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Archbishop Jean Jadot, the departing apostolic delegate in the United
States, foresees a wider and more important role for the laity in church affairs
in the future.
In a speech to the 98th annual meeting of the Supreme Council of the
Knights of Columbus in Atlanta Tuesday, Archbishop Jadot quoted Vatican II
pronouncements and recent papal statements on the laity to underscore his
predictions on the laity’s role.
“The specific identity,” he said, “as well as the indispensable role of the lay
person is coming into ever sharper focus.” He added that, because of expanding
needs, “professional ministers have evolved who engage full time in this
pursuit. More often, however, ministry is a service rendered in addition to one’s
secular activities.”
Archbishop Jadot praised the trend, calling it “a participation in the
ongoing responsibility for proclaiming the Word of God.”
He also predicted that the Catholic Church is on the threshold of a positive
and fruitful era, basing his “optimistic assessment on several converging factors
which manifest Providence’s guiding hand.”
“The Second Vatican Council has provided an immense reservoir of teaching
and direction. Pope Paul VI courageously implemented the council with the
necessary reformation, changes and development. Pope John Paul II has
brought the implementation to a second stage -- that of clarity and
consolidation.”
The Belgian-born prelate, who has served as the Pope’s representative to the
United States for the past seven years, was making one of his last public
addresses in the country before assuming a new position as pro-president of the
Vatican Secretariat for Non-Christians.
He also issued a call to the laity to enter the area of political activity. “The
laity,” he said, “must take on renewal of the temporal order as their own
special obligation.”
“One area especially ripe for Christian influence is that of politics. I speak
of politics in its most noble meaning: the building up of civic community
whether it be on the local, regional, national or international level.”
Archbishop Jadot pressed this point with particular regard to American
Catholic life. “In my judgment, the impact of the Catholic layman on
American public life is not at all proportionate to numerical strength or
qualification. At the end of the 20th century, Catholics are far better educated
than at any previous time in this period. Surely there is ample room for greater
presence in the political ambient.”
He exhorted the Knights of Columbus convention to work for justice and
peace in the political order and to take heed of the sufferings of the poor.
Concerning the improvement of the political order, he said, “The Christian
approach to public needs will always be guided by respect for the human
person . . . Politicians and citizens alike must reject self-serving appeals to base
human instincts. These essentially are a discredit to us, isolate us from one
another, while generating fears and mistrust on a global scale.”
On solidarity with the poor, the archbishop urged his listeners to be “more
conscious of the basic interdependence that exists among all people throughout
(Continued on page 2)
Vol. 18 No. 29
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Thursday, August 21,1980
$8.00 per year
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley came into life on
28th Street in New York City. You
can well imagine how the Alley got
its name. Songs were written along
that street and from a hundred open
windows, from 200 upright pianos,
the din of merging bars of music
sounded like the wail of pans
clashing in mid-air.
Fats Waller would sell five bars of
music in the Alley for $10 - cheaper
if he really needed the money. Jolson
found his
glittering hit -
Suwannee-in the
hands of a
brand new song
writer called
George Gersh
win down there
in the alley.
And when
Americans
marched into
the Great War in
1917 it was not
to the tune of Sousa. Of course not.
George M. Cohan wrote the marches.
He called them Yankee Doodle and
Grand Old Flag. And he was from
the Alley.
But music moved uptown. The
Alley went from 28th at the turn of
the century to 42nd and Broadway
and the glittering theatre district in
the thirties. A Second World War
swept it all away and the music
making from those clanging uprights
was no more. Tin Pan Alley passed
into history.
In its place we got marble and
concrete. We got buildings reaching
to the sky and sports arenas that
became world famous. Madison
Square Garden around 31st Street is
a prime example. It still makes
music. But now it’s the music of the
boxing ring and the sounds of the
dashing, flashing New York Knicks.
Last week The Garden made
another kind of music. The
Democratic Party presented its
four-year theatrical extravaganza,
featuring a Carter-Kennedy 10
rounder. When the inevitable
knockout happened the convention
got down to four days of solid
promises sweetly sung to the people
of America.
It promised more value for the
dollar and more jobs to the long lines
of the jobless. It promised fairer
taxes, fairer distribution of energy
and fairer equality for women. It
promised peace in the deserts of the
Middle East, peace in the slums of
the South Bronx and peace of mind
to the growing - gracefully old.
It also held out the promise of
non-protection for the life of the
unborn. While the Supreme Court
says most emphatically that public
funds may not be used for abortion,
the Democratic Convention promised
to try and use them. To his credit,
while accepting the platform like a
true-blue politician, the President
clearly stated that he is personally
opposed to that sordid use of public
funds. We'll wait and watch.
From the floor of that famous
Garden, the songs will now be taken
into the streets of the nation until
curtain time in November. It remains
to be seen which Party will produce
the smash hit.
They tell me songs are now
written by computer. The stylish,
individualistic genius of the Alley-
men is no more. Like the glamour of
Broadway, opening night on the
Great White Way and truly
Democratic Politicians, it has all
faded into the past.
PRO-LIFE DELEGATE from Minnesota takes a stand at the Democratic convention. (Photo by Msgr
Noel Burtenshaw)
Democrats Approve
Pro - Abortion Plank
BY MSGR. NOEL BURTENSHAW
NEW YORK (NC) -- An
amendment to the party platform
calling on Democrats to oppose
government efforts to limit abortion
funding was approved
overwhelmingly Aug. 12 at the
Democratic National Convention in
New York.
According to the final official
tally, the amendment was approved
on a margin of 2,005 to 956.
Originally, the party platform
steered clear of the abortion funding
issue, saying only that the party
opposed a consitutional amendment
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1973 abortion decision.
But the new amendment cites
“reproductive freedom as a
fundamental human right.”
It continues, “We therefore
oppose government interference in
the reproductive decisions of
Americans, especially those
government programs or legislative
restrictions that deny poor
Americans their right to privacy by
funding or advocating one or a
limited number of reproductive
choices only.”
The amendment was approved
despite the Carter administration’s
lack of support for it.
“The president’s position is very
clear,” said Carter spokesman Jody
Powell after the vote. “He does not
believe that federal funds should be
used for abortion. The convention
felt to the contrary.”
In a statement on the party
platform delivered to the convention
the next day, President Carter
reiterated his personal opposition to
federal abortion funding.
“I am sworn to uphold the laws
passed by Congress and the
Constitution of the United States as
interpreted by the federal courts, but
my personal view remains
unchanged,” Carter wrote to the
delegates.
President Carter’s response to the
abortion plank of the Democratic
platform was not strong enough for a
pro-life delegate. Father Leo Tibesar.
Father Tibesar, the only priest
voting in the convention, was a
delegate from Minnesota. The
38-year-old priest from the
Archdiocese of St. Paul got into
politics four years ago to fight for
pro-life issues.
After seeing Carter’s response
Father Tibesar, a theological librarian
from the St. Paul Seminary, said,
“President Carter’s public dissent
from the Democratic Party’s position
is gratifying but it is not enough. His
equally public position supporting
the platform’s opposition to the
Supreme Court’s decision will
prevent many Democrats from
supporting him in November.”
The priest, ordained in 1968,
went on to comment on the
convention turnabout. “From a
position of non-support of a human
(Continued on page 3)
ST. OLIVER PLUNKETT
A Study In Caring
BY GRETCHEN KEISER
Betty and David Newton lost
everything they owned two years
ago. They might have lost that,
and much more, this year, but the
arms of an extended family are
closing protectively around them.
The Newtons came back to
Georgia in 1978, after a fire in
their Texas home left nothing but
“the boards you start building a
house with,” Mrs. Newton said.
They and their three children
escaped the 2:30 a.m. fire when a
family dog started barking and
jolted Betty Newton out of a
bedroom filled with smoke. She
ran to pull her daughters, Jamie
Lynn and Janis, out of the house
and “the ceiling started to cave
in.” David Newton woke up their
son, Joey. Their house, their
belongings, and even the dog who
saved their lives, were gone.
Two years later, they were
living in Gwinnett County, active
in St. Oliver Plunkett parish in
Snellville. The family moved an
old house onto an acre of
property next to the home of
Betty’s parents, Joe and Betty
Lyuch, and began restoring it.
A mortgage had been approved
with a stipulation that the
Newtons, who had been working
on the house on weekends and
evenings, complete the work
within 30 days.
Three days later, Joey, 12
years old, was out bike riding with
his sisters in the afternoon. There
is dispute over the way it
happened, but in a collision
between a car and the bike, Joey
was critically injured. At the time,
Betty and David Newton were at a
hospital in Tucker, where Mr.
Newton, who works repairing
medical equipment, was
undergoing tests. When they
received word of the accident, he
left the hospital in his pajamas,
and headed for Gwinnett
Community Hospital where Joey
had been taken.
“The doctors kept saying they
didn’t know if Joey was going to
make it,” Mrs. Newton said. He
was rushed into surgery. Within an
hour and a half, friends began to
arrive at the hospital. That was a
night in June, and the support
which began then, from the parish
men’s and women’s clubs, from
friends and strangers, has carried
the family, and, according to
those in Snellville, drawn together
the parish and the community.
The first night’s wait lasted
until 4 a.m., when the Newtons
were sent home by the doctors for
a few hours, still unsure whether
Joey would live. Betty remembers
praying with her husband and
then opening the Bible in search
of an answer to their prayers. She
opened to the story of Lazarus. “I
knew from that point on that he
wasn’t going to die. The doctors
didn’t know for a couple of days,
but I was sure. I had my answer.”
While the Newtons stayed at
the hospital’s intensive care unit,
parish families and friends
brought meals to the Lynch
household, where Jamie Lynn and
Janis were staying. The parish
Women’s Club brought food, cake
and coffee to the intensive care
unit waiting room, for the
Newtons and other families with
relatives in the hospital.
Members of the Men’s Club
went out and painted the house.
A friend of the family took two
days off from work and installed a
furnace. Even then, Mrs. Newton
said, the mortgage was nearly lost
when a last minute inspection
showed some painting needed to
be redone. “I called the Men’s
Club. They came out and painted
the trim on ladders with
flashlights so it could pass
inspection the next morning,” she
said. “As far as the house goes, we
would have lost it without them.
They came through like saints.”
In the new 350-family parish,
which will see its first church built
this fall, Joey’s survival and fight
for recovery has been inspiring.
The accident crushed his left
leg, breaking a bone above his
ankle and leaving three and a half
inches of bone missing above the
knee. His shattered elbow had to
be reconstructed in one of five
operations he has had since June.
His collarbone was broken, some
of his teeth were lost and he
received deep gashes on his back
and right leg.
“Joey has really been
courageous,” said Father Terence
Kane, pastor of the parish, who
says that the 12-year-old keeps
him posted on world news these
days, because of the many
(Continued on page 3)
JOEY NEWTON is cheered by a kiss from Mom as he
recuperates at Gwinnett Community Hospital. (Photo by Ken
Dunlap of the Gwinnett Daily News.)
—