Newspaper Page Text
Thursday, November 25, 1999
Notice
Bishops
(Continued from page 1)
on the continuing project to restruc
ture the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops and U.S. Catholic
Conference into one conference that
will be called the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops.
By large margins, the bishops gave
their OK for a revised mission state
ment and new statutes, as well as new
regulations on conference statements
and changes in the composition of the
Administrative Committee.
Among the conference officers
elected were Bishop Henry J.
Mansell of Buffalo, N.Y., new
NCCB-USCC treasurer, and Mon
signor William P. Fay, selected No
vember 17 as general secretary-elect.
Monsignor Fay initially will work
under the guidance of Monsignor
Dennis N. Schnurr, whose term as
general secretary was extended for
one year.
In other internal matters, the bish
ops approved a $52.7 million budget
for 2000 and a diocesan assessment
increase of 1.6 percent in 2001.
On the last day of their fall general
meeting, the bishops also approved a
document that would allow for porta
bility of retired bishops’ pensions,
along with statements on the elderly
and on charity.
The new pastoral message titled
“Blessings of Age” is “going to be
very helpful to a lot of folks,” said
Bishop Joseph P. Delaney of Fort
Worth, Texas.
It complements Pope John Paul II’s
recent “Letter to the Elderly,” he said
November 18, after the lightly
amended document was approved in
a voice vote.
“We really hope that more and
more parishes will see ministry to the
elderly as a very important part of
parish life,” he said, and “will use the
wonderful pool of talent and experi
ence and time that older folks have to
provide ministry ... to themselves and
to others.”
Without debate, the bishops also
approved “In All Things Charity: A
Pastoral Challenge for the New
Millennium,” a document that asks
Catholics to pledge to pray for justice
and peace, to learn more about social
teaching, to reach across race, reli
gion and other types of boundaries,
and to live a more generous life of
justice, service to the poor and advo
cacy for human life and dignity.
For the jubilee year, the bishops
Noel Robert Boeke and Shannon Marie Ellison, Church of the Most
Holy Trinity, Augusta, October 31, 1999.
Dorian Streed Barja and Robyn Marie King, Church of the Most
Holy Trinity, Augusta, November 6, 1999.
Roger Antonio Ortega and Evelyn Lissette Amaya, Church of the Most
Holy Trinity, Augusta, November 6, 1999.
May They Rest in Peace
Please pray for the faithful who have died recently:
t John J. McGonagle, Sr., Hinesville, November 14, 1999.
t Lynda Korzun, Augusta, November 16, 1999.
t Leo Matthew Kinstle, Brunswick, November 16, 1999.
t Herman Kenneth King, Jr., Savannah, November 17, 1999.
f George Y. Meyer, Jr., Savannah, November 17, 1999.
t Ann Barbee McIntyre, Savannah, November 21, 1999.
Please pray for this priest on the anniversary of his death:
f Rev. William McCarthy, November 27, 1930.
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agreed on a brief message intended
for use as a newspaper ad and a
longer version aimed at Catholic cler
gy and lay people.
They overwhelmingly approved a
pastoral plan on adult faith formation
that stresses the importance of life
long education to help adult Catholics
make their faith stronger, but deferred
until June a decision on whether to
initiate a project leading to a new
national adult catechism.
Several of the bishops’ actions—
including approval of the “Ex Corde
Ecclesiae” norms—must be ratified
by the Vatican before they take effect.
These included:
— A move to add the May 10 feast
of Blessed Damien of Molokai to the
U.S. liturgical calendar as an optional
memorial.
— Revised guidelines for the con-
celebration of the Eucharist, a
Spanish-language translation of the
U.S. Book of Blessings and a new
introduction to the Book of the
Gospels.
— A series of norms on admission
of seminary candidates who had for
merly been in other seminaries or
religious order formation houses.
The bishops also heard a report on
Letters
(Continued from page 4)
Exposure of Nazi Excesses in
Poland”[and states:] “Now the
Vatican has spoken, with authority
that cannot be questioned, and has
confirmed the worst intimations of
terror which have come out of the
Polish darkness” (1/24/1940).
Reporting the confrontational meet
ing with Herr von Ribbentrop
(German Foreign Minister), on
March 14, 1940, the Times head
lines were “Jews’ Rights
Defended” (“It was also learned
today ... that the Pontiff, in burning
words about religious persecution,
also came to the defense of the
Jews”), and “Vichy Seizes Jews;
Pope Pius Ignored” (8/27/1942);
countless other headlines appeared
before the 1942 Christmas message!
Had Pius XII stridently attacked
the Nazis, more lives would have
been lost. Throughout World War
II, Pius XII continually attacked
Nazi policies. He so provoked the
Nazis that they called him “a
mouthpiece of the Jewish war crim
inals.”
John Cornwell’s book, Hitler’s
Pope: The Secret History of Pius
XII (Viking Press, 1999), neglects
to point out that The New York
Times Christmas 1941 editorial
praised Pius XII for having “put
himself squarely against Hitlerism.”
The Osservatore Romano and the
Vatican Radio explicitly condemned
The Southern Cross, Page 11
the situation in Vietnam from
Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh
Man of Ho Chi Minh City and
endorsed calls for the beatification of
Archbishop Oscar Romero of San
Salvador and Redemptorist Father
Francis X. Seelos, who ministered in
New Orleans.
Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of
Galveston-Houston, NCCB-USCC
president, opened the meeting with a
talk summarizing distractions and
challenges facing the church as it
enters the new millennium, but call
ing on the tmst and courage exhibited
by U.S. church leaders throughout its
history.
“Our predecessors bequeathed to us
a strong and dynamic church,”
Bishop Fiorenza said. “They faced
the significant issues of their times,
and, like them, we must face the
issues that will come our way in the
future.”
Through this century, the bishops’
agenda has dealt with the defense of
life from conception through natural
death “from the threats of abortion,
hunger and poverty, racism, war and
weapons of mass destruction, capital
punishment and euthanasia,” he
added.
both “the wickedness of Hitler”, cit
ing Hitler by name (3/30/41) and
“the immoral principles of Nazism”
(4/5/41). Holocaust survivors con
firm that Pius XII frequently spoke
out about the “fundamental rights of
Jews” (12/3/43 and 12/5/43).
Unlike Cornwell, Jewish historian
Pinchas Lapide, a practicing Jew,
strongly defended Pope Pius XII.
Why? Lapide unequivocally states:
“If fairness and historical justice are
keystones of Jewish morality, then
keeping silent in view of slanderous
attacks on a benefactor is an injus
tice. ... Far more than two million
Jews did indeed survive, thanks to
the help of the Church, bishops,
priests, laymen. ... The Talmud
teaches us ‘whoever saves a life
receives as much credit as if he had
saved an entire world.’ If this is
true—and it is just as true as the
most typical of all Jewish princi
ples: that of the holiness of human
life—then a Jew must also defend
loudly a great saver of Jewish life”
CDie Welt, 7/16/1964). Cornwell’s
real objective is to destroy the
Papacy and the Catholic Church as
we know it. His scandalous book
not only distorts the truth about
Pius XII’s efforts to save the Jews
during World War II, but it also
depicts this saintly Pope as a collab
orator of the Nazis. This is an injus
tice to his memory!
Sister Margherita Marchione, Ph.D.