Newspaper Page Text
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Vol. 10 No. 16
Form 3579 to 202 East Sixth Street, Waynesboro, Georgia 30830
Thursday, April 20,1972
$5 per year
(EMtor’tf &Utp
FATHER JAMES MACIEJEWSKI
Last week’s meeting of the
bishops here was “historic,” as so
many others observed so often. For
me, the stuff from which memories
will emerge was in the simple things
like:
-The warm smile and quick wit
of Cardinal John Krol, both in
presiding at the sessions and in
facing some tough questions at the
press conference.
-Cardinal Krol’s fondness for
the Latin language. I haven’t heard
so much Latin since I left the
seminary.
-The good feeling deep down
inside as Archbishop Byrne offered
prayer for “the archbishop, the
priests and the people of this great
archdiocese of Atlanta.”
-The amiability and kindness of
the visiting bishops, most
memorably that of Nashville’s
Bishop Durick.
-The three contributions of
Archbishop Donnellan during the
general sessions. Only Cardinal
Carberry rose to speak more often
than he.
-The good opportunity to spend
some time with visiting editors of
other Catholic papers, people like
Owen Campion and Frank
Donohue and Henry Gosselin, and
to find out that our problems are
very much the same.
--The penetrating and
comprehensive questions of
newsmen at the press conferences,
which proved to be rich learning
experiences.
--The spirit of poverty of
Detroit’s Bishop Gumbleton, who
put up for the week at the YMCA.
-The rapt attention of observers
and newsmen as Bishop Gumbleton
rose to speak so forcefully in favor
of inclusion of a statement on war
and the bombing in Vietnam.
-The befuddlement of writers
for secular daily newspapers as they
tried to draw interesting copy out
of extended reports on such
intramural matters as new methods
for issuing diocesan financial
reports, the budgets of the USCC
and NCCB, the North American
College (a seminary in Rome), and
the proper age for Confirmation.
-The happiness of writers for
religious weeklies that they weren’t
working for secular dailies.
Adoption Of Population Statement
Is High Point Of Bishops’ Conclave
BY FATHER JAMES MACIEJEWSKI
Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia, presiding bishop at last week’s
Atlanta meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that
the statement on population and the American future was the most
important development to come out of the meeting.
The bishops’ statement (printed in full on page two of the BULLETIN)
was a response to the recently-issued report of the President’s Commission
on Population Growth and the American Future. Cardinal Krol termed
that report “frightening,” inasmuch as it espoused “the same principle
used in totalitarian states . . .subordination of human life to expediency
and other considerations.”
$
Bishops pass under the dogwood trees on
Peachtree Place on their way into Christ
the King Cathedral to concelebrate the
eucharist during last week’s Conference
meeting. It was the first time the
Conference has met in Atlanta. Present
were 237 bishops. (Photo by James
Brown)
-V
Notre Dame President Laments
Nixon’s Leadership On Busing
SAN MATEO, Calif. (NC) - Fr.
Theodore Hesburgh, chairman of the U.S.
Civil Rights Commission, has blasted
President Richard Nixon and other
political candidates for following the lead
of George Wallace on the school busing
issue.
“I feel like vomiting when I hear
them. . .We’re living in an age of
midgets,” said the Notre Dame University
president.
“Mr. Wallace heated up this phony
issue in an election year and everybody
jumped aboard the bandwagon, including
the president,” Fr. Hesburgh observed.
“It is an issue doctored up to deal with
emotionalism and fear, rather than the
true issue of better schools,” he said,
adding that it appeals to “fear, hatred and
pettiness.”
The priest said he had no plans to
submit the president a protest resignation
from the civil rights commission.
“I’d get one headline,”
then he’d put in a rabbit.”
he said, “and
an Addresses Serra Club
BY LOUIS FINK
Michael J. Egan, Jr., Republican
minority leader of the Georgia House of
Representatives and a member of Christ
the King parish, was the guest speaker at
the regular meeting of the Atlanta Serra
Club last Thursday. He was introduced by
Myles Booth, who has been nominated to
serve as Serra president next year.
Egan gave the Serra men a
commentary on the activities of the last
session of the Georgia General Assembly.
He said the highpoint of the session was
the passage of the government
reorganization bill, which he favored. He
expressed optimism that another bill
which he had favored, the Sandy Springs
annexation bill, although defeated at the
last session, might be passed in a future
session.
Msgr. Donald Kiernan, club chaplain,
has as his guest Fr. P. J. Waldron,
provincial of the Missionary Order of St.
Francis de Sales. Priests of his order will
soon be staffing St. Patrick’s Church at
Norcross.
Eugene Donahue, Serra Activities
■Chairman, announced complete plans for
Rep. Michael J. Egan, Jr.
Serrans to visit schools of religion and
talk about vocations with young people.
A special sound-and-slide presentation has
been prepared by the Archdiocesan
Office of Religious Education.
A few days earlier, Fr. Hesburgh had
issued a 17-page statement on the matter
of busing, in behalf of the commission
which he heads.
The report stated that President
Nixon’s proposed busing moratorium
would “lead us back along a road that the
nation should never see again.” It “can
only have the effect of perpetuating
segregation.”
The University of Notre Dame
president said the commission also
“doubts the value” of the Nixon proposal
to spend $2.5 billion on “racially isolated
schools.”
The Nixon proposals, Fr. Hesburgh
said, are “a reversion to the doctrine and
practice of ‘separate but equal’ ” schools
which prevailed before the Supreme
Court’s landmark 1954 school
desegration ruling.
“These (Nixon) proposals,” Fr.
Hesburgh concluded, “require that the
nation turn its face away from the task of
seeking effective ways of implementing
the decisions of the courts and the civil
rights laws enacted by Congress. We must
now defend the results of 30 years of
efforts that we thought were fast
becoming an accepted part of American
manners and morals.”
Fr. Hesburgh said that “to restrict
busing in most communities is simply to
restrict desegregation. This is so because
of the segregated neighborhoods that
exist from coast to coast, North and
South.”
The priest also noted that there is
nothing sacred about busing. It is just one
method of providing better education for
deprived students, he said.
Busing has been used only as “a last
resort” in attempts to end school
segregation, Fr. Hesburgh said, and “The
commission is convinced that the
relatively small amount of busing that is
conducted for desegregation purposes is
not only justified, but is necessary.”
Nearly 20 million children now travel
to school on buses with few complaints
from parents because, he said, they know
“that the improved education that awaits
the children at the end of the bus ride is
what really matters and this is well worth
the inconvenience.”
The second facet of the Nixon
program - increased spending for poor
schools - was viewed skeptically by Fr.
Hesburgh.
A recent study by two scholars from
Harvard University, he said, “has
reaffirmed that the least promising way
to improve education in ghetto schools is
through the expenditure of additional
funds.”
Before their responsive statement was
passed, the bishops heard a plea from
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit to
include in the statement some mention of
the stepped-up American bombing in
Vietnam.
He said: “I feel that the statement is
considerably weakened because it refers
only to respect for human life before
birth. I would suggest that the bombing
in Southeast Asia manifests a profound
disregard and a callous disrespect for
human life that must be deplored and
condemned as strenously as we deplore
and condemn efforts to promote
abortion. There is a certain lack of
consistency in expressing our concern
about the destruction of human life in
the womb and failing to advert to the
horrendous destruction of human life
that is presently taking place in Southeast
Asia because of the American bombing.”
Bishop Gumbleton was supported by
Bishop Charles Buswell of Pueblo who
also alluded to the bombing in his
remarks: “It struck me as very strange
that in spite of the fact that we made a
very strong statement against the war last
November that the beautiful Christmas
present our president gave to Vietnam
had no response at all from this
conference.”
Although no bishop challenged the
remarks made by Bishops Gumbleton and
Buswell, the statement passed as
presented, without explicit mention of
the Vietnam bombing. Cardinal Terence
Cooke, chairman of the committee which
drafted the statement, pointed out before
the vote that the October Week of Prayer
and Study called for by the statement
would include consideration of war as
one of “the many threats to human life in
our world.”
The meeting of the bishops was the
first in the 53-year history of the
Conference to which reporters and
observers were admitted. Cardinal Krol,
asked what effect their presence may
have had on the meeting, said he noted
“signs of inhibitions . . .but not to the
extent where it impeded discussion.”
Few votes were taken and little debate
was heard during the three-day conclave.
Much of the business of the conference
took the form of committee reports.
One report, presented by Bishop John
Quinn of Oklahoma, concerned the
matter of charismatic renewal. Bishop
Quinn stated:
“The bishops are aware of some
Indian Cooks Have
Rectories In A Stew
QUILON, India (NC) — A parish priest near here has started a cook
employment service to help fellow clergy who are harassed by nagging and
overdemanding cooks.
Most priests in this area hire male cooks who live in the rectories.
The rectory cooks are often accused of exploiting the priests’ inability to
keep a constant eye on them.
The worst of them pilfer in the marketing, are late with meals and often
wander around the rectory spying on the priests.
Fr. Christie Daniel of Chavara started the new employment service following
complaints by many priests who asked a new organization of parish priests in the
area to “deliver them from cooks.”
The service will operate as an employment exchange of good cooks with a
clean service record.
Fr. Daniel will recommend them to priests who are unable to find good
cooks.
The service will be run free of cost to priests, but Fr. Daniel will levy a small
fee for expenses from cooks who ask to be included in the service.
negative factors such as emotionalism,
ant i-in tel 1 ec tu alism , religious
indifferentism and the danger of little
gnostic sects developing. But a survey
revealed a very positive outlook on the
part of the bishops. Most expressed a
general satisfaction with the growth and
conduct of charismatic groups. They
noted the emphasis on prayer, personal
holiness, the demand for ongoing
conversion, increase of devotion to the
Church and sacramental life that often
attends involvement in these groups. As a
conclusion most of the bishops suggested
that we not encourage this too
enthusiastically nor that we discourage it
in any way, but let it develop keeping a
watchful eye on its progress.
“Also the bishops noted that there is
need for direction, and that priests should
be encouraged, therefore, to take an
interest in this so that there is assured
theological content and sound spiritual
guidance in these groups.”
(Next week’s GEORGIA BULLETIN
will contain a report on one local
charismatic prayer group.)
Another report, by Bishop James
Malone of the Liturgy Committee, was
favorable to the practice of holy
communion-in-the-hand. But Bishop
Malone expressed doubt that the
necessary two-thirds approval of the
bishops could be gained, so he declined to
call for a vote until a future meeting,
after the bishops have had time for
further study. He cautioned in the
meantime against the unauthorized
practice of communion-in-the-hand,
calling it “disruptive and hurtful to
Church law and discipline.”
He also announced that a
determination of the proper age for the
sacrament of confirmation would be left
to the individual bishop.
The bishops then heard a somewhat
pessimistic report from Chicago’s Bishop
Thomas Grady on the state of seminaries
today. In them, he said, is too often
found “loss of sense of community, loss
of integration, and possible neglect of
spiritual formation.”
Bishop Grady then recommended a
balanced, integrated seminary program of
the academic, the pastoral and the
spiritual. He called for closer contact
between seminary personnel and bishops
and he urged consideration of an
“extended diaconate,” wherein a deacon
would spend one full year in a parish
before ordination to the priesthood.
The highpoint of Wednesday’s session
was Archbishop Leo Byrne’s report on
Women in the Church and Society, in
which he said it was “a matter of
increasing urgency” that the Church
come to recognize the just demands of
American women. He said that his
committee would issue a statement on
the Equal Rights Amendment in the near
future.
At a press conference he said that “the
emergence of women in the Church and
society” had greatly changed his thinking
within the past three years. He
announced that his committee was
beginning a full theological study on the
role of women in the Church - a study
which would include consideration of the
possible ordination of women to the
priesthood and diaconate. Heretofore
Church practice, said the archbishop, has
been guided more by tradition than by
theology.
In response to a question, Archbishop
Byrne affirmed that Church regulations
continue to necessitate special clothing to
identify women under religious vows.
Bishop John May of Mobile, sitting next
to the archbishop, added: “There must be
some sign distinguishable as the garb of a
religious person.”
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