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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (April 30, 1987)
Georgia^ Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta Vol. 25 No. 18 Thursday, April 30, 1987 $12.00 Per Year sients and the Hispanic community in the Athens area. Others pictured are Barbara Brulez, left, of Catholic Social Services, Mark Baggett, program director, and Dave Dam- mann, Georgia program director for ACTION. More information on page 8. Atlanta Workshop Cardinal Willebrands Addresses Ecumenists BY GRETCHEN REISER U.S.C.C. Opposes Court Ruling On Death Penalty WASHINGTON (NC) — Expressing disappointment and disagreement with the Supreme Court’s April 22 validation of the death penalty, the U.S. Catholic Conference April 24 promised renewed efforts to fight capital punishment. “We disagree with the court’s judgment in this matter,” said Msgr. Daniel F. Hoye, USCC general secretary. “We take this occasion to renew our commitment to speak out against the death penalty and to work for changes in both public opinion and law that will help create a more just and humane criminal justice system.” The high court, voting 5-4, upheld Georgia’s death penalty law as constitutional, despite an academic study demonstrating that in Georgia killers of white victims were w 11 times more likely to be sentenced to death than killers of 3 black victims. By its decision, the court upheld the death sentence against Warren McCleskey, a black man convicted of the 1978 murder of a white Atlanta policeman. “The fact that capital punishment is applied in a racially discriminatory way has been one of the reasons for our con tinued opposition on moral grounds to the application of the death penalty,” Msgr. Hoye said. He said that “the evidence submitted in the McCleskey case strengthens our conviction that the death penalty is frequently applied in an irrational and discriminatory fashion.” “The system under which criminals are sentenced is such that race often plays a prominent role in determining whether they will live or die,” the monsignor stated. “Although there are equally strong moral reasons for its abolition, we believe that capital punishment under these conditions is surely ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’ ” “Cruel and unusual punishment” is forbidden by the 8th Amendment to the Constitution. The USCC official also noted the problem of dealing with A YEAR OF SERVICE — Among those honored at an April 23 reception were Beth Roach, center, and Mayra Coira, right, two women who will finish a year as VISTA volunteers in Athens in May. Both have given the time in exchange for a stipend and have worked with the elderly, homeless and tran- crime. “Violent crime and the abuse of life that plague our socie ty and frighten our people are deeply serious matters that must be addressed,” he said. “However, taking human life is neither an effective nor a morally acceptable response to this violence. We need to be creative in our thinking, not simply destructive in our response.” The McCleskey ruling came a day after the court also (Continued on page 11) Hospital Gives Care To AIDS Victims BY THEA JARVIS Susan Sendelbach joined St. Joseph’s Hospital pastoral care department three years ago. Formerly a campus minister at Emory Universi ty, Georgia State and Agnes Scott, she earned a graduate degree in theology from Catholic Univer sity and is completing a Doctor of Ministry degree from Emory University. Mornings find Susan at the Interfaith Ministry Institute in Marietta, a private counseling practice she co-directs with her husband, Jim. Afternoons at St. Joe’s, she is one of 10 chaplains serving some 300 patients at the northside Atlanta facility. Ms. Sendelbach has a very special concern for persons with AIDS. “The issues are so intense,” she explains, noting that such ministry includes not only the patient, but family and friends as well. It must even touch, she says, other AIDS patients who follow the pro gress of the disease to see how it may eventually impact on them. The social controversy that sur rounds AIDS and the terminal nature of the disease heightens the pressure felt by her pa tients. While persons with AIDS comprise only about 25 percent of her chaplaincy load, such pa tients require almost three times as much care and time. Susan met her first two AIDS patients shortly after she came to St. Joseph’s Hospital. “I went looking for them,” she says, smiling. “I felt they probably were lonely and needed somebody to make a special effort to meet them.” One of the men was seriously ill, and died soon after Susan met him. The other, an accomplished musician whose ties to the Church were close and strong, converted to Catholicism after the initial diagnosis was made. He was in and out of the hospital several times for treatment and care and died after receiving the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. (Continued on page 6) A National Workshop on Christian Unity, expected to at tract about 400 people from more than 20 denominations, will be held in Atlanta May 4-7 with a keynote address given by Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, president of the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Cardinal Willebrands, 77, has been with the unity secretariat since it was formed in 1960 before the Second Vatican Council. He was its secretary under Cardinal Augustin Bea from 1960 to 1969 and became its president in 1969. His keynote address, to be given at 9 a.m. on May 5 at the Pierremont Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, is expected to be in troduced by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, who will be in Atlanta attending the 50th anniversary celebra tion of the Cathedral of Christ the King. Archbishop Thomas Donnellan, Bishop Raymond Lessard of Savannah and Bishop William H. Keeler, chair man of the U.S. Bishops Committee on Ecumenical and In terreligious Affairs, are also taking part in the meeting. Archbishop Donnellan will make one of three presentations on the U.S. bishops pastoral on the economy. He will also in troduce a main speaker, Dr. Mary Tanner, a British theologian and Anglican member of the formal Vatican commission seeking unity between the Anglican and Roman Catholic communions. Dr. Tanner is theological secretary for the Board for Mis sion and Unity of the General Synod of the Church of England. Her publications include works on Old Testament (Continued on page 11)
