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The Georgia Bulletin
January 17,1980
Little Kids Can’t Vote
January is a rough month for
children. On the 22nd we
commemorate the seventh anniversary
of the Supreme Court decision that
mothers can terminate the lives of
their unborn children, and millions
have.
January also marks the month
when children who have been born
poor hold out their hands to us, and
by vote of Georgia’s Legislators will
be given 50% of what is needed for
them to live.
As if things weren’t bad enough the
laws of the State of Georgia make real
criminals out of parents who try to
keep their poor children alive. If a
parent receiving AFDC gets a single
penny more by washing windows or
cleaning floors and fails to report that
income they are guilty not of a
misdemeanor but of a felony. Rents
are outrageous for these people, and
most of them are too poor to live in
George
It was really strange. George Meany
totally believed in the dignity of the
working class. He believed they had a
right to organize, a right to good
working conditions and a right to
share in the American dream.
That’s not the strange part. He was
a true, blue trade unionist all of his
long life and yet received no
endorsement whatsoever from the
Socialist or Communist elements of
the World. In fact he was constantly
denounced by the Soviet Union.
Meany was not a red. He was no
other color either. He was a just man
who sought a dignified status for the
working men and women of his time.
He had vivid memories of sweat shops
and bread lines. The unforgettable
taste they left challenged his total
existence. He spent his life meeting
Public Housing.
Georgia now ranks 46th in the
amount of money given to its poor.
The federal government pays
two-thirds of the cost, but that
amount is determined solely by the
vote of our legislature. A mother with
two dependent children now receives
$145. a month. We are praying for
$193, which is not very much when
you consider the cost of rent, heat,
shoes and clothes. That amount is
based on 1969 figures.
Our Faith compels us to cry out
for the right to life, not only for the
unborn but also for those who have
been born poor. Little kids can’t vote,
but you and I can. Telephone the
Governor and your representatives in
the General Assembly of Georgia and
speak to them in the name of these
151,000 children who have a right to
life.
Father John J. Mulroy
Meany
that challenge.
George Meany was not always
right. The trade union movement
could be excessive in its demands.
Presidents and Cabinets often found it
necessary to remind the Meany
bargainers that inflation was an evil
too. Organized labor could be
exponents of the big salary at the
expense of the common good. While
George Meany never acknowledged
error, labor lawyers will say, he was a
reasonable man.
His name has been written into the
history of this century. His moral
fiber and his decency will be told
whenever the Union movement comes
together to speak about working class
rights and the dignity contained in the
tools and the benches of the trades.
-NCB
How Do You Stand It?
Father Richard Lopez
(Archdiocesan Vocations Director)
Many people have asked me the question:
“How do you stand it?” The question being
- How do you listen to all the problems;
How do you handle all the deaths; How do
you face all the tragedy you see as a parish
priest? It is a very good question. People do
come to us constantly with their pain, and
their confidence in their priests is inspiring.
At times it does seem like your heart will
break with theirs in their difficulty. Their
courage and endurance is amazing! I do not
suppose any priest ever “gets used” to
suffering and death. You find yourself
drawn immediately to people in their pain.
The variety of human suffering is amazing,
and there is no person or family who, at one
time or another, does not accompany Jesus
on His road to Calvary. How real the crucifix
is at times for us. How wonderful that it is
the chief symbol of our Faith, for if our
religion did not address itself to pain and
death, how empty it would be.
But the question remains - How do
priests handle all the pain and problems
brought to them? Do we become cold and
detached; do we find ourselves “slipping”
emotionally? Priests have to remember each
day what Monsignor Ronald Knox wrote
many years ago: “We are not put here to
help God out of a difficulty.” We must
remind ourselves that God is in charge. He
loves our people more than we do, and HE is
at work in their lives. If we try to take over
His job and believe we can solve all problems
we frustrate ourselves and do nothing for
our people. Parents might do well to heed
Monsignor Knox’s words also.
A priest keeps his sanity then by
remembering that God is Almighty, not that
the priest is almighty. The priest also avoids
coldness or insanity by his life of prayer.
Our all important friendship with Christ
helps us “put the pieces together” and keep
them together. I am convinced that when
our people come to us in their need they do
not come to see a brilliant counselor, an
astute administrator, or an eloquent
preacher - God help us, most of us are none
of these! They come, rather, hoping to see a
bit of Christ in us. Christ Who will hear
them, listen to them, be patient with them,
love them and understand them. Because of
this a priest must be first and foremost a
man of prayer, a man of Jesus - Jesus in
scripture and Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
If he is not this -- if he is not seeking this, he
will lose his vocation, his purpose, and his
people will go away empty. There is a prayer
that most symbolizes “How we stand it.”
Pray it with us:
Lord Jesus,
Eternal Priest,
You have called me to Your Priesthood
to carry on the work which You began.
Fit me, I pray You, for this
task with such faith that through my
voice even the disbelieving may
listen to Your word.
With such hope that through
my hands even the despairing may be
held fast in Your grip.
And with such charity that
through my heart even the despised may
know that You can never cease to love
them. Join me so deeply to Yourself
that no one I meet shall lie beyond
Your saving reach.
Amen.
\~\The
k Geioruia
(USPS) 574 880)
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Working Women
Sheila Mallon
On New Year’s Day each year we pick up
the paper and are greeted by the picture of
the first baby born in the new year. Usually,
the baby’s picture is accompanied by photos
of a proud mom and dad, and the family is
the recipient of gifts donated by local
merchants.
This was to be the scenario in Litchfield,
Illinois. Litchfield is a small town (less than
10,000) and there is much excitement over
which baby is to have the moment in the
spotlight and receive all the gifts donated by
the local merchants and collected by the
Chamber of Commerce.
A small problem developed this year. The
problem was a small baby girl who was bom
to Theresa Cooper. The infant was named
Michelle Marie Cooper. The problem?
Theresa Cooper was an unwed mother.
Shortly after returning to her room after her
daughter was born, Theresa was told by a
nurse that although her child was the first
born in Litchfield in the new year - they
would not be receiving the gifts. The
merchants had decided that the child was
not eligible because she was illegitimate.
Now, Theresa could easily have had an
abortion; the fact that she did not in her
predicament took courage and the
recognition that what she carried within her
womb was a special and unique life. Theresa
made up her mind that her baby WOULD
have life.
But it seems that the business community
was not so inclined. Michelle Marie, whose
start in life had enough stacked against it
anyway, was by virtue of their narrow view
not WORTHY to receive their gifts.
Sounds like the old “no room at the Inn”
syndrome, doesn’t it? However, some
reporters got hold of the item and ran it, and
national press picked it up. It evidently
created quite an uproar. WRNG radio here in
Atlanta heard about it, and with Neal Borst
leading the outcry, they collected gifts and
money to be sent to Theresa and her baby.
Allene Richards of Immaculate
Conception parish monitors WRNG for the
parish pro-life group. She told the I.C.
people about Michelle and they sent a fifty
dollar savings bond to WRNG to be sent
along with other gifts from outraged
Atlantans.
In the meantime back in Litchfield, the
merchants thought the sky had fallen on
them. After all the unfavorable local and
national publicity they decided to give
Michelle Marie and her mother the gifts after
all, proving the power of a media that
champions the cause of a child who has been
“born” but turns its back on the millions of
unborn children who lose their lives through
abortion each year.
What club in Atlanta has at one time or
another helped pay for a scholarship for a
nurse, assisted in the education of a
seminarian, adopted a foster child in
Bethlehem and contributed to Birthright?
Sounds impressive doesn’t it - the
organization is the Atlanta Catholic Club of
Business and Professional Women. It was
first organized in October 1919 and has been
going strong ever since.
The club was a charter member of the
Georgia Federation of Business and
Professional Clubs and it is dedicated to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus. The establishment of
a Catholic Center of thought and activity
among Catholic women of Atlanta for their
mutual interest and benefit is the goal of the
club.
In the beginning their main project was
the scholarship for a nurse. As the need for
that grew less they devoted their efforts to
the education of a priest. At the present
time the membership uses its money and
energy to support an orphan in Bethlehem
and for Birthright. Birthright is an
organization which offers alternatives to
young pregnant women who might
otherwise consider abortion. The Business
and Professional Women collect funds and
hold a baby shower for Birthright in
November.
The Club is really more social than
business. They have an annual picnic during
the Summer and a leaf trip by bus in the
Fall, a Christmas party in December, as well
as card parties during the year to finance
their projects.
Jeanette Manning is the retiring president
and the new officers are Kathleen Gilman,
president; Ellen Delaney, Vice president;
Carolyn Miller, Recording Secretary and
Hilda Gardner, Treasurer.
The membership was greatly saddened
recently at the death of Louise Cashin who
was to have been Corresponding Secretary.
The meetings are held every fourth
Saturday at 1 P.M. at Morrisons Cafeteria at
Ansley Mall. If you are interested in joining
this delightful group of active women,
contact Katherine McElroy at 872-8792.
2,000 Years Of Faith And Tradition
Teresa Gernazian
In a newly released book published by
Franciscan Herald Press, Catholic youth and
adults can discover their Catholic roots. The
author has put into an easy-to-read question
and answer format the historical
development of the Church from the time of
Christ. “A Catechism of the Catholic
Church: 2,000 Years of Faith and
Tradition” comes from many years of
research by a priest dedicated to the spiritual
motivation of youth, Father Robert J. Fox.
Feeling that many youth simply have not
had the background of the faith in its
entirety, this book was developed with
painstaking care to see that the basic facts
and events of the Church’s development
were compiled in as few words as possible.
The 247-page hardback book contains, as
well as history, a fair amount of apologetics.
It covers the reign of Pope Paul VI (who
canonized 84 saints, the largest number by
any Pope); the brief reign of the “smiling
Pope”, John Paul I, and some of the
characteristics of Pope John Paul II, with a
brief summary of his first encyclical
“Redemptor Hominis.”
The Shroud of Turin, the miraculous
image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and brief
summaries of many of the great saints are
included in the book. A unique chapter on
Russia, Communism and the Future of the
World, gives an example of how communism
seeks to destroy the Church. It cites ten
points in a Program of Action. Printed in
China (where millions were murdered) by
the Foreign-Language Press of Peking, it
states: “The first line of action to be
followed consists in educating, persuading,
convincing the Catholics to participate in
study circles and political activities; We shall
progressively replace the religious element
by the Marxist element; The Church must
not be allowed to preserve its supernatural
character . .. The next step is to destroy the
link existing between the Church and the
Vatican ...”
The author, Pastor and nationally known
columnist, praises Vatican Council II, giving
the positive features of renewal that were
experienced as a result of the Council, as
well as some of the confusing results. “Did
Vatican II authorize compromises of the
Catholic Faith?” is one of the questions in
the book. “No,” Father Fox answers. “It
authorized just the opposite .. . (and then
he quotes lengthily from the Decree on
Ecumenism). The final paragraph for the
answer is this: “The whole Decree on
Ecumenism opposed any compromise of the
true faith, but called for openness in charity
and humility and for recognizing truth and
goodness in our separated brethren, even
though they do not possess the fullness of
true faith. The unity Christ called for
already exists in the Catholic Church, even
though all her members do not fully live that
faith, as they should.”
The Church of the first century; the
downfall of the Roman Empire; the
Greek Schism; the Middle Ages; the
Reformation; the French Revolution; the
Church in the United States - all through
the different periods of history - the author
holds up one vivid image of the Catholic
Church for students and adults, while
Christ’s members, at certain times in history,
have become spotted, and the robe of Christ
tom, “the divinity of the Church protects,
preserves, rebuilds, without the true Church
being universally destroyed, because Christ
promised otherwise.”
An excellent addendum lists each of the
Popes since St. Peter, with dates of reign,
plus a list of the 21 Ecumenical Councils,
the dates and the reigning or approving
Popes.
With a summary and questions for
discussion at the end of each of the nineteen
chapters this book will be a welcomed
addition to anyone’s library. It’s available
for $8.95 from Franciscan Herald Press,
1434 W. 51st Street, Chicago, Illinois 60609.
Our Catholic roots, our traditions, our
heritage, our saints, plus a little good old
fashioned apologetics, all summed up in one
neat, easy to read volume, this book sounds
like a winner!
Who’s Doing The HiBearnating?
Dave McGill
Fifteen years ago, I was studying for a
graduate degree in the midwest. One of the
requirements for the degree was that you
had to be sufficiently proficient in two
foreign languages to be able to translate the
technical literature of your field of study
into English.
Most of my friends chose German and
French, but I decided on French and
Russian. This was not because I like salads
(ever hear of German dressing?), but rather
because of the German department at the
school. They had the deserved reputation of
flunking anybody who tried to short cut and
just take the exam without sitting through at
least two years of their courses. One poor
devil from Germany itself failed the test, and
protested to the Chancellor of the
University. After an investigation, he was
exonerated of the alleged ignorance of his
mother tongue.
I studied and passed the Franch exam
first, and then waded into my study of
Russian. It got deep in a hurry. There was a
whole new alphabet of 33 weird-looking
letters, and these formed words and
meanings that were real stinkskis to master;
for example, every noun has six cases and
three genders. In our own language, we say
something like “tree,” and that’s it. You
don’t need cases or genders, it’s just a tree.
All you need to know is whether you’re
going to climb it or spray it or decorate it or
pick its apples or rake its leaves.
There is one thing you can always count
on however. Although the accents of a given
word might change on you, depending on
how it is used, the sound of each Russian
letter is always the same. You’ll never see a
letter like “c”, which might have an “S”
sound one minute (cyst) and a “K” the next
(car), in Russian.
There is another constant about the
Russians, or rather about the 5% of its
nearly 300 million people who are
Communist party members. Since the
Bolshevik revolution booted out the last czar
in 1917 and set up the first Communist
government, the Rooskies have never strayed
from their policy of expansionism. There is
an old Russian saying which refers to the
vast numbers and types of people and land
that Russia has encompassed in the thousand
years since it was just a small region of
Europe: “Russia is not a country, but a
world.”
One realizes afresh, now that little
Afghanistan has been overrun by 100,000
Russian troops armed with sophisticated
weaponry, that the Kremlin interprets that
saying as “THE world.” Already the largest
country in the world (bigger than four of the
continents), the Soviets greedily continue to
press for more and more territory.
I’m sure glad that our President is putting
the hurt on ’em, making them pay for every
square millimeter of Afghan soil. The list of
retaliations in the paper one day recently
made me glow with pride - In case you
missed the awful things we’re doing to the
Soviet Bear, here they are:
First on the list was the cancellation of
plans for a new consulate in Kiev, the capital
of the Soviet Ukraine. The Polit-burocrats
must be sick to death over that. (“Iss o.k.,
Ivan, Vat de heck, vun less building to
bombard vit radiation.”)
Next, we cancelled two trade seminars
scheduled for Moscow. President Carter
actually said that this would make the
Soviets suffer, but admitted that it probably
wouldn’t force them to withdraw from
Afghanistan. I think he’s right. What’s a
couple of trade seminars when you can
annex a country the size of Texas and about
20 million people?
Aha! WE ORDERED 17 RUSSIAN
DIPLOMATS HOME!!! That’ll kill ’em,
because they’ll die laughing. They muscle
their way in, kill the President and his
family, take over the army, murder
thousands of resisters, army personnel, and
civilian officials, and install a puppet
dictator, and we send 17 of their guys
packing. I’ll bet we also said, “And take
your vodka with you.”
Just to be sure they got the message,
Carter reduced the number of Aeroflot
flights from three-a-week to two. They’ll
never survive with just two. (Actually, any
airline named AEROFLOT should never
have gotten off the ground in the first
place.)
The fifth and last punitive measure
announced on Jan. 9 was that officials were
being sent out to limit Soviet fishing in
American waters. Can’t you just picture a
bureaucrat with his briefcase rowing out
toward a big Russian trawler? He floats
alongside, and politely shouts, “Er, excuse
me, Fishinski, but you can’t fish here
anymore.”
“Whatskithatski? Whynotski?”
“Because you fellows gobbled up
Afghanistan, and that’s a no-no-ski.” (See
how I remember my Russian?)
“Da, Amerikanski. First you leaf, den ve
pull up our gear and moof on.”
The bureaucrat, satisfied, rows back to
the Capitol. The Rooskies let down their
nyets on the other side of the boat and catch
some more fish. And some more countries.
It’s interesting that the Russian people,
though they’re very nationalistic, greatly
admire our Western culture and the goods it
cranks out. They distrust propaganda, listen
to the Voice of America at night, and pass
around their Samizdat (underground
literature). More and more of the young are
interested in the Church. And yet the tiny
fraction that runs things with an iron fist
keeps right on gobbling and devouring.
The Big Red Bear is certainly not in
hiBearNation this winter. Our foreign policy
is snoozing dreamily in the Detente Dacha,
however, and we need to wake it up.