Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 14—The Georgia Bulletin, September 1,1983
ON THE AIR
BY MAGGIE DAHL
Media Coordinator
The following programming, on radio and
television, will be aired in the archdiocese during the
coming week beginning Sunday, Sept. 4. Some of
the programs have been produced locally: others
have been obtained from national Catholic
production apostolates.
THE MASS will be celebrated by Monsignor Noel
Burtenshaw on Sun., Sept. 4 at:
6:30 a.m. on WSB-TV (Channel 2).
10 a.m on WVEU-TV (Channel 69) on UHF.
10:30 a.m. on AIB CABLE*
The folk group for the mass is from All Saints
parish under the direction of Mari jean Kaylor. Your
lector is John Yetman.
CHRISTOPHER CLOSEUP: “A Visit with Jim
Henson and Friends” -- Mon., Sept. 5 at 8 p.m. on
AIB CABLE.*
INSIGHT: “Missing Person’s Bureau” - Mon.,
Sept. 5 at 8:30 p.m. on AIB CABLE*.
jf: >fc
AMERICAN CATHOLIC: “Religious
Experience” - Because it cannot be proved
scientifically, religious experience is something
unique to all human beings, says Father Powell. He
proposes that the most direct route to religious
experience is to ask for grace to give, to share, to
console another, to tell someone you love them and
then to tell them again. Two people describe their
personal experiences in coming to an awareness of
God’s presence and how they have been affected
since them. Wed., Sept. 7 at 9 p.m. on AIB
CABLE*.
^
MOTHER ANGELICA TALKS IT OVER - Wed.,
Sept. 7 at 9:30 p.m. on AIB CABLE*.
*(AIB CABLE is your interfaith channel on Cable
Channel 8 in Alpharetta, Atlanta, College Park,
DeKalb, East Point and N. DeKalb).
RADIO
“LIFT YOUR HEART,” weekly radio
production of Sacred Heart Program, Inc. on Sun. at
6 a.m. on WPLO (590 AM).
RELIGION-WISE: A weekly look at the news
through the eyes of religion with Monsignor Noel
Burtenshaw, Rabbi Don Peterman of Congregation
Beth Shalom and Dr. Ted Baehr, president of Good
News Publication. They will discuss the week’s
happenings on Sun. at 6 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. on
WGST (92 AM).
Claretians Publish
Free Parish Newsletter
CHICAGO (NC) - A new newsletter for parishes, “U.S.
Parish,” will be distributed free by the Claretian Fathers
and Brothers starting in September, according to Father
Mark J. Brummel, editor of Claretian Publications.
One copy of the newsletter will be sent without cost
each month to every Catholic parish in the United States.
It is being subsidized by the Claretians to encourage lay
involvement in parish ministry and to introduce
parishioners to the Claretians’ other publications,
according to Tom McGrath, marketing director. The
publication cannot be bought. Parishes are encouraged to
photocopy it or route it to the proper people.
U.S. Parish is designed as “the newsletter that makes
good parishes better,” Father Brummel said. “Parishes are
people, and the quality of the parish depends on the
involvement of people in the life of the parish.”
The September issue includes items on parish music,
starting a social-justice group, the value of Catholic
education, agenda items for parish-council meetings,
catechist planning, youth ministers, family life, sermon
ideas, and a regular section, “What other parishes are
doing.”
In addition to the new newsletter, the Claretians
publish two magazines, “U.S. Catholic” and “Salt,” three
newsletters, “Bringing Religion Home,” “Generation,”
and “GooseCom,” and various pamphlets.
Miami Cable Ban Unconstitutional
MIAMI (NC) - A U.S. district court judge ruled that a
Miami ordinance against “indecent material” on cable
television is unconstitutional.
Judge William M. Hoeveler, citing the First Amendment
guarantee of free speech, prohibited the City of Miami
from enforcing its Jan. 13 ordinance and upheld the cable
TV subscriber’s right to receive and the cable
programmer’s right to transmit any shows they please.
The ordinance bans “patently offensive”
representations of “a human sexual or excretory organ or
function.”
Although Hoeveler said he is “sympathetic with the
defendant’s attempt to protect the perceived deterioration
of the ‘moral fiber’ of the city,” he stated in a summary
judgment that the ordinance “exceeds the limits of proper
constitutional action” and violates the First Amendment.
Home Box Office, Inc., one of the plaintiffs, shows
only films rated G, PG or R and all programs are listed in
a guide so subscribers know what programs will appear,
the judge pointed out.
He added that the city’s ordinance is “wholesale” in its
prohibition and added that cable television provides
“viewing controls” to subscribers through “lock boxes”
and “parental keys” which permit subscribers to protect
juveniles from unsuitable programming.
“It is difficult,” Hoeveler wrote, “to predict where our
tolerance of licentiousness will end. The “end” however
cannot be induced by use of a blunderbuss. The
understandable anxieties of the city fathers cannot
provide the basis for approving legislation which in its
reach exceeds the dangers they contemplate.”
Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre, who introduced the local
legislation after viewing nudity on cable television in New
York City, said the city probably will appeal the ruling.
The judge was “in error,” said Jesuit Father Morton A.
Hill, national president of Morality in Media, Inc. “He
neglected to recognize that the law is aimed at the
purveyor, not the viewer. To pay is not to legalize. Some
pay for heroin, but the drug laws are aimed at the sellers.”
The Supreme Court in 1978, “likened the broadcasting
of the indecent to the pig entering the parlor. It is the
same pig whether transmitted by air or by wire. We are
confident the City of Miami will establish this on appeal,”
Father Hill said.
Under the provisions of the ordinance the city manager
would rule on complaints from viewers and violations
could cost a cable company its license. Judge Hoeveler
said the city manager’s role has “an intolerably high risk
of arbitrary action.”
Exclusive cable television rights in Miami were granted
late in 1982 to Miami Cablevision, Inc., whose marketing £ I
director, Bruce Stover, said the firm does not show
pornography at this time and has no intention of doing so.
Meanwhile, Miami is among more than 20 cities across
the nation fighting Senate Bill S66, Which is expected to f, 1
go to the House in the fall and would strip the cities’
power to control fees and regulate programming on cable
television.
Miami city commissioners have approved a $50,000 i *
fund to provide money for attorney’s fees, lobbying and
research, and travel expenses for city officials and
commissioners to fight the bill’s passage. .
The city’s cable television law authorizes the city to set ' •
and regulate rates, control some aspects of programming
and assure public access through designated public
channels.
APPLAUSE FOR LINDA - Olympic medalist
Linda Fratianne goes through a skating routine
with Goofy in Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom on
Ice at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Miss
Fratianne, a member of Our Lady of Lourdes t '
parish in Northridge, Calif., said she loves the
applause she has received during more than three
years as a professional but she misses the ^ t
challenge of amateur competition. (NC Photo by
Chris Sheridan)
' 1 1 —
About Books: Henri Nouwen's "Gracias
11
GRACIAS, by Father Henri J.M. Nouwen, Harper
and Row (San Francisco, 1983). 188 pp., $12.95.
REVIEWED BY FATHER AUGUSTINE HENNESSY
NC News Service
Some degree of self-revelation is the first
courtesy of friendship. Even strangers seated
side-by-side in an airplane can relieve the first
awkward silence only by evoking the simple
self-revelation involved in disclosing their
destinations. If they trust each other, genuine
communication might add interest and zest to
their journey.
•= But it requires unusual trust for a man to
publish his spiritual journal. He exposes his moods,
bis indecisiveness, his hurts, and even his sins,
while he is sharing his hopes, his insights and
fondest memories. He exposes himself to the
delight of being discovered as an authentic
communicator and to the danger of being
subjected to mockery, or at least, to gentle
debunking.
In writing “Gracias,” Father Henri Nouwen has
manifested his sturdy belief in the Communion of
the Saints. He obviously believes that all of us
touch each other’s lives as we pursue our destiny.
And because he tries to be real in all he reports, he
treats his readers as friends.
His book is titled as it is to express his
indebtedness to the people of Bolivia and Peru
with whom he spent six months of his life. From
Oct. 18, 1981, until March 29,1982, he immersed
himself in their lives while searching his own heart
to discover whether or not he was being called to
settle down with them permanently. What he
learned from them most is to be grateful for life -
even when it is almost unbearably burdensome. He
learned that “everything that is, is given by the
God of Love.”
He learned new reasons for saying, “thanks.” He
expressed his indebtedness for this insight, “What I
claim as a right, my friends in Bolivia and Peru
received as a gift; what is obvious to me was a
joyful surprise to them; what I take for granted,
they celebrate in thanksgiving; what for me goes
by unnoticed, becomes for them a new occasion to
say thanks.”
Appropriately, Father Nouwen dedicates his
book, “To all who bear witness to the presence of
the suffering Christ in Latin America.” Such a
dedication is written without any intent to be
either patronizing toward the people or envious of
the missioners there.
Father Nouwen learned how “to set the tone”
for his own reflections from a creed written by a
Third World bishop for those who come to Latin
America as missionaries. This creed reaches its
climax with this advice: “Be with us and be open
to what we can give. Be with us as a companion
who walks with us - neither behind nor in front -
in our search for life and ultimately for God!”
Father Nouwen’s pen-pictures of poverty,
prison life, comradeship, needless cruelty and
other realities of South American life stay vividly
in one’s consciousness. All is made a little clearer
by one sentence, “Liberation theologians do not
think themselves into a new way of living, but live
themselves into a new way of thinking.”
(Passionist bather Augustine P. Hennessy, theologian and
editor, preaches parish renewals and conducts retreats for
diocesan priests and men and women Religious.)
