Funding for the digitization of this title was provided by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta.
About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (March 12, 1987)
May Completion Expected For Church In Lithonia PAGE 10 — The Georgia Bulletin, March 12, 1987 GOING UP — The multi-purpose building for Christ Our Hope parish in Lithonia is under construction along Wellborn Road in Lithonia. In Vitro (Continued from page 1) "safeguarding or healing" and subjects neither the mother nor the embryo to "disproportionate risks," it says. The document, however, strongly condemns pre natal diagnosis when its findings may lead to abor tion. "A diagnosis which shows the existence of a malformation or a here ditary illness must not be the equivalent of a death sentence," it says. Experimentation on an embryo or any interven tions not “directed toward its healing, improvement" or "individual survival" is also rejected. “If the embryos are liv ing, whether viable or not. they must be respected just like any other human per son," the document says. “Experimentation on em bryos which is not directly therapeutic is illicit “ Freezing embryos is con- demned because of the “grave risks of death or harm" and because even the temporary loss “of maternal shelter and gesta tion" exposes embryos to possible “further offenses and manipulation." Also judged "contrary to the human dignity proper to the embryo” and its right to be “conceived and to be born within marriage and from marriage" are scien tific experiments involving cross-fertilization of human and animal reproductive cells, gestation of human embryos in animal uteruses or the development of ar tificial uteruses for human embryos. Efforts “aimed at pro ducing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qual ities" are wrong because "every person must be respected for himself." the document says. In examining questions of human procreation, the document says "the unborn child must be the fruit of marriage." Thus all artificial fer- t ilization using either a donated sperm or a donated egg from someone other than one of the spouses is "morally illicit." Such practices produce "a rupture between genetic- parenthood, gestational parenthood and respon sibility for upbringing." the document says. Art ifical fertilization of an unmarried woman or a widow, "whoever the donor may be,” is also illicit, the document adds. Surrogate motherhood — an arrangement by which a woman carries a baby to term for another person — is condemned as "an objec- tive failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity and of responsible moth erhood." In examining artifical fertilization involving only a married couple, the in struction stresses the unitive and procreative meanings of the conjugal action. In vitro fertilization, in volving the conception of human life outside of the human body, is morally il licit because it is dis associated from the con jugal act, the document says. It also "entrusts the life and the identity of the em bryo to the power of doctors and biologists and estab lishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person," it adds. While the document re jects without exception in vitro fertilization and other reproductive techniques which “substitute for the conjugal act," it is open to practices which help the conjugal act attain "its natural purpose." The statement expresses sympathy for sterile couples, but said that a child “is not an object to which one has a right, nor can he be considered as an object of ownership" but is "the supreme gift" of mar riage. The document calls on in fertile couples to use their condition "for sharing in a particular way in the Lord's cross." Those studying human sterility are encouraged to "continue their research with the aim of preventing the causes of sterility and of being able to remedy them so that sterile couples will be able to procreate." The document calls on legislators to reject embryo experimentation, egg and sperm donation, embryo banks, surrogate mother hood, and other techniques. Legal and political re cognition of the artificial transmission of life and the experimentation connected with it would “widen the breach" opened by legaliz ed abortion, the document says. The document also calls on moral theologians to study and make accessible to Catholics church teach ings on sexuality and mar riage to increase under standing of “the reasons for and the validity of this teaching." "By defending man against the excesses of his own power, the church of God reminds him of the reasons for his true nobili ty," the document said. Father John C. Kieran, pastor of Christ Our Hope parish in Lithonia. expects completion of the $500,000 multi-purpose building now under construction to be completed by the end of May He said construction was begun in December and the building is now under roof. Contractor is Sims and Sons of Smyrna. Parish ioners did much of the site preparation work last Fall and will do the landscap ing, Father Kieran said. At present there are 154 families registered. Mass is held each Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at the rectory and Sunday at 10 a.m. at Lithonia High School. The rectory, at 2010 Spencer Oaks Lane in Lithonia, is also the location for the parish educational pro grams. SUPERVISORS — Father John C. Kieran, pastor, and Joe Cumbie, building committee member, check progress at the building site. Archbishop Weakland: Third World Debt Solution Must Give Poor Priority BY JERKY FILTEAl WASHINGTON (NC) — Any solution to the Third World debt crisis must give priority to the poor, not to "the profitabili ty of banks," Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee said in congres sional testimony March 4. "The burden must be lifted from the poor" who "suffer most from austerity measures" required for credit-worthiness, the archbishop said, testifying on behalf of the U.S. Catholic Conference. He called "co-responsibility" the key to resolving the debt crisis. If lending banks do not accept their share of responsibility for providing a solution to the immense debt, he said, the other group likely to suf fer besides the Third World poor is "the taxpayers of the industrialized countries like the United States" who will foot the bill for government bail-outs Archbishop Weakland was head of the committee that wrote the U.S. bishops’ 1986 pastoral letter on Catholic teaching and the U.S. economy. He spoke about U.S. policy and Third World debt in prepared testimony at a hearing on the issue by the House Appropriations Committee's Sub committee on Foreign Operations. Since the U.S. bishops completed their pastoral last fall, Archbishop Weakland said. Third World debt has surpassed the trillion-dollar mark. He cited analyses by the bishops' pastoral, by the Vatican's Pontifical Justice and Peace Commission and by monetary experts to argue that the primary concern in dealing with Third World debt should be the “human element," especially the effect of any solu tion on the poor. “Poor people in poor countries are forc ed to pay back debts pushed on their not uneager but often unrepresentative governments by profit-seeking banks in the industrialized world," he said. “The bulk of this debt is interest, not principal, ' he added. He said the standard policies being used to handle the crisis are ones that were devised by the International Monetary Fund to handle “short-term liquidity prob lems” of countries rather than long-term debt: devaluation of currency, low ceilings on wage increases, and cuts in consumer subsidies and public services. These austerity measures, he said, are “bankers' solutions” whose basic princi ple is "to sustain bank profitability" rather than to assure equitable treatment of the people affected Archbishop Weakland said that the Vatican justice and peace commission's document on the Third World debt crisis, released in January, establishes the “crucially important" link “between a just solution of the debt problem and social peace." As an example, he said that several “fledgling democracies" in Latin America could easily be forced back into more authoritarian and repressive forms of government if debt repayment pressures require them to enforce harsh austerity measures. “Thus the banks may be pitting themselves, unwittingly, against the very forces in the debtor countries that could provide a democratic, growth-with-equity alternative," he said. Archbishop Weakland discussed pros and cons of various proposals to deal with the debt crisis. But his role as a bishop, he said, was to “offer some general bench marks against which to judge" specific proposals and their effects, rather than to prescribe actual policy solutions. He said the U.S. bishops see their 1983 peace pastoral and 1986 economy pastoral as “inextricably linked." “We know that just as what the peace pastoral recommended in a general sense would call for a very different policy than the United States is following today, so would the economic pastoral," he said. "But,” he added, “just as one effect of the peace pastoral was to identify the Roman Catholic community with the effort to reverse the arms race and stem the dangerous drift toward nuclear war, one effect of the economic pastoral will, we hope, be to identify the Roman Catholic community with the cause of economic justice — especially for the poor, both in the United States and in the Third World."
