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PAGE 4—The Georgia Bulletin, September 8,1983
STATEMENT—
The Real Danger
Is Fear Of Each Other
Had Representative Larry McDonald not
boarded the ill-fated South Korean jetliner, had
he been available for comment after the disaster
over the Sea of Japan, he probably would have
said, “I have been telling you this could happen.”
Rep. McDonald probably would have felt,
more acutely, the anger that swells up in most of
the free world. How insanely outrageous. What
complete gangsterism. How barbaric. The Soviets
calmly blew out of the sky an unarmed,
commercially scheduled passenger carrier. As far
as we now know, the swarming Russian jet
fighters calmly tracked and trailed the 747 for
two hours, must have known and clearly seen its
markings and quite coldly decided to terminate it
along with its human cargo.
You ask, in a frame of mind that is alarming,
can this power be trusted and believed at a
conference table of peace? Is a disarmament
agreement possible with that kind of callous
disregard? Can we ever deal with that kind of
treacherous power except from a position of
strength? You want to scream, “Build and
stockpile the bombs.”
The only Russian defense and response can be
“we were afraid.” The plane did fly off course, it
seems, and into Soviet air space. There was,
seemingly, fear that some kind of invasion was
imminent. Perhaps the Korean jet was going to
unload. Fearfully, someone decided “better be
sure.” Terrible destruction followed.
DREAM WALKERS - A large picture of the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. rises above the crowd
as participants gather on the Washington Mall for
20th Anniversary March on Washington. (NC
Photo by Dennis Whitehead)
( atlkJk An IvIk ' 'i AtUiti.i
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Most Rev. Thomas A. Donnellan Publisher
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It is all speculation. However, while we
constantly think about East and West matching
strength, perhaps we should be more concerned
about the consequences of our fear. Right now it
is fear of each other that makes both powers
insanely anxious to ready nuclear payloads for
firing. Fear may unleash them and without doubt
or argument no one will be left to say “I told you
so.”
The “love each other” that Jesus preached in
the Gospel was a process. What he said was “get
going and do it -- make it happen by what you
do.” Our only hope, one that sends us back to the
pages of the Gospel, is to remind ourselves of that
process. That is our only hope. But will we do it?
Maybe in complete fear of what may happen
next, we will simply mistrust each other until the
final mistake leads to the final holocaust.
In the meantime, the gap is widened and the
losses are great. We sympathize in prayer with the
unsuspecting victims. Our thoughts go to Rep.
McDonald's wife and family. It may help them to
know that all Georgians hurt with them.
Larry McDonald often warned that peace
would come about when the free world
demonstrated stockpiles of strength. Many would
still disagree. It is important at this tragic moment
simply to remember that this man loved his
nation, loved freedom in the world and was seen
by many as a peacemaker. -NCB
RESOUND
In “Fairness”
To the Editor:
Re: Thoughts stimulated by your Aug. 4 issue.
That large and influential segments of the Catholic
Church have become politically radicalized in the rough
wake of Vatican II is no secret. That this radicalization is
left-leaning is apparent in America from statements
shaped by the Bishops’ bureaucracy, the U.S. Catholic
Conference. That unrelieved promotion of this
radicalization by diocesan press persists warrants protest.
Four pieces in the Aug. 4 issue propagated liberation
theology, though slyly, without identifying it...
... For balance and fairness which would help readers
make their own judgments, somewhere in that issue at
least one of these points should have found space.
... Nicaragua is still a police state, though now under
the heel of nine one-time guerrilla comandantes.
... Since the Sandinista coup alarming shortages in
basic foods, increasing unemployment and raging inflation
have developed.
... The promised redistribution of wealth has not
occurred -- unless one considers state usurpation of wealth
and property and the comandantes’ confiscation of
mansions for their personal use the marks of such an
achievement.
. . . U.S. intelligence reports (which many find
infinitely more mendacious than Castro’s assurances)
indicate some 6000 Cubans and 500 Russians and East
Europeans in Nicaragua trying to firm up this Marxist
regime so that the conquest may proceed.
.. Indeed, General Ochoa Sanchez, head honcho for
Cuba’s Angolan and Ethiopian adventures in the service of
the Soviet Union has been seen in Nicaragua. To borrow a
phrase from General Alvrez, Honduran Chief of Staff, one
doubts he is there “for the parades.”
... These helpful foreigners (all of the same political
persuasion) have helped the Sandinistas develop the
largest war machine Central America has ever seen -
roughly two and one half times the size of Somoza’s.
... In keeping with Soviet communism’s
oft-announced goal, the Sandinistas loudly proclaim their
action to be “a revolution without frontiers.”
... Almost forgot - promised elections have been
“postponed” ...
William K. Mulvey
. / .7, Hartwell
The Week
In Review
NAMES AND PLACES - Bishop Lawrence D. Soens,
ordained to head the diocese of Sioux City, Iowa this
August, said, “I would much prefer not to be out in front
tugging, nor behind pulling or even holding someone back.
I would much prefer to walk with you, all of you,
side-by-side and hand-in-hand, sharing the joyful task of
telling the Good News.” He succeeds Bishop Frank
Greteman who resigned because of his age.
THE EDITOR OF THE CHICAGO CATHOLIC, A.E.P.
Wall, announced his resignation Sept. 2, saying he
disagrees with long-range plans for the archdiocesan
newspaper that were contained in a 30-page report of a
study commissioned by Cardinal Joseph L. Bemardin.
Wall, who has been with the paper since 1976, said the
plans “appear to lean toward a closer relationship between
the newspaper and the Chancery Office, making the
newspaper more directly a participant in carrying out
various policies.” He said “that is a perfectly legitimate
role for a diocesan newspaper, although because of my
personal experience I tend to favor an emphasis on the
same sort of journalism found in the general press.”
Among the study’s recommendations were that the
Catholic Television Network of Chicago be virtually
eliminated and that a further review of The Chicago
Catholic’s purpose and goals be undertaken.
BISHOP EDWARD A. MCGURKIN, Maryknoll
missioner and retired bishop of Tanzania, died Aug. 28.
He was 78. His career included service as a journalist
during the rise of Fascism in Rome, as a prisoner of war in
Manchuria during World War II and as a missionary bishop
who participated in the evolution of the African church
during Tanzania’s change from a colony to an
independent nation.
AROUND THE NATION - The final working plan for
a Vatican-commissioned study of seminaries in the United
States covers everything from the academic and spiritual
formation of seminarians to such nuts-and-bolts questions
as what kind of photocopying machines seminary libraries
have and how often they are used. The 103-page
instrument that will be used to study U.S. seminaries was
recently made public after it had been approved by the
Vatican and mailed to the country’s bishops, seminary
rectors and superiors of men’s religious orders. The study
instrument establishes comprehensive norms for
evaluating a seminary’s effectiveness and sets up two main
phases for the individual study of each of the nation’s
Catholic theological seminaries.
THE FIRST PHASE will be an advance written report
in response to an extensive questionnaire. In the report
the seminary will provide detailed information on such
things as administrative structure and personnel, faculty
make-up and qualifications, academic, spiritual and
pastoral programs and future planning.
THE SECOND PHASE, the heart of the study, will be
handled in three-day visits to each seminary by a
five-member team of experts. The teams, each composed
of two bishops, one religious superior and two priests
from seminary facilities, will meet with the local bishop,
and seminary trustees, administrators, faculty, students
and other designated groups in order to analyze in depth
the quality and effectiveness of the seminary’s preparation
of its students in all ways. The team will write a report
that will be sent to the seminary rector and local bishop
for comment, be reviewed and a final report sent to the
Vatican.
INTERNATIONALLY - Members of an interfaith
delegation that visited China in July said Chinese officials
insisted their country’s Catholics must remain
independent of Vatican control. Delegation members said
they raised the issue of the imprisonments of a bishop and
four Jesuit priests and were told only that they “broke
the law” with the implication that this related to Vatican
ties. China’s communist government forced the Catholic
Church in China to break ties with the Vatican in 1957
and form the schismatic National Association of Patriotic
Catholics. An underground church in China still retains
allegiance to the Vatican. The interfaith delegation’s trip
was a project of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, an
agency founded in 1965 to work for religious freedom.
ARGENTINA’S outgoing military government, fearing
an Argentine Nuremberg, is drafting an amnesty law
which would forgive members of the security forces for
using “frontier justice” in its “dirty war” against
guerrillas. The armed forces want the law to be in effect
before a civilian government takes office in January 1984,
thus avoiding possible prosecution. Under the proposal
members of the nation’s security forces would be
pardoned for having detained, tortured, robbed and
executed thousands of Argentines in anti-guerrilla
operations since 1973. The measure would also free
guerrillas of their legal responsibility for having terrorized
Argentine society in the mid-1970s.
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