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PAGE 2 - The Georgia Bulletin, January 4,1973
For U.S. Catholics 1972 Was A Year in Public Spotlight
UPPER LEFT
visit to China.
President Nixon shakes hands with Chairman Mao Tse-tung during the President’s February
UPPER CENTER -- U.S. and Soviet leaders chat informally before sitting down at the conference table during
the Moscow summit meeting in May. Churchmen generally welcomed Mr. Nixon’s visits to China and the Soviet
Union. During the latter visit he became the first American President to attend a service at the Moscow Baptist
Church.
UPPER RIGHT -- A masked IRA gunman peers around a corner in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Throughout
1972, Protestants and Catholics battled on despite efforts of many churchmen to work for peace.
LOWER LEFT - A child’s broken doll lies amid the baggage and blood at Tel Aviv’s Lod Airport, in May,
following a terrorist attack that left 26 persons dead, including 14 Puerto Rican Christian pilgrims.
LOWER CENTER - Beneath the flame of the Olympic torch, the flags of participating nations are flown at
half-staff during a memorial service in Munich’s Olympic Stadium honoring the 11 Israeli athletes slain by Arab
terrorists in September
LOWER RIGHT - Wrapped in chains, a group demonstrates on the steps of the U.S. Mission to the United
Nations in New York to protest exit fees being levied on educated Jews by the Soviet Union. President Nixon was
under pressure from Jews to hold up trade agreements he concluded during his visit to the Soviet Union as long as
the exit fees were being imposed.
UPPER LEFT - The increase in the U.S. air war over North and South Vietnam caused a flurry of protests by
churchmen and peace groups during 1972.
UPPER CENTER ~ South Vietnamese refugees huddle into a helicopter to be flown to safety as the Spring
North Vietnamese offensive threatened their homes.
UPPER RIGHT - Church groups rushed aid to the new nation of Bangladesh, which had suffered from months
of civil strife and the brief Indo-Pakistani war.
LOWER LEFT - Members of the Pearce Commission are greeted with placards stating“No” as they arrive in a
Rhodesian village to sample public opinion on the proposed British-Rhodesian settlement. Rhodesia’s Catholic
Bishops Conference and Methodist Bishop Abel Muzorewa took the lead in denouncing the proposed settlement.
LOWER CENTER - The first of 1,000 Uganda Asians were permitted to enter the U.S. in November after
explusion from their country. Churches were active in efforts to resettle the Asians.
LOWER RIGHT - A workman notches timbers for the construction of a church-supported reception center in
the Sudan’s southern region. Church organizations played a role in ending a civil war between the Sudan’s ruling.
Arab Muslins and the Christian and animist Southerners.
UPPER LEFT -- Gov. George Wallace’s wife, Cornelia, bends over him after he was shot in a Laurel, Md.,
shopping center in May. Arthur Bremer, the alleged assailant, was arrested immediately following the shooting.
UPPER CENTER - Vice President Spiro Agnew (left) and President Nixon accept delegates’ cheers at the
Republican National Convention in Miami Beach following their nomination for re-election in August.
UPPER RIGHT - Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern chose Sargent Shriver (right) as his
second running mate, replacing Sen. Thomas Eagleton. Although Mr. Shriver is a Catholic, the Democratic ticket
became the first in history to lose the majority of the Catholic vote.
LOWER LEFT - Militant American Indians occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington during
November, in protest against “broken treaties and promises.” 4
LOWER CENTER - Tropical storm Agnes caused heavy damage to areas of the Northeast, such as this section
of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Churches rushed aid to the victims of natural disasters in South Dakota, the Philippines and
Korea, as well as the Northeast.
LOWER RIGHT - Father Philip Berrigan waves a peace sign from behind bars in a Harrisburg, Pa., jail as he
leaves for the opening of the “Harrisburg 7” trial in January.
BY JERRY FILTEAU
(NC News Service)
For Catholics in the United States, 1972 was a year in the
public spotlight.
As members of right-to-life groups and nonpublic school
organizations, Catholics fought legislative and court battles; as
members of the “Catholic ethnic” vote, they were courted by
politicians of both parties.
And as these groups captured public attention, the Catholic
peace movement-like other elements of the anti-war
movement-drifted out of the public consciousness.
The most pressing issue for Catholics-and for many others
who joined the right to life movement-was abortion. With the
number of legalized abortions in the country easily topping the
half-million mark for the year, right life groups sprang up across
the nation to fight abortion through social programs, education,
and legislative and court battles.
Experts predicted that the ultimate determination would
come from a U. S. Supreme Court decision of the
constitutionality of state abortion laws, and opponents of
abortion were encouraged by a Supreme Court action last June.
The court decided to postpone a decision on two state
laws-Texas and Georgia-until the arguments could be heard by
the full court, including two Nixon appointees who could not
have participated in the decisions without a rehearing.
THE RIGHT TO LIFE movement won a brief victory in New
York when the legislature voted to repeal that state’s abortion
law. But the law stayed in effect when Gov. Nelson Rockefeller
vetoed the repeal bill.
The governor’s brother, John D. Rockefeller III, also angered
right to life groups when the Commission on Population
Growth and the American Future recommended that other
states pattern their abortion laws after the New York law. The
commission’s population recommendations on curbing
population growth came under growing criticism as the U. S.
Census Bureau continued to report declines in the birth rate
that could, if continued over a long period, result in zero
population growth.
Abortion advocates lost overwhelmingly, in two popular
referendums aimed at relaxing legal restrictions on abortion in
Michigan and North Dakota.
When Catholic schools continuing to close or consolidate at
the rate of almost one a day - 300 for the year according to
National Catholic Education Association data bank
estimates-Catholics moved into the courts and legislatures to
fight for aid to their schools. As in the abortion fight, Catholics
were joined by Protestants and Jews in the battle, but again the
large numbers of Catholics involved frequently gave the
impression that it was a strictly Catholic battle.
Income tax credits were the key issue. A court in Minnesota
ruled they were constitutional; the Ohio legialature passed a tax
credit bill; and the U. S. House Ways and Means Committee
approved a federal tax credit bill.
POLITICAL CANDIDATES seized the issue and before the
1972 campaign was over, it was hard to find a politician
opposed to the concept. President Nixon and Sen. George S.
McGovern endorsed tax credits as part of campaigns that were
filled with appeals to-and analyses of-the newly discovered
“Catholic ethnic” vote.
In the end, Catholics deserted the Democratic party in large
numbers, and helped create a Nixon landslide. Many observers
thought that-despite denials from the McGovern camp-voters
believed that the senator favored abortion.
McGovern, however, did gain strong support from the
Catholic peace movement and an explicit endorsement from
Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit.
1972 was, on the whole, a bad year for the peace movement.
The Harrisburg Seven did succeed in their fight against the
government’s conspiracy charges and Father Philip Berrigan was
released from prison.
However, like other elements of the anti-war effort, the
movement seemed to lose steam. Demonstrators were few and
the tranditional draft board raids died down. The withdrawal of
American troops and the reports of movement in the peace talks
seemed to neutralize opposition through most of the year.
Renewed bombing at the year’s end seemed likely to give new
life to the protest movement for the coming year.
CESAR CHAVEZ, the leader of the United Farmer Workers
Union (UFWU), continued to dramatize the plight of the farm
worker and migrant laborer when he kicked off a renewed
lettuce boycott with a 24-day fast. The lettuce boycott picked
up steam steadily with a growing number of endorsements from
religious leaders and groups.
Other Catholic religious leaders in the nation’s political news
were Philadelphia’s Cardinal John Krol, president of the
National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Notre Dame’s
Father Theodore Hesburgh, chairman of the U. S. Civil Rights
Commission.
Cardinal Krol and President Nixon met several times-on
topics of aid to nonpublic schools, Vietnam peace hopes, and U.
S.-Polish relations.
Father Hesburgh’s relations with the President were not so
friendly. After he issued several critical blasts at administration
policies on busing and civil rights, he was forced to resign from
his civil rights post.
In spite of the heavy involvement of religion in politics, 1972
was characterized by a strong resurgence of fundamental,
personal religion. Key 73, initiated as a nationwide religious
revival program by evangelical Protestants, gradually gained in
ecumenical stature as other religious groups, including many
Catholic bishops, voiced support or announced their
participation in it.
Among Catholics, the phenomenal growth of the charismatic
movement was highlighted by a June conference at Notre Dame,
attended by more than 11,000 Catholic charismatics.
Spanish-speaking Catholics emerged as a new phenomenon of
the U. S. Church in 1972. In June they held their first national
Encuentro de Pastoral (meeting on pastoral work), which
resulted in a wide range of resolutions calling for a greater
recognition and voice in U. S. Church life.
On the other hand, women’s expanded hopes for involvement
in Church affairs were shattered when Pope Paul VI excluded
them from the newly established lay ministries. The question of
ordaining women to the priesthood was put off indefinitely by a
recommendation of the U. S. bishops’ committee on pastoral
research and practices, that the question needed much deeper
study.
ON THE WORLD SCENE, the continuing religious-political
conflicts in Ireland and the mideast dominated the news. The
world was shocked at the massacre of Puerto Rican pilgrims to
the Holy Land at Lod Airport at Tel Aviv, but that ancient
paled in comparison with the killing of Israeli Olympic athletes
in Munich.
Northern Ireland’s civil war continued unabated. The new
year began with “Bloody Sunday” on January 30-13 killed and
18 wounded in a confrontation in Londonderry-setting the
stage for a new round of bombings and terrorism.
Elsewhere on the world scene, 1972 saw the death of one of
the world’s great religious leaders, Orthodox Ecumenical
Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople, whose historic
meetings with Popes John and Paul marked a turning point in
Catholic-Orthodox relations, and the death of former U. S.
President Harry Truman.
UPPER LEFT - A young man deep in prayer symbolizes the growth of the charismatic movement during 1972.
Nearly 12,000 people attended the Sixth International Conference on the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic
Church, held at Notre Dame.
UPPER CENTER - Key 73, a nationwide evangelistic effort to run through 1973, picked up wide support
during the year. Over 130 denominations and other religious groups, including a number of Catholic dioceses, are
participating.
UPPER RIGHT - A graphic moment capturing the mood of Explo 72 in Dallas - the Cross of Christ flanked by
the “One Way” sign indicating Christ as Savior.
LOWER LEFT - In a decision having potentially far-reaching implications, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
May that Old Order Amish do not have to send their children to public schools. The decision upheld the Wisconsin
Supreme Court in finding that compulsory school laws violate the religious freedom of the Amish.
LOWER CENTER - Rabbi Sally Priesand joins her classmates in an academic procession prior to her ordination
as the first woman rabbi in the U.S. at Cincinnati’s Hebrew Union College in June.
LOWER RIGHT - Announcement at the end of 1971 that a Catholic-Anglican committee had reached
substantial agreement on the doctrine of the Eucharist helped ecumenists begin 1972 with strengthened hope.
UPPER LEFT - As pigeons circle around him, Pope Paul VI addresses a crowd gathered in St. Mark’s Square
during his brief visit to Venice in September.
UPPER CENTER - Pope Paul reaches out to touch an African woman and her child during an audience just
prior to his seventy-fifth birthday.
UPPER RIGHT - Laslo Toth, an apparently beserk 33-year-old Hungarian-born Australian, strikes Michelangelo’s
famed Pieta with a hammer in St. Peter’s Basilica in May.
LOWER LEFT - Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia (right) is greeted upon his arrival in Warsaw by Cardinal
Stefan Wysznski, Primate of Poland. Cardinal Krol traveled to Poland in October to take part in celebrations
marking the first anniversary of the beatification of Father Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan friar who gave his life
to save a fellow prisoner at Auschwitz.
LOWER CENTER -- Dr. Frances Choate, a member of the Diocese of Saginaw’s Pastoral Council, gives Holy
Communion to Holy Cross Brother Leo Gilskey at a Mass ending a liturgical workshop in Saginaw, Mich. Dr.
Choat is an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, one of the few roles left to women under a papal decree which
barred women from most formal ministries in the Church.
LOWER RIGHT - Bishop Edward A. McCarthy of Phoenix lays his hands on Thomas Pheland and proclaims
him a deacon during the ordination of 10 married men to the permanent diaconate in Phoenix. With the
ordination of 97 men in the Chicago archdiocese in December, the total of men serving in the Catholic Church’s
diaconate program throughout the world rose to about 1,000.
UPPER LEFT - A news camera focuses on Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia, president of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops, as he opens the NCCB’s Spring meeting in Atlanta.
UPPER CENTER -- The newly appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Natchez-Jackson, Miss., diocese, Father
Joseph L. Howze (left), is joined by his ordinary, Bishop Joseph B. Brunini, after his appointment as the nation’s
second black Catholic bishop.
UPPER RIGHT - A right-to-life group demonstrates against New York State’s liberalized abortion law at the
Albany Capitol Building in April. In what some observers saw as part of a national resurgence of anti-abortion
sentiment, the New York Legislature voted to repeal the law, but Gov. Nelson Rockefeller vetoed the measure.
LOWER LEFT - Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame, resigned as
chairman of the U.S. Civl Rights Commission in November at the request of President Nixon. Father Hesburgh had
been an outspoken critic of the President’s views on busing.
•
LOWER CENTER - Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I, spiritual leader of world Orthodoxy, died in Istanbul
in July at the age of 86.
LOWER RIGHT - Cardinal Eugene Tisserant, dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, died in February. He was
87. The French-bom prelate was a counselor to five Popes, and, as dean of the College of Cardinals, supervised the
election of the last two.