Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 2—The Georgia Bulletin, March 26,1981
Parish: Top Priority
ROSEMONT, Ill. (NC) - The church’s number one
priority should be the spiritual renewal of the parish,
Bishop Albert H. Ottenweller of Steubenville, Ohio., said.
Father Richard McBrien called the parish “the church
in a particular place.”
Father McBrien and Bishop Ottenweller were among
the speakers at the annual Great Lakes Pastoral Ministry
Gathering in Rosemont, which was attended by about
1,200 religious educators.
Father McBrien, chairman of Notre Dame University’s
theology department, was keynote speaker at the
conference. “As we understand the church, so we
understand the parish, because the parish is a church in a
particular place,” he said.
He defined the church by using Vatican II documents
which call it “a gathering of people who confess Jesus
as . . .Lord” who are summoned by “proclamation of the
word of God and in response to the word.”
He said response to the word was expressed through the
sacraments, “especially in baptism and the Eucharist,”
and that people share “a corporate responsibility for the
application of the Gospel” to the situation around them.
An appreciation of what the church is becomes
essential to determining and carrying out its mission, the
theologian said.
The parish, he said, like the universal church “exists to
proclaim that God’s kingdom found expression in Christ
and that that kingdom will be brought to perfection in
him through the power of the Holy Spirit.” It tells people
they must be liberated from sin and death, he said.
The parish proclaims the promise of the Gospel, applies
that to the human situation and works with the Gospel to
“penetrate and transform” its surroundings, Father
McBrien said.
To accomplish this a wide range of ministries are
needed, he said “Our regard for the quality of ministry
will be as high or low as our regard for the mission of the
church itself. To settle for less in ministry is to settle for
less in mission.”
Father McBrien said ministers must be able to
communicate and have “the social and cultural awareness
needed to deal with practical realities.” He said the prime
role of pastors is not a “one-on-one counseling
relationship” but “to coordinate and orchestrate all the
gifts and charisms of a local church so they work as one
for the good of the whole.”
Pastors and particularly bishops, he said, need “the
specific leadership capacity to support and encourage” as
well as a sense of public presence.
Bishop Ottenweller, chairman of the bishops’
Committee on the Laity, suggested that some other
church programs be put aside “so we can do what the
Lord wants done today” and renew the parish.
Many of the secondary programs are not operating very
well, he said. They succeed “on national and diocesan
levels but when we get down to the parish - that’s when
we fail,” the bishop continued.
“The reason we fail is because the basic structure of
the parish is not built to do what we want it to,” he
stated.
The bishop said the parish is “a process not a program”
that involves “conversion of clergy, laity and Religious”
while developing strong lay leadership. He predicted new
emphasis on the individual spiritual development.
Some parish communities are like “groups of children”
when ministers take the role of adults and where “we call
the ministers ‘father.’ This makes ministry a ‘descending
event’ from superiors to inferiors,” said James Whitehead,
who addressed the group. His wife Evelyn also spoke. The
Whiteheads are on the faculty of Loyola University’s
graduate school in Chicago.
The transition from child to adult requires a shift in
authority and a move away from the dependence
generated by a superior-inferior relationship, Whitehead
said.
“Many people are pleased to remain children. They do
not want the stress and distress of adult life . . .and want
you to be a parent to them.” Whitehead added.
But maturity requires a faith community to come into
its own life, and authority begins to move within the
community itself, he said. While remaining a part of the
church, the group becomes “independent” and it is
precisely its independence that makes it “dependable,” he
stated.
Although emergence to adulthood on the part of most
parishes is “most gradual,” he said, “the transition is
necessary if we are to move from ‘our’ body to the ‘body
of Christ.’”
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The day began with
Mass at the Immaculate
Conception Church.
Archbishop Thomas A.
Donnellan was principal
c o ncelebrant and
homilist. The
congregation showed
signs of brilliant kelly
green and the Irish
Tri-color along with Old
Glory was carried in the
procession.
Father O’Reilly’s
Memorial was the next
stop. A floral wreath was
placed at that hallowed
Irish spot and a prayer
was offered by Hibernian
Chaplain, Father Peter
Ludden.
Lunch was next at the
Garden Room. Songs
were sung and dances
were danced as the
celebration warmed up.
The Hibernian Plot at
Oakland Cemetery was
visited next as the Irish
remembered their dead.
Finally the great
parade rolled down
Peachtree in bright
Atlanta sunshine. It was
indeed a great day for
the Irish (of every
nationality).
A WREATH is placed at the memorial to
Father Thomas O’Reilly by Archbishop
Donnellan and Peter O’Reilly. Peter, who hails
from County Kildare in Ireland, is the
great-grandnephew of the famous priest. He is
studying for a doctral degree at Georgia Tech.
LOOK AT THOSE SMILING Irish eyes!
Beautiful coleens gather around the Archbishop
as they prepare to join the parade down
Peachtree on St Patrick’s Day. (Photos by
Burtenshaw)
Around Atlanta
International Supper
The annual International Supper sponsored by the Ss.
Peter and Paul Women’s Council was held March 10. Lucy
Rooney and Helen Matteson, International Affairs
chairpersons, coordinated the affair and Lee McCumes
decorated the parish hall for the evening.
Dishes from many countries served 125 guests. Uyval
Metser, permanent member of the Israeli Consulate, came
with slides of the Holy Land. Peggy Pettit, a parishioner
who had visited the Holy Land, helped to narrate.
Aldona Bosman shared her Lithuanian heritage by
teaching a folk dance and Don Tibbs, a former member of
the Peace Corps, shared slides and artifacts from Nigeria.
Thomas Rooney was on hand to show slides of northern
Ireland and David Pothier offered slides of France.
Civic Oration Contest
“My Most Admired and Respected Individual Is .. is
the topic students will use as they prepare their entries for
the Archdiocesan Schools Civic Oration Contest.
The competition will be sponsored by Modern
Woodmen of America at Christ the King School on
Tuesday, April 7, at 7:30 p.m.
The winner will receive a $50 U.S. Savings Bond and an
individual trophy. First and second runners-up will receive
tropies and all entrants will receive commemorative
pennants.
Entrants in the Archdiocesan Schools contest will have
already competed in their own schools.
ITC Head Chosen
Dr. James Deotis Roberts, a theologian and educator
was inaugurated March 20 as the fourth president of The
Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.
The ITC was chartered in 1958 as an ecumenical
venture in graduate professional theological education
with the added dimension of the Black religious
perspective. It is interracial, intercultural and international
as well as interdenominational under the sponsorship of
six major denominations.
Dr. Roberts was honored by Ebony Magazine in its
1980 American Black Achievement Award selections in
the field of religion as a recognition of his more than 25
years in theological education as a teacher, administrator,
scholar, author and spokesman. He began his ministry in
1948 as a Baptist pastor, but moved quickly into an
academic career which included professorships at Shaw
University and Howard University School of Religion, and
administrative positions as dean of religion at Georgia
Baptist College, dean of the Virginia Union University
School of Tehology, director of Religious Life and
Activities at Shaw University, and co-director of the
Annual Conference of Black Theologians, Collegeville,
Minn. At Howard, from which he came to ITC, he also
edited the JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
Reforming The Food Stamp Program
WASHINGTON (NC) - Of all the proposals contained
in the Reagan administration’s budget, the one that
probably has evoked the greatest response has been the
plan to make major cuts in the food stamp programs.
Religious groups which traditionally have fought
proposals to trim the program are rising up again in the
hopes that the Reagan food stamp cuts can be quashed in
Congress.
This year’s food stamp proposals are also significant
because they come in a year when the entire food stamp
program is, by coincidence, up for reauthorization,
meaning that Congress has the opportunity to make major
revisions that probably will stay in place for the next few
years.
But what exactly is the administration proposing? And
what have the church groups and others been arguing in
response?
The administration’s plans call for a “targeted” reform
of the food stamp program as part of its broader effort to
remove from the benefit rolls those individuals who, it
believes, do not need or deserve the amount of federal
assistance they have been receiving.
The $1.8 billion food stamp cut - from a projected
level in 1982 of $12.5 billion down to $10.7 billion -
would be part of a larger savings of $4 billion planned for
the whole spectrum of federal nutrition programs.
Though the administration lists six separate changes it
wants to make in the food stamp program, two major
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reforms call for setting new, generally lower income limits
for food stamp eligibility and eliminating overlapping
food stamp and free school meal subsidies.
According to the administration, under current law
some families with incomes in excess of $14,000 are
eligible for food stamp assistance. The new plan calls for
limiting eligibility to gross incomes of 130 percent of the
poverty line, about $11,000 for a family of four.
That plus other changes in the way food stamp
eligibility is computed, the administration says, would
eliminate from the program families which, while perhaps
temporarily unemployed, might not need food stamps
because they have not had low incomes over a sustained
period of time.
Probably more controversial is the idea to lower food
stamp aid to families which have children receiving
subsidized lunches at school.
The administration contends that the food stamp
program was designed with the assumption that three
meals would be prepared at home for each family
member. Children who also are fed at school thus in effect
are being subsidized for four meals a day.
While the administration says its plans would result in
only minor adjustments to the program, religious groups
argue that 35 percent of all households would lose more
than $5 per month in benefits and that five percent of all
households would be cut out of the program entirely.
Lowering the income limits for eligibility, they argue,
would eliminate from the program many families which,
after paying high medical or utility bills, have just as little
cash remaining for food as do families far below the
poverty line.
Also being strongly criticized is an administration plan
to base benefits on income during a prior period, through
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“retrospective” accounting, rather than on current need.
While the administration says such a plan would help
eliminate erroneous payments or inaccurate eligibility
determinations, opponents contend it would have the
effect of forcing families with sudden income losses,
through death or layoff, to wait from one to three months
before qualifying for food stamps.
As for the reductions for families with children
receiving free school lunches, even some of its backers
now admit that computing such deductions would be a
bureaucratic nightmare for a program already burdened
with complicated regulations. Food stamp proponents
also argue that it is wrong to assume that families with full
food stamp benefits can get three solid meals per day and
note that benefits would be lowered even for days when
the child does not receive the meal at school because he is
sick at home.
How many of the administration’s food stamp
proposals make it through the congressional gauntlet
remain to be seen. Even the administration privately
admits that enactment of the complete package is highly
unlikely.
Administration officials said in preliminary budget
documents which were leaked to the press before the
package was unveiled in Februray that such proposals as
the gross income limits likely would be approved, but
admitted that the school lunch offset and the
retrospective accounting “may be more difficult.”
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