t eanc 0 VOL. 39, NO.7
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Friday, February 17, 1995
FALL RIVER, MASS.
FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
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Abortion proposal seen to violate rights
CENTENNIAL: Students and faculty at Dominican .Academy, Fan. River; .celebrated their school's IOO-year history during Catholic Schools Month. (Gaudette photo)
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to give states full control of f()od programs, says priest
WASHINGTON (CNS)-Giving the states full responsibility for hunger and poverty programs is a risky proposition given the records of some states with welfare programs, said the president of Catholic Charities USA in. congressional testimony. "The historical record requires great hesitation about the willingness or the ability clf the states to protect our poorest families from the worst ravages of hunger and poverty," said Jesuit Father Fred Kammer Feb. IA before a subcommitte of the House Agriculture Committee. The subcommittee is considering proposals to fund various nutrition programs at reduced levels through block grants to states. Subsidized school breakfast and lunch programs, surplus commodities distribution, the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program and senior citizen meals programs would be affected under proposals from House Republicans. But Father Kammer said people in states that already have flexibility about eligibility and benefits for federal Aid to families with Dependent Childn:n end up being worse off than their counterparts in states that have not received such exemptions from federal guidelines. The states that exercise flexibility "have allowed the actual value of AFDC benefits per family to
decline steadily for more than 20 years," said Father Kammer. Some such states have not taken advantage of federaljobs programs, for instance, because they are unable or unwilling to provide the required matching funds, he said. "Federal food programs have reflected the Congress' determination that poor children and families in the world's most powerful and wealthy natio~ at least would not starve to death," said Father Kammer's written testimony. "They
Inside rhis Issue Education Office Spiritual Programs Page 2 30-Hour Famine Page 6
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Is Faith in Eucharist Collapsing? Page 8
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Do Sponsorship Programs Work? Page 11
have succeeded in part because the Congress has maintained and improved that guarantee and not let it be subject to 50 sets of bureaucracies and 50 state budget tradeoffs." In his testimony, Father Kammer also pointed out that none of the witnesses who testified in favor of shifting the agriculture programs to the private sector represented the churches and charities that do the work. "The churches and charities, beginning witlh our own, say this would produce a tidal wave of hungry and homeless kids and moms, a torrent of newly abused children and a profoundly wrong social and moral outcome," said Father Kammer. Existing programs need change, he agreed, but they must continue to provide an effective barrier to hunger in the United States. Earlierin the hearing, Rep. Tony P. Hall, D-Ohio, said it would be a good idea to give states some flexibility in using some federal funds for the poor, but that nutrition programs are a risky place to experiment. Under the current system, allocations of funds and resources can be quickly shifted when one state is hit by recession or natural disaster. A block grant system would react much more slowly, as much as several years behind the needs, said Hall, former chairman of the now-defunct House Select Committee on Hunger.
WASHINGTON (CNS) - Requiring accredited obstetrics and gynecology residency programs to ensure abortion training violates the conscience rights of Catholics as well as some state laws, according to the U.S. bishops' pro-life committee head and their top lawyer. Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, chairman of the Committee for Pro-Life Activities, and Mark E. Chopko, general counsel of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, commented in separate letters to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. The Chicago-based council was to vote in February on a proposal to require training in induced abortions for all U.S. obstetrics and gynecology residents. "Coercing people and institutions to participate in the destruction of innocent life is a great evil," said Cardinal Mahony in his Feb. 13 letter. !'When such coercion is directed against people and institutions that to embody society's healing, amoral outcommitment rage is the only appropriate response. "1 therefore find it difficult to believe that medical organizations would require doctors who specialize in caring for unborn children and their mothers to learn how to kill the former and jeopardize the physical, emotional and spiritual health of the latter," the cardinal added. Chopko, in a Feb. 9 letter to
council officials, pointed out that the proposal would violate existing laws in about half ofthe nation's 50 states that exempt hospitals from referring for abortion, artificial contraception or sterilization when the hospital is conscientiously opposed to such procedures. In addition, Chopko said, six states have specific statutory remedies "against any person that discriminates against a hospital for exercising its right to refuse to participate in or refer for these procedures." Cardinal Mahony described the proposal as "anti-Catholic," as well as "anti-medicine and anti-human." Under the proposal, Catholic health care institutions will be required to establish "mechanisms" to ensure abortion training, he said in his letter, although residents with personal "moral and religious" objections can be exempted. "We can no more establish 'mechanisms' to ensure the killing of an unborn child, at any location, than we could do so for the killing of the same child when born," he said. Although Catholic health care institutions will be able to seek protection under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Cardinal Mahony said, the most serious harm will be to the medical profession itself. "A profession that makes abortion into the routine and expected Turn to Page 13
Greyhound park case goes to state Supreme Court The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has submitted a friend of the court brief on behalf of Kathleen Pielech and Patricia Reed, two Catholic women fired because they refused to work on Christmas Day, 1992, at Raynham-Taunton Greyhound Park. In June 1994 the judge in Bristol County Superior Court ruled that the Catholic religion did not require the plaintiffs to abstain from work on Christmas Day. The Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to which the case was appealed, is expected to grant a ruling this spring. Commenting on the friend of the court brief, Catholic League president Dr. William A. Donohue said: "At the invitation of Kathleen PieIech, the Catholic League welcomes the opportunity to file an amicus brief on her behalf, and in support of Patricia Reed, as well. At stake is whether Americans can
practice their religion without penalty from the state. So elementary is this right that organizations like the ACLU and the ADL have joined with the League in backing the plaintiffs. Freedom of religion means nothing if those who worship are penalized for practicing the tenets of their faith. "It was decided in 1963 by the Supreme Court, in Sherbert v. Verner, that the government may not refuse unemployment compensation to a person unwilling to work on Saturday, the Sabbath of her faith. Thirty years later, in the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, it was decided that the state. must demonstrate a compelling government interest before it can substantially burden the exercise of religious beliefs. "Given this legacy, it behooves the Supreme Judicial Court to recognize that Catholics should be allowed the right to abstain from work on what is surely one of the most pivotal days of the year for Christians of any denomination."