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Ireland: Yesterday And Today
BY MONSIGNOR NOEL C. BURTENSHAW
Mr. Frank Sheridan, an Information Officer at the Embassy of Ireland in Washington,
D.C. was interviewed by Monsignor Noel Burtenshaw for this St. Patrick’s Day issue of
The Georgia Bulletin, on the political and economic state of Ireland today. Mr. Sheridan
was bom in Co. Longford in Ireland. He is married and the father of two children.
Msgr. B.; This is the 60th year of Irish Independence. What kind of
economic progress has been made since 1921?
Mr. Sheridan: The Ireland of 1921 and the Ireland of 1981 are two
completely different pictures. When the nation began, the economy was in
shambles. We are an agricultural nation and at the same time in need of foreign
investment for our industrial projects. Good programs of foreign investment
really did not begin until the sixties. Sean Lemass, then Prime Minister, set up
his program of industrial incentives. They were tax reliefs given to companies
from nations like Germany, France, Japan and the U.S. North American
companies have very heavy investments in Ireland. In the last five years U.S.
companies have brought $3.6 billion into Irish industrial projects.
Then, of course, a huge change took place in Ireland in 1973. We entered
the European Common Market. This was a key boost for our agriculture and
for industries, and also for expanding programs, like our fisheries. We have had
to modernize, become more efficient to properly compete and also to be
prepared for the future as this European Community grows.
B: What is the population of Ireland?
S: In the Republic (26 counties) it is 3.4 million. Northern Ireland (6
counties) has about another 1.6 million. In total then about 5 million today.
However it should be noted that Ireland has the fastest growing population
in Europe today and most encouraging of all, one half of Ireland’s population
is under 25 years old.
B: What percentage of the working force is unemployed?
S: Eleven per cent, that is over 100,000. Ireland, like most of Europe, like
most of the world, is suffering from the awful struggle with inflation. Oil prices
are the problem, they are simply causing a world recession. But our present
unemployment figures are previously unprecedented. Very high indeed.
B: What is the status of emigration?
S: Happily we can say it is zero. There is almost no emigration. In fact many
who had left have returned. The statistics are as follows, 100,000 men and
women who had gone to other nations since 1940, have now returned to live in
Ireland. The reasons are a better economy at home, more opportunity and a
real desire by Irishmen and women to be a part of our new nation. We are
“home-birds” you know. Despite the rain, we love to be at home!
B: Has Ireland today a good educational system?
S: It compares well to the system in the U.S. The standard is high.
Secondary education is now free. And over 10 per cent of those graduating
from high school go to the University or the equivalent - for example teachers
training colleges. What is most impressive is the fact that we have a literacy rate
that is 98 per cent.
B: Has Ireland got a system of socialized medicine, education and welfare
equivalent to that of Great Britain?
S: The Irish system is unique. It is somewhere between the British and the
U.S. systems. It offers a piece of both to our people. All workers and
employers must pay into the system - then social services are provided, if there
is need. We have good senior-citizen programs and pensions and good
hospitalization and medical care for the low income. But those who are not in
need of the service do not benefit.
B: Is Ireland a nation at war?
S: No. We are not at war. There is an “intercommunal conflict.” In three
quarters of the country, life goes on as normal. But most Irish people of every
faith would like to see this conflict solved. The trouble, for the most part, is
confined to the tiny northeast section called Ulster. Ireland by the way, north
and south, is an island only 300 miles long by one hundred wide. (The whole
nation is smaller than the State of Georgia.)
B: The position of Britain on the problem of Northern Ireland is this. When
the population of Northern Ireland votes to be reunited with the rest of the
(Continued on page 6)
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Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 19 No. 11
Thursday, March 12,1981
$8.00 per year
MERCY KILLING
Living Wills
Open The Door
BY MARJORIE L. DONOHUE
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (NC) - An
expert on medical-moral issues
criticized what he described as the
growing public approval of legalizing
voluntary euthanasia through formal
requests to terminate one’s life.
Father Donald McCarthy of the
Pope John XXIII Medical Moral
Research Center of St. Louis
addressed a workshop sponsored by
the Archdiocese of Miami’s Respect
Life Office on euthanasia and
prolonging life.
Expressing “grave difficulties”
with the trend to provide “living
wills” and other legislation to
terminate life, Father McCarthy said
there must be a distinction between
the gross neglect of the sick and
suffering and acceptable and
responsible decisions to avoid
medical procedures no longer
considered good and appropriate
medical care.
“Those persons in our society
who advocate voluntary mercy
killing are advocating a policy which
will compromise the right to life,
since even those who voluntarily give
up that life are contributing toward
an undermining of the right itself,”
he said. “It is the belief of many of
us both in religious and secular
traditions that we do not have that
kind of total dominion over our
human life that we can give it up at
our own choice,” he said.
He said that people who might
otherwise condone mercy killing
realize that it would also undermine
“society’s commitment to care for
innocent human beings” and protect
them. “Voluntary euthanasia leads to
involuntary euthanasia among people
who are handicapped and unable to
express their choice - who become
victims of a social analysis or
4 MAYOR JACKSON
“Atlanta Is Being T ested”
BROTHER-SISTER teams walked off with
two of the top prizes in Immaculate Heart of
Mary’s “Fair Of The Sciences,” showing there is
more to siblings than rivalry. Above, Marianna
judgment that their lives are not
worth living,” the priest warned.
Father McCarthy added that
society cannot say it is “always
permissible” to allow someone to die
or that it is “never permissible.” He
cited the case of Karen Quinlan, who
following an accident had been kept
alive in a comatose state by a
respirator. It was thought she would
die when her respirator was removed,
he said. “She was beyond medical
treatment,” the priest continued. “If
she had died those who allowed her
to die, such as her parents and her
physician, would not have been
guilty of gross neglect or of some
actions equivalent to mercy killing.”
Court decisions in the Quinlan
case and in other cases in the United
(Continued on page 6)
and Paul Lee, seventh and sixth graders, with
their first-place exhibit. For the other family
team, see page 8.
BY GRETCHEN KEISER
The child wasn’t there, but his
name, Curtis Walker, was on people’s
lips even before the mayor started to
speak.
Looking out at the 1,200 seated
Saturday morning in the Peachtree
Plaza ballroom, Mayor Maynard
Jackson said it was “reassuring” to
see so many gathered for the annual
breakfast of Atlanta’s Christian
Council.
“Sometimes,” he said, “one
knows, but, needs to be reminded,
that the faith is strong.”
Coming right after the headlines
in the morning paper, saying the
body of Curtis Walker, 13, had been
found, the comments didn’t need to
be explained. But, Mayor Jackson,
and the two keynote speakers at the
breakfast, Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum
and the Reverend Andrew Young,
grappled with the side that isn’t
much publicized: what the eyes of
faith might see in the numbing count
of children killed in Atlanta.
“I know what our plan is here in
Atlanta ... I know that our plan is
to find whomever’s responsible and
to pray we will be allowed to
forgive,” the mayor said. “I do not
know what God’s plan is for
Atlanta ...”
But he voiced his speculation that
“maybe Atlanta is being tested in
this time of awful, awful tragedy in
order to make us see what is going on
in the streets of our city.”
What is going on in Atlanta, and
in every American city, is “the
phenomenon called street children,”
he said, who are born of a people
“crushed by poverty,” Out trying to
earn money, these children “find
themselves sadly, tragically
vulnerable,” he said.
The mayor also asked whether the
“true unity” of Atlanta’s religious
community wasn’t being tested.
“When the tragedy subsides are we
going to keep the faith and stay
together?”
In a dialogue on “reconciliation,”
Rabbi Tanenbaum and Reverend
Young alternated at the microphone,
(Continued on page 6)
St. Patrick's Day Celebrations
On Tuesday, March 17, the feast of St. Patrick, Archbishop Thomas A.
Donnellan will be principal celebrant and homilist at a Mass celebrated at
the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The Mass will take place at 10
a.m. and the priests of the Archdiocese will concelebrate. Members of the
Atlanta Hibernian Society and their families will attend and cordially invite
others to be present also.
Following the Mass, the Archbishop along with the Hibernian Society,
will place a wreath at the Father Thomas O’Reilly monument at City Hall.
Lunch will then be served at the Garden Room in the Georgia Plaza.
Reservations may be made by calling 885-1219 or 476-2994.
Following lunch, Archbishop Donnellan will accompany the Hibernian
Society to Oakland Cemetery where he will bless the Hibernian Memorial.
At 2 p.m. the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade will take place down
Peachtree Street, beginning at Ralph McGill Boulevard.
Sixteen band groups, colorful floats, clowns, doggers, beauty queens,
twirlers, jugglers, local media personalities, Irish setters and wolfhounds and
Irish, Scottish, Spanish and Panamanian dancers join many groups,
businesses and individuals throughout the metro area in saluting the Irish
patron saint.
Grand marshal is the zany Bill Tush of TV-17 and honorary grand
marshal is John “Irish” Hourihan, a devoted, long-time member of the
Hibernian Benevolent Sodety, parade sponsors. The parade is the
twenty-sixth consecutive annual march to be held by the Irish society. Any
profits from the parade go to charity, this year to Our Lady of Perpetual
Help Free Cancer Home. Hibernians will have an elaborate float in the
parade, with young lassies aboard wearing authentic old Irish gowns in forty
shades of green. The costumes were researched and made by Hibernian
Olivia Walker, with her sister June Scribner. -NCB
CURSILLO MOVEMENT )
A Pilot Program
For Non-Catholics
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (NC) - The national Cursillo Movement has begun
a pilot program of evangelization of non-Catholics, called Arise.
The program, which takes its name from the Scripture-based song, “Arise,
Come to Your God,” is directed at the unchurched who are searching to know
God better and to members of other churches who want to learn about the
Catholic Church, said Gerald P. Hughes, national coordinator of the Cursillo
Movement.
The aim of the Cursillo (from a Spanish word meaning “little course”)
Movement, said Hughes in an interview in St. Petersburg, “is to produce leaders
for the church,” Catholics who take their commitment to the faith seriously.
“But occasionally you run across people who are not Catholic but are
interested in learning” about the church, he said. “Arise is a vehicle to help
people who are searching.”
The first three-day Arise weekend, Feb. 5-8, for men, drew 20 participants
to the St. Petersburg diocesan Cursillo Center at Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Parish in Tampa, Fla. A second, for women, is to be held there April 23-26.
The Cursillo Movement, which originated in Spain in 1949 and was
introduced into the United States in 1957, is a program of renewal which uses
a three-day weekend to reacquaint Catholics with the church’s doctrine and to
provide them with an intensive experience of Christian community.
The Arise program also uses a three-day weekend of prayer, community
experience and presentations by a team of two priests and 14 laymen to
examine the Catholic Church’s history and doctrine.
The weekend, Hughes said, ends with a question, “Where do we go from
here?” and a suggestion, “You make a move.” For some participants, he said,
the move may be back to a different religious tradition to which they once
belonged; for others, the move may be into the Catholic Church. If the
participant is interested in the Catholic Church, Arise team members direct him
to inquiry classes in local parishes.
A Time To Hear The Word
BY FATHER JAMES F. KELLY
The key to much of our
learning is to ask the right
questions, or to be asked the
right questions. To illustrate
these insights into our human
learning there comes to mind
a memorable story that is
found in the comic strip
“Peanuts.”
The scene is set on the
first day of school and
Peppermint Patty (who, as
we all know, is not noted for
astuteness) is seated at her
desk. The teacher has just
asked Patty the question of
the day and, for Patty, this
question is obviously a
difficult one. Peppermint
Patty says to her teacher:
‘ ‘Could you rephrase that
question, or on second
thought, would there be
another question you would
like to ask in place of that
question? On third thought,
could I go out and come
back in and start all over
again?”
Many questions we are
asked, or even ask ourselves,
could put us in the same
embarrassing situation as our
small heroine, Peppermint
Patty. We would like the
questions rephrased,
replaced, or we would simply
like to start over again. The
question I’m asking here is:
where do we hear the Word
of God? Where in our lives,
on this journey of faith as
Christian Catholics, do we
hear the Word of God? Not
just hear with our ears, but
to hear, to listen, in an active
learning way, to hear with
our whole being. To hear
“the Word” so it will reach
to the core of where we live.
Hearing the Word of God so
that this word nourishes our
lives, fills us with hope and
deepens our faith in the God
who reveals Himself to us.
The Father who sent to us
the living word in Jesus; the
Word made flesh. (John
1:1-18)
Together, for this short
time, ask yourself the
question and together we can
seek a response.
Well, you say, to hear the
Word of God we need to read
the word, study the Bible,
pray with the Scriptures.
That seems familiar, and
obvious. We have spent space
and time in these past weeks,
looking at Biblical issues. It’s
just vital for us as Christian
Catholic adults and youth to
study this Word of God, to
participate in our Parish
Adult Bible Study, to pray in
groups and in our families
with the Word of God.
Much more could be said
about adult education in the
Bible. However, I would like
to reflect with you on that
part of the Mass we call the
Liturgy of the Word. Here is
an obvious time that the
Word of God is proclaimed
for us to hear, to listen, to
take into our lives.
Each Sunday, in 54
parishes and missions of the
Church of Atlanta, the Word
of God is proclaimed: Isaiah,
Hosea, Jeremiah, Genesis,
Letters of Paul, Matthew,
Mark, Luke, John, are read in
the context of the
community of Church at this
special time of the Liturgy of
the Word. How well do we
celebrate? How meaningful is
the experience? How well do
we listen? Do we hear the
Word of God?
“In the readings the
treasures of the Bible are
opened
to the people; this is the
table of God’s word.’’
(General introduction from
the Roman Missal)
The Liturgy of the Word
(Continued on page 6)