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SOUNDINGS - What Destroyed Jack Potts? flrrel “SunUMA/uuv ■ <\ As we go to press, Jack Potts is being led to that foul electrical contraption. The anonymous hand will reach out and throw the switch. Witnesses will sit and watch as the People of the State of Georgia execute this man of murder. It is the first use of I the electric chair in sixteen years. The family of his victim want it to happen. We can understand the bitter-sweet taste of vengence they long to sip. It will be unsatisfactory. It will not bring a son back to a grieving mother or a husband back to a broken wife. We can understand a frustrated, perplexed public who feel this example of one or some, will stop the vicious wave of violence sweeping across the plains of our society. The public is wrong. The much used execution chambers of the past have not halted the onward march of violent criminals and their detestable deeds. What we cannot understand is the response of our communities to the facts. And here are the facts. Seventy per cent of all criminals in our State are shut up behind bars, in chamber-of-horror conditions, for committing non-violent crimes. The experts and the statistics are infallible as they follow the dreadful saga of these unfortunates. They are raving lunatics upon release. Morally and sometimes physically they are destroyed. Almost two thirds of them return at some time to the Big House. The second trip usually involves a violent crime. This massive number of miserable mistake-makers could have been redirected to a Restitution Center. They could have been forced to repay the amount stolen, or restore the property destroyed. They could have worked an everyday job at the same time. They would have paid taxes, and received proper counsel. Their prison stay would not have cost the public a cent. How do we know all this? Simple. The State of Georgia has eleven such Centers in operation across the State for men, and one for women. And they work. Eighty per cent of the men released have returned to society healed, without any return journey to an overcrowded cell in Reidsville or Jackson. This State, and we should say it with pride, has proved the Restitution Route works. That leaves the dangerous violent thirty percent on our hands. But that is a managable, if unacceptable, figure. In an atmosphere of calm, with an opportunity for close patient study, away from the numbing, overwhelming pressure of numbers, the experts can work for rehabilitation - and they can succeed. At a cost of 18 million dollars, a new prison for women is being constructed in Thomaston. “What a waste,” say those who have watched the progress of Restitution Centers. Put a mere pittance of those pennies into the restoration rather than the destruction of human lives and watch the dividends accrue. What destroyed Jack Potts? Refusal to see the bare faced facts did. The mad mighty rush to physically chastise rather than responsibly rationalize, did. And dozens more like him sit on Georgia’s death row. The growing buldging prison population of this nation is a time bomb. The jaded system of incarceration is bankrupt. It is time to look rationally at the facts. See Story Pg. 3 Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta Vol. 18 No. 23 Thursday, June 5,1980 $6 Per Year DEATH PENALTY Manning Papers "We Protest It!" Three Georgia Bishops, two Catholic and one Episcopal have issued a joint statement protesting the death penalty. The statement is dated May 31 and specifically mentions Reidsville inmate Jack Potts who is scheduled to die in Georgia s electric chair on June 5. The Statement runs as follows: Four years ago the restoration of the death penalty by the Supreme Court prompted a joint statement of opposition by us. Now, in the face of its looming actual use in the case of the prisoner, Jack Potts, we protest it in practice. We acknowledge that Christians of equally serious moral concern disagree on the issue. Our intent is to honor personal freedom in Christ to exercise moral discernment and come to different conclusions. Still, we feel compelled to bear witness to our views and ask the citizens of Georgia to give us heed. The death penalty might be justified as the lesser of two evils if it could be shown conclusively that, by inhibiting violent crime, it served as a significant protection to society. However, the weight of sociological research strongly suggests the reverse - that lawful violence may actually encourage criminal violence. Since the sociology of crime and punishment is an inconclusive guide, we rely principally on theological considerations in opposing the death penalty. Four points of conviction persuade us firmly against its use. First is the holiness of human life. This revolutionary value is implicit in the Judeo-Christian revelation and emerges into political visibility with the systems of justice that bestow the right of equal protection of the law to all persons. At a more primitive level in history this is the value underlying the ancient commandment that forbids the deliberate killing of another human being. Second, we hold that the Christian purpose of punishment is reformatory and retributive, not vindictive. Vengeance is morally inadmissible on Christian grounds. Our Scriptures are explicit in declaring vengeance to be God’s prerogative, not humanity’s. And because Jesus Christ warned of God’s judgment in terms of God’s love, we hold the meaning of vengeance in God’s use of it to be redemptive. Third, the violent taking of one human life to serve notice on other lives is decidedly cruel. It has led to gross discrimination in actual practice, violating our equal value as persons. The victims are almost invariably from among the poor, the oppressed or the disadvantaged. Moreover, it cannot be anything but counter-productive as public education. If, as we commonly hold, the most persuasive instructor is the power of example, then it must be clear that killing teaches only the permissibility of taking human life, not the value of preserving it. Finally, in theological terms we hold that the divine law of love relates to humanity as a lure and a goal. We have made our way slowly toward more just and compassionate treatment of one another in the human family. In our social history the structures of compassion have emerged gradually, but they have emerged. The abolition of the death penalty seemed to us such a forward move. Its restoration is a backward step. Its actual use in our state demeans us all. It reduces our shared dignity as human persons and violates our professed respect for human life. That there should be punishment of crime, we hold to be self-evident. That the punishment should Fit both the crime and the criminal, we hold to be the steadfast aim of our courts of law. If the law of the land should mature to the point of forbidding the retaliatory violence of punishing crime by killing the criminal, we would hold this to be a triumph of God’s redemptive sovereignty in human affairs. Thomas A. Donnellan, Archbishop Raymond W. Lessard, Bishop Bennett J, Sims, Bishop To Governor Busbee The statement issued by the three Georgia Bishops protesting the death penalty was forwarded to Governor George Busbee. A letter was also sent jointly signed by the three bishops requesting clemency for Reidsville inmate Jack Potts. Pott, who is refusing to ask for any further stay of execution is scheduled to die in Georgia’s electric chair on Thursday, June 5. Potts, since his imprisonment in Reidsville, has converted to the Catholic Faith. Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan Bishop Bennett J. Simms Bishop Raymond W. Lessard Housed At Emory BY JAMES TARBOX Henry Edward Manning - Cardinal of the Catholic Church, scholar, orator, theologian and pastor. One of the dominant figures of English speaking Catholicism. He has been, according to a man in a unique position to know, badly treated - even ignored - by history. “Cardinal Manning’s life and contributions to the Catholic Church have either been ignored or misinterpreted,” according to Dr. Channing Jeschke, Librarian of the Pitts Theology Library at Emory University. “Manning’s contributions to the First Vatican Council and his work with the poorer members of England’s Catholic community have been somewhat ignored since his death in 1892. Jeschke’s interest in Manning started in 1974 when the Pitts Library happened to purchase 800 volumes from Manning’s private library and the library of the Oblates of Saint Charles, a religious order Manning founded at Saint Mary of the Angels church in England. “That first group of 800 books was an excellent collection, a fine start,” Dr. Jeschke said, “and we got them for a great price too - $4,900.” This First purchase of books from the library of Cardinal Manning was the start of an interest in Manning that would culminate with Emory University holding the largest single collection on Manning in the world. “We believe that we have the principal Manning collection in the world, anywhere,” said Dr. Jeschke,: “but putting it together has taken some tine.” After the initial purchase of 800 works in 1974, things were pretty quiet until the spring of 1977 when Anthony Garnett, an English immigrant, contacted Emory and told Dr. Jeschke that he had most of the remainder of the Manning library in his possession. “It turned out that he had 5,000 items,” Dr. Jeschke said, “3,500 books and 1,500 manuscripts. They included Manning’s personal collection of books, going back to his college days, sermons, notes on the Vatican Council, devotionals, everything. I knew we had to have it.” Initially it was Garnett’s hope that a Catholic school would show an interest in the collection but, surprisingly, none did. At that point Garnett and Jeschke entered into serious negotiations using. Benjamin Weinreb as a go between. “Negotiating something like this borders on the Byzantine,” smiled Dr. Jeschke. After rounds of talks Emory managed to secure the entire collection at a compromise price of $63,190 - “a steal” according to Jeschke. Manning has been a long neglected figure in the Catholic Church. Linked forever in the minds of many with his contemporary, John Henry Newman, Manning’s contributions to the church have fallen out of the public eye. “Manning spoke to the same issues that confront Catholics today,” Dr. Jeschke said., “The question of authority in the Church - particularly the subject of papal infallability - and the need to develop a real social awareness were two of the dominant issues in his life as a Christian.” It is true; Manning is as contemporary as today’s religious controversies. Born into a comfortable family, Manning became an Anglican clergyman but, quite early on, became disillusioned with the Anglican Church. Active in what came to be known as the Oxford movement, an attempt to make the Church of England more “Catholic” by renewing its liturgy and commitment to the poor. Manning left the Anglican Church in 1851 and became a Catholic. It was only a matter of months before he was ordained a priest and became active in pastoral work. Less than 15 years later Pope Pius IX appointed Henry Edward Manning Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. “That appointment was a stroke of genius,” according to Dr. Jeschke, “In Manning Pope Pius IX gained a strong voice supporting papal authority and a spokesman for the poor as well.” While it is true that Manning led the Fight to establish Irish immigrants in the industrialized areas of England, (a fact many either forget or choose to overlook), the English prelate is best remembered for his role at the Fust Vatican Council. “Manning was the leader in the debate on papal infallibility,” Dr. Jeschke said. “It was his presence at the Council that insured its adoption.” Though Manning favored, and fought for, the doctrine of infallibility, it must be understood that he believed authority was the only way for the Church to respond to the strong challenges of nationalism and secularism sweeping Europe. “Manning’s strong defense of papal authority has obscured his human side,” believes Dr. Jeschke. “He strongly supported a parochial school system in England (that failed because English schools finally admitted Catholics) and really alienated the aristocracy due to his championing the Irish cause.” It is Dr. Jeschke’s hope that the Pitts Theology Library will become a “Manning Center,” leading to a renewal of interest in the Cardinal. “Right now Newman has the interest of most scholars,” Dr. Jeschke said. “It’s about time that Manning had his moment.” Criticized for being an authoritiarian, a cold and aloof man, almost inhuman, Manning’s reputation now rides on a vast collection of works at Emory’s Theological Library. Scholars, for those are the ones who will have clearest access, wait and bide their time.