Newspaper Page Text
Vol. 17 No. 32
Thursday, September 20,1979
$6 Per Year
Kennedy
Indecisiveness gone, it looks
like the race is on.
It’s the accent you
remember best. It is pure-bred
Boston. It seems you heard it
for the very first time exactly
twenty years ago. From the
wild winds of the Cape, with his
blue blood Harvard background
and his Irish-Catholic heritage,
he emerged, as a first, upon the
political scene. With abandon
and daring he said it. He wanted
to be Presi
dent.
The fairy
tale Camelot
days were
short. But
their pride-
pa eked im
pact was
unforgettable.
No President
ever parlayed
with the press
in public as
he did. No President ever
looked as young or as
handsome and no President ever
captured the center-stage of the
world as he did. Forgetting that
his political accomplishments
were few, that his thousand
days were short and quickly
gone, you remember him most
comfortably and with surging
pride.
Now, the third brother of
the only American political
dynasty will run.
Amazingly the polls
overwhelmingly tempt him. In
every corner of the Nation,
among every class and race, in
every state house, in the Senate
of the Capitol, the
professionals, the amateurs — all,
want his candidacy. And they
want it now.
Despite his tarnish, his
historical playboy antics, his
ruinous private life and his
incessant spendthrift proposals,
the Senior Senator from
Massachusetts is the nation’s
choice. Standing in the glow of
the awful martyrdom of his
brothers, himself a new target
for potential tragedy, Ted
Kennedy warms up to accept
the challenge.
And it all seems most unfair.
It is Carter who has faced the
furiously fast burning fuses. He
is the President who dared, with
great success, in the Middle
East. He is the one who has
tackled energetically the
shortage of fuel. And the
success of highlighting SALT
has been hazardously his too.
Now, his political life
draining away, he must
compete with the competent
glamour of this last Camelot
brother. With singular deftness,
it pointedly demonstrates that
we ask too much from the man
in the Oval Office. Maybe now
is the time to simply grant him
one term, to be solely devoted
to the lives of his citizenry,
completely foregoing the needs
of his own political
preservation.
In the meantime, with the
eye of the complete skeptic, we
ungullibly glance at the only
official statement of Senator
Kennedy. He expects the
President to run, to be
nominated and to receive the
Senator’s support.
In those expectancies, he
stands alone.
Papal Visit Pastoral And Political
(Background commentary on the
national scene by NC’s federal reporter).
BY JIM CASTELLI
WASHINGTON (NC) - Pope John
Paul’s U.S. visit is being billed as
“pastoral and apolitical,” but given
the nature of the times, the
American system and the issues the
pope will address, there is no way to
avoid political implications.
The sheer length and breadth of
the visit demand attention in what
they say about the status of
American Catholics.
When Pope Paul VI came to the
United States in 1965, he stayed
only 13 hours; technically, he came
to visit the United Nations, not the
United States. When he met with
President Lyndon Johnson, he did it
addresses the United Nations.
The Vatican has become involved
in other foreign policy issues which
have been controversial in the United
States — for example, it supported
the Panama Canal treaties and the
return of St. Stephen’s Crown, a
symbol of Hungarian independence,
to Hungary.
The pope will also be unavoidably
involved in domestic U.S. issues. His
final day in this country, Oct. 7, is
Respect Life Sunday, a day used by
American Catholic churches to talk
about abortion and issues such as the
care of the dying and the
handicapped.
The pope, who has made human
dignity a theme of his pontificate,
will undoubtedly address respect for
life in a broad way, but he faces a
no-win situation — if he speaks too
TV Will Cover Visit - Story Page 3 -
SITE FOR MASS - This is New York’s
Yankee Stadium where Pope John Paul II will
celebrate Mass the night of Oct. 2.
day he will speak at the U.N.
Earlier that
Holy Family Evangelizes
BY LARRY MELEAR
(Archdiocesan Evangelization Committee)
Rapid growth has marked the
five-years since Cobb County’s Holy
Family Church held its first Mass on
a high school basketball court, so
growth is expected, but not even the
most imaginative parishioner could
have anticipated the spectacular gains
which were experienced during last
week’s parish renewal campaign.
“We took a giant leap forward
toward being a real community,”
said one parishioner in evaluating the
week-long renewal effort. “It made
me proud to be a Catholic,” added a
visitor.
“We averaged 750 at our nightly
services,” reports Holy Family
pastor, Father John Mulroy. With the
morning services and youth
programs, the estimated daily
attendance exceeded 1,000, which
sets an unofficial record as the largest
parish renewal event in the history of
the Atlanta Archdiocese.
The spiritual results are evidenced
as the ranks of parish educational
and renewal activities begin to swell,
and two new parish action groups
were formed out of the week of
renewal.
The renewal format was simple
morning and evening services,
Monday through Friday, offered a
basic review of Christianity and the
Catholic faith. The teachings were
presented by guest speaker, Father
Richard Kieran, assisted by the
parish staff.
Father Richard Kieran
Behind the scenes, a staff of 50
volunteers handled the logistics of
the renewal week, which was
10-months in the planning. It was a
highly-organized effort that covered
a thousand details from ice-water for
the speaker to a massive pre-renewal
invitation effort that reached more
than 70 per cent of the parish’s
1,700 families by telephone or
personal visit.
“We’ve perfected a renewal model
that we can use again,” says Father
Mulroy who is already busy planning
a renewal week for September 1980.
The Holy Family model was based
on the renewal program designed by
Father Kieran and is described in
detail in his booklet, “Parish
Evangelization.” This is the seventh
time that Father Kieran has
presented the program. Five of the
previous offerings were in the
Archdiocese of Atlanta; one was in a
Miami parish.
‘‘The Holy Family week of
renewal was the most successful to
date, both in attendance and in the
quality of response,” comments
Father Kieran, who promises an
update of his manual based on the
Holy Family experience. He adds
that the key to Holy Family’s
accomplishment was the “ ...
intense involvement of the renewal
team in personal invitation and
publicity.”
“It was a bountiful harvest; we
just thank God,” says Joanne Melear,
renewal team co-chairperson, and her
words seem to echo the spirit of the
day at Holy Family.
privately in a New York hotel room.
Not only will Pope John Paul
become the first pope to visit the
president at the White House, he will
meet with the president’s family, top
administration officials, the Supreme
Court and virtually every senator and
congressman, with most of the latter
hungering to have their pictures
taken with the pontiff to circulate
among their constituents.
But the pope will also be
surrounded by politics because of the
substantive issues he will discuss.
Critics of the second Strategic Arms
Limitation Treaty — SALT II — are
already complaining that the pope,
who has backed the treaty, may
influence public opinion on the issue,
and the treaty is very likely to come
up, even if indirectly. A U.S.
Catholic Conference official has
predicted that the pope will talk
about disarmament when he
MSGR. ELLIS:
broadly, militant pro-lifers may be
unhappy, while almost any reference
he makes to abortion will be
attacked by pro-abortion groups
already planning a counter-demon
stration in Washington.
Some of the same people who
oppose the church’s abortion stand —
particularly in the American Civil
Liberties Union and Americans
United for Separation of Church and
State — have also complained about
the use of public money to pay for
parts of the pope’s trip.
They acknowledge that no one
opposes using public money for
police overtime and clean-up, but
oppose the use of public funds in
Boston and Philadelphia to build
speaking platforms for the pope.
Catholic leaders have countered by
talking about expenses involved in
the visit of England’s Queen
Elizabeth II, who is head of both
church and state in her country.
Pope’s Trip
Electrifying
BOSTON (NC) - The American
Catholic Church’s most respected
living historian voiced a “reasonable
hope” in Boston that Pope John Paul
II’s U.S. visit will have as great an
impact on the world community as
the pontiff’s “electrifying” recent
journeys to Mexico and Poland.
SPORTING GEORGIA CATHOLICS
Ernie Johnson, Voice Of The Braves
BY MONSIGNOR
NOEL C. BURTENSHAW
(First In A Series)
If you were born in Brattleboro,
Vermont and someone told you
that one day you would stand on
the mound in a packed stadium,
wiping your brow with your sleeve,
nervously squeezing an unyielding
baseball and waiting for the next
batter, what would you say?
If they went further and said
your opponents would be the
dreaded Yankees and you would be
playing them in a World Series,
what then?
If they said you would face a
Mickey Mantle, Yogi Barra, Whitey
Ford and Tony Cubeck, that the
Series would go seven games and
your team would win 4-3, how
would you react?
Most probably you would thank
your audience for the nice dream
and leave it at that. Well, that
dream of a lifetime came true for a
kid whose voice is well-known
across the Southeast.
He is Ernest Thorwald Johnson
and he is the voice of the Atlanta
Braves, and their Director of
Broadcasting.
When you ask the youthful,
happy-go-lucky Ernie Johnson his
age, he says he is the “speed limit,”
meaning he was born in 1924. His
father and mother came by separate
boats from Sweden, met and
married in Vermont and that’s
where Ernie grew up “sports mad.”
Basketball was Ernie’s first love
and he was determined that the
Boston Celtics would be hearing
from him. His high school coach
took him to Boston, but not to see
the Celtics. They called on the Red
Sox and the Braves major league
baseball team. The Braves not only
showed an interest in the breaking
ball pitcher but signed him to a
contract.
Emie was ready that year of
1942 for the Big Leagues, but
Uncle Sam had other ideas and
another uniform in mind. Emie
joined the elite aviators of the
Marine Corps and went island
hopping in the Pacific. He’s still a
typical Marine. “They were a great
bunch,” says the ex-staff sargeant
“and we still look forward to our
reunions.”
1946 saw Emie back on the
mound pitching in the Minor
Leagues. He made the Majors for
the Boston Braves in 1950 and ’52.
(Continued on page 6)
Emie Johnson
Monsignor John Tracy Ellis,
professorial lecturer in church
history at the Catholic University of
America in Washington, spoke at a
dinner marking the 150th
anniversary of the founding of THE
PILOT, Boston archdiocesan
newspaper.
THE PILOT had its beginning in
September 1829 as The Jesuit and
suffered a series of identity crises as
tire U.S. Catholic Intelligencer and
the Literary and Catholic Sentinel
before arriving at its current title in
1836. It became the official
archdiocesan newsweekly in 1908.
More than 1,000 dinner guests
sang “Happy Birthday” for
“America’s oldest Catholic
newspaper.” Cardinal Humberto
Medeiros of Boston, the paper’s
publisher, and three priest-editors
blew out the candles on a
monumental anniversary cake.
Guests at the affair included
Archbishop Jean Jadot, apostolic
delegate in the United States; nine
bishops; former ambassador to Italy
John A. Volpe; Richard Daw,
director of National Catholic News
Service (NC), and Ethel Gintoft,
president of the Catholic Press
Association and associate editor of
the CATHOLIC HERALD CITIZEN,
Milwaukee.
Other head table guests included
the nation’s oldest priest,
102-year-old Father Charles A. Finn,
who received a standing ovation from
the dinner guests, and two former
PILOT editors, Monsignor John S.
Sexton, a retired pastor, and
Monsignor Francis J. Lally, secretary
for social development and world
peace of the U.S. bishops.
A sesquicentennial medal named
for two of the PILOT’S 19th-century
editors, John Boyle O’Reilly and
Katherine Conway, was presented to
retired Boston Herald-American TV
columnist Anthony LaCamera for
(Continued on page 6)