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Holy Week Services At The Cathedral
SUNDAY - APRIL 8 - PALM
SUNDAY - 10:00 A.M. The blessing of
Palms begins in the Chapel of Our Lady
with the Procession to the upper church
following the blessing. Bishop Raymond
W. Lessard will be the main celebrant of
the Mass. The Passion of Our Lord will
be read. Music for the ceremony will be
provided by the Cathedral Men’s Choir.
WEDNESDAY EVENING - 7:30 P.M.
- APRIL 11 - The Mass of The Chrism,
or the Blessing of Holy Oils will take
place. All the parishes of the area, both
clergy and laity, are participating in this
Mass. Special emphasis will be placed on
the use of the oils during the year - the
oil of the Catechumens and the oil of
the sick. Since this is also the occasion
on which each of the priests renews his
promise to priestly service, the bishop
will deliver a special homily. Music for
this occasion will be provided by a
combined choir from all parishes of the
city under the direction of Dr. J. Harry
Persse.
HOLY THURSDAY - APRIL 12 -
MASS OF THE LORDS SUPPER - 5:30
P.M. with Bishop Raymond Lessard as
main celebrant. The transfer of the
Eucharist to the Repository will
conclude this beautiful ceremony.
GOOD FRIDAY - APRIL 13 -
LITURGY OF THE HOURS - 12:00
NOON - Bishop Raymond W. Lessard
and priests will enter the sanctuary in
solemn silence. The reading of the
Passion, the unveiling and veneration of
the cross will take place. Chants and
hymns will be sung A Cappella by the
Men’s Choir. The ceremony concludes
with the Holy Eucharist.
STATIONS OF THE CROSS - GOOD
FRIDAY - 3:00 P.M. - The solemn
“Way of The Cross” will be led by Msgr.
Daniel J. Bourke.
EASTER VIGIL - APRIL 14-8:00
P.M. - Bishop Raymond W. Lessard will
bless the new fire and light the Easter
Candle on the plaza of the Cathedral,
entering in procession singing “Christ As
A Light.” The Exultet will be sung by
Brother Joseph Teston. Dr. Harry Persse
will direct the choir, made up of
members from several parishes, in
singing ancient chants and original
compositions for the Easter Vigil. Sr.
Mary Fidelis, RSM will lead the
congregational singing.
EASTER SUNDAY - APRIL 15 -
10:00 A.M. - Bishop Raymond W.
Lessard will be celebrant and homilist
for this joyous celebration. The
Cathedral Men’s Choir will provide
special Easter Music. Sr. M. Fidelis RSM
will lead the congregation in song.
Master of Ceremonies for all
occasions during this Holy Week will be
Rev. Daniel O’Connell. Mrs. Joseph
Schreck is the Cathedral Organist and
Choir Director.
All of the people of the city are
invited and encouraged to come to the
beautiful ceremonies at the Cathedral
this Holy Week.
The Southern Cross
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 60 No. 14 Form 3579 To: 601 E. 6th St. Waynesboro, Ga. 30830 Thursday, April 5,1979 Single Copy Price 15 Cents
Accident Stirs Catholic Anti-Nuclear Reaction
WASHINGTON (NC) - Several
Catholics active in the anti-nuclear
energy movement believe the health
hazards from the radiation leak at a
Harrisburg, Pa., nuclear power plant are
greater than most people believe.
The accident occurred at the Three
Mile Island nuclear plant near
Harrisburg on March 29. The chairman
of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Joseph Hendrie, said the damage to the
reactor core and escape of radioactive
gases made the accident the worst
nuclear accident in U.S. history.
Gov. Richard Thornburgh advised
pregnant women and pre-school
children to evacuate a four-county area
around the plant.
Spokesmen for the nuclear power
industry say the accident does not prove
that nuclear power is unsafe and Energy
Secretary James Schlesinger said that
LATROBE, PA - Rt. Rev. Egbert H.
Donovan, O.S.B., Archabbot of Saint
Vincent Archabbey and Chancellor and
Chairman of the Board of Directors of
Saint Vincent College, announced
March 26 he will be stepping down as
superior of the 132 year old monastic
community and institution of higher
learning as of midnight Sunday May 13,
1979. His petition was granted by
Abbot Martin Bume, O.S.B., president
of the American Cassinese Federation of
the Benedictine Order.
Archabbot Egbert, in announcing his
decision to the monks, stated “I
while the accident was serious, it
“underscores how safe nuclear power
has been in the past.”
Sister Rosalie Bertell, a Gray Nun of
the Sacred Heart who is a former cancer
research scientist, said statements that
the leak was low-level radiation with
little risk are misleading.
There is little risk of immediate
radiation poisoning or dying of cancer
from the levels reported at the plant,
but a serious risk of other health
damage, she said.
She noted that press reports said
radiation was three millirems an hour 10
miles from the plant. She said any
radiation is bad for the human body and
that exposure to three millirems an hour *
for 24 hours would do enough cell
damage to accelerate the aging process
by about a year.
recognize that the state of my health no
longer enables me to devote the time
and energy which the demands of the
office of Archabbot requires.”
Asked about his future plans, the
Archabbot said “in no way do I intend
to retire. I plan to continue serving the
Community as best I can. What area of
work this will be, I am not sure at the
moment.”
On November 21, 1967 he was
elected 8th Archabbot of Saint Vincent
and blessed January 7, 1968. Since his
election he worked toward a fuller
intergration of the over 200 member
This does not mean that a person
exposed to this level of radiation will
feel anything immediately or die a year
sooner, she said. She said it means that a
person will come down with a disease
such as arthritis, diabetes or heart
disease a year before he would have
otherwise.
Exposure to 72 millirems a day is the
equivalent of about three chest x-rays a
day and increases risk of leukemia by
about four percent -- “compounded
daily,” she said.
Sister Bertell said radiation at
Harrisburg will place the elderly and
people who are already suffering from
heart trouble or diabetes at greater risk.
Jesuit Father Albert Fritsch, who
works in Appalachia with the Citizens’
Energy Project, said the radiation will
do damage “for years to come.”
monastic community called for in the
new guidelines of the Federation. One
such area was the receiving of voting
rights for all monks in final vows. The
Archabbot has also done much to
continue rebuilding Saint Vincent after
the multimillion dollar fire of the early
60’s. He is presently directing the
building of a new dining and kitchen
facility and student union. This
complex is expected to be completed by
the end of the summer.
As of midnight May 13, Prior
Reginald G. Bender, O.S.B. will serve as
superior until a successor to Archabbot
Egbert is elected.
He called the accident “tragic” and
said “this is exactly what has been
expected by nuclear activists.”
He said the accident was “all the
more reason why we should speak out
as a church on the moral issues
involved.”
Father Fritsch said there is continued
danger from nuclear plants and said that
as other countries build plants without
safeguards as strong as those in the
United States, “there will be a lot more
disasters.”
Franciscan Sister Dorothy Kinsella of
Network, a Catholic social justice lobby,
said Network supports a moratorium on
nuclear plant construction until serious
problems can be resolved.
She noted that the accident occurred
at a time when Congress is studying the
question of who should be responsible
for the storage of nuclear waste.
Jesuit Father William Callahan of the
Quixote Center, a Catholic social justice
center, said the accident raises the
question of the nuclear industry’s
liability for contamination outside the
plant site.
He said that is the issue being raised
in a trial concerning the rights of the
late Karen Silkwood, an anti-nuclear
activist who worked at the Kerr-McGee
nuclear plant in Oklahoma who was
killed in an automobile accident some
people suspect was murder. Father
Callahan said Ms. Silkwood was
contaminated by plutonium outside the
plant grounds.
He said the Quixote Center has raised
more than $300,000 in legal fees for the
case.
Archabbot Requests Successor
PALM SUNDAY PROCESSIONS will usher in solemn ceremonies of
Holy Week. (NC Photo)
Nuclear Safety-Transportation Of Materials
PART II
(The first article in this series on the
question of nuclear safety focused on the CIA
confirmation of a Soviet nuclear waste
disposal site that exploded back in 1957 or
1958. It also pointed out that the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission has
repudiated its main report on power plant
safety because the report was found to
under-estimate the probability of nuclear
accidents and their consequences. This article
will look into the risks involved in the
transportation of nuclear waste products and
the reaction of the public and the nuclear
industry to shipments of radioactive
material.)
NUCLEAR LEAK - A cooling system leak in a reactor of the Three
Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa. has drawn attention
to nuclear safety. (NC Photo)
BY KAREN SMITH
Twenty six states (not including
Georgia) and many small communities
have acted to regulate shipments of
nuclear materials in their areas. These
regulations vary from advance
notification to complete bans. Most
restrictions include exemptions for
medical materials. Although Georgia has
no state level restriction specifically
regarding nuclear shipments, the State
Transportation Board has banned all
tractor trailer trucks from interstate
highways through Atlanta. They bypass
Atlanta on 1-285. One benefit of this is
that nuclear cargo travels only on the
periphery of our most densely
populated city.
According to the Department of
Transportation, there were 144
transportation accidents involving
nuclear materials in the first half of the
1970’s. Twenty five percent of them
resulted in “excessive levels of
radioactivity into the environment.”
Since then there have been over 300
such accidents in this country, more
than one third of which have resulted in
radioactive pollution.
Public concern centers around the
expected increase in shipments of
nuclear material. With 3 accidents every
2 weeks reported by the U.S. Dept, of
Transportation, what will more
shipments mean? Not only are new
reactors going into operation, but the
nuclear industry is facing a nuclear
waste storage dilemma. Sixty two
reactors will reach their licensed limit
for on-site storage of spent-fuel by
1985. Two of the options open to them
are to ship the used fuel rods to other
reactors with extra storage space or to
establish new temporary storage sites
away from the reactors. Both
alternatives involve more shipments of
spent fuel rods.
Spent fuel rods are the most
dangerous radioactive materials now
being transported in the nuclear fuel
cycle. The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission predicts an increase in
spent fuel packages shipped by truck
from 254 in 1975 to 1,530 in 1985 and
by rail from 17 in 1975 to 652 in 1985.
Duke Power has already asked the
NRC for permission to ship spent fuel
from Seneca, South Carolina to
Charlotte, North Carolina. Citizen
groups have begun acting to educate the
general public to the dangers posed to
them by these shipments. As a reaction
to such action, the Dept, of Energy has
filmed a crash test of a cask designed to
transport spent fuel. This film is being
circulated widely to allay the fears of
the public. The cask used in the
demonstration remains unopened after
the crash. However, the Southwest
Research and Information Center has
cautioned that “for such a test to have
Since our first article on Nuclear Safety was published, the NRC
has closed 5 nuclear power plants on the east coast which were
found to be unsafe according to current safety standards. Only
upon compliance will they be reopened.
The leak in the cooling system of a reactor of the Three Mile
Island nuclear power plant this week has focused the world’s
attention on Nuclear Safety.
any validity it would have to be
repeated 10,000 times without a
failure.” The test was repeated only
four times. The NRC itself warned
that such a demonstration must be
interpreted carefully. It has been noted
that this demonstration failed to test
the resistance to puncture by a collision
with steel girders or bridge supports
which might well occur on the highway.
Furthermore, the carrier itself absorbed
a large part of the direct impact. Even
after seeing the film and hearing
representatives from Duke Power, the
local citizens of Greenville County
Council voted unanimously to write to
NRC to express their concern over the
proposed shipments.
As restrictions sprout throughout the
nation, the nuclear industry is appealing
to state legislatures to introduce bills
that would override local regulations.
This summer, however, the federal
Dept, of Transportation is expected to
decide whether federal control is needed
to govern these radioactive shipments.
When the Department of Transportation
upheld New York City’s restrictions on
nuclear shipments in 1976, it recognized
a lack of regulations on its own part..
Also at the national level, the Dept, of
Energy is pressuring for lax federal
standards that would override state
rulings. Ironically, all of this
controversy coincides with the
publication of President Carter’s
proposal for a federal radioactive waste
policy which is expected this month.
Meanwhile, amid all the
confrontation between safe energy
groups and the nuclear industry at local,
state and federal levels, Representative
Fish (R-NY) has introduced a bill in
Congress (HR 336-The Nuclear Energy
Reappraisal Act) to halt power plant
construction permits for 5 years. During
the proposed moratorium (on new
construction only), the Office of
Technological Assessment will study
nuclear power and other energy
alternatives. This bill does not address
the problem of transportation directly,
but it does have tremendous bearing on
interim production while the safety of
nuclear power plants remains in
question to most everyone.