Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—The Georgia Bulletin, September 3,1981
The World Of Mother Teresa 99 To Be Rerun
BY HENRY HERX
NEW YORK (NC) - According to producer-director Ann
Petrie, there are other aspects to Mother Teresa’s apostolic
work and spiritual depth than those usually shown by the
media. As an example, she said: “This tiny and
fragile-looking woman is an incredibly dynamic leader with
enormous management ability and sense of organization
extending to her communities in 40 countries around the
globe. That’s one of the things about her I wanted to get on
film.”
Ms. Petrie was talking about her one-hour documentary,
“The World of Mother Teresa,” which premiered on PBS
last January to generally enthusiastic reviews in secular as
well as religious publications - including this one. The
reason she was talking with the press about it just recently
was to help publicize the fact that PBS is rebroadcasting the
program this Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 9 p.m. (In Atlanta, the
show will air on WGTV-Channel 8.)
Women Religious Oppose
MX Missile, Neutron Bomb
INDIANAPOLIS (NC) - At the end of their five-day
meeting more than 500 members of the Leadership
Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) unanimously
resolved to oppose production of the MX missile, the
neutron bomb and other “planned instruments of
destruction.”
In a statement the LCWR also approved committing its
members:
- To be solidly united with the poor and the oppressed;
- To work toward the equality of all people, especially
women, both in church and society;
- To do all in their power to eliminate racism in all its
forms;
-- To dedicate themselves to affirming the right of
self-determination of all peoples, especially those in Latin
America; and
- To work toward equitable distribution of the earth’s
resources for all people.
The Aug. 24-28 meeting in Indianapolis, the 25th
anniversary assembly of the LCWR, focused on social
justice and prophecy.
Installed on the final day of the meeting as LCWR
president for 1981-82, Sister Bette Moslander, a Sister of St.
Joseph of Concordia, Kan., recalled the words of Pope John
Paul II at Hiroshima, Japan: “To remember the past is to
commit oneself to the future.”
“What we have done today,” she told the assembly,
“unanimously charts a new path for us. This does lead us
into wild places, and we should have no illusions about that.
What we have committed ourselves to together is the risking
we have pledged ourselves to. ”
The retiring LCWR president, Sister Clare Fitzgerald, a
School Sister of Notre Dame, described LCWR as an
organization “called, summoned, sent at this moment in 1
history to be a shaping force beyond itself.” In a keynote
address she reminded her listeners that nuns “do not live in a
private sphere away from society.”
Franciscan Sister Lauretta Mather of Milwaukee told the
LCWR members that dehumanization, the legitimization of
evil, violence, fear, idolatry and isolation are major evils
permeating present society and also influencing religious
congregations. She urged the LCWR members to
disassociate themselves from these evils.
All filmmakers hope their works will find a public but
Ms. Petrie feels a special commitment toward this one. She
explained, “Mother allowed me to make this film because
she had something to tell Americans and I owe it to her to
make them aware of that.” If they aren’t, it won’t be any
fault of Ms. Petrie, who has interrupted work on a new
project to organize a sort of one-woman publicity campaign
for the rebroadcast.
Her documentary shows the variety of Mother Teresa’s
work for India’s “poorest of the poor” and how much this
has inspired her co-workers there and around the world. The
Missionaries of Charity - the order of nuns founded by
Mother Teresa - are also shown carrying out their mission in
caring for the lonely and the abandoned, the sick and the
dying.
But what is central to the film, however, is its vivid
portrait of Mother Teresa herself. We see her being honored
with the Nobel Peace Prize and the Star of India but also at
home among her family of nuns, orphans, volunteer
workers and, everywhere, the poor of India. For Ms. Petrie,
getting the scenes of this remarkable woman in spontaneous
action is the film’s greatest accomplishment.
Ms. Petrie gave some examples of what she meant:
“There’s a segment of Mother’s trip to the housing
development financed by her Peace Prize. On the way, we
GETTING READY -- Custodian Paco Diez and
Father Terry Young, principal, have on their minds
the final touches to ready St. Pius X High School
for opening day.
were stopped by a broken bridge but Mother refused to turn
back. She kept talking to the authorities until finally they
let us pass. That is so characteristic of her - she is simply
deaf to negativity.”
Another example Ms. Petrie cited took place at a
ceremony turning over some land donated to Mother Teresa
for a leper community. “She accepted it gratefully in the
name of the lepers but then, before touring the site, she
asked the local bishop if water was available for growing
crops. Told that it wasn’t, she said simply, ‘That won’t do,’
and one felt confident that the deficiency would soon be
remedied.”
These kind of scenes characterize Mother Teresa as
practical and unpretentious as she is dedicated and
determined. If any one scene could be said to sum up what
her film is all about, according to Ms. Petrie it would be the
moment during an interview with Joyce Davidson Susskind
when Mother Teresa suddenly asked the interviewer, “What
did you come here for?”
Without waiting for a response, Mother Teresa answered
her own question: “You have been enriched by coming
here... You have been enriched with something
mysterious for which there is no explanation. I think that
the American people and the European people have much
and that you find that muchness suffocating.”
Even in cold print and in truncated form, that’s a
powerful and sobering statement, something that we need
to hear and reflect on. It is even more forceful in the context
of a film that has introduced us to a very warm and loving
woman whose generosity of spirit is contagious.
Judge Shoob—
(Continued from page 1)
released from the penitentiary and for an additional 226 to
have their cases quickly reviewed for possible release.
Within the last two weeks, some on the list of 155 have left
the penitentiary almost daily, in groups as large as 17 or as
small as two on a given day. They have been resettled with
relatives throughout the country.
The government has until Sept. 8 to review the list of 226
and present Judge Shoob with the names of any it objects to
being released, according to Kevin Conboy, law clerk to
Judge Shoob.
While the federal judge has received criticism from some
quarters for his release order, the six resettlement agencies
expressed their appreciation to him for his “sincere
compassion toward a group suffering apparent injustice.”
The letter to Mayor Jackson expressed assurance that all
those being resettled would be sponsored, either by
individuals, such as relatives, or by an agency.
“The current plans for resettlement of Cuban detainees
released from the federal penitentiary in the Atlanta area
are minimal,” the letter said. “The vast majority of refugees
are already committed to sponsorship in various sections of
the country. We wish to assure you that Atlanta will suffer
no problem from unsponsored refugees and we urge you to
convey this factor as a personal assurance from you to the
public.”
The letter was signed by six voluntary agencies on the
Atlanta Inter-Agency Council for immigration and refugee
services, including the U.S.C.C., represented by Father
Jacob Bollmer, executive director of Catholic Social
Services. The other agencies represented were Church World
Service, International Rescue Committee, Lutheran
Immigration and Refugee Service, World Relief Refugee
Services and the Hebrew Immigrant Aide Society.
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—
FREEDOM’S EMBRACE - Cuban exile
Roberto Paez, left, buries his face in the arms of a
relative moments after arriving at Miami
International Airport. Paez was released from the
Atlanta Federal Penitentiary where he had spent
more than a year in custody after reaching the U.S.
in the 1980 Freedom Boatlift.
Pope Condemns
Synagogue Attack
BY FATHER KENNETH DOYLE
VATICAN CITY (NC) ~ Calling it a “bloody and absurd
act” Pope John Paul II sharply condemned the Aug. 29
terrorist attack on a synagogue in Vienna, Austria.
In a telegram from papal secretary of state Cardinal
Agostino Casaroli to Cardinal Franz Konig of Vienna,
released by the Vatican Aug. 31, the pope asked to have his
concern conveyed to families of the attack victims.
Two persons were killed and about 20 injured by the
bomb-throwing, automatic pistol-toting terrorists. Those
killed were a 68-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman who
died while shielding a friend’s young son.
Vienna police arrested two alleged attackers at the scene.
The next day they arrested six other persons who they said
were found in an apartment rented by one of the attackers.
Police said literature and banners of the Palestine
Liberation Organization were found in the apartment, but
PLO officials in Beirut, Lebanon, deplored the attack and
denied responsibility for it.
Cardinal Casaroli’s telegram to Cardinal Konig said, “His
Holiness is near in prayer with the pain and suffering of the
victims and firmly condemns this new bloody and absurd
act, which assails the Jewish community in Austria and the
entire world.”
Two hundred Jews were concluding a Sabbath bar
mitzvah service in the synagogue when the terrorists struck.
On Aug. 30 Vatican Radio also scored the attack, saying
that it could have been inspired either by the will “to
impede a peaceful solution to the Middle Eastern problem”
or by a “new wave of that same anti-Semitism that has
provoked so much mourning through the centuries.”
Focusing on what it called the futility of such actions,
Vatican Radio said that “this tormented world of ours can
save itself only if men, all men, learn to talk among
themselves, to understand each other, and finally to love
and help one another.”
MX Missile—
(Continued from page 1)
of crisis, and would force
the Soviet Union to
develop its own more
deadly and sophisticated
nuclear missile system.
Episcopal Bishop
William Frey of Colorado
called the MX system
“totally irrational” and
noted that Archbishop
Robert Runcie of
Canterbury, England, had
earlier this year told a
Washington audience that
the “just war” theory
cannot apply to nuclear
weapons because of their
indiscriminate nature.
The only good thing to
come out of the MX
proposal, he said, has been
the heightened ecumenical
relations among the
Catholics, Episcopalians
and Protestants opposed to
the weapon.
A representative of the
Nevada Cattlemen’s
Association opposed the
MX because of its potential
for destroying the livestock
industry of Nevada and
Utah, and a representative
of Friends of the Earth, an
environmental group, said
its construction could lead
to another dust bowl.
Others also opposed the
MX on the grounds that the
nation’s economy cannot
withstand the shock of
such massive spending,
which could be put to
better use shoring up the
country’s economic and
social security.
The MX (for “missile
experimental”) is a
land-based mobile nuclear
missile system which would
be aimed at the Soviet
Union. While the number
of missiles would be
relatively few, they would
be hidden in a number of
silos making it impossible
to know which silos would
have to be destroyed in
order to completely cripple
the system.
AS
%"
INDIAN MUSIC - Singers from Santa Clara
Pueblo lead community singing at a session of the
42nd Tekakwitha Indian Conference in
Albuquerque, N.M. More than 1,000 Indians and
non-Indians attending the conference passed a
resolution calling for the appointment of an
American Indian bishop.