SERVING ... . . SOUTHEASTERN MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS
t eanc 0 VOL. 25, No. 13
FAll RIVER, MASS., THURSDAY, MARCH 26; 1981
Utah ruling a precedent
'Watershed decade' seen WASHINGTON (NC)-Everything is ready for a sec,ond spring in Catholic education, said Notre Dame Sister Car1een Reck. And Father Michael O'Neill said that economics, politics, family life and religious be1iefs are all converging to make the 1980s a watershed decade for Catholic education. Father O'Neill, author of "New Schools in a New Church," will speak at the April 20-23 convention, of the National Catholic Education Association in New York on "The 1980s: Second Spring of Anlerican Catholic Education." Sister Reck is executive d:irector of NCEA's Elementary Schools Department. She said in an interview before the NCEA convention that from her work. with parochial schools around the country she definitely sees that second spring coming. "Our teachers are more qualified than ever, the teacher·student ration is generally e:'Ccel· lent, there's a recognition that we've never left the basics:, so we're not in a position to :nave to panic" to get back to t:nem, she said. Sister Reck said she sees the public turning back "to the values our schools have always been associated with - discipline, a solid education." The only problem Sister Reck sees for the second spring of Catholic education is that "people are not free to make a choice because of economic reason:J." One of NCEA's efforts to pave the way for that second spring is the development of a Catholic value-oriented curriculum to help elementary and secor.,dary schools identify values and translate them into everyday life, the educator said. Sister Reck is coordinator of the effort, which was begun four years ago and has reached the pilot project stage. The project will be available in mid-August. There's a need for this valueoriented curriculum, Sister Reck said, because "many tea'chers from state colleges have no!~ had the opportunities ·to integrate their faith and the textbooks are pretty well purged of valueH." The idea is to "work values into the total curriculum, to integrate Gospel values, not just in the classroom but throughout the or/f;mization and in interpersona~ relations," she said. "It's ~ process whereby they look at the ideal, then look at the real picture in school and plan th\'l changes they want," she eX}>lained.
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MOMENTS OF JOY and grace came at priests' day of recollection last Thursday. From left, Father William G. Campbell, Bishop Daniel A. Cronin, Father John A. Perry, Father Cornelius J. O'Neill. (Baptista Photo)
'Graced .moment' for priests "This is' a graced moment and God will not fail us," Bishop Daniel A. Cronin told a large number of diocesan priests at a first-ever day of recollection and prayer held at Stonehill Co}.lege on Ithe feast day of St. Joseph. The priests traditionally join in an annual diocesan retreat but the day of recollection was a new undertaking, said Father Marcel H. Bouchard, director of continuing educa;tion for the clergy and organizer of last Thursday's day-long program. "Lent is It time. for refleotion, prayer and penance' to prepare us to enter more deeply into the celebration of the paschal mystery," noted Father Bouchard in explaining why the day was planned. 'We priests often spend so much time helping oth-
At his afternoon conference ers do this that we find it difficult to take the time needed for the bishop proPosed St. Joseph our own personal growth in and as a model of prayer and listed the elements of priestly prayer through ·this mystery." Father Bouchard said the pro- as including the Eucharist, prigram was an opportunity for vate prayer, the rosary and other priests to gather with the bishop devotions, meditation, prayerful as their spiritual father. He said reading of Scripture and atten,that the prelate truly "spent him- tive recitation of the breviary. self' in urging his hearers to rise . He spoke eloquently on the to the spiritual challenge of the .' place of the Eucharist in priestly priesthood. life, advising the priests to counter "the lonely rectory" not with 'Following sting morning prayer frustration or anger but by ",tundirected by Faither William ing in to Jesus," Campbell, the bishop spoke_ on sin and salvation, tracing the connection betwee'n the liberation of the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage and the liberation of all people of God from 'l;he bondage of sin through the saving grace of Christ.
Adding to the success of the day, said Father Bouchard, was the setting of ·the new Stonehill College chapel at the Campus Ministry Center, constructed in pal"t with the help of donations from ,the Fall River diocese.
Mass said on Great W'all ROME (NC) - Priests from mission of the tour group's nonJapan and France concelebrated Christian Chinese guide. The Mass on the Great Wall of China chief concelebrant was identiduring a five-day visit to Bei- .fied as Father' Renaud of the jing (peking), the Salesian news Paris Foreign Missions. agency reported in its most re"We chose the highest spot cent newsletter.. we could and took along a large The report was based on a let- box to be our altar," the Salester from a Slesian missionary in ian from Japan said. Japan, whose name was not "We prayed for all China and given, 'to the Salesian provincial, for all suffering Chinese CathFather Joseph Zen. olics," he added. "We envisaged The priest said the Mass took this Mass on the Great Wall as place Dec. 6, 1980, with per- a presage and symbol of hope."
The priest also reported on several meetings with Chinese priests and laymen. "My impression is that the church is alive in China," he wrote. "Whatever problems there mayor may not be with the Vatican are with the authorities. I don't think they touch the ordinary faithful," The tour group also attended a Mass in the Beijing cathedral along with more than 1,000 peoTum to Page Six
WASHINGTON (NC) A Utah law requiring physicians to notify the parents of an unmarried minor daughter seeking an abortion has been upheld by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision. The court, in a ruling which amounted to a victory for prolife organizations, said that the state has an adequate health interest to require such notification. even if it might inhibit some minors from exercising their right to obtain an abortion. "Although we have held that a state may not constitutionally legislate' a blanket, unreviewable power of parents to veto their daughter's abortion, a statute setting out a 'mere requirement of parerital notice' does not violate the constitutional rights' of an immature, d~>,endent' minor," wrote Chief Justice Warren E. Burger in the majority opinion. The court has ruled in the past that states cannot require parental consent for abortions for dependent children. But until it accepted the Utah case (H.L. vs. Matheson) it had left unanswered the question of whether simple notification regardless of whether parental consent was given - would also be an unconstitutiOnal infringement on the right to an abortion. In ruling in favor of the law, Burger noted that the Utah Supreme Court had upheld the law on .the grounds that parents ordinarily possess information es. se.l\!:ial .to a physician's medical deCisions. The' Utah court also had ruled that E;!ncouraging an unmarried pregnant minor to seek the advice of her parents in deciding whether to carry a pregnancy to term promoted "a significant state interest In sup'porting the important role of parents in child-bearing." Burger agreed, saying that "an adequate medical and psychological case history is important to the physician," and noting that courts consistently have recognized that parental authority is basic to the structure of society. While the decision did not make parental notificlltion mandatory nationwide, a pro-life attorney noted that it probably would lead to efforts in other states to en/:lct such notification requirements. The attorney, Dennis Horan, chairman of the legal defense fund of the- Chicago-based Americans United for Life, called the ruling "a significa~t victory," Pointing to last June's decision upholding eongressiopal limitations on federal abortion funding, he said the ruliqg was the second favorable decision by the Supreme Court in the past year.