Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4 — The Georgia Bulletin, August 24,1989
STATEMENT
The New Temple
To Flannery O’Connor is attributed the remark
that the South about which she wrote so vividly
and honestly was not "Christ centered” but it
was certainly “Christ haunted.”
This gifted insight often helps to unmuddy the
waters when the name of Christ is linked to
causes and actions that seem so far from Him.
It comes to mind when a proposal to build a
Jewish synagogue, the first in Gwinnett County,
provokes fear and anti-Semitic remarks that are
then connected to the fact that previously the
county has been “all Christian.”
This may mean that there has been a uniformi
ty and familiarity to the houses of worship in
Gwinnett County and that some residents of the
county have never encountered a Jewish
synagogue and do not know what to expect when
Jews gather to worship and pray.
It cannot mean that anti-Semitic remarks are in
any way justified. That Jesus was a Jew and
observed the Jewish law, that every Christian
shares the body of Old Testament Scripture with
Jewish people and the example of faith begin
ning with Abraham, these are essential aspects
of Christian faith. These would surely dispose
Christians to recognize Jewish people as family
members.
The presence of Temple Beth David in Gwin
nett County appears to be an opportunity for the
county to become more Christian, not less.
--GRK
Sister Teresa
She’ll never have the fame and fortune of
Donald Trump and his ilk. She dresses plainly,
lives with sisters and children in a community,
and her favorite expression is “God love you.”
Tha Atlanta archdiocese is losing Sister
Teresa Termini, CSJ to her hometown after hav
ing her presence for 20 years. She leaves behind
a legacy most visible in three dwellings where
elderly men and women live securely, safely and
in Catholic surroundings — Marian, St. Thomas
and St. Teresa manors. It took more than a
decade to bring this dream to fulfillment, but she
quietly persevered, with a cheerful spirit that did
not embitter or abandon the struggle.
She will be greatly missed, as much for her
bright, hopeful presence as her practical,
endless work for the poor and elderly. God love
you, Sister Teresa.
-GRK
Msgr. Elmo Romagosa
Visit To The West Bank
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, West Bank (CNS) - The
Holy Land is a place where I found division, violence and
charity co-existing in the daily atmosphere of confrontation
between Israelis and Palestinians.
Jews have a claim to the land that is thousands of years
old. So do the Palestinians, who trace their ancestry to
Abraham.
Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations Abba
Eban says the issue is “where to draw the dividing line” in
the racially, religiously, socially and culturally divided
region.
It became clear to me in a 10-day visit to the area earlier
this year that the Israeli government is trying to suppress
every display of Palestinian identity in the West Bank.
Not only is showing the Palestinian flag and its colors pro
hibited, but so are professional associations, unions and a
Palestinian press association. Additionally, Israeli
authorities closed 108 Palestinian charities.
Even more destructive is the closing of schools, including
the Vatican-founded and funded Bethlehem University.
Israeli authorities say schools are sources of unrest.
Is it any wonder that 318,000 students forced out of school
in the occupied territories are throwing stones at Israeli
soldiers?
The jarring signs of occupation are in the holiest of
places.
The<lGeorgia<
mi
(USPS) 574880 CaiMx-Arvlvliocese of Atlanta
Business Office
6*0 West Peachtree, N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
Phone: 999-7932
U.S.A. $19.00
Canada 9H.00
Foreign $17.90
Most Rev. Eugene A. Marino, S.S.J. Publisher
Gretchen R. Reiser Editor
Rita Mcinerney Associate Editor
DEADLINE: All material for publication must be received by
MONDAY NOON for Thursday's paper.
POSTMASTER: Send Change of Address to THE GEORGIA BULLETIN
601 East Sixth Street, Waynesboro, Georgia 30930
Send oil editorial correspondence to
THE GEORGIA BULLETIN
690 West Peachtree Street N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
Second Class Postage Paid at Waynesboro, Ga. 30930
Published Weekly except the second and last weeks
In June, July and August and the last week In December
at 601 East Sixth St., Waynesboro, Ga. 30930
After celebrating Mass in Bethlehem’s Church of the
Nativity and praying in its shrines, it was an ugly intrusion
into the peace of the town to emerge from the church and
face a steel-walled army command post occupying a large
portion of Manger Square.
Many Palestinians told me how for 20 years they quietly
accepted Israeli military presence in the hope that prom
ises made in the Camp David meeting between Isreal,
Egypt and the United States would end that occupation.
Since that did not happen, the Palestinian uprising called
the “intifada” was born. For more than 18 months it has
cost the Israelis financially — in maintaining occupation
troops — and in lost credibility as a peace-loving
democracy.
Not only has the ever-present military caused bitterness
among Palestinians, but the situation has been intensely
aggravated by Israeli settlers who have encroached on the
territory where 1.7 million Palestinians live. At least
70,000 settlers have built 130 villages on land Israel took
from Jordan in the 1967 war.
On visits to Bethlehem and Jerusalem I found examples
of love as well as of violence and death.
At Bethlehem University, Christian Brother Cyril
Litecki, the academic vice-president, said despite the
Israeli prohibition on education, the brothers have decided
to continue teaching quietly on and off campus. Without
that effort, the futures of their students would be seriously
imperiled.
I later met a young man who had been beaten by soldiers
and shot seven times for doing no more, I was told, than try
ing to retrieve his little brother, who had wandered across a
road toward the troopers.
In Jerusalem I met a woman who had been shot twice
with plastic bullets. The shooting had occurred while she
was at the wake of a 12-year-old boy killed by Israeli
soldiers.
She gave me one of the projectiles. It is a metal slug as
large as that of a plastic-covered bullet from a .45-caliber
weapon.
In an interview, Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch Michel Sab-
bah, the first Arab to hold the post, linked the United States
to the problems in the occupied territories.
He said the United States should insist on “equal rights”
for Palestinians as well as Israelis.
“If the United States decides to solve the problem, it will
be solved,” he said. “If it does not decide, it will not be solv
ed.”
(Monsignor Romagosa, a Louisiana priest, visited the oc
cupied West Bank this summer.)
The Week In Review
NAMES AND PLACES — Mother Maria-Thomas Beil has
been elected and blessed for the Colorado monastery of 19
contemplative Benedictine nuns. St. Walburga Abbey in
Boulder was officially named an abbey by the Vatican on
March 7. The normal course for a Benedictine monastery is
to progress from the status of priory, which is juridically
dependent on the motherhouse, through independence to
full status as an abbey. There are only a handful of abbeys
for women Religious in the United States. Abbot Viktor
Dammertz, head of the Benedictine Confederation in Rome
who spoke at a Mass celebrating the election, said that
while there are about 4,000 Benedictine women Religious in
the U.S., only about 100 of those are contemplative nuns.
SULPICIAN Father Eugene A. Walsh, a theologian noted
for talks and writings on prayer, worship and liturgy, died
Aug. 15. He was 78. His body was found at the bottom of a
swimming pool in Hilo, Hawaii. He apparently suffered a
heart attack while swimming, according to Father William
Lee, Sulpician spokesman. Father Walsh had been giving a
conference on liturgy in Hawaii. His funeral was scheduled
for Aug. 21 at the Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott
City, Md., Father Lee said.
PAULIST Father Eugene F. O’Malley, considered the in
spiration for Father Chuck O’Malley, the hero in the 1944
movie, “Going My Way” and its sequel, “The Bells of St.
Mary’s,” died of cardiac arrest Aug. 14 in Chicago. He was
87. Father O’Malley had been director of the all-male
Paulist Choir at Old St. Mary’s Church in Chicago from 1928
to 1967. The 100-member choir sang concerts throughout the
nation and even made an appearance at the White House.
The movies, from Paramount Pictures, starred Bing
Crosby as a singing priest in a poor neighborhood. The
Crosby character was thought by many to be loosely based
on Father O’Malley, though the studio apparently never
acknowledged such a connection.
*****
AROUND THE NATION — Los Angeles Archbishop
Roger M. Mahony endorsed the Operation Rescue anti-
aborton movement during an Operation Rescue rally in Los
Angeles. He told a crowd of 3,500 “I endorse your participa
tion and involvement, and I ask you to ...make the Catholic
Church proud of you.” Four bishops have been arrested
during Operation Rescue protests. They are Bishop Paul V.
Dudley of Sioux Falls, S.D.; Bishop Albert H. Ottenweller of
Steubenville, Ohio; New York Auxiliary Bishop Austin B.
Vaughan; and retired Auxiliary Bishop George E. Lynch of
Raleigh, N.C.
LAFAYETTE Bishop Harry J. Flynn delivered the homi
ly at the recent installation of the rector of an Episcopal
church in Lafayette, at the rector’s request. Bishop
Flynn’s presence “was truly a gift — for me personally, for
the parish, for the diocese, for the church,” said Rev. Ed
ward M. Head Jr., who was installed as rector of the
Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Lafayette. Episcopal
Bishop Robert J. Hargrove told the Acadiana Catholic,
newspaper of the Lafayette diocese, “The church has been
talking about ecumenism for so long, but it seems we just
don’t take the opportunity to do very much about it.
Hopefully events like this will happen from both sides in the
future. I’m certainly open to it.”
*****
INTERNATIONALLY — Travelers to the Soviet Union
may now bring their Bibles with them, according to Vatican
Radio. New Soviet customs rules allow foreign visitors to
carry Bibles and other religious literature the station
reported Aug. 15. The old rules banned such publications.
The Jesuit-run radio cited news reports from Moscow in its
broadcast. It said according to those reports, the relaxed
customs rules reflect a greater Soviet confidence in visitors
to the country.
GUERRILLAS of El Salvador’s Farabundo Marti Na
tional Liberation Front have presented the government
with a peace proposal that would include Archbishop Ar
turo Rivera Damas of San Salvador as mediator in the
talks. In a statement signed by the rebels’ high command
and read over San Salvador radio stations, the guerrilla
front said it had sent a message to the government inviting
it to negotiate an end to the country’s nine-year-old civil
war. As one of several key points in the proposal, the guer
rillas demanded that Archbishop Damas be included as a
mediator.
POLICE used rubber whips and batons to beat protesters
in Cape Town in an effort to break up a series of anti
apartheid demonstrations the weekend of Aug. 19. The pro
tests were part of a nationwide defiance campaign against
apartheid and the exclusion of blacks from general elec
tions in South Africa Sept. 6. Police beat back hundreds of
black demonstrators who streamed onto a whites-only
beach near Cape Town. The following day, army troops
erected barbed-wire barriers with signs that said “Danger:
Dog training” in an effort to prevent protesters from enter
ing the beach. However, Anglican Archbishop Desmond
Tutu broke through the barricade and walked along the
beach.