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ARCHDIOCESE OF ATLANTA
The Ge or
SERVING GEORGIA’S 71 NORTHERN COUNTIES
Vol. 9 No. 6
Thursday, February 11, 1971
$5 per year
Dear
Reader
BY HARRY MURPHY
Sunday is Valentine’s Day,
a day for lovers.
Since everyone should love
everyone else, each person
should send every other
person a valentine.
That being impractical,
let’s contemplate what love
is.
To me, it is:
Giving a motorist a push,
letting him into the stream of
traffic and not honking your
horn when you see he’s doing
his best to get his car
cranked.
Presenting your side of an
argument, but not getting
angry when you realize yours
is not the prevailing one.
Trying to discipline
children enough to guide
growth, but not enough to
retard it.
Being more than fair in
dealings, even with those who
are at a disadvantage.
Moving to the pew’s
middle voluntarily and not
making late arrivals climb
over you.
Giving a sincere handshake
of peace, especially to
strangers.
Contributing all you can to
church and charity gratefully,
giving thanks that you have
the resources to do so.
Trying to understand the
thinking of those in
authority, for their areas of
concern are much wider than
yours.
Realizing that there are
few differences in individuals
which cannot be laid to
accidents of birth and
succeeding events.
Seeking to improve what
we have in our society with
responsible criticism,
embellished with a generous
supply of patience.
Making decisions based on
what they will do to
humanity, rather than merely
on what they will do to us.
Trying to understand those
with whom we deal, but not
giving up because we don’t.
In short, love is the golden
rule: Do unto others as you
would have others do unto
you.
Saying it is easy; applying
it isn’t.
25,000 Priests
Leave In 8 Years
BRUSSELS, Belgium (NC)
— Last year, 3,800 priests
formally requested laicization
by the Holy See, according to
a Belgian priest-sociologist.
Father Francois Houtart,
director of the Institute for
Social and Religious Studies
at the Catholic University of
Louvain, said here that over
14,000 priests have formally
asked to be returned to the
lay state in the past eight
years.
Most of these requests
came from men between 30
and 45 years of age, he said.
The priest said in a lecture
that in the past eight years an
estimated 25,000 priests have
left the active ministry
without formally requesting
laicization.
‘Heresy’ Trials
Get New Methods
By James C. O’Neill
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The Vatican office that
guards the faith has guaranteed, in a new set of norms
avoiding any mention of “heresy” or
“excommunication,” that any Catholic theologian or
writer with apparently unorthodox opinions will get a
fair and democratic hearing.
The Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, the
former Holy Office, said in
announcing them at a Feb. 4
news conference that the
norms would govern all
examinations of the publicly
expressed opinions of
Catholics on matters of
revelation and Catholic
doctrine.
“In the congregation today
there is no electric chair, not
even a gas chamber,” jested
Msgr. Joseph Tomko, a
congregation official, when
reporters raised questions
from the past about
accusations without a
hearing, judgments without
appeal, and the ancient smell
of smoke and the stake.
Msgr. Tomko said the new
rules - consisting of 18
numbered paragraphs and
running almost 1,000 words -
were pastoral in intention and
were concerned with
“clarifying ideas rather than
condemning them.”
The spirit of the new
norms, he insisted, aims at a
calm and impartial
examination of ideas
expressed by a Catholic who,
for one reason or another,
may have caused a problem
of faith for another Catholic.
He stressed that the new
approach of the congregation,
as expressed by the latest
norms, is not to deal in terms
of a “trial” or “process.”
Instead, the idea is to
determine what a given
author thinks, whether or not
what he thinks is in
conformity with the the
teachings of the Church, and
if it is not, what can be done
about it.
As Msgr. Tomko put it:
“the spirit of this
examination doesn’t seek to
throw some one out of the
Church but to clarify the
thoughts and ideas of the
author.”
The norms set up two
forms of examination:
ordinary and extraordinary.
The extraordinary form,
which would be rare, would
involve cases in which
opinions expressed are
“clearly and certainly
erroneous,” without any
doubt or qualification.
In such cases the local
bishop would be advised of
the congregation’s decision
and the author would be
asked to correct his opinion.
The ordinary examination
is more important because
more common. It will involve
cases in which the thought or
opinion expressed may be
doubtful -- either in what it
says, or in the way it says it.
The norms for ordinary
examination, as explained by
Msgr. Tomko, center on two
approaches:
-What is the man saying
exactly? Is it in full
agreement with Catholic
doctrine and revelation?
-What effect has it had
upon the Catholic
(Continued on Page 2)
NEWS BRIEFS
Maddox Plans TV Show
ATLANTA (NC) — Former Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox
wants his own nationwide television show - not to talk about
politics, but religion. Maddox, now the state’s lieutenant
governor, said if the show he has in mind fails, then he probably
would run for president. He boasted he had an excellent chance
of winning the presidency. But if his TV show proposal
succeeds, Maddox added, he thinks he can do more good as an
emcee than as the nation’s chief executive. The program
Maddox plans - starring himself - would be called “Testimony
Time.” Its agenda is speculative at this point, but Maddox hopes
it will begin this summer. His press secretary, Jack Thomas, said
that Maddox is conferring with television executives, but so far
no network affiliation has been announced, The lieutenant
governor, Thomas said, “is a Baptist who considers himself a
fundamentalist. His religious message has an overtone of
politics, but generally calls for a national revival of the message
of Christ.”
Georgia Abortion Bill
A spokesman for the Georgia Right to Life Committee
announced Wednesday (Feb. 10) that the organization had
received information from sources at the State Capitol
concerning a liberalized abortion bill to be introduced before
the Health and Ecology Committee of the Georgia House of
Representatives later this week.
The Right to Life Committee identified the sponsor of the
bill as Representative Kil Townsend of Atlanta.
A liberalized abortion bill was defeated by a narrow margin in
the Health and Sanitation Committee last year. It, too, was
sponsored by Townsend. The defeated measure would have
allowed abortion at any time before delivery if a woman’s
physician and two other doctors certified that full term
pregnancy would be injurious to the physical or mental health
of the mother, or that the baby was likely to be born mentally
or physically handicapped.
Critics of the bill called it “abortion-on-demand.”
Townsend’s bill, according to the Right to Life Committee, is
even more liberal that last year’s defeated proposal. The present
bill, the committee fears, “would eliminate even the
requirement that abortions be performed in a hospital and
would allow the operation to take place in a clinic or in a
doctor’s office.”
The Right to Life Committee also issued a call for interested
citizens to express their views on liberalized abortion in letters
to members of the House Health and Ecology Committee.
Chairman of the House committee is Rep. Virgil T. Smith of
Dalton. Rep. Clayton Brown Jr., of Griffin is Vice-chairman,
and Rep. Sidney Marcus of Atlanta is Secretary.
So. Baptists,
Catholics Meet
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (NC) — A firm though cautious step has been taken
between Southern Baptists and Catholics toward understanding and cooperation.
More than 100 Catholics
and Baptists met here in a
three-day conference on
“Salvation: Its Meaning and
Relation to Christian Social
Responsibility.”
The conference was jointly
sponsored by the Department
of Interfaith Witness, of the
Southern Baptist Home
Mission Board, and the U.S.
Bishops’ Committee for
Ecumenical and Interreligious
Affairs (BCEIA).
Opening speakers were
Bishop John L. May of
Mobile, Ala., and Dr. Cecil
Sherman, pastor of the First
Baptist Church, Asheville,
N.C.
The two appeared to be in
basic agreement regarding
“faith and works.” Both said
that faith, if it is faith, must
lead one to concern for his
fellow man. Both indicated
that poverty and race
relations were genuine
concerns. Each started with
his own theology of faith and
salvation through baptism
and held that salvation is
worked out, not
instantaneous.
Dr. Sherman admitted that
his thinking is a minority
thought in the Southern
Baptist Convention, the
nation’s largest Protestant
denomination with 11.3
million members. He said it
differed seriously: with
Bishop May’s presentation of
baptism, faith and salvation
in the area of infant baptism.
Bishop May told the
delegates: “A Catholic view
of salvation is simply enough
stated for a group of this
kind. We are all one in
professing Jesus Christ as lord
and savior .... the
application of His saving
death is not an automatic
thing, but demands the
personal assent of faith and a
continual conversion of the
individual Christian.”
Acknowledging that the
question of “faith and
works” was “an ancient
battlefield over which so
much ink and perhaps even
more blood has flowed,” he
said.
“Certainly faith and works
belong together, regardless of
how their relationship may be
described. I believe the
massive testimony of the
Bible tells us so . .. Somehow
or other, the relationship is
close and deep in the
practical order.
“God has special concern
for the poor and the
oppressed in the Old
Testament. . . There is much
more of the same lesson for
the Christian in the New
Testament.”
In closing, Bishop May
quoted “a famous Baptist
preacher,” the late Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. as saying:
“Any religion that professes
to be concerned about the
souls of men, and is not
concerned about the
economic conditions that
B
damn the soul, the social
conditions that corrupt men,
and the city governements
that cripple them, is a dry,
dead, do-nothing religion in
need of new blood.”
Dr. Sherman said in his
address:
“The Bible is the only
objective base I know for
social concern.”
He outlined salvation this
way: we are born in a natural
state of innocence; we are led
to the affirmation of our
Adamic origin (original sin);
Christ comes into our lives
with salvation; we have a part
to play in salvation.
Dr. Sherman said that,,
when Jesus called his disciples
it was “a now kind of thing.
The people .who did not
follow right away were passed
by. The ones who did follow
were asked to assume certain
obligations.”
He said those obligations
were often symbolic, and he
quoted from St. John the
parable of the grain of wheat
that mu st die in order to bear
fruit.
“But when such symbolic
statements are given specific
application to this life,” he
said, people “pray that I
hurry on to more symbolism
and depart any attempt at
application.”
He said some persons see
(Continued on Page 2)
I
Berrigans: Folk Heroes Or Arch-Villains?
WORCESTER, Mass. (NC) — Holy Cross Quarterly has
devoted its entire 80-page current issue to one alumnus and
his brother-both pacifists, both prisoners, both priests.
Are Fathers Philip (Class of ’50) and Daniel Berrigan the
first authentic folk heroes of the 1970’s or the decade’s first
arch-villains?
\%
The magazine published by the prestigious Jesuit college
here weighs the pros and cons of their lives, cause and
imprisonment in 10 articles, an editorial, countless
photographs, poetry, and three letters to them from their
religious superiors. It upholds both men but suspends
judgment in the long run.
The contents include a facsimile of a letter sent to Jesuit
Daniel Berrigan last August in the Danbury, Conn., federal
prison by the New England Jesuit Province’s superior, Father
William G. Guidon.
■ :
“May I write to welcome you to the New England
Province-neither facetiously nor with precious words-but
simply as greeting a suffering and prophetic brother in our
midst?” the provincial wrote.
He conveyed fraternal support approved by Jesuits of the
province, said he hoped to get over to visit the jailed priest,
and wondered: “Do you suppose that we could ever be
allowed to concelebrate Mass together?”
The quarterly magazine also reproduced a letter to Father
Philip Berrigan, a Josephite, from that order’s vicar general in
Baltimore, Father Matthew J. O’Rourke.
v5
“Your imprisonment remains a testimony to the strength
of your convictions and your fidelity to conscience,” the
vicar wrote. He said his life’s direction and voice had
“touched us all” so that none could avoid “the vital
questions of war and peace.”
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“You are well aware of the difference of opinion among
the members of the Society (St. Joseph’s Society of the
Sacred Heart) on the issues you have raised,” said Father
O’Rourke. “What you might not be aware of is the high
esteem with which you are held by the men, and the concern
they continually express for your welfare.”
Jesuit Father Edward Duff, associate professor of political
science at Holy Cross College, set the tone for the illustrated
quarterly in an article examining the burden of the Berrigans.
He found that, rather than carrying a burden, the Berrigan
£2 . -
CARICATURE of Father Philip Berrigan (Class of ‘50’)
Quaterly.” (NC PHOTO)
brothers have placed a burden on Americans who do not
share their imprisonment.
Father Duff related that Ralph Waldo Emerson, visiting
Henry Thoreau in a Massachusetts jail where Thoreau was
sentenced for refusing to pay taxes in support of the Mexican
War, had asked him why he was there and was asked in reply:
“Waldo, why are you NOT here?”
“Why are you NOT here, Ed Duff, S.J.?” the priest asked
himself in his article.
In an introductory editorial, the quarterly’s editor, Jesuit
Father William Van Etten Casey, said:
“The controversial character of the Berrigans generates
strong emotions on both sides. To some they are anathema;
to others they are angelic. I make no secret of my
partisanship: I am for them and with them.”
He said that the fair-minded of both sides “must join in
condemning J. Edgar Hoover for his unprecedented public
defamation of the Berrigans” when the FBI director cited
them last fall as leaders of a government bombing-kidnaping
plot during an appearance before a Senate subcommittee,
several months before any charges and indictments were
made.
Father Casey asked a fundamental question: what really
happened to change those two priests?
“What brought them to such a pitch of mind and heart
that they were willing to challenge the authority of the
state?” he asked.
“Are they prophets pointing to the disintegrating fabric of
a corrupt society? victims of ruthless bureaucrats and soulless
judges? martyrs in a just cause?
“Or are they self-righteous fanatics? arrogant nihilists?
grandstanders on an ego trip? terrorists conspiring to bomb
and kidnap?
I
“We have opinions on these questions, most of them
firmly held, but definitive answers must wait upon events.
We will all be dead, long dead, before history comes up with >§
some kind of impartial verdict on the Berrigans. But of one :S
thing we can now be certain: they will be in history as 1
another chapter in that oldest story-the collision of Si
conscience with the state.”
. |
appears on front of “Holy Cross I n articles in the rest of the magazine, most contributors
endorsed the Berrigans-and a few disagreed with them.
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