Newspaper Page Text
Vol. 65 No. 34
Newspaper Of The Diocese Of Savannah
Thursday, October 3, 1985
$10 Per Year
Pope Pledges Church's Cooperation In Safeguarding Human Rights
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope John Paul
II recalled the “monstrous capacity for
destruction” of state-sanctioned racism
during World War II and warned that the
“ravages” of totalitarianism against
human rights continue today.
He pledged the church’s cooperation with
all people, regardless of faith, in the
safeguarding of human rights around the
world.
The pope spoke Sept. 26 to about 500
French and Belgian participants in the
“Cruise of Friendship for Deportees and
Resisters,” a human rights group visiting
World War II sites.
The group’s work, he said, helped remind
the world “to never forget, to never grow
used to the perversity of racism and its
monstrous capacity for destruction.”
The Polish-born pope recalled that “in
my native land, at Auschwitz, millions of
men, women and children of Jewish and
Polish origin, as well as from other coun
tries, experienced the Calvary of
systematic annihilation.”
The things that happened there and in
other camps, the pope said, were “without
a doubt the greatest atrocities in history.”
The church defends human rights
because it believes “man is created in
God’s image” and therefore has a dignity
that no state or empire can deny, the pope
told the group. But the church recognizes
that “the cause of human rights is one of all
humanity,” he said.
Thus, Christians often find themselves
working “shoulder-to-shoulder with non
believers, who accomplish the same ser
vice to man” without being inspired by the
same source, he said.
The pope proposed that believers and
non-believers should try to discover the
“ultimate reasons” that motivate their ac
tions. He said he was making the sugges
tion “with the greatest respect for those
who do not belong to the Christian faith.”
The future of the human rights move
ment, he said, “is more than ever in our
hands, in an age in which dictatorship and
totalitarianism continue their ravages.”
Bishops' Committee Statement
“Teaching On Abortion Stems
From Higher Law”
WASHINGTON (NC) - Dissent from
the Catholic Church’s teaching on abortion
“can in no way be seen as legitimate
teaching,” said a statement issued in
Washington by the committee for Pro-Life
Activities of the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops.
The committee issued the statement to
coincide with Respect Life Sunday to be
observed Oct. 6 in dioceses across the
RESPECT LIFE PROGRAM — The annual Respect Life Program
sponsored by the Catholic bishops of the United States begins on Sun
day, October 6. The message of the program is that every human life,
born and unborn, deserves respect and legal protection at every stage
and in every circumstance. (Photo copyright by M.C. Valada)
country.
“A Catholic who chooses to dissent from
the church’s teaching on abortion, or to
support dissent from it, is dissenting not
only from church law but from a higher
law which the church seeks to observe and
teach,” the statement said.
“Much has been made lately of
statements by persons who, emphasizing
they are Catholics, assert that they are not
bound by what the church says about abor
tion.
“In reply we wish to make a very simple
point: the church’s teaching in this matter
is binding not only because the church says
so, but because this teaching expresses the
objective demands place on all of us by the
inherent dignity of human life.”
Although the committee statement did
not mention it specifically, last year a con
troversial ad appeared in The New York
Times in which the 97 Catholics who signed
it said there was more than one
“Legitimate Catholic position” on the
morality of abortion.
The ad, published in The Times Oct. 7,
1984, became the source of a highly
publicized, ongoing conflict in the U.S.
church after a Vatican agency ordered the
men and women Religious who signed it to
recant. The three priests and 24 nuns
received Vatican orders to recant or face
expulsion from their communities.
At least two of the nuns say they have
been cleared, but the cases of most are still
pending. The three male Religious — two
brothers and a priest — publicly affirmed
their adherence to church teaching on
abortion shortly after the Vatican order
and apparently were cleared.
In their statement for Respect Life Sun
day, the bishops also said those who say
the abortion controversy requires one to
choose between the rights of women and
the rights of the unborn have “a
misunderstanding of the Christian
Message.”
“Christian love extends to all God’s
children without limit or exception,” the
statement said. “It does not mean choos
ing one over the other, but loving all and
treating all with respect.
“We therefore stand with the child who
has no voice of his or her own, and we also
stand with the woman facing problems in
pregnancy, doing all we can to provide her
with effective morally acceptable
assistance.”
Extraordinary Exchange Of Letters
NEW YORK (NC) — Bishop James
Malone, president of the National Con
ference of Catholic Bishops, Sept. 27 called
an extraordinary exchange of letters bet
ween Pope John Paul II and Lutheran
Bishop James Crumley an expression of a
“continuous and often repeated commit
ment” of both sides to Christian unity.
The press conference was held at the
LCA headquarters to focus attention on the
letters, which had been released a few
hours earlier at the Vatican as a follow-up
to the meeting on nine LCA regional bishop
with the pope.
Despite progress in ecumenical
dialogue, Catholics and Lutherans cannot
share the Eucharist because they lack a
common profession of faith, Pope John
Paul II said.
“There is joy and hope, because the
Lutheran-Catholic dialogue over the last 20
years has made us increasingly aware of
how close we are to each other in many
things that are basic,” he told nine U.S.
Lutheran bishops visiting the Vatican.
“We experience sorrow, too, because
there are important issues which still
divide us in the profession of faith, preven
ting us from celebrating the Eucharist
together,” the pope added, speaking in
English.
Bishop Crumley, who had met with John
(Continued on Page 6)
Official
Appointment
Bishop Raymond W. Lessard and
Rev. Alban A. Maguire, O.F.M.,
Minister Provincial, Holy Name
Province, Franciscan Friars, have
announced the appointment of Rev.
Stephen Walsh, O.F.M., as Pastor of
St. Mary Parish, Americus. His ap
pointment is effective October 12,
1985.