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Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 14 No. 46
Thursday, December 23, 1976
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Pope Makes Some Changes...
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VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope Paul VI has breathed new life
into two Vatican organisms established experimentally to
promote initiatives charted by Vatican Council II, by giving
them new constitutions and a permanent status.
The most fundamental changes, contained in two papal
“motu proprio” decrees released here Dec. 16, concern the
Council of the Laity. A “motu proprio” decree is one issued by
a pope on his own initiative.
Pope Paul has raised the council to the level of a
“quasi-congregation” with important new responsibilities
regarding Church laws on the laity and the settlement of
disputes involving the laity.
In a second decree, Pope Paul clarified the part to be played
by the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace. The decree
broadens the competence of the commission, which was set up
as a papal study center and watch-dog in the field of human
rights.
But it also requires the commission to get clearance from the
papal Secretariat of State prior to making any statements on
specific violations of human rights.
The decrees call for both the council and the commission to
be headed by separate cardinal-presidents resident in Rome.
They were both previously headed by Cardinal Maurice Roy of
Quebec.
Newly-created Cardinal Opilio Rossi, 66, will take over the
presidency of the Laity Council. Born in New York City of
Italian immigrant parents who left the United States soon after
their son’s birth, Cardinal Rossi was papal nuncio to Austria
before being named to the college of cardinals.
The Justice and Peace Commission will be headed by African
Archbishop Bernardin Gantin, 54. Archbishop Gantin, former
head of the Cotonou, Dahomey, archdiocese, has been vice
president of the Justice and Peace Commission for almost a
year. He will have the title of propresident - a designation given
to bishops who fill a post slated for a cardinal. Most such
bishops eventually receive the red hat.
Archbishop Gantin is believed to be the first black African to
head a major office of the Roman Curia, the Church’s central
administrative body.
... Results Are F elt By Many
CHRISTMAS MASS - Archbishop Donnellan
prepares to celebrate Christmas Mass in the WSB TV
studio in Atlanta. The station will air the Mass on
Christmas day at 11 a.m. Pictured with the archbishop
are A.R. Van Cantfort, program director and Fr. Noel
Burtenshaw, who assisted at the Mass. Music for the
Mass was provided by the Cathedral choir under the
direction of H. Hamilton Smith.
Abortion, Arms Race Denounced
WASHINGTON (NC) - “If you want
peace, defend life,” Pope Paul VI told
the people of the world in his 10th
annual message to mark he World Day
of Peace celebrated by Catholics on Jan.
1.
Pope Paul denounced “the false and
dangerous program of the ‘arms race,’ of
the secret rivalry between peoples for
military superiority,” and called
abortion a “crime against life” and “a
blow at peace.”
The Pope’s message for the 1977
World Day of Peace was made public
here by the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops (NCCB).
Pope Paul said that “if, in defiance of
logic, peace and life can in practice be
dissociated, there looms on the horizon
of the future a catastrophe that in our
days could be immeasurable and
irreparable for both peace and life.” He
added: “Hiroshima is a terribly eloquent
proof and a frighteningly prophetic
example of this.”
If “peace were thought of in
unnatural separation from its
relationship with life, peace could be
imposed as the sad triumph of death,”
the Pope said, quoting the words of the
Roman historian Tacitus: “They make a
desert and call it peace.”
“Again, in the same hypothesis, the
privileged life of some can be exalted,
can be selfishly and almost idolatrously
preferred, at the expense of the
oppression or suppression of others,”
the Pope said. “Is that peace?”
Although peace and life “are supreme
values in the civil order” and are
“interdependent,” they have often been
in conflict in human history, the Pope
noted. Even today this conflict
“continues to desecrate and stain with
blood many a page of human society,”
he said. “The key to truth in the matter
can be found only by recognizing the
primacy of life as a value and as a
condition for peace.
“The formula is: ‘If you want peace,
defend life.’ Life is the crown of peace.
If we base the logic of our activity on
the sacredness of life, war is virtually
disqualified as a normal and habitual
means of asserting rights and so of
insuring peace.”
Denouncing the arms race, the Pope
said that, even if war does not break
out, “how can we fail to lament the
incalculable outpouring of economic
resources and human energies expended
in order to preserve for each individual
state its shield of ever more costly, ever
more efficient weapons, and this to the
detriment of resources for schools,
culture, agriculture, health and civic
welfare.
“Peace and life support enormous
burdens in order to maintain a peace
founded on a perpetual threat to life, as
also to defend life by means of a
(Continued on page 3)
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The recent
changes ordered by Pope Paul VI in the
constitutions of the Vatican Council of
the Laity and its- Justice and Peace
Commission left some winners and some
losers.
Among the surprise winners was the
women’s movement. The Laity
Council’s constitution demands that a
“suitable proportion of men and
women” be represented as members and
consultors of the council.
It is the first time that an official
constitution signed by a pope has
explicitly banned sex discrimination in
the nomination of officials.
Another dear winner was the Church
in Africa. For the first time a black
African will lead a major Vatican body.
Archbishop Bernardin Gantin, named
propresident of the Justice and Peace
Fr. Peter A. Dora
Peace Day Observance
BALTIMORE (NC) - Twenty to 30 bishops are expected to come here Jan. 2 to
take part in the first national U.S. celebration of Pope Paul Vi’s Day of Peace. The
theme will be “if you want peace, defend life,” also the theme of Pope Paul’s Peace
Day message.
Top News Story
Commission will almost surely be made
a cardinal at the earliest opportunity.
Africa now has 12 cardinals.
Among the losers must be listed those
progressive churchmen who wanted the
Justice and Peace Commission to
maintain the maximum possible
freedom of action.
The commission’s new constitution
requires it to come to prior agreement
with the diplomacy-conscious papal
Secretariat of State before speaking out
on any specific violations of human
rights.
Although the Vatican Committee for
the Family fell victim to attempts to
trim the financial deficit of the Roman
Curia, the Church’s central
administrative offices, the committee
can hardly be called a loser.
When Pope Paul set it up on an
experimental basis as an independent
organism in 1973, the world was about
to mark the 1974 population year.
Canadian Bishop Edouard Gagnon,
who will continue to head the
committee now that it has been placed
under the Laity Council, represented
the Vatican at the Bucharest, Rumania,
World Population Conference.
He and other committee members
gave visible witness to the Church’s
position against a carefully orchestrated
American plan to push through a
massive birth curb program.
The fact that the Committee for the
Family will continue its work indicates
that the Church is not backing down on
its commitment to the family.
But an independent, prestigious
representation for the family is not as
vital as it was on the eve of World
Population Year.
It is not yet clear whether the world’s
700 million lay Catholics emerge as big
winners following the papal changes.
The laity “won” in the sense that the
Vatican body dedicated to them has had
a boost in prestige.
It will now be led by a cardinal living
in Rome. Cardinal Maurice Roy of
Quebec formerly served as president
from his See city.
The Laity Council will now have a
high-ranking clergyman on the scene to
fight its battles and to exert pressure.
The council staff is less likely to doze
off and council work will not logjam as
has happened in other Vatican bodies
whose presidents do not live in Rome.
But no one knows what the new
council’s main program will be.
The Laity Council has come under
heavy criticism in the past for devoting
too much time to paper work, such as
approval of constitutions for Catholic
associations. Critics say that such a
bureaucratic vision of the council’s job
detracts from the main tasks for which
it was founded in 1967.
Among those tasks are to serve as a
center for developing a theology on the
laity’s place in the Church and to
provide a vehicle for contact between
bishops and lay people.
The wording of the new papal decree
making the changes deemphasizes these
tasks and stresses juridical-administra
tive ones, such as helping to settle
disputes in which laity are involved.
Its new constitution encourages the
council to strengthen its ties with lay
Catholic organizations - an aim which is
laudable and reflects the Pope’s own
preoccupation over the declining
membership in Catholic groups.
But too close an involvement,
especially with the established core of
European-based associations, is liable to
entangle the council in verbiage and
paperwork.
Just what Cardinal Opilio Rossi
intends to do as president of the Laity
Council remains to be seen.
Among his co-workers will be Laity
Council board member, Cardinal
Eduardo Pironio. As recently appointed
prefect of the Vatican Congregation for
Religious and Secular Institute, Cardinal
Pironio has showed a willingness to get
in touch with the grass-roots Religious
and has projected a “pastoral” image
which can only help the new Laity
Council. Cardinal Rossi himself has
spent his priesthood in the Vatican
diplomatic service and has little direct
pastoral experience. But he has
important friends in high places in the
Vatican - not the least of which is Pope
Paul himself who, as papal
undersecretary of State, personally
called the future cardinal into the
diplomatic service.
Father Peter A. Dora has served as Editor of THE GEORGIA BULLETIN
since May 1, 1974. He has done so with competence and distinction, in addition
to carrying out his duties as assistant pastor at Saint Thomas More (Decatur),
and presently at Sacred Heart (Atlanta). It is with deep regret that I have
accepted his resignation as Editor, since under his editorship THE GEORGIA
BULLETIN has been a fine archdiocesan paper.
On the other hand, the reason for his resignation is a source of joy. Father
Dora was ordained at the Cathedral on May 27, 1972. He has, after prayer,
counsel, and reflection applied and been accepted as a candidate to the
Cistercian Order (Trappists) at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, Conyers.
Much as the Archdiocese of Atlanta will miss his priestly services, we support
with our prayers and good wishes, his decision to test his vocation as a Monk in
the Contemplative Order which has itself been so great a blessing to our
Archdiocese.
Most Reverend Thomas A. Donnellan
Archbishop of Atlanta
WASHINGTON (NC) -- The U.S. bishops’ bicentennial “Call to Action” conference
in Detroit was the top religious news story of the year, according to the 34 diocesan
weekly newspaper editors who voted in a poll conducted by NC News Service. The top
personality of the year was Mother Teresa, the editors said.
‘Not Heart Of Christmas’
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Santa Claus and Christmas trees are nice, but they are not
at the heart of Christmas, Pope Paul VI said at a general audience here. The real
meaning of Christmas, the Pope declared, is found only at the “enchanting scene of
the manger.”
BHHWBWMHI
Candle Warning
WASHINGTON (NC) - The Consumer Product Safety Commission has warned
consumers and religious groups about the “potentially harmful” effects of candles
with lead-core wicks, used primarily in church votive lights. “In view of the known
harmful effects of lead ingestion and the growing concern over amounts of lead in the
environment from a variety of sources, the continued use of lead-core wicks in candles
may be unwise,” the agency said.
Official
Archbishop Donnellan announces the following archdiocesan appointments of
priests:
REVEREND NOEL C. BURTENSHAW ... as Editor of THE GEORGIA
BULLETIN, effective January 1, 1977. Father Burtenshaw will continue to serve
as Pastor of the Parish of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
REVEREND PATRICK A. BISHOP . . : from assistant pastor of Saint Thomas
More Church (Decatur) to assistant pastor of Saints Peter and Paul Church
(Decatur), effective January 13, 1977.
REVEREND WILLIAM E. CALHOUN .. . from leave for studies at Catholic
University to assistant pastor of Saint Thomas More Church (Decatur), effective
January 13, 1977.
REVEREND STEPHEN T. CHURCHWELL .. . from assistant pastor of
Saints Peter and Paul Church (Decatur) to assistant pastor of Sacred Heart
Church (Atlanta), effective January 13, 1977.
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