Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4 — The Georgia Bulletin, December 21,1972
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Most Rev. Thomas A. Donnellan - Publisher
Rev. James J. Maciejewski — Editor
Michael Motes - Editorial Assistant
Marie Mulvenna - Editorial Assistant
Business Office
756 West Peachtree, N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
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Published weekly except the second and last weeks
in June, July and August and the last week in December
at 202 E. Sixth St., Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
The opinions contained in these editorial columns
the free expressions of free editors in a free Catholic press.
Once again our Holy Father has
designated January 1st as a World Day of
Peace. The theme for this sixth annual
commemoration is: “Peace is Possible.”
During the Christmas Season,
Christians all over the world celebrate
the birth of the Prince of Peace. Here in
the United States, we Americans are
presently working and praying for a
peaceful resolution of the Vietnam war.
The legacy of the followers of Christ is
that He has left us His peace for all
times. The Gospel and our own personal
commitment to the Lord impels us to
seek this peace and share it with all men.
To this end, I invite you to pray with
me for Peace with Justice at the
beginning of this New Year. With the
priests of the Cathedral Church, I will
celebrate the Eucharist for Peace on
January 1st at 10:30 in the morning. I
would also ask that every parish in the
Archdiocese pray the Mass for the same
intention on that day.
- ARCHBISHOP THOMAS DONNELLAN
Our Wish
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Msgr. John McDonough
Father John Adamski
Father Jerry Hardy
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^armtiSt greetings; of the Season
front tlje Georgia Pulletin...
Wt’u taking a toeek off to unstuff
our stockings;, So there totU be no
paper next toeek. pou
Sfanuarp 4.
Happp Ijoliliapsf!
it old time-curves
for when the Lord words his way
back into our presence,
our even boldest expectations
are snuffed to nothing
by the extravagance of his fulfilling.
We still reel
at the impact
of those first promises kept:
while we awaited a new prophet,
we got the very Word of
while we hoped for a Messiah.
ain
we got the only Son of
while we looked for :
we got a whole new life;
while we tried to get in touch with God,
we got ourselves picked up
by Him.
So it goes,
and comes,
our advent time.
a steady gathering of instances
like the stars of night.
where voices dissolve into silent wonder
being with Word,
is given a chance
once again
to speak for Himself . . .
- FATHER BOB KIN AST
The Good of
T echnology
Reverend Andrew M. Greeley
It is now clear where “Catholic radicalism” is
going when the war is over. Recent interviews
with and writings by Daniel Berrigan indicate
that the new enemy is “technology.” It would
also appear that the attack on “technology”
will be of the same order of sophistication and
intelligence as the previous attack on the war.
To begin with a definition - from which
poets like Daniel Berrigan might be legitimately
excused: Technology is nothing more than the
practical application of scientific knowledge.
An attack on technology is both an attack on
science and on the way science has been
applied.
Catholics who do not respond to a book
from Father Berrigan the way the old Church
used to respond to a papal encyclical might
want to ponder what life would be like were it
not for technology.
To begin with, half the readers of this article
would not have lived beyond the age of 20 (and
the writer of this article would have died in
infancy). Women readers would have had to
have six children merely to keep the population
stable. Half of their children would not live to
adulthood. Eventually, either the woman or
one of her children would have died in
childbirth.
the world would belong to a very few. Religion
would be mostly magic and superstition used to
keep the hostile forces of the universe at bay so
that man might survive.
Is this the kind of world to which Father
Berrigan wants us to return? Is this what Barry
Commoner has in mind when he says that the
iron law of ecology is that nature knows best?
The life described in the previous paragraphs is
what nature did. The elimination of much
sickness and misery from the world is what man
and his technology did. Upper middle-class
romantics like the Catholic radicals may want
to destroy technology; those in the United
States and other parts of the world who do not
yet enjoy its benefits are not likely to be
edified by the radical program.
The Green Revolution (in food production)
is pure technology. In the space of a decade, it
practically eliminated the threat of famine in
India (where, thanks to the technology of the
Green Revolution, food production is now
increasing twice as fast as the population).
Would the Catholic radicals willingly sign the
death warrants’ of those Indians who most
certainly would have starved to death if it were
not for the Green Revolution?
Epidemics of cholera, malaria, and smallpox
would be frequent. Cholera germs would live in
waters unpolluted by technology, waters that
would be clean, pure, and deadly. Children
would succumb to scarlet fever, measles, and
polio; men would work from dawn to dusk
every day; homes would be dark, dank, and
cold. Life would be dull, short, and brutish.
Famine would always be a lurking possibility. A
single storm at the wrong time could turn that
possibility into a certainty.
As Colin Turnbull’s recent study of the Ik
makes clear, when men live on the brink of
death they turn to violence and cruelty of the
sort that makes our frequently violent cities
seem peaceful by comparison. Modern life mav
have its uncertainties, its harshness, its cruelties;
but only the naive romantic would want to
trade places with the Ik, blessedly free from
technology as they are.
There would be little time for culture. Most
people would not be able to read and write.
Folk art might flourish, but not many folk
would have the leisure or the lifetime to enjoy
• it. The great music, painting, and literature of
It is, incidentally, worth noting that the
Green Revolution was designed and financed in
the United States (mostly by the Rockefeller
Foundation), a society which Father Berrigan
repeatedly tells us is sick. Not so sick,
apparently, that it cannot produce a
technological change which will save millions of
lives.
The problems of pollution and
environmental waste are not technological or
even moral. If everyone would admit their
moral guilt - as the radicals insist - and bring
their bottles back to the supermarket, the
environmental problems would not be changed
at all. The root of the difficulty is
social-organizational and economic. Our
capacity to understand the organization of
large-scale economies, politics, and societies has
not kept pace with our understanding of
physical and biological science. But problems of
economy and social organization are complex
and intricate - much more difficult than food
production. They will not be solved by the
naive enthusiasm of self-righteous romantics
who are devoid of technical competence.
Questions
And Answers
Monsignor John F. McDonough
QUESTION: In an age so saturated with “behavioristic” and “determinist”
philosophies, is it still possible to speak of being morally responsible for our actions; in
other words, can we speak of “commiting sin” today?
ANSWER: Christ spoke of sin, again and again. However, He knew the difficulties in
which men fought life’s battles and He was perfectly kind, understanding and merciful.
The parable of the prodigal son ends with “Father, I have sinned!” and not with “My
environment made me what I am.” This is what the Father was waiting for. And when
our Lord addressed the woman taken in adultery to tell her that He would not condemn
her, he added “Go, and sin no more.” He did not say “Nothing can be done! It is a
question of hormones.” All the New Testament is a certain and indisputable witness to
the existence of sin in this world. It is for the remission of sins that the Word of God
became incarnate and came among us. Certainly the multiple determinisms about which
we have spoken ought to be taken seriously. It would be unfortunate as well as dishonest to
attack them and despise them because they make culpability more complex and make
moral evaluation appreciably more difficult. It would be much better to explain through
them the great mercy of the Lord and His infinite patience with regard to men. But sin
remains sin. Man keeps enough responsibility to act “morally,” to better himself, to sin,
to be subject to sanctions. The whole New Testament is a sure, energetic and direct
clarification of this point which nothing will suppress.
Throughout the ages, the Church has always reacted against the naturalistic or
rationalist philosophies which end up in denying the very existence of sin. In thus doing
the Catholic theologians were not moved by a sort of morbid mania for seeing evil in
everything nor by a sort of fundamental pessimism which has its origin in some false
principle. They merely desire to submit to Christian revelation and to the unequivocal
teachings of the Lord. For the basic optimism of revelation does not consist in
suppressing the reality of sin but in awaiting from God a more abundant and more
powerful Redemption. And if certain kinds of Christian thought, principally those of
Augustinian origin, have marked the history of the Church with a rather somber
coloration, we should not forget that the fundamental orientation of the whole of
traditional Christian thought is illuminated by the glory of the Redemption
brilliance of grace.
The Crib—
And
The Cross
Joseph A. Breig
God willing, I will be spending Christmas
with my Florida grandchildren. And while they,
kneeling at the Crib in their parish church, will
be thinking about the baby who is God, I will
be thinking about the God who is a baby.
One’s point of view changes as one grows
older. Vividly do I remember attending Sunday
school in a drafty wooden church, and reciting
the great basic truths: “God made me . . .God
made me to know him, to love him, to serve
him, and to be happy with him forever in
Heaven.”
I can still smell the incense at Mass before
dawn on Christmas morning, and the evergreen
branches at the Crib. There I knelt with the
unshakeable faith that is unshakeable to this
day. And the Christ Child and I were children
together, as he and my grandchildren will be
this Christmas Day.
But now he and I are adults together, with
weights of sorrow and suffering upon us; and
even at Christmas time, I think of him more on
the Cross than in the Crib.
As I say, I think of him more as the God who
is man, than as the man who is God. For now I
understood something of what it is to be God -
to be outside time and space, to know all
things, to possess all things, to be all-powerful
and utterly free, to be infinite in every
perfection, to be boundless in bliss.
And now I realize that from all eternity,
God, although he owns all these things totally,
eternally sacrifices them on the altar of his
measureless goodness and his unimaginable love
for you and me, and our children and
grandchildren, and our ancestors back to Adam
and Eve.
God is so great that he who is life itself, and
the source of ail life, dares to die for us. He is
so great that although he suffers unthinkably,
he is infinitely happy in his sufferings because
his sufferings save us from everlasting death,
and show forth the glory of his goodness.
“The heavens show forth the glory of God,”
says the psalmist, “and the firmament declares
his handiwork.” True. But the greatest showing
forth of God’s glory is his suffering and death
in our flesh, as our brother, as the greatest and
noblest member of our family of humankind.
“Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and
might,” we say in the Preface of the Mass,
“heaven and earth are full of your glory.”
Again, true. God is the God of power and
might. But above and beyond that, he is the
God of helplessness, of humility - the God who
made himself an infant, dependent upon his
mother for food and warmth, even for life
itself.
He is the God of total self-giving,
self-immolation, self-abnegation; the God who
in our human nature was seized, bound, spat
upon, tortured and killed by us whom he
brought into existence out of nothing. At the
Crib with my grandchildren, his glory in the
Crib and on the Cross will merge into one
unutterably adorable glory for me.
Noon
Prayer
Call
Reverend Joseph Dean
Next week a noon prayer call is going out
from 140 Christian Denominations in the
United States and Canada. It is the preparation
for launching Key 73, a cooperative effort to
make Jesus Christ known to every person in
North America and to seek a commitment to
Him and to His mission in the entire world.
This noon prayer call includes radio
programs, newspaper participation, a Five
minute prayer service on the major TV
networks, noon time gatherings of people in
office buildings, shopping centers and local
churches. The prayer call involves community
groups and industry so that all business and
school groups will pause at noon for a silent or
group prayer. From Christmas Day until
January 6th, every Christian in North America
is asked to join in some way for this noon
prayer call.
Church bells will ring, fire whistles will
sound, drivers will toot their horns. Wherever
possible, people on the raod will park their cars
for several moments of thanksgiving,
repentance, worship and petition. This
preparation for the year long program stresses
repentance in particular.
By repentance is meant a change of attitude
for the better, a compunction for past offenses
against our loving Father and our brothers in
Christ, a complete turning away from any
unloving thoughts, words or deeds in our lives.
The noon day prayer provides all of us with the
opporutnity to beg God’s forgiveness for our
stubbornness, selfishness, resentments, vanity,
and attitudes of superiority over other persons.
Through prayer and truthful humility we can
all join in this first phase, launching Key 73.
The other five phases of the year are these: 1
We call our continent to the Word of God, to
the Resurrection of Jesus, to New Life, to
Christian Proclamation, and to Cooperative
Commitment.