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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (March 19, 1987)
PAGE 5 — The Georgia Bulletin, March 19, 1987 Sheila Mallon Success For Pro-Life Legislation Choose Life We did it! We did it! By George I think we did it! We finally passed a parental notification bill. The only step left is for Governor Joe Frank Harris to sign it and we ask you once again to help by writing to him to request that he sign this bill into law. Thanks are really due to all of you who were so faithful and wrote and called your state legislators and came down in per son and lobbied them. It was a thrill to realize that for the first time there was really a grassroots effort to pass this legisla tion, which requires that one parent be notified that a daughter under 18 is seeking an abortion. Last year a similar bill passed both Houses but time ran out in the session to reconcile the two versions. The difficulties we encountered both years were not in getting this bill through the full House and Senate. Each House passed the legislation resoundingly both years. The difficulties were in the judiciary committees which had to consider the bills before they could go on to the full Senate and House for a vote. As with all legislation, a handful of people on key committees can prevent considera tion by the full legislature of any bill. In the Senate Special Judiciary Committee the vote was close and the bill was changed somewhat, but the changes were acceptable. In the House Judiciary Committee the bill had a much harder time. After hearing hours of testimony both pro and con, this committee sent the bill to a subcom mittee chaired by Denmark Groover of Macon who was strongly opposed to the legislation. This subcommittee rewrote the bill, taking out any mention of parental notification and inserting instead “voluntary counseling." It was a travesty. Fortunately thanks to our sup porters on that committee the substitute bill was dismissed and the original bill, Senate Bill 229 was accepted with a few minor changes. The full committee voted seven to six to pass out our legislation. Then we still had the hurdle of the House Rules Commit tee, which after due consideration, passed out the legislation by a vote of 14 to 12. You can see how close the votes were in those committees as compared with the final votes when the legislation won by overwhelming numbers. The full Senate voted 50 to two to adopt this legislation and in the full House the vote was 139 to 28 in favor. The process was interesting to watch. The pro-abortion people pulled out all the stops, marshalled their forces and lobbied the legislators on the judiciary committees. They knew that this was probably the only chance they would have to stop this bill from passing. Our pro-life people were, of course, doing the same thing, but we had something else going for us. At the same time that we were working down there your calls and letters were pouring in to the legislators. One representative told me that he had never had so much mail on any subject as he had on this one. There were heroes in the legislature, of course, and we need to give them credit and send them our thanks. Foremost among them was Rep. Tommy Smith of Alma. He has spent the last three years fighting for this legislation and we owe him a great deal. Others are Sen. Tom Allgood, who wrote and introduced this year's bill, and Sen. Roy Barnes of Mableton and Sen. Joe Kennedy of Claxton, who helped to move the bill so swiftly through the Senate. In the House we owe thanks to many more people than we can name, but some due mention are Rep. Charles Thomas, who was chairman of the Judiciary Committee and who spoke for the bill on the floor, Rep. Betty Clark and Rep. Tyrone Brooks of Atlanta, Rep. Roy Allen of Savannah, and Rep. Max Davis and Betty Jo Williams of DeKalb. Among the disturbing ironies were the positions of Reps. Jim Pannell of Savannah and Cathy Steinberg of DeKalb who opposed our bill and spoke against it over and over again. They were, they said, opposed to parental notification, yet they both supported bills which called for no cigarettes being sold to a minor and for minors to have to obtain a parent's permission before being allowed to rent a video with ex cessive violence. More frightening to me was the statement of Denmark Groover of Macon, the legislator who opposed us so bitterly in the Judiciary Committee, and who took the floor before the full House to speak against the parental notification bill. He told other members of the House that a young woman with an unwanted pregnancy must be told that “the State offers you love and affection — gives you an opportunity, puts no obstacles in your way and offers you counseling." Parents take note that there are some legislators who would usurp your position as parents and substitute the “love and affec tion ' of the "State." We had your support and prayers and in the end that prevailed. Last year when we failed in the last minutes I couldn't understand why God permitted it because I felt that we had done all that we humanly could. This year I realized that we had another year to educate and teach and to reach out to others who had not been involved in the process until this year. The Lord truly does make all things right in His own time. Father John Catoir Why Do We Fast? Light One Candle Lent is a time of fasting, but what does it mean to fast? The prophet Isaiah, born about 765 B.C., was given the mis sion to proclaim the fall of Israel and of Judah, as punish ment for that nation's infidelity, but he denounced the hypocrisy of false fasting. The Jerusalem Bible translation of Isaiah puts it neatly: Hanging your head like a reed, lying down on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call fasting, a day acceptable to Yahweh? Is not this the sort of fast that pleases Me — it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks: to break unjust fetters and undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke, to share your bread with the hungry, and shelter the homeless poor, to clothe the man you see naked, and not turn from your own kin. Then, will light shine like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed over. (Is. 58:1-9) The Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter on "Economic Justice for All" in 1986, and in it they made a strong case for respecting the human rights of the poor and the powerless. The words of Isaiah tell us that to fast is to surrender our will to God's holy will. Fasting involves a self-denial, which goes far beyond dieting. Fasting is sharing bread with the hungry and sheltering the homeless. When sacrifice takes on an altruistic character, it becomes a truer form of fasting. So is it any wonder that as early as 765 B.C., God was tell ing His people to fast by practicing the corporal works of mercy? There are more subtleties to fasting than one might realize. For instance, one fasts.in the true sense when one gives up a life of peace and quiet in order to fight for the rights of the poor so as to alleviate their suffering. The struggle for justice sometimes incurs the wrath of those who resent “do-gooders" and "bleeding hearts." Too bad about them. Critics we will always have with us. We are urged by the bishops to examine our conscience along these lines: How do my economic choices contribute to the strength of my family and community, to the values of my children, to a sensitivity to those in need? What government policies should I support to attain the well-being of all? How do I ex tend myself to help the poor? "Holiness is not limited to the sanctuary or to private prayer. It is a call to direct our whole heart and life toward God and according to God s plan for this world." (Par. 332) Ivan J. Kauffman CRS Makes A Difference “1 make myself here the voice of the voiceless, the voice of the innocent who are dead because they had no water and bread; the voice of the fathers and mothers who saw their children die...the voice of the generations to come, who must no longer live with this terrible threat weighing upon their life." — Pope John Paul II Burkino Faso, Africa May, 1980 Each Lent virtually every Catholic parish in the United States takes up a special collection for Catholic Relief Ser vices and the Church's other overseas work. Over the last decade the amount has held steady at about $10 million — an average contribution of about 20 cents per Catholic. With that modest sum as a financial base CRS has become the world's largest non-governmental agency devoted to overseas development. In 1985 it distributed aid worth half a billion dollars in 63 countries. In Ethiopia alone it saved tens of thousands from starving to death. When the earthquake hit Mexico City it was on the scene immediately. Father Lawrence Jenco, director of CRS's program in Beirut until he was kidnapped and taken hostage, is typical of the hundreds of dedicated CRS staff serving around the world, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, teaching peo ple to farm, helping them develop the local economy — all on behalf of the Catholic community in the United States. It would be hard to imagine any program which delivers, more for each dollar we put in the collection basket. Because CRS programs are also supported by numerous private con tributors, corporations, and foundations its cash income in 1985 was $75 million. In addition the U.S. government con tributed some $380 million, mostly in surplus food. Other governments gave lesser amounts. What all this means is that for each dollar we put in the basket in Lent of 1984, almost $50 was actually spent in the field in 1985 — helping the people in the world who needed it most. Less than 1 percent of CRS’ budget goes for fund raising costs, and only about 2 percent is spent on ad ministration. The other 97 percent goes directly to programs abroad. Robert J. McCloskey, former U.S. ambassador to Greece and former ombudsman at the Washington Post, who now heads the external affairs office at CRS says, “It's safe to say that Catholic Relief Services can deliver more on the ground per dollar contributed than any other agency." What CRS does matters, not only to the people who would be dead if it didn't exist, but to us as well. Disease and hunger and ignorance anywhere in the world eventually hurt Making Peace everyone in the world — in the form of crime or war or disease. The human race is really one vast, inter-related fami ly which depends on each other in a thousand different ways. What's wrong with the world is that people are Selfish. It's that simple. Our selfishness takes many forms but they all boil down to our saying, “I don't care what happens to you. I'm going to take care of myself and ignore everybody else." “So long as I have enough to eat, I don't care if you're hungry. So long as I have a nice house I don't care if you live in a tar- paper shack. So long as my kids have good schools I don't care if yours never learn to read and write." We usually don't say those things out loud, but if you look at our checkbooks (my own included) that's the story they tell. If all the active Catholic families and individuals in the U.S. would each give $25 to CRS each year it would produce some $250 million, more than enough to make a real dent in poverty abroad — and most of us would never miss it. Many families could give $250 and all it would mean is they'd have to give up some luxury they won t enjoy anyway. If we want the world to be a better place we've got to do what we can to make it better. These things don't just hap pen. And one of the most effective and at the same time easiest things we as Catholics can do to make the world a better place is to give money to CRS.
