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PAGE 4 — The Georgia Bulletin, March 26,1970
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Most Rev. Thomas A. Donnellan D.D, J.C.D. - Publisher
duilMII Office
796 West Peachtree, NW
Atlanta, Georgia 30306
Harry Murphy - Editor
Member of the Catholic Press Association
and Subscriber to N.C.W.C. News Service
Telephone :675-S536
Second Class Postage Paid at.Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
U.S.A. $5.00
Canada $5.00
Foreign $6.50
Send change of address to 796 West Peachtree, NW, Atlanta, Ga. 30308
Published weakly except the second and last weeks
in June, July and August and the last week in December.
At 202 E. Sixth St., Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
..mm The opinions contained in these editorial columns are
_____ the free expressions of free editors in a free Catholic press.
Start Negotiating Again
The City of Atlanta’s problems with
the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employes Union
appear to have their roots in both sides
raising false hopes that they can’t fulfill.
When union negotiations began with
the city in mid-January, union officials
said they would not condone a strike
while negotiations were underway about
a pay raise before March 31.
The negotiations continued for two
months and for a time it appeared there
would be no problems because a
three-part package of hotel, amusements
and mixed drink taxes was moving
through the General Assembly.
The first blow came when the
legislature only passed the mixed drink
tax. Another came when the governor
vetoed that.
But employes said they still got the
impression from Alderman Joel Stokes,
chairman of the Finance Committee,
that they would get their raise. Whether
he meant to give this impression or not is
not clear, but the committee didn’t go
A along with the increase and the aldermen
agreed with the committee’s
recommendation to review the matter
again in the fall.
Employes charged that Stokes "had
“lied” to them. This wasn’t exactly the
Christian thing to do, because union
officials surely knew that even if Stokes
had desired to give them a raise, the
committee and the aldermanic board
| would have had to concur.
The union struck March 17, bringing
into question the officials’ no-strike
pledge. They said negotiations ended
March 10, however, and they were no
longer bound by the pledge. Is
determining when negotiations have
ended a one-way street?
Five hours of negotiations with Mayor
Sam Massell on that day produced a
$400,000 package of benefits which
union officials agreed to push
“diligently” with the membership.
The membership rejected this,
however, and Mayor MasSell felt the
union officials had broken their word.
Whether they “diligently” sought
passage of the package is not known, but
the mayor got the impression it was
going to be passed, just as employes had
gotten the idea they were going to get
their pay raise.
If both sides had never assumed
anything, the ugly situation never would
have developed. The city assumed the
General Assembly would give it the
means to get the money for raises; the
employes assumed they would get them;,
the mayor assumed the officials could
and would keep employes from striking
and later would gain acceptance of the
$400,000 package.
It doesn’t matter too much who
misled whom; both sides seem to be
partially at fault in this department.
What matters is that the citizens have
been the innocent victims of the
bumbling and assuming.
Negotiations should start over with no
promises being made that can’t be
delivered and no one assuming anything
that isn’t in writing.
Making the matter a vendetta between
Mayor Massell and union official Morton
Shapiro isn’t going to solve anything.
The citizens and employes still suffer
while the names and threats fly.
Just about everyone concedes that
employes need another raise.
If a tax increase is needed to give it,
then so be it. Any property owner who
objects will be welcomed at the
sanitation department, to pick up other
people’s garbage at about $80 a week, or
in the sewer department to wade around
in the slime at about the same salary.
These employes see the opulence of
the city reflected in its waste.
It’s hard for them to pick up liquor
bottles all week and still believe the
citizens can’t afford to give them a raise.
TO ATTACK DRUG CULTURE
The Backdrop...
By John J. Daly, Jr.
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The Nixon Administration is now gearing up
for another attack on the narcotics problem in
the United States - this time taking aim at the
“drug culture” encouraged chiefly by some
writers and musical groups whose appeal is for
teenagers.
The new effort presumably will offer a
balance to the Federal government’s law
enforcement projects which cripple the illegal
importation and
distribution of
drugs.
In announcing
the latest step,
President Nixon
did not specifically
cite those figures in
public entertain
ment who make the use of drugs appear
rewarding, but it can be deduced from the
Administration’s proposals that they will feel
most of the effort.
The President said that drug abuse among
school-age youth is increasing “at an alarming
rate” and that he will raise to $12.4 million the
Federal spending for a variety of programs
meant to bring the clear danger of narcotics to
public attention.
Government spokesmen who briefed
reporters on the details of Mr. Nixon’s proposals
said that one of the first targets would be
claims that marijuana is a harmless drug - a
common theme in the writings of some
Americans today and in the publicity
surrounding several important musical groups.
“We know enough to say that for some
people this isn’t true,” said Stanley F. Yolles,
director of the National Institute of Mental
Health. Mr. Nixon allocated $1 million to speed
up work by Dr. Yolles and his colleagues on he
effects of marijuana.
Marijuana, it was said, has been shown to
bring about in some people “toxic psychoses”
lasting from one to 11 days. In addition, it can
lead to confusion in thought processes, loss of
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memory and disruption of speech.
The Administration will bring this message,
and refinements of it as research progresses, to
children and their parents through several
programs that should collide head-on- with
much of the emphasis in the present drug
culture.
About 150,000 teachers and 75,000 students
and community leaders will be trained with
U.S. Office of Education funds in drug dangers
before the next school year. In addition, more
than $150,000 will be spent on production
costs of television commericals and movies by
the Advertising Council, Inc., to assist a public
service campaign in warnings on drug abuse. A
National Clearinghouse on Drug Abuse
information will be established within the
prestigious National Institutes of Health at an
annual cost of $700,000.
“One of the great tragedies of the past
decade,” Mr. Nixon said, “has been that our
schools, where our children should learn about
the wonder of life, have often been the places
where they learn the living, and sometimes
actual death, of drug abuse.”
The new Nixon effort, it was reported, raises
to about $135.6 million for the 1971 fiscal year
the Federal effort on all fronts to deal with the
drug problem. Current spending is about
$105.8 million annually.
U.S. Commissioner of Education James E.
Allen, Jr., calls drug abuse among children “one
of the most serious problems of our society.” It
is estimated, for example, that as many as 20
million persons have tired, or are smoking,
marijuana. Furthermore, a study by
Commissioner Allen’s office estimates that a
hard drug problem exists in at least half of all
city high schools and up to 30% of suburban
high schools across the country.
These statistics, and the dreadful story they
tell, plus the Federal government's open concern
about drug abuse, should cause anyone in a
position to influence children and teenagers to
back away from lighthearted treatment of
marijuana and other narcotics.
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THE RESURRECTION
Tracts For
I The Times
By Rev. Marvin R. O’Connell
The great trouble with the Christian religion
is its stubborn insistence, that resurrection
comes 6nly after crucifixion. If it were not for
that, if it were not for Christianity’s almost
morbid fascination with suffering as the vehicle
of purification, then it could be, I am sure, a
comfortable creed, whose endeavors might be
directed to social betterment and whose
colorful rites might bring a measure of
solace-like a pretty sunset or a warm
handshake. But I am equally sure
that it would then be not worth
thinking about.
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WHATS TO SHOUT ABOUT?
It Seems To Me
Nothing, apparently, is too
inoffensive to send some of
our Catholic speakers and
writers into a new round of
complaining against those
who bear the burden of
authority in the Church.
For an instructive recent
example, let us
look at the
case of the
Holy See’s
suggestion that
Holy Thursday
be made an
occasion for
priests to
renew their
consecrations to , their
priesthood and their promises
of celibacy and obedience.
The proposal brought from
two priests who edit a
Catholic magazine a solemn
published pronunciamento
that they would refuse to
take part, on the ground that
participation would seem to
put them in the position of
deciding the controversy over
whether celibacy should
continue to be an obligatory
condition of the priesthood.
This was surely an
excessively self-conscious
notion, in as much as Pope
Paul IV, with all kindness but
with firmness, had already
settled the issue, making
crystal clear that as the
responsible head of the
Joseph Breig
Church he rejects suggestions
that priestly celibacy be made
optional rather than
obligatory. The two
priest-editors, it appeared,
were taking themselves
over-seriously.
Meanwhile, Father Andrew
Greeley of Chicago, a
columnist and sociologist,
was coming out with a
denunciation of “Rome’s
offensive counterattack on
the celibacy issue” and “the
travesty of the Holy
Thursday renewal ritual .. .a
meaningless-and insulting
excersise in ritualism.”
It seemed immediately
obvious to me that Father
Greeley was making his
comments on the basis of
what he had read in the daily
newspapers, which far too
often mishandle - sometime
grievously - news about the
Church. Father Greeley could
hardly have taken the time
and trouble to find out
exactly what the Holy See
had said.
I will leave it to the reader
to decide whether there is
anyting in the proposal to
justify either the position
taken by the two
priest-editors, or the angry
fussilade fired by Father
Greeley.
The proposal was
contained in one paragraph of
a circular letter about priestly
formation sent from the Holy
See to the’ various
conferences of bishops
around the world. Here is the
paragraph:
“It is desirable that every
priest should make an act of
renewal on Holy Thursday
morning. Even though he is
not able to take part in the
Mass of the Chrism, this act
of renewal should be a
reaffirmation of the act by
which he consecrated himself
to Christ and undertook to
fulfill the obligations of his
priesthood, particularly of
celibacy and of obedience to
his bishop or religious
superior.”
That’s all. What’s to get
excited about?
What everybody seems to
forget is that on the initiative
of Pope Paul and the world’s
bishops, a very real ^married
priesthood is being
developed, in the persons of
the permanent deacons, who
do all but offer Mass and
absolve people from their
sins.
I am truly unable to
understand why a priest
should object to renewing his
priestly consecration, any
more than we should object
to renewing our baptismal
promises, or to reciting the
Creed together at Mass.
) OUR PARISH
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“Guitars again! Don’t shhhh me. What happened to
our organ?’’
For genuine Christianity plunges
us right into the heart of the
problem of evil-not in some
theoretical way but in the Person
who bore the faults and suffered
for our iniquities. Christianity is
not an abstract system deduced from the order
of the universe; nor is it an occult science of
psychic adjustment nor a social attitude nor a
species of humanist do-goodism. All these sorts
of things St. Paul dismissed contemptuously as
“philosophy” when he declared that our
concern must be about “Christ and him
crucified.”
I am confident that St. Paul did not intend
to discourage various good works which should
grow out of the Christian’s commitment, just as
I would judge that he was not altogether fair in
his disdainful use of the word “Philosophy.”
But he was a direct man who went straight to
the point, and he was anxious that those to
whom he had preached the good news should
not confuse that gospel with any of its
side-effects. The Christian faith, he was saying,
has to do with evil and the solution to evil, and,
what is more, it is the only thing that makes
sense out of human pain, failure and
disappointment.
Not that faith makes that pain hurt less. Not
at all. But there is an intriguing passage from
the gospel in which Our Lord said that those
who believe in him must take up their cross and
follow him. He did not say that if a person does
not want to follow him that person will be
spared a cross. The difference lies not in
suffering or not suffering-for everybody
suffers-but in whether or not a person chooses
to employ his sufferring as a means of bringing
about ultimate good-in bringing about, in a
word, resurrection.
St. Paul supplied an eloquent commentary
on this too. It is our lot as believers,- he said,
“to make up what is lacking in the sufferings of
Christ.” I have long thought this the most
astonishing line in the whole Bible. What, we
might ask, could be backing in the agencies of
the Son of God? The answer must be that the
pain and titanic frustrations experienced by
Jesus 2000 years ago, though unique in one
sense, yet in another sense go on inns for the
same objective as he had: to make \ls able to
say, as he did, to men and women everywhere,
“This day you shall be with me in Paradise.”
But we must speak those words, as he did,
through teeth clenched from pain, with a
tongue cracked by fever, out of a spirit
chastened and humbled.
There is no more profound mystery than this.
God not only pitched his tent among us but
himself grappled with our very human
miseries-physical, emotional, spiritual. He cried
out in fear as we cry out: “Let this chalice pass
from me.” He experienced the blank terror of
loneliness just as we do, for he looked for
someone to comfort him and he found no one.
He felt the excruciating pain the human body is
subject to! “They have pierced my hands and
my feet, they have numbered all my bones.”
I am sure the spiritual writers are correct
when they maintain that our Christian
reflections at this sacred season must not be
simply commiseration with pain suffered once
2000 years ago and never to be suffered again.
Even so, must we not keep close to our factual
origins, must we not always remember that
Christianity is an historical phenomenon,
rooted in concrete events and in a real Person
who was bom, suffered and died? Is it not true
that the concerns we talk about so
much-community, relevance, liturgical reform,
social amerioration, education counselling,
structures, self-identity, race relations, love,
peace, etc. etc.—are nothing if they are not
signed with the sign of the cross. And we are
nothing if we do not cultivate some of that
sympathy-in the Greek sense of suffering
with-which pierced Our Lady’s soul as she
watched in horror her Son’s ignominious
execution.
Of course one should not disconnect the
passion from the resurrection. But the sacred
process begun on Good Friday is not yet
finished, and so the sweet dawn of Easter sheds
its light across Calvary’s hill, casting a great,
dark shadow of a cross. And you and I, in our
turn, labor beneath the burden of sin as we
look expectantly forward to the blessed vision
of peace.
CATHOLIC CONGRESS ON WORSHIP
THE ATLANTA CONGRESS
ATLANTA CIVIC CENTER AUDITORIUM
April 16,17,18,1970