SERVING •.. SOUTHEASTERN MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS
VOL. 24, NO. 3
FALL RIVER, MASS., THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1980
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Lifemarch is Tuesday "A nation with the resolve to have a man set foot on the moon must not be afraid to :let a child set foot on the earth," Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York said in defense of the t.nborn child. The cardinal's statement on the "national scandal" of legalized abortion was one of a number of comments made in observance of the seventh anniversary of the Supreme Court abortion decision, Jan. 22. Other religious leaders around the country joined in condemning abortion and religious and educational pro-life activities were planned to be in step with the annual March for Life. A three-day Respect Life Lea.dership Conference, an all-night Eucharistic vigil and a short prayer vigil will be held befclre the seventh annual march in Washington. Other cities also will hold marches. In the Providence diocese an all-night abortion reparation vigil will begin at 8:30 tomorrow night in Guzman Chapel of Providence College. A Right to Life Mass will be celebrated at 7:30 p.m. Monday at SSe Peter and Paul Cathedral by Bishop Louis E. Gelineau. A reception will follow the Mass, honoring those from the diocese who will leave at 10 p.m. for' the Washington March for Life. In Providence on Tuesdlly, motorcade members will lay wreaths at 1:15 p.m. at the Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinic, 197 Westminster St., and a short time thereafter on the grounds of Women and Infants Hospital. Both ceremonies will memorialize the lives of aborted babies. The march, on the anniversa.ry of the Supreme Court decision Tum to Page Six
Energy seen • as top Issue
AN ECUMENICAL GATHERING listens to an address by Father James W. Clark, pastor, at the opening of the new parish center of St. John the Evangelist Church, Pocasset.
Diocese to mark Unity Week Marking the 1980 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which begins tomorrow, Bishop Daniel A. Cronin will speak on Monday at an ecumenical meeting of the clergy of Taunton, to be held at the Baptist Church of All Nations. In Fall River, clergy and parishioners of six area churches have been invited to participate in the second Niagara Neighborhood ecumenical prayer service, to be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24 at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, 315 Warren St. Participating, as well as members and clergy of St. Luke's, will be representatives of the First Primitive Methodist Church, Holy Cross, Our Lady of Health and SSe Peter and Paul Catholic churches and St. Paul's Lutheran Church. The homily will be by Father Stephen A. Fernandes, associate pastor of SS. Peter and Paul's.
Preceeding Christian Unity Week, St. John the Evangelist Church, Pocasset, held an ecumenical open house in its new parish center. Official blessing of the structure will take place in the spring. In Falmouth, Catholics will attend a general prayer service
Sunday, Jan. 27 at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. All churches will join in a covenant of discipline and prayer, with representatives of each communion promising prayer and sacrifice for each day of the week. Tum to Page Six
$3 million in aid Thanks for the "truly magnificent generosity" of the Fall River diocese to the suffering refugees of Cambodia have been expressed by Bishop Edwin B. Broderick, executive director of Catholic Relief Services. In a letter to Bishop Daniel A. Cronin, Bishop Broderick acknowledged receipt of the record breaking amount of $103,670.60, proceeds of a special collection in all diocesan churches. "Because of our favorable
20c, $6 Per Year
purchasing position and of our access to various grants, we are able to deliver about $30 worth of aid for every dollar we receive," the bishop wrote. "So you see that in partnership with CRS. the people of Fall River have contributed over $3 million to help the poor. "The people of Fall River come like the Kings to the manger, bearing gifts," continued the bishop. "And Our Lord receives them into the only hands he has left us - the hands of the poor."
WASHINGTON (NC) - Energy was called "the pre-eminent social justice issue of the 1980s" by Bishop William M. Cosgrove of Belleville, Ill., during a day-long Washington conference last week on "Religion and Energy in the '80s." Signaling a major new effort by religious groups to have an impact on the energy debate in the United States, the conference included a White House breakfast and a 15-minute address by President Carter. "It might seem strange to some - not to you - that the conservation of oil was a religious connotation," Carter told the approximately 125 religious leaders at the conference. "But when God created the earth and gave human beings dominion over it, it was with the understanding that we are indeed stewards under God's guidance," he said. The president praised a plan to promote a "conservation Sabbath weekend," and he linked freedom of religion to the availability of energy. "The right of people to be free is directly tied to adequate supplies of energy in the modern, fast-changing technological world," Carter said. Bishop Cosgrove, who is heading a U.S. Catholic Conference effort to develop a major policy statement on energy, made his remarks about the pre-eminence of the energy issue in a statement to reporters shortly after the president's speech. The conference included two interrelated themes: theological questions surrounding church involvement in energy issues, and a discussion of what religious institutions could do to ease the energy pinch. Elizabeth Bettenhausen, assoTurn to Page Seven
AT THE SnLVER JUBILEE BISHOP'S BALL YOUNG WOMEN GATHER FOR THE TRADITIONAL PORTRAIT WITH THE BISHOP AND THEIR FATHERS (Other pictures on pages 8,9)