SERVING ••• SOUTHEASTERN MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS
t eanc 0 VOL. 25, No.5
FALL RIVER, MASS., THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1981
20c, $6 Per Year
Hostages required decompression BUFFALO, N.Y. (NC) - A Buffalo psychiatrist said the period of decompression for the 52 U.S. hostages released from Iran was necessary because of "the scope of the traumatic ordeal" which they experienced. . "It was not simply a case of being held together in some nice, comfortable building by friendly captors who ministered to their needs," said Dr. Armand DiFrancesco, a psychiatrist in private practice. "Rather, it was 444 days of traumatic stress that was demoralizing and degrading to the human spirit." DiFrancesco is also a columnist for the Western New York Catholic Visitor. newspaper of the Buffalo Diocese, and his analysis of the hostages' experience is scheduled for the Feb. 1 issue of the paper. On Jan. 23, three days after the hostages' release, Dr. Jerome Korcak, head of the State Department medical team examining them in Wiesbaden, West Germany, said some of them showed guilt feelings and other signs of temporary psychiatric illness. Noting that the Iranian captors were Shi'ite Moslems, DiFrancesco said they belonged to "a culture that condones the killing of female adulterers, death by stoning, the cutting off extremities, tongues and heads for various crimes, that treats
women as second-class citizens or as man's chattel." The Iranians "have a paranoid coloring to their thinking and attitudes toward others. They believe that two wrongs make a right, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for' a tooth." "They were rightfully critical of the U.S. involvement in the internal affairs of Iran and of some wrongdoings of the shabo However, their reaction and subsequent behavior indicated that 'the pot was now calling the kettle black' and the oppressed were now becoming the oppressors - just as evil, just as anarchic and just as cruel." When they were first caJ.>tured, the hostages probably experienced shock and disbelief, DiFrancesco continued. "Not only was their freedom taken away but now faced the threat of being put on trial and possibly executed as spies." As time went on, DiFrancesco said, hostages felt anger and resentment toward the Iranians and toward the U.S. government for not preventing their capture. Still later, he went on, hostages experienced depression and a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. During captivity, some hostages would sustain themselves by faith in God, the psychiatrist said. "Others would be continuTurn to Page Three
Pope plans. to visit Anc.horage en route from Far East It was Christmas, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving all in one as the hostages came home.
Diocese gives $121,700 to quake aid Bishop Daniel A. Cronin announced today that $121,700 had been contributed by members of the Fall River diocese to earthquake relief efforts in southern Italy. The funds were transmitted to Catholic Relief Services, the overseas aid agency of the Ameriqm 'bishops, which has been in the forefront of efforts to alleviate effects of the death and destruction caused by the earthquake. . In praising the diocesan con-
tribution, Bishop Cronin noted that Bishop Edwin -J. Broderick, national director of Catholic Relief Services, had expressed gratitude and delight at the. unprecedented generosity of the 113 parishes of the diocese. An earthquake relief collection was taken up in all parishes last Dec. 6 and 7. Additionally, members of the Italian parishes of St. Francis of Assisi, New Bedford, and Holy Rosary, Fall River, collected bedding and clo-
thing and acted as collection agencies for area organi~ations wishing to channel funds to Italy. SiIDilar generosity was demonstrated in January, 1980, when the diocese contributed nearly $100,000 to the diocese of Angra, Azores, following a severe New Year's day earthquake that left towns and villages on the islands of Terceira, Sao Jorge and Graciosa from 60 to 80 percent destroyed.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (NC) - Pope John Paul II will stop in Anchorage for about three hO\lrs Feb. 26 to refuel on his way back to Rome from a trip to the Far East. Vte stop - along with an earlier visit to Guam, a U.S. territory - ' will mark the second visit by Pope John Paul to the United States in 17 months. He visited six cities on the U.S. mainland in October 1979. The papal trip to the Far East will begin Feb. 16 and take the pope to the Philippines, .Japan and Guam. The pope will leave Japan on Feb. 27 but arrive in Anchorage between approximately 9 and 10 a.m. on Feb. 26 after crossing the International Date Line. A motorcade will take him to downtown Anchorage to visit
Holy Family Cathedral before he goes to a former airstrip for the Mass, celebrated at a protected altar. . "As far as Alaskans are concerned, we're used to cold weather," said a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Anchorage about plans for the outdoor Mass. On the day the announcement was made, though, it was 42 degrees Fahrenheit and raining. The average February temperature in Anchorage is 18 degrees Fahrenheit. Archbishop Francis T. Hurley of Anchorage expressed gratitude on behalf of the Catholic people df Alaska and added, "We look upon this visit, however, also as a civic event and invite our Alaskan friends and Turn to Page Three