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Vol. 28 No. 17
Thursday, April 26, 1990
$15.00 Per Year
Pope's Tour
Visit Is 'A Miracle'
Czech Leader Says
BY AGOSTINO BONO
BRATISLAVA, Czechoslovakia (CNS) — Pope John Paul
II and Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel turned the
April 21-22 papal visit into a symbolic victory of spiritual
values and the yearning for freedom over a totalitarian
ideology.
The country’s playwright-president called the trip “a
miracle.”
The pope, in turn, announced an unprecedented Synod of
Bishops from Eastern and Western Europe, to be held soon
to reflect on this “historic moment” for the religious and
political life of the continent.
It was the pope’s first trip to an East European country
since the crumbling of communist rule, and he emphasized
that rebuilding society "cannot be only a political and
economic event.”
To avoid new disasters, the building blocks must be
forged with spiritual, moral and cultural values, he said.
The pope also praised the “shining testimony” of
Catholics who remained faithful during 40 years of com
munist repression.
The symbolic tone of the trip was set April 21 at the
Prague airport arrival ceremony where Havel — who six
months earlier was taken prisoner as an enemy of the com-
(Continued on page 12)
WASTELAND OR WONDER — Public televi
sion journalist Bill Moyers, keynote speaker at
Religious Communication Congress 1990, said
television can turn America into a wasteland of
trivia or be a wondrous, even spiritual force.
His talk and other Congress reports appear on
page 11.
INSIDE THE BULLETIN
Georgia Bulletin
Wins Press Award
"Mary Jo’s Silent Life." a story describing the last four
years of Mary Jo Fitzgerald’s life and her impact on those
* around her, has received a first-place award from the
Catholic Press Association of the U.S. and Canada.
Mrs. Fitzgerald died of Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1988, but
her faith impacted hundreds of people in Atlanta and
* elsewhere who came within her sphere. The story, which
appeared in the March 2,1989 issue of The Georgia Bulletin,
was written by Gretchen Keiser. It received first place in
the category of personality profiles among entries from
Catholic newspapers nationwide.
The wife of Robert Fitzgerald and mother of six children.
Mary Jo Fitzgerald was a Louisiana native and the family
newly arrived at Christ the King Cathedral in Atlanta when
her illness was diagnosed. The spiritual response of Mary
Jo and her family to her illness personally touched and in
spired many.
. The Georgia Bulletin story also appeared in a condensed
form in Catholic Digest magazine in 1989.
Second-place award in the category went to the National
Catholic Reporter for Linda Rabben’s profile of a Brazilian
. unionist killed for opposing the destruction of forests by
land speculators. Third place was given to Our Sunday
Visitor for an article entitled “The life of a parish priest in
El Salvador” by Joseph Kraker.
> Annual awards to Catholic newspapers, magazines and
books were given April 21 in Nashville, Tenn., where the
Catholic Press Association met as part of a gathering of
over 1,000 people working in the field of religious com-
•* munication. Religious Communication Congress 1990 was a
once-a-decade ecumenical gathering of denominational
communication organizations. Other stories on the Con
gress appear on page 11.
Catholic Educators
see Canadian system of
government aid page 2
Haitian Poverty
prompts reflections
on the middle ground page 5
BY PAULA DAY
The pro-life movement, more than any other movement
concerned with moral and social issues, must be grounded
in love, the founder of Birthright, Inc.; told 70 to 75 par
ticipants at Birthright’s annual regional conference.
Louise Summerhill gave the keynote address on the con
ference theme, "Rejoice in Life,” April 21 at the
Travelodge Hotel in Atlanta.
"If we allow ourselves to be just a power-hungry group of
people, anxious to impose our particular views on others,
then we lose our right to exist as a movement,” she told the
Birthright volunteers, workers and directors from seven
southeastern states.
Birthright, Inc. was founded in 1968 as a non-profit inter
national organization offering help and reasonable alter
natives to abortion to any girl or woman distressed by an
unplanned or untimely pregnancy. It was the first organiza
tion of its kind to offer emergency abortion alternative ser-
Ralph Abernathy
Archbishop Marino’s
tribute page 5
Jennifer Casolo
Central America
conference speaker page 7
vices, according to Terry Weaver, director of Birthright
Atlanta, host for the conference.
“The crux of the abortion problem is the unwanted
child,” Mrs. Summerhill told her audience, “but the condi
tions that make a child unwanted are man-made and they
can be changed. If we have the power and resources to send
people into space we should be able to find solutions to
socioeconomic problems other than the destruction of
human life. The destruction of human life, even life in the
womb, is not the way to destroy what is destructive in life.”
Birthright focuses on its supportive role in helping
women in crisis pregnancy, according to Mrs. Summerhill,
not on its anti-abortion position.
“We can’t be strongly identified as anti-abortionists,” she
said in an interview with The Georgia Bulletin. Many, if not
most of the women who seek assistance from Birthright ac
cept abortion as a reasonable alternative and they would
not approach the organization in the first place if they iden-
(Continued on page 12)
Louise Summerhill's "Pro-Love" Message