Newspaper Page Text
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PAGE 7—'The Georgia Bulletin, June 19,1980
Vehement Protest
Our Readers Respond
Editor:
The June issue of the
fifth - front page - carried
two screaming leads, viz:
“What Destroyed Jack
Potts” and “We Protest
It.”
I do not question the
Archbishops’ and Bishops’
right to present their views
on the Death Penalty. The
Bishops’ first point of
conviction is self evident.
The second and third
points of conviction are
more sentimental
emotionalism that sound
right-thinking based
neither on sound moral
nor theological grounds.
I thank the Bishops for
acknowledging that 62%
of Americans - according
to reliable polls - disagree
on sound and theological
grounds.
I protest vehemently
the inclusion of Bishop
Simms - not because he is
an Episcopalian Bishop -
never that - but because he
is in favor of abortion, yet
decries the taking of a
human life, a human being
who has been convicted by
a jury of his peers that
found the criminal guilty
of wanton and violent
murder. Thereby,
according to the greatest
theologians down thru the
centuries, St. Paul, St.
Thomas Aquinas state the
criminal has fortified all
rights.
In ‘‘A Pastoral
Statement on Abortion”
Eastertide 1980
the diocese, a
which I have
Simms states
issued to
copy of
, Bishop
a human
fetus is human”. The
Bishop also states
“Abortion-on-demand as a
birth control procedure, -
is morally repugnant.” He
states there seems to be
two grounds on which
abortion can be morally
justified. 1) the fetus is
not human, 2)
prejudgement as to the
quality of life of the fetus.
The Bishop rejects number
one but accepts number
two. I quote, “May we
abort a fetus prejudged to
be genetically defective
-.’’He answers yes.
I ask the Bishop, does
not the mother whose
child - although believed
to be genetical defective
still pops out alive, despite
abortion methods, have
the same right under the
guise of the vaunted
freedom of choice, the
same right to kill her child.
Any type of pro-abortion
arguments the answer
must be yes. The next step
is infanticide. Already
being promoted widely.
Bishop Simms, saying
yes to abortion - limited
or not has no place in a
Catholic paper
hypocritically defending a
legally condemned and
violent criminal.
M.J. Maguire, Sr.
Atlanta, Ga. NE
Who Is Victim?
Dear Editor:
I noticed that as the
coldblooded killer was
being prepared to die in
the electric chair that all
sorts of organizations were
coming to his aid. For
example there was the
American Civil Liberties
Union and the Team
Defense Project.
The television news and
the daily newspapers
showed these organizat
ions and individuals
rallying around Potts to
save him from the electric
chair that he deserved. In
the last few days they
made it appear that this
cold-blooded killer was the
victim. Only he wasn’t.
The victim that he
killed in coldblood laid
buried. And around the
victim’s mother were no
organizations or
individuals to comfort her;
organizations and
individuals were also
absent when the news
media interviewed the
tearful wife of the victim.
Oh, yes, let’s not overlook
the fact where the
Archdiocese of Atlanta
stood on this matter. Not
at the side of the victim’s
mother or the young wife
of the victim with her
young children, but
defending the killer.
The article that you
wrote for the ATLANTA
CONSTITUTION and
these same lines appearing
in the GEORGIA
BULLETIN make it
appear that all Catholics
are against the death
penalty. But his is not
true, not by a long shot.
Most Catholics that I have
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death penalty in such cases
as Potts. We are aware that
the victim cannot come
back to life if his killer is
electricuted, but it is
certain that this killer once
electricuted will not kill
another person again.
Something that the
Archdiocese of Atlanta
seems to fail to
understand.
In closing I don’t mind
telling you that it made
me sick to my stomach
when I read the article
that you wrote. As a
fact - God
- now I feel
of being a
matter of
forgive me
ashamed
Catholic.
John Bruce
Smyrna
The Place
Dear Editor:
We would like to say
“thanks” for your story
on “The Place,” and the
four very special Sisters,
who give so much of
themselves to create the
loving atmosphere that
greets all who stop by.
They have earned the
love and respect of the
various denominations in
the community and
deserve the recognition
your story brought out so
beautifully.
As one of the
volunteers I again say
thanks from all of us.
Eleanor Stonell
Cumming, Ga.
Could Allow
Dear Editor:
This is in answer to the
article dated 5/29/80 on
abuses in the liturgy.
Although there are some
real abuses, it seems to me
the following could be
allowed: homilies by lay
people; the distribution of
Communion by lay people
where there is a shortage
of ordained priests; and
the
the
the joining 1
congregation
prayers.
After all, lay people can
and should participate in
the Mass, because the Mass
is a giving and receiving
action. We worship God,
and He blesses us.
George F. Martin
Atlanta
Manning Papers
Dear Editor:
I am delighted by your article on the Manning
Collection in the current issue of THE GEORGIA
BULLETIN. Your article is lively, it reads well and
you have allowed your own enthusiasm to show
through. Thank you.
Perhaps you know, we are preparing to approach
a couple national Catholic foundations to assist us
in funding this latest purchase. A half dozen copies
of this issue of The Bulletin would be very much
appreciated.
The placement of the article on the first page and
the quality of its writing says to the reader, the
Catholic community in Atlanta recognizes this new
resource in its midst and believes it to have
international import. This is a strong endorsement
and I appreciate your efforts.
Thank you and best wishes,
Channing R. Jeschke
Librarian,
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Dear Editor:
I read your article in the June 4.
1980 issue of The Atlanta
Constitution, and was amazed and
astonished at the insight you have,
concerning prisoners confined here
for non-violent crimes.
I am serving a twenty year
sentence for allegedly cashing two
checks in the A & P store in Atlanta.
The judge, Elmo Holt, knew I was
mentally disturbed, because of the
ordeal I had gone through in the
Fulton County Jail, awaiting trial.
I am a poor black man, and I
received not an iota of justice at the
hands of the unjust. Of course, if I
had a paid lawyer, I would not have
received this kind of sentence. But
blacks are not-going to get justice or
mercy in the American Courts of
Law. They wiped my life out for two
checks totaling seven hundred and
forty dollars. I have suffered greatly,
being confined in a virtual hell, and I
see others, convicted of more serious
crimes, serving less time than me, of
course I am bitter why shouldn’t I
harbor resentment and bitterness
against an arbitrary and racist regime.
I was sentenced in 1975 so it
means I got five more years to serve,
if God spares my life, but why was I
not given the chance to go to a
Restitution Center?
Georgia State Prison
Reidsville
I’ll tell you why, - I am black and
poor. There is no justice in this
United States of America. So the war
is on, and it is between the haves and
the have nots. I am not the typical
dumb black dude, and I know what
is going on. It just surprised me that
you, a man who has never been in
prison, could understand and see
things so vividly, and lucidly explain
them to the public.
You spoke the truth, so you must
have been given this insight by
Almighty God, and I am sure God
favors you. I lost my family -
everything. I got to try to endure,
but you can bet that at my age - I’ll
be 43 years old, June 17th - I will
not be easily put in this position
again, once I do get out. Jesus Christ
spoke of the days of vengeance, and I
guess these are the days He spoke of,
because you know it says in the
Book “He that showed no mercy
shall receive no mercy.”
Your indictment of the entire
corrective system is just and
accurate, as racism permeates all
through the system, and no relief is
in sight, thus, the riots in prisons and
in the so-called free society.
May God bless and guide you
always,
John Joseph Hop-Wah
Holy Days—No More
Dear Editor:
Your position on the
penal system of this
country is theologically
sound in terms of the
three spiritual graces and I
agree with your paragraph
regarding “the entire
corrective system surely
needs the attention of our
highest court of justice.”
There are some points
in your article with which
I must take exception. The
reference to “the
bittersweet taste of
vengeance they long to
sip” is a cheap shot
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rhetoric. I doubt that
anyone realizes more
surely than Michael
Priest’s mother and wife
the fact that he is
irrevocably gone and
cannot be recalled by the
execution of his killer.
Had it occurred to you
however, that in this
disconsolate knowledge,
their only reassurance may
lie in the thought that, if
executed, Jack Potts shall
never again be free to
practice his wanton
viciousness on another?
The argument against
The Switch
Dear Editor:
This note is to respond
to your article on Capital
Punishment which
appeared in the GEORGIA
BULLETIN. Let me begin
by saying I could not pull
the switch myself,
however I feel that some
crimes are so horrible that
the death sentence should
be used. The thing that
bothered me about your
article was the fact that
you failed to mention that
this man had been tried
and found guilty.
For years innocent
unborn babies have been
murdered by the
hundreds. These little ones
haven’t been tried and
they haven’t had a lawyer
to plead their cause. Yet I
don’t recall ever reading a
word that you wrote
against abortion. It makes
me wonder if you should
examine your heart and
maybe you could give
these little ones equal time
in the Bulletin.
Eunice G. Mion
Atlanta
Cubans
Dear Editor:
If you lived among the
influx of Cubans in the
60’s you would realize the
Cuban Refugees will bring
only more problems and
trouble to our country.
The ones that promised
these unfortunate people
that this is a land of milk
and honey did us all a
disservice to say the least.
This situation will turn
us into a nation of Hulks
as is evident in some of the
camps.
Jane McGill
Blue Ridge, Ga.
Take Exception
the death penalty includes
the premise that execution
is not a deterrent. This
may or may not be a valid
argument. One fact is
irrefutable however; the
death penalty, when
carried out, dramatically
eliminates recidivism. In
an analogous situation, no
one can challenge the
veracity of a comment by
a California judge upon
sentencing a convicted
rapist to be castrated,
“That man will not show
up again in my court
charged with rape!”
Your proposal for
restitution centers for the
“mistake-makers” where
they can work, pay taxes,
and live in a context of
corrective counsel without
costing the public a penny
is the type of propaganda
and “blue sky” used by
politicians. Who will pay
for the restitution centers?
Who will keep the
“mistake makers” from
heading for the hills? Who
will make them work?
And who will pay the
salaries of all those
“who’s”? Your argument
breaks down when you
start substantiating it with
statistics. “80 percent of
the inmates released have
returned to society
healed,” refers to what?
80% of ten, one hundred?
Had you felt secure in
your position, I think you
would not have resorted to
percentages.
In dealing with the
dangerous, violent 30
percent which you
propose
rehabilitated
Dear Editor:
can be
by experts.
would you be prepared to
guarantee that no harm
will come to any person at
the hands of these
rehabilitated persons? In
reading the exhortations
of members of the ACLU
and the religious leaders in
the community who
would commute the death
sentence of Jack Potts, I
would suggest a
compromise. Every one in
favor of commutation
should sign a petition
including address. Then
when Potts is paroled in
seven years, goes on
another drug binge, and
kills someone else, each
individual whose name is
on the petition gets to
serve his or her share of a
99-year sentence. In the
event one of the signators
dies, then his share of the
sentence is assumed by the
remainder.
I particularly resent the
paragraph regarding the
long line of executions in
Georgia where the
“victims” have been
‘‘mostly black,
overwhelmingly poor,
distinctly powerless.”
Could the reason possibly
be that most of the
senseless crime is
committed by blacks and
the overwhelmingly poor?
How many people in the
powerful and influential
group do you know who
would rob and kill the
owner of a convenience
store or mug an old lady
for her Social Security
check? Life may not be
fair, but unfair treatment
cannot be invoked as
license for criminal acts.
J.E. Pline
Atlanta
Messages
In reference to an
article in Teresa
Gernazian’s column of the
GEORGIA BULLETIN
May 1st, concerning
“messages” given to a
Belgium woman, which
has given rise to a
movement called the Little
Souls of the Merciful
Heart of Jesus - I find
along with the edifying
messages that we could all
agree with, there were
other statements that to
me were disquieting.
It concerned me that
someone reading the
article might feel an
obligation, as a practicing
Catholic to believe this as
being from God. To me,
lines such as “ . . . Fervent
toward My holy Mother,
rendering her homage in
everything ...” conflict
with Scripture. For
example Luke 4:5-8 NAB
Jesus’ reply to the devil
when He was tempted in
the wilderness was
“Scripture has it, You
shall do homage to the
Lord your God: Him alone
shall you adore.”
The National
Conference of Catholic
Bishops, BEHOLD YOUR
MOTHER, Nov. 21, 1973
p.38 states: “Even when a
private revelation has
spread to the entire world,
as in the case of Our Lady
of Lourdes, and has been
recognized in the liturgical
calendar, the Church does
not make mandatory the
acceptance either of the
original story or of
particular forms of piety
springing from it.”
“ ... In other words,
Catholics are not bound to
believe that it was the
Blessed Mother of Jesus
who appeared at Lourdes
(1858) Fatima (1917)
Guadalupe, Mexico (1531)
Beauraing (1923-33)
LaSalette (1846) Paris
(Miraculous Medal 1830)
Banneux (1933) or
anywhere else where the
Church allows devotions.”
As I’d always been
given to understand that
tradition, while explaining
and applying Scripture, is
never to contradict it, I
was greatly relieved to find
the above statements of
the Church.
Luann Schultz
Athens, Ga.
Dear Editor:
The proposal before the
Catholic bishops of the
United States to change -
in effect, to eliminate -
Holy Days of Obligation is
quite wrong. It has
genuinely shocked many
Catholics to think that so
integral a part of their
worship should be so
arbitrarily and
undemocratically decided
(most likely, not by
bishops but by liturgical
advisers) without any real
debate. Like so many-
other changes in church
customs and worship, the
real voice of the people
has not been heard above
the din of specialists who
move from premises
simply not consonant with
Catholic teaching,
especially about the
transcendence of God
both in time and above
time
In fact, enactment of
the bishops’ proposal will
offer one more victory for
those intent on making
Catholic worship in this
country not just more
Protestant (when many
Protestants, in a supreme
irony, are becoming more
liturgical) but much more
secular because it is
surrendering the very
notion of holy time.
The bases for this
elimination of all holy
days but two (one of them
Christmas - what a
concession) are also
questionable, at least as
they are stated in your
5/22/80 story. Canada, for
example, is not the
missionary country that
the United States has been
and, in a new way, still is.
Canada has always had
solidly ethnic blocs for
most of its Catholic
population and has had a
less secular culture, at least
until recently. In our
country Catholics have
always been within a
Protestant majority and
now all Christians are
surrounded by an
increasingly secular
environment in our nation,
a “Los Angelization” of
most of the realities that
give us life.
Won’t Increase Devotion
I am not so naive as to
think that all the changes
in the Church since
Vatican II have been
unfortunate or simply evil;
I agree with Fr. Hesburgh
about the vitality of parish
life and the real efficacy of
new structures in the
Church in the last two
decades. But if the bishops
are so naive as to think
that eliminating Holy Days
of Obligation will increase
devotion, they should look
at one of the real
casualties of the last two
decades, the Friday fast.
The assumption behind
this elimination was the
same as all those on the
“hit-list” of certain
liturgical experts: where
there are no rules, there
will be more freedom --
surely an absurd Rousseau
and Romantic premise
that no Catholic bishop
should have made, at least
intellectually. And the
Friday fast disaster
illustrates the fatuity of
this assumption: even if
one ate Shrimp Newburg
instead of hamburgers, was
it so wrong to be reminded
by diet (especially in
America) that a divine
event had once taken place
in human history?
Days of obligation, like
days of fast (what the
Muslims have always
known, for example) are
ways to show us
concretely that God moves
in time, even in the secular
city, and that a force of
redemption may even
occur on Buford Highway
or Roswell Road. Thus, to
deny the secularizing
forces of our time is not to
be less relevant but, on the
contrary, to lie more
relevant because one is
offering an alternative by
which our own time can
gain perspective.
Significant Worship
Even more naive is the
stressing of the bishops (a
stressing, I suspect, that
again comes from liturgical
advisers) on “the problem
of the significance of
worship.” Are we
eliminating ancient
customs which have
continuously provided
significant worship, at
least for a majority of
Catholics through history,
because certain Catholic
pseudo-intellectuals do not
find them personally
significant or relevant? Is
worship any more
significant when the
churches are EMPTY on
Ascension Thursday (1
suppose this ancient feast
is on the bishops’s hit-list
because it is in the middle
of the week and the
holy days must be as
illogically arranged as the
federal holiday so that we
can have the beloved
leisure of the week end)?
Is worship any more
significant when the
churches are EMPTY and
there is no honoring of the
Blessed Virgin (one of the
real victims of this hit-list)
“. . . if the Bishops
are so naive as to think
that eliminating Holy
Days of Obligation will
increase devotion, they
should look at one of
the real casualties of
the last two decades,
the Friday fast. ”
on New Year’s Day,
because we need time to
recover from the
demanding parties of the
night before?
Further, there is no
logic at all to the
unspoken premise in the
bishops’ proposal that if
we eliminate holy days,
more Catholics will attend
Mass on Sundays. I should
imagine quite the contrary
because the bishops will
have sliown that it
genuinely doesn’t matter
at all when you do attend,
so long as you have the
intention of the heart only
- one of the real heresies
of our time since the
Reformation.
Differences Preferred
Can’t the bishops or
their advisers see that most
Catholics prefer to be
reminded of his or her
difference from secular
reality? Most Catholics
prefer moments of
transcendence within time,
within the week, the
month, the year, that will
tell each of us of not only
obligation but freedom to
praise God.
There are no such
moments in Cuba or in the
Soviet Union; there, as in
any totally material
culture, with the “Los
Angelization” of our time,
there is no time for any
values except those of
self aggrandizement or, in
the socialist countries, the
demands of the state.
There are no Sundays, no
holy days, no holidays or
freedom from time itself.
Calvinist Protestants had
precisely objected to such
holy days that the bishops
now want to eliminate;
and although the intention
seemed good, its effect
was to open the door to
Los Angeles or Buford
Highway or Roswell Road.
Its historical effect was
ultimately to deny that
freedom, that /true
liberality Cardinal
Newman had defined in
THE IDEA OF THE
UNIVERSITY as man’s
hope.
Finally, the bishops or
their liturgical experts
should look more carefully
at the real problem of the
significance of worship in
our time: the failure of
most Masses to provide
any sense of transcendence
at all
Our Masses are so
manipulated with a sense
of pseudo-immanence and
false relevance that
worship can vacillate
between not merely folk
songs and hymns that
sound like circus waltzes
but actual liturgical
intrusions like dance
gestures during a First
Communion service that
would Ire tasteless and
stupid to any real dancer
(the children, of course,
are never encouraged or
allowed to participate in a
Benediction service).
One could hardly praise
the liturgical deserts of
much Catholic worship
before Vatican II, but then
one did have the larger
services, the High Masses
that have almost totally
disappeared except once
or twice a year.
Eliminating holy days, I
am arguing, will not solve
this far more essential
problem of worship which
certain liturgical specialists
deliberately ignore in their
zeal to reform the Catholic
Church in their own
image. One can only be
grateful for the recent
statements from the
Vatican that naturally
have been attacked in the
secular press.
Thus, there is the
terrible irony that the
bishops, misled or just
ignorant in their own
right, plan to change the
Holy Days in order to
solve what they cal) “the
problem of the
significance of worship”
and instead destroy any
basis for any significance
to Catholic worship. They
now surrender to the
increasingly secular view
of time, a time within
which there is no
sacrament or moment of
transcendence, no
holiness, finally no
incarnation of God at all.
William A. Sessions
Professor of English
Georgia State University
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