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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.
