Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 3—The Georgia Bulletin, November 22,1979
MONSIGNOR ELLIS
Church Historian Looks At John Paul’s Visit
WASHINGTON (NC) -
Msgr. John Tracy Ellis,
America’s best known
church historian, said Nov.
8 at Theological College
that he feels the “show is
all over” regarding
Catholic obedience to
church teaching on birth
control.
His comments on birth
control were in a question
session after a
wide-ranging speech in
which he urged Pope John
Paul II not to reject
permanently all
applications from priests
for laicization.
Father Schillebeeckx
Msgr. Ellis, who
lectures at the Catholic
University of America in
Washington, also
cautioned the Vatican
Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith
against quick condemnat
ions of a Duth theologian,
Father Edward
Schillebeeckx, and two
unnamed American moral
theologians who,
according to a recent New
York Times article by
Father Hans Kung, are
under investigation by the
congregation
In a response to a
question on papal
condemnation of artificial
contraception, Msgr. Ellis
said: “There is such a
widespread change on the
part of Catholics
themselves in their own
personal lives that it (the
birth control ban) has
become almost, it seems to
me, a non-question. And I
hope I won’t shock you
when I say this: I think
the show’s all over.”
Msgr. Ellis noted that
Pope John Paul II during
his American tour did
restate Pope Paul Vi’s
“Humanae Vitae” teaching
against artificial birth
control.
But, said Msgr. Ellis,
“he did it with great
brevity. There was not the
same expostulation that
accompanied his remarks
on abortion or divorce.
I’m not suggesting that he
was trying to soften the
teaching in any measure,”
said the historian. “But he
merely mentioned it and
moved on.”
Msgr. Ellis said that “it
is just possible that the
changes of society which
brought about change in
church doctrine on usury
might indeed bring about a
change of this nature” on
the church’s birth control
teaching.
Laicizations
Regarding Pope John
Paul’s policy of halting
laicization applications,
Msgr. Ellis said, “I hope
and pray that he will not
continue the policy of
holding up all laicizations
of priests who want to
leave the ministry.”
“I deplore...and I am
saddened by every case I
hear of priests leaving the
ministry,” he continued.
“But I feel it is still sadder
to have them leave, as
numbers of them are
doing, and marry outside
of the church with no
hope of reconciliation
with the church.”
Msgr. Ellis stressed that
the pope has not yet made
a permanent policy of
halting all laicizations. “He
has just said that he wants
to hold up decrees of
laicization until he can
study the problem fully,”
said the historian, who
Msgr. Ellis
Abortion-Holocaust Link ‘Insensitive’
GARRISON, N. Y.
(NC) -- Catholics who
compare widespread
abortion in the United
States to the Holocaust in
which the Nazis sought to
exterminate the Jewish
race are being insensitive,
wrote Eugene Fisher,
executive secretary of the
U.S. bishops’ Secretariat
for Catholic-Jewish
Reltaions.
Fisher, writing in the
November issue of
Ecumenical Trends,
published by the
Graymoor Ecumenical
Institute, cited the
comparison of abortion to
the Holocaust as one of
the signs of the fragility of
improved relations
between Christians and
Jews.
On the part of
Catholics “the persistence
of the ‘abortion-as-the-
-new-Holocaust’ equation
reveals a startling lack of
proper understanding,”
Fisher said. • “Although
some analogy or other
might be drawn between
certain Nazi cruelties and
the practice of abortion
(if, that is, one accepts the
basic moral argument
against abortion), no just
analogy could ever be
made to the Holocaust
itself, that is, to the
practice of conscious,
societally planned
genocide on racial grounds
alone.
Insensitivities
“Such insensitivities
show that we Christians
still do not understand
Jews or the Jewish
experience very deeply
and can all too easily slide
back into the ‘teaching of
contempt’ ir, our attitudes.
Clearly, the Jewish-Christ-
ian dialogue has just
begun.”
Among Protestants, a
sign of the fragility of
improved relations
between Christians and
J'ews is “an ambiguous
understanding of
universalism,” which,
Fisher said, “is reflected in
‘ even-handed’
pronouncements on the
Middle East by bodies
such as the Palestine
Human Rights Campaign
and even the National
Council of Churches.
“Such statements,” he
said, “all too often appear
to sacrifice the
particularity of Jewish
experience to ‘universal’
Christian norms about
what constitutes a ‘just
peace.’ As other
commentators have
already noted, such
statements tend to reflect
a continuance of the
Christian refusal to deal
with Judaism on its own
terms, judging Judaism to
be religiously flawed
because it does not
‘measure up’ to Christian
standards.”
War Cry
Fisher cited “(Jesuit
Father) Daniel Berrigan’s
anti-Israel war cry
delivered to an Arab
audience a few years ago”
as “the single most violent
Roman Catholic example
of the same phenome
non.”
He continued: “The
tendency to view any and
every ‘liberation’
movement of the Third
World as an absolute good
which can morally justify
any means, including
terrorism, is a flaw that
has vitiated the integrity
of some (not all) liberation
theologians, especially in
the United States.”
Fisher cited these signs
of fragility ‘ in improved
Christian-Jewish relations
after reflecting on the
uniqueness of North
America as a setting for
Christian-Jewish dialogue.
Noting that half of the
world’s Jews live in the
United States and Canada,
Fisher said: “Because of
the size and sense of
security of the Jewish
communities here, a type
of dialogue occurs that is
possible between Jews and
Christians nowhere else in
the world, that is, a full
dialogue or engagement
between our two
traditions that
encompasses all levels of
our communal lives, from
the parish level to the level
of national organizations.
Jews and Christians here
interact not only through
their official religious
representatives, but also
across the entire spectrum
of social classes and
activities, ‘secular’ and
‘social’ alike.”
‘Bore The Brunt’
Catholics and Jews in
North America, Fisher
said, shared the immigrant
experience of entering “a
society whose ethic was
largely formed beforehand
by the original Protestant,
Anglo-Saxon culture
which dominated society.”
Together, he said,
Catholics and Jews “bore
the brunt of American
nativist movements” and
suffered similar
discrimination.
Catholic Population 18 Percent
, VATICAN CITY (NC) - Roman
Catholics made up over 18 percent of
the world’s population at the end of
1977, according to new Vatican
statistics released in mid-November.
The 1977 Annuarium Statisticum
Ecclesiae (statistical yearbook of the
church), compiled by the Central
Statistics Office of the Vatican, said
baptized Catholics numbered 739
million among the more than 4 billion
people in the world.
The percentage was nearly the same
as in 1976, when there were some 724
million Catholics in a world population
of about 4 billion.
The yearbook also gave breakdowns
by continent - Roman Catholics made
up 62.3 percent of the population in
North and South America combined;
39.8 percent in Europe; 25 percent in
Oceania; four percent in Africa; and 2.3
percent; in Asia.
The Catholic Church was divided
into 2,372 ecclesial jurisdictions at the
end of 1977, including 833 in the
Americas, 688 in Europe, 372 in Africa,
365 in Asia and 64 in Oceania.
On Dec. 31, 1977, there were 1.6
million Catholics “actively engaged in
pastoral ministry,” the yearbook said.
The figure includes 3,700 bishops,
421,859 priests (of whom 259,965 were
diocesan priests); 4,456 permanent
deacons; 1,063,097 Religious (76,311
men and 986,786 women); and 133,673
catechists in mission territories.
There were 6,0 3 4 priestly
ordinations in 1977 throughout the
world, 144 less than the preceding year.
The number of men ordained diocesan
priests increased from 3,786 to 3,866
whiie the number of new Religious
priests dropped from 2,392 to 2,168.
Some 6,820 priests died in 1977,120
less than in 1976. A total of 2,506 left
the priesthood, 300 less than the year
before.
The number of seminarians enrolled
in philosophy and theology schools
increased by 637 between 1976 and
1977 to 61,013,
Throughout the world in 1977,
4,669 Catholic periodicals were
published with a total printing of 1.8
billion copies.
Pope Paul VI established the Central
Statistics Office of the church in 1967.
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pointed out that a year has
passed meanwhile
Diversity And Division
In his talk on diversity
and division in the church
throughout history, Msgr.
Ellis urged the Vatican’s
doctrinal congregation not
to make hasty
condemnations of modern
theologians, including
Father Schillebeeckx.
He quoted the Pharisee
Gamaliel’s words from the
Acts of the Apostles
during the apostles’ trial
before the Jewish Council:
“Do not take any action
against these men, for if
their work is a man-made
thing it will disappear; but
if it comes from God you
cannot possibly defeat
them. You could find
yourselves fighting against
God.”
Msgr. Ellis said: I don’t
pretend to say that those
theologians who must now
be tried by the
Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith are
in exactly the same
position (as the apostles).
“But don’t let the
church be too quick to
strike them, lest they
might represent something
wholesome and good, as in
the cases of (Cardinal John
Henry) Newman, (Jesuit
Father John Courtney)
Murray, (Jesuit Father
Pierre Teilhard de)
Chardin and (Trappist
Father Thomas) Merton.”
Four Examples
Msgr. Ellis had
mentioned those four as
examples of modern
church thinkers whose
ideas had caused “tumult,
angry debates and
confrontations” and had
been either condemned or
frowned upon by church
officials. But ail, he said,
had been vindicated.
Msgr. Ellis said that
‘‘the greatest single
weakness of the American
Catholic community at
this particular hour is our
own divisiveness.”
But he reminded
Catholics that following
every ecumenical council
Christians have
experienced discourage
ment and despair as a
result of divisions.
The historian said the
church must often run the
risk of promoting creative
innovations, even when a
partial result is division.
Decisions by individuals to
be innovative, said Msgr.
Ellis, necessarily include
“a measure of human
suffering.”
For those who set their
feet on a path not hitherto
trodden it costs heavily at
times to be innovative
because that embodies the
need for the virtue of
courage - a relatively rare
commodity in the human
condition,” he said.
Comments On Visit
Commenting on the
pope’s American visit,
Msgr. Ellis said: “I say it
with all reverence - I do
think that we may at this
moment be more divided
than before he came by
reason of his clear
enunciation of matters
upon which the American
Catholic community
differed down here below.
The pope brought that to
the surface.
“This could be very
injurious and it could be
very remedial. If you ask
me which, I must say I
don’t know. I’d be an
imposter if I tried to tell
you. We must wait for
some time to pass before
we see the ultimate results
of the pope’s enunciation
of strong doctrinal
positions because that
seems to be the one thing
to which serious exception
was taken.”
Msgr. Eilis singled out
the pope’s statements on
birth control, priestly
celibacy and the ban on
women’s ordination as the
statements which
provoked the most
controversy.
Sister Theresa Kane
Wants Papal Meeting
WASHINGTON (NC) -
Mercy Sister Theresa
Kane, who asked John
Paul II to include women
in “all ministries of our
church” when he visited
the United States, is
seeking a meeting with the
pope in Rome to discuss
the issue.
Sister Theresa Kane
Sister Kane, president
of the Leadership
Conference of Women
Religious, returned from
Rome to be an observer at
the National Conference
of Catholic Bishops’
meeting Nov. 12-15. .
She had been one of
five U.S. delegates to the
International Union of
Superiors General council
meeting. Sister Kane also
headed the Leadership
Conference of Women
Religious at its annual
meeting between members
of the conference and
officials of the Sacred
Congregation for Religious
and Secular Institutes
(SCRISL
T he LCW R executive
committee has endorsed
Sister Kane’s efforts to
obtain a conference with
the pope, although
attempts since the papal
visit in October have
proved fruitless. The
conference had thought
that a meeting could be
arranged during the recent
trip to Rome but the
College of Cardinals
meeting held at the same
time worked against those
plans.
Sister Kane has avoided
giving interviews since her
address at the National
Shrine of the Immaculate
Conception Oct. 7, but a
statement was released by
the LCWR saying she has
requested and obtained
support for the meeting
from Archbishop John R.
Quinn, president of the
NCCB; Archbishop Jean
Jadot, apostolic delegate
in the United States, and
Cardinal Eduardo Pironio,
cardinal prefect of SCRIS.
The statement said
Sister Kane “hopes that a
meeting with the pope will
be held within the next
few months. Among areas
to be included in the
discussion will be religious
life in the United States
and the participation of
women in the church’s
ministry.”
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ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE -- Dr. and Mrs.
William Hopkins admire the statue and the
perpetual garden in the lobby of Saint Joseph’s
Hospital. Dr. Hopkins' family gathered on his
40th wedding anniversary to dedicate the area in
his honor, a gift from family and friends. The
statue was carved to specification in Italy, a
beautiful teakwood piece of art. Dr. Hopkins, a
cardio-vascular surgeon, performed the first open
heart surgery in Georgia and has since had an
illustrious career in medicine. He is also a member
of the Saint Joseph’s Board of Trustees.
Man Kills Himself
At Pontiff’s Tomb
VATICAN CITY (NC) - A 57-year-old Italian man
killed himself with a small caliber pistol Nov. 16 in front
of the tomb of Pope John XXIII.
Mondasio Doria, a barber, from the northern city of
Chioggia near Venice, left no note indicating Why he
committed suicide or why he chose the Vatican Grottoes
for the act.
According to a Vatican spokesman. Pope John Paul II
was in his apartments at the time of the shooting and was
“deeply disturbed” by the news. He immediately began
praying for Doria, the spokesman said.
Doria entered St. Peter’s Basilica at about 4:30 p.m.
and went to the grottoes underneath the basilica where
most modern-day popes are buried.
Shortly afterward, a Vatican guard heard a shot and
found Doria dead in front of Pope John’s tomb. Several
persons had been near the tomb at the time of the
shooting and the grottoes were immediately closed to the
public for the rest of the day.
According to a friend in Chioggia, Doria operated a
barber shop there for many years. The friend said Doria
might have recently found out he was seriously ill.
It was the fifth suicide within Vatican walls in the past
30 years and the second shooting death. The other three
persons jumped from the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.
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