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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (March 7, 1985)
The Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta Vol. 23 No. 10 Thursday, March 7, 1985 $10.00 Per Year Charities Drive Reaches 85 Percent Of Goal March 3 The day after Charities Drive Sunday, parishes and missions from throughout the archdiocese reported that $682,441 had been raised for Catholic Charities -- 85 percent of the stated goal of $800,000. The annual Charities Drive on the first Sunday in March provides funds for the basic services and ministries of the archdiocese, including education, social services, aid to seminarians, support for new missions in rural areas, pro-life work, and all other centralized work of the archdiocese. The goal this year exceeded last year’s target of $750,000, but those coordinating the Drive expressed thanks for the tremendous support shown on March 3 and confidence that the overall goal would be reached in coming weeks. “With 85 percent of our goal received, we are delighted and encouraged by the outcome so far,” said Father Peter Ludden, chancellor of the archdiocese. “When all parishes and missions have reported final figures I am confident we will have reached or exceeded the goal of $800,000,” he said. “Our people have a long history of generosity toward the needs of the archdiocese and today they have demonstrated once again that their love is indeeed constant.” CONSTANT LOVE - Parishioners of Corpus Christi in Stone Mountain display the Scripture quotation chosen for this year’s Charities Drive: “Above all let your love for one another be constant.” At left, Jerry McKinney and Bill Dever, right, were among the lay leaders in parishes and missions who worked in support of the Drive, which raised over $680,000 in one day. (Photo by Patricia Horvath) Of Lenten Things What Does The Budget Say About Us? BY DAN O’NEILL (Third In A Series) In a democratic society, the government serves at the will of the people. The government’s budget, then, should reflect the people’s will with respect to spending and taxation. Obviously, this is an idealization that glosses over the differences between the will of the majority and the will of the minority — to say nothing of the fact that in the U.S. the will of the majority must practically be expressed within the rubric of the political legacies of either the Grand Old Party or the party of Jefferson, Roosevelt and Kennedy. Still, over the passage of decades major swings in the federal budget tend to reflect major swings in the mood of the electorate, which in turn represents, however casually, the will of the people. What does the current budget say about the current national mood? About the current national consciousness and conscience? In the first place, it shows a preference for private spending rather than public spending. The massive tax cuts proposed by President Reagan in his first term and enacted by the Congress in 1981 remain essentially intact in the proposed 1986 federal budget. At the time they were passed there was a lot of hot air and smoke about supply-side economics and self-funding tax cuts — cuts in tax rates which would induce such a massive growth of new effort and activity that the taxable base would expand by enough to offset the lower rate, leaving total tax revenues unchanged. It is now obvious that while the economy’s response in 1983 and 1984 has been very strong - setting new records for an economic recovery — the tax cuts were far from self-funding. In fact, the tax cuts are undoubtedly the proximate cause of the current $200 billion federal deficit. But no matter. The electorate made it clear in 1984 that they prefer lower taxes to lower deficits. What this means is that we as a people would rather have the money in our pockets (as individuals and corporations) than in the federal coffers. We would rather build office buildings and shopping malls than interstate and rapid transit. We would rather buy personal computers and video games for ourselves than give the money to the government to buy personal care for the elderly or war games for the military. We want more fast food and less food stamps. Is that bad? Not necessarily. The poor like to eat at McDonald’s, too, when they can afford it. (Continued on page 11) Archbishop O'Connor: Nicaraguan Bishops Caught "In Middle" BY TRACY EARLY NEW Y ORK (NC) - Nicaraguan bishops feel “caught in the middle” between the country’s Sandinista government and U.S.-backed counterrevolutionaries, Archbishop John J. O’Connor of New York said after leading a U.S. bishops’ delegation to Central America. Though the Catholic Church in Nicaragua supported the 1979 revolution that brought the Sandinistas to power, the bishops there are caught between a government that has not realized the ideals of the revolution and opposing forces who might also fail to realize them, Archbishop O’Connor said at a press conference in New York March 3. “Not a single bishop asked for our support in encouraging financial and military assistance for the contras,” he said, using the popular name for the counterrevolutionaries trying to overthrow the Sandinistas. “But the (Nicaraguan) bishops were very clear that there’s a grave moral and psychological issue involved here,” he added, commenting that it is “imperative” that the world see that all is not “rosy” in either the Sandinista government or the counterrevolution. While the Nicaraguan government has a philosophy “alien” to the United States and the church, he said, the (Continued on page 9)
