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PAGE 4—The Georgia Bulletin, August 19,1971
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Most Rev. Thomas A. Donnellan D.D, J.C.D Publisher
Harry Murphy, Editor
Builncsi Offlc*
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Fr. James Maciejewski - Associate Editor
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The opinions contained in these editorial columns are
the free expressions of free editors in a free Catholic press.
The Sampietrini’s Side
BY FATHER LEO E. McFADDEN
VATICAN CITY (NC) - While vibrant
outcries of public indignation ring round the
Vatican these hot days of August in the full
throes of the tourist season, the quiet man
responsible for it all smokes an occasional
cigarette and wishes he could make everyone
happy.
This quiet man, by whose authority scantily
clad tourists are daily turned away from St.
Peter’s basilica-causing not a few invocations of
the Lord’s name-granted a rare interview to NC
News in his office inside the Vatican.
Archbishop Marie Lemieux, a soft-spoken,
69-year-old Canadian Dominican, is the former
archbishop of Ottawa and former apostolic
delegate to India. Today he is director of the
maintenance office for St. Peter’s. As such, he
has charge of the “Sampietrini,” those who
work on or in the basilica.
Some of these Sampietrini must stand at the
entrance door to enforce the dress regulations
posted there in five languages. These
regulations, the archbishop insists, are primarily
to preserve the sacredness of Christendom’s
greatest shrine.
At the start of this summer season, nuns
joined the male workers to forbid entrance to
men dressed in shorts or undershirts and to
women and girls clad in shorts or dresses which
do not cover the arms or come to the knees.
Sister Fiorella, a nun of the Daughters of the
St. Paul, resigned from the inspection team in
early August suffering from nervous
exhaustion. She is resting at her convent in
Rome but will probably not return for work at
St. Peter’s.
Discussion of this inspection surfaces every
high tourist season in the press, but this
summer the addition of the nuns whipped the
situation into a furor, primarily because it was a
novelty.
Asked about this controversy, Archbishop
Lemieux explained the viewpoint from his side
of the bronze door.
“How can we solve this problem? I wish we
could admit everyone. We could if everyone
would come prepared to enter a church, a place
of prayer, one of the world’s greatest shrines.
Unfortunately, many do not.
“When I was delegate in India I was
privileged to place a wreath on Gandhi’s shrine.
But first I was asked to take off my shoes,
which I did. I remember once in Singapore
seeing some hippies getting their hair cut to
gain entrance to the city.
“Not that I am going to open a barber shop
on the steps of St. Peter’s, but I give these as
examples that different people have different
customs. If we truly have respect for the
customs of a place, we will abide by them. One
of our standards in St. Peter’s is that people be
appropriately dressed.”
Told that by American standards many of
the ladies were appropriately dressed, the
archbishop did not reply. This journalist then
added that, of course, we were not in America,
and the archbishop smiled, as if to say that was
a good point.
The archbishop posed a few questions of his
own and added that he was genuinely looking
for a solution which would offend no one.
Would he consider taking the Blessed
Sacrament out of St. Peter’s and turhing the
church into a museum?
The archbishop quickly answered: “No,
because it is primarily a house of prayer. Masses
are said there morning and evening and people
come from all over the world to pray.”
In fact, the prelate added, by far the most
pressure to clamp down on indecent dress has
come from pilgrims, not all of whom were
Catholics. They told Vatican authorities that
they were disedified by the manner and dress
within the basilica and the ill-treatment given
the Vatican custodians.
It is a well known fact that Sampietrini have
suffered much from tourists. They had to ask
one man to refrain from smoking in the church.
Another time they had to restrain one couple
who were dancing full tilt down the nave to the
accompaniment of a raucous cassette. Both
incidents led to verbal abuse of the Sampietrini.
Physical abuse is not unknown. A Mexican
man whose family was denied entrance became
so irate he jammed his coat over the head of a
guard, flung him to the ground and was
forcibly restrained from kicking him.
Meanwhile, the archbishop said, providing a
more positive task for the nuns might improve
the situation. One possibility, he said, was
creation of the role of “hostesses” to conduct
tours around the basilica in various languages.
The only “charge” for such a service would be
that tourists be properly dressed, thus taking
the onus off the nuns as authoritarian
inspectors at the front entrance.
“We want only to maintain respect for this
great temple of prayer,” the archbishop said.
“We would need no rules at all if the public
would bring that respect with them.”
A few hundred yards from the office of this
quiet man, dozens of tourists, denied entrance
to St. Peter’s, were standing around in what the
Vatican described as various stages of
disrespect.
A Mess
t
It Seems To Me
JOSEPH BREIG
The television sight of men
walking and working on the
moon is a dramatic reminder
that two powerful and
contradictory spirits are
contending for our minds and
hearts in today’s world.
Indeed, they have struggled
from the beginning of time,
and will struggle to the end,
to win and
hold us.
8 courage, of
determination,
of optimism,
which is
dazzlingly illustrated by the
calm bravery of the
astronauts and the tireless
dedication of the people in
Mission Control. Ultimately,
it is the spirit of trust in the
goodness of God in the midst
of the mystery of life’s
tragedies and sufferings.
The other is the spirit of
surrender, defeat, failure,
despair; of frantic pursuit of
pleasure and self as long as
may be, because when all is
said and done life is a tale
told by an idiot, signifying
nothing. There are many
incarnations of this spirit, but
it is most overbearingly
visible today in the anti-life
movement, the Death of Man
Movement, which embraces
contraception, eroticism,
pornography, abortion,
flesh-worship and enthanasia.
The Death Movement is
doomed to death. No one
who is not born into the
world will ever command the
world’s future. The meek
shall inherit the earth because
the meek do not expect the
globe to be a shining pleasure
dome. The meek believe in
life despite all life’s
tribulations. The meek love
children because they know
that even a hungry child is a
breathing and walking
miracle, and will live as long
as God lives, forever. That,
the meek know, makes even
the most difficult life
magnificently worthwhile.
The Spirit of Surrender
looks at life and says that it is
better not to live at all; better
not to come into the world
which is seen only as a crazy
world, an idiot world. The
Spirit of Surrender looks at
pain and sorrow and finds no
value in them. And it is a
spirit that is deaf to the
laughter of children, that
cannot realize that one smile
on the face of one little boy
or girl makes the whole
cosmos meaningful and
wonderful. The Spirit of
Surrender hangs its head and
looks only into the dust and
the mud.
But the Spirit of Life looks
up and out to the stars. It
looks into a future in which
man who has conquered
wildernesses and deserts and
desolations and diseases will
conquer new frontiers and
horizons.
The meek, the poor, the
common people, who have
the Spirit of Life and the
courage of living it,
understand the simple words
in which the three Apollo 15
Astronauts responded to
Pope Paul Vi’s message:
“ . . .the knowledge we will
obtain . . .will make progress
in the life of men . . .Our
voyage is for all mankind and
we hope that the talents
which God gave us will enable
us to live up to the
expectations of all those who
have so kindly supported us.”
OUR PARISH
Of Pottage
In India, where both food and
overpopulation have been enormous
problems, the government is faking men
out of their birthright by offering
glamorous gifts. Reports indicate that
during the first half of July alone some
26,000 men had submitted to
vasectomies in what has been termed a
“family planning festival.” The Indian
government’s goal is 50,000 men
sterilized during the month long
celebration.
Among gifts presented to the
emasculated were 25 rupees in cash, a
free lottery ticket, a new sari for the
wife, three kilos of rice, a week’s ration,
an umbrella and a tote bag. The total
value would likely work out to about
$26 -- about $2 more than was paid the
Canarsee Indians for Manhattan Island.
Perhaps life is cheap in India, but is
this any reason to cheapen it further by
seducing men with gifts? The prizes
themselves will be gone within the year,
but the power to be a co-creator once
frittered away cannot for certain be
regained.
This anti-life tactic will undoubtedly
have the same result as in Japan where
abortion is the technique, India will in a
K
generation find itself without young
strong producers and workers and yet
will be faced with sustaining a
population of many hundreds of
millions.
And now it seems the United States
wants to imitate the folly of the Indians
and the Japanese. That government
funds are being used in health clinics in
this nation for sterilization is shameful.
Instead of working to improve life, we
seem to want to solve problems by
eliminating people.
Sterilization, voluntary or otherwise,
is a crime against nature - unless,
however, there are valid medical reasons.
What is frightening is that a policy of
sterilization funding can lead to a policy
of involuntary sterilization. At best, it
can result only in welfare recipients
being encouraged (cajoled? forced?) into
sterilization or other means of birth
control.
And this we condemn out of hand, for
it will demean men and women and
make sex and life worthless.
-The Florida Catholic,
Orlando, Fla. - 7/23/71
r>
/ \
The
Y ardstick
s --
MSGR. GEORGE C. HIGGINS
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, his youthful
appearance and undiminished physical stamina
to the contrary notwithstanding, can qualify -
now that he has taken his retirement - as an
“elder statesman” in the American Catholic
community. At 76 years of age, however, he is
refreshingly young at heart and, in certain
respects at least, would appear to be more open
to new ideas than many priests and bishops who
are hardly more than half his age.
By way of example, I would cite the fact
that twice on the same day within recent weeks
Archbishop Sheen publicly and rather
enthusiastically extolled the idealism of the
younger generation of Americans and, in so
doing, suggested that we oldsters have much to
learn from them. While I sincerely admire his
open-mindedness in this regard, I have the
rather uneasy feeling that his two public
statements in defense of the younger generation
were, at least in one particular, somewhat at
variance with one another. I could be entirely
mistaken about that, of course, but, now that I
have raised the question, I owe it to the
Archbishop to pursue it a little further.
The first of the two statements referred to
above was a kind of guest editorial, “Jesus
People and the Churches,” published on the
op-ed page of the August 8 issue of The New
York Times. The burden of this piece was that
the so-called “Jesus people” are deserving of
our respect and admiration. As the Archbishop
sees it, these young people “are picking up the
Christ about Whom the church rarely preaches.
Spiritual retreats dissolve into endless
discussions in order to escape the decision: ‘He
that is not with Me, is against Me.’ Liturgy, in
some instances, has smothered the Person;
abstract virtues have killed a loving personal
relationship. The young may be rediscovering
Jesus outside the Church as did their elders,
Henri Bergson, Simone Weil, and Malcolm
Muggeridge.”
In view of all this, the Archbishop asks:
“Why cannot the churches rejoice and not look
down their noses at young people who are
becoming pure and disaddicted because a new
love has come into their lives?” He points out,
in conclusion, that the new faith of the Jesus
people “is to be judged by its fruits, and many
young have become pure and wholesome.”
The Archbishop’s point is well taken - very
well taken indeed. On the other hand, I am not
sure I understand why he felt it necessary to
praise the Christ-centered idealism of the Jesus
people at the expense of the so-called social
gospel. “These young crusaders (the Jesus
people),” he says, “stand as an indictment of
the church which joined ‘Coxey’s Army,’
substituting the social gospel of the secular city
for the Christ Gospel of salvation.”
I wonder if that’s an accurate statement. Is it
really true, in the first place, that the church is
all that gung-ho about the social gospel? If so,
why is it that the church is being so severely
criticized - by young people especially - for its
lack of meaningful involvement in the field of
social reform? By the same token, why did
Pope Paul himself feel it necessary, as recently
as May 15, to challenge the church once again,
in a major Apostolic Letter, to make up for lost
time in implementing the social demands of the
gospel?
Secondly, if it is true, as the Archbishop
seems to think, that the Jesus people are
reacting negatively to the churches’ alleged
over-emphasis on “the social gospel of the
secular city,” doesn’t this raise some serious
questions about the Jesus people themselves,
and shouldn’t these questions have been posed
to them by the Archbishop, at least in passing,
in the course of his piece in The New York
Times?
Faith, as William Yeomans points out in the
July issue of The Way - a first-rate British
quarterly on contemporary Christian
spirituality - “is not a refuge from the evils of
the world, quite simply because it is faith in a
God who chose to get himself involved in the
evils of this world to the extent of dying
because of that evil. A doctor does not heal a
broken leg by amputating it, nor did Christ heal
mankind by eliminating evil. He became part of
this broken, tom body; on the cross he was the
crucified word, and healed it from within . . .He
sent his apostles into the world even as he
himself had been sent: to take upon themselves,
as he had, the sins of the world.”
I owe it to Archbishop Sheen to emphasize
that he himself made this point very forcefully
in the second of his two statements referred to
above. Appearing as one of several panelists on
William F. Buckley’s increasingly popular
television program, the Bishop was asked
whether, in his opinion, there is more cruelty
and injustice in today’s world than there was in
the past. He replied in the negative and, by way
of illustrating his contention that things are
better today than they used to be, he cited the
fact that perhaps never before in history have
there been so many young people who are
sincerely dedicated to the cause of social justice
and social reform. His enthusiastic
commendation of those young people of all
faiths or none who are trying to make this
world a better place in which to live was most
refreshing. It also served to put into better
focus his earlier criticism in The New York
Times of the church’s alleged over-emphasis on
the “social gospel of the secular world.”
In view of his comments on the Buckley
program, I take it that what the Archbishop
really meant to say in his Times article was not
that the church is doing too much in the field
of social reform but simply that the social
gospel must not be thought of as a substitute
for the “Christ Gospel of salvation.”