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The Southern Cross
April 19,1979
44
New Voice
55
In recent weeks, Pope John Paul II has
released his first encyclical “Redemptor
Hoi minis 1 and has addressed letters to
the bishops and priests of the world. In
addition to these documents we have his
words delivered during his travels to
Mexico, and his remakrs at papal
audiences and visits in the Rome area.
This issue of the SOUTHERN CROSS
carries a report on his first Easter
message and a message to parents
reminding that, “the nation and the
church are built on the foundations laid
by parents.”
Our new pope’s words are clear and
direct. John Paul is a gifted
communicator. He gives evidence, early
in his pontificate, that he will not
hesitate to use this gift to instruct and
console his spiritual sons and daughters.
A troubled world is turning its ear to
listen to the “New voice” from the
Vatican. -JEM
Liturgy Corner
Rev. Douglas K. Clark
The forty days of Lent, forty days of fasting
and penitence, now give way to fifty days of
Easter feasting and joy, especially in the liturgy.
That’s right -- FIFTY days, from Easter to
Pentecost.
The Easter season does not end on Ascension
Thursday but on Pentecost Sunday, ten days
later. Two practical implications are:
1) the Easter candle remains in the sanctuary
until Pentecost and is lit for Mass throughout
the fifty days - it is no longer extinguished
after the gospel on Ascension Thursday.
2) “Alleluia” should be SUNG before the
gospel, even at daily Mass during this period
and a double “Alleluia” is added to the
dismissal (“Go in peace” and its response
(“Thanks be to God”) until Pentecost,
especially on Sundays.
Also, the “Glory to God in the Highest
returns to Sunday Mass (to daily Mass only
during Easter week) - and really should be
sung. If it is not possible for congregations (or a
given choir) to sing this ancient (but difficult)
hymn, it would seem preferable to substitute
another hymn of prasie (such as “Praise God
from whom All Blessings Flow”). Permission
for this substitution has been granted in
Germany and requested for the United States,
though not yet granted.
The problem with reciting the Gloria should
be more obvious than it is; if we asked the
people to recite any other hymn (such as
“Praise God from whom All Blessings Flow),
they would laugh. Unfortunately, they are used
to reciting the hymns of the Mass, and rarely
realize that they are hymns.
Especially during the festive season of Easter,
music should permeate our liturgies,
particularly at the great hymns of the Mass.
After all, if everyone RECITED “Happy
Birthday” at your birthday party, you would
hardly find it festive, would you?
OUR PARISH
'You should have thought of that sooner!”
“Let The Children Come To Me
99
Excerpts from the talk given by Sister Marian
Bernadette, I.H.M. at the spring meeting of the
Savannah Deanery 1 Council of Catholic Women on
April 8, 1979 at Tyhee Island:
Jesus loved the little children. Even when He
was weary, He wouldn’t permit the apostles to
send them away. He always took time to
embrace them, to bless them, to love them.
“Let the children come to Me and do not
hinder them. It is to just such as these that the
Kingdom of God belongs.”
In Hebrew scriptures, children are regarded
as a blessing. The covenant is expressed initially
as “raising up children to Abraham as numerous
as the stars in the heavens.” Yet, in many
instances, the ears of adults of many nations are
closed to the needs and rights of children.
The Preamble of the Declaration of the
Rights of the Child states that the child,
because of his physical and-mental immaturity,
needs special safeguards and care, both before
and after birth, and that individuals and groups
should strive to achieve children’s rights by
legislative and other means. “Mankind”, it says,
“owes the child the best it has to give.” The
U.N. urges the world to strengthen its concern
for the present condition of its children because
today’s children are linked inseparably with the
peace and prosperity of tomorrow’s world.
This is the time to think about the 1.4 billion
children who inhabit the world. Some 100
million of them are moderately to severely
malnourished. Children in 60 nations do not
receive minimum caloric requirement.
Hundreds of thousands of children in Southeast
Asia are blinded each year due to lack of
Vitamin A. Contaminated water is the biggest
killer of children.
One measure of a society’s concern for and
ability to care for a child is the amount of
resources it spends on education. By the
standard of pupils to teacher, our country has
an enviable commitment to the young. The
pupil-teacher ratio here is 24-1 up to perhaps
40-1. This is also true in Western Europe, the
Soviet Union, Israel and Australia. On the other
end of the scale are Afghanistan, Yemen, Chad,
and Upper Volta where the children never see
the inside of a classroom. At least 52 million
under fifteen are known to be working full
time.
In many countries of Europe children serve
as couriers for drugs. Many have become
addicts. Europe has a conservative estimate of
160,000 child addicts.
In the United States children live in slums,
with unwed mothers, as orphans, refugees, rural
poor, the progeny of migrants. They are
starved, abused, exposed to crime and drugs. In
New York City many babies are born with
heroin addiction due to their mothers.
“Let the children come to Me.” Each year in
the United States nearly two million youngsters
are victims of parental abuse. Considerable
evidence has been amassed that the
child-victims of one generation become the
abusing parents of the next.
There are millions of children in this world
living a “Way of the Cross” and experiencing a
perpetual Holy Week of humiliation and
suffering. It is not God’s intention or the will of
Jesus that children be exposed to such
conditions of despair and hopelessness. Christ
took the cross in order to release the vast
energies of generosity and love that is locked in
human hearts.
The late Pope Paul VI stressed that children
have the right to live childhood to the fullest.
He urged that the IYC promote the inestimable
value of the child in today’s world: the child as
a child, as a human person, and not simply as a
potential adult. He stated that IYC would
enable Catholics to rededicate themselves in the
spirit of fidelity to the Gospel message - to the
needs of the child, and to develop appropriate
programs that will assist children in various
aspects of their lives.
Pope John Paul II supports focusing
attention on the child. In January the Pope told
several European organizations planning IYC
activities that emphasis should be given to
defending the rights of children particularly the
right to life, from the moment of conception.
In the early years of a child’s development,
parents are quite properly the center of his/her
universe. There is no experience more precious
to a child than the warmth and security of a
loving home.
Our Holy Father stressed that the principles
as enunciated in the Declaration are far from
being realized. However, many groups are
working to help the children: The Children’s
Defense Fund, Save the Children, UNICEF, the
Committee for the IYC. Within the Catholic
Church the Holy Childhood Association -
renamed Catholic Youth for Missions - has been
working to create a mission sense and a humane
attitude in well-off children to think of those in
need. The Association reaches over three
million children in the United States in religious
education programs. The proceeds are sent to
over 94 countries.
In cooperation with the Catholic Relief
Services is the Overseas Aid Program of the
National Council of Catholic Women. Through
their Works of Peace - Child-in-need,
Help-a-child, Madonna Plan and Holy Father’s
storeroom, members of NCCW can continue to
reach the poorest children in the Third World.
: ‘\y 1 .1
Another program planned is a mass
immunization project in Liberia, Grenada and
Haiti. Then there are the courageous efforts of
Father Bruce Ritter to salvage some of the
100,000 youth who arrive in Times Square each
year to be exploited by pimps for prostitution
and drug peddling. In his youth refuge, “Under
21”, Father Ritter and two hundred helpers try
to rescue a portion of the ocean of exploited
young people.
“Save the Children,” a Connecticut-based
agency for helping families in 17 nations as well
as in our own is celebrating a second annual
“Save the Children Day” on May 1st - a day to
call public attention to the concerns of
children, their joys, their rights, their needs.
There will be a special children’s ceremony in
Washington, D. C. where a Children’s Agenda
for Action will be presented to a select group of
government leaders on the steps of the Capitol
building. This Agenda will be made up of
Children’s letters Expressing their thoughts and
desijre for a better world.
“|Let the children come to Me.” Can we
repeat the words of Jesus with a clear
conscience? The challenge is Ours!
Declaration of the rights of the
CHILD as adopted by the General Assembly of
the United Nations in 1959 are as follows:
1) The enjoyment of the rights mentioned,
without any exception whatever, regardless of
race, color, sex, religion or nationality;
I ■ r
2j) Special protection, opportunities and
facilities to enable them to develop in a healthy
and normal manner, in freedom and dignity; 3)
A name and nationality; 4) Social Security,
including adequate nutrition, housing,
recreation and medical services. 5) Special
treatment, education and care if handicapped;
6) Love and understanding and an atmosphere
of affection and security, in the care and under
the responsibility of their parents whenever
possible; 7) Free education and recreation and
equal opportunity to develop their individual
abilities; 8) Prompt protection and relief in
times of disaster; 9) Protection against all forms
of neglect, cruelty and exploitation; 10)
Protection from any form of racial, religious or
other discrimination, and an upbringing in a
spirit of peace and universal brotherhood.
THE CHURCH:
REFLECTIONS
601 E. 6th Street
Waynesboro, Ga.
30830
Comment on Editorial. . .
Editor:
I am among the faithful readers of your
weekly instrument. If I take exception to an
emphasis in the editorial of April 12,1979; it is
because my instincts tell me it could enflame
old enmities.
I refer to the statement about the pharisees
and scribes. Jesus’ teachings had become so
popular, that they “put the scribes and
pharisees to shame. Because he was so popular,
he was a threat to the status quo . .. And so the
scribes and pharisees, the threatened ones, did
what threatened people always do: They lashed
out violently against the threat, against Jesus.”
That statement does not contribute to the
recent understandings that the Church has
promoted since Vatican II. It skirts the razor’s
edge of a deicide charge. Particularly as scribe
and pharisee have been used, of old, as signal
terms for “Jew.”
Father Gregory Baum of St. Michael’s
College, University of Toronto has written in
his introduction to Rosemary Reuther’s “Faith
and Fratricide” the following statement:
“Finally I propose that many passages in the
New Testament which present a negative
picture of the scribes and pharisees as well as
the other opponents of Jesus were not meant to
convey an historical account of these groups.” I
recommend to all Catholics that they read
Father Baum’s introduction and the text of
“Faith and Fratricide” to gain new perspectives
on this issue.
As a liberal Jew, I am not foresworn to any
ideological position that conflicts with what my
independent study indicates to be truth. The
Pharisaic rabbis are responsible for the bulk of
rabbinic wisdom and morality. It was they who
taught that the purpose of God’s law was the
exaltation of life. They established the principle
“V’chai Bawchem - and you shall live by
them,” (i.e. The ultimate purpose of God’s
commandments is to enhance life) as a
dominant principle of the Jewish faith. It is
distasteful to anyone who studies rabbinic
literature, who knows the spirit of the
pharisees, to be told that these men were
violent and killers.
The people who were responsible for Jesus’
death participated in a trial on Passover, strictly
forbidden by Jewish law. Those who called for
his death (The Barabbas account) participated
in a pagan ritual conducted by Pontius Pilate on
the third day (a ritual borrowed from
idolatrous sects that practiced sun worship).
The people who broke the fundamentals of
Jewish law and engaged in pagan rituals were
not then or ever committed “Jews.” I shall be
delighted to provide scholarly evidence to
sustain the above statements.
It may be that this letter represents an
over-reaction to an editorial that meant no
harm. However, we have come through a period
of history where a similar belief structure was
fed upon by monstrous men and resulted in the
death of 6 million of God’s children. I have
seen such tremendous growth in the Church
since Pope John. He understood that we are all
spiritual Semites. We need each other in a world
plagued by cruelty and paganism.
It is time to put aside the old canards. The
oppressed Jews of Roman-occupied Palestine in
Jesus’ day were not interested in promoting the
status quo. The Romans were the only ones
interested in keeping the status quo. Study the
Rebellion against Rome in 70 A.D. (just a few
years after Jesus’ death) and learn that the
pharisees were the ones who whipped it up.
Please accept this letter, not as criticism, but
as an effort to bring healing and enlightenment.
Saul J. Rubin
Rabbi
Congregation
Mickve Israel
Savannah
Propagation of the Faith
REV. JOSEPH C. OTTERBEIN
Diocesan Director
P. O. Box 8789, Savannah, Ga. 31412
The Southern Cross
fUSPS 505 680)
Most Rev. Raymond W. Lessard, D.D., President
Rev. Joseph Stranc
Director, Department of Communications
John E. Markwalter, Editor
Rev. Douglas K. Clark, Editorial Writer
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In February, Father Pierre Henry died at the
age of 74 at the motherhouse of the Oblates of
Mary immaculate in Quebec. He was the first
priest to reach the magnetic North Pole.
Coming to the Canadian Artie in 1933, he was
living at Repulse Bay with three other
missionaries, all members of the Oblates of
Mary Immaculate. Repulse Bay is north of
Hudson Bay and Father Henry met Eskimos
who came down with their furs from Pelly Bay
near the magnetic pole. He soon won their
confidence and was invited to visit their village.
It was in 1935 that Father Henry made his first
trip to Pelly Bay.
A report from OMI Missions for 1936 tells us
only the outlines of Fr. Henry’s first steps
toward the many missions that he would later
establish.
“Fr. Henry left 14 months ago with a group
of Eskimos for the magnetic pole, 500 miles
from Repulse Bay. There was no news from
him all this time until May 18 when Bishop
Turquetil received a radio telegram stating that
Fr. Henry had reached the magnetic pole. He is
the first priest to do so. Father then spent
several months there and now catechumens are
preparing themselves to receive baptism
future is full of hope.”
the
For Fr. Henry the future was indeed full of
hope. He dedicated his new mission at Pelly
Bay to St. Peter and the Virgin of the Poor. It
was tough going for a long time. In the summer
Fr. Henry lived in a stone and mud house with
a sail cloth for a roof. In the winter he lived in
an igloo.
An article in TIME magazine of May 22,
1950 told of how Fr. Henry was called
“Kajoaluk” by the Netsilik Eskimos. The
Oblate had a rust-colored beard and the name
“Kajaoluk” means “The Tall Red One.” The
Time article also told of nearly all the Netsilik
people becoming Christian: “Finding the
Eskimos well-adjusted to their harsh
environment, Fr. Henry encouraged them to
live on the natural resources provided by the
Artie. Too much contact with trading posts, he
found, tended to undermine their self-reliance
and their health, ‘The easy life corrupts them,’
hej says. ‘It is iad to see such a noble race
decline.’
To set a good example he lived on a diet of
frozen fish for three years, something no white
man had attempted. During his 18 years there
the priest succeeded in converting most of the
350 members of the Netsilik tribe to
Christianity.
“One day Father Henry saw the bodies of
three newborn girls abandoned in the snow; this
was the Eskimos’ traditional way of solving
their surplus population problem. Fr. Henry
arranged for Eskimo parents to get the
Canadian baby bonus, usually in the form of
hunting supplies. Now the practice of
infanticide has virtually disappeared from
among the Netsilik.”
One must wonder how many missionaries
there are around the globe, in humble
surroundings, identified with men and women
of their area, leading them to know and love
the Lord. Are you praying daily for
missionaries?
God bless you!