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PAGE 5—August 3,1978
House Approves Pregnancy Disability Benefits Bill
WASHINGTON (NC) -- The House, by a 376-43 vote, has approved a bill to
require employers who provide disability plans to include coverage of pregnancy in
those plans.
The bill now moves to a House-Senate conference committee which will work out
differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill.
The main difference involves a controversial provision in the House bill to bar
mandatory abortion coverage in disability plans. The Senate rejected a similar proposal
earlier this year.
The bill was introduced by Sen. Harrison Williams (D-N.J.) and Rep. Augustus
Hawkins (D-Calif.) after a 1976 Supreme Court ruling which said the prohibition
against discrimination on the basis of sex in the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not prohibit
employers from denying pregnancy disability coverage.
A wide coalition of religious, labor, women’s and civil rights groups backed the
Williams-Hawkins bill as a protector of women’s rights. Many groups, including the
National Conference of Catholic Bishops, saw the bill as a way of removing economic
incentives for working women to have abortions.
But the NCCB argued that the bill would require employers, including church
employers with religious convictions against abortion, to pay for abortions unless the
bill specifically excluded abortion coverage.
Rep. Edward Beard (D-R.I.) sponsored an amendment to exclude mandatory
abortion coverage. It was approved 19-12 by the House Education and Labor
Committee.
Bishop Thomas Kelly, the NCCB general secretary, had noted earlier that Catholic
agencies which refused to pay for abortions in disability programs could lose federal
funding through Medicaid, Medicare, social service and other programs.
He said the Beard Amendment would not prevent an employer from including
abortion coverage voluntarily or as a result of a collective bargaining agreement and
would not prohibit disability coverage for complications following an abortion.
The full House did not take a separate vote on the Beard amendment because it
voted on the bill under suspension, a special set of rules which allow a bill to be passed
as it came out of committee if it receives a two-thirds vote.
Opponents of the Beard amendment claim it is unnecessary and would lead to
pressure by both sides in the abortion debate on employers and unions negotiating
employee benefits.
Williams and Sen. Jacob Javits (R-N.Y.), the major Senate sponsors of the bill,
said the bill would not require church employers to pay for abortions against their
religious convictions even without the Beard amendment.
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and American Citizens
Concerned for life have said they support the bill with or without the Beard
amendment because they believe churches are already protected.
Msgr. James T. McHugh, director of the bishops’ Committee for Pro-life Activities,
said “the strength of the vote in favor of the pregnancy disability benefits bill indicates
the determination of House members to provide pregnancy benefits to women without
coercing any employer to pay for abortion.”
He said he hopes the Senate
speedy enactment of this bill.”
“will accept the House language so as to ensure
Any efforts “to compromise the House language in order to include abortion on
demand will endanger final enactment of the bill,” he warned.
“At no time,” he said in a statement, “has there been any widespread support to
make this bill an abortion funding mechanism and we hope the Senate-House
conference will not be misled by a small group of proabortion zealots who are
determined to force all employers to pay for abortions.”
Church Of England Makes Reunion Move
YORK, England (NC) - The
(Anglican) Church of England has taken
a decisive step towards establishing
organic unity with four other churches
-- the Churches of Christ, the Methodist
Church, the Moravian Church and the
United Reformed Church.
The move came July 10 at the
Church of England’s General Synod in
York, despite some fears expressed
during nearly five hours of debate that
Anglican entry into the covenant might
damage Anglican-Roman Catholic
relations.
The Anglican body approved a
proposal that the Church of England
should enter into discussion with the
four other churches with a view to all
joining in a covenant for unity. The
motion was passed by large margins
among all segments that make up the
synod: 38-6 among the bishops, 161-55
among the clergy, and 168-31 among
the laity.
Covenanting would involve all the
churches concerned recognizing one
another’s ministries and admitting one
another’s members to Communion.
In agreeing to covenant, the Church
of England laid down a condition that
its recognition of ministers will follow
upon acceptance by the other churches
of the historic episcopate by
consecrating bishops at the inauguration
of the covenant.
Further, “such recognition will be
effected by the action of the whole
episcopate of all the covenanting
churches, incorporating ... the existing
ministers into the historic threefold
ministry by invocation of the Spirit in a
prayer which makes it clear that such
incorporation is intended and conveyed,
by a distinctive sign for the conferring
of a gift of the Spirit, and by
concelebration of Holy Communion,”
the proposal stated.
A final condition in the proposal is
that the discussions leading to
covenanting should in no way prejudge
whether the Church of England will
admit or accept women priests. This is
an important proviso since there are
women ministers in churches with
which the Church of England would
covenant under the proposal. While
other churches in the Anglican
Communion (including those in the
United States and Canada) have begun
to ordain women priests and the Church
of England has approved the idea
“in principle” but not in practice.
The synod vote was the Church of
England’s definitive response to the Ten
Propositions put forward as a basis for
covenanting by the Churches’ Unity
Commission. All the mainstream
churches in England have been
represented on the commission, and all
along the intention has been that the
churches unable to join in a covenant
will nevertheless sit in on and help the
discussions of those able to covenant.
Among those who have declared
Family, Priesthood Crisis Linked
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The
Vatican Committee for the Family has
said that the crisis in Christian families
in the West is linked to the crisis in the
priesthood.
In a document charting the
committee’s priority areas, the
committee said that “if families do not
always know what course of action to
follow, it is because they are often left
in uncertainty by their spiritual guides.
“The crisis that is being
experienced in the priesthood can be
linked with the crisis known by many
families,” said the committee.
“A renewed priesthood will save
the family and vice-versa.”
In the document, titled “The
Family in the Pastoral Activity of the
Church,” the committee deplored the
lack of Catholic opposition to
anti-family legislation.
“It is striking,” said the committee,
“to note that Catholics in the West are
so little prepared to fight the civil
battles in favor of the family. One can
see this by looking at the type of
legislation that has been introduced over
the past 10 years even in counties of
long Christian tradition: divorce,
contraception, abortion, sterilization,
euthanasia, etc.”
The committee urged better seminary
training on issues involving the family.
It suggested that seminarians be
given courses on “biological research in
the area of human fertility, its
regulations and application in the
domain of the natural means of family
planning.”
It criticized seminaries for training
seminarians “for a ministry to
individuals, independent of their social
milieu.”
“It is necessary,” said the
committee, “to help priests to be more
attentive to the family as a social unit,
and to the place of each of its members
in the evangelical renewal of the family
as the first milieu of life.”
In general, the committee
document deplored the decline of the
family in the West. It cautioned,
however, against thinking that the same
family problems in the West exist
elsewhere in the world.
The family crisis in the West, it
said, “arises directly from a mentality
which stresses material success,
individualism, efficiency, technology
which is becoming more and more
refined, and the development of a
lifestyle that stresses money, action and
power.
“More and more the authentic
values of family life - love as gift of self,
the generous acceptance of life, fidelity,
permanence in married life, the spirit of
sacrifice - are being regarded as less
important and relegated to a secondary
level,” said the document.
The committee said that “the peace
and harmony of society, and to a
certain extent, the future of the church
rests on Christian families.”
themselves unable to join a covenant
under the Ten Propositions are the
Baptists and Roman Catholics.
As the synod debated the proposal,
a certain anxiety was expressed that
covenanting with the four Protestant
churches might damage the Church of
England’s improving relations with
Rome and might swing too decisively on
the Reformation side the delicate
balance of a church that claims to be
both Catholic and Reformed.
Feeding these fears was a recent
statement by one of England’s most
noted Roman Catholic theologians and
ecumenists, Auxiliary Bishop
Christopher Butler of Westminster, who
is a member both of the Churches’
Unity Commission and of the
Anglican-Roman Catholic International
Commission (ARCIC).
Bishop Butler had said that if the
Church of England recognized as true
ministers of word and sacraments the
ordained ministers of non-episcopal
churches (which the other churches
involved are), in his view “this would
cast doubt on the acceptance by the
Church of England of the doctrine on
the ordained ministry agreed by
ARCIC.”
Archbishop Donald Coggan of
Canterbury, symbolic head of the
Church of England, responded to the
Catholic bishop’s objection. What is
involved, he said, is not simply
congnitive recognition of ministries, but
actual incorporation into the historic
threefold ministry.
Backing this view, he cited the
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nuiuo ut uuv/iuici vai/v/uv iiicmwci
Churches’ Unity Commission, Jesuit
Father John Coventry: “The thinking of
the commission has consistently been
that the solemn act of reconciliation,
acceptance and recognition would itself
confer on ministries anything that they
might hitherto have lacked.
Non-episcopal ministries would thereby
be brought within the ordaining
ministry of the historic episcopate.”
Archbishop Coggan said he looked
forward in hope to the time when the
Anglican and Roman Catholic churches
would recover full communion with
each other, and in the meantime he felt
that the Church of England could move
forward toward the proposed covenant
“without jeopardizing our growing
relationships with the Roman Catholic
Church which we value so highly.”
He asked synod members not to be
overly fearful of some possible
temporary anomalies involved in
covenanting. “The great and disastrous
and overwhelming anomaly,” he said,
“is that of disunity within the Body of
Christ ... We must do what we can to
end it.”
The five churches which are
agreeing to covenant now face two years
of detailed negotiations to work out a
form of covenant acceptable to all of
them. The Church of England’s General
Synod has made clear what its
conditions are.
PALLIUM USE RESTRICTED - The two-inch
wide woolen band decorated with six crosses and
known as the pallium may be worn only by
metropolitan archbishops. Pope Paul VI has ruled. In
this ■ hotograph, the pallium is seen draped around the
pope boulders. Worn by the pope, it signifies the
fullness of papal authority; worn by an archbishop, it
signifies his union with the Holy See. (NC Photo)
More Help For Divorced, Separated
NOTRE DAME, Ind. (NC) - The
“official” Caihoiic church is more
committed now than ever before to
helping divorced and separated
Catholics, participants in the North
American Conference on Divorced and
Separated Catholics were told.
Father Donald Conroy, family life
director of the U.S. Catholic
Conference, said in his opening remarks
that “There is a sense among the official
church of really wanting to respond and
respond effectively” to the needs of the
divorced and separated.
Rather than just issue a “pastoral
letter of encouragement,” Father
Conroy said the bishops made a
committment to action in their 12 year
plan for family life, which specifically
includes a ministry to the divorced and
separated.
Sister Paula Ripple, a member of
the Third Order of St. Francis of
Perpetual Adoration, and executive
director of the conference, echoed
Father Conroy’s remarks that the past
year has been a “hopeful one” for the
group because of the bishops’
committment to the divorced and
separated and the lifting of the
excommunication ban on divorced,
remarried Catholics. She suggested that
the lifting of the ban, in a sense, has
brought divorced and separated
Catholics “out of the closet.”
Father Conroy noted that the
lifting of the ban was “key” because it
was a symbolic gesture which prompted
many dioceses to begin sensitive
ministries to the divorced and separated.
(In November, 1977 Pope Paul VI
lifted the automatic excommunication
that had been imposed on American
Catholics who divorce and remarry. The
action does not allow divorced and
remarried Catholics to receive the
sacraments of Penance and Holy
Communion, nor does it change church
teaching on the indissolubility of
marriage. The lifting of the ban has been
seen as a reconciling gesture to divorced
and remarried Catholics which
encourages them to regularize their
status in the Church).
About 300 persons attended the
four day session at the University of
Notre Dame. Workshop topics covered
areas such as leadership, early recovery,
ongoing growth and the developing
theology on the canon law of marriage.
Officials of the group also
announced that an advisory board made
up of professional lay and religious men
and women will help make decisions on
conference policy and orientation under
guidelines from the board of directors.
For the first time there was
Canadian representation, including
participants from Ottawa, Toronto and
Montreal. Through the continued
coordination and exchange of the
Ontario and Quebec groups the
Canadian region now has two board
members with alternates on the board.
FIVE DAY SESSION AT STEUBENVILLE
Church Must Decentralize Or Disintegrate, Charismatic Clergy Told
STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (NC) - Only if
priests give away power can the church be built
up, the keynote speaker at the fourth annual
National Catholic Charismatic Conference for
Priests and Deacons told nearly 1,000
clergymen attending the five-day gathering in
Steubenville.
“It takes strong leadership to decentralize”
the church, said Carmelite Father Francis
Martin, a Scripture scholar who has taught for
the past five years in the Holy Land. But, he
added, “It’s either decentralize or disintegrate.”
Calling on the bishops, priests and deacons
in attendance to work with “the ordinary
people,” Father Martin said, “The kind of
spirituality that says we are shepherds and the
people simply follow doing nothing is wrong.
We are the shepherds to build the flock - not to
keep them in kindergarten.
“We are asked to be the least of the
brethren, not to lord it over them,” he added.
“You won’t lose your identity because the
priesthood is a gift of Jesus and we can’t do
anything about it. We are called to joy to create
new life by giving ours away.”
Other speakers addressed such topics as the
need for priests to experience personal
conversion before they can lead others to
change, missionary aspects of ministry, the
pastoral care of women and the importance of
charisms.
“Priests have to learn how to bring people
into a personal relationship with Christ,” said
Father John Bertolucci of Little Falls, N. Y.
“What is called for first, though, is our own
personal conversion.” He said every liturgy
should be an evangelical experience and that
social issues “can’t possibly be faced until we
grow in an awareness of Jesus Christ.”
Father William Weigand, a priest of the
Boise, Idaho, Diocese who recently ended a
missionary stint in Latin America, said he
learned from his parishioners in Cali, Colombia,
“something that the U.S. Church needs
desperately.” He added: “It was the simple
people who taught me what I now know of
pastoring, as I was forced through
circumstances to become a child.”
The Boise priest said change in the church
must come at the small-group level. “Real
ministry is not parish-centered, but ‘out
there,”’ He said. “It’s not the pastor and staff’s
role to plan, but to support and coordinate and
share. Our principle was that whatever you have
received from others you can share.”
Mercy Sister Ann Shields, director of the
Office for National Charismatic Ministry at the
College of Steubenville, pleaded with the priests
to train women in their parishes to minister to
other women.
Citing traditional church attitudes that
have discouraged women in ministry in the
past, Sister Shields said, “Women have the
capacity of bringing to life a sensitive balance
with their emotions which can bring joy to a
community. But some women, hurt by men’s
criticism of their emotions, shut them off, with
the result that they are repressed.
“A normal church life is when women are
pastoring other women under the authority of
the priest,” she added.
In his talk on “Building the Church with
Charisms,” Dominican Father Francis MacNutt
emphasized that these charisms or gifts are in
ordinary people and are not intended to make
“stars” of a few.
“On the contrary, the reason we have
charisms is that we are otherwise weak and
incompetent,” he said. “In fact, perhaps instead
of referring to charisms it would be better to
say ‘helps of the Spirit.’ St. Paul said that
because of his charisms he was satisfied with his
weaknesses.”
The conference July 10-14 drew 951
bishops, priests and deacons from 48 states and
20 countries to discuss the theme, “What
should be the normal life in our local church
situation?”
It is not normal, said Bishop Raymond A.
Lucker of New Ulm, Minn., when a bishop
makes all decisions and does not delegate
authority, when people go to church and are
not converted and when the great heroes of our
day are on the Johnny Carson show and Las
Vegas is a great mecca.
“Organization is not going to extend the
kingdom of God,” the bishop said. “We have to
form community and pray and care for one
another. We have to establish models, we have
to know we’ll make mistakes and we have to
know that we’re called to renewal, to a normal
local church.”
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