Newspaper Page Text
Vol. 6i No, 30
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Thursday, September 4,1980
Single Copy Price — 15 Cents
Catholic Church
Is Major Force
In Polish Crisis
STRIKERS IN PRAYER - Striking workers of Lenin shipyards outside the gates to the yard. The workers, who left their jobs on
kneel in prayer inside the shipyards in Gdansk, Poland. Meanwhile August 14, returned early this week in an agreement which won
relatives and supporters of the strikers also were kneeling in prayer major concessions from the Polish government. (NC Photo)
Monsignor Higgins Speaks For Poor
WASHINGTON (NC) . - In
his final Labor Day statement
before retirement, Msgr. George
G. Higgins has called for a
vigorous defense of the needs of
the poor.
He said society must not
ignore the poor even though
there are tremendous economic
pressures to do so.
“Under the pretext or
pretense of managing our
economy, social programs are
being severely cut back, labor’s
right to organize is being
effectively thwarted in many
industries, unemployment has
been allowed to rise to
intolerable levels, and the poor
and aged are being left to their
own devices for survival,” said
Msgr. Higgins.
Msgr. Higgins, a member of
the U.S. Catholic Conference
staff for 36 years, announced
his retirement earlier this year
,effective Sept. 1. He will be 65
next January.
The long-time labor
advocate, who preached at the
funeral Mass last January of
AFL-CIO president George
Meany, for many years has
issued an annual statement for
Labor Day.
This year’s statement traces
the recent history of the
church’s traditional advocacy of
the poor and its teachings
regarding the right to collective
bargaining.
Msgr. Higgins complained
that the effort to “turn back
the clock” on society’s concern
for the poor raises serious
questions for the future.
^‘Are we in danger of
becoming an increasingly
atomized society in which
private gain is placed above
social and religious values?” he
asked.
“Will our national and global
communities be tom apart by
the struggle for limited
resources? Will our economic
problems be ‘solved’ at the
expense of the poor and the
weak both at home and abroad?
“The answer depends upon
our willingness to place the
values of human dignity and
equality at the heart of the
debate over our nation’s
future,” he said.
Msgr. Higgins said current
economic problems are no
greater than the problems faced
by the country when it emerged
from the First World War.
At that time, he noted, the
U.S. bishops’ conference, then
known as the National Catholic
Welfare Conference,
predecessor of the USCC, issued
the “Bishops’ Program for
Social Reconstruction.”
“It was one of the most
forward-looking social
documents of its time, and it
helped to establish the church
in the United States as a leading
proponent of a more just social
order,” said Msgr. Higgins.
The document, Msgr. Higgins
noted, called for giving workers
a “proper share” in industrial
management as well as for
minimum wage legislation, a
major social insurance program,
a full employment program,
progressive taxation and a wider
ownership of property.
“This tradition of vigorous
advocacy on behalf of human
dignity needs to be kept alive
and creatively kept up to date
in light of our current economic
crisis,” Msgr. Higgins said.
The current crisis, though, is
not a temporary bout with
inflation, but is a more serious
problem of limited resources
and a global economy
“ in c re asingly dominated by
transnational corporate
enterprises,” Msgr. Higgins said.
NC NEWS SERVICE
The Catholic Church
emerged as a major third force
in the Polish labor crisis
through a series of statements
by Polish church leaders and
Pope John Paul II.
Amid on-again, off-again
talks between worker and
communist government
representatives in Gdansk, the
bishops of Poland issued a joint
statement Aug. 28 that
supported the strikers’ key
demands.
Among “the nation’s
inalienable rights” the bishops
listed freedom of speech and
the press, the right to private
land ownership, and the
freedom of workers to form
and join unions of their choice.
The last item, independent
trade unions, was the key
workers’ demand. The
gove rnment’s concession on
that point reportedly found- the
basis for an agreement ending
the strikes this week.
Other major church
involvement in the strike
included:
- Papal prayers for Poland
and messages of solidarity to
the bishops, including a letter
to Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski of
Warsaw and Gniezno which
Polish authorities censored as
subversive.
- Major public statements by
Cardinal Wyszynski, carefully
balancing defenses of workers’
rights with strong appeals to
strikers for moderation and
compromise.
- Coverage of one of the
cardinal’s talks on state
television and in the official
communist paper, Trybuna
Ludu (People’s Tribune), and a
protest by the Polish bishops of
the coverage. Lengthy coverage
in the state-controlled press of
speeches by religious leaders is
rare.
- Papal portraits and Vatican
flags decorating strike centers.
- Masses, confessions and
other church services for
strikers occupying the Lenin
shipyards in Gdansk.
-- Hunger strikes initiated in
two Polish Catholic churches
backing another of the strikers’
demands, freedom for political
detainees.
Polish-bom Pope John Paul,
a firm defender and
theoretician of human rights,
was such a key symbolic figure
behind the strikers that an
exiled Soviet dissident,
Vladimir Maximov,
commented, “With his words he
has given more support than
anyone else to the struggle of
the Polish workers.”
U.S. Representative William
H. Boner (D-Tenn.) sent a letter
to the pope asking him to
mediate the conflict.
“You are the only major
world figure who has the
objectivity, the influence and
the respect to carry on such a
delicate task,” the Letter said.
The pope, however, kept a
low profile.
Although scattered strikes
began right after an announced
hike in meat prices July 1, the
pope said nothing .in public
until after mid-August, when
the labor unrest reached crisis
proportions.
In public audiences and talks
since then the pope expressed
concern for the Polish nation in
its difficult times and asked
people to pray for Poland. But
he took no sides and made only
general, indirect references to
the specific issues in the strike.
One of his strongest
comments was in a letter to
Cardinal Wyszynski, made
public by the Vatican Aug. 23,
in which he prayed that the
Polish bishops would be able to
“help this people in the
difficult effort it is carrying out
for daily bread, social justice
and the protection of its
inviolable rights to its own
development.”
It was presumably that letter
which Polish government
censors refused to allow the
Cracow Catholic newspaper,
Tygodnik Powszechny
(Universal Weekly), to publish.
A spokesman for the paper said
the censors called the papal
letter subversive.
A far more controversial
church-state development
(Continued on page 3)
$42,000 Extension Grant
The Catholic Church
Extension Society has awarded
the Diocese of Savannah the
sum of $42,500.00, covering
three grants for work being
carried out in the Diocese.
$35,000 will go to the
Department of Christian
Formation, which is responsible
for a wide range of ecucational
programs covering such areas as
CCD, adult education, teacher
accreditation, organization of
seminars and workshops, and
the maintenance of a library of
audio-visual resources.
$2,700 is earmarked for the
Office of information, as a
matching grant for Paulist
Communications. The Paulist
radio programs and “spots” are
heard on more than 100 radio
stations in South Georgia.
The remaining $4,800 of the
Extension grant will go to
priests as salary subsidies.
These grants come in
addition to a $15,000 sum
awarded for construction of a
multi-purpose church building
in McRae and a further $45,000
pledged for the construction of
the new parish center in
Hinesville.
In thanking Father Edward
Slattery, of Extension, for his
most recent check, Bishop
Raymond Lessard said: “We
continue to be deeply grateful
to Extension Society for having
favorably considered our
requests. May I assure you and
all of the benefactors of
Extension a place in our prayers
of gratitude.”
LABOR’S PAUSE - A man wipes the grease and grime from his
hands and prepares for his annual Labor Day rest.
Difference Of Opinion
WASHINGTON (NC) - A
House subcommittee held two
more days of hearings on
prayers in public schools and
was reminded again of the wide
difference of opinion within the
religious community.
While a representative of a
Catholic parents’ organization
charged that the Supreme
Court’s school prayer decisions
have led to bias against religion
in public schools, officials of
several mainline religious
organizations expressed concern
that “voluntary” school prayer
would be coercive and
meaningless.
“Our experience indicates
that the best way to protect the
rights of everyone on this
sensitive issue is to let the
matter be decided at the local
level,” said William M. O’Reilly,
executive director of the
Maryland Federation of
Catholic Laity, in support of
pending legislation that would
remove federal court
jurisdiction in school prayer
cases.
The two days of hearings,
Aug. 19 and 21, were
conducted by the House
subcommittee on courts, civil
liberties and the administration
of justice to gather testimony
on the school prayer issue. The
subcommittee, chaired by Rep.
Robert Kastenmeier (D-Wis.),
had held two similar days of
hearings three weeks earlier.
The measure, which would
include the removal of Supreme
Court jurisdiction over
voluntary school prayer,
already has passed the Senate,
sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms
(R-N.C.). ,