VOL. 32, NO. 18
•
Friday, April 29, 1988
FALL RIVER, MASS.
Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
•
510 Per Year'
Bishops warn youth School-based clinics can mislead them
NC photo
Father Valine at work
For Fr. Valine, it's always time to make the doughnuts CHICAGO (NC) - A 90-yearold Dominican priest who raises money for his three remote parishes in the Salt Lake City diocese by selling doughnuts to tourists has won the Catholic Church Extension Society's annual Lumen Christi Award. Father Joseph Valine earned the nickname of the Doughnut Priest by selling doughnuts to visitors to the scenic Utah area he has worked in for almost 50 years. The priest still covers a territory twice the size of Rhode Island. "Father Valine's life reflects the work of many, many priests and religious working quietly but with grace in the rural parts of our country," Father Edward J. Slattery, president of the society, said in announcing the award. The Extension Society raises money for Catholic mission work in poor and isolated areas of the United States. Yearly it presents the Lumen Christi Award to a person who exemplifies the missionary spirit ofthe U.S. church. Father Valine will receive the award, which includes $2,500, May 7 in Chicago, where the Extension Society is based. The Dominican priest, a native of Portugal who came to the United States in 1906, has served in mission areas of Utah for47 years. He 'has established seven parishes and missions in a mostly Mormon state that has only 43 Catholic parishes. Needing money to build his churches, Father Valine first farmed 260 acres of alfalfa which was sold to local dairy farmers. Then he took a job as caterer. When those
activities became too physically taxing, he turned to doughnutmaking. He sells his wares after Sunday Mass at St. Dominic's mission in Bryce Canyon, Utah. Father Valine's first assignment, in 1941, was as founding pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas parish in Logan in northern Utah. He also started a parish in nearby Brigham City. In 1947 he went to the then newest mission parish in Richfield. A year later he moved to St. Bridget's in Milford, a remote railroad town which became his base of outreach to other small towns in southwestTurn to Page Six
WASHINGTON (NC) School-based health clinics mislead youths about premarital sex, contraceptives and abortion, according to an unusual bishops' committee statement addressed directly to young people. The "Statement to Youth on School-Based Clinics" was approved by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Administrative Committee March 23 and released in late April. It was prepared by the bishops' Committee for ProLife Activities. The statement said the committee wants to "challenge local communities across the country to drop the idea of school-based clinics" and wants schools, teachers and parents to teach young people "honesty, moral, responsibility, promise-keeping, self-control, commitment, and respect for other persons." In their message to young people the bishops' committee said
"premarital sexual intercourse is a risky venture, a behavior that will violate your moral principles and your hopes for happiness." The committee urged young people "to say no to premarital sexual activity." The U.S. bishops at their November general meeting approved a lengthy statement objecting, on moral and practical grounds, to providing birth control services at school-based clinics. That statement called for federal and state laws as well as local school board policies to be amended to exclude such services from public schools. "Several bishops said the statement was good but that there was a need fOf a shorter, more pastoral statement, possibly one directed to youth," said Richard Doerflinger, assistant director of the NCCB Office for Pro-Life Activities. The committee's shorter, less technical statement to youth is "an outgrowth" of the bishops' comm:ents, he, said April 26.
According to the statement, clinics may promote the attitude that all youths are sexually active but "that is certainly not true." "We do not believe that sexual activity among young people is inevitable," the statement said. Clinics provide information about abortion and refer young people to abortion clinics, the statement said, but abortion "not only destroys the unborn child, but it also has severe emotional and physical consequences for the teen-age mother, and may have emotional consequences for the father as well." School-based clinics claim that making contraceptives available to young people will reduce teenage pregnancy, the bishops' committee said, but contraceptives have not led to fewer teen-age pregnancies. It added that "we believe that the wide availability of contraceptives confirms teen-agers in their Turn to Page Six
CCA parish phase is Sunday Over 20,150 volunteer solicitors will make house-to-house calls to parishioners this Sunday for donations and pledges to the 47th annual Catholic Charities Appeal. Some 115,000 homes representing more than 325,000 people will be visited between the hours of noon and 3 p.m. in the diocese's 112 parishes. The Appeal funds maintenance a1')d expansion of diocesan apostolates of charity, mercy, education, social services and health care. Bishop Daniel A. Cronin wrote to every family in the diocese this
week asking for generous support of the 1988 Appeal. His letter follows: I am happy to announce the 47th annual Catholic Charities Appeal of the diocese of Fall River. This is a special appeal to you to request your generous support of the many social, educational, charitable, and pastoral programs of our diocese for the care ofthose in need. It is the 18th Appeal in which I have acted as honorary chairman, and I ask your
;~-'----
"BE ATTENTIVE, 0 Lord, to our supplications and bless these ships and all who sail thereon," prayed Very Rev. Barry W. Wall, rector and pastor ofSt. Mary's Cathedral, at Fall River's first-ever Blessing ofthe Fleet ceremony last Sunday. Father Wall and retired Navy Chaplain Cecil L. Newbert, right, now ehaplain at Seaman's Bethel, New Bedford, who also offered prayer, left the Heritage Park event with large bags of lobster, clams and fish, gifts of the fishermen. (Gaudette photo)
enthusiastic and generous response. The theme for the 1988 Appeal is "Only Hope of Many People." It reminds us that the Church was established by Christ to be a sign of hope and salvation to the whole world. We truly are signs for the world when we help one another as brothers and sisters and care for our neighbor in the name of Christ. Our annual Catholic Charities Appeal is a real means by which all of us, together as church, are that sign of hope for all whom we serve in our diocese. Rev. Msgr. Anthony M. Gomes, diocesan Appeal director, has suggested serious consideration ofthe pledge system as a way of making a substantial offering over an extended period of time. The generosity of parishioners is indispensable to the ultimate success ofthe Appeal. Parishioners have received contribution cards by mail and solicitors have received their contact lists. Returns should be made to parishes on Sunday. Parishes and area centers will be contacted for their reports on Sunday evening. The parish phase officially closes May II but Appeal books will remain open until May 20 for latearriving donations, which may be sent to Catholic Charities, PO Box 1470, Fall River 02722.