02.28.80

Page 1

t ean VOL. 24, NO.9

0

SERVING . .. SOUTHEASTERN MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS

FALL RIVER, MASS., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1980

20c, $6 Per Year

Convocation tomorrow

To take part in hearing

Twelve clergy, religious and lay persons of the diocese will accompany Bishop Daniel A. Cronin to the eighth annual Convocation of the Catholic Bishops of New England, to begin tomorrow night路 at Mont Marie conference center in Holyoke and continue through Sunday. The theme for this year's meeting is the person of Christ and his impact on the life and ministry of the contemporary church. .Convocation chairpersons said that over 130 delegates from the 11 New England dioceses are expected to meet for presentations and small group discussions. They will include youth representatives and married couples. The keynote speaker will be Rev. Howard M. Gray, S.J., rector of Weston School of Theology, Cambridge, a retreat director and consultant for many religious communities. He will be assisted by Sister Madeline Birmingham, a Religious of the Cenacle who is spiritual director and dlrector of Turn to Page Six

Headed by Father Ronald A. Tosti, director of the Diocesan Office of Family Ministry, nine persons will represent the Fall River diocese at a regional hearing on families to be held in preparation for Massachusetts participation in the Baltimore White House Conference on Families. . The regional gathering will take place Sunday, March 16 at Brockton High School. The meeting, say organizers, is "designed to reflect the broad diversity of the families within our state by encouraging testimony from professionals and non-professionals on what makes a family strong,"

Calls ruling disturbing WASHINGTON (NC) - The Supreme Court's Feb. 19 decision ordering the federal government to pay for all medically necessary abortions until the court determines the constitutionality of federal abortion funding restrictions has been called "objectionable in itself and disturbing in its implications for the future" by the general secretary of the U.S. Catholic Conference. "Although it does not settle the outcome of this litigation," said. Bishop Thomas Kelly, "it can hardly be taken as an indicator of total open-mindedness on the part of the court - which, after all, is the same body which legalized abortion on demand in the first place." The court accepted for review the Jan. 15 decision by U.S. District Judge john F. Dooling of Brooklyri, N.Y., striking down restrictions on federal abortion funding such as the Turn to Page Six

For Mary Eli~abeth Peace By Stephenie Ovennan WASHINGTON (NC)-At the small grave in the children's section of an old Washington cemetery Mass was celebrated Feb. 12 for an unknown victim of abortion. The tomb is a symbol for all babies who die by abortion. The child was named Mary Elizabeth 'Peace by the pro-life group that baptized her, buried her and commemorated, with tears, prayers and roses, the first anniversary of her death. "We don't know who her parents were, or the name of the doctor who killed her, or what the situation, the influences and the motivations were that drove her mother to have her destroyed in the 18th week of her life," the Cleveland PEACE (People Expressing a Concern about Everyone) group noted. The graveside Mass at Mount Olivet Cemetery was attended by about a dozen pro-lifers who placed roses at the small grave marker. The Mass was celebrated by Father Eugene Ahern of Melbourne, Australia, who is working with the bishops' pro-life office in the United States. A PEACE group statement said: "We only know for certain that she knew life for a brief period of time and she experienced death at the hands of the most calloused, misguiedd and ruthless movement in the history

of mankind. . . . young, females who are the true "We don't know if her mother victims of that violence of aborwept for the death of her baby. tion." The other victim was not We don't know if her mother is shown to those present by the thinking now about what hap- PEACE group. pened to her and her unborn The Feb. 12 graveside cerechild a year ago today" when mony commemorated both inMary Elizabeth was aborted in a fants, although only one was Cleveland hospital. buried there. The other girl, '~But we remember because called Ruth, was returned to Mary Elizabeth was given to us." Cleveland. She was not shown Three days after the abortion, at the 1979 press conference to Mary Elizabeth was shown to reo protect the identity of the person porters at a press conference in who had given her to the PEACE Washington. group. At that Feb. 15, 1979, press Some members of the PEACE conference, sponsored by the group wept as they stood by the National Organization for Wom- small grave reading from the en, leaders of 20 pro-abortion Bible and the prayer of St. Frangroups and eight pro-life groups cis. Passages included Psalm 23, met to discuss possible areas in a reading from Lamentations, which both pro-, and anti-abortion from Revelations and from the forces would work. Some wom- Book of Ruth. en present cried, others shouted "Mary, you have taken us to at PEACE members as they field of snow, Mount Olivet, showed the victim. A PEACE leader, Nancy name of salvation and sorrow," Hackle, said at the time that the Church Donovan, a PEACE action was taken to demonstrate member said. "The white blan路 the falsity of feminist claims to ket of God is your coverlet and speak on behalf of females. The resting place, these last rays of group called the abortion victim sun the warmth of a mother's a sister "brutally and silently arms releasing you to sleep and dream what we forget. . destroyed." Miss Hackle, who has been "Mary, you have carried us arrested for abortion sit-ins, said beyond our power to carry you, at the 1979 press conference: as briefly路 as holds the flower "In (NOW president) Eleanor bloom and sweetness or man and Smeal's press release, she men- . woman memory of gifts of love tioned that the true victims of stillborn in your last day. Named . . . abortion are poor females, for those who named him, now especially the young. We have pray for us in his name, for his brought with us two young, very peace, our Mary."

Presentations and panel discussions at the day-long meeting will focus on "issues and recommendations in the development of a state and national family policy and the strategies and programs by which public policy can strengthen families," Turn to Page Six

Papal trip to Brazil BRASILIA, Brazil (NC) Church and government authorities in Brazil are completing arrangements' for a ten-day, 9,000mile tour by Pope John Paul II in July. Tentative plans include papal visits to a eucharistic congress, anniversary celebrations of the major church agency in Latin America and the official opening of a Marian shrine. Brazil's Foreign Ministry said the pope will be accorded honors as a chief of state, since this country has full diplomatic relations with the Vatican. In February, Archbishop Carmine Roco, apostolic nuncio to Brazil, said Pope john Paul accepted the official invitation of President Joao Baptista Figueiredo. Brazil is the world's' most populous Catholic country. About 90 percent of its 110 million people profess Catholicism.

1------------VOTE ON TUESDAY 1路,------------See pages 2, 4 and 9


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