Lamb, be
praise and honor, glory and might,
forever and ever.”
Eucharistic prayer II, made public
with two others in 1968, has roots in
the very ancient past. It is substantially
the text Hippolytus of Rome wrote
down around the year 215.
However, not all the developments or
additions in our echaristic prayer
formula throughout the centuries were
positive and beneficial. Thus, to
illustrate, the silent canon with prayers
recited only by the priest and in a
subdued tone complicated the liturgy’s
structure and reduced the people’s
participation.
The Council Fathers understood this.
Yet they were most careful to insist that
the Mass reforms reflect accurately our
past and ancient tradition. Article 50, as
a consequence, reads:
Honor ‘Dawning Life Of Man’
beyond the scene of the senses and of
temporal phenomena.”
Then finishing the litany, the Pope
urged, “Let us honor life that has died
in justice to which Christ guarantees His
peace and His wonderful resurrection.”
The life of Christian humanism, the
Pope promised, is slated for “terminal
happiness.”
Looking out over the crowds and the
panorama of the Eternal City, Pope Paul
explained that it is not Christian
humanism which “motivates many
people of our time, who are inebriated
with the illusion of being able to
produce a humanism that springs only
from scientific progress and social
evoluation.
“They forget . . . the innate
insufficiency of man to be perfect in
himself and the inextinguishable thirst
that destines him to find in God that
infinite satisfaction of which he is
constitutionally in need.”
The Pope’s blessing, and the plenary
indulgence attached, were extended to
those who followed the ceremony on
radio or television.
After the blessing the Pope extended
Christmas greetings in 12 languages,
including Russian, Chinese, Latin, Polish
and Swahili.
“The rite of the Mass is to be revised
in such a way that the intrinsic nature
and purpose of its several parts, as well
as the connection between them, may
be more clearly manifested, and that
devout and active participation by the
faithful may be more easily achieved.
“For this purpose the rites are to be
simplified, due care being taken to
preserve their substances. Parts which,
with the passage of time, came to be
duplicated or were added with little
advantage, are to be omitted. Other
parts which suffered loss through
accidents of history are to be restored
to the vigor they had in the days of the
holy fathers as may seem useful or
necessary.”
Copyright NC Newsservice, 1977
—————————
Copyright (c) 1977 by NC News Service
ici- •' LIFEI]\
music ; ‘-A
BY THE DAMEANS
Stand Tall
At times like these people have a crucial choice to make - will they remember
the past more then they face the future? Will they allow the memory of the pain
to color their lives to such an extent that they never really get over it?
Never been this blue, never knew the meaning of heartache,
But then again, I never lost at love before.
Somewhere down the road maybe all those years will find some meaning,
I just can’t think about them now, or live them out anymore.
Some people walk around never forgetting (and never letting us forget) their
trials and tribulations. They feel that life has been unfair, that they have had
more than their share of problems.
Stand tall, don’t you fall,
For God’s sake don’t go and do something foolish.
All you’re feeling right now is silly human pride,
Stand tall, don’t you fall,
Don’t do something you might regret later.
You’re feeling it like everyone, it’s silly human pride.
When something is painful, it hurts. There’s no doubt about it, and no running
away from it, and no denying it. The only thing that can get us through such
times is the conviction that no matter how tough things get to be, they aren’t
the whole story of our lives. We are still worthwhile people even with our
problems, and we can still stand tall.
Never lasted so long, through so much or through so many,
I just can’t believe I could throw it all away.
Sometimes late at night, when there’s nothing here except my piano,
I’d almost give my hands to make you see my way.
We’ve got to be able to look past today, believing that life is still meant to be
happy for us. We can’t keep thinking about the bad times or live them out
anymore. It’s important to think positively, to do the things we enjoy, to go on
living life instead of enduring it.
Written & performed by B. Cummings
(c) 1976
Shillelagh Music Co. BMI
We can’t spend our time trying to figure out what went wrong, or why certain
things happened to us. Some things we will never understand, and we just mess
up our minds if we continually think about them. We have to trust that
“somewhere down the road, maybe all those things will find some meaning.”
What do you do with a broken heart? What do you do when you’re so blue
that it seems the pain will never go away? What do you do when the bottom falls
out of your life and you don’t know what to do?
To know that someone loves us is a great help in getting through the rough
spots. We know that we are no longer alone and helpless when someone walks
with us.
Burton Cummings reflects the sadness of heartache, and at the same time sings
to himself about how important it is to “stand tall” even in bad times.
We all get thrown for a loop from time to time. Just when we think we’ve got
things under control, when things are going fine, and we’re happy about life in
general, wham! Something unexpected comes along and throws us off stride,
confuses us and maybe even causes a lot of pain and anguish. Everyone of us can
recall such experiences from our own lives.
As Christians our hope is in a Father who has created us lovable and will make
sense out of all the loose ends of our lives. He is one who never stops believing in
us even when we doubt ourselves, and who promises to make us so happy that
we won’t ever remember what used to bother us.
(All correspondence should he directed to: The Dameans; P. O. Box 2108; Baton Rouge,
La. 70821.)