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On When Life Begins
abortion decision by declaring
“that human life shall be
deemed to begin from
conception.”
But the subcommittee’s
chairman, Sen. John East
(R-N.C.), said on the second
day of hearings that the whole
range of U.S. policy on
abortion would be examined.
“I would hope that whatever
happens to (this bill) or
whatever happens to a
constitutional amendment or
whatever else is down the road
that at least we have been
allowed now to begin a public
discussion on a very vital and
critical and important matter of
moral and ethical and
sociological consequence,” said
East, one of the Senate’s crop
of freshmen Republicans.
Responding to charges that
the hearings were one-sided
since seven of the first eight
witnesses testified in favor of
declaring the beginnings of
human life at conception, East
pleaded with a largely hostile
audience not to judge the
subcommittee’s examination of
the issue until all aspects had
been considered.
He said the hearings would
resume about May 20 and go at
least into June as the
subcommittee considers the
statutory, constitutional,
ethical and other implications
of the proposed legislation.
A famed French geneticist,
Dr. Jerome Lejeune, led off the
parade of doctors by declaring
that while life has “a very, very
long history,” every life has a
“very neat beginning, the
moment of its conception.”
Continued Lejeune, professor
of fundamental genetics at the
Medical College of Paris, “As
soon as the 23 paternally
derived chromosomes are
united, through fertilization, to
the 23 maternal ones, the full
genetic information necessary
and sufficient to express all the
inborn qualities of the new
individual is gathered.”
Lejeune and others also
commented that the successful
production of test-tube babies
proved that life has its
beginnings during fertilization.
Dr. Micheline M.
M athe ws-Roth, principal
research associate in the
Department of Medicine at the
Harvard Medical School, cited
passages in several biology and
embryology textbooks to show
that life at conception “is
universally accepted and taught
at all levels of biological
education.”
She also urged the
subcommittee to define
conception at fertilization
rather than at implantation in
the uterus, which occurs six to
10 days later.
The only specialist to urge
the subcommittee not to accept
the position that human life
begins at conception was Dr.
Leon E. Rosenberg, chairman
of the human genetics
department at Yale University
Medical School. He argued that
the establishment of an “actual
human life” is more a notion of
philosophy and religion than it
is a notion of science.
While conception is “a
critical event” in human
reproduction, said Rosenberg,
the fertilized living cell still has
(Continued on page 2)
Father Herbert J. Wellmeier,
pastor of St. Teresa’s, Albany,
will celebrate the Silver Jubilee
of his ordination as a priest in
Albany on May 8 and in his
home town, Dayton, Ohio, on
• May 30.
The Albany Mass will be
offered at St. Teresa’s at 6 p.m.
It will be followed by a dinner
^ at the Downtowner at 7:30
p.m. There will be a dance for
guests following the dinner. The
public is invited to the Jubilee
Mass and functions, but
reservations must be made by
May 3 with the Jubilee
Committee c/o St. Teresa
Church, 421 Edgewood Lane,
Albany, Ga. 31707.
m The Jubilee Mass in Dayton
will also be celebrated at 6 p.m.
and will be at St. Anthony’s
Church. A dinner and dance is
also scheduled for that city.
Father Wellmeier was bom in
Dayton, Ohio, Nov. 20, 1930
and attended elementary
schools in Dayton. He studied
for one year at Chaminade High
School in Dayton and for three
years at Josephinum, in
<+ Worthington, Ohio. Later he
attended the Pontifical College
Josephinum in Worthington for
his seminary training.
Father Wellmeier was
ordained May 26th, 1956, by
the Most Rev. A. G. Cicognani,
Apostolic Delegate to the
United States at that time.
He began his work in the
* Diocese of Savannah in 1956, as
Assistant Pastor at the
Robert McCormack Knight Of Malta
Fr. Herbert J. Wellmeier
To Mark Silver Jubilee
WASHINGTON (NC) ~ A
bishop who as a prison chaplain
accompanied six men to the
electric chair urged the Senate
to oppose a federal death
penalty.
Bis hop Ei a t L .
Unterkoefler of Charleston,
S.C., told the Senate Judiciary
Committee April 27 that he is
convinced one of the six had
not committed the crime for
which he was executed and that
certain circumstances were not
brought out at his trial.
“And that’s one of the
reasons I have a continuous
interest in this question because
of that mistake which bears
heavily on my past experience
as a chaplain,” said Bishop
Unterkoefler.
“Judicial error which leads to
the execution of an innocent
person can never be rectified,”
he also remarked.
Bishop Unterkoefler testified
on a proposal to establish new
criteria for the imposition of
tke pGiJkiy at the federal
level.
While current federal law
calls for the death penalty in
certain cases of treason,
murder, espionage and other
major federal felonies, no one
has been executed at the federal
level in recent years because of
Supreme Court decisions that
capital punishment can take
place only under carefully
prescribed conditions.
The bill, introduced by Sens.
Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) and
Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.),
attempts to establish such
conditions, such as
requirements for separate
sentencing hearings and the
existence of specific
“aggravating factors” pointing
toward the need for a sentence
of death.
T he measure would not
affect state capital punishment
laws.
Bishop Unterkoefler, who
witnessed the six executions
while a priest of the Diocese of
Richmond, Va., noted that the
U.S. bishops have opposed
capital punishment since 1974.
His testimony, which he
summarized orally for the
committee, focused primarily
on the statement on capital
punishment approved by the
U.S. bishops at their general
(Continued on page 2)
At a solemn ceremony at St.
Matthew’s Cathedral in
Washington, D.C., Saturday
morning, May 2, Robert
McCormack, a member of St.
Teresa’s Parish and resident of
Albany, will be invested as a
Knight of the Sovereign
Military Order of Malta,
Southern Association in the
United States of America.
The Mass will be celebrated
by Archbishop James A.
Hickey, of Washington and
Conventual Chaplain of the
Association, and a number of
pastors of newly invested
Knights will be concelebrants at
the Mass. Formal investiture
ceremonies will be conducted by
the Honorable Edward A.
McDermott, K.M.G. President
of the Southern Association of
the Order.
Msgr. Daniel Bourke, of
Blessed Sacrament Church in
Savannah, will be present for
the investiture. Also present
will be the Pastor of St. Teresa’s
Church in Albany, Father
Herbert Wellmeier.
The Knights of Malta, tracing
its origins to the eleventh
century, is the oldest order of
knighthood in existence. There
are thirty-five national
Associations of the Order
throughout the world and its
headquarters are in Malta Palace
in Rome. The Southern
Association in the United
States, established in 1976, is
the newest Association of the
Order of which the Sovereign
Pontiff, John Paul II, is the
Superior. The world-wide
charitable activities of the
Knights are directed principally
to the needs of the aged and the
poor.
Mr. McCormack was bom
and raised in Albany, and
attended public schools there.
He was graduated from St.
Bernard Junior College, St.
Bernard, Alabama, and the U.S.
Naval Academy, Annapolis,
MD. He served in the Navy
1945-1947 and during the
Korean War. Upon return to
civilian life, he joined the
family-owned business of Bobs
Candies, Inc. in Albany. In
1962, he became president of
Robert McCormack
the Company and subsequently,
Chairman of the Board.
Mr. McCormack is married to
the former Louise Gross of
Baltimore, MD, and they have
four children: Robert E. Ill,
Mary Helen Dykes, Gregory
McCormack, and Juliana
McCormack.
The McCormack family has
been active in St. Teresa’s
Parish and the Diocese of
Savannah since Bob
McCormack Sr. moved to
Albany in 1920. The late Mr.
McCormack Sr. was also a
Knight of Malta, as well as a
Knight of St. Sylvester and
recipient of the Pro Ecclesia et
Pontifice award from Pope
John XXIII. The late Louise
McCormack, mother of Bob
McCormack Jr., was director of
St. Teresa’s choir for fifty years
and also received the Pro
Ecclesia et Pontifice award
from Pope John XXIII.
Mr. McCormack has been
president of the PTA of St.
Teresa’s school, inaugurated the
lectors program at St. Teresa’s,
was a member of the choir for
twenty-five years, and active in
many phases of the Parish.
Among those invested into
the Order of Malta on May 2
will be the Honorable Jeremiah
A. Denton, Jr., distinguished
veteran of the Vietnam war and
United States Senator from
Alabama. He will be the
principal speaker at the formal
Annual Dinner of the Knights
held Saturday evening at The
Metropolitan Club of
Washington, D.C.
Cathedral in Savannah until
1963. From 1963 to 1967 he
served as Pastor at St. Michael’s,
Savannah Beach.
Father Wellmeier was Pastor
at Sacred Heart, Augusta, from
1967 to 1970; Pastor at St.
Mary’s, Savannah, from
September 1970 to 1973 and in
1973 he was appointed Pastor
of St. Teresa’s, Albany.
Among his specialized
assignments, Father Wellmeier
has served as Diocesan Youth
Director, Priest Senator, Vicar
Forane, Pro-Synodal Judge, and
member of the Personnel
Committee.
At present he holds the
position of Dean of the Albany
Deanery.
Fr. Herbert J. Wellmeier
Senate Hearing On Death Penalty
BY JIM LACKEY
WASHINGTON (NC) - What
promises to be one of the most
thorough congressional
explorations of the issue of
abortion opened in Washington
April 23-24 with several doctors
testifying that conception is the
point at which human life
begins.
The hearings were called by
the Senate separation of powers
subcommittee to examine a
proposal that Congress reverse
the Supreme Court’s 1973
GOLDEN JUBILARIANS - Sister Marie Celine Fahey, O.S.F., of
Catholic Social Services, Augusta, (left) and Sister Mary Fridolin
Spillane, O.S.F. (right) of St. Benedict’s, Savannah, are marking
Golden Jubilees this year. Sister Celine was honored at the 10:45
a.m. Mass at St. Mary’s on-the-Hill on Palm Sunday, and last week
at ceremonies at Most Holy Trinity Church. Sister Fridolin, who is
also a past principal of Immaculate Conception High School,
Augusta, will mark her jubilee on May 2nd at an 11:00 a.m. Mass
at St. Benedict’s, Savannah. A reception will follow in the Parish
Hall.
REACHING OUT - Enthusiastic students
reach out to touch the hand of Mother Teresa of
Calcutta as she passes among them at Tokyo’s
Sophia University. The 1979 Nobel Peace Prize
winner is in Japan on a speaking tour. (NC Photo
from UPI)
The Southern Cross
Vol. 62 No. 18
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Thursday, April 30,1981
Single Copy Price — 25 Cents
Senate Sub-Committee
Hears Doctors’ Views