Newspaper Page Text
AN NC ROUNDUP
Hospitals Say Requests For Sterilization Mounting
PAGE 3—September 9, 1971
NOTRE DAME, Ind. - The delegates to the national Family
Movement convention decided that it wasn’t enough just to talk
about poverty. They wanted to taste it. So they were “treated”
to a 722-calorie meal, the typical daily intake of the
Vietnamese, consisting of two cups of boiled rice, two ounces of
fish, a wedge of cabbage and a piece of yam. (NC PHOTO)
CARDINAL SHEHAN SAYS:
Vietnam War
A ‘Scandal’
By NC News Service
Some hospitals, already
trying to keep pace with
permissive abortion laws, are
getting increasing requests for
the most permanent of all
birth control methods - male
and female sterilization.
The intensity for the desire
to be sterilized varied from
simple requests at
Washington, D.C. hospitals to
a legal battle in a federal
By NC News Service
The question-mark hanging
over a proposed “Lex
Fundamentalis,” or basic law,
for the Catholic Church grew
bigger this week as still
another prominent
churchman added his voice to
the doubts of others.
Bishop William W. Baum of
Springfield-Cape Girardeau,
Mo. - who was just named a
personal choice of Pope Paul
as a delegate to the 1971
synod in Rome - said more
and wider discussion of the
Lex was needed before any
final action on the draft.
“Is it possible at this point
to compose a satisfactory Lex
Fundamentalis?” he asked
himself during an interview
with NC News. “I don’t
NEW YORK (NC) -
Catholic and Protestant
overseas relief agencies have
announced a joint national
publicity 'campaign to make
Americans more aware of the
plight of East Pakistani
victims of civil war and
natural disasters.
Catholic Relief Services
(CRS) and Church World
Services (CWS) had
coordinated publicity drives
before to aid victims of the
Nigerian civil war and the
Chilean earthquakes. CWS is
the relief organization of the
National Council of
Churches.
Rocco Sacci, CRS director
of information, said the new
drive will include TV and
radio announcements and ads
in the daily press.
Last November, East
Pakistan was hit by cyclones
and tidal waves that left crops
ruined and hundreds of
thousands homeless. Most of
the stricken area had virtually
no roads or communications,
so relief supplies were
difficult to distribute.
Sacci told NC News that
court in New York.
In Washington, several
local hospitals and family
planning services reported a
sharp increase in the number
of men requesting
vasectomies, a form of male
sterilization.
In Peekskill, N.Y., a
26-year-old mother of three is
suing a local hospital for not
allowing her gynecologist to
sterilize her in the hospital.
know. That’s an unanswered
question in my mind. We may
not be prepared for it right
now. The idea is certainly a
good one, but we should
proceed slowly and
carefully.”
Aware that the Association
of Chicago Priests was taking
credit for his selection by the
Pope, the progressive-minded
44-year-old bishop said he
had no way of knowing how
the Pontiff happened to
choose him.
The ACP had written Pope
Paul on July 16 expressing
disappointment over three of
the four American bishops --
they expected Cardinal John
Dearden of Detroit - named
in balloting by the U.S.
bishops to go to the synod.
The small Chicago group
CRS was planning a long-term
aid program to replace lost
housing and dig new wells,
and said it was “one of the
few agencies able to get
rehabilitation projects under
way at all in that area.”
But just as the projects
were getting started, he
noted, civil war broke out in
East Pakistan. Ports closed.
Communications with the
capital city of Dacca were
disrupted for weeks. Over six
million Pakistanis trudged to
India in the most massive
refugee movement in recent
history. Crops were lost.
Cholera and other diseases
threatened epidemics, both in
refuge camps and in
destroyed East Pakistani
villages.
“Now we’re faced with the
problem that many of those
remaining in the area are
threatened with famine,”
Sacci said. “One emergency
leads to the other.”
As a final straw, he noted,
Pakistan’s summer monsoon
season has brought heavy
rains and more flooding.
Thousands more have been
displaced.
The federal government
has not kept statistics on
sterilization operations, but
the National Center for
Health Statistics has
announced it will do this next
year.
A private group in New
York, the Association for
Voluntary Sterilization,
estimates that 750,000
vasectomies were performed
in the country last year,
compared with 250,000
had requested papal
appointment of “a young
American bishop of open
reputation,” and in a news
release this week it said
Bishop Baum’s appointment
was “a direct response” to its
appeal.
Cardinal Dearden,
president of the nation’s
episcopal conference,
expressed reservations of his
own about the Lex
Fundamentalis, according to
a story in the Detroit Sunday
News.
“I have a number of
reservations similar to those
Cardinal Suenens expressed,”
he was quoted in the
newspaper. He was referring
to an exclusive NC News
interview in July from
Brussels, in which Cardinal
Leo Suenens opposed the Lex
draft on grounds that there
has been too little
consultation, that it
excessively emphasizes the
juridical, that it has little
scriptural basis, and that it
could harm ecumenism and
block future Church
development.
Bishop Joseph Brietenbeck
of Grand Rapids, Mich., a
former auxiliary under
Cardinal Dearden, has also
criticized the Lex as a
document that would further
erode respect for Church
authority. A number of
theologians and canonists in
both Europe and the United
States - including the Canon
Law Society of America -
have characterized the
current draft as unacceptable
and potentially harmful.
Bishop Baum, like Cardinal
Dearden, doubted that much
if anything would be done at
the synod about the Lex. The
Missouri prelate said the
paperwork sent to him after
the Apostolic Delegation in
Washington notified him of
his appointment included
only material on the two
announced synod topics -- the
priesthood and world justice
- with nothing on the Lex.
The bishop, who was an
official advisor or “peritus”
at the Vatican II Council and
later directed ecumenical
affairs for the U..S. bishops,
said he would welcome a
chance to discuss the Lex
Fundamentalis with his
brother bishops, theologians,
canonists, interested lay
persons, and other Christian
churches.
“We already have a
contemporary expression of
the Church’s self-identity, in
the Constitution of the
Church,” said Bishop Baum.
“I see the Lex as an attempt
on the part of very intelligent
men to undertake an
elaboration of that. I consider
it only that - a text for
further discussion.”
Ecumenically, he went on
to say, “we need - if we
attempt a Lex - a dialogue on
it with other Christians.
There is a theological
dimension which a Lex
Fundamentalis should
include, the concept of
communion, although
limited, between the Catholic
Church and the ecclesiastical
communities not in union
with the Catholic Church.
“There is, and the Council
recognized it exists, a kind of
imperfect communion
already existing. More
attention should be given (in
the Lex) to that truth.”
female sterilizations.
A survey made for the
association found that
700,000 of the vasectomies in
1970 were by private
practitioners, 93 percent of
them in the doctors’ offices.
By comparison, the
association said only 200,000
vasectomies were performed
in the United States in 1969.
In New York City, Mrs.
Florence Cafarelli is suing the
WASHINGTON (NC) - A
man’s belief in a supreme
being is no longer a
prerequisite for him to be
given the military status of
conscientious objector (CO).
Under a new Pentagon
directive, implementing a
1970 Supreme Court
decision, servicemen may
base applications for
discharge as a CO on “solely
moral and ethical beliefs even
though the applicant himself
may not characterize these
beliefs as religious in the
traditional sense, or may
expressly characterize them
as not religious.”
The new regulation, signed
by Deputy Defense Secretary
CHEVY CHASE, Md. (NC)
— Speakers ranging from a
Roman cardinal to a U.S.
Congressman gathered in this
Washington, D.C. suburb to
encourage a growing
organization of Sisters
pledged to implement
Vatican directives on religious
life.
Cardinal Egidio Vagnozzi,
former apostolic delegate to
the United States, told
S i s t e r - m e mbers of
Consortium Perfectate
Caritatis at an Aug. 24 to 27
national assembly here that
there is a “real sense of
gratification” at the progress
of their organization.
Cardinal Vagnozzi, now
president of the Prefecture
for Economic Affairs of the
Holy See in Vatican City,
described the Consortium as
“a living and dynamic
reality.”
Eight other members of
Peekskill, N.Y., Community
Hospital for refusing her
sterilization request. Some
proponents of sterilization
said that her case, and several
others like it, will raise a new
untested question of civil
rights.
The proponents pose this
question: Should New York
women, who now have the
legal right to control
pregnancy and to have
abortions, not also be
guaranteed the legal right to
David M. Packard, requires
the armed services to consider
applications for CO status
even if the applicant’s beliefs
were formed after he received
an induction notice and
before actual induction.
The revised directive
provides the armed services
with more definitive
guidelines and incorporated
the Supreme Court’s decision
in the case of Welsh v. United
States.
In that case, the court
ruled that all who have strong
moral or ethical objections to
military duty may be
exempted from military
service as long as their beliefs
are deeply held and are not
based on expediency.
the hierarchy - including
Archbishop James J. Byrne of
Dubuque, Iowa - and several
Sister-officials from order
generalates in Rome also
attended the meeting.
A communication forum
for those sharing a particular
view of religious life, the
Consortium was established
in March by 116 Sisters,
including 17 major superiors.
Consortium members -
coming from about 90
religious communities in the
United States and Canada -
are mainly Sisters who
support the Holy See’s right
to determine norms for
religious life; wear distinctive
habits, and live in religious
communities “under duly
chosen superiors.” They are
also pledged to implementing
directives on the renewal of
religious life adopted at the
Second Vatican Council.
Discussion at the recent
three-day meeting centered
4
be sterilized?
In Orlando, Fla., another
controversial issue, a so-called
“selective breeding”
technique, came under fire
from the president of
Florida’s Right to Life
Committee.
Mrs. Raymond Pelzer
criticized this technique -
medically called
transabdominal amniocentesis
- which utilizes the fluid in
which the fetus grows.in the
mother’s body. Diagnosis can
be made on blood factors,
chromosomal structures and
metabolisms of the unborn
child.
Mrs. Pelzer said this
practice “seems to cloak the
desire to dispose of those
enwombed infants which do
not meet society’s standard
of normalcy.”
Meanwhile, in other parts
of the country older and
more established actions for
liberalized abortions
continued.
In Detroit, more than 700
women announced plans to
force the repeal of Michigan’s
current abortion statute.
M ichigan’s current law
prohibits all but therapeutic
abortions to save a mother’s
life.
At the same time,
Michigan’s Lt. Gov. James H.
Brickley said he has changed
his mind after an “agonizing
reappraisal” and now opposes
any change in the state
abortion law.
The suit by the 700
women will be filed in Wayne
County Court by a group
which calls itself the Michigan
Women’s Abortion Suit. They
contend that the current law
is unconstitutional because it
infringes on women’s privacy
and the right to control their
own bodies.
Brickley said that at first
he was “favorably inclined
toward some reform and
liberalization of the Michigan
law but “I have continued to
study the issue and I have
experienced an agonizing
reappraisal of my earlier
position.”
“Let us not lose touch
with the basic issue involved
by splitting hairs over when
human life begins. Let us
resolve these doubts in favor
of life and let us protect it
from the very beginning,” he
said.
Elsewhere, an investigation
of the St. Paul, Minn., Bureau
of Health by the federal
government concluded that
the bureau was not guilty of
promoting abortion for
family planning.
If such were the case, the
bureau would have violated
federal funding guidelines
which prohibit such conduct.
The health bureau had been
accused by a local
anti-abortion group of
“creating a situation of de
facto abortion-on-demand
through abortion referrals.”
around the papal treatise “On
the Renewal of the Religious
Life According to the
Teachings of the Second
Vatican Council,” released by
Pope Paul VI in July.
Another theme speakers
mentioned was a growing
“anti-life” trend and what
members of religious
communities can do to
counteract it.
Congressman Lawrence
Hogan, (R., Md.), a leading
opponent of liberalized
abortion laws, attacked the
“anti-life” philosophy, which
he siad could lead to
imperilling life at both ends
of the human spectrum -
through abortion and mercy
killing.
Rep. Hogan, a Catholic,
said Religious bear a heavy
responsibility for re-directing
thought and action away
from such a philosophy.
BALTIMORE (NC) - The
war in Vietnam “has become
an evil in which the whole
country has become involved,
and a scandal the Christian
conscience no longer can
endure,” Cardinal Lawrence
Shehan of Baltimore said in a
pastoral letter.
Recalling that 1971 is the
150th anniversary of the
dedication of the Basilica of
the Assumption here, the
letter dealt with devotion to
Our Lady.
“As the sinless mother of
all the faithful,” Cardinal
Shehan said, Mary “stands in
constrast and opposition to
all the sin, all the evil that
exists in the world; she makes
us conscious of all the evil
against which we must be on
our guard and against which
we, together with the Church,
must struggle.”
“I am referring in a special
way,” he continued, “to the
violence and senseless
destruction of human life and
all human and moral values in
the war in Vietnam.
“No matter how seemingly
noble the motives which led
us to become involved in that
conflict, it has long since
become evident that the war
has degenerated, often on
both sides, into uncontrolled
violence and senseless
wholesale destruction of
human life and moral values.
It has been six years since
Pope Paul stood in the
Assembly Hall of the United
Nations and cried out: ‘War
no more; war never, never
again!’ But still the thing goes
on ...
“All reasonable men have
an understanding of the
terrible predicament of those
leaders on whose shoulders
has been placed the heavy
burden of first waging this
war and now of bringing it to
a close. And we have a deep
sympathy for them as they
face the peril of massive
destruction of ranks of those
troops that remain, as their
number and means of
self-protection are reduced
below the limit of adequate
self-protection. We know that
others cannot make their
decisions for them; that they
have their own consciences
by which they must be
guided.
“But we repeat: the war
has become an evident evil
that threatens to destroy fill
respect for authority and
alt moral values in a whole
generation of young people.
Its speedy ending brooks no
needless delay.
“To Mary, Queen of Peace,
we lift our voices in prayer,
begging her to obtain for
ourselves and particularly for
our leaders the light, wisdom,
strength and courage that is
needed to excise what has
become a cancerous growth
in the vital parts of our
nation.”
The cardinal’s pastoral
adds to a growing list of
Catholic bishops who have
urged U.S. withdrawal from
Vietnam.
The National Conference
of Catholic Bishops said in a
1966 statement that the U.S.
presence in Vietnam could be
morally justified. But at the
same time the NCCB urged
the government to pursue a
peaceful settlement of the
war. Since that time, about
32 bishops-a tenth of the
nation’s 295 bishops-are
known to have spoken out
individually against the war.
Speaking collectively as the
NCCB, the nation’s bishops
have voiced concern about
U.S. military involvement in
Southeast Asia. In their 1968
pastoral letter, Human Life in
Our Day, they asked:
“Have we already reached,
or passed, the point where
the principle of
proportionality becomes
decisive? How much more of
our resources in men and
money should we commit to
this struggle, assuming an
acceptable cause or
intention? Has the conflict in
Vietnam provoked inhuman
dimensions of suffering?
Observing the progress of
the war, they added that a
moral lesson to be learned is
“that military power and
technology do not suffice,
even with the strongest
resolve, to restore order or
accomplice peace.”
In recent months, more
and more individual bishops
have voiced opposition to the
war:
-Bishop John L. May of
Mobile, in his weekly column
in July issue of the Mobile
diocesan paper, called “the
whole sad story” of the
Vietnam war “a graphic
picture of the futility of war
in this day and age . .. we
Catholics must work harder
than ever for peace.”
-Writing in the July 2 issue
of the New York Times,
Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J.
Gumbleton of Detroit, a
frequent anti-war critic, said:
“Whether we judge this
war in the light of the earliest
Christian tradition on war, or
according to the ‘just war’
doctrine, I can reach only one
conclusion: our participation
in it is gravely immoral.
“When Jesus faced his
captors, he told Peter to put
away his sword. It seems to
me he is saying the same
thing to the people of the
United States in 1971.”
Fourteen Catholic bishops
in Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont and Massachu-
setts-in a joint pastoral last
May-called the war “one of
the central moral problems”
facing the nation.
The bishops listed events -
linked to the war which they
said raise moral issues.
-The same month, Bishop
Joseph A. Durick of
Nashville, Tenn., urged
residents of Nashville to
petition for an amendment to
the city-county government’s
charter calling for an end to
U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
-Earlier in May, Bishop
Ernest L. Unterkoefler of
Charleston, S.C., asked that a
day be designated in his
diocese for prayer and
repentence concerning the
war.
“If we continue on the
course of dissipating our
national energy at home for
destructive purposes abroad,”
the bishop said, “how will it
be possible for us as a nation
to rise to any new course for
good which will require the
total dedication of a free
people who understand the
objectives of peaceful living
among nations?”
THE GAME OF SOCCER is rapidly becoming popular in
Houston, as these boys at St. Francis de Sales church
demonstrate. They are members of the parish’s “C” and “B”
soccer teams, coached by H.W. Wilkins. (NC PHOTO courtesy
Texas Catholic Herald)
BISHOP WILLIAM W. BA UM
Newest Synod Delegate
Undecided On Lex
Stress Plight Of
Pakistani Victims
BISHOP WILLIAM W. BAUM, Pope Paul’s personal choice as
delegate to the World Synod of Bishops meeting in Rome next
month. (NC PHOTO)
PENTAGON DIRECTIVE
o
Supreme filing Belief
No Longer CO Requirement
MANY BISHOPS AT MEET
‘Consortium’ Holds Assembly