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PAGE 4 — The Southern Cross, September 5, 1985
Those Over 65 Do Give A Damn!
“The elderly don’t give a damn about anyone
under 65...very little if any of the money they col
lect for Social Security is theirs. It is mine and all
other working taxpayers...! say ‘Power for Junior
Citizens’...the taxpayers.”
This is the shocking quote of a 25 year-old man
from Wisconsin which was part of a series on
Social Security in the secular press.
Of course he’s wrong. He’s including his own
family members in his blanket indictment. He
has evidently never heard of Foster Grand
parents or similar organizations. We suggest he
ask children who has time for them. We suggest
that he consider the number over 65 who are ac
tive in political life and very concerned about the
future-not theirs, but his.
Our senior citizens do care. They show it in so
many ways every day. They showed it in their
earlier years when they shouldered the respon
sibility for rearing children,including this man’s
parents.
Those who feel as this young man does are
asked to pause a few minutes to think of what
those over 65 have contributed to their
world the knowledge they presented them at
birth, the care given them. They need to be
reminded that they are stewards, not owners, of
the world’s goods.
The older generation cared for and lovingly
reared the younger generation and now these
young people have a responsibility to see that
senior citizens are loved and cared for now that
they are no longer members of the workforce.
We do not say Social Security is the only way
to make independent life possible after 65, but it
is working and must not be cast aside unless,
and until, a better method takes its place.
Two more facts. The vast majority of senior
citizens contributed their money, for many years,
to the Social Security system. It is not charity. It
gives an opportunity for the younger generation
to help the older generation, just as that older
generation helped them to maturity.
Those over 65 do give a damn! If they didn’t
where would those of 25 be?
-JEM
GRANDMA*S LOVE — Antoinette Bacon, a
member of St. Agnes Parish in Green Bay,
Wis., comforts Rosemary Williams in a day
care center. “Grandma Ann,’’ as she is known
to the children, is one of 18,000 members nation
wide of the Foster Grandparents Program,
which marks its 20th anniversary this year.
(NC Photo by Mary Harrison)
Tossing Out Old Devotions Is Questioned
BY JERRY FILTEAU
NC News Service
Catholic nostalgia might be back “in” this year, if
several recent reports indicate a trend.
In a column appearing in Catholic newspapers in August,
Bishop Norbert F. Gaughan of Gary, Ind., took a hint from
Coca-Cola’s recent brouhaha over a new Coke formula. He
suggested that the Catholic Church, like the soft drink com
pany, might benefit from bringing back some of its
“classic” items.
Leaving it to the reader to decide how serious or tongue-
in-cheek his various offerings were, Bishop Gaughan opin
ed that Catholics may want to bring back such diverse
things as:
—Sunday afternoon Benediction.
—The old calendar of saints, restoring some deleted
popular figures like St. Valentine.
—First Fridays, October Rosary devotions and May
devotions.
—The Baltimore Catechism.
—Sodality meetings for girls.
—Naming children after saints again.
—Priests manning the confessionals in all parishes on
Saturday afternoons.
—“Old church vocabulary” such as the “Epistle side”
and “Gospel side” of the altar.
In a similar vein, but with more clearly serious intent, the
Catholic Free Press, newspaper of the Diocese of
Worcester, Mass., suggested editorially Aug. 16 that the
Leonine Prayers, which were once recited publicly after
every Low Mass, be restored by Catholics as a prayer for
peace.
Low Mass, as an older generation of Catholics will recall,
used to be Mass without singing of the Kyrie, Gloria,
' — , ^
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Gospel, Sanctus, Agnus Bei and the like; when these were
sung, it was a High Mass.
The Leonine Prayers were named after Pope Leo XIII,
who ordered them used throughout the church in 1884. They
consisted of three Hail Marys, the Hail Holy Queen, and
since 1886, a prayer to St. Michael and Archangel.
Originally ordered as prayers for the church’s recovery
of the Papal States taken over by Italy in 1859, they were
turned into prayers for peace and the conversion of Russia
in 1928, after Italy agreed to compensate the Holy See for
the expropriated papal lands. In 1964 they were suppressed
as a step in liturgical reform.
The Catholic Free Press suggested that a restoration of
the Leonine Prayers as a Catholic prayer for peace
“needn’t be done formally. It could be done merely by per
sons kneeling at the end of Mass for the few seconds it takes
to say three ‘Hail Marys.’”
Other people, too, have started to suggest anew that
perhaps not everything that was dropped should have been
abandoned in the 20 years of change since the Second
Vatican Council.
Jesuit Father Luis Ugalde, recently elected president of
NEW YORK (NC) — The Archdiocese of New York an
nounced Aug. 20 that it would embark on a “comprehensive
plan for the study and care of AIDS patients.” However, a
plan to open an AIDS shelter in a vacant convent was im
mediately opposed by parishoners.
Hundreds of people in Holy Name of Jesus Parish on
Manhattan’s West Side signed petitions or phoned to protest
after the site was announced. But the archdiocese remains
committed to providing a shelter, a spokesman said and is
investigating other possible sites. “Mother Teresa and the
Missionary Sisters have volunteered to care for the patients
of the shelter, with medical backup provided by the New
York Medical College and St. Clare’s Hospital,” the arch
diocese said.
For study of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syn
drome), a disease most often found among male homosex
uals, the archdiocese is joining with New York Medical Col
lege to establish a center, the announcement said. The center
will be located at the Medical College in Valhalla, a town in
Westchester County, just above New York City.
Gary Wormer, chief of medicine (infectious diseases) at
the college, will direct the center, the announcement said.
The college and its 35 affiliate hospitals, the announcement
said, treat at least a third of the acute AIDS patients on a given
day.
St. Clare’s is an archdiocesan hospital in Manhattan. As
part of the plan, the archdiocese will establish a special unit at
the hospital to treat AIDS patients. The hospital will also
establish an AIDS clinic and offer home care for follow-up
the Conference of Latin American Religious, said in a re
cent interview in New York that many of the 150,000 Latin
American Religious his organization represents are ques
tioning whether they went too far in rejecting elements of
popular religiosity after the council.
In the United States a national meeting of the Conference
of Major Superiors of Men in mid-August opened with a
report suggesting that the same kind of questioning may be
going on today among a number of U.S. Religious.
U.S. Religious have backed much of the postconciliar
change, said Third Order Franciscan Father Roland Faley,
CMSM executive director, but some are asking, “Have we
perhaps lost, or at least lost sight of, basic values that can
not be sacrificed?”
And then there is the Catholic trivia game put out by a
company in Pennsylvania, which asks questions like, “Who
was the second pope? What is a catechism?”
Called “LIMBO,” the game is played with a stack of
question cards and a central board with the player’s
scorecards, which look like—how Catholic can you
get?—bingo cards.
work with AIDS patients, the archdiocese said. Already, it
said, archdiocesan hospitals treat 10-20 percent of all AIDS
patients in New York City.
The archdiocese also said it was investigating the situation
of children with AIDS and would establish a special program
for them if it found one was needed.
News that the archdiocese was planning an AIDS program
first came from Cardinal John J. O’Connor of New York.
Speaking with a reporter Aug. 17 in Wilton, Conn., where he
was attending a benefit auction, he said the archdiocese was
“very seriously considering” opening a shelter to care for
AIDS patients.
His comments were widely reported and aroused con
siderable interest. The cardinal and other archdiocesan
staff, together with Medical College and St. Clare’s officials,
then held meetings Aug. 19 and 20 to develop details of the an
nouncement.
Cardinal O’Connor’s announcement of plans for the care of
AIDS patients held special interest for New Yorkers because
he has been at odds with much of the homosexual community,
particularly over the issue of employing practicing homosex
uals in archdiocesan institutions and more generally over his
insistence that homosexual behavior is morally wrong.
* ‘ This new comprehensive program for AIDS research and
treatment does not represent a change in the policy of the
archdiocese,” the announcement concluded. “It is felt that a
coordinated effort to study the problem of AIDS will be more
successful than many different approaches.”
N.Y. Archdiocese Considers AIDS Shelter