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PAGE 12 — The Georgia Bulletin, November 21,1985 Fall Meeting Of Bishops Thorough Agenda Was Faced WASHINGTON (NC) - Here, at a glance, are the main results of the fall meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops-U.S. Catholic Con ference Nov. 11-15 in Washington. Key Statements — Showed overwhelming approval of a pastoral letter on campus ministry, voting for it 176-4. A mail vote will be needed to complete the legal requirement of two- thirds approval (201 or more votes) of total con ference membership. — Issued a statement urging Congress to pass a farm bill that will help pro tect family farms. — Called for an immigra tion bill containing liberal legalization provisions for illegal aliens and excluding expansion of foreign worker programs. — Protested the “unjust, discriminatory and nar row” Supreme Court deci sion last summer striking down publicly funded remedial aid in parochial school classrooms. — Approved “A Vision of Evangelization,” reaffirm ing the church mission of preaching the Gospel and linking it with the church’s social justice ministry. Key Decisions — Approved a new Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities, updating anti abortion strategy and other pro-life efforts since the first plan was issued 10 years ago. — Established an ad hoc committee to monitor U.S. government defense activi ty to see whether it still meets the conditions described in the bishops’ 1983 peace pastoral for a morally acceptable nuclear deterrence policy. — Elected as NCCB- USCC secretary Auxiliary Bishop Eugene Marino of Washington, the first black to hold one of the four top of fices in the NCCB-USCC. Key Discussions — Discussed pastoral let ter on the U.S. economy, asking further refinements but indicating strong agree ment with overall thrust of the second draft. — Heard a special report on Catholic Relief Services by Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia head of a special cumiuniee in vestigating allegations of CRS wrongdoing in Ethi opia. All serious allegations proved false, the cardinal said, but his committee found some weakness in the CRS policies and structures and recommended several changes to prevent future problems. — With the world Synod of Bishops less than two weeks away, trends in the church since the Second Vatican Council and important issues in the church today — especially collegiality — were topics of both the opening address and a special report by Bishop James Malone of Youngs town, Ohio, NCCB presi dent. Collegiality and the synod was also the main topic of the address by Archbishop Pio Laghi, papal pronuncio to United States. — Heard a blunt report by black bishops warning of an explosive threat of racial strife in America. Black bishops gave the report in a session closed to the press, but it was made public at the request of the rest of the bishops. "Seamless Garment" Explained BY JERRY FILTEAU WASHINGTON (NC) - Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin of Chicago said Nov. 12 he never pushed the phrase “seamless gar ment” as a description of his call for a “consistent ethic of life” on abortion and other life issues. Speaking to National Catholic News Ser vice during the fall meeting of the U.S. bishops in Washington, Cardinal Bernardin unraveled the history of the “seamless gar ment” metaphor. It is an image that some pro-life groups have attacked, saying it appears to place abortion on the same plane, without any dif ferentiation, as capital punishment, ade quate housing and various other issues of human life and dignity. “I never used ‘seamless garment’ in my speech at Fordham,” he said. It was at For dham University, New York, in December 1983, that Cardinal Bernardin, then newly named chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Com mittee for Pro-Life Activities, delivered his first in a series of major speeches on the place of abortion among moral concerns confronting America. He urged a “consistent ethic of life” in which abortion is seen not as an isolated issue, but an integral and key part of a whole spectrum of life issues, including the threat of nuclear war, capital punishment, and meeting the needs of the poor. How did “seamless garment’ ’ get attach ed, then? In a question-and-answer ses sion after the Fordham talk, he said Nov. 12, he was trying to explain to a member of the audience what he meant by a consistent ethic. “I said, ‘It’s sort of like a seamless garment’ — and that’s what they (the media) picked up on.” Cardinal Bernardin was interviewed after Archbishop Edmund Szoka of Detroit had raised a question about the “seamless garnment” on the meeting floor Nov. 11. Archbishop Szoka asked whether the use of “consistent ethic” rather than “seamless garment” language in a propos ed new Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Ac tivities represented a deliberate shift in ter minology. Cardinal Bernardin said no, he had always used “consistent ethic,” and there was no shift involved. Study On Nuclear Deterrence Begins DOWN TO BUSINESS — American bishops listen to a report at the annual meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops at the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington. (NC photo by Bob Strawn) New Headquarters Building Is No Taj Mahal BY LIZ S. ARMSTRONG WASHINGTON (NC) - The planned new headquarters for the National Con ference of Catholic Bishops-U.S. Catholic Conference in Washington is no Taj Mahal but a necessity, according to Arch bishop John L. May of St. Louis. Archbishop May, NCCB-USCC vice president, Nov. 13 discussed plans for the bishops’ new building during the NCCB- USCC five-day general meeting in Washington. Bishop Thomas J. Connolly of Baker, Ore., told his fellow bishops that “we’re getting some flak at home about the building.” Archbishop May replied that he, too, “received a couple of letters talking about the Taj Mahal.” “We have to explain to people that it’s not extravagant, not in any way what somebody has called a Taj Mahal,” he said. The NCCB-USCC must move from its current downtown Washington location to the proposed building, to be constructed on a site near the Catholic University of America in Northeast Washington, because “we simply need the space,” Archbishop May said. “We just are total ly, totally limited where we are.” He said the design for the new building is going through the final stages of District of Columbia government ap proval and that ground-breaking is plann ed for spring 1986. Construction is estimated to take about 20 months. Sale of the present headquarters building is expected to generate funds to pay a substantial portion of the new struc ture, Archbishop May said. Bishop James W. Malone of Youngstown, Ohio, NCCB-USCC presi dent, added that some $5.7 million has been raised so far in contributions from foundations and other donors. According to information provided by the NCCB public affairs office, donors to the new building project as of Nov. 13, 1985, included: — Knights of Columbus, $2 million. — Congregation of Marians, St. Stanislaus Kostka Province, $1 million. — John McShain Foundation, $700,000. — Catholic Golden Age Foundation, $500,000. — Catholic Daughters of the Americas, $500,000. — Pallottines Province of the Im maculate Conception, $500,000. — Daughters of Isabella, $500,000. The Knights’ support will pay for a chapel dedicated to Mary, Mother of the Church, in the new headquarters, Bishop Malone said. The chapel will also honor Retired Bishop Charles Greco of Alexandria-Shreveport, La., a longtime K of C member. Msgr. Daniel Hoye, general secretary of the USCC-NCCB, said Nov. 13 that the building will cost $15 million. Major Office First Black Bishop Elected WASHINGTON (NC) - The U.S. bishops meeting in Washington have voted to form a committee that will study whether the nation’s nuclear deterrence can still be judged moral. The committee, re quested by several peace- activist bishops led by Aux iliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, is to report back to the bishops when its assessment is finished. Formation of the monitoring group marked a significant victory for a group of bishops that has been pressing for more than two years to create such a means of ongoing analysis and critique of U.S. defense activity. In their 1983 national pastoral letter on war and peace, the bishops reached a “strictly conditioned moral acceptance” of deterrence policy. Bishop Gumbleton and five other bishops who asked for the new committee argued that the conditions for moral ac ceptance are no longer be ing met because of U.S. defense developments since then. Bishops James Malone of Youngstown, Ohio, presi dent of the National Con ference of Catholic Bishops, publicly announced the decision to form the com mittee Nov. 14. He said the bishops had voted on the question after extensive discussion during an ex ecutive session, closed to the press, two days earlier. The bishops voted to “empower the NCCB presi dent to establish an ad hoc committee to assess” whether the 1983 pastoral’s conditions for moral accep tance are still being met, Bishop Malone said. WASHINGTON (NC) - Auxiliary Bishop Eugene A. Marino of Washington said his election Nov. 12 to one of the four major offices of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops-U.S. Catholic Conference has put him into “a position where concerns of black Catholics can be more ef fectively articulated.” An auxiliary bishop in Washington since 1974, he is the first black bishop to hold one of the four NCCB-USCC offices. “I’m delighted that the conference has a person in office from the minority community,” he said Nov. 13 in an interview. “I think it will be a cause of rejoic ing for the minority com munity. “I see it as a sign of hope and encouragement and an indication of a serious com mitment (on the part of the bishops) to making black people leaders of the church at the highest levels.” The concerns of black Catholics and black bishops are many, he said, in cluding racism in the Catholic Church; the need for evangelization and training of black clergy, Religious and laity for leadership roles; and the formulation of a national NCCB-USCC secretariat for black Catholics. Black Catholics number about 1.3 million out of the U.S. black population of 26 million. There are 52 million Catholics in the United States.
