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The Georgia Bulletin
May 27,1982
South Atlantic Conflict
Not Worth The Tragic Loss
Thanks to Ted Turner's
adventurous Cable News Network the
historic scene at St. Peter’s Basilica
was instantly flashed across the world.
Pope John Paul II was celebrating a
Liturgy for peace alongside his
brother Bishops from Argentina and
Great Britain. Although the armies of
their homeland were, at that precise
moment, locked in fierce battle and
mortal bloodletting in the South
Atlantic, they stood locked within the
Mystery of Faith imploring the
Father’s favorable peace.
As the battle for the
Falkland/Malvina islands rages on, we
need those constant outpourings for
peace. Life is being lost. Young men
and women from both nations huddle
in the frigid conditions of those
exposed islands hell bent on mutual
destruction. Surely in their moments
of fearful isolated misery, the soldiers
from both sides wonder if this war for
political “principle” is worth the
effort and the tragic loss.
The present dictators in Buenos
Aires can hardly present an image of
wounded democracy to the world.
Their blunt, aggressive takeover of the
islands receives few accolades from a
world tired of benign “junta power.”
The question to be asked of Great
Britain is obvious. What, apart from
past colonial wanderings, is she doing
on a desolate island 8,000 miles from
home?
Many avenues of solution have been
placed before these warring sides - all
to no present avail. The scene in the
South Atlantic is contributing greatly
to discussions on the rights and
wrongs of both sides. It is also giving
new opportunity to editorial opinion
and thought. Unfortunately, it is
leaving a wake of fresh graves, new
political resentments and bitter
divisions that will heal only in some
distant future.
The Falkland/Malvina islands are
not worth this tribal clash. Let the UN
calm the situation by policing the
territory. Forget the sovereignty issue.
There is more than enough violence in
the world. Five years from now only
those who lost sons or husbands in a
South Atlantic winter will remember
this tragic struggle.
How sad and painful that lonely
memory will be.
-NCB
PRAYERS FOR WAR VICTIMS -
Next Monday we will observe
Memorial Day remembering those
who have died for our nation. Pope
John Paul II is pictured praying in the
Polish War Cemetery during a visit to
Bologna, Italy. He prayed silently for
five minutes before the graves of the
1,480 Polish soldiers who died in
1945 during the liberation of Bolonga
from the Nazis. (NC Photo from UPI)
May God Send You A Child
Dolores Curran
Like Yourself
\
If you want to strike terror into the heart
of your child, say “I hope someday God will
bless you with a child just like yourself.” It’s
a never-fail winner if you do it in the right
way: always say it positively and don’t
overuse it.
I remember the first time my mother said
it to me. It caught me up so short that, faced
with such a horrible prospect, I revised any
ideas about future marriage. (Nuns and
priests frequently mention this as the plus of
celibacy.)
The technique coincides with two other
incidents that took place awhile back. I
received a letter from Mike and Joan
Hoxley, family life directors of the
Youngstown diocese, asking me to write
something on the pressure of today’s
families to be perfect. They sent along their
fine family newsletter, “The Family
Knight,” in which they wrote about the
prevalence of this attitude on parents
everywhere.
“It’s a heavy burden this business of
trying to be perfect - as it oftentimes leads
us to a very lonely and isolated place,” they
wrote. “It’s like one is always running trying
to keep ahead of a giant stone that gathers
more and more momentum as it rolls after
us. We’re so busy trying to do everything
and do it perfectly that we lose sight of what
is means to be human.” (To get on the
mailing list for this excellent newsletter on
family life, write and ask the cost at 225
Elm Street, Youngstown, Ohio 44503.)
They grasped the cost of perfection
beautifully. Being perfect doesn’t lead us to
happy family life - it gets in the way. If
there’s a universal parental sin, it’s vanity,
thinking that we can be perfect. We can’t.
We’re imperfect beings in need of
redemption through family as well as
through others in our daily life.
The same day I received their letter, I
guest-taught a class in family ministry at a
local deanery. One of the women in the
course told me that she reads and likes my
material but that it often discourages her
because her children don’t always respond
enthusiastically to the ideas I suggest for
enriching family life. “Your children must
be special,” she said enviously. “Mine fight
me and each other over the littlest things.”
I wanted to laugh and cry simultaneously
because ringing in my ears was my latest
counseling session with one of my perfect
children who couldn’t understand why it
was necessary to hang up coat and hat when
he was just going to wear them again the
following day. That’s when I drew upon my
hidden weapon that he might someday be
blessed with a child like himself.
I said it pleasantly, adding that he
probably would allow this in his own home
because litter wasn’t a priority to him and
besides, he probably wouldn’t mind trailing
after his children, picking up their things and
putting them away. He didn’t continue his
defense, pondering, I believe, the awful
prospect of living with one or two just like
himself.
Parents who are always trying to be
perfect are always failing. Parents who
accept their humanness are the winners.
They accept themselves and their
weaknesses. They know there are some very
good reasons for their bad behavior. The
best parents are the ones with the best
memories - and the fewest kids just like
themselves.
Pentecost Sunday
May 30, 1982
THE TV7 ORD
THIS W EEKEND
Paul Karnowski
Acts 2: 1-11
I Corinthians 12: 3-7, 12-14
John 20: 19-23
Sitting on a mountaintop in Greece, nine
beautiful women send vibrations to poets
and painters throughout the
world . . . Somewhere inside an engineer’s
brain, an unseen hand tugs at a string and a
light bulb is switched on ... In the movie
Xanadu, only one character can see Olivia
Newton-John, as she supports him in his
efforts to build a new disco . . . Before
attempting the game-winning free throw, a
high school athlete searches the stands for
her boyfriend’s face.
All of these images, as disparate as they
seem, have one thing in common: they
attempt to solidify the phenomenon of
inspiration. They try to put flesh on a spirit,
to put shackles on a ghost. And they all fall
short. Whether we attribute it to movie stars
or Muses, to boyfriends or bulbs, the exact
nature of inspiration always seems to elude
us. Inspiration, like the wind, blows where it
will.
It should come as no surprise to us then,
that the gift of divine inspiration - the Holy
Spirit - blows in like the wind on this
Pentecost Sunday. In the first reading from
the Acts of the Apostles, Luke describes the
event: “From the sky came a noise like a
strong, driving wind, which was heard all
through the house where they were seated.”
In the gospel John describes a gentler wind.
Referring to Jesus, the evangelist says,
“Then He breathed on them and said:
“Receive the Holy Spirit . . .’”
We know that on Pentecost we celebrate
the reception of the Holy Spirit, but we
might well ask, “What is this holy wind?
This divine breath?” Common sense tells us
that wind and breath are nothing more than
moving air. If the air is still, the wind does
not blow. The essence of wind, then, is
movement.
Maybe the same is true of the Spirit.
Perhaps the Paraclete is the movement of
God through history - through the history
of the world and the history of our own
lives. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is the gust of
faith, the breath of hope, the breeze of love.
Any other definition, it seems, tries to put
flesh on a spirit, tries to put shackles on a
ghost. And in this case, a Holy ghost.
The Rural Church Is Expanding
Father Gerald Peterson
Archdiocesan Director of Catholic Rural Life
Peace Is A Gift
(This is the text of the May 22 joint statement
by Argentine and British bishops who had
concelebrated a Mass for peace that morning with
Pope John Paul II.)
We, brother bishops of Argentina and
Great Britain, called together to
concelebrate this Mass with the universal
pastor of the church, wish to express our
devoted gratitude to the holy father for this
important and significant initiative in the
cause of peace. In face of conflict and
divisions in the world, this concelebration
speaks of warm human relationships,
brotherhood and of common membership of
the body of Christ.
Just as the apostles, gathered at Pentecost
in the unity of the Spirit, proclaimed the
message of Christ, so we, their successors,
are a sign of that same message of love and
peace. “Multae linguae una vox.” (Many
languages, one voice.)
The words of the holy father, reminding
us that peace is a duty and is possible, are a
message of hope. They are also an
exhortation to personal conversion and to
conversion of society. We bishops in
Argentina and Great Britain accept that
challenge. We pledge ourselves to be
witnesses of peace and reconciliation in the
search for a just settlement of the conflict in
the South Atlantic.
Peace is a gift from God. We must all pray
that this precious gift may be restored to our
peoples. We commit ourselves to work for
that serenity in the world which will enable
the holy father to continue his pastoral
mission of peace among all nations.
Cardinal Gordon Joseph Gray,
Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh
Cardinal Raul Francisco Primatesta,
Archbishop of Cordoba
Cardinal Juan Carlos Aramburu,
Archbishop of Buenos Aires
Cardinal George Basil Hume,
Archbishop of Westminster
Derek Worlock,
Archbishop of Liverpool
As a Glenmary Home Missioner, I am
deeply committed to working for the growth
of the Catholic Church in the rural South.
With twelve years of service in North
Georgia, I have seen evidence of much
growth.
On Sunday, March 7, Father John Henley
was installed as the first diocesan pastor of
St. Luke’s Church in Dahlonega. In 1959 the
first Glenmary priest came to open the
mission in Dahlonega. He was made pastor
of a four-county area. The church had a
humble beginning; four families came to
Mass in the living room of the rented
residence.
I spent nine happy years in that little
North Georgia town, caring for the growing
number of Catholics and reaching out in a
spirit of ecumenism to serve the needs of the
poor. In an assessment survey last fall,
Glenmary felt St. Luke’s Church in
Dahlonega no longer should be considered a
‘mission.’ So Father Bob Poandl, the last
Glenmary pastor, moved to Blairsville and
turned the parish over to Father Henley. In
true mission spirit, this priest has started the
first regular Sunday Mass in Dawson County,
gathering the Catholics for Mass each
Sunday in the United Methodist Church of
Dawsonville.
Recent assignments in the archdiocese
have increased the number of priests serving
the rural church of North Georgia. Father
Pat McCormick will be moving from Toccoa
to Hartwell, thus increasing services for the
people there and in Elberton. Father Louis
Naughton becomes pastor of the growing
church in Stephens County, serving St.
Mary’s Church in Toccoa. Also, it is
encouraging to see diocesan clergy staffing
the churches in Washington and Thomson.
From a recent study of the needs in the
Northeast Deanery, I would like to see a
mission church started in Commerce. Any
Catholics in that area have up to 25 miles to
travel for Sunday Mass. There is no Catholic
Church along U.S. Highway 441 for the 55
mile stretch between Athens and
Clarkesville.
The Atlanta Archdiocese has been blessed
with a fair number of vocations to the
priesthood in recent years. Four young men
are being ordained June 5. However, without
a steady increase in the number of religious
and priestly vocations, we may see a long
period of merely staffing our present
number of parishes with little mission
expansion.
I say this partly in the light of a recent
study completed for the Boston Archdiocese
by the Office of Pastoral Development with
the assistance of Father Francis K. Scheets
of CARA. Looking to the future, Father
Scheets’ sociological survey indicates that
for every 100 priests under the age of 65
serving the Church in 1976, there will be 75
by 1990 and a surprisingly low of 47 in the
year 2000.
Three assumptions are held for this
projection: (1) the diocese would have an
average of eleven ordinations annually. (2)
no more than six priests will leave each year,
and (3) the U.S. male white death rates will
hold true for Boston clergy.
May the Lord continue to bless the
universal Church with an abundance of
generous young people willing to accept the
call to celibacy and full-time church
ministry. This is in no way to imply that
laity should not assume greater
responsibility for the work of the Church.
Nor is it to say we have explored fully the
To the Editor:
The recent Dolores Curran column
(Adoptive Parents - the Pro-Est of Pro-Life)
was a timely one. Certainly the phenomena
of unwed teenage mothers keeping their
babies is of concern to us all.
However, the problem she speaks of - the
teenager trying to put her child up for
adoption at age two is certainly not one we
deal with in this state. Nor do I believe it is
happening with regularity in many other
areas . . .
I do believe that the church is trying to
address with love and understanding the
teenager’s desire to keep her baby. I know
that here in this archdiocese we are certainly
concerned with what is best both for the
child who is pregnant and the child she
carries.
If it is Mrs. Curran’s understanding that
the pro-life effort of our church is limited to
anti-abortion rhetoric, and if she really
believes that we as a church are not
concerned with the preciousness of life after
birth, then I can only believe that she has
not been truly involved in the
church-directed pro-life movement in this
country.
We are concerned with all of life from the
unborn to the aged, from the handicapped
to the healthy, from the poor woman in the
possibilities of service for our permanent
deacons. Together we are the Body of
Christ, in which each is called to put his gifts
and talents at the service of the community.
While writing, I want to express my
thanks to Archbishop Donnellan and our
Chancellor, Monsignor Hardy, for their
strong interest in the needs of the rural
churches of our expanding archdiocese.
Who knows, in another five years or so
the missions of St. Mark in Clarkesville and
St. Helena in Clayton, which I am serving,
may pass Glenmary’s test as firmly
established parishes. Someone like Father
John Henley can take my place and I’ll move
on to begin a mission in an area like Elijay
and Chatsworth. In conclusion, let me say
it’s encouraging to see the church of North
Georgia expanding and I’m proud to be a
part of it..
ghetto who needs better health care to the
rights of the teenager who in spite of advice
to the contrary decides to keep her baby.
The woman who decides not to have an
abortion and needs help and the woman who
has had an abortion and needs reconciliation
are both equal in the church’s concern.
I believe that we are reaching out in most
areas of life with Jesus’ healing love. If He
walked among us today would He not
expect us to deal equally with those who
have already been given the precious gift of
life and those who, helpless and voiceless,
depend on us to defend them?
It seems to me that there are many voices
within the church who would prefer to deal
only with the issues of those already living
and tune out the so-called “pro-life”
rhetoric. Thank God that there are those
who for the last ninfe years have worked and
will continue to work ceaselessly to bring
about a world wherein an infant in the
womb does not have to fear his mother, nor
the aged or the handicapped fear the society
in which they live.
Sheila Mallon
Pro-Life Action Committee
Archdiocese of Atlanta
Thomas Winning,
Archbishop of Glasgow
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