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The Georgia Bulletin
October 15,1981
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After Sadat
The tragic assassination of Anwar
Sadat last week stopped the world in its
tracks. He was a key to some kind of
future settlement in that explosive part
of the globe. He dared to give hope. His
vision of co-existence rescued the West
from complete depths of despair and
his opposition to Soviet intrusion
defused many dangerous situations.
However, another bombshell
exploded as two former Presidents
returned from the Cairo funeral. Both
Ford and Carter, almost in a joint
statement, boldly announced that
peace in the Middle East was tied to
some kind of recognition of the
Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO). As all parties have their input on
future settlements and geographic
holdings, said the two leaders, the PLO
must be a part of the final dialogue.
Only from the luxurious position of
an ex-president could one make such a
volatile statement. As elected leaders of
the U.S. and the free world both men
vowed never to recognize Arafat and
company until Israel was acceptable to
the Arab community. Now, freed from
office, both have other thoughts.
The struggle of words and lives has
gone on too long in the Middle East. It
is a no-win situation in its present
condition. Too many bright, talented
leaders have fallen and are lost to the
possibilities ahead. Surely, as many
have insisted, it is high time to settle.
Ford and Carter are absolutely
correct. The PLO representing so many
voices must be a part. But the Israelis
are correct too. They ask for a share of
the neighborhood, a right to be there, a
piece of the glorious existence awaiting
all parties in that land of plenty.
Anwar Sadat was one more tragic
victim. His death tells us that we need
no more popular violence. We need
leaders who will dare as he dared, be
true as he was true and vision as he
visioned that there was simply more
than enough to go around.
-NCB
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“1 take it you have no
confidence in me sir!”
Celebrating
With The Franciscans
Father John Catoir
Director of The Christophers
“Lord, make me an instrument of Your
peace.”
So begins the prayer that we at The
Christophers have made our own. The prayer
is generally attributed to St. Francis of Assisi,
although the authorship is uncertain.
Whatever the case, Franciscans (members
of the religious communities that trace their
roots to him) and friends of the Franciscans
began a year-long observance of the 800th
anniversary of his birth on Oct. 4.
Perhaps it will help to correct the
unfortunate image of St. Francis as some sort
of joyful troubador with nary a care in the
world. In reality, his life was filled with severe
emotional stress and self-doubt as well as
physical pain.
He is known for his simplicity and joy, but
it was a joy hard won through years of
struggle. As a young man he was captured in
military combat and spent a year in prison. At
the time of what is called his conversion, he
broke with his father in a dramatic assertion
of independence, and suffered the pain of
rejection by his own family. When he
embraced poverty, chastity and obedience in
an act of total surrender to God’s will, he left
everything behind to imitate the life of Jesus
as perfectly as he could.
Goodness always seems to be a reproach to
mediocrity; predictably, Francis met with
opposition and strong criticism, even from his
own followers. Division and hostility
characterized the early days of the Franciscan
Movement. While he was still alive, he endured
the terrible feeling of having failed.
In spiritual matters, feelings are not facts.
The vast spiritual legacy of St. Francis is
testimony to that truth. Today there are more
than 100,000 Franciscans in the U.S. alone.
Theme for their anniversary year is “Let us
love and serve the Lord.”
During the year, millions of Franciscans
throughout the world will focus on three
concerns: 1) the development of a respect for
life in all stages, 2) an effort to lead people to
rejoice in the gifts of creation through
conservation and a just distribution and use of
the world’s goods, and 3) the proclamation of
the Gospel.
You can join the Franciscans in their
celebration by making their concerns your
concerns also. Together we do “all to the
glory of God.” (1 Cor. 10:31).
Most Rev. Thomas A. Donnellan - Publisher
Rev. Monsignor Noel C. Burtenshaw — Editor
Gretchen R. Reiser — Associate Editor
Thea K. Jarvis Contributing Editor
Member of the Catholic Press Association
Business Office U S A. *8 00
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Atlanta. Georgia 30308 Foreign *10 00
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Responsibility Means More Than Chores
Dolores Curran
When some parents begin to discuss family
responsibility, they talk only of things like
dishes, lawns and rooms. Others add
homework and part-time jobs. All of these are
part of growing responsibility, of course, but
the strong family adds another dimension:
members are responsible for the feelings of
others as well. There’s an overt concern when
one feels he is being treated unfairly. There’s a
visible reaction to personal moods and a
companion response that says wordlessly,
“I’ll take some responsibility for making you
happier, for making our home a better place.”
In these families, if a person is feeling down
because there’s a loss of job or no prom date
or a failed test, another in the family is likely
to supply some loving strokes. Sometimes
these attempts are funny. A mother shared
that when their eldest son went away to
college, she felt sad and somewhat adrift.
Sensing her feelings, her twelve year-old stuck
close to her for a couple of days.
“He nearly drove me mad,” she confessed.
“Everywhere I went, he followed. When I sat
to read the paper, he just sat next to me, doing
nothing. He was doing his best to make up for
Chuck’s absence but I wanted to tell him to go
out and play.”
Another parent contributed that when he
got a speeding ticket and was feeling angry
about it, his six year-old girl went into the
kitchen and prepared a little tray with a glass
of water, two aspirin and a vase with
dandelions on it. It was her way of accepting
responsibility for soothing his feelings.
In some families, a parent, usually the
mother, is made solely responsible for family
happiness and harmony. Family counselors
speak to this often. “Mothers tend to become
the repository for everyone’s guilt and
mood,” said one. “Some mothers become the
family’s peacemaker simply because their
mothers served this role.”
She mentioned as an example a mother
who kept lists everywhere to insure fairness.
There was a list on the refrigerator
documenting who was last to do dishes — even
one in the glove compartment of the car
stating who sat near the windows last. Instead
of giving her children the experience of
getting along together, she removed this
opportunity from them by assuming it.
A family pastoral counselor sketched the
kind of life these mothers live. “They feel
guilty all the time. If two siblings are
squabbling, the mother doesn’t make them
responsible for healing the quarrel but steps
between them and argues with them. It
becomes her responsibility. After awhile,
children begin to assume that she’s
responsible for their anger, their behavior,
their guilt and their bad moods. They imply
that she’s at fault somehow for their poor
performance on a test, maybe because she
didn’t get them up in time to study or maybe
for no reason at all. She becomes the family
scapegoat — she gets dumped on by
everyone.”
Parents in healthy families don’t permit
this. They seem to be able to foster an
atmosphere that says clearly to one another
and to their children, “We are all responsible
for a reasonably harmonious household. If
you don’t know how to be, we will help you.
If you don’t want to be, kindly remove
yourself from the family circle until you are
ready to assume practical responsibility for
our collective mood.”
These families aren’t harsh but firm. They
don’t allow one child to whine away
everyone’s good mood. They don’t permit
constant bickering at meals. They believe that
siblings learn compromise and reconciling by
working out their differences, but not
necessarily in the midst of the family. Most
important, they expect everyone to be
responsible for the family mood, not just
mom or dad.
Choose Life
Sheila Mallon
“Pro-Lifers Force Religious Beliefs” Ann
Landers claimed in a recent column.
She began the article with a letter from a
“faithful Catholic” who had always
supposedly opposed abortion “until” she read
an interview between Mary Schnack of the
Los Angeles Herald Examiner and a Dr.
George Ryan. Dr. Ryan had testified against
the Human Life Bill in the Senate hearings this
summer.
After reading the interview, the young
woman claims to see the subject of abortion in
a new light. Dr. Ryan makes the claim that the
Human Life Bill would assume that every
fertilized egg would go on to a normal
pregnancy and he asserts that there are many
tubal pregnancies and abnormalities in the
development of the egg. Ryan warns that a
pregnancy in the tubes can threaten the
woman’s life and he claims that some
legislators are saying that these few cells in her
tubes have all the rights, in spite of the fact
that her life would be jeopardized by the
pregnancy.
What nonsense! What falsehood! In fact, if
“faithful Catholic” had bothered to check,
she would have found that there is certainly
an option with a tubal pregnancy, if it is life
threatening and an operation is necessary to
save the life of the mother. (Ethics of Ectopic
Qperations by T. Lincoln Bouscaren, S.J.;
Medical Ethics for Nurses by Charles J.
McFadden O.S.A.; and Medico-Moral
Problems by Gerard Kelly, S.J.)
One of the “facts” that Dr. Ryan
conveniently left out of his testimony is that
the incidence of tubal pregnancy has risen as
the abortion rate has risen. It seems that
women who have had one or more abortions
also have a much higher rate of ectopic
pregnancy. However the pro-abortionists are
not anxious to muddy up the waters with too
many “facts.”
Dr. Ryan also claims that the “same people
who want to ‘save’ these babies are unwilling
to give them food stamps. They don’t care if
the babies live in roach infested houses. They
don’t care if they get adequate schooling” and
finally he vituperatively added that “it is
strange that they have so little compassion for
people AFTER they are born.”
If “faithful Catholic” is really influenced
by this type of falsehood then she couldn’t
possibly know much about the social policies
of her church. We have always fought for
better conditions for the poor, not just food
stamps and housing, but equal opportunity
and better education for all. Long before the
Protestant churches organized their protest to
abortion the Catholic Church was not just
opposing abortion, but offering an alternative
to it.
The fact is (and Dr. Ryan and Ann Landers
know it full well) that the “cost-benefit
ethics” approach belongs to those who want
to keep abortion “legal.” They are the ones
who always bring up the cost of educating and
supporting a child as opposed to a nice
reasonable abortion which can be had for as
little as $120.
The truth is that we who are opposed to
abortion are the ones who are crying out
against injustice everywhere. Dr. Ryan’s
solution to hunger and poverty is the knife.
Let’s not worry about feeding the hungry
child - instead let’s kill him in the womb. If
we never have to see those children perhaps
we can escape the guilt and pain.
Ann Landers announced on NBC-TV’S
“Today Show” September 15 that she will
take on the Right to Life movement to defeat
the Human Life Amendment. She claims that
we are a dangerous element who pose a serious
threat to democracy by trying to pass laws
forcing our religious views on others. Ms.
Landers, who is on the Board of Planned
Parenthood, has finally come out of the closet
on this issue.
I hope she will hear from pro-lifers all over
this country who were appalled at her use of
her column to promote the further
squandering of human life by the
pro-abortion forces.
We keep hearing the Right to Life
movement and the people within it referred to
as “zealots.” According to the American
Heritage Dictionary, a zealot is “a passionate
seeker after truth.” One of the reasons that
the pro-abortionists are against hearings on
the Human Life Amendment is because they
fear the truth.
They know that the progression of
eminent doctors and scientists describing the
progression of life that begins at conception
has damaged and continues to damage their
cause. It is difficult to view as a glob of tissue
the film of a baby dancing in utero at eight
weeks.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson in his book,
Aborting America, says, “There are 75,000
abortions in my past medical career, those
performed under my administration or that I
supervised in a teaching capacity, and the
1,500 that I have performed myself. The vast
majority of these fell short of my present
standard that only a mother’s life, interpreted
with appropriate medical sophistication, can
justify destroying the life of this being in inner
space which is becoming better known to us
with each passing year. I now regret this loss
of life. I thought the abortions right at the
time; revolutionary ethics are often
unrecognizable at some future, serene date.
The errors of history are not recoverable, the
lives cannot be retrieved. One can only pledge
to adhere to an ethical course in the future.”
For those of us committed to the saving of
these lives, the battle is joined and goes on. We
know that with the help of God we will
succeed.
29th Sunday In Ordinary Time (A)
October 18,1981
THE W/ ORD
THIS W EEKEND
Paul Karnowski
Isaiah 45:1,4-6
1 Thessalonians 1:1-5
Matthew 22: 15-21
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If the Internal Revenue Service has a
favorite Scripture reading, it would have to be
today’s selection from the Gospel of
Matthew. In an effort to trick Jesus, the
Pharisees decide to quiz Him about the taxes
that are paid to the Roman government. “Is it
lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”
they ask, knowing full well that it’s a loaded
question. Upon asking to see a coin with
which the tax is paid, Jesus asks, “Whose head
is this and whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,”
they reply. “Then give to Caesar what is
Caesar’s,” Jesus responds, “but give to God
what is God’s.”
The passage from the Gospel is a famous
story and, as with any well-known Scripture
reading, it has been worked to death.
Scrutinized by Scripture scholars,
theologians, political scientists and social
reformers, it has more meanings and
implications than Kansas has sunflowers.
Apparently Jesus is making a statement
about the relationship between political
authority and Divine authority, a hot subject
these days - no matter what we believe. He
seems to think that the two can, and should,
coexist peacefully. Pay your taxes and obey
the laws of the land, He says, as long as it
doesn’t interfere with giving God His due.
There is a distinction to be drawn between
temporal and spiritual authority, but Jesus
doesn’t go into specifics.
There are many things that Jesus
DOESN’T say. He doesn’t say that we should
ignore the political world any more than He
encourages us to become political activists.
His statements here, and elsewhere, are not
endorsements of any political party or
platform - no matter what the Moral Majority
may imply. Giving God His due and giving our
country its due are not synonymous. Faith
and patriotism are separate virtues.
The political world, the temporal Caesars
of our day, are concerned with the question
To the Editor:
Please allow me to express my gratitude,
and that of the Society of Saint James, to the
people of Atlanta through the medium of
your much appreciated Georgia Bulletin.
The Archdiocese responded
overwhelmingly to the missions during my
recent ‘campaign’ there and for that I am
deeply grateful to Archbishop Donnellan and
the Chancery staff for their invitation, and to
the priests and people of Corpus Christi, Good
Shepherd, Prince of Peace, St. John Vianney,
St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Joseph (Athens).
The parishes, large and small, contributed
$10,000, and, while reaching out to the
“poorest of the poor,” they also, I believe,
gave a great gift to themselves: the blessings of
“What.” What should be done about
inflation? What should our policy on human
rights be? As responsible citizens we should
concern ourselves with these issues. But only
after we ask why. When we scrutinize political
activity in terms of the message of love in the
Gospel, we are giving God His due. We are
asking God’s question, “Why?”
open and generous hearts.
Finally, allow me to thank the priests, staff
and people of St. Thomas More for their
genial hospitality and generosity during my
stay.
Thank you again, and may God continue
to bless each and every one of you. You will
be remembered weekly in our Masses for our
benefactors.
I am, as ever in Christ,
Rev. Liam J. Tuffy
Society of St. James the Apostle
Boston, Massachusetts
Resound ... Resound
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