Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 7—January 20,1977
CIA-Church Links Challenged
A TIME OF PERSECUTION - Maj. Arthur Eyre and CBS
Correspondent Ted Holmes explore the whereabouts of a priest’s hiding
hole in a remote tower of Major Eyre’s Elizabethan mansion outside
Cambridge. The tower served as a refuge for hunted priests during the
English persecutions. This is a scene from “A Time for Saints,” a CBS
documentary on the life of the Jesuit martyr, St. Edmund Campion, to be
aired Sunday, Jan. 23 at 10:30 a.m. EST. (Check local listings.) (NC
Photo)
Right To Life Leaders Say Death
Penalty Foes Are Inconsistent
SANTIAGO, Chile (NC) - Recent
assertions by former U.S. ambassador
to Chile Edward M. Korry, that the
Kennedy Administration gave money
to Church graps in Chile for
political purposes, have brought
strong reaction here.
Church officials, while not
commenting publicly, have privately
objected to any suggestion that the
Church was involved in anything
improper. A group of former Chilean
government officials has threatened
to sue the ex-ambassador for libel
for some of his statements.
Korry, ambassador to Chile from
1967 to 1971 but now unemployed,
has repeated his charges several times
in the past few weeks, most recently
in an interview Jan. 8 on CBS
television’s “60 Minutes.”
VATICAN DAILY:
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Reacting
to recent ordinations of Episcopalian
women in the United States, the
Vatican daily quoted a statement by
Pope Paul VI that such ordinations
pose “serious difficulty” for
ecumenical dialogue and reunion.
The editorial in L’Osservatore
Romano, the Vatican newspaper,
appeared only a few days before the
start of the Week of Prayer for
Christian Unity, Jan. 18-25.
The ordination to the Episcopal
priesthood of Mrs. Jacqueline Means
in Indianapolis on New Year’s Day,
the paper said, “broke down the last
hesitation which had persisted in the
Episcopal Church” over the question
of ordaining women.
Pope Paul VI has explicitly stated
his firm opposition to the ordination
of women. Ecumenical officials here
have termed the new wave of
women’s ordinations an “ecumenical
headache.”
The editorial by Franciscan Father
Gino Concetti of L’Osservatore’s
staff, quoted from a letter of Pope
Paul to Anglican Archbishop Donald
Coggan of Canterbury.
In the March 23, 1976, letter the
Pope called ordination of women a
“new obstacle and a new threat on
the road” to Church unity, the
paper said.
EDUCATOR SAYS:
Spend
ST. CLOUD, Minn. (NC) - - In
today’s society there is a great need
for parents to spend time with their
children, to prove to them they
really care, said Dominican Sister
Elinor Ford, founder of an
organization to promote parental
involvement in education.
“Parents today give children so
many things,” Sister Elinor said here.
“But the children do not perceive
the parents care because what the
children want are not things. They want
the time of their parents.”
Sister Elinor, former
superintendent of education for the
New York archdiocese, is founder
and director of the National Forum
of Catholic Parent Organizations
(NFCPO), an affiliate of the National
UNITED NATIONS, N. Y. (NC) -
The United Nations Population,
Commission opened its 19th session
here Jan. 10 to review progress
towards a world plan of action.
Its aim is to align the goals of
social and economic development
with population growth.
Those goals, on a voluntary basis,
were set by the UN World
Population Conference in Bucharest,
Romania, in 1974.
At the 1974 conference the Holy
See’s delegation supported the major
conclusion of the conference — that
the emphasis in all population
planning must be on development
and social justice — but stood alone
in withdrawing from the consensus on
the rest of the document.
While
the
conference
was
considered
a
victory
for
those
(including
the
Holy
See)
who
favored
development
as a
first
priority rather than family planning,
the Holy See felt that too often
human values or moral principles
were poorly stated or ignored. It
objected particularly to the
conference’s decisions not to deal
with abortion in the document, and
to treat sexual activities of
individuals as equal to those of
couples and parents.
He charged among other things
that millions of U.S. aid dollars were
given to the Jesuit order and other
Church groups in Chile, in efforts to
tamper with the electoral process
there. The programs, he claimed,
were part of a plan designed by
President John F. Kennedy and his
brother Robert to block the advent
of socialists to power.
In a December interview with the
Washington Post, Korry said the
Kennedy Administration favored the
election in 1964 of Christian
Democratic candidate Eduardo Frei
over Marxist candidate Salvador
Allende or a rightist candidate. The
Administration, he claimed, was
responding in part to appeals by
Church leaders in Rome and
Santiago.
“The position of the Church,” the
editorial said, “should not be taken
as a sign of discrimination against
women.
“Especially in recent times, many
liturgical and prophetic functions
have been granted to women to the
same degree as to men.”
The paper emphasized that not all
Protestant churches share the
Catholic Church’s concept of the
priesthood, and that ecumenical
dialogue has failed to resolve the
problem of what constitutes valid
ordination.
The editorial concluded by stating
that “the obstacles and difficulties
(to Christian unity) are growing
instead of diminishing” because of
the decision by some Protestant
churches to ordain women.
On Nov. 30, 1975, Pope Paul
wrote to Archbishop Coggan that the
Catholic Church refuses to ordain
women “for very fundamental
reasons.”
“These reasons include: the
example recorded in the Sacred
Scriptures of Christ choosing his
Apostles only from among men; the
constant practice of the Church
which has imitated Christ in
choosing only men, and her living
teaching authority which has
consistently held that the exclusion
Catholic Educational Association
(NCEA) in Washington, D. C.
Youngsters today question whether
their parents really want to be
bothered with listening to them, she
said in an interview with the St.
Cloud Visitor, newspaper of the St.
Cloud diocese.
Today’s parents, on the other
hand, ‘are frightened by their
children,” Sister Elinor said. “They
don’t understand their children.
Parents have lost their confidence in
their ability to be parents.”
She recommended that “parents
stop looking for a book to give
them the answer, and instead
concentrate every day, or at least
every week, on just spending time
alone with each of their children.”
The Holy See’s UN observer
mission in New York is not a
member of the Population
Commission, but its representatives
can address it upon request.
At the opening session here Leon
Tabah, director of the U’N
population division, reminded the
commission that the international
community could not change
demographic estimations every year
according to whether harvests were
good or bad.
The task for the UN, he said,
must be a slow and prudent
accumulation of facts to orient
population programs and policies. As
the course of the future is being set
now, “it is necessary to find
appropriate measures projecting
beyond the year 2000,” Tabah said.
The current two-week session of
the 27-member commission will be
discussing fertility, mortality,
employment and resources, among
other concerns. It will also debate
studies on the interrelationships
between population, resources and the
environment.
Another aspect of the agenda is
whether the existing gap between the
developed and the developing
countries can be narrowed, and how.
Korry also told the Post that
some amounts of covert money from
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
were funneled to Jesuit-led
organizations in Chile “for the
express purpose of electing the
Christian Democrats.”
The former ambassador cited as
another example of politically
motivated aid funds from the
Agency for International
Development (AID) provided to the
Bellarmino Center, a Jesuit-operated
social research and action team in
Santiago.
He said other U.S. government
and private corporate funds went to
Chile under the same policy of
blocking leftist or rightist groups.
of women from the priesthood is in
accordance with God’s plan for his
Church.”
Both letters of Pope Paul were
released in July by Archbishop
Coggan. They were written in
response to a letter from the
Canterbury archbishop informing the
Pope that the idea of ordination of
women was gaining popularity among
Anglicans.
The Osservatore Romano editorial
invited churches which permit
ordination of women to reflect on
the ecumenical problems the practice
poses.
It emphasized that the Catholic
opposition to ordination of women
is shared by Eastern Orthodox
churches.
The Osservatore Romano editorial
appeared less than a week after the
announcement in London that the
A n gl i c a n - R o m an Catholic
International Commission (ARCIC), a
group of Catholic and Anglican
theologians and scholars sponsored
by the two churches, is about to
publish an agreed theological
statement on “Authority in the
Church.” ARCIC completed the
statement at a meeting in Venice
last Aug. 24-Sept. 2 and Catholic
and Anglican Church officials have
since given permission for its
publication.
The inability of many youngsters
to read or write about or add “is not so
much due to the teaching techniques
as it is due to the fact that young
people are not getting enough of
what I call ‘familying support’,” Sister
Elinor said.
“In many homes both parents are
working. There are many families
with only single parents. Young
people are going home to empty
homes; they are all alone.
“In the case of both parents
working, when they do come home
they are so tired and weary —
because one parent is working to
put food on the table and the other
parent is working to pay the
government for putting food on the
table — that they can’t relate to the
young people.
“And in the meantime the young
people are 27 hours a week in front
of the television. The refrigerator is
like a revolving door because nobody
sits down to eat anymore.
“As a result, the young people are
not getting — from the time they
are very small when they have a
great need for the psychological
support — the support of real
familying. And so they go away
feeling they are unneeded,
unwanted.”
Sister Elinor’s observations were
confirmed by a recent U.S. Census
Bureau report that an estimated 1.8
million U.S. children, aged 7 through
13, are unattended by parents,
relatives or agencies, from the time
they leave school until a parent
returns from work.
The bureau reported that 8
million children lack parental care
during daytime hours. About 2.1
million are cared for in the home of
a relative and other arrangements
provide care for the rest.
A study published in late 1974
found that “the average family in
the United States spends less than
30 minutes a week in familying,”
Sister Elinor recalled, adding that
feedback from her audiences across
the country confirms that statistic.
The realization of how devastating
this inattention is to youngsters had
In the CBS interview, however,
Korry also contended that Allende
himself took $500,000 in bribes
from multinational companies.
Church sources here said this is
not the first time that charges of
U.S. funding for Christian Democrats
and Church groups have been made
by Korry and.others.
They recalled similar accusations in
1975 by columnist Jack Anderson, that
Jesuit Father Roger Vekemans had
received U.S. funds in the late 1960s
while heading several social action
projects.
At the time Jesuit superior Father
Juan Ochagavia said in Chile that
indeed Father Vekemans had secured
subsidies from institutions in Europe
and the United States to carry on
leadership training for labor
movements and for other social
projects. He said that the greater
part came from European sources.
Father Vekemans denied receiving
or using any CIA funds for Jesuit
activities. He moved to Venezuela
and then to Colombia at the end of
1970 when Allende won the
presidential elections.
To those familiar with the
workings of labor and other social
movements in Chile, there were
obvious links between Father
Vekemans’ programs and Christian
Democratic groups.
While Chilean churchmen did not
comment publicly on the latest
round of charges, a group of
Christian Democrats has challenged
Korry to back his statements with
evidence.
Korry had asserted, in a December
interview in the News Journal of
Wilmington, Del., that “Chilean
ministers were on the CIA payroll.”
Fourteen cabinet officials under
Frei’s Christian Democrat
administration replied, “We take
(your statements) as injurious and
false, and challenge you to name
names and dates under which Frei’s
ministers received CIA funds . ..
Otherwise we will start proceedings
for libel and defamation.”
In the News Journal interview
Korry had also repeated his charges
that “millions of dollars from AID
and CIA had been funneled to
Catholic groups led by Jesuits, in
order to combat Protestants and
Communists, and help to elect
candidates favored by Kennedy.”
led Sister Elinor to organize a
communication network for parents,
teachers and students across the
country in order to resolve some of
the problems by breaking down
separation between generations.
Children who are happy come
from a happy environment and show
it, she said. The children, who are
unhappy, hostile and alienated are
the ones who turn to drug and
alcohol addiction. “We’ve never
found a happy drug addict yet.
These are the young kids who are
basically unhappy by their body
language, by their facial expressions.”
To prevent the development of
fear and hostility in children, parents
“have to start from the time the
child is two years old to spend time
each week alone with each child,
because it’s the only way the child
is going to perceive ‘My parents
really care about me,’ ” Sister Elinor
said.
At the same time, Sister Elinor
said, “the school has to work with
the children and say ‘Listen, your
parents really care about you. Now
stop giving them a hard time.’ ”
This is what she calls “parent
partnership.”
One way parents can help one
another, she said, is through a
“dial-a-parent” concept. “If a parent
gets very disturbed over a problem
with a child, they would call
another parent to just talk until
they are calmed down. The key is
never to talk to these young people
when you are angry. It’s better to
wait until you get your patience
together and can talk to them from
a point of logic.”
Though parents may love their
children, the parents’ anger hurts the
children deeply, Sister Elinor said.
“And it drives them out to their
peer groups for comfort and support
and a little ego massage because
they think they have so badly failed
in their father’s or their mother’s
eyes that they can never come back.
“If a child can feel ‘My father
and my mother, no matter what I
do, will always listen to me,’ that is
a blessed child,” she said. “That
child will always come and tell the
parents everything.”
SALT LAKE CITY (NC) - Right
to life leaders here have lashed out
at foes of the death penalty,
accusing many of them of having
weakened their own case by being
proponents of abortion.
The charge was made in a
statement issued on behalf of Right
to Life of Utah, an affiliate of the
National Right to Life Committee.
According to the statement,
addressed to the Utah Coalition
Against the Death Penalty, many
civil libertarians and ministers active
in the fight to save self-admitted
murderer Gary Mark Gilmore from
execution have been instrumental in
diminishing the value of human life.
The statement was delivered on
behalf of Mrs. Myrna Tulloch of
Bountiful, press secretary to the
Utah right to life group, and Mrs.
Janet Carroll, president, to a meeting
of death penalty foes gathered to
plan for a prayer vigil scheduled for
Jan. 15.
Gilmore was executed by a firing
squad on Jan. 17.
According to the statement, the
right to life group “questions the
credibility, and indeed the sincerity,”
of the death penalty opponents.
It condemned “members of the
American Civil Liberties Union who
actively litigated for the executions
of 3 million innocent unborn
babies,” and clergymen “who
remained blind and silent, picking
and choosing when to apply ‘Thou
shalt not kill.’ ”
The right to life group asked the
prayer vigil organizers: “Where were
your prayers Jan. 22, 1973, when
the Supreme Court condemned these
innocent babies to death without
trial or jury?” According to the
right to life statement, those who
welcomed the removal of legal
protection for the unborn “forfeited
(their) right to defend the guilty.”
“Can you honestly expect society
to care at this point about one
man’s life when you taught that
innocent life has so little value?” the
statement asks.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” it goes
on, “you have brought this attitude
upon yourselves. Pray for all human
life. Anything else is hypocrisy,” the
statement advises, adding: “Perhaps a
penance service instead of a vigil is
in order.”
Mrs. Carroll told NC News her
organization has no position on the
death penalty, but added: “We have
objected to some of the reasons
being advanced to go ahead with the
execution, such as, ‘It would be
cheaper to kill Gilmore than to keep
him alive,’ ” she said.
A NAME TO TREASURE - Virtue and Grace can be found in
Wisconsin’s Lafayette County treasurer’s office. Elmer B. Virtue is
treasurer and Mrs. Grace King (background) is his deputy. A onetime gas
station operator and the son of Irish immigrants, Virtue is a member of
Holy Rosary parish and the father of eight. He concedes his name has
been a “virtue” in his 17 successful campaigns for reelection. (NC Photo)
Population Plans Reviewed
More Time With Children