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The Georgia Bulletin
July 17,1980
b
John Paul In Brazil
John Paul II is a journeyman Pope.
Setting out like an apostle of old,
wending his way with pastoral staff in
hand, he kisses the earth and touches
the heart.
The purpose of his international
travels is - ostensibly - to firm up the
ties of national churches to the throne
of Peter. His goal is an internal
solidarity that makes some cringe and
others clap their hands in delight.
What our Holy Father himself is
learning in the process, however, is
worth noting.
The political realities
revolutionizing Brazil are a far cry
from the ritualizing of European
policy-makers.
The grass roots cultural dimension
of the African Church is a long way
from liturgical Romanization.
The casual openness distinguishing
much of American Church life bears
little resemblance to the pomp of
Rome or the stiff sturdiness of
Poland.
Encounters between the head of
our Church and his people serve not
only to enrich the lands he visits, but
bring the Pope himself closer to an
appreciation of unique national
Church models.
The Church in its fullness witnesses
to the presence and power of God in
all creation. It is like a rainbow that
takes from the sun a myriad of
colorations, each distinct and
beautiful in its expression of light.
Let us hope that the insights Pope
John Paul receives on his journeys will
equal the care and concern he brings
to his people wherever he goes.
- TKJ
God Receives A Subpoena
Dave McGill
(Part I)
Edwin Robinson of Maine has been quite
a news story recently, all by himself. A
month and a half ago, the man was bald,
blind, and nearly deaf; then, something
unbelievable happened. On June 4th, as
Edwin Was chasing his pet chicken in the
backyard, he was struck by a bolt of
lightning.
When he came to, Edwin could both see
and hear normally. That was even a better
deal than St. Paul got from the Lord, for
after HIS flash he was blind until he went
straight to Straight Street and got
straightened out.
Anyway, Edwin popped back into the
news a few days later when he observed his
hair growing out in full. Needless to say,
Edwin has become quite a celebrity. He has
appeared on network TV, and a movie
company is interested in a full-length feature
of his life. However, his “50-year battery
charge” (as his doctor described it) has
created a considerable problem for the
American Civil Liberties Union. One of their
attorneys was working at his desk recently
when a colleague burst excitedly into the
room—
“Thomas, there are three people out in
the lobby who claim their civil rights have
been violated by God!”
“Hey, easy on the language there, Pete.
You don’t have to swear just to tell me
that.”
“I didn’t swear. What I mean is that GOD
has violated their civil rights!”
“W-H-A-A-A-A-T? Could you run that by
me again?”
“It’s true. One of these people is blind,
another is deaf, and the third is bald. They
feel they each have just_ as much right as
Edwin Robinson to receive a shot of
lightning and become healed of their
respective maladies.”
“That’s cute, Pete. Now come on. let’s
get back to work.”
“I’M SERIOUS!! They’re sitting out
there like the three wise monkeys
“Yeah, and I’ll bet they have little signs
on their chests that read ‘See no evil, Hear
no evil, and Grow no evil’ - Right?”
“Wrong. They’re really out there.”
“O.K., then what do they want of us?”
“They want us to take God to court, and
sue Him for either similar privileges or else
$1 million each in damages.”
“That’s crazy, Pete. We can’t take God to
court. Frankly, I don’t even BELIEVE in
Him.”
“You would if you were Edwin
Robinson. Or if your name wasn’t Thomas.
But that’s not the point. These folks HAVE
been discriminated against. And I for one
agree with them that they should have their
day in court so that they might, as it were,
regain their faculties.”
“Pete, it’s a novel idea at that. But what
if He doesn’t show up?”
“What do you mean? He’s already there.”
“ALREADY?”
“Sure. God is everywhere. Don’t you
know that?”
“Poppycock and balderdash, Pete. Look
- even if He DID exist, you’d never put Him
on trial. What would you call it? The
‘ S e c o nd-to- Last-Judgement ’? HaHaHaHa. ”
“Very funny, Thomas. But these people
are serious, and I’m going to file the suit and
see that the subpoena is issued.”
“What’ll you use for an address?
Heaven?”
“It won’t need an address. The minute
it’s issued, He’ll have it.”
“Baloney. Listen, nobody believes that
God sent that lightning bolt Robinson’s way.
So you don’t have a chance of winning the
suit anyway.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Thomas.
Why, the ‘Edwin-Robinson-Cure-All-Kit’ is
selling like hotcakes.”
“What’s it consist of?”
“A portable lightning rod, a pair of
rubber-soled shoes, and a pet chicken.”
“Son-of-a-gun! And I thought all those
people carrying poles in the thunderstorm
the other day had had the tops of their
umbrellas ripped off. Well, O.K., I’ll help
you with the case. God’s got to obey the
laws of fairness, just like everybody else.”
(In Part 2, God Answers the Subpoena.)
THE HYDE DECISION (Ed. Note. Mr. Matthew’s column appeared in the July 4th Atlanta
Journal/Constitution. The response was written by Monsignor Burtenshaw.)
A Tragic Victory Richard Matthews
I don’t like abortions. I’ve seen the
color pictures, and it’s true, you can see
little fingers and hands or baby-shapes in
the bloody mess that results. I hate the
thought that what is there is some sort of
living thing, although maybe not quite a
person. I don’t like the fact that for many
people abortion is no more than another
kind of birth control.
I also hate poverty, though, and the
torture it inflicts on children born into it.
Growing up in the rural South I saw too
many spindly-legged kids covered with
sores running around in dirt yards filled
with filth of all kinds. Going into the
poorer sections of Atlanta today I see too
many little bodies misshapen by
malnutrition, too many vacant stares
revealing the stifled intelligence of the
near-starved. It hurts to know that these
children, crippled in mind, body and
spirit almost from birth, have next to no
chance to live a decent, rewarding life.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling on
federal funds for abortions means,
however, that there are going to be a lot
more of these tiny tragedies. Poor women
who can get Medicaid funds for any other
operation or treatment cannot get money
for abortions, the court said, because the
Hyde amendment prohibiting such
payments is constitutional.
The question of the validity of the
majority’s thinking is best left to those
qualified to do legal analysis. What
offends me i,s the absurdity, the
unfairness and the condescension of Rep.
Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and the other
right-to-lifers who created the law in the
first place.
Their efforts don’t prohibit or outlaw
abortions - they lost that battle seven
years ago when the Supreme Court said
women have an inherent right to end a
pregnancy, at least in the early stages. All
the Hyde amendment does is prevent
exactly the people who need abortions
most - the poor - from having them,
dooming millions more children to a
shortchanged, tormented existence.
It’s ironic, although far from funny.
The right-to-lifers insist they are attacking
abortion, but the justices made it clear
that the ruling had nothing to do with
that; their ruling was on the point that
Congress can decide what services it
wants to provide to the poor, and if it
wants to give them everything but
abortions it can.
Meanwhile millions of women who can
afford the operation - and could probably
afford to raise a child if they chose to - go
right ahead with their abortions. So what
has been achieved is not a right-to-life
victory but a cruel imposition of an
ultra-conservative, anti-welfare view on
the poor (one which, by the way, isn’t
even effective in that regard, since
maintenance of all those new babies will
cost hundreds of times more than the
abortions which would have prevented
their being brought into the world.
On a television talk show the night
after the court ruling, a woman caller
brought the question down to its essence.
She was on welfare, she said, she already
had three children, and she found herself
pregnant earlier this year. Denied funds
for an abortion, she had her fourth child.
It’s not rights, or ideology, or legal debate
which troubles her now; her question
was, “How am I going to feed him and
the kids I already have?”
Sure, welfare and food stamps will
keep them from literally dying of hunger,
but they won’t provide enough for decent
nutrition, decent housing, decent
anything. Thanks to the Hyde
amendment, that woman’s new baby has
embarked on a life of poor health,
hunger, inadequate education, a lousy job
or none at all, and perhaps crime or
drunkenness or mental illness - a life that
starts at the bottom and goes downhill
from there.
Thanks to the manic anti-abortion
crowd, we will still be able to go out to
back-country shacks or into inner-city
slums and see the swollen bellies and
running sores and empty eyes of these
unchosen children; we will still be able to
watch them grow into people for whom
the only thing there is plenty of is pain
and troubles.
And this, they say, is the “gift” of life.
Response To Richard Matthews
Monsignor Noel C. Burtenshaw
Richard Matthews’ column
(Journal/Constitution 7/4/80) is tolerable
in its objection to the Supreme Court
Hyde decision until you get to the
halfway mark. Then Mr. Matthews lets his
heated pen race away from his thoughts
and descends in an arena that demands
response.
The sentence passionately blurted out
is, “All the Hyde amendment does is
prevent . . . the people who need
abortions most . . . from having
them ...” Clearly it is a statement of the
gut, pronounced to appeal to many hearts
but nevertheless, a false exaggeration.
The Hyde amendment, upheld two
weeks ago by the Supreme Court of the^ 6 *
United States, will first and foremost save
lives. In the frantic rush of this nation to
wallow in personal rights - masculine,
feminine and neuter - we are deliberately
blinded to the vicious nature of this
modern offspring called abortion. It is
simply a murderous malaise that destroys
conceived human life with legal
approbation.
The Hyde amendment stands as a
sentry - a weak one perhaps - guarding a
part of the community presently ignored
by the law - innocent, defenseless,
human, unborn life. And the miniscule
but breathtaking decision last week gives
us a ray of hope unseen by Mr. Matthews
even as he writes. For it tells us that the
Supreme Court is by no means an
infallible mouthpiece of this Republic
and despite what columnists write the
battle was not lost 7 years ago when the
Court said that women have an inherent
right to end a pregnancy.
Martin JLuther King and his diehard
followers refused to believe that the 1954
Supreme Court pronouncement of
“separate but equal” was battle lost. Had
he followed that defeatist propaganda,
citizens of this nation would still linger in
heavy chains, in the backs of buses and
on the balconies of the public places of
our society.
Last week’s decision tells us that we
have saved thousands from the
incinerators of our government sponsored
hospitals. Now we will fight
conscientiously to challenge decent
Americans to give life to that sacred
phrase of promise, “life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.” The abortionist
solution of placing the poor cold in
Arlington rather than caring for their
want and pain belies the very definition
of the Founding Father’s dream, summed
up magnificently in that beautiful phrase.
Regretfully, Mr. Matthews allowed
himself to descend into the arena of
name-calling (why do they do it) with his
tag of “manic anti-abortion crowd.”
However, whatever the name let the stand
be known. Life is a sacred mysterious gift
and history shows only too clearly that
tyrants, from the Caesars of Rome to the
Hitlers of Berlin, who are allowed to deny
the right to be alive in anyone, often
proceed with careless discrimination to
deny that same right in everyone.
Late Blooming Talent
Teresa Gernazian
Resound ... Resound
FOREST PARK - I cannot refrain any
longer in writing this letter in response to
your editorial in the June 19th edition of
THE GEORGIA BULLETIN. Your editorial
position of interest, compassion, and
concern for the cdnvicted criminals who
have preyed ruthlessly on our society seems
to be totally out of proportion with justice.
I wonder if you would be among the first to
call for help and then justice if ever a
criminal violates your person or loved ones.
I have policed the streets of metro
Atlanta for four years protecting honorable
people. I have been shot at seven times,
stabbed, beat up, and demeaned by every
type of verbal abuse. I have seen murder
victims, rape victims, abused children, and
people who have lost their life savings. As a
member of a police honor guard I have
attended the funerals of fifteen police
officers who lost their lives in the line of
duty. I have watched their grieving wives,
children and parents. I believe those
forgotten men and other victims of violent
crimes are a result of a sick society fast
becoming void of law and order.
I urge you to support the law of the land
and judges who apply it equally and fairly to
all citizens alike. Support your
law-enforcement officers who daily expose
themselves in your behalf. I believe
punishment is a deterrant to crime and
justice demands punishment. Otherwise why
believe in hell? I do not accept responsibility
for a criminal’s actions and question why
you request that I “share his cross.” How do
you propose to share the cross of a victim or
his family? Forgiveness does not remit
punishment.
Last fall I was privileged to write about a
lovely lady and her story of courage.
Johanna Roesch was bom in Hanover,
Germany and had to stay behind when her
parents, two brothers and a sister came to
America to escape the terrible atrocities of
the late 1930’s. (Johanna’s father was Jewish
though later becoming a Catholic.) The war
broke out as she and her brother were about
to come over. For 5'/2 years beginning at the
age of 14, Johanna worked in a home for the
elderly, separated from her family.
Two adults stand out vividly in Johanna’s
memory of her painful childhood. One was a
social worker who encouraged her whenever
possible in her appreciation of art. She gave
Johanna a leather-bound book of sculptures
called “The Art of the Great Masters” and
the colorful pictures of Michelangelo’s and Da
Vinci’s sculptures brought many hours of
happiness. So precious was the book to
Johanna, that she took it with her to
Czechoslavakia when visiting an aunt and
left it there when she returned to Hanover,
thinking it would be safe. Unfortunately her
aunt had to leave all belongings behind when
the Russians came.
The other person who played a part in
Johanna’s formation was Johannes Weber,
her basic teacher, who spotted her artistic
talent. When she sent out cards at Christmas
or Easter, she would painstakingly sketch
various scenes. Watching her, he would often
build up her morale. “Johanna, something
big is going to happen to you one day. You
are gifted.” It was heartbreaking for Johanna
that she would not attend art school.
Because of her father’s background, she was
deprived of many of the “extras” in her
schooling - she couldn’t even take typing. All
through the dark years, however, she held on
to the dream that one day, with God’s grace,
she would form something beautiful with
her fingers . . .
Johanna came to America at the age of
21 and three years later married John
Roesch, a member of the U.S. Army. After
living in many parts of the country, they
made their home in Marietta with their five
children in 1971. Last fall Johanna took a
sculpture class sponsored by Marietta Parks
and Recreation at the Clay House. Filled
JOHANNA ROESCH with two of
her sculptures.
with the exuberance of a Cinderella,
Johanna missed not a one of her eight
classes.
Working with Lizella Clay (named after
the town near Macon where it comes from)
Johanna created St. Joseph, the Blessed
Virgin and St. Francis during the course.
“You have to have the feeling to form,” she
describes the art. “You go through certain
procedures with a great deal of loving
attention.” God willing, a nativity set,
almost completed, is scheduled for display at
Fulton Federal Savings and Loan in Marietta
a few months before Christmas. And if all
goes well, Johanna will be teaching a
sculpture class herself this fall.
Johanna paints, gardens and leads the
congregation at St. Joseph’s in Marietta
during the summer. Husband John, retired
from the Army is studying German to be a
full-fledged teacher and is quite proud of his
wife for working her late-blooming talent
into her busy routine.
A childhood dream is now a reality for
Johanna Dahlheim Roesch. “It is as if the
Lord Jesus is answering all my prayers,” she
whispers softly, “through the love of our
Lady.”
Sincerely yours,
Thomas Stanley Zaworski
\Ge\oiyia
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Most Rev. Thomas A. Donnellan — Publisher
(USPS) 574 880)
Rev. Monsignor Noel C. Burtenshaw — Editor
Thea K. Jarvis — Contributing Editor
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VES, I THINK IT WOULD BE RATHER NICE
TO LISTEN TO THE BLUES BROTHERS/
WHAT RELIGIOUS ORPER ARE THEV )NJ ? "