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The Georgia Bulletin
July 23,1981
A Chapter Closes
The work at St. Vincent de Paul’s
two centers for children began without
great fanfare. It ended on the special
note kids hit when they’re singing to
their parents.
The graduation ceremony pictured
on the back page also closes a particular
chapter for the Society, which opened
a free center for children of working
parents when none existed in the
Bedford-Pine neighborhood.
The pre-school, opened in 1967, was
followed by the child care center on
North Avenue. Redevelopment,
inflation, and a proliferation of other
centers contributed to the decision to
close the two facilities.
The dedicated work done there was
embodied by the directors Mrs.
Caesar Ree Hubbard at the pre-school
and Valerie Earvin at the child care
center. Their compassionate service
often extended beyond the normal call
of duty.
Beyond saluting them, and all those
who worked at the centers over the
years, if seems important to note the
Society’s pioneering role. The
Vincentians and their supporters were
among the first to recognize the harsh
choices facing poor, single-parent
families. They responded by providing
a free, safe place for children to learn
while their parents worked.
-GRK
The Family As Moral Minority
Dolores Curran
“Dear Dolores Curran: I am writing in
regard to some things I have read recently on
humanism. The information fired me up and I
became concerned about what my children
are being exposed to in their school. In a
nearby area parents are fighting values
clarification and the showing of a film, “The
Lottery.” These people are being labeled as
the Moral Majority, but I share their
viewpoint and I don’t think it’s because I am a
fanatic. Am I overreacting to what I read or do
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
July 26,1981
THE
THIS
ORD
W EEKEND
1 Kings 3:5,7-12
Romans 8: 28-30
Matthew 13: 44-52
Paul Karnowski
When we were children, the arrival of the
Sears Christmas catalogue started us wishing.
As we flipped through the pages we busily
concocted a fantasy wish-list in our heads.
This secret list contained more toys and games
than we could ever use ~ even if we played
until we were ninety.
As we grew older, the wish-list of the
impossible didn’t magically disappear with
adulthood. The content of the list has
changed and, while the emphasis is no longer
on Christmas, the dreams linger on. Instead of
erector sets, Lincoln logs, and Barbie dolls, we
now wish for more “mature” things. Things
such as a long and healthy life. Enough money
to quit our jobs and work for ourselves.
Maybe we entertain fantasies about the
sudden disappearance of an adversary at the
office. Perhaps we simply wish for a couple of
extra hours in the day. Whatever the content
of our personal wish-list, we sadly realize that
only a direct intervention by God could fulfill
most of our dreams.
In today’s first reading we listen to a story
of divine intervention. It seems that Solomon
has just succeeded his father, King David, to
the throne. While he was sleeping one night,
God appeared to him and said, “Ask
something of me and I will give it to you.” It
was an open-ended offer, a divine blank
check. Surely Solomon had his wish-list like
the rest of us. What flashed through his mind?
There were certainly a few political enemies
he could do without. Enormous wealth would
be advantageous in dealing with other
countries. Or maybe a long and glorious reign
would be in order.
But Solomon asks for none of these things.
He tells God that he would like “an
understanding heart” and an ability to
“distinguish right from wrong.” He asks God
for wisdom: the vision to see things the way
that God sees them.
Scripture tells us that the Lord was pleased
with Solomon’s choice. But why? Maybe it’s
because God has a wishlist, too. And maybe
He dreams about the day that all of us ask to
share in His wisdom.
NCCB President’s Statement On O’Connor Nomination
(ST. PAUL, Minn. (NC) ~ The following is a
commentary Archbishop John R. Roach of St.
Paul-Minneapolis, president of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote in his regular
column, titled “Peace" in the Catholic Bulletin,
archdiocesan newspaper, about the nomination of
Judge Sandra O ’Connor to the Supreme Court.)
The nomination by President Reagan of
Sandra O’Connor for the vacancy on the
Supreme Court has created intense reaction
both positive and negative.
Observers of the political scene are
describing the president’s choice of Judge
O’Connor as “incredibly smart politics.”
Certainly President Reagan did something
which no other president in history has done
in nominating a woman to that high post. Not
only is such an appointment a confirmation of
one of President Reagan’s campaign promises,
but it is long overdue. It is also concrete
recognition of the fact that there are women
at least as well qualified as men for
appointment to the court.
Judge O’Connor is described as politically
moderate and close to the center of the
Republican Party. Her appointment is a
telling answer to the charge that the current
administration is heavily skewed to the right
in its appointments.
It also offers, at least in the minds of many
columnists, proof positive that the Moral
Majority has less influence with the president
than some would have you believe.
The negative reaction to Judge Sandra
O’Connor’s appointment is based pretty
much on her softness on the abortion issue.
On that subject, there are some facts in her
voting record in Arizona which can’t be
ignored.
In 1970, she voted twice in the Arizona
Senate in favor of a bill to legalize abortion.
Secondly, in 1974, she voted twice against a
memorialization which would have asked
Congress to pass a human life amendment.
One of these votes was in committee and the
second vote was in caucus.
Also, in 1974, she voted against a bill
which would have prohibited the
performance of abortion at the University of
Arizona hospitals. Those are facts and they
may or may not be of sufficient import to
make her appointment to the court
inappropriate but they are a part of her record
- part of her record - and obviously they
trouble those of us who are pro-life.
Archbishop Roach
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What bothers the pro-life people more than
anything else is the feeling that the pro-life
cause has been had by the administration.
When Dr. Carolyn Gerster, a national
anti-abortion activist and a prominent
physician in Arizona, met with candidate
Reagan in New York in January of 1980, he
promised her that his first appointment to the
court would be committed to their mutual
anti-abortion views. That conversation placed
against Judge O’Connor’s voting record in the
Arizona Senate is a little hard to reconcile.
There are some factors which complicate
this appointment. It would be easier, for
example, to deal with the appointment, if we
were talking about a man rather than Sandra
O’Connor. I can’t think of anyone who would
not applaud the president for appointing a
qualified woman to the court.
The high visibility of the Moral Majority in
this debate is another complication. The
Moral Majority has a right to argue its case as
vigorously as another group. The right of
people of similar political philosophy to join
hands and lobby for their own causes is
precious in our American tradition. The
media, on the other hand, have seized upon
this as an example of the irresponsible
one-issue activity by the Moral Majority and
have tended to identify the whole pro-life
cause as a Moral Majority cause.
Most of us who have been fighting the war
for a life are not members of the Moral
Majority and as a matter of fact, we were
waging this battle before anyone had heard of
the Moral Majority. God knows we appreciate
the support of (the Rev. Jerry) Falwell and
the Moral Majority but we do not want the
credibility of the pro-life issue to be damaged
by that association in the media.
The National Conference of Catholic
Bishops made direct and lengthy approaches
to President Reagan when it became clear that
Judge O’Connor was a serious candidate for
nomination and when we found that her
record in Arizona on the pro-life issue was
questionable.
The president has assured us and the nation
that he has determined that her position on
abortion is not incompatible with his own or
with the Republican platform. The president
has a right to make that judgment.
On the other hand, very wisely, there is a
two-months period between nomination and
appointment to the court. That gives an
opportunity for a fairly thorough
investigation into a person’s background and
qualifications to occupy that high office.
The pro-life groups in the United States
should be respectful of the right of President
Reagan to nominate Judge O’Connor. They
must also insist that there be consistency
between the promises made in the campaign
and the record of the nominee.
Should Judge O’Connor be confirmed
after appropriate hearings, I would hope that
it would be because the right questions were
asked. The decisions that the Supreme Court
will have to make during Judge O’Connor’s
tenure concerning life issues are too
important to have anything less than a full
disclosure of her past record and her current
philosophy on human life.
you think there should be some real
concern?”
Dear Judy: Thank you for your cogent
letter. I think many share your dilemma. How
serious is the value-laden curricula our
children are being taught?
All I can do is give my personal perspective.
I feel the Moral Majority people are
dangerous. They grasp on a normal fear and
blow it out of proprotion. They are often
contradictory, i.e., they decry values
clarification in one breath and ask for less
atheistic, more moral education in the next.
I, too share your feeling on some of these
fears, especially the influence of television
and some of the images our children are
receiving. I opt for more censorship there —
but it is going to be my censorship, not theirs.
I am not going to be made to feel that I have to
agree with all their positions on war,
censorship, family, and women just because
they call themselves the Moral Majority.
I believe many of us are moral and I believe
we are in the majority, but I don’t believe in
the Moral Majority. Why not? Because they
operate out of fear and despair, and we, as
Christians, operate on hope and the
Resurrection. We are people of hope, not
despair. We look for the good in people, not
the evil that the MM pronounces upon those
who disagree with their stands politically,
educationally, socially or religiously.
I taught The Lottery as literature years ago
when I was teaching sophomores. It teaches a
lot of good moral lessons, especially the
age-old temptation of peoples to find a
scapegoat for their problems and
shortcomings. Is that an unacceptable value?
If so, then what we are all about as Christians
needs some reexamination.
I don’t mean to sermonize, but I get angry
when a group like the MM destroys parental
confidence and faith. Use your good parental
sense. If you’re modeling good morals and
faith at home, if your children are learning
values from you, you don’t have to be a
watchdog over every book, class, teacher,
film, activity or idea which your children
experience. Like you, they will learn to weigh
and choose their values. The best way for
them to learn to do this is by exposing them to
a variety of ideas and values while they are
living with you, so that they can come home
and discuss them with you.
Far more dangerous, is controlling
everything they do, read, and study for 18
years and then letting them out into an
uncontrolled society without any experience
in choosing and discarding values. The MM
would have us do that. They would censor
everything with which they disagree, even
down to some very good literature.
Good luck. Don’t worry and don’t think
you are overreacting. We all think that at
times. It’s better than apathy.
Keep reading. Peace and prayers, Dolores
Curran.
"CATCHING- A ROTTEN COLP FROM SOMEONE
PURING THE SIGN OF PEACE IS NO REASON
TO LEAVE THE CHURCH, MR. LUMNAGEL-""
Choose Life
Sheila Mallon
A premature infant of six months
gestational age recently made the headlines
throughout the nation. The tiny baby was
delivered in Miami, but the hospital had no
facilities to care for the high-risk infant. Many
calls later, and with help from the federal
government, the child was flown to Talmadge
Memorial Ibspital in Augusta, Georgia.
The media made much of the fact that so
many hospitals had refused care for the child
because the parents were not insured and such
care as the baby required is very expensive.
Truly, this case is an indictment of a society
that is supposedly one of the richest and most
humanitarian in the world.
Even more horrifying is the fact that many
Americans and especially the liberal media
have ignored the fact that this baby lived
because its parents WANTED it to survive. On
the same day that this baby was born, other
babies of the same gestational age were being
killed or (terminated) as the pro-abortion
folks like to term it.
FACT: in Georgia in 1979 (the last year for
which figures are available) there were 1,128
infants killed in one facility in Atlanta alone,
who were above 21 weeks. There were two
abortions in this facility performed for
children from 25 to 36 weeks during the same
time frame. These are only statistics from
ONE facility. The difference between these
children and the child who was delivered in
Miami was that they were not WANTED.
They were victims of abortion.
Americans who casually state that they are
personally opposed to abortion but believe
that women should be free to choose had
better think over that statement carefully.
They are, in fact, refusing to oppose a society
which has allowed in one state alone the
killing of 1,128 babies who had come within
three months of being born normally.
One other chilling fact -- the same facility
whose doctors had legally aborted these
babies had to issue death certificates in 1979
for three infants who had survived for a short
period of time a prostaglandin or saline
abortion. One little boy survived for three
hours and 22 minutes. Unlike the child bom
in Miami, he was not wanted; by law, his
mother was entitled to a dead fetus and so he
was allowed to die.
The clinic where he was delivered still alive
did not move him to a facility with high-risk
care. The cause of death on this certificate
simply states that he succumbed to
cardio-pulmonary deficiency after three
hours and 22 minutes of life.
These are facts which are ugly, horrifying,
painful and TRUE. This is what the
liberalization of abortion has brought us to.
Terrible enough the millions of babies being
aborted by the end of the first trimester but
we MUST face the ugly, cruel fact that babies
in the second and even third trimester are
being killed every day in this city, state and
country.
They are killed because they are not
WANTED, because it is inconvenient to have
them, because it is LEGAL to kill them. This
is what abortion is about. This is what the
Human Life Amendment and the Human Life
Bill oppose. THIS is what we must take a
position upon.
None of us would take the position that a
woman in the process of killing her already
born child was entitled by her “right to
privacy” to perform this heinous act. Why
then does the right to privacy guarantee that
the unborn who are not wanted have no rights
at all? Why? In God’s name why?