All Roads Lead to Lincoln Park Thousands of friends of exceptional and underprivileged children will dance tomorrow night to the music of the Meyer Davis Orchestra at the Bishops' Charity Ball at Lincoln Park Ballroom, North Dartmouth. Youngsters attending the Nazareth Hall schools and special summer camps of the diocese will benefit from ball proceeds. A highlight of tomorrow night's program will be presen-
tation of 34 young women from diocesan parishes to Bishop Daniel A. Cronin. The ball this year honors the prelate on the occasion of his silver jubilee in the priesthood and he will address those present. Msgr. Anthony M. Gomes, diocesan director of the annual charity event, has announced that the Buddy Braga Orchestra will open the evening, playing from 8 to 8:45 in the main ball-
room and continuing from 9 to 1 a.m. in the ballroom lounge. The Meyer Davis Orchestra, led by Emery Davis, son of the late conductor, will be in the main ballroom from 9 to 1. Shortly after 9 Bishop Cronin will be escorted to his place of honor by James J. Gleason, particular council president of the New Bedford Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and Mrs. James E.
Leith, New Bedford, president of the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women. The two diocesan leaders are honorary co-chairmen of the ball. Presentees will then be escorted to the Bishop's box by their fathers and will be introduced by Robert McGUirk, North Dighton, president of the Taunton Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
Ball tickets will be available at the door tomorrow night, M.sgr. Gomes announced.
SERVING SOUTHEASTERN MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS
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Dancing will follow until 10 o"clock, when the traditional grand march will form. Mrs. Albert Petit will then offer the National Anthem and Msgr. Gomes will introduce Bishop Cronin to bellI guests for his remarks. Dancing will then resume until 1 a.m.
FALL RIVER, MASS., THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 1978
1Sc, $5 Per Year
Longer Strangers' Theme Christian Unity Week GRAYMOOR, N.Y. - As nations and people face the" strangers within and around them in an increasingly alienated and hostile world, the 71st observance of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity serves as a reminder that in Christ no human being, no nation, no community is any longer a stranger to others - or at least does not have to be. This year's observance begins Wednesday, Jan. 18 and calls Christians to pray for the unity which God wills for them and all human beings, making them "no longer strangers" to one another. The theme for the 1978 observance - "No longer strangers" - is taken from the second chapter of St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians in which the Apostle to the Gentiles appeals for unity among the Christians of Ephesus who were caught up in
F:R. PAUL WATTSON personal animosities and intramural wrangling to the detriment of the community and its witness to Christ.
Here's Why Irish Won Why did the top-ranked University of Texas Longhorn football team crumble before the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl? Msgr. Anthony M. Gomes, pastor of Our Lady of Angels parish, Fall River, has an idea. So has Fred Bell, cok at Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving, Tex. Msgr. Gomes, a longtime chaplain to the Notre Dame team, who attends games whenever possible, said he supplied coach Dan Devine "with at least five rosaries" in the days before the game. "He kept leaving them in the locker room and then he'd ask me for another one," recounted Msgr. Gomes. The Fall River pastor said the Cotton Bowl game was one of the best he'd ever
seen. (He was seen himself by Fall River friends and millions of other fans as TV cameras swept the game sidelines.) He noted that team members had foregone home Christmases to spend the pre-game days in Dallas practicing on what became the field of their triumph. The night before the game the players, coaches and managers moved to Holy Trinity Seminary where some prayed" in the chapel while others relaxed in the recreation room or telephoned friends and family. At 11 p.m., when the lights went out, "the players were quieter than the seminarians when they are here," reported Father Michael Sheehan, Holy Trinity rector. Turn to Page Seven
The theme was selected by the Graymoor Ecumenical Institute and the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches of Christ. Noting that "many problems of Christian disunity have surfaced during the past decade of dialogue" among the Christian c"urches, the Rev. ,Thaddeus Horgan, SA, co-director of the Graymoor Ecumenical Institute, remarked that this year's theme is "both a commentary on the state of the ecumenical movement and a call to Christians telling them what to do about it." Because the ecumenical movement is "not as dynamic as it was ten years ago," Father Horgan said, many Christians have lost heart about the possibility of Christian unity and wonder what to do about the disheartening divisions that are cropping up with the Christian churches more and more. Because of such internal difficulties, Father Horgan noted, "Christians have really become strangers once again." Citing the liberal-conservative splits in some of the churches, the divisions between poor and affluent Christians in the first and third worlds, and the political schisms like that in Northern Ireland, Father Horgan stated that "the delicate issues that unite Or divide us are often carefully avoided. They are too painful to confront" in the face of intprn~l <lifficulties disrupting the churches today. A powerful antidote to this seeming impasse, he suggests, :s for Christians and their churches to become fully aware of who Turn to Page Seven
IT'S HERE! "On the Record" by Charlie Martin, a successor to the popular "Life in Music" column formerly carried by The Anchor, begins today on page 14.
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MR., MRS. SANTIAGO BARTOLOMEY greet Bishop Cronin at blessing of Our Lady of Providence chapel at Regina Pads Hispanic Cen"ter, New Bedford.
Ecumenical Cornmission Studies Marriagle Law VATICAN CITY (NC) Highlevel representatives of the Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed (including Presbyterian) churches have reached significant agreement on dogmatic and pastoral aspects of marriage, but have encountered "complex" difficulties over Cathollic legislat,ion on mixed marriages. In a report issued by an ecumenical study commission after five years of discussion, Lutheran and Reformed commission members asked the Catholic Church to change its laws regarding mixed marriages. They specifically asked the Catholic spouse in a mixed marriage no longer be required to make a formal promise to raise the couple's children as Catholics. so
The Protestant commission alasked that the Catholic
Church permit Catholics to marry in a Lutheran or Refform ed ceremony b certain countries without obtaining a special dispensation. Catholic commission members replied in the report that they hoped such steps "would eventTurn to Page Five
Spleak Against Niliciear Spread NEW YORK (NC) ...... Nearly 100 religious leaders, including four Catholic bishops, have launched a campaign to organize churches and church members around the world against the spread of nuclear weapons and facilities. ThE!y signed a "New Year's Pastoral Letter on Human Survival" and announced their Turn to Page Eleven