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DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol 61 No. 32 Thursday, September 18,1980 Single Copy Price - 16 Cents
‘Right To Life
F undamental
Human Right 7
SIENA, Italy (NC) - To
defend human rights while
supporting abortion is “a patent
contradiction,” said Pope John
Paul II Sept. 14 during a homily
before more than 30,000
people in Siena.
The pope’s voice echoed
loudly throughout the medieval
Piazza del Campo as he declared
that “the right to life is the
fundamental right of the human
being, a right of the person,
which imposes obligations from
the beginning.”
The homily was seen as a
statement of encouragement of
the efforts of Italy’s Movement
for Life to obtain a nationwide
referendum against the
country’s two-year-old abortion
law. The movement is based in
Florence, about 33 miles north
of Siena.
“One must accept the
dignity (of the human person)
from the beginning,” Pope John
Paul said. “If it is destroyed in
the womb of the woman, in the
womb of the mother, it would
be difficult to defend it later in
so many fields and areas of life
and human society.”
He sharply criticized those
who “talk about human rights
but do not hesitate to trample
on human beings when they are
on the threshold of life, weak
and defenseless.”
For Christians, the pope
added, “the problem of the
defense of life in the mother’s
womb is a problem of faith and
a problem of conscience.”
The Mass was the first major
event of Pope John Paul’s
nine-and-a-half-hour visit to
Siena, birthplace of St.
Catherine of Siena and an
important site in the life of St.
Bemardine.
Arriving by helicopter on the
outskirts of town from his
summer residence in
Castelgandolfo, the pope visited
the Church of St. Catherine,
doctor of the church, in Siena’s
Acquacalda section before
boarding a white Mercedes
convertible for the ride into
town.
The sounds of trumpets and
cheers greeted the pope’s arrival
in Siena’s mainsquare, scene of
the twice-yearly “palio” horse
race instituted in 1310.
Lelio Lagorio, Italian
minister of defense, welcoming
the pope on behalf of the
government, expressed “fervent
best wishes for the peace and
progress of the noble people of
Poland.”
Lagorio said he hoped the
examples of Ss. Catherine and
Bemardine would provide
“solid inspiration of moral
effort and hope, encouragement
and a spur to fight to build a
Uiiitea and peaceful world in a
civil order of peace.”
Archbishop Mario Ismaele
Castellano and Mayor Mauro
Bami of Siena also greeted Pope
John Paul on behalf of local
residents.
At the end of the ceremony
Mayor Bami presented an early
edition of the letters of St.
Catherine to the pope and
Giovanni Mannoni, prefect of
the city, gave him a silver
chalice embossed with the
symbols of the 17 contrade.
Pope John Paul devoted the
afternoon of his day in Siena to
meetings with bishops of the
Tuscany region, the sick, priests
and Religious, youth and
politicians and to visits to local
sites dedicated to St. Catherine.
LESS THAN ETERNAL - When the Louisiana Department of Pecan Island, La., local residents believe they had a somewhat
Highways erected this sign near Sacred Heart Chapel cemetery in different resting place in mind. (NC Photo by P.C. Piazza)
German Bishops’ Letter Criticizes Policies
NEW YORK (NC) - A
pastoral letter issued by West
G ermany s bishops criticizing
aspects of Chancellor Helmut
Schmidt’s policies has brought
controversy to that nation’s
national elections.
A story on the letter, to be
read from pulpits Sept. 21, two
weeks before West Germany’s
Oct. 5 parliamentary elections,
was published by The New
York Times Sept. 15 after it
had been reported by a German
paper.
In terms like those used by
Schmidt’s opponents, the letter
warns against the state’s
expanding role in daily life and
the growing bureaucracy and
national debt, according to the
Times. Its themes are similar to
those of the Christian
Democratic candidate for
chancellor, Franz Josef Strauss,
the rimes said.
The pastoral letter also
suggested that the Social
Democratic-led government has
so simplified divorce and
abortion laws, without giving
preferential support to marriage
and the family, “that love is
destroyed and peace
endangered.”
Schmidt, the Times
reported, responded that the
bishops “should use their
pulpits for pastoral work and
not for politics.
“I think we are entitled to
expect,” he said, “that the
church does not interfere in our
area with phrases which are
suspiciously close to those
written in one particular party’s
electoral program.”
Father Norbert Greinacher, a
professor of theology at
Tubingen University in West
Germany, described the
bishops’ letter at a Social
Democratic campaign meeting
as a “misuse of Christianity,”
according to the Times.
The opposition seemed
especially pleased with the
bishops’ statement that “the
dangerously high national debt
must be corrected now,” the
Times said. Strauss has stressed
that issue, saying the Social
Democrats had allowed the
debt to triple in the last 10
years. This, Stauss charged, had
increased borrowing and hurt
private investment.
Although the Social
Democrats have dismissed that
issue, it has potential appeal for
older voters who remember
how their savings were lost
through currency changes
caused by the public debt that
resulted from the two world
wars, the Times said. The
bishops’ remarks on the debt
caused Schmidt to respond that
he doubted there was a
theological teaching chair for
public finances, the Times said.
There was “nothing in either
the Old or the New Testament
about how to manage state
finances,” the chancellor said.
“We who speak for the state do
not interfere in church debates
such as those about
contraception or celibacy.”
There was no comment
reported from the bishops on
the chancellor’s remarks.
Mission Co-op Appeal-Sept. 21 & 28 Weekends
BY GILL BROWN
Missionaries whose
congregations are at work in
countries all over the world will
visit the Diocese of Savannah
this month for the annual
Mission Cooperation Plan.
Speaking at churches and
schools the weekends of
September 21st and 28th, they
will describe their work in
mission areas and familiarize
congregations with the needs of
the people they serve.
Among the speakers this
year will be Father Frank
Higgins, a priest of the Diocese
of Savannah, who is currently
assigned to the Society of St.
James the Apostle. Priests of
the Society of St. James serve
the poor in Peru, Ecuador and
Bolivia. A native of Cork,
Ireland, Father Higgins served
for some years as pastor of St.
Anthony’s Church in Savannah.
Father Higgins will speak at
St. James’ parish in Savannah
on September 21st and at St.
Anne’s, Columbus, on
September 28th. A fellow
member of the Society, Fr.
Liam Tuffy, will preach at
Blessed Sacrament, Savannah,
September 28th.
More than 260 diocesan
priests have served with the
Society of St. James over the
past twenty years. Most of
them work in Latin America for
five years, before returning to
their home dioceses. After an
orientation to different
surroundings, people and
customs - and some intensive
training in Spanish - members
of the Society go to work in
some of the poorest and most
depressed communities of
South America, serving people
in the rural areas as well as in
teeming city slums.
Father Joseph Arackal,
Mission Procurator of the
Vincentian Congregation, will
speak at the Cathedral of St.
John the Baptist and at St.
William’s Church, St. Simon’s,
Island. The Vicentian
Congregation does its main
work in India, though members
of the Congregation (which
numbers 102 priests and 11
brothers) are also present in
Germany, Italy and the United
States.
Since its foundation in
Kerala, India, in 1927, the
Congregation has made it a
specific aim to work among the
poor and needy. The
Vincentian Fathers run schools
which are said to be the best in
the state of Kerala, both in
academic and religious training.
They operate numerous
orphanages, hospitals and
dispensaries and sponsor
self-help projects which enable
the poor to reach
self-sufficienty. Several hundred
families are enabled to send
their children to school and to
provide them with the
necessities of life through a
“save a family” program which
receives generous support. The
seminarians themselves have
built homes for the homeless,
to help ease the acute housing
shortage in India.
Three Marist Brothers -
representing a congregation
which has schools and
foundations in over seventy
countries - will take part in this
year’s Mission Co-op appeal.
They are Brother Bonaventure,
F.M.S., who will speak at St.
Joseph’s, Augusta; Brother
James Brady, F.M.S., visiting
St. Joseph’s, Macon; and
Brother Paul Meuten, F.M.S.,
who will visit Sacred Heart,
Warner Robins.
There are about 10,000
members in the Marist Brothers’
Congregation. The main thrust
of their activity has been in the
Far East, particularly the
Philippines and Japan. The
Congregation has schools and
apostolates in New Caledonia,
C h i n a - T aiwan, Korea,
Singapore, Hong Kong,
Malaysia, Cameroon, Nigeria,
Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia,
Zaire, Rwanda, Sri Lanka,
(Continued on page 2)
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OFFICE OF THE BISHOP
My dear friends in Christ:
Missionaries representing five different communities of
religious men and women will be visiting our Diocese this
weekend and next, to tell us of the needs of the mission
areas in which they work. In welcoming them to our
Diocese as participants in our Mission Co-op Appeal
program, I would also like to express my appreciation to
them for the opportunity they bring us to learn more about
the continuing work of the Church in different lands.
The Holy Father in a recent address spoke of the
missions as being irreplaceable to the point that, without
them, the expansion of the Kingdom to the utmost limits of
the earth would not even be conceivable. “Without the
missions, the new civilization, founded - in the sign of Christ
- on justice, peace and love, could not come into being and
develop; because it is in the mission that the new man,
conscious of his dignity and of his transcendent destiny as a
redeemed creature, is formed.”
The Mission Statement of our own Diocese reflects these
views in its emphasis on the importance of “hearing and
proclaiming the good news of Jesus both to our believing
community and to those not of our faith.” The Statement
further reminds us that the mission of this community of
believers is not only to the people of South Georgia but also
to “the worldwide Church in communion with the Bishop
of Rome, and to the whole human family.”
I would like to urge you to respond generously to this
Mission Appeal, as you have done in the past, not only
financially but also in prayer and in personal concern. As
Pope John Paul II so recently reminded us: “In the
missions, the forge of evangelical ferment, the heart of the
universal Church beats with all its solicitude for the
authentic and integral good of man.”
Devotedly yours in Christ,
Bishop of Savannah