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PAGE 3 - January 7,1971
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Reports From Former Biafra
Agree Situation Not Good
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By NC News Service
Reports on conditions in
what used to be Biafra agree
that, while there has been
improvement, things are not
really good.
Biafra is the name taken by
the former Eastern Region of
Nigeria which declared its
independence in May, 1967,
and fought an unsuccessful
civil war against the central
Nigerian government for
more than two and a half
years.
The fighting in Africa’s
most populous country led to
mass starvation in Biafra. An
estimated 1.5 million Biafrans
died despite a massive night
airlift mounted from outside
the country by religious
organizations - including U.S.
Catholic Relief Services - and
the International Red Cross.
Widespread hunger
continued after the end of
hostilities because of supply
difficulties and the Nigerian
government’s reluctance to
accept aid from agencies that
had aided Biafra.
The bleakest report of the
current situation came from
Irish Holy Ghost Father
Michael Doheny, who made
an extensive tour of the area.
“I must testify that the
problem still remains a
colossal one,” he said, “and it
calls for the employment of
all available resources and
reserves, both from inside and
outside the country.”
Father Doheny said it is
essential to take politics out
of the relief situation. Saying
that the situation is not good
Should not be considered an
attack on the Nigerian
government, he said.
Other reports agree that
comparatively few Ibos, the
predominantly Christian
tribesmen who make up a
majority of the population of
what was Biafra, are now
dying of starvation. But many
are suffering from hunger.
The former Republic of
Biafra is now divided into
three states of the Nigerian
federation: the East Central
State, with 7.5 million
inhabitants, almost all Ibos;
the Southeast State, with 3.5
million inhabitants, and
Rivers State with 1.5 million
inhabitants. Most of the
inhabitants of the latter two
states are not Ibos.
In Owerri, last capital of
Biafra, two children a day
still die in a well-organized
clinic with adequate
personnel and equipment, a
report from an Irish
missionary priest said.
A report prepared by Dr.
David C. Miller, an American
physician advising the East
Central State government,
says there are, 6,500 severely
malnourished people
receiving relief food in the
state. Immediately after the
war, which ended in January,
there were 20 times as many
such persons.
Kwashiorkor, a disease
caused by hunger and
manifesting itself in swollen
bellies and a reddish tint of
the hair, is disappearing,
Philippe Decraene,
correspondent for the Paris
daily Le Monde, has reported.
In August, in Okporo, a
fourth of the children who
had been treated there for
malnourishment, were well
enough to return to their
families.
Henrik Beer, secretary
general of the League of Red
Cross Societies, an
organization not considered
sympathetic to the Nigerian
government, said the
government no longer had to
combat famine, but only
dietary deficiencies.
The Washington Post’s Jim
Hoagland, while savins that
progress has been made in
the fight against starvation,
presented a bleaker picture
than the French newsman.
While malnutrition cases are
10 to 20 per cent less than
they were during the war,
Hoagland said, the threat of
disaster still hangs over what
was Biafra.
Rebel food has not
reached the nutritional teams
working in the area for some
time, Hoagland said, and,
although home grown food
has taken the place of relief
food, the crops will soon be
exhausted.
Political considerations,
several observers agree, have
hampered relief efforts.
Several
humanitarian
organizations accused by
Nigeria of taking sides in the
civil war have not been
allowed to continue their
work in the country. Among
these is the French Red
Cross. The Nigerian
government also turned down
an offer of 10,000 tons of
food from the European
Common Market. The food
had belonged to the
International Committee of
the Red Cross, which angered
Nigerian authorities by flying
relief supplies to Biafra
during the war.
Nigeria’s decision to
change the structure of relief
operations last June caused a
sharp drop in the amount of
food being distributed and a
drastic rise in the number of
malnutrition cases.
“Those who distribute
food,” Nigerian authorities
have said, “directly control
those they aid. Now we no
longer want any external
control, because we have to
maintain law and order.”
Four months ago, the
Nigerian Red Cross stopped
distributing food free, but a
rehabilitation commission set
up by the federal government
has taken up the relief work
and is cooperating with
various humanitarian
organizations, including the
Catholic Secretariat of
Nigeria, the Save the Children
Fund, the Nigerian Christian
Council, the Quakers, the
Union of International Aid to
Children, the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization, the
UN Children’s Fund, CARE,
and the British High
Commissariat.
The president of the
rehabilitation commission,
M.S. Graham, described the
situation grimly: “We have
returned to the stone age. It’s
a question of putting in
condition people who have
just passed from modem
times to the prehistoric era.”
“For us,” Graham said,
“food has taken the place of
the gun and that’s what we
use to constrain people to
work. No work, no food.”
One of the obstacles to the
smooth working of such a
policy is the lack of currency
in the former Biafran enclave.
People are unable to pay for
the food the markets have.
Money is rare in the region,
several observers noted. It is
difficult to change a Nigerian
one-pound note ($1.50) and
impossible to change a
five-pound note ($7.50).
Despite the promises of Gen.
Yakubu Gowon, head of the
Nigerian government, the
money issued by the Biafran
government has not been
exchanged and those in the
region who had bank
accounts, a definite minority,
were given a lump sum of 20
pounds ($30), no matter
what their account was.
Unemployment is high and
those with jobs are poorly
paid. The Biafran economy is
largely the barter system.
Ironically, one of the
sources infusing money into
the economy is the
occupation force of more
than 100,000 non-Ibo
soldiers paying Nigerian
currency for what they buy.
The size of this military
presence makes any sort of
revolt impossible, but
observers say a current of
passive resistance is
discernible among the Ibos.
'
■Lb*
Pill
CONCERN FOR BIAFRA - This sign painted on a Liverpool wall shows concern for the plight of
Biafra despite an end to the fighting there. (NC PHOTO)
150 YEARS AFTER DEATH
Mother Seton Has Much To
Say To Today’s Catholics
WASHINGTON (NC) -
Blessed Elizabeth Bayley
Seton, who may become the
FROM 1970■
What Will Be Remembered?
By Joseph McLellan
WASHINGTON (NC) -
Some years contain an event
so striking that they are
forever linked with that one
development: 1492 and
Columbus, 1776 and the
Declaration of Independence,
1929 and the stock market
crash, 1941 and Pearl Harbor,
1963 and the deaths of Pope
John and John Kennedy.
From the close perspective
of today, 1970, now buried
under a sheaf of obsolete
calendar pages, does not seem
to include any event of that
magnitude.
It came close, sometimes.
It could have been the year
Congress enacted a minimum
income law or, conceivably,
the year the war in Vietnam
ended, the year Israel and the
Arabs reached a lasting peace
settlement or the year when
effective atomic disarmament
was begun.
All of these causes were
the subject of extended
effort; all of them were still
in limbo as the year ended,
because . . .well, because the
world is populated by human
beings and human beings
today work largely through
committees.
What will people remember
about 1970 a few years from
now? Since 1970 lacked a
single focal event, the
memories of the year will be
relatively dim. There were
disturbances in Poland, but
nothing to match the
Czechoslovakian epic of 1968
or the Hungarian tragedy of
1956. There was tension and
confrontation in the Catholic
Church, but it was pale
compared to the birth control
controversy of two years ago.
Possibly the adventures of
two Jesuits during 1970
present the most vivid picture
of a changing priesthood.
While one of them, Father
Robert Drinan, was running
successfully for Congress, the
other, Father Daniel Berrigan,
was running unsuccessfully
from the F.B.I. In both cases,
reaction among their
priest-colleagues was mixed
but generally intense.
For many, probably the
memory that will last longest
is that of the tense days when
the Apollo 13 spaceship
limped through space,
crippled, for a barely
successful return to earth.
Others will recall the defeat
of J. Harrold Carswell for the
Supreme Court or the
campaigning of Vice
President Spiro T. Agnew in
the congressional elections.
Some memories have
national significance but a
particularly intense local
meaning. Los Angeles will
have some citizens for whom
the year’s most memorable
event was the retirement of
Cardinal James Francis
McIntyre.
Bostonians, similarly, will
long recall the retirement and
the death a month later of
Cardinal Richard Cushing.
In Italy, the legalization of
divorce probably had the
most lasting impact, in Egypt
the death of Gamal Abdel
Nasser, in Canada the
activities of the Quebec
Liberation Front which
precipitated a state of
national emergency.
Just as particular regions
have their specialized
memories, so do persons of a
particular religious allegiance.
For Catholics, 1970 was a
year very largely of
uncertainties, of mixed
developments.
Many of the year’s
religious developments, like
the secular negotiations of
Vietnam, the Middle East or
atomic weapons, were
continuations of earlier
trends, still moving toward an
uncertain future.
Chief among these,
perhaps, was the continuing
tension over the question of
priestly celibacy. Sometimes
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international headlines, as
when the Dutch hierarchy
confronted the Vatican.
Often, it was the subject of a
silent battle within an
individual soul. Available
information Indicated that
the rush of men leaving the
priesthood has slowed down,
but there was no STgn of when
it would end.
For many Catholics, the
religious event of the year
was the Pope’s visit to
Australia, with stops at Hong
Kong, Manila and other cities
in Asia. When he set foot in
Sydney, Pope Paul completed
a series of visits which have
taken him to every inhabited
continent since his 1963
election to the papacy.
But this fact was
overshadowed by an earlier
incident in Manila, an
assassination attempt by
knife-wielding Bolivian artist
Benjamin Mendoza y Amor.
For the Church in the
United States, the 1970 story
was largely one of
retrenchment. Catholic
population dropped - only
by a little over 1,000 - but it
was the first move downward
in this century. Also down
were vocations to the
priesthood and religious life
and enrollment in Catholic
schools.
Organizations were in
difficulty: the National
Council of Catholic Nurses
disbanded after 30 years of
existence; the National
Liturgical Conference, after
several years of experimental
programs and a venture into
social activism, decided not
to hold its 1970 convention.
One positive note: a reversal
in declining diocesan weekly
newspaper circulations, with
a new growth of 300,000
subscribers.
A $2 million deficit in the
budget of the National
Conference of Catholic
Bishops and the U.S. Catholic
Conference was symptomatic
of financial problems in many
American church
organizations, Catholic and
non-Catholic, including the
National Council of
Churches. Yet the bishops
realigned their priorities and
committed themselves to a
$50 million campaign to fight
poverty, with early returns
showing the initial annual
collection may have topped
expected goals.
Continuing liturgical
changes - including a
widespread trend toward
permitting Sunday Mass
obligations to be fulfilled on
Saturday and the new Order
of the Mass - had a generally
positive reception. But there
was still some confusion in
less defined areas such as the
changing roles of the
priesthood.
There were religious news
events that did not provoke
mixed feelings or outright
dismay, but not nearly
BEGINS SEPT. 30
Bishops’ Synod Set
VATICAN CITY (NC) -
The Holy See has announced
that it has sent out a letter
convoking the 1971 Synod of
Bishops.
As reported earlier in NC
News, the letter of
convocation states that the
synod will begin its work
Sept. 30 and will probably
last about a month and that it
will deal with the ministerial
priesthood and world justice.
The synod will also be
briefed on the progress of a
fundamental law of the
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1967, called for such a
fundamental law to serve as a
preamble to the Code of
Canon Law which has been
under revision since 1963.
Fathers of the 1967 synod
were asked to submit written
suggestions about the
projected fundamental law,
which is generally conceived
as a statement of basic rights
and principles.
Study papers to be
submitted to the synod are
under preparation. They are
being based on observations
and suggestions submitted by
the bishops’ conferences on
outlines indicated by the
council of the. synod’s
secretariat in its meeting last
October and on the results of
a study of the ministerial
priesthood made by a
su b commission of the
International Theological
Commission and refined at a
meeting of the theological
commission itself in October.
The study papers will be
examined by the council of
the synod’s secretariat at its
next meeting, scheduled for
Jan. 11-15,1971.
The letter of convocation,
dated Dec. 8, assured all who
have a right to participation
in the synod that they will
receive the study papers as
soon as they have reached
final form.
Those entitled to
participate in a general
meeting of the synod are:
Patriarchs; major
archbishops (at present there
is only one, exiled
Ukrainian-rite archbishop
Josyf Slipyjof Lvov in the
Soviet Union, who now
resides in Rome);
metropolitans of the
Eastern-rite outside the
patriachates of Eastern-rite
Catholic Churches; bishops
elected by their national or
regional conferences;
cardinals in charge of the
departments of the Church’s
central administration (the
Curia) and 10 Religious
elected by the Roman Union
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This will be the second
general meeting of the synod.
The synod of 1969 was an
extraordinary assembly,
which meant that presidents
of bishops’ conferences took
part rather than bishops
elected for the synod by the
conferences, while only three,
rather than 10 Religious were
elected for the synod by the
Roman Union of Superiors
General.
enough of them. One, at
least, was the release of
Bishop James E. Walsh after
12 years of confinement in
Red China.
What was the Catholic
news event of the year with
the most far-reaching
implications? Interpretations
will vary, to be sure, and
things that happen tomorrow
can change the meaning of
what has happened yesterday.
But from the strictly
institutional Church
viewpoint, probably the most
meaningful story of the year
was Pope Paul’s decision that
cardinals 80 years of age will
be barred in the future from
positions of authority in the
Roman Curia and from voting
in papal elections.
The Pope has moved
gradually in his reform of the
Curia, but he has moved with
a sure-footedness and a set of
clearly defined goals that
reflect his decades of
day-to-day experience as a
monsignor in the central
administration of the Church.
During his papacy, the
Vatican’s agencies have been
widely reorganized, with new
units established to meet new
needs.
The top administration has
been thoroughly
internationalized and the
laity, lower clergy and
Religious have been given
significant representation,
while the bishops out in the
field, administering the
world’s dioceses, have been
brought firmly into
policy-making.
The changes have come
piecemeal, but observed in
persepetive they form a
significant pattern. They have
come slowly, but their impact
over the next few decades
will be dramatic.
Paul will not complete the
work he has begun, whether
he dies in the papacy or he
retires (as persistent rumors
predict) in another two years.
But the Church will be
different and better - more
flexible, more vigorous, more
attuned to contemporary
reality - because of what he
has done.
first American-born saint, has
a great deal to say to
American Catholics today,
even though Jan. 4 was the
150th anniversary of her
death.
This assessment came from
one of her biographers,
Vincentian Father Joseph I.
Dirvin, assistant to the
president of St. John’s
University in Jamaica, N.Y.
He is the author of “Mrs.
Seton: Foundress of the
American Sisters of Charity,”
published in 1962, a year
before she was beatified by
Pope John XXIII.
Father Dirvin was asked to
deliver the sermon at a Jan. 3
commemoration in
Emmitsburg, Md., where
Mother Seton set up her
order of nuns, the American
branch of the Daughters of
Charity of St. Vincent de
Paui.
Principal celebrant at the
Mass was Cardinal
Lawrence Shehan of
Baltimore, with Cardinal
Patrick O’Boyle of
Washington, D.C., and
Archibishop Luigi Raimondi,
apostolic delegate in the
United States, among the
concelebrants.
Vincentian Father Lucio
G. Lapalorcia, who is
officially promoting Mother
Seton’s canonization cause,
came from Rome for the
services.
Blessed Mother Seton has
much to say about today’s
Catholics, Father Dirvin
stated, because “she was an
American woman . . .who had
the best of several worlds.”
In her youth and as a
young married woman, she
had moved in “the best of
society.” She hhad gone to
dances and the theater; “in
fact, she loved dancing all her
life,” he added.
Married before her 20th
birthday, she gave birth to
five children and was later
widowed.
She faced great opposition
when she left the Episcopal
Church to become a Catholic.
To support her children
after her husband’s death, she
founded a school that was the
beginning from which her
religious congregation grew as
well as the beginning of the
U.S. Catholic parochial
school system.
Her life is significant
today, Father Dirvin said,
“because she appeals to the
ordinary person.” She
undertook no extraordinary
ascetical practices and her
charity was such as can be
practiced in ordinary
everyday living.
She had “an abiding faith
that God would see her
through,” Father Dirvin said,
“a faith that her efforts to
work out a system of
education for God and the
Church would succeed.”
Her life was characterized
by a “tremendous obedience,
which is a dirty word in some
circles today,” he said, “to
those she considered^Jod’s
guides for her.”
In her youth, she was
considerde “the most
beautiful girl in New York
City,” where she was born on
Aug. 28, 1774. Baptized an
Episcopalian, she later
converted to Catholicism in
1805, following the death of
her husband.
In the years that followed,
she displayed both devotion
to her five children and great
kindness and charity toward
the poor - two of the traits
that Father Dirvin singled out
as significant for Catholics
today.
She went to Baltimore in
June 1808 to set up a school.
A year later, the nuns’
community was set up in
Emmitsburg.
From 1809 until her death
in 1821, Mother Seton laid
the foundation of the
American parochial school
system, as she trained Sisters,
sent them to found schools in
various cities and supervised
their work.
In 1850, the Emmitsburg
Sisters affiliated with the
French Daughters of Charity.
Five other Sisterhoods, after
branching out from the
Emmitsburg community,
became independent of it.
Mother Seton was beatified
by Pope John on March 17,
1963.
“Only the acceptance of
miracles,” Father Dirvin said,
“stands in the way of her
canonization.” He added that
“canonization would give her
enormous visibility and
would have an enormous
impression on the Catholic
community in the United
States.”